THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY: ~ frla~aPne of Uterature, ~ience, ~vt, an~ 1~oUti~0. VOL. LXXL JANUARY, 1893. N0. CCUCXXIIL OLD KASKASKIA. IN FOUR PARTS. PART FIRST. THE BONFIRE OF ST. JOHN. EARLY in the century, on a summer evening, Jean Lozier stood on the bluff looking at Kaskaskia. He loved it with the homesick longing of one who is born for towns and condemned to the fields. Moses looking into the promised land had such visions and ideals as this old lad cherished. Jean was old in feeling, though not yet out of his teens. The training - masters of life had got him early, and found under his red sunburn and knobby joints, his black eyes and bushy eyebrows, the nature that passion- ately aspires. The town of Kaskaskia was his sweetheart. It tantalized him with advantage and growth while he had to turn the clods of the upland. The long peninsula on which Kaskaskia stood, between the Okaw and the Missis- sippi rivers, lay below him in the glory of sunset. Southward to the point spread lands owned by the parish, and known as the common pasture. Jean could see the church of the Immaculate Concep- tion and the tower built for its ancient bell, the convent northward, and all the pleasant streets bowered in trees. The wharf was crowded with vessels from New Orleans and Cahokia, and the arched stone bridge across the Okaw was a thor- oughfare of hurrying carriages. The road at the foot of the bluff, more than a hundred feet below Jean, showed its white flint belt in distant laps and stretches through northern foliage. It led to the territorial governors country- seat of Elvirade; thence to Fort Char- tres and Prairie dii Rocher; so on to Cahokia, where it met the great trails of the far north. The road also swarmed with carriages and riders on horses, all moving toward Colonel Pierre Menards house. Jean could not see his seigniors chimneys for the trees and the disman- tled and deserted earth-works of Fort Gage. The fort had once protected Kas- kaskia, but in these early peaceful times of the Illinois Territory it no longer maintained a garrison. The lad guessed what was going on: those happy Kaskaskians, the fine world, were having a ball at Colonel Menards. Summer and winter they danced, they made fetes, they enjoyed life. When the territorial Assembly met in this capital of the West, he had often frosted him- self late into the winter night, watch- ing the lights and listening to the music in Kaskaskia. Jean Lozier knew every bit of its history. The parish priest, Father Olivier, who came to hear him confess because he could not leave his grandfather, had told it to him. There was a record book transmitted from priest to priest from the earliest settlement of Cascasquia of the Illinois. Jean loved the story of young DArtaguette, whom the boatmen yet celebrated in song. On moonlight nights, when the Mississippi showed its broad shoe t four miles away 9 Old Kaskaskia. [January, across the level plain, he sometimes fooled himself with thinking he could see the fleet of young soldiers passing down the river, bearing the French flag; phantoms proceeding again to their tragedy and the Indian stake. He admired the seat where his seignior lived in comfort and great hospitality, but all the crowds pressing to Pierre Menards house seemed to him to have less wisdom than the single man who met and passed them and crossed the bridge into Kaskaskia. The vesper bell rung, breaking its music in echoes against the sandstone bosom of the bluff. Red splendors faded from the sky, leaving a pearl-gray bank heaped over the farther river. Still Jean watched Kaskaskia. But the glory remains when the light fades away, he sung to himself. He had caught the line from some English boatmen. Ye dog, ye dog, where are you, ye dog? called a voice from the woods behind him. Here, grandfather, answered Jean, starting like a whipped dog. He took his red cap from under his arm, sighing, and slouched away from the bluff edge, the coarse homespun which he wore re- vealing knots and joints in his work- hardened frame. Ye dog, am I to have my supper to- night? Yes, grandfather. But Jean took one more look at the capital of his love, which he had never entered, and for which he was unceas- ingly homesick. The governors car- riage dashed along the road beneath him, with a military escort from Fort Chartres. He felt no envy of such state. He would have used the carriage to cross the bridge. If I but lived in Kaskaskia! whis- pered Jean. The man on horseback, who met and passed the ball-goers, rode through Kas-. kaskias twinkling street.s in the pleasant glow of twilight. Trade had not reached its days end. The crack of long whips could be heard, flourished over oxen yoked by the horns, or three or four ponies hitched tandem, all driven with- out reins, and drawing huge bales of merchandise. Few of the houses were more than one story high, but they had a sumptuous spread, each in its own square of lawn, orchard, and garden. They were built of stone, or of timbers filled in with stone and mortar. The rider turned several corners, and stopped in front of a small house which displayed the wares of a penny - trader in its window. From the open one of the two front doors a black boy came directly out to take the bridle; and behind him skipped a wiry shaven person, whose sleek crown was partly covered by a Madras hand- kerchief, the common head-gear of hum- ble Kaskaskians. His feet clogged their lightness with a pair of the wooden shoes manufactured for slaves. A sleeved blanket, made with a hood which lay back on his shoulders, almost covered him, and was girdled at the waist by a knotted cord. Here I am again, Father Baby, hailed the rider, alighting. Welcome home, doctor. What news from Fort Chartres? INo news. My friend the surgeon is doing well. He need not have sent for me; but your carving doctor is a great coward when it comes to physicking himself. They entered the shop, while the slave led the horse away; and no customers demanding the trading friars attention, he followed his lodger to an inner room, having first lighted candles in his wood- en sconces. Their yellow lustre showed the tidiness of the shop, and the penny merchandise arranged on shelves with that exactness which has been thought peculiar to unmarried women. Father Baby was a scandal to the established confcssor of the parish, and the joke of the ungodly. Some said he bad been a Old Kaskaskia. dancing-master before he entered the cloister, and it was no wonder he turned out a renegade and took to trading. Others declared that he had no right to the gray capote, and his tonsure was a nat- ural loss of hair; in fact, that he never had been a friar at all. But in Kas- kaskia nobody took him seriously, and Father Olivier was not severe upon him. Custom made his harlequin antics a mat- ter of course; though Indians still paused opposite his shop and grinned at sight of a long-gown peddling. His religious practices were regular and severe, and he laid penance on himself for all the cheating he was able to accomplish. I rode down from Elvirade with Governor Edwards, said the doctor. He and all Kaskaskia appear to be going to Colonel Menards to-night. Yes, I stood and counted the car- riages: the Bonds, the Morrisons, the Vigos, the Sauciers, the Edgars, the Joneses Has anything happened these three days past? inquired the doctor, break- ing off this list of notable Kaskaskians. Oh, many things have happened. But first here is your billet. The young man broke the wafer of his invitation and unfolded the paper. It is a dancing-party, he remarked. His nose took an aquiline curve peculiar to him. The open sheet, as he held it, showed the name of Dr. Dunlap writ- ten on the outside. He leaned against a high black mantel. You will want hot shaving - water and your best ruffled shirt, urged the friar. I never dance, said the other indif- ferently. And you do well not to, declared Father Baby, with some contemptuous impatience. A man who shakes like a load of hay should never dance. If I had carried your weight, I could have been a holier man. Dr. Dunlap laughed, and struck his boot with his riding-whip. Dont deceive yourself, worthy fa- ther. The making of an abbot was not in you. You old rascal, I am scarcely in the house, and there you stand all of a tremble for your jig. Father Babys deaths-head face wrin- kled itself with expectant smiles. He shook off his wooden shoes and whirled upon one toe. The doctor went into another room, his own apartment in the friars small house. His office fronted this, and gave him a door to the street. Its bottles and jars and iroii mortar and the vitreous slab on which he rolled pills were all lost in twilight now. There were many other doctors offices in Kaskaskia, but this was the best equipped one, and was the lair of a man who had not only been trained in Europe, but had sailed around the entire world. Dr. Dunlaps books, some of them in board covers, made a show on his shelves. He had an articu- lated skeleton, and ignorant Kaskaskians would declare that they had seen it whirl past his windows many a night to the music of his violin. What did you say had happened since I went away? he inquired, saun- tering back and tuning his fiddle as he came. There s plenty of news, responded Father Baby. Antoine Lamarches cow fell into the Mississippi. Dr. Dunlap uttered a note of contempt. It would go wandering off where the land crumbles daily with that current setting down from the northwest against us; and Antoine was far from sneering in your cold - blooded English manner when he got the news. He tore his hair and screamed in your warm-blooded French maim er? That he did. The doctor stood in the bar of candle- light which one of the shop sconces ex- tended across the room, and lifted the violin to his neck. He was so large that all his gestures had a ponderous quality. His dress was disarranged by riding, 18~.] 4 t~id Kaskaskia. ~January, and his blonde skin was pricked through by the untidy growth of a threedays beard, yet he looked very handsome. Dr. Dunlap stood in the light, but Father Baby chose the dark for those ecstatic antics into which the fiddle threw him. He leaped high from the floor at the first note, and came down into a jig of the most perfect execution. The pat of his bare soles was exquisitely true. He raised the gown above his ankles, and would have seemed to float but for his response in sound. Yet through his most rapturous action he never ceased to be conscious of the shop. A step on the sill would break the violins charm in the centre of a measure. But this time no step broke it, and the doctor kept his puppet friar going until his own arm began to weary. The tune ended, and Father Baby paused, deprived of the ether in which he had been floating. Dr. Dunlap sat down, nursing the in- strument on his crossed knees while he altered its pitch. Are you not going to Colonel Me- nards at all? inquired the friar. It would be a great waste of good dancing not to, said the doctor lazily. But you have nt told me who else has lost a cow or had an increase of goats while I was away. The death of even a beast excites pity in me. Yes, you are a holy man. You would rather skin a live Indian than a dead sheep. The doctor tried his violin, and was lifting it again to position when Father Baby remarked, They doubtless told you on the road that a party has come through from Post Vincennes. Now who would doubtless tell me that? The governors suite, since they must have known it. The party was in almost as soon as you left. Perhaps, suggest- ed the friar, taking a crafty revenge for much insolence, nobody would mention it to you on account of Monsieur Zhones sister. The violin bow sunk on the strings with a squeak. What sister? The only sister of Monsieur Reecc Zhone, Mademoiselle Zhone, from Wales. She came to Kaskaskia with the party from Post Vincennes. On Dr. Dunlaps face the unshorn heard developed like thorns on a mask of wax. The spirit of manly beauty no longer infused it. Why did nt you tell me this at first? he asked roughly. Is the name of Zhone so pleasant to you? hinted the shrugging friar. But take an old churchmans advice now, my son, and make up your quarrel with the lawyer. There will be occasion. That pretty young thing has crossed the sea to die. I heard her cough. The doctors voice was husky as he attempted to inquire, Did you hear what she was called? Mademoiselle Mareea Zhone. The young man sagged forward over his violin. Father Baby began to realize that his revel was over, and reluctantly stuck his toes again into his wooden shoes. Will you have something to eat and drink before you start? I dont want anything to eat, and I am not going to Colonel Menards to- night. But, my son, reasoned the staring friar, are you going to quit your vict- uals and all good company because one more Zhone has come to town, and that one such a small, helpless creature? Ma- demoiselle Saucier will be at Menards. Dr. Dunlap wiped his forehead. He, and not the cool friar, appeared to have been the dancer. A chorus of slaves sing- ing on some neighboring gallery could be heard in the pause of the violin. Beetles, lured by the shop candles, be- gan to explore the room where the two Old Kaskaskia. men were, bumping themselves against the walls and buzzing their complaints. A man is nothin but a young beast until he is past twenty-five years old, said Dr. Dunlap. Father Baby added his own opinion to tbis general remark : Very often he is nothing but an old beast when you catch him past seventy. But it all depends on what kind of a man he is. Friar, do you believe in marriage? How could I believe in marriage? But do you believe in it for other people? The Church has always held it to be a sacred institution. Dr. Dunlap muttered a combination of explosive words which he had proba- bly picked up from sailors, making the churchman cross himself. He spoke out, with a reckless laugh: I married as soon as I came of age, and here I am, ruined for my prime by that act. What! exclaimed Father Baby, set- ting his hands on his hips, you a man of family, and playing bachelor among the women of Kaskaskia? Oh, I have no wife now. She finally died, thank Heaven. If she had only died a year sooner! But nothing mat- ters now. My son, observed Father Baby se- verely, Satan has you in his net. You utter profane words, you rail against in- stitutions sanctioned by the Church, and you have desired the death of a human being. Repent and do penance You have a customer, friar, sneered the young man, lifting his head to glance aside at a figure entering the shop. Vi- gos idiot slave boy is waiting to be cheated. By my cappo! whispered Father Baby, a cunning look netting wrinkles over his lean face, you remind me of the bad shilling I have laid by me to pass on that nigger. 0 Lamb of mercy, he turned and hastily plumped on his knees before a sacred picture on the wall, I will, in expiation for passing that shilling, say twelve paters and twelve ayes at the foot of the altar of thy Vir- gin Mother, or I will abstain from food a whole day in thy honor. Having offered this compromise, Fa- ther Baby sprung with a cheerful eager- ness to deal with Vigos slave boy. The doctor sat still, his ears closed to the chatter in the shop. His bitter thoughts centred on the new arrival in Kaskaskia, on her brother, on all her family. She herself, unconscious that he in- habited the same hemisphere with her, was standing up for the reel in Pierre Menards house. The last carriage had driven to the tall flight of entrance steps, discharged its load, and parted with its horses to the huge stone stable under the house. The mingling languages of an English and French society sounded all around her. The girl felt bewildered, as if she had crossed ocean and forest to find, instead of savage wilderness, an enchanted English county full of French country estates. Names and dignitaries crowded her memory. A great dear glass, gilt-framed and divided into three panels, stood over the drawing-room mantel. It reflected crowds of animated faces, as the dance began, crossing and recrossing or run- ning the reel in a vista of rooms, the fan-lights around the ball door and its open leaves disclosing the broad gallery and the dusky world of trees outside; it reflected cluster on cluster of wax-lights. To this day the great glass stands there, and, spotless as a clear conscience, waits upon the future. It has held the image of Lafayette and many an historic com- panion of his. On the other side of the hall, in the dining-room, stood a carved mahogany sideboard holding decanters and glasses. In this quiet retreat elderly people amused themselves at card-tables. Apart from them, but benignantly ready to chat 1893.] 5 6 Old Kctskaskicz. [January, with everybody, sat the parish priest; for every gathering of his flock was to him a call for social ministration. A delicious odor of supper escaped across a stone causeway from the kitchen, and all the Menard negroes, in their best clothes, were collected on the causeway to serve it. Through open doors they watched the flying figures, and the rock- ing of many a dusky heel kept time to the music. The first dance ended in some slight confusion. A little cry went through the rooms: Rice Joness sister has faint- ed! Mademoiselle Zhone has fainted! But a few minutes later she was sitting on a gallery chair, leaning against her brother and trying to laugh through her coughing, and around her stood all girl- ish Kaskaskia, and the matrons also, as well as the black maid Colonel Menard had sent with hartshorn. Father Olivier brought her a glass of wine; Mrs. Edwards fanned her; the stars shone through the pecan-trees, and all the loveliness of th~s new hemisphere and home and the kindness of the peo- ple made her close her eyes to keep the tears from running out. The separation of the sick from all healthy mankind had never so hurt her. Something was expected of her, and she was not equal to it. She felt deaths mark branding in, and her family spoke of her recovery! What folly it was to come into this gay little world where she had no rights at all! Maria Jones wondered why she had not died at sea. To be floating in that infinity of blue water would be better than this. She pictured herself in the weighted sack, for we never separate ourselves from our bodies, and tender forgiveness covering all her mistakes as the multitude of waters covered her. I will not dance again, laughed Maria. Her brother Rice could feel her little figure tremble against him. It is ridiculous to try. We must have you at Elvirade, said the governors wife soothingly. I will not let the young people excite you to too much dancing there. Oh, Mrs. Edwards! exclaimed Peggy Morrison. I never do dance quite as much anywhere else, or have quite as good a time, as I do at Elvi- rade. Hear these children slander me when I try to set an example of sobriety in the Territory! You shall not want a champion, Mrs. Edwards, said Rice Jones. When I want to be in grave good company, I always make a pilgrimage to Elvirade. One ought to be grave good com- pany enough for himself, retorted Peg- gy, looking at Rice Jones with jealous aggressiveness. She was a lean, sandy girl, at whom he seldom glanced, and her acrid girlhood fought him. Rice Jones was called the handsomest man in Kaskaskia, but his personal beauty was nothing to the ambitious force of his presence. The parted hair fitted his broad, high head like a glove. His straight nose extended its tip below the nostrils and shadowed the long upper lip. lie had a long chin, beautifully shaped and shaven clean as marble, a mouth like a scarlet line, and a very round, smooth throat, shown by his flaring collar. I-us complexion kept a cool whiteness which no exposure tanned, and this made strik- ing the blackness of his eyes and hair. Please will you all go back into the drawing-room? begged Maria. My brother will bring me a shawl, and then I shall need nothing else. But may I sit by you, mademoi- selle? It was Angelique Saucier leaning down to make this request, but Peggy Morri- son laughed. I warn you against Angelique, Miss Jones. She is the man-slayer of Kas- kaskia. They all catch her like measles. If she stays out here, they will sit in a row along the gallery edge, and there will be no more dancing. Do not observe what Peggy says, 1893.] Old Kaskaskict. 7 mademoiselle. We are relations, and so we take liberties. But no one must give up dancing, urged Maria. They arranged for her in spite of pro- test, however. Rice muffled her in a shawl, Mademoiselle Saucier sat down at her right side and Peggy Morrison at her left, and the next dance began. Maria Jones had repressed and nes- tling habits. She curled herself into a very small compass in the easy gallery chair, and looked off into the humid mysteries of the June night. Colonel Menards substantial slave cabins of logs and stone were in sight, and up the bluff near the house was a sort of donjon of stone, having only one door letting into its base. That s where Colonel Menard puts his bad Indians, said Peggy Morrison, following Marias glance. It is simply a little fortress for times of danger, said Mademoiselle Saucier, laughing. It is also the colonels bu- reau for valuable papers, and the dairy is underneath. Well, you French understand one anothers housekeeping better than we English do; and may be the colonel has been explaining these things to you. But are there any savage men about here now? Oh, plenty of them, declared Peg- gy. We have some Pottawatomies and Kickapoos and Kaskaskias always with us, like the poor. Nobody is afraid of them, though. Colonel Menard has them all under his thumb, and if nobody else could manage them he could. My fa- ther says they will give their furs to him for nothing rather than sell them to other people. You must see that Colonel Menard is very fascinating, but I dont think he charms Angelique as he does the Indians. Mademoiselle Sauciers smilo excused anythingPeggy might say. Maria thought this French girl the most beautiful wo- man she had ever seen. The waist of her clinging white gown ended under the curve of her girlish breasts, and face, neck, and arms blossomed out with the polish of flower-petals. Around her throat she wore gold beads suspending a cross. Her dark hair, which had an elusive bluish mist, like grapes, was pinned high with a gold comb. Her oval face was full of a mature sympathy unusual in girls. Maria had thought at first she would rather be alone on the gallery, but this reposeful and tender French girl at once became a necessity to her. Peggy, said Angelique, I hear Jules Vigo inquiring for you in the hall. Then I shall take to the roof, re- sponded Peggy. Have some regard for Jules. You may have, hut I shant. I will not dance with a kangaroo. Do you not promise dances ahead? inquired Maria. No, our niothers do not permit that, answered Angelique. It is sometimes best to sit still and look on. That means, Miss Jones, explained Peggy, that she has set a fashion to give the rest of the girls a chance. I would nt be so mealy-mouthed about cutting them out. But Angelique has been ruined by waiting so much on her tante-gram~re. When you bear an old womans temper from dawn till dusk, you soon forget you re a girl in your teens. Dont abuse the little tante-gram~re. She gets praise enough at our house. Mother says shes a discipline that keeps Angelique from growing vain. Thank Heaven, we dont need such discipline in our family. It is my fathers grand-aunt, ex- plained Angelique to Maria, and when you see her, mademoiselle, you will be surprised to find how well she bears her hundred years, though she has not been out of her bed since I can remember. Mademoiselle, I hope I never shall be very old. Maria gave Angelique the piercing 8 Old Kasicaskia. [January, stare which unconsciously belongs to large black eyes set in a hectic, nervous face. Would you die now? I feel always, said the French girl, that we stand facing the mystery every minute, and sometimes I should like to know it. Now hear that, said Peggy. I m no Catholic, but I will say for the mo- tlier superior that she never put that in your head at the convent. It is wicked to say you want to die. But I did not say it. The mystery of being without any body, that is what I want to know. It is good to meditate on death. It is nt comfortable, said Peggy. It makes me have chills down my back. She glanced behind her through the many-paned open window into the din- ing-room. Three little girls and a boy were standing there, so close to the sill that their breath had touched Peggys neck. They were Colonel Menards mo- therless children. A black maid was with them, holding the youngest by the hand. They were whispering in Frencb under cover of the music. French was the sec- ond mother tongue of every Kaskaskia girl, and Peggy heard what they said by merely taking her attention from her companions. I will get Jean Lozier to beat Mon- sieur Reece Zhoue. Jean Lozier is such an obliging creature he will do anything I ask him. But, Odile, argued the boy, with some sense of equity, she is not yet engaged to our family. And how shall we get her engaged to us if Monsieur Reece Zhone must hang around her? Papa says he is the most promising young man in the Terri- tory. If I were a boy, Pierre Menard, I would do something with him. What would you do? I would shoot him. He has duels. But my father might punish me for that. Very well, chicken-heart. Let Made- moiselle Saucier go, then. But I will tell you this: there is no one else in Kaskas- kia that I will have for a second mother. Yes, we have all chosen her, owned Pierre, but it seems to me papa ought to make the marriage. But she would not know we chil- dren were willing to have her. If you did something to stop Monsieur Zhones courtship, she would then know. Why do you not go out on the gal- lery now and tell her we want her? exclaimed Pierre. The colonel says it is best to be straightforward in any mat- ter of business. Pierre, it is plain to be seen that you do not know how to deal with young ladies. They like best to be fought over. It is not proper to tell her we are will- ing to have her. The way to do is to drive off the other suitors. But there are so many. Tante Isi- dore says all the young men in Kaskas- kia and the officers left at Fort Chartres are her suitors. Monsieur Reece Zhone is the worst one, though. I might ask him to go out to papas office with me to-night, but we shall be sent to bed directly after supper. Beaides, here sits his sister who was carried out fainting. While he is in our house we are obliged to be polite to him, said Odile. But if I were a boy, I would, some time, get on my pony and ride into Kas- kaskia The conspiring ~vent on in whispers. The childrens heads bobbed nearer each other, so Peggy overheard no more. It was the very next evening, the evening of St. Johns Day, that young Pierre rode into Kaskaskia beside his father to see the yearly bonfire lighted. Though many of the old French customs had perished in a mixing of nationali- ties, St. Johns Day was yet observed; the Latin race drawing the Saxon out to participate in the festival, as so often happens wherever they dwell. The bonfire stood in the middle of 1893.] Old Kaskaskia. 9 the street fronting the church. It was an octagonal pyramid, seven or eight feet high, built of dry oak and pecan limbs and logs, with straw at all the corners. The earth yet held a red horizon rim around its dusky surface. Some half-dis- tinct swallows were swarming into the church belfry, as silent as bats; but peo- ple swarming on the ground below made a cheerful noise, like a fair. The St. John bonfire was not a religiovs cere- mony, but its character lifted it above the ordinary burning of brushwood at night. The most dignified Kaskaskians, heretics as well as papists, came out to see it lighted; the pagan spell of Mid- summer Night more or less affecting them all. Red points appeared at the piles eight corners and sprung up flame, showing the eight lads who were bent down blow- ing them; showing the church front, and the steps covered with little negroes good - naturedly fighting and crowding one another off; showing the crosses of slato and wood and square marble tombs in the graveyard, and a crowd of hon- est faces, red kerchiefs, gray cappos, and wooden shoes pressing close around it. Children raced, shouting in the light, perpetuating unconsciously the fire-wor- ship of Asia by leaping across outer edges of the blaze. It rose and showed the bowered homes of Kaskaskia, the tavern at an angle of the streets, with two Indians, in leg~,ings and hunting- shirts, standing on the gallery as emotion- less spectators. It illuminated fields and woods stretching southward, and little weeds beside the road whitened with dust. The roaring and crackling heat drove venturesome urchins back. Father Baby could be seen established behind a temporary counter, convenient- ly near the pile, yet discreetly removed from the church front. Thirsty rustics and fiatboat-men crowded to his kegs and clinked his glasses. The firelight shone on his crown which was bare to the sky. Father Olivier passed by, re ceiving submissive obeisance from the renegade, but returning him a shake of the head. Girls slipped hack and forth through the church gate. Now their laughing faces grouped three or four together in the bonfire light. In a moment, when their mothers turned to follow them with the eye, they were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps outside the beacons glare hob- goblins and fairies danced. Midsum- mer Night tricks and the freemasonry of youth were at work. People watched one another across that pile with diverse aims. Rice Jones had his sister on his arm, wrapped in a Span- ish mantilla. Her tiny face, with a rose above one ear, was startling against this black setting. They stood near Father Babys booth; and while Peggy Morri- son waited at the church gate to signal Maria, she resented Rice Joness habitual indifference to her existence. He saw Angehique Saucier beside her mother, and the men gathering to her, among them an officer from Fort Chartres. They trou- bled him little; for he intended in due time to put these fellows all out of his way. There were other matters as vital to Rice Jones. Young Pierre Menard hovered vainly about him. The momeub Maria left him a squad of country poli- ticians surrounded their political leader, and he did some effectual work for his party by the light of the St. John fire. Darkness grew outside the irregular radiance of that pile, and the night con- cert of insects could be heard as an in- terlude between childrens shouts and the hum of voices. Peggy Morrison~ s lifted finger caught Marias glance. It was an imperative gesture meaning haste and secrecy, and separation from her bro- ther Rice. Maria laughed and shook her head wistfully. The girlish pastimes of Midsummer Night were all done for her. She thought of nights in her own wild county of Merionethshire, when she had run, palpitating like a hare, to try some spell or charm which might reveal 110 Old Kaskctskict. [January, the future to her; and now it was re- vealed. An apparition from the other hemi- sphere came upon her that instant. She saw a man standing by the friars booth looking at her. What his eyes said she could not, through her shimmering and deadly faintness, perceive. How could he be here in Kaskaskia? The shock of seeing him annihilated physical weak- ness in her. She stood on limbs of stone. Her hand on her brothers arm did not tremble; but a pinched blueness spread about her nostrils and eye sockets, and dinted sudden hollows in her temples. Dr. Dunlap took a step toward her. At that, she looked around for some place to hide in, the animal instinct of flight arising first, and darted from her brother into the graveyard. Rice be- held this freak with quizzical surprise, but he had noted the disappearance of more than one maid through that gate, and was glad to have Maria with them. Come on, whispered Peggy, seizing her. Clarice Vigo has gone to fetch Angelique, and then we shall be ready. Behind the church, speaking all to- gether like a chorus of blackbirds, the girls were clustered, out of the bonfires light. French and English voices de- bated. Oh, I would nt do such a thing. Your mother did it when she was a girl. But the young men may find it out and follow. Then we 11 run. I m afraid to go so far in the dark. What, to the old Jesuit College? It is nt very dark, and our old Dinah will go with us; she s waiting outside the fence. But my father says none of our Indians are to be trusted in the dark. What a slander on our Indians! But some of them are here; they always come to the St. John bonfire. All the men in Kaskaskia are here, too. We could easily give an alarm. Anyhow, nothing will hurt us. What are you going to do, girls? inquired the voice of Angelique Saucier. The whole scheme took a foolish tinge as she spoke. They were ashamed to tell her what they were going to do. Peggy Morrison drew near and whis- pered, We want to go to the old Jesuit College and sow hempseed. Hempseed? Yes. You do it on Midsummer Night. Will it grow the better for that? asked the puzzled French girl. We dont want it to grow, you goose. We want to try our fortunes. It was Peggy Morrisons plan, spoke out Clarice Vigo. It s an old English custom, declared Peggy, as old as burning brushwood. Would you like to observe this old English custom, Mademoiselle Zhone? questioned Angelique. Yes, let us hurry ~ I think myself it would be charm- ing. The instant Angelique thought this, Peggy Morrisons plan lost foolish- ness, and gained in all eyes the dignity of adventure. But we have no hemp- seed. Yes, we have, responded Peggy. Our Dinah is there outside the fence with her lap full of it. And how do you sow it? You scatter it and say, Hempseed, I sow thee, hempseed, I sow thee; let him who is to marry me come after me and mow thee. An abashed titter ran through girlish Kaskaskia~ And what happens then? Theu you look back ai~d see some- body following you with a scythe. A suppressed squeal ran through girl- ish Kaskaskia. Now if we are going, we ought to go, or it will all be found out, observed Peggy with decision. They had only to follow the nearest cross-street to reach the old Jesuit Col Old Kasicaskict. lege; but some were for making a long detour into the common fields to avoid being seen, while others were for pass- ing close by the bonfire in a solid squad. Neither Peggy nor Angelique could re- concile these factions, and Peggy finally crossed the fence and led the way in silence. The majority hung back until they were almost belated. Then, with a venturous rush, they scaled the fence and piled themselves upon Dinah, who was quietly trying to deal out a handful of hempseed to every passer; and some of them squalled in the fear of man at her uplifted paw. Then, shying away from the light, they entered a street which was like a canal of shadow. The houses bounding it were all dark, except the steep roof slopes of the southern row, which seemed to palpitate in the bon- fires flicker. Finding themselves away from their families in this deserted lane, the girls took to their heels, and left like sheep a perceptible little cloud of dust smoking in the gloom behind them. Beyond the last house and alongside the Okaw River stood the ruined build- ing with gaping entrances. The girls stumbled among irregular hummocks which in earlier days had been garden beds and had supplied vegetables to the brethren. The last commandant of Kas- kaskia, who occupied the Jesuits house as a fortress, had complained to his supe- riors of a leaky and broken roof. There was now no roof to complain of, and the upper floors had given way in places, leaving the stone shell open to the sky. It had once been an imposing structure, costing the Jesuits forty thousand pias- ters. The uneven stone floor was also broken, showing gaps into vaults beneath; fearful spots to be avoided, which the cus- tom of darkness soon revealed to all eyes. Partitions yet standing held stained and ghastly smears of rotted plaster. The rivers gurgle and rush could be distinctly heard here, while the company around the bonfire were lost in distance. Angelique had given her arm to Maria Jones in the flight down the road; but when they entered the college Maria slipped away from her. A blacker spot in an angle of the walls and a smothered cough hinted to the care-taker where the invalid girl might be found, but where she also wished to be let alone. Now a sob rising to a scream, as if the old building had found voice and protested against invasion, caused a re- coil of the invaders. Girls brought up in neighborly relations with the wilder- ness, however, could be only a moment terrified by the screech-owl. But at no previous time in its history, not even when it was captured as a fort, had the Jesuit College inclosed such a cluster of wildly beating hearts. Had light been turned on the group, it would have shown every girl shaking her hand at every other girl and hissing, 5 s sh! Girls, be still. Girls, do be still. Girls, if you wont be still, somebody will come. Clarice Vigo, why dont you stop your noise? Why do you not stop yours, made- moiselle? I have nt spoken a word but Sh! I have been trying my best to quiet them all. So have I. lEllen Bond fell over me. She was scared to death 1y a screech-owl I It was you fell over me, Miss Bet- sey. If we are going to try the charm, announced Peggy Morrison, we must begin. You had better all get in a line behind me and do just as I do. You cant see me very well, but you can scat- ter the hempseed and say what I say. And it must be done soberly, or Satan may come mowing at our heels. From a distant perch to which he had removed himself, the screech-owl again remonstrated. Silence settled like the slow fluttering downward of feathers on 1893.] 11 12 Old Kasicaskict. [January, every throbbing figure. The stir of a slipper on the pavement, or the catch- ing of a breath, became the only tokens of human presence in the old college. These postulants of fortune in their half- visible state once more bore some re- semblance to the young ladies who had stood in decorum answering compliments between the figures of the dance the night before. On cautious shoe leather the march began. One voice, two voices, and final- ly a low chorus intoned and repeated, Hempseed, I sow thee, hempseed, I sow thee; let him who is to marry me come after me and mow thee. Peggy led her followers out of the east door towards the river; wheeling when she reached a little wind-row of rotted timbers. This chaos had once stood np in order, forming makeshift bastions for the fort, and supporting cannon. Such boards and posts as the negroes had not carried off lay now along the river brink, and the Okaw was steadily undermining that brink as it had already undermined and carried away the Jesuits spacious landing. Glancing over their shoulders with se- cret laughter for that fearful gleam of scythes which was to come, the girls marched back; and their leaders abrupt halt jarred the entire line. A man stood in the opposite entrance. They could not see him in outline, but his unmistak- able hat showed against a low-lying sky. Who s there ? demanded Peggy Morrison. The intruder made no answer. They could not see a scythe about him, but to every girl he took a different form. He was Billy Edgar, or Jules Vigo, or Rice Jones, or any other gallant of Kas- kaskia, according to the varying faith which beating hearts sent to the eyes that saw him. The spell of silence did not last. A populous roost invaded by a fox never resounded with more squalling than did the old Jesuit College. The girls swished around corners and tumbled over the vegetable beds. Angelique groped for Maria, not daring to call her name, and caught and ran with some one until they neared the light, when she found it was the dumpy little figure of her cousin Clarice. As soon as the girls were gone, the man who had broken up their hemp- seed sowing advanced a few steps on the pavement. He listened, and that darker shadow in the angle of the walls was perceptible to him. Are you here? I am here, answered Maria. Rice Joness sister could not sit many minutes in the damp old building with- out being missed by the girls and her family. His voice trembled. She could hear his heart beating with large strokes. His presence surrounded her like an atmosphere, and in the darkness she clutched her own breast to keep the rap- ture from physically hurting her. Maria, did you know that my wife was dead? Oh, James, no! Her whisper was more than a caress. It was surrender and peace and forgive- ness. It was the snapping of a tension which had held her two years. Oh, James, when I saw you to-night I did not know what to do. I have not been well. You have borne it so much better than I have. I thought, said Dr. Dunlap, it would be best for us to talk matters over. She caught her breath. What was the matter with this man? Once he had lain at her feet and kissed the hem of her garment. He was hers. She had never relinquished her ownership of him even when her honor had constrained her to live apart from him. Whose could he be but hers? Dr. Dunlap had thought twenty-four hours on what he would say at this un- avoidable meeting, and he acknowledged in a business-like tone, I did not treat you right, Marh~. Old ICaskaskia. My wretched entanglement when I was a boy ruined everything. But when I per- suaded you into a secret marriage with me, I meant to niake it right when the other one died. And you found it out and left me. If I treated you badly, you treated inc badly, too. He knew the long chin of the Joneses. He could imagine Maria lifting her slim chin. She did not speak. I came over here to begin life again. When you ran off to your friends, what was there for me to do but take to the navy again or sail for America? Kas- kaskia was the largest post in the West; so I came here. And here I found your family, that I thought were in another Territory. And from the first your bro- ther has been my enemy. His sulky complaint brought no re- sponse in words; but a strangling sob broke all restraint in the angle of the wall. Maria, exclaimed the startled doc- tor, dont do that. You excite your- self. In her paroxysm she rolled down on the stone floor, arid he stooped in con- sternation and picked her up. He rest- ed his foot on the ledge where she had sat, and held her upon his knee. She struggled for breath until he thought she would die, and the sxveat of terror stood on his forehead. When he had watched her by the bonfire, his medical knowledge gave her barely txvo months of life; and within those two months, he had also told himself bitterly then, Rice Jones could marry Angelique Saucier; but to have her die alone with him in this old build- ing was what he could not contemplate. Scarcely conscious of his own action, the doctor held her in positions which helped her, and finally had the relief of hearing her draw a free breath as she lapsed against his shoulder. Even a counterfeit tie of marriage has its power. He had lived with this woman, she be- lieving herself his lawful wife. Their half-year together had been the loftiest period of his life. The old feeling, smothered as it was under resentment and a new passion, stirred in him. He strained her to his breast and called her the pet names he used to call her. The diminutive being upon his knee heard them without response. When she could speak she whispered, Set me down. Dr. Dunlap moved his foot and placed her again on the stone ledge. She leaned against the wall. There was a ringing in her ears. The unpardonable sin in man is not his ceasing to love you. That may be a mortal pain, but it has dignity. It is the fearful judgment of seeing in a flash that you have wasted your life on what was not worth the waste. Now if you are composed, Maria, said Dr. Dunlap hurriedly, I will say what I followed you here to say. The best thing for us to do, now that I am free to do it, is to have the marriage ceremony repeated over us and made valid. I am ready and willing. The only drawback is the prejudice of your family against me. A magnanimous tone in his voice be- trayed eagerness to put the Joneses un- der obligations to him. Dr. Dunlap, when Maria had spoken his name she panted awhile, when I found out I was not your wife, and left you, I began then to cough. But now we can never be married. Why, Maria? She began those formidable sounds again, and he held his breath. Somebody in the distance began play- ing a violin. Its music mingled with the sounds which river-inclosed lands and the adjacent dwellings of men send up in a summer night. You know, said Maria when she could speak, how we deceived my peo- ple in Wales and in London. None of my family here know anything about that marriage. Another voice outside the walls, keen with anxiety, shouted her name. Dr. 1893.] 13 14 Dunlap hurried a few yards from her, then stopped and held his ground. A man rushed into the old building regard- less of the broken floor. Maria, are you here? Yes, brother Rice. She was leaving her corner to meet him. The doctor could see that she sunk to her hands and knees with weakness and helped herself up by the wall. Where are you? Is any one with you? As they met in the darkness the bro- ther felt her hands and trembling figure. What possessed you to sit down here in this damp old place? You are clam- my as stone. Poor little thing, were you frightened? What have you been doing? I have been talking, replied Maria. The doctors heart labored like a drum. Perhaps she would tell it all out to Rice Jones now. The same acrid restraint may be heard in a mothers voice when she inquires, as Rice did, Who was talking with you? Dr. Dunlap. Dr. Dunlap? You dont know Dr. Dunlap. We met in England, daringly broke out Dr. Dunlap himself. He is here yet, is he? said Rice Jones. Doctors are supposed to be the natural protectors of ailing women; but heres one that is helping a sick girl to take her death cold. An attack on his professional side was what Dr. Dunlap was not prepared for. He had nothing to say, and Marias bro- ther carried her out of the old college and took the nearest way home. Noise was ceasing around the sinking bonfire, a clatter of wooden shoes setting homeward along the streets of Kaskas- kia. Maria saw the stars stretching their great network downward enmeshing the [Jani:tary, Mississippi. That nightly vision is won- derful. But what are outward wonders compared to the unseen spiritual chem- istry always at work within and around us, changing our loves and beliefs and needs? Rice stopped to rest as soon as they were out of Dr. Dunlaps hearing. Light as she was, he felt his sisters complete prostration in her weight. For Gods sake, Maria, he said to her in Welsh, is that fellow anything to you? She shook her head. But he says be met you in England. She said nothing, and Rice also re- mained in silence. When he spoke again, it was in the tone of dry statement which he used for presenting cases in court. My pistols have hair triggers and go off at a touch. I had a political differ- ence with a gentleman some time ago, and this Dr. Dunlap acted as his second. We were standing ready, but before the word was given, and while the pistol hung down in my hand, it went off, and the ball struck the ground at my feet. Then Dr. Dunlap insisted I had had my shot, and must stand still and be fired at without firing again. His anxiety to have me shot was so plain that my op- ponent refused to fire, and we made up our difference. That s the Dr. Dunlap we have here in the Territory, whatever he may have been in England. Rice hurried on with her, his mother- less little sister, who had been left with kinspeople in Wales because she was too delicate to bear the hardships of the family transplanting. He blamed him- self for her exposure and prostration, and held her tenderly, whispering, Mareea-bach! She tried to answer the Welsh caress- ing name, but her throat gurgled and a warm stream ran out of her mouth, and he knew it was blood. Mary Ilartwell Catherwood. Old Kaskaskia. 1893.] 6!eorge William Curtis and Civil Service Reform. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS AND CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. IT is now something more than twenty years since Mr. Carpenter, a Senator of the United States from the State of Wis- consin, introduced in the body of which he was a distinguished and influential member a resolution, as he declared, for the purpose of submitting some remarks on the recent popular delusion called civil service reform by transferring the pat- ronage of the government from the offi- cers in whom the Constitution had vested it to a board of schoolmasters to sit in Washington. Five ,years earlier, Mr. Thomas A. Jenckes, a Representative from the State of Rhode Island, had submitted a report from the joint com- mittee of Congress on retrenchment, and accompanied it by a bill to regulate the civil service of tbe United States and promote its efficiency. In their re- port the committee mildly said of the bill, It is conceded that this will work an entire change in the mode of appoint- ment to and the tenure of office of the subordinate civil service of the govern- ment. It was the first gun. The revo- lution that it inaugurated constitutes one of the most notable movements in our history. Its object was not, as the Wis- consin Senator would have it, to trans- fer patronage, but, so far as it was possi- ble, to eliminate from American political life the very idea of patronage as un- democratic and un-American. If it was a delusion, it has proved a most obstinate one, and would seem to have a stronger hold on the people now than it had in 1872, when the Wisconsin Senator came to the rescue of the patronage from the outstretched hands of the schoolmasters. Whatever it was or is, the stuff that dreams are made of or a sober and prac- tical reform, Mr. Curtis believed in it with all the force of an exceptionally sane and well-balanced mind, and his services in its behalf, I think, will constitute his highest claim to the gratitude of his coun- trymen. He was, indeed, a great power in American life, influencing it at many points, and always for good. Least of all men was he a panacea-vender, but he was a friend and advocate of every good cause, and the civil service reform found in him a leader of such earnestness and force that, in the minds of his fellow- citizens, the cause and its leader were identified. It was more true of Curtis than it was of Goldsmith that he touched nothing that he did not adorn. Certainly he adorned this cause, year after year pre- senting its claims with admirable grace and skill, and with a strength of argu- ment that was irresistible; but there was something transcending all this. Among public men, there was perhaps none who so won the confidence of sincere and ear- nest men and women by his own person- ality. Americans make few pilgrimages to the shrines of oracles. The day has passed, even, when many pin their faith on their newspaper, though they take only one; but when, by the process of years, a noble and trustworthy character has become clearly established and defined, now as ever, men, by the law of their be- ing, render it homage. The power of such a character, with all his gifts and accomplishments, was what Mr. Curtis brought to the civil service reform. What was the cause which he thought worthy of the devotion of his ripest years? The administrative system under which, by a natural and yet monstrous evolution, the honors, public employ- ments, and even the profitable contracts with the government had come to be re- garded as spoils of political victory, and the legitimate means of payment for par- ty service, seemed never stronger than when Mr. Jenekes arraigned it before

1893.] 6!eorge William Curtis and Civil Service Reform. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS AND CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. IT is now something more than twenty years since Mr. Carpenter, a Senator of the United States from the State of Wis- consin, introduced in the body of which he was a distinguished and influential member a resolution, as he declared, for the purpose of submitting some remarks on the recent popular delusion called civil service reform by transferring the pat- ronage of the government from the offi- cers in whom the Constitution had vested it to a board of schoolmasters to sit in Washington. Five ,years earlier, Mr. Thomas A. Jenckes, a Representative from the State of Rhode Island, had submitted a report from the joint com- mittee of Congress on retrenchment, and accompanied it by a bill to regulate the civil service of tbe United States and promote its efficiency. In their re- port the committee mildly said of the bill, It is conceded that this will work an entire change in the mode of appoint- ment to and the tenure of office of the subordinate civil service of the govern- ment. It was the first gun. The revo- lution that it inaugurated constitutes one of the most notable movements in our history. Its object was not, as the Wis- consin Senator would have it, to trans- fer patronage, but, so far as it was possi- ble, to eliminate from American political life the very idea of patronage as un- democratic and un-American. If it was a delusion, it has proved a most obstinate one, and would seem to have a stronger hold on the people now than it had in 1872, when the Wisconsin Senator came to the rescue of the patronage from the outstretched hands of the schoolmasters. Whatever it was or is, the stuff that dreams are made of or a sober and prac- tical reform, Mr. Curtis believed in it with all the force of an exceptionally sane and well-balanced mind, and his services in its behalf, I think, will constitute his highest claim to the gratitude of his coun- trymen. He was, indeed, a great power in American life, influencing it at many points, and always for good. Least of all men was he a panacea-vender, but he was a friend and advocate of every good cause, and the civil service reform found in him a leader of such earnestness and force that, in the minds of his fellow- citizens, the cause and its leader were identified. It was more true of Curtis than it was of Goldsmith that he touched nothing that he did not adorn. Certainly he adorned this cause, year after year pre- senting its claims with admirable grace and skill, and with a strength of argu- ment that was irresistible; but there was something transcending all this. Among public men, there was perhaps none who so won the confidence of sincere and ear- nest men and women by his own person- ality. Americans make few pilgrimages to the shrines of oracles. The day has passed, even, when many pin their faith on their newspaper, though they take only one; but when, by the process of years, a noble and trustworthy character has become clearly established and defined, now as ever, men, by the law of their be- ing, render it homage. The power of such a character, with all his gifts and accomplishments, was what Mr. Curtis brought to the civil service reform. What was the cause which he thought worthy of the devotion of his ripest years? The administrative system under which, by a natural and yet monstrous evolution, the honors, public employ- ments, and even the profitable contracts with the government had come to be re- garded as spoils of political victory, and the legitimate means of payment for par- ty service, seemed never stronger than when Mr. Jenekes arraigned it before 16 George William Curtis and Civil Service Reform. [January, Congress. Rotation in office from high- est to lowest, its natural and necessary accompaniment, though a cruel gospel, had universal party acceptance. It was a question of political thrift, and, from the commercial standpoint, the only way to derive considerable gains from the cap- ital of office was to turn it over frequently. The wickedness and folly of this sys- tem had long been felt by many, but until Mr. Jeuckes quietly challenged it on the floor of the House there had been no time when there was any hope that it could be successfully assailed. It had been denounced by the wisest and best, but al- ways from the outside. Mr. Webster had declared that it would change the char- acter of our government; that the same party selfishness that drove good men out of office would push bad men in; that, if not checked, good men would grow tired of the exercise of political privileges, and abandon the government to the scramble of the bold, the daring, and the desperate. But Mr. Webster was in the opposition. Mr. Calhoun had said that if it were not put down it would end by putting down the government. Mr. Clay, in 1832, op- posing Mr. Van Burens confirmation as minister to England, had said that Van Buren was among the first of federal secretaries to introduce the odious sys- tem of proscription for the exercise of the elective franchise into the government of the United States. It is a detestable system, drawn from the worst periods of the Roman republic; and if it were to be perpetuated, if the offices, honors, and dignities of the people were to be put up to a scramble and decided by the results of every presidential election, our gov- ernment and institutions would finally end in a despotism as intolerable as that of Constantinople. But Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun were also in the opposition. It was easy for Jackson men to with- stand criticism from such a quarter. The new system for it was practically un- known to the earlier administrations had its attractions. It added greatly to the interest of campaigns, and pro- vided stakes for the stalwart contestants that imparted a lively human interest to the struggle; and with the winners no- thing could be more popular. After the administration of Jackson it had undisputed possession. No one in responsible position denounced it, bow- ever much he may have deprecated its ex- istence. During Mr. Van Burens term it flourished like a tropical plant. Van Burens successor held the office for a few weeks only, and, as might have been expected, they were filled with the tur- moil and clamor of a hungry multitude. Mr. Tyler found himself so soon at war with his party that the possession of the offices was all thal~ gave him the sem- blance of power, and he made diligent use of them. With Polk and the Mexi- can war, the country began to gird itself for the great struggle over slavery. If anybody thought of administrative re- form, there was then no room for the subject in the minds of citizens. When the storm of secession finally burst on the republic, the federal ser- vice was filled with the adherents of a single party, and they were chiefly such as were acceptable to its so-called pro- slavery faction. Mr. Lincoln found him- self at the head of a government nine- teen twentieths of whose officials regard- ed his advent to office with disfavor, and large numbers with bitter resentment. His enemies were intrenched in the de- partments, and he and his party found a foe in every post-office. All knew that a clean sweep was to be expected~ and apprehension of loss of place min- gling with the other excitements of the time naturally embittered those who looked only for dismissal. It would not be difficult to show that a great part of the disloyalty in the North, moi~e or less pronounced, had its origin in an extreme partisan disappoint- nient, the vital heat of which came from the loss of the federal offices. The war made necessary not only vast 1893.] George William Curtis and Civil Service Ji?ejbrm. 17 armies, but a great increase of the civil service. An enormous debt had been created, and elaborate systems of taxa- tion provided to meet its demands, which it was evident must continue in some form during an indefinite period. The r- government had driven out the banking currency of the States, and organized a banking system of its own. The nation, too, had undergone a transformation such as had never before been witnessed. What its growth and development were to be could hardly be exaggerated by the boldest imagination. Even the ora- tors of this Columbian anniversary sea- son have not been able to overstate it. The great cause of sectional discussion having been remGved, and the disputes of reconstruction settled, no absorbing question prevented the examination of administrative details. The Republican party had full control, and seemed likely to retain it indefinitely. When, there- fore, Mr. Jenekes, with admirable cour- age, brought before the popular branch of Congress his resolution, and supple- mented it by his report, it was a move- ment from within the party having con- trol of the offices looking to the eradi- cation of a system that threatened the public safety, and the establishment in its place of one that should be in har- mony with democratic institutions and adequate to the demands of the future. But the country knew little about the subject. Even Mr. Curtis, in his New York address in 1888, said, Twenty years ago, when Mr. Jenckes spoke to a few persons in the chapel of the Univer- sity upon reform in the civil service, he was like Paul in Athens declaring the Unknown God. The evils of the spoils system were well understood, but few had thought seriously about the remedy. In the American way, we had concluded that the trouble was inherent in our political system, or, if not inherent, that it had become so firmly implaiited it could not be removed ; that it was useless to com- plain, and the part of wisdom was to go VOL. LXXI. No. 423. 2 ahead and make the best of it. To the American mind there is nothing so offen- sive as a reformer who can denounce existing institutions, but has nothing bet- ter to offer. Just here the services of Mr. Jenckes were invaluable. He had made a care- ful study of the civil service in the va- rious countries of Europe, and in his elaborate report, and in another which he submitted in the succeeding year (1868), he furnished a mass of infor- mation upon every part of the subject. Pains had also been taken by him to ob- tain the views of many officials in differ- ent branches of the service upon the practical nature of the reform proposed, and these were supplemented by copious extracts from the press, earnestly favor- ing the bill introduced by Mr. Jenekes. The subject slowly engaged public at- tention, but it was not until March, 1871, that any act was passed; and then the best that could be obtained from Con- gress was a brief section thrust into the Appropriation Bill, authorizing the Pre- sident to prescribe rules for admission to the civil service, to appoint suitable per- sons to institute inquiries touching the matter, and to establish regulations for the conduct of appointees to the civil ser- vice. Mr. Jeackess bill had carefully outlimied a competitive system of appoint- ments and promotions and made it im- perative, but this could not be passed, and the whole matter was entrusted to the dis- cretion of the President. President Grant, as might have been expected from so straightforward and patriotic a character, was heartily in fa- vor of the reform moveineiit. He af- terwards withdrew from it his support, not, however, because his own views had changed, but because Congress was hos- tile and would not make appropriations, and because he thought the public senti- ment in its favor had so relaxed that it no longer warranted his favorable exec- utive action. The Appropriation Bill with its civil 18 George William Curtis and Civil Service Rejbrrn. [January, service reform rider was approved March 3, 1871, and on the next day the Presi- dent appointed George William Curtis and six other gentlemen an advisory board to conduct the inquiries under the act and report regulations for his approval; in other words, to prepare and report a working plan for the ex- periment of administrative reform. I have not mentioned the names of Mr. Curtiss associates on the board, for the reason that no one of them seems to have become personally identified with the reform movement, and the labor and most of the responsibility fell upon the chairman. Mr. Curtis entered most heartily and at once upon the work. Probably his name imparted a strength to the move- ment that no other would have given. He had been a civil service reformer in sentiment for many years, even from his earliest occupancy of the Easy Chair. He had hailed with approval the action of Mr. Jenckes, and supported it with great force by both voice and pen. He was then at the height of his manhood, personally molt attractive, and every- where known and admired, especially by the young men of education and am- bition, who found in him their ideal. Since 1856 he had been one of the most acceptable of popular orators, in the lec- turers desk and on the platform, and he was, if not the first, perhaps the finest specimen the country had seen of the gentleman in politics. His purely lit- erary work was familiar to all persons of taste and culture. So graceful an essayist, so genial an observer and critic of public and social life, had not before graced our letters. But the man was far larger than his work, though never above it. A radical antislavery man even from the early days when, as the young Howadji, lie met the slave boat the Devils Frigate he called it float- ing down the lazy Nile, lie had devoted his early manhood to the assault of slav- ery. He had wasted no strength in efforts outside of political organizations when he found one at hand where he could do good service, but had joined himself at once to the new Republican party. To promote its success he gave all the strength of those early years. He adhered stanchly to that party during the stormy Johnson period, and was one of the most effective supporters of Gen- eral Grant for the presidency. For years he had been a frequent delegate to the party conventions, and was there re- garded as a trustworthy adviser and leader. He had been the political editor of Harpers Weekly since 1863, and in its columns had rendered a support to the Republican party the strength of which can hardly be overestimated. In No- vember, 1871, its circulation had reached three hundred thousand copies. Men read his editorial articles to be enlight- ened as to their duties and strength- cued in their patriotism. Women read them to make sure that their husbands and sons were keeping step to the music of the Union. There was per- feet confidence in his intelligence, sin- cerity, and courage. The calm clear- ness of those weekly utterances was equaled only by their conclusive force. There was no hurry, there were always time and space for full statement, no excitement, no smartness, no straining after epigrainmatic point, no cowardly refusal to face the facts, no dogmatic as- sertion. They were models of full and dispassionate statement and sound argu- ment, and in the highest degree persua- sive. It may well be doubted whether through any considerable period the po- hitical articles of any other journal, at least in America, have been so well cal- culated to engage the attention and influ- ence the conduct of its readers. In effect, the work entrusted to the advisory board or commission was to set the new system on its feet. Many intelligent persons had generalized upon the subject. The mischiefs of existing 1893.] George William Curtis and Civil Serdce Reform. 19 methods were well understood, and the belief was growing that some practical way would be found to remedy them; but the actual constructive work was then to begin, and it was important that no blunder should discredit it at the out- set. The report of the board was submit- ted to the President on the 18th of December, 1871, and by him promptly sent to Congress. It was prepared by Mr. Curtis, and contained a most con- clusive presentation of the entire subject. Every plausible objection was carefully considered and answered, and experience has proved its soundness in every essen- tial part. In transmitting the report, President Grant said, I ask for all the strength Congress can give me to enable me to carry out the reform in the civil service recommended by the commissioners. We may well believe that he had a no- ble ambition to verify the closing words of the report, in which it was declared that the administration which vigorously began this reform would acquire a glory only less than that of the salvation of a great nation. In April following, the advisory board. through its chairman, having prepared the rules regulating appointments, includ- ing the grouping of the official places, they were promulgated; and thereafter, until their suspension by the President in March, 1875, they were enforced in the federal offices in New York and in the departments at Washington with most satisfactory results. The history of the next three years, in which the President attempted to ex- tend the operation of the rules to other customs ports, but failed, because the offi- cers were either hostile or indifferent, or so unused to the reform methods that the operation was defective, need not be stated more fully. It was evident that the reform was not acceptable to the party leaders; and when, in the short ses- sion of 187475, Congress refused an ap propriation, the President abandoned the effort to enforce the civil service rules, and suspended their operation. Mr. Curtis criticised, but not with se- verity, this action of the President. He felt the embarrassment of the situation. He had long known that a powerful ele- ment in ~he party was bitterly hostile to the reform. He was familiar with its assumption of superiority over the so- called doctrinaires and sehoolmas- ters. His comment on it was His- tory teaches no lesson more distinctly than that nothing is so practical as prin- ciple, nothing so little visionary as hon- esty. Political movements, like all other good causes, are constantly betrayed by the ignorance which thinks itself smart- ness, and the contempt of ideas which is called practical common sense.~~ At Newport, in 1887, Mr. Curtis said: It was once my duty to say to Presi- dent Grant that the adverse pressure of the Republican party would overpower his purpose of reform. He replied, with a smile, that he was used to pressure. He smiled incredulously, but he present- ly abandoned reform. The blow was for the moment over- whelming. There was nothing to do but appeal to the people; and the files of Harpers Weekly show how little Mr. Curtis was daunted and how unexhaust- ed was his energy. No one more thor- oughly than he apprehended the true spirit of democracy. No one niore fully recognized that the final resort was to the people, and that no reform would be safe until they had become so thorough- ly educated in its principles and so con- vinced of its necessity that their repre- sentatives would not dare to oppose it. The success it had obtained had been owing more to the cowardice of party managers and members of Congress than to any sincere assent on their part to its merit, though both in and out of Con- gress it had the honest support of many excellent men. Civil service reform had taken pos 20 George William Curtis and Civil Service Reform. [January, session of a portion of the government much too easily to be sure of maintaining its ground. The rules and regulations that President Grant had approved and desired to extend as fast as practicable, and which the schoolmasters were ap- plying at Washington and New York, threatened to transform polit~al life. If they should be made imperative by legislative enactment, there was great danger that the enormous bribe of the subordinate offices would be eliminated from the federal elections. Politics as an industry might be removed from the category of avocations. Mr. Curtis consoled himself with the belief that the reform was only postponed, that the experiment already made had vindicated itself at every point, and that the people would demand its renewal. The event speedily realized his anticipa- tion. In the next Republican National Convention at Cincinnati he was a dele- gate, and a strong supporter of Mr. Bris- tow, but voted for Mr. Hayes on the final ballot. Both parties vied with each other in strong platform declarations in favor of the civil service reform. Governor Tildei~ wrote elaborately in its favor in his letter of acceptance. Mr. Hayes took office committed to it most strongly, but he was able to do little for it. He found, as President Grant had found, a deter- mined opposition in Congress, which laughed and sneered after the old man- ner when the reform was mentioned. To this was added the special and aggres- sive hostility of Mr. Conkling, who had been an unsuccessful candidate for the nomination at Cincinnati, and indulged a pronounced resentment against Mr. Curtis, who not only in convention, but in Harpers Weekly, had vigorously op- posed the nomination of the New York Senator. It had long been known that Mr. Conk- ling was greatly trusted and admired by President Grant, and as early as the con- firmation of Mi. Murphy as collector of the port of New York Mr. Conkling had wrested from Mr. Fenton, his colleague, the control of the spoils in the Empire State~ Mr. Conkling was an opponent of civil service reform from the outset. How much his personal influence had to do with the Presidents loss of hope and his final conclusion to suspend the rules is matter for conjecture. Certain it is, however, that Mr. Curtis knew Mr. Conk- ling to be a powerful enemy of the reform and very close to the President. There was much talk in 187576 of nominating General Grant for a third term, and Mr. Curtis was an outspoken opponent of such action. When the Pre- sident wrote his letter declining a renom- ination, Mr. Conkling came to the front as the New York candidate, and Mr. Curtis, as we have seen, opposed him. Probably he regarded him as the most dangerous enemy of the reform. There is no doubt that he intended to include him in the group of conspicuous Sena- tors under whose leadership, he said, the party has constantly declined, and whose tone and character were felt to be fatal. Mr. Hayes took office under most try- ing circumstances, owing to the contro- versy over his right to the place, and factional opposition within his party was easily made formidable by Democratic assistance. J7he senatorial courtesy, too, was then in its most prosperous con- dition, and Mr. Conkhings opposition was for a time fatal to any nominations made by Mr. Hayes; but after the confirma- tion of General Merritt a~ collector and Colonel Burt as naval officer at New York, in February, 1879, the President revived the civil service rules in those offices. Soon afterward they were again applied to the New York post-office nu- der its incumbent, Mr. James. From that time until the passage of the Pen- dleton Bill the rules were enforced in those offices with such excellent results that public sentiment was stimulated and encouraged, and many local civil service reform associations were formed through- 1893.] George William Curtis and Civil Service Reform. 21 out the country. The National League, with Mr. Curtis as president, was also organized. Congress, .however, steadily refused any favorable legislation or ap- propriation; and yet at the convention which nominated General Garfield the reform plank of 1876 was explicitly reaffirmed, and the convention adopted in terms the declaration of Mr. Hayes that the reform should be thorough, radi- cal, and complete. To this end it de- manded the codperation of the legisla- tive with the executive departments of the government. Mr. Curtis was not far wrong when he characterized such plat- form declarations as only polite bows to the whims of notional brethren, which it is hoped will satisfy them without com- mitting the party. There is little likelihood that Mr. Gar- fields administration would have done more for civil service reform than that of Mr. Hayes. It was embroiled at the outset by the fiercest contests over the offices. The history of those brief four months, culminating in the resignation of the New York Senators, and ending with the assassination of the President, fur- nishes an impressive commentary on the spirit which found in the disposal of the offices the chief subject of interest in pre- sidential elections. The murder of the President aroused the country, and a demand came up from every quarter for something that would remove the dangers that environed the presidential office. It was seen that to do this the Presidents death must be ren- dered less desirable to a great class of more or less dangerous citizens who might hope to profit by a change in the federal patronage. Guiteau had established a horrible precedent. How soon it might be followed by some other half - crazed creature, some desponding wretch who saw his wife and children beggared by his removal from office, or some miscre- ant, the tool of deep conspiracy, no man could tell. It was not, however, until the 18th of January, 1883, that Congress gave to the country what was known as the Pendleton Law. That beneficent mea- sure became practically operative on the 16th of July following. Probably no law ever had fewer real friends in the Con- gress that enacted it. At the long ses- sion of 1882, the year of the Jay Hub- bell circular, and of the great revolts in the Republican party in New York and Pennsylvania, the House had refused the Presidents earnest request for twenty- five thousand dollars to defray the ex- penses of the commission, and had cut it down two fifths. But, as Mr. Curtis said at Newport the next year, the Congress which had adjourned in Au- gust, laughing at reform, heard the thun- der of the elections in November, and reassembled in December, and it made haste to pass the Pendleton Bill, which had been a year before Congress. In every Congress since there have been numerous enemies of the reform, but none has dared either to withhold the appropriation or to repeal the law. It survived the political revolution of 1884 and the counter-revolution of 1888. The great danger that attended it in its cradle was that its enemies, failing in open assaults, would destroy it by indi- rection. Its success depended upon its honest and vigorous enforcement; and this, with some exceptions, it has received from three administrations. Its recent extension to the Indian Department and the application of its principles to the navy yards by the Secretary of the Trea- sury have been hailed by the country with apl)lause. More than thirty thousand of the subordinate places of the government are under its control, many of them high- ly responsible. It has received the ap- proval of three Presidents and many cab- inet officers and other high officials, and, so far as is publicly known, the disapprov- al of none. In the States of New York and Massachusetts, similar statutes have been in force during nine years with offi- cial and general approbation, and the ~2 George William Curtis and courts have adjudged these laws consti- tutional. A courageous and intelligent Civil Service Commission at Washington has demonstrated to the country that, with honest and energetic enforcement, the federal statute will accomplish all that was ever predicted for it by its warmest friends; and there seems to be no rea- son why the scope of its operation should not be extended largely without further delay. Mr. Curtis was in the highest sense a public man, although he never held po- litical office. He was a delegate to the New York Constitutional Convention of 1867, and chairman of the Civil Service Advisory Board appointed by General Grant. For nearly thirty years, too, he Was one of the regents of the New York University, a somewhat anomalous pub- lic corporation dating from 1784, which is the unsalaried agency by which the State conducts its relations with the en- tire system of higher education of the commonwealth. For several years before his death Mr. Curtis had been chancellor of the Board of Regents. He might have represented the United States at the Eng- lish court during the administration of Mr. Hayes, but he preferred to remain at his work at home. During several ad- ministrations place of high distinction was at his command, had he said the word. But he knew better than most men that place rarely adds to the distinction of a really able man, and almost never to his happiness; and besides, for twenty years at least he felt that his highest work must be at home. The history of the civil service reform is the history of those years in the life of Mr. Curtis. There was much more in them, but to no other subject did he give so much thought and such deep and earnest personal interest. Doubtless he enjoyed much of his work as a political editor. He loved, too, the quiet paths of a literary life, and took pleasure in the familiar but gently digni- fied discourse which from month to month he delivered from the Easy Chair. He Civil Service Reform. [January, was an ardent and intelligent lover of music and art in every form. His na- ture, sloping to the southern side, was hospitable to every pleasure that does not demoralize or degrade. Social- ly, there was no man more attractive. Every good cause enlisted his sympathy; and whenever a great occasion demanded an orator who could grasp and express its significance, his was the first name mentioned. About him and withiu him there was every allurement to the life of a dilettante or to a career in letters, where the disturbing problems and an- gry controversies of public life would not intrude. Many who did not know him well mis- took him for only an amiable gentleman who had the power of eloquent speech and an attractive literary style; who en- joyed the applause of cultivated men and women, and moved gracefully through life, temperately tasting its well - bred pleasures, but not caring much for its rugged duties; and who possessed but lit- tle manly force or vigor. There could not be a more mistaken estimate of char- acter. Far above the pleasures of life be placed its duties; and no man, how- ever devoid of grace and culture, could have set himself more sternly to the se- rious work of citizenship. The national struggle over slavery, and the re~stab- lishment of the Union on permanent foundations, enlisted his whole nature. In the same spirit, he devoted his later years to the overthrow of the spoils sys- tem. He did this under no delusion as to the magnitude of the undertaking. Probably no one else comprehended it so well. He had studied the problem profoundly, and had solved every diffi- culty, and could answer every cavil to his own satisfaction. Therefore it was not as a mere enthusiast that he gave so many years to its public demonstration. He knew that the party machines, of whatever name, were naturally opposed to the reform. He was a careful student of human nature, and had sounded all 1893.] George William Curtis and Civil Service Reform. 23 the depths and shallows of political life. He did not expect perfection in men or parties. He knew that the choice be- tween parties often must be one between contestants neither of which was satisfac- tory, but this did not deter him from making the choice. Speculations about independent voters which imply that they should support neither party, he said, omit the cardinal fact that in politics as elsewhere a sensible man will do the best that the circumstances will allow without dishonor. The foremost of American Indepen- dents, he believed in parties, and that parties might be divided upon principle only he did all he could to remove from them the chief source of factional dis- order and party degradation. He was familiar with the history of parties, espe- cially in the State of New York, where more than anywhere else the scramble for office by adherents of rival leaders had destroyed party loyalty, and broken the greatest parties into discordant and warring factions. The long roll of Barn- Burners and Hunkers, Silver Grays and Woolly - Heads, Hard - Shells and Soft- Shells, Stalwarts and Half-Breeds, is the historic refutation, for the State of New York at least, of the idea that the pos- session of the government patronage js a source of party strength. The corruption of the suffrage by money, and the danger that a plutocracy would before long obtain possession of the chief places of honor and responsi- bility, alarmed him. He was convinced that this corruption could never be suc- cessfully met until the immense and con- stantly increasing bribe of the public offices had been removed from the elec- tions. But he knew how long the cor- rupting influences had been at work, and how careless and apathetic was the great body of good citizens; how slow reform would be, how hesitating and capricious, now advancing, now retrograding, now apparently dead, and again instinct with new and stronger life. When, there- fore, Mr. Curtis gave himself to this re- form, he understood that it was an en- listment for life. It was no work for the pessimist or unbeliever. It would demand from its friends patience and courage and the highest faith in the peo- ple, and he was glad to give it the devo- tion of his life. The amount of labor Mr. Curtis gave to this work from first to last is sur- prising. His annual and occasional ad- dresses and his editorials on the subject would fill volumes. He was president of the leading local association, that of New York, and also president of the National League, and every important detail of the reform movement was un- der his inspection. That which always struck me as his strongest mental char- acteristic was his common sense. His judgment was almost unerring, and his tact was marvelous. His mind seemed never closed to a new suggestion. If it had force, he recognized it immediately; if not, he put it aside with such gentle but conclusive refutation that its author was almost glad not to have it accepted. High as was the standard of his own thinking and living, he was of all men the least censorious. Easily superior in mental gifts and accomplishments, in that personal attractiveness which is the genius of character, he never showed that he was conscious of it. His asso- ciates in the League felt that he was the natural leader; but among them, while most effectively leading, he seemed to be only the most hearty and generous of comrades. For ten successive years, at the annual meeting of the League, the president de- livered an address containing a r~sum~ of the pertinent events of the past year, accompanied by a wealth of appropriate comment and argument, and glowing with the fervid faith of a patriotism that never desponded. The old - fashioned divines deemed a sermon incomplete un- less it contained enough gospel truth to save the soul of a hearer for the first 24 George William Curtis and Civil Servie~ Reform. [January, time listening to the good tidings. As expositions of the gospel of civil ser- vice reform, each one of these addresses would sustain the test of a similar de- mand. The ten constitute an iinperish- able monument to Mr. Curtis as a pa- triot an(l reformer, but the fascination of their delivery will soon be but a tra- dition; the vibrating tones of his voice, sweet and full as a mellow instrument, the fit interpreter of an eloquence that never stooped to ignoble service, have died to an echo. The last of tbese remarkable addresses, delivered at Baltimore in April last, was on the highest level of pbilosophic thought and aggressive courage, and fully equal to the best of its predecessors. In it he spoke as the true tribune of the people, demanding restraint of the ex- ecutive power that party had usurped, and maintained only by the arbitrary control of patronage. Progress in tbe legal security of liberty, he said, has been always effected by regulating the executive power which is the final force in all politically organized communities. But the executive power, whether in the hands of a king or a party, does not change its nature. It seeks its own aggrandizement, and cannot safely be trusted. Buckle says that no man is wise enough and strong enough to be en- trusted with absolute authority; it fires his brain and maddens him. But this, which is true of an individual, is not less true of an aggregate of individuals or a party. A party needs watching as much as a king. Armed with the arbitra- ry power of patronage, party overbears the free expression of the popular will, and intrenches itself in illicit power. It makes the whole civil service a drilled and disciplined army whose living de- pends upon carrying elections at any cost for the party which controls it. Patron- age has but to capture the local prima- ry meeting, and it controls the whole party organization. Every member of the party must submit or renounce his party allegiance, and with it the gratifi- cation of his political ambition. When the control of patronage passed from royal prerogative to popular party, the spirit and purpose of its exercise did not substantially change. A. hundred years ago, in England, tbe king bought votes in Parliament; to-day, an Ameri- can party buys votes at tbe polls. The party system has subjected the citizen to the machine, and its first great re- source is tbe bribery fund of patronage. Tammany Hall defends itself as Humne defended tbe king. The plea of both is the same. The king must maintain the Crown against Parliament, and he can do it only by corruption, said Hume. Party is necessary, says Tammany, but party organization can be made effective only by workers. Workers must be paid, and the patronage of the government, that is to say the emnolument of place, is the natural fund for such payment. This is the simple plea of the spoils system. It places every party on a wholly venal basis. . . . Like a sleuth-hound, distrust must follow executive power, however it may double and whatever form it may assume. It is as much the safeguard of popular right against the will of a party as against the prerogative of a king. The great commonplace of our political speech, eternal vigilance is tbe price of liberty, is fundamentally true. It is a Scripture essential to political salvation. The demand for civil service reform is a cry of that eternal vigilance for still further restriction by the people of the delegated executive power. Civil ser- vice reform, therefore, is but another step in the development of liberty under law. It is not eccentric or revolution- ary. It is a logical measure of political progress.~~ When the fatal illness of Mr. Curtis was announced, there were thousands to whom the question at once occurred, What will be the effect upon civil ser- vice reform ~ Those who had been near to him, who 1893.] The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia. 25 knew how great his services had been and how indispensable he seemed to the cause, asked one another the question perhaps with something like dismay. Though of all men the most modest, the question may have occurred to Mr. Cur- tis himself, as the conviction grew upon him that his work was done, and the re- form was not yet absolutely secure. He had witnessed from year to year the de- liant spirit of party managers, and how, in (lisregard of solemn pledges, they had refused obedience to this law. He re- meinbered how reluctant had been and would be its extension. He knew, as he had said at Baltimore, that party ma- chines no more favor civil service reform than kings favor the restriction of the royal prerogative; but he knew too, as also he had said at Baltimore, that if party machines, truculent and defiant, like kings resist, like kings they yield at last to the people. Ten years of suc- cessful trial had demonstrated the true character of the new system. He could not doubt that popular opinion from year to year set more strongly in its favor. The only question that remained was that of extension, and the answer to that ques tion could not be long delayed. Whoever might be the next President, the reform must go on. At Boston, two years before, Mr. Cur- tis had said: The reformer who would despond because no party has yet adopted rezorm would despond of day because the sun does not rise at dawn. Civil service reform is not yet established, for the same reason that slavery was not at once destroyed when its enormity was perceived and acknowledged. Like po- litical corruption, slavery was intrenched in tradition, and only gradually did con- viction ripen into purpose, and private wish tower into indomitable public will. It was a dark shadow, in which long and shamefully the country walked, its conscience wounded, its name disgraced. But the Union emerged in the clear light of liberty, and there is no American who would turn backward to the evil day. The same conscience, the same intelli- gence, that at last overthrew slavery now proposes, with the same undismayed per- sistence, to slay political corruption, and every sign shows that we, like our bro- thers of the last generation, are walking toward the light.? Sherman S. Rogers. THE FEUDAL CHIEFS OF ACADIA. I. WITH the opening of the seventeenth century began that contest for the owner- ship of North America which was to re~ main undecided for a century and a half. England claimed the continent in right of the discovery by the Cabots in 1497 and 1498, and France claimed it in right of the voyage of Verrazzano in 1524. Each resented the claim of the other, and each snatched such fragments of the prize as she could reach, and kept them if she could. In 1604, Henry IV. of France gave to De Monts all America from the fortieth to the forty-sixth de- gree of north latitude, including the sites of Philadelphia on the one hand, and Montreal on the other; while eight years after, Louis XIII. gave to Madame de Guereheville and the Jesuits the whole continent from Florida to the St. Law- rence, that is, the whole of the future British colonies. Again, in 1621, James I. of England made over a part of this generous domain to a subject of his own, Sir William Alexander, to whom he gave, under the name of Nova Scotia?

1893.] The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia. 25 knew how great his services had been and how indispensable he seemed to the cause, asked one another the question perhaps with something like dismay. Though of all men the most modest, the question may have occurred to Mr. Cur- tis himself, as the conviction grew upon him that his work was done, and the re- form was not yet absolutely secure. He had witnessed from year to year the de- liant spirit of party managers, and how, in (lisregard of solemn pledges, they had refused obedience to this law. He re- meinbered how reluctant had been and would be its extension. He knew, as he had said at Baltimore, that party ma- chines no more favor civil service reform than kings favor the restriction of the royal prerogative; but he knew too, as also he had said at Baltimore, that if party machines, truculent and defiant, like kings resist, like kings they yield at last to the people. Ten years of suc- cessful trial had demonstrated the true character of the new system. He could not doubt that popular opinion from year to year set more strongly in its favor. The only question that remained was that of extension, and the answer to that ques tion could not be long delayed. Whoever might be the next President, the reform must go on. At Boston, two years before, Mr. Cur- tis had said: The reformer who would despond because no party has yet adopted rezorm would despond of day because the sun does not rise at dawn. Civil service reform is not yet established, for the same reason that slavery was not at once destroyed when its enormity was perceived and acknowledged. Like po- litical corruption, slavery was intrenched in tradition, and only gradually did con- viction ripen into purpose, and private wish tower into indomitable public will. It was a dark shadow, in which long and shamefully the country walked, its conscience wounded, its name disgraced. But the Union emerged in the clear light of liberty, and there is no American who would turn backward to the evil day. The same conscience, the same intelli- gence, that at last overthrew slavery now proposes, with the same undismayed per- sistence, to slay political corruption, and every sign shows that we, like our bro- thers of the last generation, are walking toward the light.? Sherman S. Rogers. THE FEUDAL CHIEFS OF ACADIA. I. WITH the opening of the seventeenth century began that contest for the owner- ship of North America which was to re~ main undecided for a century and a half. England claimed the continent in right of the discovery by the Cabots in 1497 and 1498, and France claimed it in right of the voyage of Verrazzano in 1524. Each resented the claim of the other, and each snatched such fragments of the prize as she could reach, and kept them if she could. In 1604, Henry IV. of France gave to De Monts all America from the fortieth to the forty-sixth de- gree of north latitude, including the sites of Philadelphia on the one hand, and Montreal on the other; while eight years after, Louis XIII. gave to Madame de Guereheville and the Jesuits the whole continent from Florida to the St. Law- rence, that is, the whole of the future British colonies. Again, in 1621, James I. of England made over a part of this generous domain to a subject of his own, Sir William Alexander, to whom he gave, under the name of Nova Scotia? 26 The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia. [January, the peninsula which is now so called, together with a vast adjacent wilderness, to be held forever as a flef of the Scot- tish Crown. Sir William, not yet satis- fied, soon got an additional grant of the River and Gulf of Canada, along with a belt of land three hundred miles wide, reaching across the continent. Thus the king of France gave to Frenchmen the sites of Boston, New York, and Wash- ington, and the king of England gave to a Scotchman the sites of Quebec and Montreal. But while the seeds of inter- national war were sown broadcast over the continent, an obscure corner of the vast regions in dispute became the scene of an intestine strife like the bloody con- flicts of two feudal chiefs in the depths of the Middle Ages. After the lawless inroads of Argall, the French, with young Biencourt at their head, still kept a feeble hold on Acadia. After the death of his father, Poutrincourt, Biencourt took his name, by which thenceforth he was usually known. In his distress, he lived much like an Indian, roaming the woods with a few followers, and subsisting on fish, game, roots, and lichens. He seems, how- ever, to have found means to build a small fort among the rocks and fogs of Cape Sable. He named it Fort Lom6- ron, and here he appears to have main- tained himself for a time by fishing and the fur trade. Many years before, a French boy of fourteen years, Charles Saint - Etienne de la Tour, was brought to Acadia by his father, Claude de la Tour, where he became attached to the service of Bien- court (Poutrincourt), and, as he himself says, served as his ensign and lieuten- ant. He says farther that Biencourt, on his death, left him all his property in Acadia. It was thus, it seems, that La Tour became owner of Fort Lom6ron and its dependencies at Cape Sable, where- upon he begged the king to give him help against his enemies, especially the Eng- lish, who, as he thought, macant to seize the country; and he begged also for a commission to command in Acadia for his Majesty. In fact, Sir William Alexander soon tried to dispossess him and seize his fort. Charles de la Tours father had been captured at sea by the privateer Kirke and carried to England. Here, being a widower, he married a lady of honor of the queen, and, being a Protestant, renounced his French allegiance. Alex- ander made him a Baronet of Nova Scotia, a new title which King James had authorized Sir William to confer on persons of consideration aiding him in his work of colonizing Acadia. Alex- ander now fitted out two ships, with which he sent the elder La Tour to Cape Sable. On arriving, the father, says the story, made the most brilliant offers to his son if he would give up Fort Lom~ron to the English, to which young La Tour is re- ported to have answered, in a burst of patriotism, that he would take no favors except from his sovereign, the king of France. On this, the English are said to have attacked the fort, and to have been beaten off. As the elder La Tour could not keep his promise to deliver the place to the English, they would have no more to do with him, on which his dutiful son offered him an asylum, on condition that he should never enter the fort. A house was built for him outside the ramparts, and here the trader Nico- las Denys found him in 1635. It is Denys who tells the above story, which he probably got from the younger La Tour, and which, as be tells it, is in- consistent with the known character of its pretended hero, who was no model of loyalty to his king, being a chameleon whose principles took the color of his interests. Denys says farther that the elder La Tour had been invested with the order of the Garter, and that the same dignity was offered to his son, which is absurd. The truth is that Sir William Alexander, thinking that the 1893.] The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia. 27 two La Tours might be useful to him, made them both Baronets of Nova Sco- tia. Young La Tour, while begging Louis XIII. for a commission to command in Acadia, got from Sir William Alexan- der not only the title of Baronet, but also a large grant of land at and near Cape Sable, to be held as a fief of the Scottish Crown. Again, he got from the French king a grant of land on the river St. John, and, to make assurance doubly sure, got leave from Sir William Alex- ander to occupy it. This he soon did, and built a fort near the mouth of the river, not far from the present city of St. John. Meanwhile, the French had made a lodgment on the rock of Quebec, and not many years after, all North America, from Florida to the arctic circle, and from Newfoundland to the springs of the St. Lawrence, was given by King Louis to the Company of New France, with Richelieu at its head. Sir Wil- liam Alexander, jealous of this powerful rivalry, caused a private expedition to be fitted out under the brothers Kirke. It succeeded, and the French settlements in Acadia and Canada were transferred by conquest to England. England soon gave them back by the treaty of St. Germain, and Claude Razilly, a Knight of Malta, was charged to take possession of them in the name of King Louis. Full powers were given him over the restored domains, together with grants of Acadian lands for himself. Razilly reached Port Royal in August, 1632, with three hundred men, and the Scotch colony planted there by Alexan- der gave up the place in obedience to an order from the king of England. Un- fortunately for Charles de la Tour, ~a- 1 The modern representative of this family, Comte Jules de Menon, is the author of a re- markable manuscript book, written from family papers and official documents, and entitled LAcadie colonis6e par Charles de Menon dAunay Charnisay. I have Lollowed Count zilly brought with him an officer destined to become La Tours worst enemy. This was Charles de Menou dAunay Char- nisay, a gentleman of birth and charac- ter, who acted as his commanders man of trust, and who, in Razillys name, pre- sently took possession of such other feeble English and Scotch settlements as had been begun by Alexander or the peo- ple of New England along the coasts of Nova Scotia and Maine. This placed the French Crown and the Company of New France in sole possession for a time of the region then called Acadia. When Acadia was restored to France, La Tours English title to his lands at Cape Sable became worthless. He has- tened to Paris to fortify his position, and, suppressing his dallyings with England and Sir William Alexander, he succeed- ed in getting an extensive grant of lands at Cape Sable, along with the title of lieutenant-general for the king in Fort Lom6ron and its dependencies, and com- mander at Cape Sable for the Company of New France. Razilly, who represented the king in Aendia, died in 1635, and left his au- thority to DAunay Charnisay, his rela- tive and second in command. ]IYAunay made his headquarters at Port Royal. and nobody disputed his authority ex- cept La Tour, who pretended to be in- dependent of him in virtue of his com- mission from the Crown and his grant from the Company. Hence rose dissen- sions that grew at last into war. The two rivals differed widely in po- sition and qualities. Charles de Menou, Seigneur dAunay Charnisay, came of an old and distinguished 1~amily of Tou- raine,1 and he prided himself above all things on his character of gentilhomm~e frctn~ais. Charles Saint-Etienne de la de Menous spelling of the name. It is often written dAulnay, and by New England wri- ters dAulney. The manuscript just men- tioned is in my possession. Count de Menou is also the author of a printed work called Preuves de lHistoire de la Maison de Menon. The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia. Tour was of less conspicuous lineage. In fact, his father, Claude de la Tour, is said by his enemies to have been at one time so reduced in circumstances that he carried on the trade of a mason in Rue St. Germain at Paris. The son, however, is called gentilhomme dune naissance distingu6e, both in papers of the court and in a legal document drawn up in the interest of his children. As he came to Acadia when a boy, he could have had little education, and both he and DAunay carried on trade, which in France would have derogated from their claims as gentlemen, though in America the fur trade was not held inconsistent with noblesse. Of La Tours little kingdom at Cape Sable, with its rocks, fogs, and breakers, its seal-haunted islets and ironbound shores guarded by Fort Lom6ron, we have but dim and uncertain glimpses. After the death of Biencourt, La Tour is said to have roamed the woods with eighteen or twenty men, living a vaga- bond life, with no exercise of religion. He himself admits that he was forced to live like the Indians, as did Biencourt before him. Better times had come, and he was now commander of Fort Lo- m6ron, or, as he called it, Fort La Tour, with a few Frenchmen and a band @f Micmac Indians. His next neighbor was the adventurer Nicolas Denys, who, with a view to the timber trade, had set- tled with twelve men on a small river a few leagues distant. Here Razilly had once made him a visit, and was enter- tained under a tent of boughs, with a sylvan feast of wild pigeons, brant, teal, woodcock, snipe, and larks, cheered by profuse white wine and claret, and fol- lowed by a dessert of wild raspberries. On the other side of the Acadian pe- ninsula, DAunay reigned at Port Royal like a feudal lord, which in fact he was. ~ The true surname of La Tours family, which belonged to the neighborhood of Evreux, in Normandy, was Targis. The designation of La Tour was probably derived froni the name Denys, who did not like him, says that he wanted only to rule, and treated his settlers like slaves; but this, even if true at the time, did not always remain so. DAunay went to France in 1641, and brought out, at his own charge, twenty families to people his seigniory. He had already brought out a wife, having espoused Jeanne lolin or Motin, daugh- ter of the Seigneur de Courcelles. What with old settlers and new, about forty families were gathered at Port Royal and on the river Annapolis, and over these I)Aunay ruled like a feudal Rob- inson Crusoe. He gave each colonist a farni, charged with a perpetual rent of one son an acre. The houses of the set- tlers were log cabins, and the manor- house of their lord was a larger building of the same kind. The most pressing need was of defense, and DAunay lost no time in repairing and reconstruct- ing the old fort on the point between Allens River and the Annapolis. He helped his tenants at their work, and his confessor describes him as returning to his rough manor - house on a wet day, drenched with raiij and bespattered with mud, but in perfect good humor, after helping some of the inhabitants to mark out a field. The confessor declares that during the eleven months of his ac- quaintance with him he never heard him speak ill of anybody, a statement which must probably be taken with allowance. This proud scion of a noble stock seems to have given himself with good grace to the rough labors of the frontiersman, while Father Ignace, the Capuebin friar, praises him for the merit, transcendent in clerical eyes, of constant attendance at mass and frequent confession. With his neighbors, the Micmac In- 9 dians, he was on the best of terms. He supplied their needs, and they brought him the furs that enabled him in some of some family estate, after a custom common in France under the old r~gime. The Turgis arms were dor au chevron de sable, accoepagn~ de trois pal mes de m5rne. 28 [January, f/ike Feudal Chiefs of Acadia. measure to bear the heavy charges of an establishment that could not for many years be self-supporting. The Indians are said to have brought to Port Royal in a single year three thousand moose skins, besides beaver and other valuable furs. Yet, from a commercial point of view, DAunay did not prosper. He had sold or mortgaged his estates in France, borro~ved large sums, built ships, bought cannon, levied soldiers, and brought over immigrants. He is reported to have had three hundred lighting men at his prin- cipal station, and sixty cannon mounted on his ships and forts; for besides Port Royal he had two or three smaller estab- lishments. Port Royal was a scene for an artist, with its fort; its soldiers in breastplate and morion, armed with pike, halberd, or matchlock; its manor-house of logs, and its seminary of like construction; its twelve Capuchin friars, with cowled heads, sandaled feet, and the cord of St. Francis; the birch canoes of Micmac and Abenaki Indians lying along the strand, and their feathered and painted owners lounging about the place or doz- ing around their wigwam fires. It was medjievalism married to primeval sav- agery. The friars were supported by a fund supplied by Richelieu, and their chief business was to convert the Indians into vassals of France, the Church, and the Chevalier dAunay. Hard by was a wooden chapel, where the seignior knelt in. dutiful observance of every rite, and where, under a stone chiseled with his ancient scutcheon, one of his children lay buried. In the fort he had not for- gotten to provide a dungeon for his ene- mies. The worst of these was Charles de la Tour. Before the time of Razilly and Besides succeeding to the authority of Ra- zilly, DAunay had bought of his heirs their land claims in Acadia. (Arr~ts du Conseil, 9 Mars, 1642.) 2 Louis XIII. ~ dAunay, 10 F~vrier, 1688. This seems to be the occasion of Charlevoixs his successor, DAunay, La Tour had felt himself the chief man in Acadia; but now he was confronted by a rival higher in rank, superior in resources and court influence, proud, ambitious, and masterfuL2 He was bitterly jealous of DAunay, and, to strengthen himself against so formidable a neighbor, he got from the Company of New France the grant of a tract of land at the mouth of the river St. John, where he built a fort and called it after his own name, though it was better known as Fort St. Jean. Thither he removed from his old post at Cape Sable, and Fort St. Jean became his chief station. It confronted its rival, Port Royal, across the intervening Bay of Fundy. Now began a bitter feud between the two chiefs, each claiming lands occupied by the other. The court interposed to settle the dispute, but in its ignorance of Acadian geography its definitions were so obscure that the question was more embroiled than ever.2 While the domestic feud of the rivals was gathering to a head, foreign heretics had fastened their clutches on various parts of the Atlantic coast which France and the Church claimed as their own. English heretics had made lodgment in Virginia, and Dutch heretics at the mouth of the Hudson, while other secta- ries of the most malignant type had ken- neled among the sands and pine-trees of Plymouth, and others still, slightly different but equally venomous, had en- sconced themselves on or near a small peninsula which they called Boston, at the head of La Grande Baye or Bay of Massachusetts. As it was not easy to dislodge them, the French dissembled for a while, yielded to the logic of events, and bided their time. But the inter- inexact assbrtion that Acadia was divided into three governments, under DAunay, La Tour, aud Nicolas Denys respectively. The title of Denys, such as it was, had no existence till 1654. 189~.J 29 30 The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia. [January, lopers soon began to swarm northward and invade the soil of Acadia, sacred to God and the king. Small parties from Plymouth built trading-houses at Machias and at what is now Castine, on the Penobscot. As they were competi- tors in trade no less than foes of God and King Louis, and as they were too few to resist, both La Tour and DAunay resolved to expel them; and in 1633 La Tour attacked the Plymouth trading- house at Machias, killed two of the five men he found there, carried off the other three, and seized all the goods. Two years later, DAunay attacked the Ply- mouth trading-station at Penobscot, the Pentegoet of the French, and took it in the name of King Louis. That he might not appear in the part of a pirate he set a price on the goods of the traders, and then, having seized them, gave in return his promise to pay at some convenient time, if the owners would come to him for the money. DAunay had called upon La Tour to help him in this raid against Penobscot; but La Tour, unwilling to recognize his right to command, had refused. He had hoped that DAunay, becoming disgust- ed with his Acadian venture, which pro- mised neither honor nor profit, would give it up, go back to France and stay there. About the year 1638, DAunay did in fact go to France, but not to re- main, for iu due time he reappeared; and it was then that he brought with him his bride, Jeanne Motin, who had had the courage to share his fortunes, and whom he now installed at Port Royal, a sure sign, his rival thought, that he meant to make his home there. Dis- appointed and angry, La Tour lost pa- tience, went to Port Royal and tried to stir DAunays soldiers to mutiny; then he set on his Indian friends to attack a boat in which was one of DAunays sol- diers and a Capuchin friar, the soldier being killed, though the friar escaped. This was the beginning of a quarrel waged partly at Port Royal and St. Jean, and partly before the admiralty court of Guienne and the royal council; part- ly with bullets and cannon shot, and partly with edicts, decrees, and proc~s- verl3aux. As DAunay had taken a wife, so too would La Tour, and he charged his agent Desjardins to bring him one from France. The agent acquitted himself of his delicate mission, and shipped to Acadia one Marie Jacquelins, daughter of a barber of Mans, if we may believe the questionable evidence of his rivaL Be this as it may, Marie Jacquelins proved a prodigy of mettle and energy, espoused her husbands cause with pas- sionate vehemence, and backed his quar- rel like the intrepid Amazon she was. She joined La Tour at Fort St. Jean, and proved the most strenuous of allies. About this time DAunay heard that the English of Plymouth meant to try to recover Penobscot from his hands. On this he sent nine soldiers thither with provisions and munitions. La Tour seized them on the way, carried them to Fort St. Jean, and, according to his ene- mies, treated them like slaves. DAunay heard nothing of this till four months after, when, being told of it by Indians, he sailed in person to Pcnobscot with two small vessels, reinforced the place, and was on his way back to Port Royal when La Tour met him with two armed pinnaces. A fight took place, and one of DAunays vessels was dismasted. He fought so well, however, that Cap- tain Jamin, his enemys chief officer, was killed, and the rest of the party, in- cluding La Tour, his new wife, and his agent Desjardins, were forced to surren- der and were carried prisoners to Port RoyaL At the request of the Capuchin friars, DAunay set them all at liberty, after compelling La Tour to sign a promise to keep the peace in future. Both parties now laid their cases before the French courts, and, whether from the justice of his cause or from superior influence, 1893.] The Feudal Chiefs of Acadia. 31 ID Aunay prevailed. La Tours s commis- sion was revoked, and he was ordered to report himself in France to receive the kings commands. Trusting to his remoteness from the seat of power, and knowing that the king was often ill served and worse informed, he did not obey, but remained in Acadia exercis- ing his authority as before. DAunays father, from his house in Rue St. Ger- main, watched over the interests of his son, and took care that La Tours con- duct should not be unknown at court. A decree was thereupon issued, directing DAunay to seize his rivals forts in the name of the king, and place them in charge of trusty persons. The order was precise, but DAunay had not at the time force enough to execute it, and the frugal king sent him only six sol- diers. Hence he could only show the royal order to La Tour, and offer him a passage to France in one of his vessels, if he had the discretion to obey. La Tour refused, upon which DAunay re- turned to France to report his rivals contumacy. At about the same time La Tours French agent sent him a vessel with succors. rrhe king ordered it to be seized, but the order came too late, for the vessel had already sailed from Ro- chelle bound to Fort St. Jean. When DAunay reported the audacious conduct of his enemy, the royal coun- cil ordered that the offender should be brought prisoner to France; and DAu- nay, as the kings lieutenant-general in Acadia, was again required to execute the decree. La Tour was now in the position of a rebel, and all legality was on the side of his enemy, who represent- ed royalty itself. ZDAunay sailed at once for Acadia, and in August, 1642, anchored at the mouth of the St. John, before La Tours fort, and sent three gentlemen in a boat to read to its owner the decree of the council and the order of the king. La Tour snatched the papers, crushed them between his hands, abused the envoys roundly, put them and their four sailors into prison, and kept them there more than a year. His position was now desperate, for he had placed himself in open revolt. Alarmed for the consequences, he turned for help to the heretics of Boston. True Catholics detested them as foes of God and man, but La Tour was neither true Catholic nor true Protestant, and would join hands with anybody who could serve his turn. Twice before he had made advances to the Boston malignants~ and sent to them, first one Rochet, and then one Lestang, with proposals of trade and alliance. The envoys were treated with courtesy, but could get no promise of ac- tive aid. Desjardins had sent La Tour from Rochelle a ship called the St. Clement, manned by a hundred and forty Hugue- nots, laden with stores and munitions, and commanded by Captain Mouron. In due time, La Tour, at Fort St. Jean, heard that the St. Clement lay off tI~ mouth of the river, unable to get in be- cause DAunay was blockading the en- trance with two armed ships and a pin- nace. On this he resolved to appeal in person to the heretics. He ran the blockade in a small boat, under cover of night, and, accompanied by his wife, boarded the St. Clement and sailed for Boston. Franei5 Parkman. 32 To a Wild Rose jound in October. TO A WILD ROSE FOUND IN OCTOBER. THOU foolish blossom, all untimely blown, Poor jest of summer, come when woods are chill! Thy sister buds in Junes warm redness grown, That lit with laughter all the upland hill, Have traceless passed; save on each thorned stem Red drops tell how their hearts, in dying, bled. Theirs was the noons rich languor, and for them The maiden moon her haloed beauty spread. For them the bobolink his music spilled In bubbling streams, and well the wild bee knew Their honeyed hearts. Now bird and bee are stilled, Now southward swallows hurry down tIme blue, Fleeing the murderous Frost that even now Hath smote the marshes with his bitter breath, Quenching the flames that danced on vine and bough, Thinkst thou thy beauty will make truce with Death, Or hold in summers leash his loosened wrath? See! oer the shrunk grass trail the blackened vines; And hark! the wind, tracking the snows fell path, Snarls like a fretted hound among the pines. The pallid sunshine fails, a sudden gloom Sweeps up the vale, a-thrill with boding fear. What place for thee? Too late thy pride and bloom! Born out of time, poor fool, what dost thou here? What do I here when speeds the threatening blight? June stirred my heart, and 50 June is for me. Who feels lifes impulse bourgeon into light Recks not of seasons, knows not bird or bee. I can but bloom, did the June roses more? I can but droop, did they not also die? The Moment is; the After or Before Hides all from sight. Canst thou tell more than I? What matters if to-night come swirling snow And Death? The Power that makes, that mars, is One. I know nor care not; when that Power bids blow I ope my curh~d petals to the sun~ ~January, Ednah Proctor Clarke.

32 To a Wild Rose jound in October. TO A WILD ROSE FOUND IN OCTOBER. THOU foolish blossom, all untimely blown, Poor jest of summer, come when woods are chill! Thy sister buds in Junes warm redness grown, That lit with laughter all the upland hill, Have traceless passed; save on each thorned stem Red drops tell how their hearts, in dying, bled. Theirs was the noons rich languor, and for them The maiden moon her haloed beauty spread. For them the bobolink his music spilled In bubbling streams, and well the wild bee knew Their honeyed hearts. Now bird and bee are stilled, Now southward swallows hurry down tIme blue, Fleeing the murderous Frost that even now Hath smote the marshes with his bitter breath, Quenching the flames that danced on vine and bough, Thinkst thou thy beauty will make truce with Death, Or hold in summers leash his loosened wrath? See! oer the shrunk grass trail the blackened vines; And hark! the wind, tracking the snows fell path, Snarls like a fretted hound among the pines. The pallid sunshine fails, a sudden gloom Sweeps up the vale, a-thrill with boding fear. What place for thee? Too late thy pride and bloom! Born out of time, poor fool, what dost thou here? What do I here when speeds the threatening blight? June stirred my heart, and 50 June is for me. Who feels lifes impulse bourgeon into light Recks not of seasons, knows not bird or bee. I can but bloom, did the June roses more? I can but droop, did they not also die? The Moment is; the After or Before Hides all from sight. Canst thou tell more than I? What matters if to-night come swirling snow And Death? The Power that makes, that mars, is One. I know nor care not; when that Power bids blow I ope my curh~d petals to the sun~ ~January, Ednah Proctor Clarke. 1893.] Diary of a Ner~vous Invalid. 33 DIARY OF A NERVOUS INVALID~ PREFATORY NOTE. hi what they call a trained nurse and a strictly professional woman. The only reason lye got for bringin myself in here is to explain that I come by this diary all right. It was give to me by the one that wrote it, who was an own cousin of mine, though Im free to say she warnt ever very proud of the con- nection. I guess its all right in the wri- tin way, for she and her family always set up to know all about books. She give it to me when she went off to In- dia and told me to do what I liked with it. I kep it quite a spell before I read it. Then I showed it to Dr. P., the great authority on this sort of cases, and he told me to send it to a magazine, and thats what I done; and thats all there is of it cept for two or three things I couldut help puttia in. SARAH J. PLUNKETT. DIARY. June 7, 1886. Another miserable night. Counted the clock hammer out all the small hours. What a heathenish fashion to have clocks strike in the night! I lay actually trembling between the strokes. An alarm of fire, too, but nobody in our house heard it. Mother and Maria sleep through noises like that and call themselves light sleepers. But that is nothing; one does get now and then perfunctory sy~npathy for such commonplace clatter. It is the things other folks dont hear the cracking of furniture, the snapping of basket-ware, the wave-sounds of nothingness, the crep- itation of impalpable ether which make the night infernal. I was calculating during my sleepless- ness, I have been ill ten years to-day. YOL. LXXI. NO. 423. 3 Ten? Ten, and I am still alive. I shud- der to think what I have been through, the doctors, the nurses, the systems, the cures, and all the fol-de-rol; and the money, too, I have paid out, or mother has paid out for me, and the faith I had in them all. That, perhaps, was just as well: the more fool I was in that respect, the happier for the time being. It is clear enough now that I can never get well. The physical misery I could bear, I am used to it; but the insensi- bility and stupidity of human beings, can I bear that? We shall see! June 13. Worse for a week. A steady downpour. It is bad enough to get along in the sunshine. They say there are cli- mates where it never rains, and if I ever get rich But my wits are wandering. Phil came to-day. He has a malign ingenuity for choosing the hour for my nap. Of course I had to see him, or he would have gone away hurt. It is almost incredible to think, how- ever, that we are actually engaged, a man with no spontaneous feeling what- ever. As he sat staring at me, so ruddy, so round-faced, so well, and hoped I was more comfortable and was getting better, I had a weak inclination to scream. But I dare say he is just like other men. June 20. Three fairly good days, when what does Maria do but let Mrs. Prattle loose on me. Maria certainly acts some- times as if she were out of her head. Mrs. P. stayed an entire hour, and talked every circling instant. Such talk! the veriest gabble. How occupied with themselves these young married women are! On the whole, if there is one social bore worse than another, they bear off the palm. It s always the same twad- dle; always about their babies. As if babies were nt as alike as a litter of puppies, or there could be anything new to say about them! The idea, too, of

1893.] Diary of a Ner~vous Invalid. 33 DIARY OF A NERVOUS INVALID~ PREFATORY NOTE. hi what they call a trained nurse and a strictly professional woman. The only reason lye got for bringin myself in here is to explain that I come by this diary all right. It was give to me by the one that wrote it, who was an own cousin of mine, though Im free to say she warnt ever very proud of the con- nection. I guess its all right in the wri- tin way, for she and her family always set up to know all about books. She give it to me when she went off to In- dia and told me to do what I liked with it. I kep it quite a spell before I read it. Then I showed it to Dr. P., the great authority on this sort of cases, and he told me to send it to a magazine, and thats what I done; and thats all there is of it cept for two or three things I couldut help puttia in. SARAH J. PLUNKETT. DIARY. June 7, 1886. Another miserable night. Counted the clock hammer out all the small hours. What a heathenish fashion to have clocks strike in the night! I lay actually trembling between the strokes. An alarm of fire, too, but nobody in our house heard it. Mother and Maria sleep through noises like that and call themselves light sleepers. But that is nothing; one does get now and then perfunctory sy~npathy for such commonplace clatter. It is the things other folks dont hear the cracking of furniture, the snapping of basket-ware, the wave-sounds of nothingness, the crep- itation of impalpable ether which make the night infernal. I was calculating during my sleepless- ness, I have been ill ten years to-day. YOL. LXXI. NO. 423. 3 Ten? Ten, and I am still alive. I shud- der to think what I have been through, the doctors, the nurses, the systems, the cures, and all the fol-de-rol; and the money, too, I have paid out, or mother has paid out for me, and the faith I had in them all. That, perhaps, was just as well: the more fool I was in that respect, the happier for the time being. It is clear enough now that I can never get well. The physical misery I could bear, I am used to it; but the insensi- bility and stupidity of human beings, can I bear that? We shall see! June 13. Worse for a week. A steady downpour. It is bad enough to get along in the sunshine. They say there are cli- mates where it never rains, and if I ever get rich But my wits are wandering. Phil came to-day. He has a malign ingenuity for choosing the hour for my nap. Of course I had to see him, or he would have gone away hurt. It is almost incredible to think, how- ever, that we are actually engaged, a man with no spontaneous feeling what- ever. As he sat staring at me, so ruddy, so round-faced, so well, and hoped I was more comfortable and was getting better, I had a weak inclination to scream. But I dare say he is just like other men. June 20. Three fairly good days, when what does Maria do but let Mrs. Prattle loose on me. Maria certainly acts some- times as if she were out of her head. Mrs. P. stayed an entire hour, and talked every circling instant. Such talk! the veriest gabble. How occupied with themselves these young married women are! On the whole, if there is one social bore worse than another, they bear off the palm. It s always the same twad- dle; always about their babies. As if babies were nt as alike as a litter of puppies, or there could be anything new to say about them! The idea, too, of 34 Diary of a Nervous Invalid. [January, coming to see an invalid and never ask- ing a question or saying a word of sym- pathy! Positively, during the entire hour of her visit, that intelligent, well- meaning woman never so much as re- ferred to me. It was so richly humor- ous that I let her go on. I had to pay for it; a terrible night. June 23. Mother has heard such won- derful accounts of the massage treatment that she has persuaded me to try it. It sounds well enough, and I am willing to try anything. Did up my own hair, because Maria had to go out, with the natural result, a sinking turn. Yet they are always prating, If you would only exert your- self! June 30. Dr. Blank sent in his bill. Of course it is a large one. Consider- ing he has done me no good, it is very large. But mother, she acts as if she had nt a friend left on earth. I know she is nt rich, and a big bill is nt plea- sant. But I am n~ to blame for beimig sick, and I must have treatment. It never seems to occur to her that it s un- feeling to go about with that woebegone face. I was provoked to-day into tell- ing her roundly she might bless her stars I did nt have a couple of trained nurses, day and night. She asked me what I called Maria and her. I did nt laugh in her face, because I did nt want to hurt her feelings. It only goes to show the point of view of well folks. July 7. The masseuse has been com- ing every day for a fortnight, a huge animal, with the indefatigable look of a beast. She mauls and hauls me until I have no breath to protest. I sleep bet- ter, for she tires me almost to death, and naturally I sink at once into what they call sleep, but what is really a comatose condition. The whole family exclaims how much better I am, and the like. True, I have been downstairs and 1 have walked about a little, but it was simply because she had pommeled me until I was too lame to sit still. July 10. To-day I went for a little drive. Such a to-do as they made about it! One would have thought I had demanded a diamond necklace. Maria asked if I did nt think it would do me more good to walk. I replied, she knew it perfectly, I cant walk. I am longing for a breath of fresh air, but if it is so very unreasonable She broke in at once, Oh, if you want a drive, of course you must have it I Then she gave mother such a look. They must think I am stone-blind. However, I was indignant, and I let them get the carriage. When it drove up to the door, mother came down to go with me. Without thinking I said, You certainly are not going in that shabby old bonnet and cloak, mother; because if you are I d rather stay at home. Thereupon Maria spoke up tartly (she has nt the least consideration of my nerves when she s vexed), It s the best she s got, Agnes! Why, then, I asked as calmly as I was able, does nt she get better ones? Maria laughed in a most unpleasant manner, and mother said, in her long- suffering way, which is almost as trying, Because, my daughter, I cannot afford to; but if you think I do not look re- spectable, I will not go. By this time I was thoroughly irri- tated, and reasonably enough, I am sure, so I said, You certainly do not look what I call respectable. That s how I happened to go driving alone. Shall I ever forget the air with which Maria helped me downstairs into the carriage! I dont know. There is so much in life fo forget! July 12. Repose! Beatific word! Ah, if there were some spot on earth where it were possible! Folks in health use that word flippantly; it is only those who are tired, tired through every fibre, those who feel their membranes ache, why were we made with membranes ? that know what the word means. 1893.] Diary of a Nervous Invalid. 35 It means I say it purely in an edu- cational way to be freed of persons and places, of human noises, of all care of the past or the present, of all thought of existence; in short, it means heaven, if one could only be sure there would nt be a lot of tiresome people even there. July 15. I have given up the mas- sage; it may do for some folks, it never would for me. I got so I actually dread- ed the approach of that great cow of a woman. Mother was disappointed that I did nt give it what she calls a fair trial. It is so hard constantly to have to explain to her that I am not strong enough for such things. A whole week since Phil was here. To be sure, he has written and sent flowers. But his letters always harp on the same old string, what we shall do when you get well. I wonder if he really thinks I can get well under these condi- tions. About his flowers, I never hint what a trouble they are; Maria would let them stand in the same water three days, if I did nt make a fuss. I sup- pose Phil kept away because the last time he was here I asked him to go. I had to, or die on the spot. Men are so touchy. July 19. Mother came in to say that Maria had a sore throat and could nt read to me. They forget that being read to is the only solace I have. I cant read myself, because I cant hold the book. Mother looked pale and harassed, but she is constitutionally a Gummidge, so I did nt ask the matter. I passed the day staring at a spot on the wall. I thought of the limitations of those that come in touch with me. I thought of the vaunted modern spirit and what it has availed. Better Heine had never shaken Old German lodge out of his long sleep, or invaded with his profane foot the realms of Philistia. Better, a thousand times, that the road had been left open to respectability and its thousand gigs. What has modernism effected? Litera ture given over to realism, art to impres- sionisin, and society to vulgarity! We must perforce wait for the pool to stir; but I am used to waiting. July 23. Mother and Maria go to aunt Louisas funeral. As she was mo- thers only sister, of course mother had to go. But they seemed to think they must both go, so I did nt make any re- mark. I have got used to being left alone. Maria put in her head and said reassuringly as she went, Norah will look out for you. Norah did. She came in as soon as they were gone. I made her sit quite across the room and let her talk. T is the only way. The moment I stop her tongue she comes straight at me in that wild Irish way to do something which drives me almost into spasms. Och, Miss Agnis, but ye re lukin betther the day! Ye 11 soon be up now, I m thinkin. T will be the great day, that same, for yer muther, poor sowl. Haith an she s very bad these toimes, so she is ! What do you mean, Norah? Did nt ye see yersel how she s fall- in aff? Dade an she s not the same at all. T is only the bones av her is left; an to see her stop an shut up her two eyes when she d be workin round ye d think she d be dead intoirely. She is simply tired. You dont know what it is. I get horribly tired myself just hearing folks talk. Och t is not that at all. She puts her hand to her soide that-a-way ye d think the loife was lavin her; an it s what I m hopin ye d soon be gittin so she d be spared the tile of attindin ye. Me! She does very little for me, Im sure. It s not a great dale, darlint, but it s more than she s able fer, d ye see? Av ye cud coome down to yer males the way she wud nt be havin to bring em up! In very spoite o me she 11 always be takin up the tray hersel. Och but I kem an her won day sittin in the 36 Diary of a Nervous .TnvaUd. [January, middle av the sthairs, wid the tray in her lap, lukin she was ready to faint. She does nt do much for me, I tell you. She does up my hair in the morning, I cannot possibly do that, she mends my clothes, brings up my meals, and rubs me when I wake up in the night. That s what I was thinkin, darlint. Av ye cud only lave her to slape, it moight be thc~ makin av her, poor dear! But I cant do it, Norah! When I wake up, somebody must rub me, or I could nt go to sleep again. She says she cannot afford to get a nurse Troth an it s thrue for her, too. She spint so much money an the doch- ters she did nt get much left, d ye see, an There, there, run away back to the kitchen, Norah. It must be time to be getting supper. Mothers all right. She s getting old, thats all. Dont bother your head about her. July 24. Phil came again. I tried to look glad to see him. Candidly, the sight of him begins to irritate me. I dont know why. Perhaps because he is such an animal and so exasperatingly cheerful. I really cannot bear to have him kiss me, lie smells so of tobacco. He knows, too, how I hate it. And when he puts his a~m about me it seems as if he would break every bone in my body. I spend the whole time of his visits saying, Dont, Phil! Then his talk, his platitudes and stereotyped terms of endearment, how I know them all! For the rest, he ignores the fact that I m ill; treats me as if I were as well as a cook. It really takes me half an hour to simmer down after one of his visits, and hours to recover from the f a- tigue. To pretend to enjoy his comings, to endure his caresses, which is worse, to be a hypocrite, or to be truthful and a brute? August 3. Mother is sick, a slight attack of something. I am worried, but not alarmed. It is amusing what a fuss this little ill turn of mothers has excited in the household, everything turned topsy-turvy, the doctor sent for at once, when here I have been seriously sick for ten long years, and nobody displays any concern. A strange world! August 5. I am left to take care of myself. Have nearly starved. Norah has brought up my meals when she has happened to think of me. I cannot find out that there is anything particular the matter with mother, but she seems to need all of them the whole time to take care of her. August 5. Mother died last night. How frightful of them not to let me know she was seriously sick! Poor dear mother! She will be a terrible loss to me. T is a great consolation now to think that I was always dutiful and sympathetic and affectionate to her, and that we got on so well together. August 10. The funeral is over. I ye wept for days. I m so exhausted Norah has to feed me. I cannot think. I do not try. Nobody takes any notice of me. I see, as in a dream, Maria going about grim and white as a spectre. I suppose she is tired. She has had all the nursing. She might at least say a word. Poor mother! you were my only friend. I shall never know comfort again. August 13. A great change in Ma- ria. I dofit know what it means. She has suddenly taken a turn about, and now cannot do enough for me. I am overcome, and beg her to desist. August 15. The secret of Marias de- votion is out. It is conscience. She re- members her former indifference, and is now trying to take mothers place. She has moved her bed into the next room, and last night I was almost stupefied at having her come in to rub me as mother used to. August 17. Mrs. Prattle again. She talked endlessly about this new Rest Cure and the wonderful things it does. If there is such a thing as rest on earth, I m 1893.] Diary of a Nervous Invalid. 37 sure it would cure me. Goodness knows I need it. I tire of myself. I tire of everything. I tire of this endless strug- gle after sweetness and light. There are times, rare times, when 1 get glimpses of light. Sweetness I shall never know. I grow sour daily. I feel the fermentation striking in. Worse than all, I am for- ever getting back into the machinery. I feel its buzz and whir all around me. What is to be the end! August 20. The Rest Cure, it seems, is expensive. I say at once that ends the matter; but Mrs. P. goes and talks to Maria, and, to my amazement, Maria comes and says I must try it, expense or no expense, and so it is decided. October 3. Home again after nearly two months of the Rest Cure. It was a farce. I feared it. It is founded on stupidity. How expect one to rest when compelled to go to bed, and compelled to stay there! The element of compulsion defeats the cure. Rest means an absence of all constraint or restraint. It means doing what you want to, going where you like, eating what you care for, and choosing your own companions; it does not mean imprisonment. It also means the elimination of the doctor when he s sure he knows all about you; in short, when he s an But I refrain from an expression more strong than ladylike. After the first week I got more and more tired, and so ungovernably nervous that I should have died if I had stayed another hour. October 5. I cannot make out whe- ther Maria was glad to see me or not. She plainly does not approve of my com- ing home. As nobody has ever approved of anything I have done in life, that does nt signify. She wears the same grim and white look. Phil was unaffectedly delighted to see me. Somehow, I find myself forgiving P.s very glaring faults for these virtues of honesty and loyalty. October 9. Norah let out to-day that Maria is not at all well, and that she has been taking in work ever since I went away, to help pay my expenses at the Rest Cure. How horrid to be told of this! It destroys all my comfort and pleasure in getting home. What mar- plots servants are! Well, suppose Maria has worked. I would willingly work, if I were strong and well. However, it fixes me in one resolution: to try no more of their cures. I would a thousand times rather suffer than to have thrown in my teeth continually these sacrifices other folks are making for me. October 11. Maria does better than I ever thought she could. She is different from her old self; she has lost her habit of saying satiric things; she seems really to have me on her mind. Withal, how- ever, she is cultivating the long-suffering look mother used to have. I try not to call on her too much, but I am miserable these days; going away from home has put me back. October 15. To save Maria I let No- rah bring up my meals occasionally. It is amusing to hear the creature talk. Haith an I bike to see ye ate, Miss Agnis; it s yersel has the illigint ap- petoite. [Mem. She always ate enough for a farm-hand. S. J. P.] I? Yersel, sure. Why, I dont eat enough to keep a sparrow alive. Haith, thin, ye do, darlint, an a flock av thim! Ye ate far and away more than annybody else in the house, or the whole put togither. Miss Maria just touches the bit an the sup to kape the loife goin in her, an I afther brak- in me heart wid the cookin. October 17. Have been getting worse lately, but say nothing of it to any of them here. Had to get Maria up twice last night. Phil has been very attentive since I came home. I dont know why he should seem most tiresome when he is 88 Diary of a Nervous Invalid. [January, most attentive. At last I have had to ask him to send no more flowers. I am getting to hate them. The other night, too, I had to speak out and say I could nt have him stay more than ten minutes at a time. He looked hurt; he is al- ways looking hurt. October 19. Maria had the doctor. I questioned Norab, and found out that he gave her a tonic, and said she was run down. How familiar that old expres- sion, and how it does service! I have been run down these many years. But I hope Maria is nt going to be ill. They talk about a new system; it is Mrs. Prattle again, and despite my for- mer resolution and all my experience I am going to try it. I have been talked over. It has the merit of being new and original. It sounds reasonable. Its charm is, they give no doses and do not require one to do anything. October 22. Began on the Christian Science. A sloppy-looking woman came to see me. She asked me to describe my illness. I took her at her word. I went over the subject with particularity. I talked for an hour. She paid not the slightest heed. I stopped. She asked if that was all. I said it was only the beginning. To my surprise, she asked me to go on. I thought I had done her an injustice. I did go on. I talked for nearly another hour. I chanced to look around. She was fast asleep. I stopped, of course. When she waked up, she asked again if that was all. Naturally I said it was. Then, my dear, she said, getting np, you need never speak to me about yourself any more. You may be sure I shall not, I said, almost speechless with indignation ; and as for you, madam, you need not trouble yourself to call on me again. But she did, and in spite of me she persists in coming. I take no notice of her. Sometimes she stares at me in a blear-eyed way, but more often sits in the rocking-chair with her back to me. I have appealed to Maria, but Maria in- sists that the creature is doing me good, and if I were not so antagonistic would cure me. Antagonistic! Well, well, what matter what they say? October 25. Have got rid of the Chris- tian Science sister at last. I told her, if she persisted in visiting me against my will, I should write to the chief of police. She answered quite without emotion: You are making a great mistake. If you had not set yourself against me, I should have cured you. But dont get excited. I shall not come again. It is only a waste of time. I can do you no good. I forgive you, however, and I hope you will get well; but to do that you must get into another frame of mind. You must cultivate a more Christian spirit, and you can if you choose. So much for her. Sane persons will agree with my estimate of her, and I refrain from comment. As she and her sort are allowed to run at large, thank God that kind of lunacy is innocuous! It cannot do much harm. Its devotees have got hold of a partial truth, and amplified it into a theory. They say, ignore disease. Logically, they should say, do away with its causes. As well might they say, ignore sin instead of doing away with its cause, temptation. They will do either or both when hu- manity ceases to be humanity. Poor blind-worms ! their outlook is of linear narrowness; tIme trouble is, they pick out one fact and ignore the rest. But let them go. They might as well be- lieve in the millennium as in what they do. Perhaps they believe in both. Who cares? November 10. Maria down again. She has taken a bad cold. It is very awk- ward, for the dressmaker was coming to- morrow to make up my winter things; but I must not think of myself. November 13. Maria worse. They have got a nurse. How imprudent of her to get such a cold! I have to get 1893.] Diary of a Nervous Invalid. 39 along the best I can. Norah brings up my meals, and that is about all. How sickness upsets a family! However, I make no complaint. November 15. Maria has pneumonia, I heard by accident, and is seriously ill. I called in the doctor yesterday and made him confess. He said, with a look at me which I did not at all understand, She had been very much overworked; she was all run down. Well? It must not happen again: when she gets up from this if she does great consideration must be shown her; she must not be suffered to do any work. It seemed to me it would have been more appropriate if he had told all this to Norab, but I could nt explain to him. November 17. Maria died last night. I am now alone in the world. I am ut- terly unstrung. I cannot write. November 22. I have been too low for days to raise my head. Poor Maria! I could nt even be present at the But I cannot talk, I cannot think about it. How strange for a miserable wreck like me to survive them all! November 25. What am I to do? I cannot see my way. I am utterly mis- erable. November 27. Phil has been every day, of churse. Last night was the first time I could talk to him. He was full of sympathy of his kind. Said he wanted a serious talk with me as soon as I was able. I shall never, it seems, be able for anything again. November 28. How long can I live in this way! iNorah comes up to assist at my toilet. There is no help for it, though she soaks the bed in soap and water, makes me gritty with tooth-pow- der, combs my hair into snarls, and re- duces me to a state of chronic exaspera- tion. Then my meals, save the mark ! such hunks and messes! The secret of my former dainty trays is explained, poor mother and Maria! Rather poor me! Shall I ever know intimacy again? Did I ever have any real fellowship with them? No; real fellowship, thank the Eternal Father, is impossible between human beings. Fel- lowship should have been included by the great critic in his famous category with freedom, wealth, bodily vigor, and what not, which he ranges under the name machinery. December 2. Last night came Phil again. Said he could nt be put off any longer. I braced myself to listen. He went on in a long rigmarole about my being alone in the world, helpless, af- fairs involved, means limited, etc., I cannot remember; but the long and the short of it was, my condition was imprac- ticable and not to be thought of. I did not see what he was driving at, and let him go on. At last it all came out: he actually had the coolness to sug- gest that we should marry at once. When I got my breath, I told him flatly he was crazy. He stared at me stupidly. He could not understand me. He is simply a man, and men are born lacking in certain kinds of sense. I then went on to explain. I told him that, aside from the toil and trouble of getting ready, the mere excitement of going through the ceremony would kill me. He began to argue, hut I stopped him short. He was deeply offended, and it ended by his going away in a huff. December 3. Lay awake all night af- ter the scene with Phil. It has quite upset me. I feel a hundred years old. Realizing that such a thing must not happen again, I sat down this morning and wrote him a letter, in which I de- clared plainly that if everything I said and everything I did was going to re- sult in such a scene our engagement had better he broken; that it was too much for me, and I could nt endure it. December 5. Well, the thing is done! It may be all right, but I dont know. I feel light-headed about it. What I said was, I am sure, perfectly reasonable. 40 Diary of a Nervous Invalid. [January, Of course I did nt literally mean But what good to talk? It was bound to hap- pen. I am confident he was only await- ing some excuse. A letter from Phil, very crisp and topping, taking me, as he says, at my word, I dont remember now what I said, and breaking our engagement. I suppose, if I chose to write and ex- plain But I can never do it. Its as plain as day: he was only too glad of the excuse. His eagerness shows it. Any fair-minded person would say my letter was reasonable. He need nt think I will bear the blame of it, though; I wont. It was not my fault. December 6. Returned Phils pre- sents, forgot there were so many, and wrote him a letter which I think he will find it hard to answer. December 7. My presents returned without a word. I knew he would have hard work answering that letter, but thought he would at least try. He sees he is in the wrong. He has a very stub- born temper, and, like all folks of that sort, the deeper he is in the wrong the angrier he gets. December 10. Nothing more from Phil. Our affair, then, has ended. Well, it has lasted a good while. No doubt he thinks he is the one who was kept waiting. Five years. Could I help it? One is not responsible for the acts of God. I feel so topsy-turvy that I cannot make plans. I cannot think of any- thing else. Heigho! Dece?nber 12. Shall I now have to go through the ordeal of explaining to fam- ily friends? No. I will simply say I have been jilted. T is a short word and easily said; moreover, it is the truth. December 20. This affair with Phil has pulled me down terribly. I have tried to look at it calmly and not to care, but somehow it has taken all the little strength left me. December 21. I am getting so low that I have had to write to cousin Sarah Jane [Mem. Thats me; she always took a delight in usia my middle name, but I cant see why it aint jest as good as Geraldine. S. J. P.] to come and nurse me. She is a professional, and I shall have to pay her, of course; but I must have somebody, if I go to the poorhouse. [Mem. I charged her jest the same I did other folks. Her family had money left them years ago, an we had to make our own way; besides, they never wasted any sentiment on us. S. J. P.] December 30. So low these past few days I could nt write. Miss Plunkett arrived. She is as strong as an ox. [Mem. She always spoke as ef my strength was a reproach. S. J. P.] She tosses me about like a baby. What a luxury to have a real nurse! January 2, 1887. Cousin Sarah Jane has the regular professional manner; her face is as hard and unsympathetic as a grindstone. [Mem. As soon as I see what was the matter I warnt goin to humbug her, an I didnt a mite. S. J. P.] She does nt say an unnecessary word, and since the first two or three days pays no heed when I talk. January 5. Sarah Jane, for all her skill and knowledge, is like the rest of them. She does nt understand my case: has no notion how weak I am; treats me like a gymnast, drags me up 1o sit in a chair, forces me downstairs to my meals, though I am on the point of dying with fatigue. January 8. Sarah Jane gets positive- ly disagreeable. She knows more about me than I do myself. She insists upon my doing things I cannot. When I ob- ject, she asks in a billingsgate tone, Do you want ever to get well, or do you ex- pect to lie here on your back for the rest of your life? Pleasant talk to an invalid! January 12. A terrible row with Sa- rah Jane. I am shaking all over from it now, and shall not recover for a month. I never heard such a virago, nor did I ever have to lie unprotected 1893.] Diary of a Nervous Invalid. 41 and listen to such abuse. [Mem. I only said what was so, and didnJ raise my voice once the whole time. S. J. P.] I cant remember it all; a little will do for a sample. I recall a few of her choice expressions. She said there was nothing the mat- ter with me, absolutely nothing, she had been studying me and found out; that all my organs were sound; that I ate like a pig; that if I chose I might be well in a fortnight; that if I would stir about and do a little honest hard work, like other folks, I would sleep, fast enough; that I was a monster of laziness and selfishness; that I had spent all mo- thers money doctoring and nursing, and ended by killing her and Maria; that I had snubbed and jilted my lover; and that, in fine, I neither thought of nor cared for anything in the round earth but myself. [Mem. I spoke the simple truth and didnt mince matters. I told her the plain facts about herself which nobody had ever durst to before. S. J. P.] I have set it all down: it will be inter- esting to keep; it is almost as amusing as it is brutal. Of course I did nt an- swer a word, though I felt my face get white and set. Its violence and absurd- ity kept it from killing me. Arid so she went. January 17. For a week I have just breathed. I never before fairly touched bottom. There has always been some- body to stretch out a hand. Norah has done what she could: she has fed me (Heaven knows upon what!), she has rubbed me (her hands are like nutmeg graters), and stayed by me. It is like awaking from a nightmare. I am confronted with the sternest neces- sity, and not able to lift hand or voice. Mothers old lawyer, Squire Thomp- son, has called twice, but I could nt see him. Yesterday I wrote him for a state- ment of my affairs. January 18. An answer from Thomp- son. He tells me what I have; barely enough to keep soul and body together. It will buy necessaries, but not a luxury. I am perfectly willing to give up the former, but the latter it seems I must have. What to do? January 19. I have thought hard for twenty-four hours. If I could only work as of old at my embroidery; they say I had a deft touch; but it is out of the question. January 21. Mrs. Prattle has been in; I was almost glad to see her. She told of Cowley, a little town down South with a heavenly climate, which nobody knows of, where one can live upon no- thing, and lie in the sun, and rest, and rest, and rest. It sounds impossible, but I catch at the idea. She notices I have fallen away, and says I must get out of this climate. January 23. The weather has turned cold. It pinches me. I shiver from morning till night, and turn my back to the window that I may not see the glare of the snow. January 25. Have decided to go. I cannot afford it, neither can I afford to stay here. For the matter of that, I cannot afford anything. I cannot even afford to die, when I think what Marias funeral and tombstone cost. I take Norab with me for the journey, but shall send her back. I can econo- mize when I get there perhaps. Sent word to Mrs. Prattle. January 26. Mrs. Prattle comes. She certainly is good-natured. She of- fers to help Norah break up, store the furniture, and what not. I accept with thanks. January 27. Norah met Phil on the street. He stopped her and asked about me. Norah spoke of my going away. He looked grave, but made no com- ment. Bade her not to tell me she had met him. How queer men are! Mrs. Prattle and Norah get on fa- mously, but what a noise they make! Mrs. P. came, all dust and perspiration, 42 Diary of a Nervous Invalid. [January, to say good-night. I had to thank her; all the same, it seems as if I were being turned out of doors. January 30. It is all done: the house shut, the stuff stored, and we are here at Mrs. Prattles for the night. Norah and I are to start in the morn- ing. Seen close at hand, the journey seems frightful; I doubt if I live through it. Norah knows as much about travel- ing as a guinea-hen. February 3. Arrived; two days and nights on the way. In a state of cob lapse, but alive. February 6. At the hotel for a couple of days. Wish I could stay, good food and good service; but I am a pau- per, and must move on. February 7. Kept Norah till I got moved; sent her home to-day; felt bad at parting with her, but steeled myself. My quarters are in a tumble-down old mansion, sunny and airy, a porch covered with vines, all surrounded by a ruinous old garden filled with flowers. I have the parlor floor for a song; grand old rooms with blazing wood fires. Au old negro woman in the back yard takes care of the rooms and cooks my food. Her name is Yazoo; somehow it suggests a field-hand. February 8. Yazoo does her possible. Her range is limited. So far as devel. oped, it is coffee, pone, and bacon, three viands which I think of as last resorts~ Am visited with qualms as to her kitch. en, qualms promptly put down by pru- dence. February 9. Yazoo has a little two- legged shadow, at once a coadjutor and a responsibility, a pickaninny of ten years, a miracle of rags and dirt. He is growing up in heavenly idleness and freedom. How better than to be washed and taught to read! I would exchange places with him in a minute. He has not a want. He knows not a care. He is unconscious of his body. He is per- fectly happy. He knows not, blissful ehilcb that there i~ anything better to eat than pone and bacon. And for sleep, he can sleep like a dog in any streak of sunshine. Such is Little Ike. February 12. Having let myself go, flopped, according to the Delsarteans, whose system, owing to some inscrutable providence, I have thus far escaped, I am more at home. Little Ike muomently grows on me. His mother, as well she may, trusts him to do anything. He is preternaturally clever. He understands all I say, and knows just what I mean, an accom- phishinent which, in a long and check- ered career, I have never detected in anybody else. He knows every place in town, everybody; he knows the North- ern boarders at the hotel, and their vari- ous ailments; he knows those who give pennies and those who do not; and, in fact, he is in a small way omniscient. February 13. A broiled bird for breakfast. High Heaven knows where it came from! I ate it, and asked no questions. The secret is out. It was a robin. Little Ike shot it with his parlor gun. I gulp down a feeling of horror. I rea- son, why not a robin as well as a quail? God made them both, while for notes I prefer the quails. February 14. A struggle with Yazoo to keep down the surface dust and get the dirt out of the laundered clothes. All inclination to visit the kitchen dis- pelled. Blacks of all ages come to the door, offering all sorts of service and things to sell. Having no pennies to scatter, I get the reputation of being a skinflint. Little Ike comes with com- forting tales of what they say behind my back. February 16. Sudden change in wea- ther. Yazoo taken down with dysen- tery. Neglected to send for the doctor, and so got very bad. I lay in bed for want of a fire. Little Ike came in at midday and lighted it. Boiled me an egg, and gave me crackers and milk. Says he is taking care of his mother. Diary of a Nervous Invalid. February 17. Noon again before Lit- tle Ike comes. Says his mother is worse. Looks solemn and scared. Give him ten cents and tell him not to forget me. Do the dishes myself. February 18. Yazoo dead. A fatali- ty pursues everybody connected with me. This is very awkward, and puts me in a dilemma. Send Little Ike (who seems not at all to realize his loss) about the neighborhood to find me another woman. Comes back without success. They all say the house is haunted. Little Ike re- assures me by saying the real reason is they all dislike me. I give him money, and he promises to stick by me. He will have to do, though I feel that I may be leaning on a broken reed. February 20. Yazoo buried, and that tragedy over. Little Ike has not a rela- tive on earth, so they all say. A lie, of course, but nobody is greedy to claim a responsibility, so I let him come to live at the mansion. February 21. Squire Thompson writes me of the passing of a dividend by the S. & H. R. R. Co. My little income is pared down to almost nothing. For a moment I lose my head. I laugh hys- terically, and cry with the Indian officer, or whoever it was, Hurrah for the next man that dies! But let me not be bitter. Let me think of sweetness and light. Let me offer my other cheek. February 23. Little Ike does won- ders. He brought in my breakfast punc- tually, coffee and toast, with a spray of jessamine on the tray. Bless his heart! The coffee had a queer taste and the toast looked unaccountably gray, but I smelled the jessamine and gulped them down. I tried not to think that the dishes had a slimy look, as though they had been wiped on the grass. After- wards taught Little Jke to make my bed and dust the room. He is wonderfully dexterous. I usually dine at one. My dinner is late. I smell burning fat, and bide my time. At two Little Ike appears, his eyes rounded with a look of deserving, and beads of honest sweat on his sooty little forehead. He has on the tray a boiled potato, some fresh bakers bread, and a small beautifully browned fish. He has been absent all the morning, and caught it himself. I am hungry. My eyes shine with gratitude and desire. I say appreciative things to Little Ike. I hint at pennies. I spread my napkin. I make ready to begin. Of a sudden I drop my knife and fork. A look of dismay and disappoint- ment crosses my face. I push away the plate. The fish has never been opened! One thing is clear: I shall have to superintend the cooking myself, at what- ever cost. My gorge seems permanently located in my throat. I creep out to the kitchen. I take a look, and save myself from swooning by a moral effort. Little Ike stares at me in innocent wonder. The Augean stables were nothing to it. I dont know where to begin. I shut my eyes and think. After a while I tell Little Ike to take all the furniture out upon the porch; then to get a pail of water, some soap, and a scrubbing-brush. He has never heard of soap or scrubbing-brush. I send him to my toilet-stand for the for- mer, and make an old rag do for the latter. I sit out in the hall and direct the cleaning of the room. Little Ike makes hard work of it. He tips over the slop- pail and tracks about the dirty water. We come in time to the stove. Where it is not black with grease it is red with rust. We necessarily call a halt. I send Little Ike to the town for some stove- blacking, some new tins, and a tea-kettle. It is a mile, I know, but he never walks; he always ketches on, as he calls it. It will be a rest to him. I creep back to bed, nearly dead from fatigue and starvation. Little Ike returns. I set him to clean 1893.] 43 44 Diary of a Nervous Invalid. [January, and polish the stove. Could not go out to superintend it. He boils me an egg, and I eat some crackers. February 24. I get up early and go out to the kitchen. Little Ike is asleep under the table. I rouse him and bid him wash in the basin. He grins at the absurdity. Git all smutty right away agin, missy, dat I will sho. I then bid him fill the tea-kettle with fresh water. He goes singing to the well. I lean back in my chair for a minutes rest. Opening my eyes by chance, I start up with a loud scream, and, forgetful of my own weakness, rush to the stove. Too late! Little Ike has filled the tea-kettle from the slop-pail. I upbraid him, and walk back to my chair without support, such a miraculous effect has the air of this place wrought. [ Air! Granny! S. J. P.] A mouth ago I should have had a relapse. After all, Little Ike was not to blame about the pail. There is no other. I think of the tea I have been drinking. It s of no use to upbraid Little Ike about his dirt. He only stares. He really does ut know what cleanliness is; which sets me to thinking whether, after all, it is nt a fad. February 27. After breakfast go out again to .the kitchen. Little Ike, with faithful assiduity, is doing the dishes. Panting, I sit down to oversee him. He turns about a smiling and self-satisfied look. His row of young teeth and the whites of his eyes give his face a char- acteristic negro effect. Reflecting upon this, my eyes fall upon his work. A feeling of horror overcomes me. Mindless of consequences, I dart forward and seize from his hand a dark- looking object, and hold it up before his guiltless eyes. It is a remnant of a flan- nel undershirt. It is the rag with which he washed the stove, the floor, the sink; in other words, it is the rag-of-all-work. He has no other. I do not upbraid. I recognize its use- lessness. I burn the rag and give some directions. March 1. Little Ike does nt come home to get my dinner. I ring, I call, in vain. Knowing that I cannot go with- out food, I creep out to the kitchen, boil some potatoes, and open a can of tongue. Get back without mishap. It is almost incredible. Little Ike comes in after dark, covered with mud. He has been with some boys to get arbutus. He brings me a big bunch as an olive-branch. I like arbutus, so I accept it. All the same, I scold him for truancy with what breath I can spare. March 2. Want stares me in the face; an ugly vis-h-vis. Whatever conies, I must set to work. But at what? Write? No. Friends have thought I could; they are mistaken. I tried that in the old times. The things I sent to the maga- zines had stuff in them. They were al- ways sent back. The twaddle they want I cannot do. Think of my embroidery again. See a tangle of Cherokee roses over a fence. A capital design for a portilire. Get a horse and wagon and go to town. Find materials which will do. Get back in time to superintend dinner. I dare not trust Little Ike. He is faithful in what he knows, but our experiences have been different. A busy day. This air is amazing. In the old times the effort put forth in these twenty-four hours would have killed me. [Humph! S. J. P.] March 5. Little Ike is turning out a wretched truant. Absorbed in my work yesterday, I did nt notice the clock un- til long past dinner-time. Called and called. Little Ike nowhere to be found. Driven by sheer faintness, had to get my own dinner. Arrived in the kitchen, there was no wood. Compelled to go down the long steps into the yard and actually bring up an armful. Astonished without end at myself. Its a wonder all the invalids in the country dont flock here to breathe this elixir. Sit and pant 1893.] Diary of a Nervous Invalid. 45 a while. Boil a couple of eggs, make a cup of tea, and get back to my room. Dont die. Little Ike comes back long after the hour with a half dozen robins which he has shot. Putting aside all prejudice, I have a couple for supper. They are ex- cellent eating. As I pick the bones of the last one I bethink me to scold him. I tell him he must never go away again without leave. He nods his head de- murely. I know he will. March 10. Get on with my work. Went twice to the kitchen to-day. rf 0 keep my rags and towels clean, find I must wash the dishes myself. T is not such an awful task, after all, thanks al- ways to this stimulating air. [Hope she gets in enough bout that air; but I guess ther aint no need o my sayin anything. S. J. P.] March 11. A letter from Mrs. Prat- tle. Phil has been to see her; talked much of me. Why does she take the trouble to write this to me? Her letter puts a notion in my head. She has a large circle of acquaintances, rich and fashionable folks. I am thinking of my embroidery. It is turning out well. March 20. Am reduced to very short commons. My stock of money almost gone. If it were not for Little Ikes robins and fish and wild strawberries, to say nothing of his poultry - yard in the garden, I should starve. Meantime I work day and night; am glad to see my right hand has not for- gotten her cunning. March 26. My work done and packed; have sent it to Mrs. Prattle. It looked very rich and unique. Wrote her a long letter by this mornings mail not to take too much trouble; at the same time let her see that I am starving. March 28. Feel lost without my work. Was so absorbed that I quite forgot I was ill. Now I must nurse myself a bit. Little Ike has a sore foot; got a piece of glass in it. He cannot even step upon it. Realize now his usefulness. Am be- come a galley slave. Bring up my own wood and draw my own water. Which of all my Northern friends would believe I could drag that heavy bucket up the well? April 2. Am getting to be quite a cook. Really enjoy my own meals, for I know they are clean. April 10. Scarcely got Little Ike well when he ran away. Has been gone three days. Have actually been to town twice for supplies. Fortunately the grocery wagon brought me home. Have had to do everything for myself. Really I am another woman. I look back upon my former self with amaze- ment. And to think of its all being brought about by a change of air! April 13. Mrs. Prattle has sold my porti~re. I am saved from despair. Three hundred dollars, t is none too much for the work, but a fortune to me. April 15. Little Ike conies back. Such demureness, as if he had done nothing out of the way. I listen stoical ly. A planter has offered him twenty- five cents a day during the planting sea- son. I know better; such wages are unheard of. I expose his lies and tell him to go. He weeps; I affect obduracy. After much contrition I take him back. Really I owe him an eternal debt of gratitude. He will never know it. He threw me on my own resources. Sup- ported by this wonderful atmosphere, they availed. I glory in my indepen- dence. I realize that I am cured. Dear Cowley, thy name should be Gilead! April 20. It gets hot. I take alarm. Everybody is gone from the hotel. I cannot stay much longer. Opportunely comes a letter from Mrs. Prattle, invit- ing me there on an indefinite visit. She writes in a postscript that Phil has called again. Why does she harp on that old string? Does she think Managing little woman, I know what she thinks. She is a busybody. April 25. Go about the house like a well person. Make nothing of the work. 46 Diary of a Nervous Invalid. [January, My horizon has widened immensely, bar- ring certain vistas which, well for me, are closed forever. See now the true meaning of sweetness and light: it is not moral, it is not ~esthetic; it is purely physical, it is health. April 28. It is incredible how I sleep. I can almost hear my blood circulate. Amazing magic of ozone! But I must get out of it. There is such a thing as staying too long, and the mercury these last days is taking to itself wings. I may lose all I have gained. April 29. Begin to make plans for going. Write to Mrs. Prattle about Lit- tle Ike. He would be of immense ser- vice on the journey. Then he has no belongings here. ]Jfay 4. Letter from Mrs. Prattle. Says of course bring Little Ike. I take him down to the town for a suit of clothes. Such an uncouth mite as he is, reduced to respectability! All his grace and charm gone with the rags. He bristles with awkwardness and grandeur. To him, certainly, decency is disfiguring. Luckily he himself is delighted. Hay 10. Back again. Came through without accident. How I hated to say good-by to dear Cowley! Fain would I send thither every poor moribund suf- ferer in the world! How Mrs. Prattle stared! She could not believe her eyes to see me walking, but must needs pinch my arms black and blue. She actually started to hear me laugh. Did I not laugh, then, in the old days? Perhaps not. I was a pessimist then. May 11. It is delightful to get back to the land of thrift and energy. The climate, after all, is not so absolutely bad. I feel myself indeed rather braced by it, and really get on capitally. My first duty, with Mrs. Prattles cor- dial assent, is to get some new toggery. I can afford it now, as my dividend, I hear, is to be forthcoming this quarter. May 20. Phil called this evening, as I sat in one of my new dresses. Mrs. Prattle and I were together in the draw- ing-room. I was telling a story of South- ern life, illustrated by energetic gestures. We were both laughing and had not heard the bell. He was shown into the room quite without warning. What now, think you, did Mrs. Prattle? Terrible woman! she made some frivolous excuse and left us alone. Positively quite alone. Well, it was a queer scene. I hardly know how to de- scribe it. I dont think I know at all what took place at first. I must have made evident before this that one of Phils characteristics is down- rightness. Here is a specimen : Well, well! It cant be! You, Agnes! Talking like this! Restored to health, to life, to sense! Talk about there being no more miracles! etc. But that was nothing to what fol- lowed; masculine sang-froid is past all analysis. Well, I have thought of you day and night. I never loved anybody else. (All this in a most matter-of-fact tone.) I knew some time you would come back to your old self; not of course so perfectly as this, but enough to see your mistake. I was hasty, I was a fool; but you wrote me that letter Never mind all that, though! Who cares what has been said and done? We live in the present, eh, little one? Let bygones be bygones! May 24. Phil and I are one again. I shut my eyes to all his old limitations. Youth and its enthusiasm have come back to me. I chase every agnostic thought from my heart, and feel myself again a woman. Dear Cowley! May 30. We are to be married at once, and, of all places, going to India, where henceforth Phils business is to be. Little Ike is to stay here under the protecting eye of Mrs. Prattle. Edwin Lassetter Bynn6r. 1893.] The Russian Kumys C1ure. 47 THE RUSSIAN KUMYS CURE. IT is not many years since every pound of freight, every human being, bound to Astrakhan from the interior of Russia simply floated down the river Volga with the current. The return journey was made slowly and painfully, in tow of those human beasts of burden, the bur- laki. The traces of their towpath along the shores may still be seen, and the sys- tem itself may even be observed at times, when light barks have to be forced up stream for short distances. Then some enterprising individual set up a line of steamers, in the face of the usual predictions from the wiseacres that he would ruin himself and all his kin. The undertaking proved so fabulously successful and profitable that a wild rush of competition ensued. But the com- petition seems to have consisted chief- ly in the establishment of rival lines of steamers, and there are some peculiari- ties of river travel which still exist in consequence. One of these curious fea- tures is that each navigation company appears to have adopted a certain type of steamer at the outset, and not to have improved on that original idea to any marked degree. There are some honor- able exceptions, it is true, and I certainly have a very definite opinion concerning the line which I should patronize on a second trip. Another idea, to which they have clung with equal obstinacy, though it is far from making amends for the other, is that a journey is worth a cer- tain fixed sum per verst, utterly regard- less of the vast difference in the accom- modations offered. Possibly it is a natural consequence of having been born in America, and of having heard the American boast of in- dependence and progress and the foreign boast of conservatism contrasted ever since I learned my alphabet, not to ex- aggerate unduly, that I should take par- ticular notice of all illustrations of these conflicting systems. Generally speaking, I advocate a judicious mixture of the two, in varying proportions to suit niy taste on each special occasion. But there are times when I distinctly favor the broad- est independence and progress. These Volga steamers had afforded me a sub- ject for meditations on this point, at a distance, even before I was obliged to un- dergo personal experience of the defects of conservatism. Before I had sailed four and twenty hours on the broad bosom of M~itushka Volga, I was able to pick out the steamers of all the rival lines at sight with the accuracy of a veteran river pilot. There was no great cleverness in that, I hasten to add; anybody but a blind man could have done as much; but that only makes my point the more forcible. It was when we set out for Samara that we realized most keenly the beauties of en- terprise in this direction. We had, nominally, a wide latitude of choice, as all the lines made a stop at our landing. But when we got tired of wait- ing for the steamer of our preference, the boats of all the lines being long over- due, as usual, owing to low water in the river, and took the first which present- ed itself, we found that the latitude in choice, so far as accommodations were concerned, was even greater than had been apparent at first sight. Fate allotted us one of the smaller steamers, the more commodious boats having probably sat down on a sand bar, as the local expression goes. The one on which we embarked had only a small dining-room and saloon, one first- class cabin for men and one for women, all nearly on a level with the water, in- stead of high aloft, as in the steamers which we had hitherto patronized, and devoid of deck-room for promenading. The third-class cabin was on the forward

1893.] The Russian Kumys C1ure. 47 THE RUSSIAN KUMYS CURE. IT is not many years since every pound of freight, every human being, bound to Astrakhan from the interior of Russia simply floated down the river Volga with the current. The return journey was made slowly and painfully, in tow of those human beasts of burden, the bur- laki. The traces of their towpath along the shores may still be seen, and the sys- tem itself may even be observed at times, when light barks have to be forced up stream for short distances. Then some enterprising individual set up a line of steamers, in the face of the usual predictions from the wiseacres that he would ruin himself and all his kin. The undertaking proved so fabulously successful and profitable that a wild rush of competition ensued. But the com- petition seems to have consisted chief- ly in the establishment of rival lines of steamers, and there are some peculiari- ties of river travel which still exist in consequence. One of these curious fea- tures is that each navigation company appears to have adopted a certain type of steamer at the outset, and not to have improved on that original idea to any marked degree. There are some honor- able exceptions, it is true, and I certainly have a very definite opinion concerning the line which I should patronize on a second trip. Another idea, to which they have clung with equal obstinacy, though it is far from making amends for the other, is that a journey is worth a cer- tain fixed sum per verst, utterly regard- less of the vast difference in the accom- modations offered. Possibly it is a natural consequence of having been born in America, and of having heard the American boast of in- dependence and progress and the foreign boast of conservatism contrasted ever since I learned my alphabet, not to ex- aggerate unduly, that I should take par- ticular notice of all illustrations of these conflicting systems. Generally speaking, I advocate a judicious mixture of the two, in varying proportions to suit niy taste on each special occasion. But there are times when I distinctly favor the broad- est independence and progress. These Volga steamers had afforded me a sub- ject for meditations on this point, at a distance, even before I was obliged to un- dergo personal experience of the defects of conservatism. Before I had sailed four and twenty hours on the broad bosom of M~itushka Volga, I was able to pick out the steamers of all the rival lines at sight with the accuracy of a veteran river pilot. There was no great cleverness in that, I hasten to add; anybody but a blind man could have done as much; but that only makes my point the more forcible. It was when we set out for Samara that we realized most keenly the beauties of en- terprise in this direction. We had, nominally, a wide latitude of choice, as all the lines made a stop at our landing. But when we got tired of wait- ing for the steamer of our preference, the boats of all the lines being long over- due, as usual, owing to low water in the river, and took the first which present- ed itself, we found that the latitude in choice, so far as accommodations were concerned, was even greater than had been apparent at first sight. Fate allotted us one of the smaller steamers, the more commodious boats having probably sat down on a sand bar, as the local expression goes. The one on which we embarked had only a small dining-room and saloon, one first- class cabin for men and one for women, all nearly on a level with the water, in- stead of high aloft, as in the steamers which we had hitherto patronized, and devoid of deck-room for promenading. The third-class cabin was on the forward 48 The Russian Kumys Cure. [January, deck. The second-class cabin was down a pair of steep, narrow stairs, whose ex- istence we did not discover when we went on board at midnight, and which did not tempt us to investigation even when we arose the next morning. Fortunately, there were no candidates except ourselves and a Russian friend for the six red vel- vet divans ranged round the walls of the tiny ladies cabin, and the adjoining toilet-room, and the man of the party enjoyed complete seclusion in the mens cabin. In the large boats, for the same price, we should have had separate state- rooms, each accommodating two persons. However, everything was beautifully clean, as usual on Russian steamers so far as my experience goes, aud it made no difference for one night. The experi- ence was merely of interest as a warning. The city of Samara, as it presented it- self to our eyes the next morning, was the liveliest place on the river Volga next to Nizhni N6vgorod. While it really is of importance commercially, owing to its po- sition on the Volga and on the railway from central Russia, as a depot for the great Siberian trade through Orenburg, the impression of alertness which it pro- duces is undoubtedly due to the fact that it presents itself to full view in the f ore- ground, instead of lying at a distance from the wharves, or entirely concealed. An American, who is accustomed to see railways and steamers run through the very heart of the cities which they serve, never gets thoroughly inured to the Rus- sian trick of taking important towns on faith, because it has happened to be con- venient to place the stations out of sight and hearing, sometimes miles out of the city. Another striking point about Sn- m~ra is the abundance of red brick build- ings, which is very unusual, not to say unprecedented, in most of the older Rus- sian towns, which revel in stucco washed with white, blue, and yellow. But the immediate foreground was oc- cupied with something more attractive than this~ The wharves, the space be- tween them, and all the ground round about were fairly heaped with fruit: apples in bewildering variety, ranging from the pink-and-white-skinned golden seeds through the whole gamut of ap- ple hues; round striped watermelons and oval cantaloupes with perfumed orange- colored flesh, from Astrakhan; plums and grapes. After wrestling with these fascinations and with the merry i~v4st- chilci, we set out on a little voyage of dis- covery, preparatory to driving out to the famous kumys establishments, where we had decided to stay instead of in the town itself. Much of Samtlra is too new in its architecture, and too closely resembles the simple, thrifty builders designs of a mushroom American settlement, to re- quire special description. Although it is said to have been founded at the close of the sixteenth century, to protect the Russians from the incursions of the Kabmicks, Bashkfrs, and Nogai Tat~irs, four disastrous conflagrations within the last forty-five years have made way for improvements and entailed the loss of characteristic features, while its rank as one of the chief marts for the great Siberian trade has caused a rapid increase in population, which now numbers be- tween seventy-five and eighty thousand. One modern feature fully compensates, however, by its originality, for a good many comnionplace antiquities. INear the wharves, on our way out of the town, we passed a lumber-yard, which dealt wholly in ready-made log houses. There stood a large assortment of cottages, in the brilliant yellow of the barked logs, of all sizes and at all prices, from fifteen to one hundred dollars, forming a small suburb of samples. The lumber is float- ed down the Volga and her tributaries from the great forests of Ufa, and made up in Sami~ra. The peasant purchaser disjoints his house, floats it to a point near his village, drags it piecemeal to its proper site, sets it up, roofs it, builds an oven and a chimney of stones, clay, and 1893.] The Russian Kumys Cure. 49 whitewash, plugs the interstices with rope or moss, smears them with clay if he feels inclined, and his house is ready for occu- pancy. Although such houses are cheap and warm, it would be a great improve- ment if the people could afford to build with brick, so immense is the annual loss by fire in the villages. Brick buildings are, however, far beyond the means of most peasants, let them have the best will in the world, and the ready-made cottages are a blessing, though every peasant is capable of constructing one for himself on very brief notice, if he has access to a forest. But forests are not so common nowadays along the Volga, and, as the ad- vertisements say, this novel lumber-yard meets a real want. When the Samar- cand railway was opened, a number of these cottages, in the one-room size, were placed on platforni cars, and to each guest invited to the cereniony was assigned one of these unique drawing - room - car coup6s. About four miles from the town proper, oii the steppe, lie two noted kumys estab- lishments; one of them being the first re- sort of that kind ever set up, at a time when the only other choice for invalids who wished to take the cure was to share the hardships, dirt, bad food, and care- lessly prepared kumys of the tented no- mads of the steppes. The grounds of the one which we had elected to patronize extended to the very brink of the Volga. In accordance with the admonitions of the specialist physicians to avoid many- storied, ill-ventilated buildings with long corridors, the hotel consists of numer- ous wooden structures, of moderate size, chiefly in Moorish style, and painted in light colors, scattered about a great in- closure which comprises groves of pines and deciduous trees, red forest and black forest, as Russians would ex- press it, lawns, arbors, shady walks, flower-beds, and other things pleasing to the eye, and conducive to comfort and very mild amusement. One of the build- ings even contains a hall, where dancing, VOL. LXXI. NO. 423. 4 concerts, and theatricals can be and are indulged in, in the height of the season, although such violent and crowded affairs as balls are, in theory, discountenanced by the physicians. All these points we took in at one curious glance, as we were being conducted to the different buildings to inspect rooms. I am afraid that we pretended to be very difficult to please, in order to gain a more extensive insight into the arrangements. As the height of the season (which is May and June) was past, we had a great choice offered us, and I suppose that this made a difference in the price, also. It certainly was not unreasonable. We selected some rooms which opened on a small private corridor. The furniture consisted of the usual nar- row iron bedstead (with linen and pil- lows thrown in gratis, for a wonder), a tiny table which disagreeably recalled American ideas as to that article, an apology for a bureau, two armchairs, and no washstand. The chairs were in their primitive stuffing-and-burlap state, loose gray linen covers being added when the rooms were prepared for us. Any one who has ever struggled with his temper and the slack-fitting shift of a tufted arm- chair will require no explanation as to what took place between me and my share of those untufted receptacles before I de- posited its garment under my bed, and announced that burlap and tacks were luxurious enough for me. That one item contained enough irritation and excite- ment to ruin any cure. The washstand problem was even more complicated. A small tapering brass tank, holding about two quarts of water, with a faucet which dripped into a diminutive cup with an unstoppered waste-pipe, was screwed to the wall in our little corridor. We asked for a washstand, and this arrangement was in- tro(huced to our notice, the chambermaid being evidently surprised at the igno- rance of barbarians who had never seen a washstand before. We objected that a niixed party of men and women could 50 The Russian Karnys cure. [January, not use that decently, even if two quarts of water were sufficient for three women and a man. After much argument and insistence, we obtained, piecemeal: item, one low stool; item, one basin; item, one pitcher. There were no fastenings on the doors, except a hasp and staple to the door of the corridor, to which, after due entreaty, we secured an oblong pad- lock. The next morning, the chambermaid came to the door of our room opening on the private corridor while we were dressing, and demanded the basin and pitcher. Some one else wants them! she shouted through the door. We had discovered her to be a person of so much decision of character, in the course of our dealings with her on the preced- ing day, that we were too wary to admit her, lest she should simply capture the utensils and march off with them. As I was the heaviest of the party, it fell to my lot to brace myself against the unfastened door and parley with her. Three times that woman returned to the attack; thrice we refused to surrender our bard - won trophies, and asked her pointedly, What do you do for ma- terials when the house is full, pray? Afterwards, while we were drinking our coffee on the delightful half-covered ve- randa below, which had stuffed seats running round the walls, and a flower- crowned circular divan in the centre, a lively testimony to the dryness of the atmosphere, we learned that the person who had wanted the basin and pitcher was the man of our party. He begged us not to inquire into the mysteries of his toilet, and refused to help us solve the riddle of the guests cleanlinesswhen the hotel was full. I assume, on reflec- tion, however, that they were expected to take Russian or plain baths every two or three days, to rid themselves of the odor of the kumys, which exudes copious- ly through the pores of the skin and scents the garments. On other days a lick and a promise were supposed to suffice, so that their journals must have resem- bled that of the man who wrote: Mon- day, washed myself. Tuesday, washed hands and face. Wednesday, washed hands only. That explanation is not wholly satisfactory, either, because the Russians are clean people. As coffee is one of the articles of food which are forbidden to kumys patients, though they may drink tea without lemon or milk, we had difficulty in getting it at all. It was long in coming; bad and higl~~priced when it did make its appear- ance. As we were waiting, an invalid lady and the novice nun who was in at- tendance upon her began to sing in a room near by. They had no instrument. What it was that they sang I do not know. It was gentle as a breath, melt- ing as a sigh, soft and slow like a con- ventional chant, and sweet as the songs of the Russian Church or of the angels. There are not many strains in this world upon which one hangs entranced, in breathless eagerness, and the memory of which haunts one ever after. But this song was one of that sort, and it lin- gers in my memory as a pure delight; in company with certain other fragments of church music heard in that land, as among the most beautiful upon earth. I may as xvell tell at once the whole story of the food, so far as we explored its intricate mysteries. We were asked if we wished to take the table dh~te break- fast in the establishment. We said yes, and presented ourselves promptly. We were served with beefsteak, in small, round, thick pieces. What queer beefsteak! said one of our Russian friends. Is there no other meat? No, madam. We all looked at it for sevcral min- utes. We said it was natural, when in- valids drank from three to five bottles of the nourishing kumys a day, that they should not require much extra food, and that the management provided what va- riety was healthy and advisable, no doubt; 1893.] The Russian Kumys Cure. 51 only we should have liked a choice; and what queer steak! The first sniff, the first glance at that steak, of peculiar grain and dark red hue, had revealed the truth to us. But we saw that our Russian friends were not mi- , tiated, and we knew that their stomachs were delicate. We exchanged signals, took a mouthful, declared it excellent, and ate bravely through our portions. The Russians followed our example. Well it was much tenderer and better than the last horseflesh to which we had been treated surreptitiously; but I do not crave horseflesh as a regular diet. It really was not surprising at a kumys establish- ment, where the horse is worshiped, alive or dead, apparently in Tat~r fashion. That afternoon we made it convenient to take our dinner in town, on the ve- randa of a restaurant which overlooked the busy Yolga, with its mobile moods of sunset and thunderstorm, where we compensated ourselves for our unsatis- factory breakfast by a characteristically Russian dinner, of which I will omit de- tails, except as regards the soup. This soup was botvinyct. A Russian once obligingly furnished me with a descrip- tion of a foreigners probable views on this national delicacy: a slimy pool with a rock in the middle, and creatures floating round about. The rock is a lump of ice (botvinya being a cold soup) in the tureen of strained levas or sour cabbage. Kvas is the sour, fermented liquor made from black bread. In this liquid portion of the soup, which is col- ored with strained spinach, floated small cubes of fresh cucumber and bits of the green tops from young onions. The solid part of the soup, served on a plat- ter, so that each person might mix the ingredients according to his taste, con- sisted of cold boiled sturgeon, raw ham, more cubes of cucumber, more bits of green onion tops, lettuce, crawfish, grated horseradish, and granulated sugar. The first time I encountered this really de- lectable dish, it was served with salmon, the pale, insipid northern salmon. I sup- posed that the lazy waiter had brought the soup and fish courses together, to save himself trouble, and I ate them sepa- rately, while I meditated a rebuke to the waiter and a strong description of the weak soup. The tables were turned on me, however, when Mikh6i appeared and grinned, as broadly as his not overstrict sense of propriety permitted, at my un- paralleled ignorance, while he gave me a lesson in the composition of botvfnya. That botvfnya was not good, but this edi- tion of it on the banks of the [olga, with sterlet, was delicious. We shirked our meals at the estab- lishment with great regularity, with the exception of morning coffee, which was unavoidable, but we did justice to its kumys, which was superb. Theoretical- ly, the mares should have had the ad- vantage of better pasturage, at a greater distance from town; but, as they can- not be driven far to milk without detri- ment, that plan involves making the ku- mys at a distance, and transporting it to the cure. There is another famous establishment, situated a mile beyond ours, where this plan is pursued. Ten miles away the mares pasture, and the kumys is made at a subsidiary cure, where cheap quarters are provided for poorer patients. But, either on account of the transportation under the hot sun, or because the professional taster is lacking in delicacy of perception, we found the kumys at this rival establish- ment coarse in both flavor and smell, in comparison with that at our hostelry. Our mares, on the contrary, were kept close by, and the kumys was prepared on the spot. It is the first article of faith in the creed of the kumys expert that no one can prepare this milk wine properly except Tatt~rs. Hence, when any one wishes to drink it at home, a Tat~r is sent for, the necessary mares are set aside for him, and he makes what is re- quired. But the second article of faith is that kumys is much better when made 52 The Russian Kumys Cure. [January, in large quantities. The third is that a kumys specialist, or doctor, is as indis- pensable for the regulation of the cure as he is at mineral springs. The fourth article in the creed is that mares grazing on the rich plume-grass of the steppe produce milk which is particularly rich in sugar, very poor in fat, and similar to womans milk in its proportion of albu- men, though better furnished: all which facts combine to give kumys whose diem- ical proportions differ greatly from those of kuniys prepared elsewhere. More- over, on private estates it is not always possible to observe all the conditions regarding the choice and care of the mares. At our establishment there were sev- eral Tat~lrs to milk the mares and make the kumys. The wife of one of them, a Tat~r beauty, was the professional taster, who issued her orders like an autocrat on that delicate point. She never conde- scended to work, and it was our opinion that she ought to devote herself to dress, in her many leisure hours, instead of lounging about in ugly calico sacks and petticoats, as hideous as though they had originated in a backwoods farm in New England. She explained, however, that sbe was in a sort of mourning. Her hus- band was absent, and she could not make herself beautiful for any one until his return, which she was expecting every moment. She spent most of her time in gazing, from a balcony on the cliff, up the river, toward the bend backed by beautiful hills, to espy her husband on the steamer. As he did not come, we persuaded her, by arguments couched in silver speech, to adorn herself on the sly for us. Then she was afraid that the missing treasure might make his ap- pearance too soon, and she made such undue haste that she faithlessly omitted the finishing touch, blacking her pret- ty teeth. I gathered from her remarks that something particularly awful would result should she be caught with those pearls obscured in the presence of any other man when her husband was not present; but she may have been using a little diplomacy to soothe us. Though she was not a beauty in the ordinary sense of the Occident, she certainly was when dressed in her national garb, as I had found to be the case with the Rus- sian peasant girls. Her loose sack, of a medium but brilliant blue woolen mate- rial, fell low over a petticoat of the same terminating in a single flounce. Her long black hair was carefully braided, and fell from beneath an embroidered cap of crimson velvet with a rounded end which hung on one side in a coquettish way. Her neck was completely covered with a necklace which descended to her waist like a breastplate, and consisted of gold coins, some of them very ancient and valuable, medals, red beads, and a va- riety of brilliant objects harmoniously combined. Her heavy gold bracelets had been made to order in Kauin after a pure Tatar model, and her soft-soled boots of rose-pink leather, with conven- tional designs in many-colored moroccos, sewed together with rainbow-hued silks, reached nearly to her knees. Her com- plexion was fresh and not very sallow, her nose rather less like a button than is usual; her high cheek-bones were well covered, and her small dark eyes made up by their brilliancy for the slight up- ward slant of their outer corners. Tat~ir girls who made no pretensions to beauty in dress or features did the milking, and were aided in that and the other real work connected with kumys- making by Tatar men. According to the official programme, the mares might be milked six or eight times a day, and the yield was from a half to a whole bottle apiece each time. Milk is always reckoned by the bottle in Russia. I pre- sume the custom arose from the habit of sending the muzhilc (Boots) to the dairy-shop with an empty wine-bottle to fetch the milk and cream for tea, which sometimes means coffee in the morning. The mares milk has a sweetish, almond- 1893.] The Russian Ji7arnys Cure. 53 like flavor, and is very thin and bluish in hue. At three oclock in the morning, the mares are taken from the colts and shut up in a long shed which is not especial- ly weather-proof. In fact, there is not much weather except wind to be guard- ed against on the steppe. In about two hours, when the milk has collected, the colts follow them voluntarily, and are aduiitted and allowed to suck for a few seconds. Halters are then thrown about their necks, and they are led forward where the mothers can nose them over and lick them. The milkmaids second assistant then puts a halter on the neck of a mare and holds her, or ties up one leg if she be restive. In the mean time the foolish creature continues to let down milk for her foal. The milkmaid kneels on one knee and holds her pail on the other, after having washed her hands carefully and wiped off the teats with a clean damp cloth. If the mare resists at first, the milk obtained must not be used for kumys, as her agitation affects the milk unfavorably. Roan, gray, and chestnut mares are preferred, and in or- der to obtain the best milk great care must be exercised in the choice of pas- ture and the management of the horses, as well as in all the minor details of pre- paration. The milking-pails are of tin or of oak wood, and, like the oaken kumys churn, have been boiled in strong lye to extract the acid, and well dried and aired. In addition to the daily washing they are well smoked with rotten birch trunks, in order to destroy all particles of kumys which may cling to them. The next step after the milk is ob- tained is to ferment it. The ferment, or yeast, is obtained by collecting the sedi- ment of the kumys which has already germinated, and washing it off thorough- ly with milk or water. It is then pressed and dried in the sun, the result being a reddish-brown mass composed of the micro-organisms contained in kumys fer ment, casein, and a small quantity of fat. Twenty grains of this yeast are ground up in a small quantity of freshly drawn milk in a clean porcelain mortar, and shaken in a quart bottle with one pound of fresh milk, all mares milk, natu- rally, after which it is lightly corked with a bit of wadding and set away in a temperature of [- 220 to + 26~ Reaumur. In about twenty-four hours small bubbles begin to make their appearance, accom- panied by the sour odor of kumys. The bottle is then shaken from time to time, and the air admitted, until it is in a con- dition to be used as a ferment with fresh niilk. Sometimes this ferment fails, in which case an artificial ferment is pre- pared. One pint of ferment is allowed to every five pints of fresh milk in the cask or churn, and the whole is beaten with the dasher for about an hour, when it is set aside in a temperature of f-180 to 26~ R~aumur. When, at the expiration of a few hours, the milk turns sour and be- gins to ferment vigorously, it is beaten again several times for about fifteen min- utes, with intervals, with a dasher which terminates in a perforated disk, after which it is left undisturbed for several hours at the same teniperature as be- fore, until the liquid begins to exhale an odor of spirits of wine. The delicate offices of our Tatdr beauty, the taster, come in at this point to determine how much freshly drawn and cooled milk is to be added in order rightly to temper the sour taste. After standing over night it is ready for use, and is put up in selt- zer or champagne bottles, and kept at a temperature of +80 to + 120 R6aumur. At a lower temperature vinegar fermen- tation sets in and spoils the kumys, while too higha temperature brings about equal- ly disastrous results of another sort. Ku- mys has a different chemical composition according to whether it has stood only a few hours or several days, and conse- quently its action differs, also. The weak kumys is ready for use at 54 The Russian Kumys Cure. [January, the expiration of six hours after fermen- tation has been excited in the mares milk, and must be put into the strongest bottles. The medium quality is obtained after from twelve to fourteen hours of fermentation, and, if well corked, will keep two or three days in a cool atmos- phere. The third and strongest quality is the product of diligent daily churning during twenty-four to thirty-six hours, and is thinner than the medium quality, even watery. When bottled, it soon sepa- rates into three layers, with the fatty particles on top, the whey in the middle, and the casein at the bottom. Strong kumys can be kept for a very long time, but it must be shaken before it is used. It is very easy for a person unaccustomed to kumys to become intoxicated on this strong quality of milk wine. The nourishing effects of this spiritu- ous beverage are argued, primarily, from the example of the Bashkfrs and the Kirghiz, who are gaunt and worn by the hunger and cold of winter, but who blossom into rounded outlines and fresh- ness of complexion three or four days af- ter the spring pasturage for their mares begins. Some persons argue that life with these Bashkfrs and an exclusive diet of kumys will effect a speedy cure of their ailments. Hence they join one of the nomad hordes. This course, however, not only deprives them of medical ad- vice and the con~mforts to which they have been accustomed, but often gives them kumys which is difficult to take because of its rank taste and smell, due to the lack of that scrupulous cleanliness which its proper preparation demands. There are establishments near St. Pe- tersburg and Moscow where kumys may be obtained by those who do not care to make the long journey to the steppe; but the quality and chemical constitu- ents are very different from those of the steppe kumys, especially at the best pe- riod, May and June, when the plume- grass and wild strawberry are at their finest development for food, and before the excessive heats of midsummer have begun. As I have said, when people wish to make the cure on their own estates the indispensable Tat~r is sent for, and the requisite number of middle-aged mares, of which no work is required, are set aside for the purpose. But from all I have heard I am inclined to think that benefit is rarely derived from these pri- vate cures, and this for several reasons. Not only is the kumys said to he infe- rior when prepared in such small quan- tities, but no specialist or any other doc- tor can be constantly on hand to regulate the functional disorders which this diet frequently occasions. Moreover, the air of the steppe plays an important part in the cure. When a person drinks from five to fifteen or more bottles a day, and sometimes adds the proper amount of fatty, starchy, and saccharine elements, some other means than the stomach are indispensable for disposing of the refuse. As a matter of fact, in the hot, dry, even temperature of the steppe, where patients are encouraged to remain out of doors all day and drink slowly, they perspire kumys. When the system becomes thor- oughly saturated with this food-drink ca- tarrh often makes its appearance, but dis- appears at the close of the cure. Colic, constipation, diarrhea, nose - bleed, and bleeding from the lungs are also present at times, as well as sleeplessness, tooth- ache, and other disorders. The effects of kumys are considered of especial value in cases of weak lungs, amemia, general debility caused by any wasting illness, ailments of the digestive organs, and scurvy, for which it is taken by many naval officers. In short, although it is not a cure for all earthly ills, it is of value in many which proceed from imperfect nutrition producing exhaustion of the patient. There are some conditions of the lungs in which it cannot be used, as well as in organic diseases of the brain and heart, epilepsy, certain disorders of the liver, 1893.] The Russian Kumys Cure. 55 and when gallstones are present. It is drunk at the temperature of the air which surrounds the patient, but must be warmed with hot water, not in the sun, and sipped slowly, with pauses, not drunk down in haste; and generally exercise must be taken. Turn where we would in those kumys establishments, we en- countered a patient engaged in assiduous promenading, with a bottle of kumys sus- pended from his arm and a glassful in his hand. Coffee, chocolate, and wine are some of the luxuries which must be renounced during a kumys cure, and though black tea (occasionally with lemon) is allowed, no milk or cream can be permitted to contend with the action of the mares milk unless by express permission of the physician. Cream kumys, which is advertised as a delicacy in America, is a contradiction in terms, it will be seen, as it is made of cows milk, and cream would be contrary to the nature of kumys, even if the mares milk pro- duced anything which could rightly pass as such. Fish and fruits are also for- bidden, with the exception of klubniki, which accord well with kumys. Klub- nfka is a berry similar to the strawberry in appearance, but with an entirely dif- ferent taste. Patients who violate these dietary rules are said to suffer for it, in which case there must have been a good deal of agony inside the tall fence of our establishment, judging by the thriv- ing trade in fruits driven by the old wo- men, who did not confine themselves to the outside of the gate, as the rules re- quired, but slipped past the porter and guardians to the house itself. We found the kumys a very agree- able beverage, and could readily per- ceive that the patients might come to have a very strong taste for it. We even sympathized with the thorough- going patient of whom we were told that he set off regularly every morning to lose himself for the day on the steppe, armed with an umbrella against possible cooling breezes, and with a basket con- taining sixteen bottles of kumys, his al- lowance of food and medicine until sun- down. The programme consisted of a walk in the sun, a drink, a walk, a drink, with umbrella interludes, until darkness drove him home to bed and to his base of supplies. We did not remain long enough, or drink enough kumys, to observe any par- ticular effects on our own persons. As I have said, we ate in town, chiefly, after that breakfast of kumys-mare beefsteak and potatoes of the size and consistency of bullets. During our food and shop- ping excursions we found that Samdra was a decidedly wide-awake and driving town, though it seemed to possess no spe- cialties in buildings, curiosities, or man- ufactures, and the statue to Alexander II., which now adorns one of its squares, was then swathed in canvas awaiting its unveiling. It is merely a sort of grand junction, through which other cities and provinces sift their products. In kumys alone does Samdra possess a character- istic unique throughout Russia. Conse- quently, it is for kumys that multitudes of Russians flock thither every spring. The soil of the steppe, on which grows the nutritious plume-grass requisite for the food of the kumys mares, is very fer- tile, and immense crops of rye, wheat, buckwheat, oats, and so forth are raised whenever the rainfall is not too meagre. Unfortunately, the rainfall is frequently insufficient, and the province of Samdra often comes to the attention of Russia, or even of the world, as during the present distress, because of scarcity of food, or even famine, which is no novelty in the government. In a district where the average of rain is twenty inches, there is not much margin of superfluity which can be spared without peril. Wheat grows here better than in the govern- ment just north of it, and many pea- sants are attracted from the black bread governments to Sam~ra by the white bread which is there given them 56 The Russian E~tmys Cure. [January, as ratk,ns when they hire out for the harvest. But such a singular combination of conditions prevails there, as elsewhere in Russia, that an abundant harvest is often more disastrous than a scanty harvest. The price of grain falls so low that the cost of gathering it is greater than the market value, and it is often left to fall unreaped in the fields. When the price falls very low, complaints arise that there is no place to send it, since, when the ruble stands high, as it invariably does at the prospect of large crops, the demand from abroad is stopped. The result is that those people who are sit- uated near a market sell as much grain and leave as little at home as possible in order to meet their bills. The price rises; the unreaped surplus of the dis- tricts lying far from markets cannot fill the ensuing demand. The income from estates falls, and the discouraged own- ers who have nothing to live on resolve to plant a smaller area thereafter. Es- tates are mortgaged and sold by auction; prices are very low, and often there are no buyers. The immediate result of an over- abundant harvest in far - off Sain~ra is that the peasants who have come hither to earn a little money at reaping return home penniless, or worse, to their suffer- ing families. Some of them are legiti- mate seekers after work; that is to say, they have no grain of their own to at- tend to, or they reap their own a little earlier or a little later, and go away to earn the ready money to meet taxes and indispensable expenditures of the house- hold, such as oil, and so on. Pri khly& by bez khly6by is their own way of expressing the situation, which we may translate freely as Starvation in the midst of plenty. Thus the extremes of famine-harvest and the harvest which is an embarrassment of riches are equally disastrous to the poor peasant. Sam~ra offers a curious illustration of several agricultural problems, and a proof of some peculiar paradoxes. The pea- sants of the neighboring governments, which are not populated to a particularly dense degree, twenty male inhabitants to a square verst (two thirds of a mile), and not all engaged in agriculture, have long been accustomed to look upon Sam~ira as a sort of promised land. They still regard it in that light, and en- deavor to emigrate thither, for the sake of obtaining grants of state land, and certain immunities and privileges which are accorded to colonists. This action is the result of the paradox that there ex- ists overproduction hand in hand with too small a parcel of land for each peasant! Volumes have been written, and more volumes might still be written, on this subject. But I must content myself here with saying that I believe there is no province which illustrates so thoroughly all the distressing features of these mani- fold and complicated problems of colo- nization, of permanent settlements, with the old evils of both landlords and pea- sants cropping up afresh, abundant and scanty harvests equally associated with famine, and all the troubles which follow in their train, as Samara. Hence it is that I can never recall the kumys, which is so intimately connected with the name of Sam~ra, without also recalling the fam- ine, which is, alas, almost as intimately bound up with it. Isabel F. Hap~,iood. 1893.] A Heart -Leaf from Stony Greek Bottom. A HEART-LEAF FROM STONY CREEK BOTTOM. JED HoPsON! said the schoolmis- tress, rapping sharply with a pencil on the edge of the slate which she held in her hand. Yethum, whimpered Jed, detected in his stealthy stooping flight behind the last row of benches. What are you doing away from your seat? Pleathe, Mith Pothy, I wath juth goin to give thith heart - leaf to Mary Ann Hineth. Bring it to me instantly, sir. Mary Ann Hines pushed a red under- lip out scornfully at her tow-headed ador- er, as he passed her on his way to the teachers desk, with the long - stemmed, green, shining heart - leaf in his grimy hand; and the other scholars giggled be- hind their calico-covered geographies. Miss Posy Weavers stern look re- stored order. She made Jed stand in a corner with his face to the wall, and put the confiscated love-offering in her desk. But for the life of her she could not help bruising it between her fingers and sniff- ing it surreptitiously, with her head be- hind the desk-lid. Its aromatic woody perfume floated out, permeating the warm, still air of the little schoolroom. Jeddy, said the young teacher af- fectionately, you may go back to your seat. She looked furtively at the big sil- ver watch hanging at her belt, and then glanced with longing eyes at the strip of blue sky which shone, all checkered with the swaying leaves of a young sassafras, between the unchinked logs. A ripple of excitement passed over the score of freckled faces turned expectantly toward hers. By some mysterious divination the scholars in the Stony Creek schoolhouse were already aware that an extra half- hour was about to be prefixed to their two-hours noon playtime. The schoolmistress leaned forward and laid her hand on the small silver bell which used to stand on the work-table of Mrs. David Overall at Sweet Briar Plantation. The children started up like a herd of young deer at the clear tinkling sound; but they went out decorously, two and two. For Miss Posy had studied peda- gogy in the Normal School at Greenhurst, and herself presided with great dignity once a mouth at the County Teachers Association. But she smiled with girl- ish indulgence at the whoop which Pud Hines raised on time very threshold, as he bounded out. The isolated old log schoolhouse was nestled iii a wooded hollow between two long sloping pine-clad hills. A rutty, disused wagon-road rambled down one of these hills, and skirted the base of the other. It passed the schoolhouse door, crossing, just below, a shallow, rip- pling branch which fell, a hundred yards or so down the hollow, into one of the deep pools of Stony Creek. Little paths, brown with pine needles, led away in every direction, worn by the bare feet of Posy Weavers scholars. A large water oak shaded the low roof of the house; a grapevine trailed down from one of the outstretched limbs and hoisted itself up again, forming a natural swing. The ground beneath was skirt-swept and bare, for that was the girls side. Some pretty- by-night bushes and a straggling line of yellow nigger-heads marked the limit of their playground. On the other side, the boys of several generations had trampled out a ball-field. Tom Simmons, who was at one of the outer bases, came running in. Boys! boys! he cried breathlessly. Wish I may die if a wagin aint comm down the old road! It was an unheard-of thing, since the

1893.] A Heart -Leaf from Stony Greek Bottom. A HEART-LEAF FROM STONY CREEK BOTTOM. JED HoPsON! said the schoolmis- tress, rapping sharply with a pencil on the edge of the slate which she held in her hand. Yethum, whimpered Jed, detected in his stealthy stooping flight behind the last row of benches. What are you doing away from your seat? Pleathe, Mith Pothy, I wath juth goin to give thith heart - leaf to Mary Ann Hineth. Bring it to me instantly, sir. Mary Ann Hines pushed a red under- lip out scornfully at her tow-headed ador- er, as he passed her on his way to the teachers desk, with the long - stemmed, green, shining heart - leaf in his grimy hand; and the other scholars giggled be- hind their calico-covered geographies. Miss Posy Weavers stern look re- stored order. She made Jed stand in a corner with his face to the wall, and put the confiscated love-offering in her desk. But for the life of her she could not help bruising it between her fingers and sniff- ing it surreptitiously, with her head be- hind the desk-lid. Its aromatic woody perfume floated out, permeating the warm, still air of the little schoolroom. Jeddy, said the young teacher af- fectionately, you may go back to your seat. She looked furtively at the big sil- ver watch hanging at her belt, and then glanced with longing eyes at the strip of blue sky which shone, all checkered with the swaying leaves of a young sassafras, between the unchinked logs. A ripple of excitement passed over the score of freckled faces turned expectantly toward hers. By some mysterious divination the scholars in the Stony Creek schoolhouse were already aware that an extra half- hour was about to be prefixed to their two-hours noon playtime. The schoolmistress leaned forward and laid her hand on the small silver bell which used to stand on the work-table of Mrs. David Overall at Sweet Briar Plantation. The children started up like a herd of young deer at the clear tinkling sound; but they went out decorously, two and two. For Miss Posy had studied peda- gogy in the Normal School at Greenhurst, and herself presided with great dignity once a mouth at the County Teachers Association. But she smiled with girl- ish indulgence at the whoop which Pud Hines raised on time very threshold, as he bounded out. The isolated old log schoolhouse was nestled iii a wooded hollow between two long sloping pine-clad hills. A rutty, disused wagon-road rambled down one of these hills, and skirted the base of the other. It passed the schoolhouse door, crossing, just below, a shallow, rip- pling branch which fell, a hundred yards or so down the hollow, into one of the deep pools of Stony Creek. Little paths, brown with pine needles, led away in every direction, worn by the bare feet of Posy Weavers scholars. A large water oak shaded the low roof of the house; a grapevine trailed down from one of the outstretched limbs and hoisted itself up again, forming a natural swing. The ground beneath was skirt-swept and bare, for that was the girls side. Some pretty- by-night bushes and a straggling line of yellow nigger-heads marked the limit of their playground. On the other side, the boys of several generations had trampled out a ball-field. Tom Simmons, who was at one of the outer bases, came running in. Boys! boys! he cried breathlessly. Wish I may die if a wagin aint comm down the old road! It was an unheard-of thing, since the 58 A Heart-Leaf from Stony Creek Bottom. [January, laying of the new turnpike, for anybody to drive along the old Stony Creek road. Sure enough: an open wagon was bumping down the hill, between the tall brown pine trunks, yawing first to one side and then to the other, in order to escape the red, rain - washed gullies of the road. The shambling, whity-brown horse which drew it stopped a moment at the foot of the descent to breathe; then jogged lazily on, of his own accord, to the branch, where he dipped his nose, with a snuffle of satisfaction, in the sun- warmed water. The boys and one or two of the larger girls hurried down to the reed-fringed bank, and stood gazing, open-mouthed, at the vehicle and its oc- cupants. The driver was a lean, sallow-faced lad, about fifteen years old. He sat on a plank laid across the mud-splashed bed of the wagon. Behind him, in a couple of rickety hide - bottomed chairs, were two old men, a white man and a negro. Both were neatly dressed in threadbare black broadcloth, with old-fashioned plait- ed shirt-fronts of the finest white linen. The negro was bent so nearly double that his brown alert-looking face almost rest- ed upon his knees. His knotted hands trembled, as if shaken by palsy. His companion sat stiffly erect, with his arms crossed upon his breast. There was an air of unconscious dignity about him, though his sunken eyes were humble and appealing. His face was pale and ema- ciated, and his gaunt form was shaken from time to time by a racking cough. A large-patterned old carpet-bag and a bundle tied up in a red cotton hand- kerchief were lying in the back of the wagon, and a battered-looking fiddle was tucked under the negros chair. Mith Pothy, whispered Jed Hop- son, laying a timid hand on the teachers arm. She was sitting by the low, shutter- less window; an open book was on her lap, and she twirled the heart-leaf ab- sently in her fingers. A ray of sunlight falling across her head brightened her bronze-brown hair and drooping lashes. She was very young, hardly as old, in fact, as Pud Hines and Tom Simmons, her oldest scholars. She started at the light touch, and smiled at the small intruder. Well, Jed, is it a thorn in the finger or a splin- ter in the foot, this time ? Mith Potby, his eyes widened as he spoke, the pohouthe wagin, with Tad Luker drivin it, ith yonder at the branch, an ole Cunnel Dave Overall an Uac Bine ith in it, goin to the po- houthe to live. Tad thayth he th takia em to the pohouthe cauthe they aint able to work no more for theythelvth, an if they dont go to the pohouthe they 11 thtarve. Oh, Mith Pothy, what th the matter? The girl had started to her feet; the color had left her cheeks, and she was staring at the child with frightened eyes. There was a creaky sound of wheels outside. She ran out distractedly. Tad Luker grinned with bashful delight at sight of her, and drew his horse up so suddenly that the two old men were jerked forward in their chairs. Colonel David Overall recovered himself, and removed his rusty tall hat with a courtly bow. The schoolmistress leaned against the wheel, panting and speechless. Mornin, Miss Posy. The old negro lifted a band with difficulty to his an- cient beaver. Posy? echoed the Colonel, turning inquiringly from one to the other, a faint flush rising to his hollow cheek. Yessah, returned Uncle Bine. She de granchile o we-alls las fo-de-wah overseer, sah, Mist Josh Mullen, you member Mist Josh Mullen, Marse Dave, an she name Posy ater ole Mis, sah. Yes, sir, the teacher said, answer- ing the sudden look of affectionate in- terest in the old mans eyes, my name is Repose Cartwright Weaver. My mo- ther was born at Sweet Briar Plantation, 1893.] A Heart -Leaf from Stony Creek Bottom. 59 and she named me for your wife. She is buried near Mrs. Overall in the Sweet Briar burying-ground. Colonel Overall opened his lips and then closed them, swallowing a lump in his throat. Wont wont you put on your hat, Colonel? she stammered, after a mo- ments silence, for the noon sun was beat- ing hot upon his gray old head. Oh, no, I could not think of it, he said hastily, in the presence of a lady. He reached down, as he spoke, and took her hand in his. The scholars had all pressed up, and were standing in a ring about the poor- house wagon, staring in respectful si- lence at the dispossessed owner of the old Sweet Briar Plantation. Tad Luker, seeing Miss Posys distress, and feeling himself in some sort implicated in the cause of it, had slid down, and was shel- tering himself behind the placid old horse from the misery in her brown eyes. Ha! It was the heart-leaf dropped from Posy Weavers palm into his own which had brought an almost youthful light into the dimmed eyes. A heart- leaf! I would wager, Byron, he turned to the negro beside him, that it came from the Long Bend in Stony Creek bottom. Yetb, thir, it did! cried Jed Hop- son, thrusting his tousled head up under the teachers arm. Are you a Hopson? demanded the Colonel, looking down at him quizzically. Yeth, thir; Jed Hopthon, thir. The Colonel laughed softly. I thought so. Your grandfather had the same lisp and the same tow head when he was your age. His eyes went back to the leaf. They grow, he said, just be- yond the Flat Rock in the Long Bend. You wade through a boggy thicket un- til you come to a fern-bed; a little fur- ther to the right there is a clump of beech-trees four of them set close together; the heart-leaves grow in a sort of square made by the beech roots. Yoth, thir ! shouted little Jed, quiv- ering with excitement. I ye knowed the plathe nigh a year, but I aint never told nobody. And your name is Repose, my dear? Well, well! And you teach the Stony Creek school? I used to go to school here myself, you know, when I was a boy, with little Posy Cartwright. Not in this house, to be sure. The old one was pulled down, some time in the forties, I think it was, eh, Byron? I found the heart-leaves in Stony Creek bottom one day at playtime. Byron here, my body- servant, was with me. I wuz bawn de same day Marse Dave wuz bawn, an ole Marso gin me ter him fer a body-servant, interjected Uncle Bine. I must have been about eleven years old at the time. I slipped in the bog, and had to go home in wet clothes, but I sent the heart-leaf to Posy by Byron. Yas, said Uncle Bine, taking up the story as his old master relapsed into si- lence, an what you reckin Miss Posy done when I gin her de heart-leaf? She wuz settin in de grapevine swing long 0 n er lil gal. Dey want mon seven or eight year ole, nar one o em, an Miss Posys yaller hair wuz flyin in do win. I gin her do heart-leaf an tole her dat Marse Dave saunt it, an fo do Lawd ! she up an slap me spang on do jaw, an tho do leaf on do groun. She ten lak she gwine ter tromp on it in do bargain; but I done cut my eye on her roun do cornder o do schoolhouse, caze I knowed she gwine ter pick it up. An did she? asked Mary Ann Hines involuntarily; then hung her head, blushing red through tan and freckles. Yas, chile, cose she did, chuckled Uncle Bine. He waited a moment; then proceeded, with a sidelong glance at his self-absorbed companion: Fum dat day ontwel he went off ter collige Marse Dave wuz all do time spilin his britches wadin roun in dat bog ater heart-leaves for Miss Posy; an when he come back 60 fum collige de fines young genterman dat ever kep a pack o houns he fairly hang roun de Poplars, wher Mist Tom Cartwright live, fum mawnin twel night. Ole Marse say he spec Miss Posy leadin Marse Dave a dance. An at las, one night, he rid home fum de Poplars look- in lak he plum desput. Nex mawnin he ax me ter saddle de hosses fo day, caze he gwine huntin down in Stony Creek bottom. I wuz bleedged ter go hine de stable ter laugh when he come outn de house bout daylight, caze how Marse Dave gwine ter hunt dout a gun? We rid at a run down ter de Long Ben o de creek, an fus ting I knowed Marse Dave done flung me his bridle an jump onter de Flat Rock; an dar he wuz wadin thoo de bog, in his fine dos, ter de beeches wher de heart-leaf grow! Hit want mon breakfns-time when we come ter de cross-road twix Sweet Briar an de Poplars. Den Marse Dave he check up de gray an han me de heart- leaf. Tek it ter Miss Posy Cartwright, he say. I m gwine ter wait right here ontwel you come back. Hit s de turn o my life, Bine. I lef him settin straight ez a saplin on de big gray, an I rid on ter de Pop- lars. Dar wuz Miss Posy walkin up an down de galry in her white dress, an de win blowin her yaller hair. She look at me curus-lak wi her blue eyes when she tuk de leaf. Fo de Lawd, I wuz feared she wuz gwine ter tho it on de groun an tromp on it! Bnt she turn her head, f us dis way an den dat, an den she say, sof an sassy-lak, Mek my compliments to yo inarster, an ax him do he want re-pose fer his heart. I am sho, but seem lak I heerd Miss Posy call me back ez I onlatch de big gate, but somepn inside me aiggd me not ter look roun. Marse Dave wuz pale ez death when I galloped up ter de cross- road wher he wuz waitin~ But I am no sooner got Miss Posys words outn my mouf dan he streck spurs in de gray an [January, mek fer de Poplars lak a streak o light- fin. He done fergot dat his dos all splesh over mud fum dat Long Ben bog. The Colonel was listening now, and he smiled encouragement as Uncle Bine stopped to cough. I reckin dass huccum Miss Posy wore heart-leaves stidder white flowers at de weddin. Me an Marse Dave went down ter de bottom ater em on de weddin-day mawnin. An dat huccum every year, when de same day come eroun, Marse Dave useter ride down ter Stony Creek an wade out ter dem beeches ater a heart-leaf. But he never did fetch em ter Miss Posy hissef. He useter stop in de summer-house an sen me inter de house, wher Miss Posy wuz settin in de mawnin-room, wi de silver bell on de wuk-table longside her. She useter tek de heart-leaf an look at me ontn dem laughin eyes an say, Mek my compliments to yo marster, an ax him do he want re-pose fer his heart. An reckly Marse Dave d come bulgin inter de house an tek her in his arms! Every year, cepn endurin o de wah, when Marse Dave an young Marse Cart- wright, his onlies son dat wuz killed in de wab, wuz away fum Sweet Briar, every year fer upards o forty year, I fotch a heart-leaf ter ole Mis, an tuk dat same message ter Marse Dave in de summer-house. But I could nt no- wise mek out de meanin o Miss Posys message, ontwel, all at once, one day, fetchin dem words ter Marse Dave, I got de meanin. It flesh over me in a minit. Repose, dat mean res, you know, an de heart-leaf stan fer Marse Daves heart. Does you want res fer yo heart? I bus out laughin now ever time I member how de true meanin o dem words flesh over me ater upards o forty year! He wagged his head up and down, laughing wheezily. Dass de las time I ever fotch de heart-leaf, he added in a subdued tone, caze Miss Posy died dat same year, an Marse Dave hatter sell Sweet Briar.~~ A Heart-Leaf from Stony Creek Bottom. A Heart-Leaf from Stony Creek Bottom. Yes, Sweet Briar, tumble-down and dilapidated in the midst of its shrunk- en fields, had passed into alien hands. The household belongings the quaint old furniture which had been handed down from one generation of Overalls to another had been sold at auction. Posy Weaver longed to tell the last of the Overalls how she herself had bought, out of her ~ scanty earnings, the little silver bell which used to stand on his wifes work-table. But she could not, somehow. She stood silently look- ing back over the past few years, which seemed long in her brief life, during which Uncle Bine and his old master had lived together in one of the deserted negro cabins at Sweet Briar; keeping up, in the midst of the new and strange generation, their unequal strug- gle with poverty and sickness, until Colonel David Overalls thoughts, it would seem, had been traveling along with hers. I am told, he said ab- ruptly, but with great gentleness, that the the place to which they are tak- ing Byron and me is very comfortable. There is a wide gallery and shade trees, and A violent fit of coughing in- terrupted his speech. The young teacher leaned her head upon the tire of the wheel and wept si- lently. The older boys slunk away, ashamed and frightened at the sight of their teachers tears. The girls turned their beads and pretended not to notice. A sharp click disturbed the silence. It was the snapping of a string on Uncle Bines old fiddle. Tad Luker stooped under the horses neck and came around to where the schoolmistress was standing. Miss Po-Posy, he whispered desperately, I orter go. I 11 git a lickin if I dont. An, Miss Posy, I I fetched him over the old road 50 s to keep offer the pike, where folks might ha seen him on his way to the poorhouse. Posy gave him a grateful look through her tears, and pressed eagerly between the wheels to murmur something which the children could not hear. But the old Colonel shook his bead. No, no, my dear, I cannot burden an orphaned child like you. It will not be long, for Byron and I are very old. Besides, he straightened himself with dignity, I am told that the county poorhouse is quite comfortable, quite comfortable. Tad clambered to his seat; he shook the reins, and the old horse pricked up his ears. Wait a moment, please, said Colonel David Overall, lifting his hand. My dear, he continued, looking wistfully down into the girls flushed and tear- stained face, would would you mind standing for a second upon the step? She sprang lightly upon the muddy wagon-step. He laid his hand on her head. Re- pose Cartwright! It was my wifes name,~~ he muttered, kissing her on either cheek. And then he turned and laid his arm about Uncle Bines bowed shoulders. The wagon rattled away, jolting the old men in their chairs, and displacing the grotesque beavers on their heads. A turn of the red road presently hid them from view, and a moment later the sil- ver bell was calling the scholars of the Stony Creek school to order. 211. E. JUl. Davis. 1893.] 61 62 Cola di Rienzo. [January, COLA DI RIENZO. IN a series of documents illustrating the sources of Italian history, the Isti- tuto Storico at Rome has recently pub- lished a complete edition of the epis- tles of Nicholas, the son of Laurence, commonly known as Cola di Rienzo. Dispersed in various European libra- ries, from Turin to Prague, and more or less difficult of access, these letters bave always constituted one of the two chief sources of information concerning the career of one of the most extraor- dinary of human beings. The other is a curious piece of contemporary biogra- phy, written in the popular Roman dialect of the fourteenth century, pub- lished for the first time at Bracciano in the year 1624, and reprinted in Florence in slightly modernized Italian some fifty years ago. Of this artless yet highly dramatic narrative, the fas- cinating simplicity of which reminds one almost equally of Herodotus and of Malorys Morte dArthur, it is inter- esting to observe that the results of the most laborious modern criticism German, French, and Italian have all tended, as with the work of the Father of History himself, to confirm its historical authority. The amazing facts in the public life of Nicholas, the son of Laurence, his more than mythi- cal triumphs and reverses, were virtual- ly related once for all by this candid old chronicler, whose name we shall never know, and who, all the more because, like Petrarch, he loved the great neo-Roman, and sympathized, up to a certain point, with his vast ambi- tion, deplored and has recorded with naive regret the fatal breaches in his sanity and defections of his conduct. On the other han4, the subjective and transcendental side of Colas char- acter, the spiritual beliefs which in- spired and upheld him, his deep and abiding mysticism, receive new and very striking illustration from the col- location of his epistles and their ar- rangement in chronological order; and the strange inner man, who firmly be- lieved that he was called of Heaven to re~stablish in its regenerate and final form the everlasting Roman imperium, and to inaugurate the era of the Holy Ghost on earth, who once and again soared skyward on the wind of this titanic project, and perished miserably for his daring, stands forth, by his own showing, a figure at once more human and far more tragic than that tinsel hero of romance apostrophized by Byron, sung by the juvenile Wagner, attired for the stage by the gentle hands of Miss Mitford, and recklessly idealized by Bulwer in The Last of the Tribunes. Thanks, however, to these picturesque and popular authors, the outlines of Colas history are so well known that a very slight thread of narrative will suf- fice to connect the extracts which we propose to make from the voluminous writings which have survived him. How and where he can have acquired the culture which enabled him to pro- duce these writings, and to produce them rapidly and abundantly as occa- sion required, the earlier, at least, amid the stress of tremendous action, must always remain one of the most enticing of the mysteries which involve the beginnings of his career. He was born in 1313, nine years later than Petrarch, eight years before Dante died in exile at Ravenna; so that this great trio of Italians who woke in the first dawn of modern history, with so proud a consciousness of their national pedi- gree, and so passionately bent, each in his own way, on reinstating their fallen country in her lost priority, were for a number of years contemporary with one another. Cola, the son of Rienzo, came of the very dregs of the Roman

62 Cola di Rienzo. [January, COLA DI RIENZO. IN a series of documents illustrating the sources of Italian history, the Isti- tuto Storico at Rome has recently pub- lished a complete edition of the epis- tles of Nicholas, the son of Laurence, commonly known as Cola di Rienzo. Dispersed in various European libra- ries, from Turin to Prague, and more or less difficult of access, these letters bave always constituted one of the two chief sources of information concerning the career of one of the most extraor- dinary of human beings. The other is a curious piece of contemporary biogra- phy, written in the popular Roman dialect of the fourteenth century, pub- lished for the first time at Bracciano in the year 1624, and reprinted in Florence in slightly modernized Italian some fifty years ago. Of this artless yet highly dramatic narrative, the fas- cinating simplicity of which reminds one almost equally of Herodotus and of Malorys Morte dArthur, it is inter- esting to observe that the results of the most laborious modern criticism German, French, and Italian have all tended, as with the work of the Father of History himself, to confirm its historical authority. The amazing facts in the public life of Nicholas, the son of Laurence, his more than mythi- cal triumphs and reverses, were virtual- ly related once for all by this candid old chronicler, whose name we shall never know, and who, all the more because, like Petrarch, he loved the great neo-Roman, and sympathized, up to a certain point, with his vast ambi- tion, deplored and has recorded with naive regret the fatal breaches in his sanity and defections of his conduct. On the other han4, the subjective and transcendental side of Colas char- acter, the spiritual beliefs which in- spired and upheld him, his deep and abiding mysticism, receive new and very striking illustration from the col- location of his epistles and their ar- rangement in chronological order; and the strange inner man, who firmly be- lieved that he was called of Heaven to re~stablish in its regenerate and final form the everlasting Roman imperium, and to inaugurate the era of the Holy Ghost on earth, who once and again soared skyward on the wind of this titanic project, and perished miserably for his daring, stands forth, by his own showing, a figure at once more human and far more tragic than that tinsel hero of romance apostrophized by Byron, sung by the juvenile Wagner, attired for the stage by the gentle hands of Miss Mitford, and recklessly idealized by Bulwer in The Last of the Tribunes. Thanks, however, to these picturesque and popular authors, the outlines of Colas history are so well known that a very slight thread of narrative will suf- fice to connect the extracts which we propose to make from the voluminous writings which have survived him. How and where he can have acquired the culture which enabled him to pro- duce these writings, and to produce them rapidly and abundantly as occa- sion required, the earlier, at least, amid the stress of tremendous action, must always remain one of the most enticing of the mysteries which involve the beginnings of his career. He was born in 1313, nine years later than Petrarch, eight years before Dante died in exile at Ravenna; so that this great trio of Italians who woke in the first dawn of modern history, with so proud a consciousness of their national pedi- gree, and so passionately bent, each in his own way, on reinstating their fallen country in her lost priority, were for a number of years contemporary with one another. Cola, the son of Rienzo, came of the very dregs of the Roman 1893.] Cola di Rien~o. 63 people, of such as have no right even to resent a nickname. His father was a tavern - keeper, and his mother a washerwoman and water-carrier; but he seems never seriously to have ques- tioned that the dregs of Rome, even J in her deepest degradation, were bet- ter than any so-called nobility of bar- baric extraction. We do indeed find him, in the desperation of his latest efforts, inventing, or at least accept- ing and relating for ulterior purposes to Charles IV. at Prague, a story in which he refers his own origin to a certain period of ten days when the Emperor Henry VIII. had lain hidden from his enemies at Rome in Rienzos inn by the Tiber, the latter being absent on a raid with one of the Or- sini. The old chronicler tells us this as he tells us most things, in few and earnest words, without approval or apology. It is only Colas latest bio- grapher, the careful and conscientious Rodocanachi, who falls into the essen- tially modern vulgarity of pausing to point a sober moral here concerning the weakness of denying a lowly origin. The river-side inn was situated in that quarter of Rome which was, and remained until yesterday, the lowest of all, the right bank of the Tiber, just opposite the Ponte Rotto and the great island. The Colonna family, at that period, had fortified with towers and surrounded by palisades their own particular quarter of Rome, extending from the Column of Trajan, whence they took their name, along the line of the modern Corso as far as the For- ta del Popolo. The Orsini had done the same for the region about the Cas- tle of Sant Angelo, which they garri- soned and held. The Savelli were intrenched upon the Aventine, and the Frangipani held the Colosseum. The Emperor was far away in the north; the Pope was at Avignon. The Ro- man populace, to the probable number of some thirty thousand souls, led a miserably precarious existence around and among the rival camps of the ruffianly lords, and were bitterly op- pressed by them all. A traveler of the fourteenth cen- tury,1 describing the gaunt aspect of the ruins of pagan antiquity at about this time, informs us that the sacred hill of Jove was a wilderness of bram- bles and manure-heaps ; the Tarpeian Rock looked as it must have done in the days of Evander; the Palatine was a mountain of broken and disjointed marbles ; and the Forum was divided between pasture ground and vegetable garden. This scene of unparalleled desolation appealed all the more pow- erfully, no doubt, to the wrathful im- agination of the innkeepers haughty son, because the meaning of it must have burst suddenly upon him, on his return to Rome at the age of twenty, after an absence of some fifteen years. Poor Maddelena, his hard-working mo- ther, had died while he was still an infant, and the boy had been sent to be brought up by relatives in the Abruzzi. He afterward took pains to tell the king of Bohemia, in the same breath or rather upon the same sheet with the fable of his own imperial origin, that he lived among the mountains, in those early years, like a peasant among peasants. And how, indeed, should he have lived otherwise? Yet it seems most likely that it was here, at the hands of some benevolent churchman or recluse philosopher, he received that remarkable education which gave him access to all the known literature of his day, including the whole of the sa- cred Scriptures, and the perfect com- mand of an only too fluent and florid Renaissance Latin. The place of his retreat was Ana- gui, immemorial Anagni, then and al- ways one of the most romantic spots that even Italy contains, a very home and haunt of mystery. It was reputed to have been a flourishing and famous 1 Bracciolini Poggio, Hist. de Varietate For- tunie. 64 Cola di Rien~o. [January, town when the Trojans landed, and Marcus Aurelius, in the second cen- tury, was overpowered by the solemn aspect of its crumbling monuments, and the indecipherable inscriptions upon its mossy altars. In the dark ages, Anagni had become a papal stronghold; and Cola may very well have imbibed here, along with his Latin accidence and his marvelous knowledge of the Bible, some part of the special abhorrence which he bore the race of Colonna, since it was here that only a few years before Benedict VIII. had been besieged and taken prisoner by them, and subjected to ex- traordinary personal indignity. It is even more certain that the Roman youth had first heard expounded at Anagni that doctrine of the yin spin- tuales, or men who looked for the im- mediate coming of the Holy Ghost, with which his name was later to be identified. A hundred years after the death of St. Francis of Assisi, a large propor- tion of his more earnest and ascetic followers had embraced that strange theory of an historic succession in the Holy Trinity which was formulated by the so-called Prophet Joachim of Flora, in Calabria, in the impressive state- ment that as the reign of the Father had ended with the advent of the Son, so the reign of the Son was now pass- ing away before that of the Spirit, of whom St. Francis himself had been the precursor. A doctrine so obviously he- retical had of course been condemned from the papal chair, though one of the Popes of the intervening period, Celestine V., was believed to hold it; but its disciples had suffered only just persecution enough to confirm and unite them, and their influence was para- mount in all the hill - towns of the Abruzzi. The death of Colas father in 1334 seems to have recalled him to Rome, and it was his phenomenal familiarity with the Latin classics which first drew public attention to him there. Oh, what a quick reader he was cries the old biographer. Forever quoting Titus, Livy, Seneca, Tully, Valerius Maximus! He was the only man in Rome who could decipher the old pi- taffi and turn them into the vulgar tongue. If I could but have lived in the days of those men! he used to say. And then comes a vivid and significant bit of personal portraiture He was a handsome man, but the perpetual smile which hovered upon his lips was just a little fantastic. Some ghostly reminiscence of the an- cient forms of municipal government, or at least of the ancient names, had always survived in Rome. There had been a prefect residing, however, at Viterbo who was supposed in some especial manner to represent the Holy Roman Emperor. There had been sen- ators, now one, now two, now forty or more; sometimes named by the reigning Pope, sometimes chosen by ac- clamation though always, in Colas time, under intimidation of the barons and their armed followers in an in- formal assembly of the people. So long, indeed, as the Pope and his car- dinals lived in Rome or its immediate vicinity, they imposed a certain check upon the tyranny of the great nobles, who were most of them of foreign ori- gin; but from the year 1305, when Clement V. took up his residence in Avignon, the state of the Eternal City can only be described as one of an- archy. Stava in grandissima trema- glia, is the expression of Colas biogra- pher. To raise her from her profound prostration; to humiliate once for all the insolent oppressors within her walls; to restore to the Roman populace the ideal and the practice of self-govern- ment which had once made them su- preme; and to bring back their spirit- ual sovereign to the sacred post which he had deserted, these were the main features of that grand programiiie of reform which was beginning to take 1893.] Cola di li?ienzo. 65 shape in the ardent brain of the son of Laurence the innkeeper. Such he conceived, in its practical aspects and consequences, would be that millenni- um of the Holy Ghost which the men of the spirit were wont to describe merely as the coming of the good state, but which he himself preferred, at this time, to call the good and ancient state. He married a woman of the people, with a small dowry, adopted the pro- fession of notary, and, with that singu- lar, inspired look of his, and the gift of ready and impassioned eloquence which he presently discovered, his person soon became familiar to all classes in Rome. His own feeling toward the nobles had been greatly exacerbated by the mur- der of one of his young brothers in a street brawl, just after his return from the hills. He had been unable to ob- tain the punishment of the assassin, who was perfectly well known, but he took a larger vengeance by constituting himself the public advocate of others who had suffered similar wrongs, and in general of all the especially helpless and oppressed. In 1342, Pierre Roger, of Limoges, became Pope at Avignon, under the title of Clement VI., and an embassy of eighteen prominent Roman citizens, with old Stefano Colonna at their head, and Petrarch as spokesman, to enhance their ~clat, immediately wait- ed upon the new Pontiff, entreating his return to Rome. They were cold- ly received, but, by the time they had come back discomfited, it seems to have been thought preposterous by no- body that Cola di Rienzo should have offered to make a second attempt in the same direction, in his own private capacity. He did, at all events, go, unattended, to Avignon, probably in December, 1342, with a double peti- tion; comprising the restoration of the Holy See to Rome, and the proclama- tion of a general jubilee for the semi- centennial year which was approach- ing. The lettered Pope, who had been a doctor of the Sorbonne, seems at once to have been struck and fascinated by the high - flown eloquence and classic lore of the young notary; and Cola was also received with open arms and the most reverential faith and enthusiasm by Petrarch, who had remained at Vaucluse when the formal embassy re- turned, and whom Cola had seen before, no doubt, but only at a dazzling dis- tance, when, in April, 1340, the poet visited Rome as the guest of his great friends and patrons among the Colon- nesi, and received his laurel crown at the dishonored Capitol. For the measure of success which attended Colas romantic mission let us now apply to the first of his epistles, which was addressed from Avignon to the Roman people in the last days of Janu- ary, 1343. The style in this instance is excessively figurative and Biblical, that of an initerant preacher rather than an astute politician. Let the mountains round about you rejoice, and your hills be clothed with joy. . . . The city of Rome arises from her age-long prostration, and, mount- ing the throne of her accustomed ma- jesty, she lays aside the mournful robes of her widowhood and puts on the purple of a bride. The spouse and lord for whom the city is to be thus adorned is of course the new Pope, who, compassionating her ca- lamities, ruins, and slaughters, has been moved by inspiration of the Holy Ghost kindly to open the arms of his clemency, offering grace and mercy to ourselves, redemption to the univer- sal world, and remission of sins to all nations. The jubilee of universal pardon had, in short, been formally decided, and proclaimed to be celebrated in the year 1350, and at intervals of fifty years for evermore; but as for that other prayer touching the restoration of the papacy, Cola was fain to be content with impressive but less expli VOL. LXXI. NO. 423. 66 Cola di Rien~o. [January, cit assurances. Willingly accepting, moreover, the proffered headship of our city, he [Clement YJ.] hath vowed, with ineffable emotion, by word, look, gesture, noble action of the body, and in short by all manner of external signs more animated than I can possi- bly describe, that he will assuredly visit the Apostolic See after he shall have allayed the scandals of Gaul. This magnanimous intention should be enough in itself, Cola thinks, to entitle the new Pontiff to a statue in our most venerable city, wherethrough it is unlawful for the Gentiles even to walk till they have unbound the chains of vice and put the shoes from off their feet ; for the place whereon you stand and where you live, dear brethren, is in very truth holy ground. He adds a formal expression of his own private belief that the grand re- storation, both material and spiritual, is far nearer than the world imagines, and signs himself, Nicholas, the son of Laurence, Roman consul, sole popu- lar ambassador of the widow, the or- phan, and the poor, to our lord the Roman Pontiff, of my own motion and by my own hand. This sounds sufficiently pretentious and visionary, and yet before the date of his next epistle, four years and three months later, Colas part in the great and seemingly hopeless reformation had been triumphantly accomplished; and that without the shedding of a drop of Roman blood. He had become dicta- tor at Rome under the antique title of Tribune of the people; he had promul- gated a concise but excellent code of laws whose execution secured peace and order within the precincts of the long- distracted city; he had worsted, one by one, and signally humiliated for the moment, almost all the great nobles, beginning with Stefano Colonna the elder; while some of the more promi- nent of the Orsini, the natural enemies of the former, had ranged themselves on his side. His headquarters were now at the Capitol, where he main- tained a certain state, having disman- tled the fortified posts of the great nobles inside the city walls, and used the wooden beams and other materials which had composed their palisades to strengthen the colonnades of the mu- nicipal palace. He had forbidden the exhibition upon gateway or tower of any arms but those of the Pope, for it was still in the Popes name and as his colleague that he professed to rule; and the papal legate in Italy, Rai- mond, Bishop of Orvieto, was appar- ently his willing instrument and close ally. He had organized and equipped, for the protection of life and proper- ty in Rome, a strong police force with mounted officers, constituting an ad- mirable nucleus for an army, and un- der orders to be always in readiness instantly to rally to the Capitol upon the stroke of the great bell. He was even coining money ~vith his own super- scription added to the legend Roma Caput Mundi; and the private de- vice which he had adopted of a seven- rayed sun, with a star at the end of each ray, was gravely explained by himself as the arms of the family of Boethius Severinus, in whose writings Cola was deeply versed, whom, as the last Roman of the old order, he regarded as his own immediate predecessor, and from whom he had adopted the name Severus, which was now added to that of Nicholas in the signature of all his letters and edicts. Two only of the great feudal nobles in the states of the Church continued to hold out against the usurper: they were Giovanni di Yico, prefect of Vi- terbo, and Giovanni GaetanQ, Count of Fondi, fratricides both, and at all times enemies of God and the Holy Roman Church, Cola described them in writing to the Pope ; and it was principally for the purpose of levying troops to accomplish their reduction that he now addressed a sort of encyc- lical to the communes of all the citie8 Cola di Rienzo. of central and northern Italy, in which he proclaimed the inauguration of the good state in Rome, and conjured them to aid him, with money and troops, in extending its millennial blessings to the whole of that noble territory of which Rome was the traditional head. Nicholas, severe and clement, Tribune of liberty, peace, and justice, and Liberator of the sacred Roman re- public, announces to the commune of Viterbo, for instance, the pentecostal gift of the Holy Ghost which has been bestowed on the city of Rome, and which is destined, if they will but re- ceive it, to be extended to yourselves and all the faithful people who consti- tute our members. It had been, in fact, on the feast of Pentecost, May 20, 1~347, that Cola had accomplished his bloodless coup d6tat, after having passed the night of the vigil in hearing masses of the Holy Spirit to the num- ber of thirty, in the church of Sant Angelo-in-Peseheria. He goes on to give a prolix but perfectly lucid and circumstantial account of the late dis- graceful condition of the city, which had even precluded pious pilgrimages to the shrines of our princes and fellow- citizens, the most holy apostles Peter and Paul, and of the other holy apos- tles, the bodies of eight of whom rest in this city, and of the infinite number of martyrs and virgins, in whose blood the holy city is founded, to the no small detriment of Christendom at large. It is prima- rily to the intercession with our Lord and Father Jesus Christ of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, our fellow- citizens, princes, and keepers, that Cola ascribes the happy change which has taken place; whereby the Roman populace itself has been restored to unity, concord, and the appetite for freedom, and inflamed with a sense of justice ; . . . and as a perpetual sign of good will, and of their own right- eous and sacred purpose, this same Roman people, in public and most sol emn parliament, has bestowed upon me, unworthy, full and free power and authority both to preserve and yet fur- ther to reform the pacific state of the aforesaid city and of the entire pro- vince of Rome. Wherefore, I, though I know my shoulders to be weak and unequal to the bearing of so great a burden, yet distinctly perceiving this to be the Lords doing and marvelous in our eyes, and trusting to the grace and protection of God and of the blessed apostles Peter aiid Paul, and resting my hope upon the power of the Roman people and the adherence and suffrage of the whole Roman province, have ac- cepted the aforesaid power and author- ity with a devout heart and a valiant mind. Cola goes on to summon the com- mune of Viterbo to furnish him a mil- itary contingent, supplied with arms, horses, and other accoutrements of war, for the immediate subjugation and treading under foot of time pride and tyranny of sundry rebellious spirits. He likewise requests the appointment of two suitable delegates to the general parliament and council soon to be held at Rome for the purpose of celebrat- ing and confirming the establishment of the good state; and also the immediate selection, for his own private behoof, and in token of their love and amity, of a man skilled in jurisprudence who will take rank from this time as one of the judges of my own consistory, and will receive six months salary and wages and the usual emoluments. This letter is dated at the Capitol, May 24, 1347 ; and, considering the fact that one of the recalcitrant spir- its mentioned was the seignior of Vi- terbo itself, its tenor is sufficiently bold. On the 7th of June, Cola sent to the communes of Perugia, Florence, and Lucca letters couched in almost precisely the same terms, except that in these he describes himself as called of God to the pacification of all Italy, as well as of the states of the Church; 1893.] 68 Cola di 1?iei~zo. II 5anuai~y, and in the later letters he appoints Aug- ust 1 ~s the day of the great celebration. Four days later, that is to say, June 11, we find him prefacing a similar summons to the commune of Mantua with a private note, written entirely in the tone of one potentate to another, and addressed to his beloved friend, the noble and potent Lord Gui- do di Gonzaga, ruler of the aforesaid city. From this time on, throughout all that crowded summer of incredible achievement and dreamlike pageantry, the literary activity of Cola was inces- sant. There are no less than ten elab- orate letters and dispatches addressed to Florence and to other italian com- munes. There are two long letters to Clement YJ. in Avignon, minutely de- scribing the progress of the revolution, which has all been wrought, the writer still devoutly protests, in the name and for the glory of his Holiness. There is a letter, in some respects the most extraordinary of all Colas public doc- uments, addressed to those German princes who rank as electors of the Holy Roman Empire, and whom he mentions by name; announcing that confederate Rome, in which term, since the late happy events, all the lesser Italian states are to be understood as included, has resumed her immemorial right of choosing her own Imperator, and summoning, all and singular, the prelates, emperors, elect and electors, kings, dukes, princes, counts, mar- quises, peoples, universities, and all others in question, to send delegates be- fore the feast of Pentecost in the en- suing year to a diet to be held in Rome, in the beloved and the sacrosanct church of the Lateran; otherwise the assemblage will proceed with its func- tions as the law appoints, and the Holy Ghost shall give it grace, with- out reference to the aforesaid poten- tates. Finally, there are two private letters, to which we shall presently re- fer, written, the one to an anony mous friend in the papal court at Avi- guon, the other to Petrarch at the same place. On St. Johns Day (June 24), Cola had gone in state to the Lateran basil- ica of that period, clothed in white silk and riding a white horse, and rendered actions of grace for the success which had thus far attended his mission. Two days later, there came from the Pope in Provence an official sanction of the new order, and the formal appointment of Rienzo and the Bishop of Orvieto as joint vicars of Clement in Italy. The expedition against Viterbo was organ- ized, and set out in the first days of July. On the 16th the fortress surren- dered. Before the close of that month, deputations, bearing congratulations on the establishment of the good state, and offers of material assistance in main- taining it, had arrived in Rome from Siena, Arezzo, Todi, Spoleto, Velletri, Foligno, and many other cities; a let- ter to the same effect had come from Venice, bearing the great seal of the republic; while the Este from Fer- rara, the Gonzaga from Mautna, and the Malatesta from Rimini sent mes- sengers with magnificent presents. The rival claimants to the throne of INa- ples, Louis of Hungary, and the infa- mous Giovanna through her paramour and prime minister, Louis of Taranto, were competing for the favor of the Tribune; and the unification of Italy was thus, in very truth, shown by the fates for one moment five hundred years before its actual accomplishnient. Could any mortal brain have failed to be turned by so sudden and so giddy a rise? Yet the stately ceremonies and bizarre effects of those August fetes which Cola had so solemnly ad- vertised were all conceived in a cer- tain spirit of mysticism, and arranged with reference to a deep symbolic sig- nificance. On August II, the great re- publican anniversary which commem- orated the fall of Alexandria in the year 30 n. c., and the inauguration of 1893.] Cola di ]?ienw. 69 an era of universal peace under Au- gustus, Cola, after having first plunged into that ancient and still existing font where Constantine the Great was bap- tized, received the accolade from a Ro- man nobleman whom he had himself appointed to the office, exhibited him- self to the dazzled populace and the delegates of half Christendom as in- vested with a new and sacred order of spiritual knighthood, and duly per- formed his vigil in the baptistery of the Lateran. On the feast of the As- sumption, a fortnight later, five great ecclesiastical dignitaries waited upon him in Sta. Maria Maggiore, with tri- bunal crowns of oak, ivy, laurel, olive, and silver; while the same Ludovico Scotto who had dubbed him knight presented him with a yet more sacred emblem in the form of a silver globe surmounted by a cross. It was in signifying his acceptance of this last offering, no doubt, that Cola pronounced the startling words which sent a thrill of superstitious alarm through the hitherto enthusiastic throng. Like our Lord Jesus Christ, he said, I have, in my thirtieth year, delivered the world from her tyrants without the shedding of blood. He was at the apex of his glory, and gid- diness fell upon him by the inevitable law. This day, cried a pious monk upon the outskirts of the crowd to a priest of Colas own household, your master is fallen from heaven. The history of the ensuing months, from that eventful 15th of August to the date of Colas first disappearance from the Roman scene, is indeed, as we know, a tale of little else than strife and bloodshed. The barons rallied from their temporary consternation and resolutely combined against him, while the Pope recoiled definitively from the support of one whose pretensions had grown so impious as to menace even his own supremacy. Meanwhile, in the letter already noted, to his name- less friend in Avignon, which is dated July 15, the man Cola affords us a rather moving glimpse of his own in- ner life, and the unquestionable sin- cerity and disinterestedness of his chi- merical purposes. God, to whom all things are open, knows that it is not through any ambition of dignity, office, fame, honor, or worldly wealth, which things I have ever abhorred as very slime, but through a desire for the com- mon good of the entire republic, our own most holy state, that I have been induced to bow my neck to so heavy a yoke. Tis God, and not man, who has laid it upon me. He knows what prayers procured me this charge: whe- ther I have distributed favors, honors, and emoluments among my kindred, or heaped up honors for myself; whether I have swerved from truth or tempo- rized with any man; whether I have ever accepted a bribe for myself or on behalf of my heirs, indulged in glut- tony or any other delight of the senses, or worn a mask of any kind. God is my witness that what I have done, I have done for the poor and the helpless, the widow and the fatherless. Cola, the son of Laurence, led a far more tranquil existence than does the Tri- bune. He mentions, a little further on, an attempt upon his life, which, by the mercy of God, he had discovered and foiled; but as for the rumor, he continues, which you say has reached you, that I am beginning to be afraid, know that the Holy Spirit, by whom I am sustaincd and directed, has made my heart so stout that I fear nothing at all; nay, if the entire world and all its inhabitants, both those of the holy Christian faith and the perfid- ious Jews and pagans, were banded against me, I should not be shaken. For my purpose is, in all reverence to- ward God and our Holy Mother Church, to die, if need be, for the love and the cult of justice. Colas first letter to Petrarch, or at least the first that has been preserved, is dated the 28th of this same month 70 Cola di J?ienzo. [January, of July, in the first year of the lib- erated republic. The style, from an evident straining after literary effect, is rather worse than usual; the address is extremely pompous. Nicholas, the severe and clement, Tribune of liberty, peace, and justice, and illustrious deliverer of the sacred Roman republic, to that man of shin- ing virtue, the Lord Francis Petrarch, worthiest poet laureate and most dear fellow-citizen, health and plenitude of honor and of the highest joy. He goes on to speak of the sweet series of Petraich s letters to himself, to thank him for his precious encouragement, and to pray him to come and see with his own eyes the dawn of the new day in Rome. For as a precious gem adorns a ring of gold, so would the glory of your person add grace and honor to our beloved city. Petrarch did not accept this invita- tion, but the admiration of the poet and patriot for the saviour of what they both delighted to call their common country, and his impassioned faith in the divine authority of Colas mission, found expression, during these last days of July, in that finest of all the can- ~oni, which begins with the sublime apo- strophe: Spirito gentil elm queue membra reggi, Dentro alle qua peregrinando alberga, Un Signor valoroso, accorto e saggio, etc. Already, however, in the early au- tumn, we detect a note of hesitation, a subtle breath of warning and almost of reproof, mingling with Petrarchs ascriptions of praise to the emancipator of Rome; nor can he quite repress a sigh on his own account over his in- evitable alienation from those lifelong friends and benefactors of his among ~ We have followed Papeneordt and Rodo- canachi, as well as the general tradition of the time, in this enumeration of the Colonna vic- tims. The old biographers account is a some- what confnsed one, and the editor of the Epis- tolario points out that there is no positive proof of the death of more than three of that fam- ily. Cola himself, as we shall see, gives the the Colonna, with whom, as the head and front of the allied barons, the Tri- bune was now at open war. Then came the fatal 20th of No- vember, 1347, and that ferocious con- flict outside the Porta San Lorenzo, in which twelve great Roman nobles, in- cluding six cavaliers of the house Qf Colonna, were slain.1 The latter were, Stefano the younger, son of the more famous Stefano; Pietro and Giovanni, his nephews, and Roman senators both; and three sons of the younger Stefano. Cola, as one drunk with slaughter, not merely permitted the persons of the dead to be infamously insulted by his men, but, on the day after the battle, he brought his own young son, Loren- zo, to the scene of it, sprinkled his brow with water from a neighboring pool mixed with the blood of Stefano Colonna, and dubbed him Knight of Victory upon the sodden field. From that time, says the old biographer, the Tribune began to lose credit. There were whispers among the people. Men said that his arrogance was not small. The ghastly tidings met Petrarch at Farina, on his way from France, and at first he would not believe them. The tale had been brought by an itinerant monk of Orvieto, and Petrarchs im- pulse was to scout it as a fable of the cloister. But his incredulity cannot have lasted long, for within a week after the battle we find him writing to Rienzo in terms of undisguised lamen- tation and reproach, as well as per- forming the far more difficult duty of expressing to his friend Cardinal Gio- vanni Colonna,2 at Avignon, some por- tiou of his own distressful sympathy and compunction. numbers differently in two letters which are otherwise almost identical. But if both these letters were really written, as they are dated, on the day of the battle, some hours may have intervened between them, leaving time for the Tribune to receive a fuller list of the slain. 2 The youngest of the three Cardinals Co- lonna of that period. 1893.] Cola di Ricn~o. The Colonnesi had plenty of crimes to answer for; but no one of them lacked those imposing qualities of race which declare themselves in the hour of supreme misfortune and compel the obeisance of the world, qualities largely mundane, no doubt, but none the less majestic, to which the Tribune and Liberator, all his disinterestedness and all his inspiration granted, could never pretend. The sorrowful arnemde of Petrarch was accepted with grave maguanimity both by the cardinal and his brother Giacomo, the Bishop of Lombez; and there was no break thenceforth in the affectionate relations between them and the poet. These two ecelesiastics and their father, old Stefano, now in his eighty-third year, with one son of the younger Stefano, were all that remained of their branch to represent that mass of fiery valor rolling on the foe which but yester- day had gloried in the name of Colon- na. When the venerable head of the house heard of the catastrophe which had befallen his line, his words were few. Gods will be done, he said. Of the two, it is assuredly better to die than to submit any longer to the tyranny of this peasant; and at once assuming command of the remnant of the baronial party, he conducted their operations, during the few weeks that intervened between the battle of Porta San Lorenzo and the abrupt disappear- ance of Cola, with all the vigor of his prime. The anonymous biographer of Rienzo prays the reader to permit him to pause at this critical point, and relate a striking story which he has encoun- tered in the book of Titus Livy con- cerning a general whose name was Anitalo di Cartagine. The victory of Canna and the dalliance at Capua are then described with all the zest of one who is conscious of having a fresh and impressive anecdote to tell; and the point is, adds this engaging historian, that if Cola di Rienzo, the Tribune, had only followed up his victory and ridden straight to Marino and taken the Castle of Marino, and made an end then and there of Giordano,1 so that he could never have raised his head again, the people of Rome would still have been free and without tribula- tion. But no such vigorous measures ap- pear to have occurred to Rienzo, who indulged instead in a bout of riotous feasting, all the niore remarkable from the abstemiousness of his previous hab- its. He also, as has been already said, wrote two long letters on the very day of the battle, one to the com- mune of Florence, and one to Rinaldo Orsino, his ally at Avignon, describ- ing in terms of rather brutal exulta- tion the circumstances of the fight. In the first of these letters he speaks of only three of the Colonnesi as hav- ing fallen. In the second he mentions six, but does not give their names. In both he says that he was visited in a dream, two days hefore the battle, by Boniface VIII., the implacable foe of that haughty race, who predicted their annihilation at his hands. There must, however, have fallen upon him, in the next few days, a great revulsion of feeling, perhaps of re- morse and distrust of his own mission; otherwise, he could hardly have been so depressed and intimidated as he presently showed himself to be by the tidings that Clement had pronounced his doctrines heretical, and was send- ing a legate to supersede the governor whom Cola had recently appointed for the Sabine territory. On the 2d of December, the Tribune sent a circu- lar letter to sundry communes in that region, enjoining instant submission to the papal decree. We love you with a righteous zeal, he wrote, and we will not forsake you either in tem- pest or in calm; but you ought not to desire ns to remain at odds with the 1 Orsino. The Colonnesi did not acquire Ma- rino till the following century. 72 Cola di Rien~o. [January, Holy See on your behalf, especially when this could in no way profit your- selves. This circular is the last of the ori- ginal documents belonging to the pe- riod of Colas first ascendency. On the 14th a riot broke out in Rome, fomented by a certain active adven- turer who had been raising mercenaries in the papal states for the army with which Louis of Hungary was proposing to invade the kingdom of Naples. It was an insignificant 6meute enough at the outset, but it seemed to paralyze the Tribune. Tie caused the great alarm bell to be sounded; but when, for the first time, the troops which he had organized did not rally to the summons, his confidence wholly forsook him, and, after a night of agonized sus- pense, he addressed his personal atten- dants in a voice choked with emotion and took solemn leave of them. I have ruled this people uprightly, were his words, but through envy they are discontent, and now, in the seventh month of my dominion, I will depart. He had still sufficient sang-froid to mount his horse, and order the brazen trumpets which had hitherto heralded his progress through the streets of Rome to be blown once more; and thus, says the biographer, with an armed guard and banners flying, he descended triumphaliter, and took refuge in the Castle of Sant Angelo. If Cola had hoped to be recalled to the Capitol by a spontaneous demon- stration of the people, he was disap- pointed. From Sant Angelo he with- drew, in the first days of January, to Civita Vecchia, and from thence to Naples, which the king of Hungary entered as conqueror on the 18th of that month. We catch a glimpse of attempted negotiations with the latter, followed by a sharp summons from Avignon for the surrender of Cola to the jurisdiction of the Holy See. Then suddenly, in the awful spring of 1348, there fell out of heaven upon Italy, cutting short all human purposes, ob- literating all minor distinctions, the blackness of the great plague. Louis of Hungary abandoned his late con- quest and fled to his home in the north, and Cola, like many another of those who escaped the pest, assumed the habit of a monk, entered the third order of the Franciscans, and sought asylum with his co-religionists, the yin spirituales, in the great convent of Monte Majella. We will let him describe in his own words the manner of life in that mountain fastness, the highest peak of the Apennines after the Gran Sasso d Italia. But there are those, he says, by way of contrast to a graphic picture he has just been drawing of the corruption of the Avignonese clergy, who, having sold all their worldly goods and given to the poor, spurning all manner of soft raiment, and clad simply in two tunics of coarse wool (precisely the dress, by the way, which the Roman peasant had worn in those very moun- tains of the Abruzzi a thousand years before), bare - legged and, so far as possible, bare-footed, sundered utterly from the world, have betaken them- selves to wild woods and solitary places, after the manner of the holy fathers. No avarice flourishes among these men, no envy, no ambition, no scandal, but poverty ardently em- braced, sincere humility, a joyful pa- tience, innocence and purity, and a life of unmixed charity. For whether they be sons of counts, barons, and other nobles, or men learned in theology, of whom many have rallied hither, and many more will rally, unless they be first pierced by the arrows and slain by the engines of the Church, they are glad to bear upon their shoulders, from far-away farms and castles, through snow and rain and mountain pass, some alms to their companions. And the command lies upon them that if any one of the order, in asking alms among the farmsteads, should chance 1893.] Goict di ]?ienzo. 73 to encounter abuse or personal violence, he may not taste of the bread he has begged until he has offered a special prayer for the salvation of the violent or blasphemous man. . . . They fast much, but they pray yet more; and if their countenances be not dis- turbed by mirth, yet are they truly glad and satisfied at heart, and some- times they work famous miracles. O mortal life that bringest forth im- mortality! 0 angelic life, above re- proach by any save the friends of Sa- tan! If I had not actually seen these things, my own soul could never have been so moved and drawn by love and longing for them! There seems no reason to doubt the sincerity of Colas self-consecration, nor the profound regret with which he soon found himself summoned, as he believed, of Heaven to detach himself from the contemplative life, and em- bark once more upon the stormy ocean of this worlds affairs. How this hap- pened he shall also tell us. The Vati- can codex containing the long discourse from which our last extract comes is entitled, Reply of the Tribune to the Ca~sar concerning his Eulogium of Charity. The C~esar is the Holy Ro- man Emperor, Charles IV. of Bohemia; for when Cola reappears in the world of action, we find him, to our amazement, transformed into as completely con- vinced a Ghibelline as ever Dante had been. The transitory dream of an Italian imperium was over; and it is upon the northern potentate that the Tribune now rests his last hope of the purification and pacification of Rome. Arriving in Prague, a footsore pil- grim, in July of 1350 (after having paid a flying visit to Rome in disguise, and snatched, as it were, the blessing of the jubilee), he was received into the house of a druggist, who was by birth a Florentine, and thence requested and obtained audience of the Emperor. And these, observes the anonymous biographer, were his words, and this was his excellent discourse to Charles, the king of Bohemia, grandson of the Emperor Henry, and himself lately elected Emperor by the Pope: Most serene prince and glorious ruler of the entire world: I am that Cola to whom God once gave such grace that I was able to govern Rome and her whole territory in justice, liberty, and peace. Tuscany, Campania, and, the seacoast acknowledged my authority; I bridled the arrogance of the great; I abolished many an iniquitous abuse. But I am a worm, and a fallible man, and a weakly plant, like another, and God hath willed to chastise me. A rod of iron was in my hand, which I, out of very humility, converted into a rod of wood. The men of might pursue me and they seek my life. In their pride and hatred they have chased me from my dominions, and they remain unpun- ished. I, who am of your own lin- eage, a bastard son of the valiant Em- peror Henry, betake myself to you, under the shield and shadow of whose wings a man ought surely to be safe; for I have seen a prophecy of Brother Angelo of the Mount of Heaven in Monte Majella, which says that the eagle shall devour the carrion crows. There must surely still have been a mysterious power in Colas person- ality and an irresistible fascination about his address, for the royally de- scended Kaiser, to whom the effrontery of the innkeepers son in claiming kindred with himself must have been simply astounding, the creature of Clement VI., who knew that Cola had long since been excommunicated by the latter, not only received him with- out rebuke, but requested a written statement of his experiences and his views, which Cola forthwith prepared. Most serene C~esar Augustus, this remarkable document began, it has pleased your Serenity to invite me to repeat in proper writing what I have already said in your imperial presence, 74 Cola di Rien~o. [January, and glad am I that in the royal city, where silver and gold are purged from dross,1 my message also should be care- fully tried. For if any error do indeed lurk therein, I would fain see it elimi- nated by the scrutiny of men wiser than I. Who I am, and what I have done for the defense and safety of churches, monasteries, hospitals, and all the poor and suffering everywhere; what I have been also to the pilgrim and the stran- ger, and all who desire to live purely and without guile, and what to the tyrants and robbers of Italy, these things, I say, can by no means be blinked or hidden. The Holy Roman See and all the people of Italy know them; they are as a city set upon a hill. . . . But when, in the fullness of that glory and felicity to which the Lord had raised me, I began to invest myself with the pomps and splendors of this world, I was most righteously chastised of God. The flowers and the fruitage of my high estate fell from me, and I became sterile for a season, like a tree stripped bare by the violence of the wind. . . . For, as I have already explained to your Majesty, I fled from the pursuit of those very foes whom pre- viously, by Gods help, I had laid low. By God, not man, was I driven forth, and freely, in view of the whole people in parliament assembled [!i, having sol- emnly laid aside the sceptre of justice and the tribunal crown, I departed, amid the tears of the multitude, and remained in solitude, looking always for the coming of one who should de- liver me at once from the stormy tem- pest and the weakness of my own heart. So dwelt I, passing my time in prayer, among the hermits in the Apennines of Apulia, and I wore the garb of poverty. And when I had thus lived and labored some thirty months, there arrived a certain friar 1 He alludes to a celebrated coinage of Prague. 2 Christicolas and Christianos. It would be curious to know the exact distinction between named Angelo, of Monte Vulcano, an- nouncing himself a hermit of the her- mits, and revered of many. This man saluted me by my true name, to my great amazement, for my name was not known in that place, and told me that I had now been long enough in the desert for the good of my soul, and that once more it behooved me to be laboring for the world at large, and not for myself alone. He then told me that he had had a direct revelation from Heaven concerning the place of my retreat, and proceeded to open to me the designs of God touching that universal restoration which has been so often predicted by the men of the spirit, and invoked in the prayers of the all-powerful and glorious Virgin. The crowding calamities of the last few years, earthquake, famine, and pestilence, were declared to have been but the wholesome scourges of God, designed for the reformation of the Church and the world; and in a short time, more especially through the re- turn of the Catholic Church to her state of pristine sanctity, an era of great peace would begin, and that not for the worshipers of Christ alone, but for all Christians,2 and even for Sara- cens, who would thus receive the grace of the Spirit at the hands of the one Shepherd immediately to be set over them, for that the era of the Holy Ghost wherein God shall be verily known of man was in truth close at hand. He also told me that, in the furtherance of this great work of the Spirit, God had selected a certain holy man, whom all would be taught of Heaven to recognize, who would co- operate with the Emperor elect in re- forming the universal world, and in stripping the pastors of the Church of all their superfluous luxuries and per- ishable riches. Cola then proceeds these two in Colas mind. One can hardly sus- pect him, in this grave connection, of a pun upon his own name. 1893.] Cola di J?ieuzo. f~75 more explicitly to identify the persons who will compose this earthly trinity of the new order. He was himself, of course, that man of God who was to be associated in the government of Rome and of the world with the Em- peror Charles, whom he now addresses as the one hundredth in direct suc- cession from Augustus Ciesar; while the Pope who should succeed Clement VI. within two years time, and re- store the Holy See to Rome after an exact half-century of exile, would be no other than that Pastor Angelicus of ancient prophecy whom the Catholic Church had been so long expecting, and indeed, for that matter, is expecting still. The particulars of his alleged impe- rial birth Cola reserved for a second letter to the Emperor, which must have followed the first almost immediately, and wherein the tale of Maddelenas seduction is told with a gravity and seeming candor that savor almost more of hallucination than of willful deceit. It is to be noted, also, that when, a few months later, in the immediate prospect, as he fancied, of a violent death, Cola addressed to one of the brothers at Monte Sant Angelo a letter reviewing his career and making general confes- sion of his sins, he expressed penitence for having revealed the secret of his mothers shame, but not at all as if he had slandered her. If I had only kept quiet about that, are his words, I could better have borne these things. I attribute it all to my impatience and meanness of spirit. I pretended after- ward that I had spoken figuratively. For, he naively adds, to have been devoured by the ar~himandrites of the beloved city will sound much better in the ears of the world than to have been born out of wedlock. . . . But I have drunk many cups, and I can drink this too, if it be needful for my salvation. The Emperor replied briefly and evasively to these long-winded commu- nications, but he did think it worth while to reply, and a mixture of mo- tives, personal and political, appears to have determined him to keep Rienzo near him for a time, notwithstanding the repeated and imperative demands of Clement VI. that he should be sent to Avignon to stand his trial for heresy before the proper authorities there. Colas vehement denunciations of cler- ical vice and corruption created some- thing like a party for him in the land of John Huss, and indeed throughout the whole of that region which was so soon to be Protestant Germany; and Charles professed a desire to win him, by gentle means if possible, from the error of his opinions. Cola was there- fore subjected to a nominal and at first sufficiently light imprisonment in an ancient fortress overlooking the town of Raudnitz and the river Elbe, a little to the north of the Bohemian capital; while the Archbishop of Prague, Arnest do Padubitz, a man of eminent piety and learning, was en- trusted with the business of his con- version. During the ensuing autumn these two had repeated interviews, and a number of written communications passed between them, some if not all of which are included in the present Epistolario. Their controversial in- terest is considerable, but Cola proved, as might have been expected, a diffi- cult catechumen to instruct. Little by little, as months elapsed, and the rigors of the northern winter began to tell upon a frame already enfeebled by the commencement of organic disease, the tone of lofty confidence which marks the earlier of these letters gives place to one of deep discouragement, and that fixed presentiment of impend- ing death which is expressed in Colas letter of confession, already quoted, to the monk of Monte Sant Angelo. Cola admits at last that he may have exaggerated the importance of his own mission, but never for one moment does he profess himself convinced of doctrinal error. Finally he appears 76 Cola di llien~o. [January, himself to have entreated the Emperor to hand him over to the papal tribunal, and so end the wearing suspense of his position in Bohemia; and accordingly, in June, 1352, nearly two years after his arrival in Prague, he was at last sent, under a strong guard, to Avignon. There is no particular reason for supposing that the cell in the great papal palace there, which continues to this day to be shown as Colas, was in reality his; but it makes little differ- ence. Into one of the innumerable dungeons which underlie that stupen- dous fabric Cola was unquestionably thrown, and he lay there for several ipouths before his trial came on. In some respects he was mercifully treated. He was permitted to engage an advo- cate for his trial; he was allowed his favorite books, namely, the Bible and the History of Livy; and Petrarch, now living in sad seclusion and mourning for his Laura at Vaucluse, appears to have done all he could for his friend and hero of former days. Consider to what he is reduced, wrote the poet to a friend in Florence,1 that terrible Tribune, before whom the world once trembled, who inspired the weak with confidence and the great with terror. The Emperor has made a present of him to the Pope! I have no words in which to qualify so infamous a trans- action. Petrarch also addressed a stirring appeal to the Roman people (unsigned, indeed, but its authorship was sufficiently well known) on behalf of the man to whose genius and de- votion they had owed their one brief glimpse, in that generation, of peace and prosperity. Afterwards, when judgment had gone against the heretic and usurper, as of course it was bound to do, the poet actually contrived to delay the execution of his sentence on the curiously frivolous plea of Rien- zo s services to literature; and thus, as the event proved, he saved his life, 1 Francesco di Nello, prior of the SS. Apos- toli. and made way for his last brief and lurid apparition upon the Roman stage. On the 6th of December, 1352, Cle- ment VI. died suddenly, and the choice of the hastily assembled conclave fell upon a man who had very little in com- mon with his luxurious and lettered pre- decessor. Etienne Aubert, who took the name of Innocent VI., was a born ascetic and a determined reformer. He was a man of pure life and little learning, says Villani, and his views concerning the insolence of the secular lords and the shameful license of the clergy were much the same as Colas own. One of his first acts as Pontiff was to order a new trial for the Tri- bune, reverse the sentence which had been passed upon him, and pronounce him free from all taint of fatal heresy. Later on, the new Pope conferred upon Rienzo the dignity of Roman senator, and in the ensuing year dispatched him to Italy, in the suite of his lately elect- ed legate, the warlike Spanish Cardinal Albernoz, to try the effect upon his own more than ever intractable subjects in the states of the Church of whatever might remain of Colas old prestige. Two only of the documents collected in the Epistolario belong to this closing period of Rienzos career. They are an appeal for aid to the commune of Florence, expressed with much of the old force and fire, and a singular com- munication, to which we may perhaps refer in another place, addressed to the most modest and yet plausible of all royal pretenders, that claimant of the crown of France who is known in his- tory as Gianni di Guccio of Siena. After serving during the summer in the army of AlbersXoz, and assisting at a second capitulation of Viterbo, Cola considered that the time was ripe for him to begin to act independently of his colleague, and once more, and for the last time, he turned his face to- ward the Mecca of his soul. It seemed at first as though the enthusiasm of the Romans for their Tribune and Liber Cola di Ricn~o. ator had revived in full force. They sent deputations as far as Orte to meet him on his way, and on the 1st of August, 1354, exactly seven years from the day of that pompous fate when all the world had been invited to witness Rienzos earlier triumph, he entered Rome after a fashion which recalled to one, at least, of the spectators the re- turn of Scipio Africanus. But it was not the same Cola who thus came back to the city of his pride and devotion. He was barely forty- one years old, but his frame was bloat- ed and enfeebled by advanced heart disease, and his mind, partly, it may be, from the same cause, more than ever unbalanced and visionary; so that he who had once dared to compare his own work for the people whom he loved to that of the Saviour of man- kind might well have remembered, as he passed the gates of Rome, the tri- umphal entry of our Lord into the city over which he had wept and where he was so soon to be slain. Cola had a populace to reduce to order among whom matters and manners had been going from bad to worse ever since the year of the jubilee. He had a war upon his hands with Stefanello Colonna, the only direct descendant of old Stefanos line, heir to the accumulated hatred of all his race, and their determined avenger. Last, but not least, he found an empty treasury; and the imposts which he proceeded to levy for carry- ing on the indispensable military oper- ations were instantly and angrily re- sisted. Stefanello had thrown him- self into the citadel of Palestrina, that fortress of his race, over whose dark and crumbling gateway the white mar- ble pillar of the Colonnesi still glances, in hours of sunshine, across the whole breadth of the Campagna, like the flashing of a haughty eye. Cola led in person, as far as Tivoli, a sullen and unwilling army to the assault of this stronghold, but here his troops mutinied and demanded pay for their services of the previous year, under Albernoz, at the siege of Viterbo; and there lies against the Tribune the heavy imputa- tion of having arrested on a false accu- sation, and treacherously slain, at this crisis, his ally, the condottiere Mon- reale, for the sake of appropriating the enormous booty which this man was known to have deposited with certain bankers in Perugia. If he did indeed sanction this crime, it availed him no- thing. The siege of Palestrina had to be abandoned. Cola returned, discom- fited, to the Capitol, and it only remains for us to gather from the painfully mi- nute narrative of his contemporary bi- ographer a few particulars concernii~g the last scene of all in this strange and eventful history. It was in October [13541, and the eighth day of the month. Cola was in bed in the morning, when he suddenly heard voices crying, Viva lo popolo! Viva lo popolo! At the sound of these words men began to pour in from the neighboring streets, and as the crowd gathered the tumult increased. Armed bands also arrived from Sant Angelo and the Column of Trajan (that is, from the posts of the Orsini and Colonnesi), as though they had planned to effect a junction; and then the cry changed, and what they said was, Death to the traitor, Cola di Rienzo! Death to the traitor who has laid the tax upon us! But the Tri- bune made no answer to these cries. He neither caused the great bell to be rung, nor ordered his people to arms. Only at first he said, They say, long live the people, and I say so, too. T is to save the people that I am here. But when he found that the cries grew more hostile, and especially when he perceived that he had been abandoned by all except three of those who dwelt within the Campidoghio, judges, notaries, guards, all had fled to save their own skins, a terrible doubt seized him. . . . He asked those three what was to be done; then, recovering 1893.] Cola di Ricnzo. his own courage, he cried, By my faith, this thing shall not be! and he proceeded to put on all his knight- ly armor, greaves, cuirass, and plumed helmet, He then grasped the banner of the people, and, stepping out alone upon the balcony of the great upper hall, he stretched forth his hand as though he would speak. Doubtless, if they would but have listened to him, he might have changed their temper and defeated their purpose; but the Ro- mans would not hear him. They were like swine. They flung stones, and battered the walls, and ran for brands to set fire to the doors. . . . Then Cola unfurled the standard, and point- ed with both hands to the letters of gold and the arms of the citizens of Rome, as who should say, You will not let me speak! Yet I am a citizen, and I am of the people, like yourselves, and I love you, and if you will kill me, kill me as a Roman citizen! But these gentle ways availed him nothing. The senseless populace only raged the more, shouting, Death to the trai- tor! . Then the Tribune, in his despair, surrendered himself to chance. Stand- ing in full view behind the railing, he first took off his helmet and then put it on again, which showed that he was wa- vering between two opinions. The first was the desire to die with honor, sword in hand and fully armed, in the face of all the people, like a magnificent and imperial personage, and this he signi- fied when he put on his helmet; and the second was the longing to escape, and this he betrayed by taking off his helmet. These two desires contended in his mind, but the longing for life conquered; for he was a man like an- other, and he did not wish to die. And so, hesitating in his mind, he chose at last the most spiritless and shameful part of all. . . . Already the Roman mob, with oil and pitch and wood, had fired the outer door, and now the ceiling of the loggia and the second door began to kindle, and all the wood- work, bit by bit, and the cracking noise was horrible to hear. Then it seemed to the Tribune as if he might escape through the fire itself, . . . and he took off his grand seigniorial outer gar- ments and flung aside his armor, and alas that I should have to tell it! he cut off his beard and blackened his face, and so disguised went down, and passed the burning door and the stairs and the terror of the falling beams and the inner door in safety, and the fire had not touched him. Only at the last door one stopped him with the cry, Whither goest thou? He was discovered, and there was no help. They took him by the arm and forced him backward over all the stairways, yet without harming him, until they came to that place of the Lions where so many other men had heard their death-warrant. Where he had condemned others, there was he stayed, and there fell upon all a great silence, for at first no man dared to touch him. So stood he for well-nigh an hour, with shorn beard and black- ened visage, in his green silk tunic girded at the waist, with his gold- embroidered gauntlets and purple hose, after the fashion of a lord; and he held his arms steadily folded, and merely glanced about him from time to time. Then Cecco del Yecchio seized a beam, and gave him a great blow in the abdomen, and another smote him over the head with a sword, and an- other and another, but he never moved. He was dead with the first blow, and felt no pain. . . Such was the end of Cola di Ri- enzo, the great Tribune of Rome, who set himself as an example to the Ro- man people. harriet Waters Preston. Louise Dodge. 78 ~January, 1893.] Penelopes English Experiences. 79 PENELOPES ENGLISH EXPERIENCES. IN TWO PARTS. PART FIRST. THE CITY. I. HERE we are in London again, Francesca, Salemina, and I. Salemina is a philanthropist of the Boston phil- anthropists, limited. I am an artist. Francesca is It is very difficult to label Francesca. She is, at her present stage of development, just a nice girl; that is about all. The sense of humanity has nt dawned npon her yet. She is even unaware that personal responsibil- ity for the universe has come into vogue, and so she is happy. Francesca is short of twenty years old, Salemina short of forty, I short of thirty. Francesca is in love, Salemina never has been in love, I never shall be in love. Francesca is rich, Salemina is well-to-do, I am poor. There we are in a nutshell. We are not only in London again, but we are again in Smiths private hotel; one of those deliciously comfortable and ensnaring hostelries in Mayfair which one enters as a solvent human being, and which one leaves as a bankrupt, no matter what may be the number of ci- phers on ones letter of credit; since the greater ones apparent supply of wealth, the greater the demand made upon it. I never stop long in London without determining to give up my art for a pri- vate hotel. There must be millions in it, but I fear I lack some of the essen- tini qualifications for success. I never could have the heart, for example, to charge a struggling young genius eight shillings a week for two candles, and then eight shillings the next week for the same two candles, which the strug- gling young genius, by dint of vigorous economy, has managed to preserve to a decent height. No, I could never do it, not even if I were certain that she would squander the sixteen shillings in Bond Street fripperies instead of laying them up against the rainy day. II. It is Salemina who always nnsnarls the weekly bill. Francesca spends an evening or two with it, first of all, be- cause, since she is so young, we think it good mental training for her. Not that she ever accomplishes any results worth mentioning. She makes three columns, headed respectively F., S., and P. Then she places in each the items in which we are all equal, such as rooms, attendance, and lights. Then come the extras, which are different for each person: more ale for one, more hot baths for another; more carriages for one, more lemon squashes for another. (Francescas column is prin- cipally filled with carriages and lemon squashes. You would think she lured the first merely for the purpose of drink- ing the second.) When she has reached the point of dividing the whole bill into three parts, so that each person may know what is her share, she adds the three together, expecting, not unnatural- ly, to get the total amount of the bill. Not at all. She never comes within thirty shillings of the desired amount, and she is often three or four guineas to the good or to the bad. One of her difficulties lies in her inability to re- member that in English money it makes a difference where you place a figure, whether in the pound, shilling, or pence column. Having been educated on the theory that a six is a six the world over, she charged me with sixty shil- hugs worth of Apohlinaris in one week. I pounced on the error, and found that

1893.] Penelopes English Experiences. 79 PENELOPES ENGLISH EXPERIENCES. IN TWO PARTS. PART FIRST. THE CITY. I. HERE we are in London again, Francesca, Salemina, and I. Salemina is a philanthropist of the Boston phil- anthropists, limited. I am an artist. Francesca is It is very difficult to label Francesca. She is, at her present stage of development, just a nice girl; that is about all. The sense of humanity has nt dawned npon her yet. She is even unaware that personal responsibil- ity for the universe has come into vogue, and so she is happy. Francesca is short of twenty years old, Salemina short of forty, I short of thirty. Francesca is in love, Salemina never has been in love, I never shall be in love. Francesca is rich, Salemina is well-to-do, I am poor. There we are in a nutshell. We are not only in London again, but we are again in Smiths private hotel; one of those deliciously comfortable and ensnaring hostelries in Mayfair which one enters as a solvent human being, and which one leaves as a bankrupt, no matter what may be the number of ci- phers on ones letter of credit; since the greater ones apparent supply of wealth, the greater the demand made upon it. I never stop long in London without determining to give up my art for a pri- vate hotel. There must be millions in it, but I fear I lack some of the essen- tini qualifications for success. I never could have the heart, for example, to charge a struggling young genius eight shillings a week for two candles, and then eight shillings the next week for the same two candles, which the strug- gling young genius, by dint of vigorous economy, has managed to preserve to a decent height. No, I could never do it, not even if I were certain that she would squander the sixteen shillings in Bond Street fripperies instead of laying them up against the rainy day. II. It is Salemina who always nnsnarls the weekly bill. Francesca spends an evening or two with it, first of all, be- cause, since she is so young, we think it good mental training for her. Not that she ever accomplishes any results worth mentioning. She makes three columns, headed respectively F., S., and P. Then she places in each the items in which we are all equal, such as rooms, attendance, and lights. Then come the extras, which are different for each person: more ale for one, more hot baths for another; more carriages for one, more lemon squashes for another. (Francescas column is prin- cipally filled with carriages and lemon squashes. You would think she lured the first merely for the purpose of drink- ing the second.) When she has reached the point of dividing the whole bill into three parts, so that each person may know what is her share, she adds the three together, expecting, not unnatural- ly, to get the total amount of the bill. Not at all. She never comes within thirty shillings of the desired amount, and she is often three or four guineas to the good or to the bad. One of her difficulties lies in her inability to re- member that in English money it makes a difference where you place a figure, whether in the pound, shilling, or pence column. Having been educated on the theory that a six is a six the world over, she charged me with sixty shil- hugs worth of Apohlinaris in one week. I pounced on the error, and found that 80 Penelopes English Experiences. [January, she had jotted down each pint in the shilling instead of in the pence column. After Francesca has broken ground on the bill in this way, Salemina, on the next leisure evening, (Iraws a large arm- chair under the lamp and puts on her eyeglasses. We perch on either arm, and, after identifying our own extras, we leave her toiling like Cicero in his retirement at Tusculum. By midnight she has generally brought the account to a point where a half-hours fresh at- tention in the early morning will finish it. Not that she makes it come out right to a penny. She has been trea- surer of the Boston Band of Benevo- lence, of the Saturday Morning Sl6jd Circle, of the Club for the Reception of Russian Refugees, and of the Society for the Brooding of Buddhism; but none of these organizations carries on its exist- ence by means of pounds, shillings, and pence, or Saleminas resignaticn would have been requested long ago. However, we are not disposed to be captious; we are too glad to get rid of the bill. If our united thirds make four or five shil- lings in excess, we divide them equally; if it comes the other way about, we make it up in the same manner; always meeting the sneers of masculine critics with Dr. Holmess remark that a faculty for numbers is a sort of detached-lever arrangement that can be put into a mighty poor watch. III. Salemina is so English! I cant think how she manages. She is, in fact, more than English; she is British. She dis- courses of methylated spirits as if she had never in her life heard it called al- cohol, and all the English equivalents for Americanisnis are ready for use on the tip of her tongue. She says con- servtry and observtry; she calls the chambermaid Mairy, which is in- finitely softer, to be sure, than the Amer- ican Mary, with its over-long ~ she ejaculates, Quite so! in all the pauses of conversation, and talks of smoke-rooms, and camisoles, and luggage-vans, and slip- bodies, and trains, and mangling, and goffering. She also eats jam for break- fast as if she had been reared on it, when every one knows that the average Amer- icaii has to contract the jam habit by pa- tient and continuous practice. As for me, I get on charmingly with the English nobility and sufficiently well with the gentry, but the upper servants strike terror to my soul. There is some- thing awe-inspiring to me about an Eng- lish butler, particularly one in impos- ing livery. When I call upon Lady De- Wolfe, I say to myself impressively, as I go up the steps: You are as good as a butler, as well born and well bred as a butler, even more intelligent than a butler. Now, simply because he has an unapproachable haughtiness of demeanor, which you can respectfully admire, but can never hope to imitate, do not cower beneath the polar light of his eye; as- sert yourself; be a woman; be an Amer- ican citizen! All in vain. The moment the door opens I ask for Lady DeWolfe in so timid a tone that I know Parker thinks me the parlor maids sister who has rung the visitors bell by mistake. If my lady is within, I follow Parker to the drawing-room, my knees shaking un- der me at the prospect of committing some solecism in his sight. Lady Dc- Wolfes husband has been noble only four months, and Parker of course knows it, and perhaps affects even greater hauteur to divert the attention of the vulgar com- moner from the newness of the title. Dawson, our butler at Smiths private hotel, wields the same bhighting influence on our republican spirits, accustomed to the soft solicitations of the negro waiter or the comfortable indifference of the free-born American. We never indulge in ordinary frivolous conversation when Dawson is serving us at dinner. We talk up to him so far as we are able, and before we utter any remark we in- quire mentally whether Dawson is likely 1893.] Penelopes English Experiences. 81 to think it good form. But the other afternoon I had taken tea four times be- tween five and seven oclock, and went to the dinner table well stimulated and with something of my usual national non- chalance. Accordingly, I maintained throughout dinner a lofty height of aris- tocratic elegance that impressed even the unpassive Dawson, towards whom it was solely directed. To the amazement and amusement of Salemina (who always takes my cheerful inanities at their face value), I gave an hypothetical account of my afternoon engagements, interlarding it so thickly with countesses and mar- chionesses and lords and honorables that though Dawson has passed soup to duch- esses, and scarcely ever handed a plate to anything less than a baroness, he di- luted the customary scorn of his glance, and made it two parts condescending ap- proval as it rested on me, Penelope Ham- ilton, of the great American working class (unlimited). IV. Apropos of the servants, it seems to me that the British footman has relaxed a trifle since we were last here; or is it possible that he reaches the height of his immobility at the height of the Lon- don season, and as it declines does he decline and become flesh? At all events, I have twice seen a footman change his weight from one leg to the other, as he stood at a shop entrance with his ladys mantle over his arm; twice have ~i seen one scratch his chin, and several times have I observed others, during this month of August, conduct themselves in many respects like animate objects with vital organs. Lest this incendiary statement be challenged, leveled as it is at an in- stitution whose stability and order are but feebly represented by the eternal march o~ the stars in their courses, I hasten to explain that in none of these cases cited was it a powdered footman who (to use a Delsartean expression) withdrew will from his body and de- vitalized it before the public eye. I VOL. LXXI. NO. 423. 6 have observed that the powdered per- sonage has much greater control over his muscles than the ordinary footman with human hair, and is infinitely his superior in rigidity. I tremble to think of what the pow- dered footman may become when he un- bends in the bosom of his family. When, in the privacy of his own apartments, the powder is washed off, the canary-seed pads removed from his aristocratic calves, and his scarlet and buff magnificence ex- changed for a simple n6~ylig~, I should think he might be guilty of almost any indiscretion or violence. I for one would never consent to be the wife and children of a powdered footman, and receive him in his moments of reaction. V. Is it to my credit, or to my eternal dishonor, that I once made a powdered footman smile, and that, too, when he was handing a buttered muffin to an earls daughter? It was while we were paying a visit at Marjorimallow Hall, Sir Owen and Lady Marjorimallows place in Surrey. This was to be our first appearance in an English country house, and we made elaborate preparations. Only our freshr est toilets were packed, and these were arranged in our trunks with the sole view of impressing the ladys maid who should unpack them. We each pur~ chased dressing-cases and new toilet ar- ticles, Francescas being of sterling sil- ver, Saleminas of triple plate, and mine of celluloid, as befitted our several for- tunes. Salemina read up on English politics; Francesca practiced a new way of dressing her hair; I tuned my guitar and made up a portfolio of sketches. We counted, therefore, on representing American letters, beauty, and arts to that portion of the great English public stay- ing at Marjorimallow Hall~ (I must in- terject a parenthesis here to the effect that matters did not move precisely as we expected; for at table, where most 82 Penelopes English Experiences. [January, of our time was passed, Francesca had for a neighbor a scientist, who asked her plump whether the religion of the Amer- ican Indian was or was not a pure the- ism; Saleminas partner objected to the word politics in the mouth of a wo- man; while my attendant squire adored a good bright-colored chromo, and called my guitar a banjo. But this is antici- pating.) Three days before our departure, I re- marked at the breakfast table, Dawson being absent: My dear girls, you are aware that we have ordered fried eggs, scrambled eggs, and poached eggs ever since we came to Dovermarle Street, simply because we cannot eat boiled eggs from the shell, English fashion, and cannot break them into a glass, American fashion, on account of the ef- febt upon Dawson. Now there will cer- tainly be boiled eggs at Marjoriinallow Hall, and we cannot refuse them morn- ing after niorning; it will be cowardly (which is unpleasant), and it will be re- marked (which is worse). Eating them from a glass, in a baronial hall, with the remains of a drawbridge in the grounds, is equally impossible; if we do that, Lady Marjorimallow will be having our lug- gage examined, to see if we carry war whoops and wigwams about with us. No, it is clearly necessary that we mas- ter the gentle art of eating eggs tidily and prettily from the shell. I have seen Englishwomen very dull ones, too do it without apparent effort; I have even seen an English infant do it, and that without soiling her apron) or mess- ing her pinafore, as Salemina would say. I propose, therefore, that we order soft-boiled eggs daily; that we send Daxv- son from the room directly breakfast is served; and that then and tbere we have a class for opening eggs, lowest grade, object method. Any person who cuts the shell badly, or permits the egg to leak over the rim, or allows yellow dabs on the plate, or upsets the cup, or stains her fingers, shall be fined tuppence and locked into her bedroom for five minutes. The first morning we were all in the bedroom together, and, there being no in- nocent person to collect fines, the wild- est civil disorder prevailed. On the second day Salemina and I improved slightly, but Francesca had passed a sleepless night, and her hand trembled (the love-letter mail had come in from America). We were oblin ed to tell her, as we collected tuppence twice on the same egg, that she must either remain at home, or take an oilcloth apron to Marjorimalloxv Hall. But ease is the lovely result of for- gotten toil. On the third morning success crowned our efforts. Salemina smiled, and I told an anecdote, during the operation. Accordingly, when eggs were brought to the breakfast table at Marjorimallow Hall, we were only slight- ly nervous. Francesca was at the far end of the long table, and I do not know how she fared, but from various Anglicisms that Salemina dropped, as she chatted with the Queens Counsel on her left, I could see that her nerve was steady and circulation free. We exchanged glances (there was the mistake !), and with a hollow laugh she struck her egg a ner- vous blow with a knife. Her egg-cup slipped and lurched; a top fraction of the egg flew in the direction of the Q. C., and the remaining portion oozed, in yellow confusion, rapidly into her plate. Alas for that past mistress of elegant dignity, Salemina! If I had been at her Majestys table, I should have smiled, even if I had gone to the Tower the next moment; but as it was, I became hysterical. My neighbor, a portly member of Parliament, looked amazed, Salemina grew scarlet, the sit- uation was charged with danger; and, rapidly viewing the various exits, I chose the humorous one, and told as picturesquely as possible the whole story of our school of egg-opening in Dover- marle Street, the highly arduous and 1893.] Penelopes English Expememees. 83 encouraging rehearsals conducted there, and the stupendous failure incident to our first public appearance. Sir Owen led the good-natured laughter and ap- plause; lords and ladies, Q. C.s and M. P.s, joined in with a will; poor Salemina raised her drooping head, opened and ate a second egg with the repose of a Vere de Vere and the footman smiled! VI. I do not see why we hear that the Englishman is deficient in a sense of hu- mor. His jokes may not be a matter of daily food to him, as they are to the American; he may not love whimsical- ity with the same passion, nor inhale the aroma of a witticism with as keen a relish; but he likes fun whenever he sees it, and he sees it as often as most people. It may be that we find the Englishman more receptive to our bits of feminine nonsense just now, simply because this is the day of the American woman in London, and, having been assured that she is an entertaining personage, young John Bull is willing to take it for grant- ed so long as she does nt want to marry him, and even this pleasure he will al- low her on occasion. The longer I live, the more I feel it an absurdity to label nations with na- tional traits, and then endeavor to make individuals conform to the required stan- dard. It is possible, I suppose, to draw certain broad distinctions, though even these are subject to change; but the habit of generalizing from one particular, that mainstay of the cheap and obvious essay- ist, has rooted many fictions in the pub- lic mind. Nothing, for instance, can blot from my memory the profound, search- ing, and exhaustive analysis of a great nation which I learned in my small geo- graphy when I was a child, namely, The French are a gay and polite people, fond of dancing and light wines. One young Englishman whom I have met lately errs on the side of over-ap- preciation. He laughs before, during, and after every remark I make, unless it be a simple request for food or drink. rrbis is an acquaintance of Willie Beres- ford, the Honorable Arthur Ponsonby, who was the whip on our coach drive to Dorking, dear, delightful, adorable Dorking, of hen celebrity. Salernina insisted on my taking the box seat, in the hope that the Honorable Arthur would amuse me. She little knew hini! He sapped me of all my ideas, and gave me none in exchange. Anything so unspeakably heavy I never encountered. It is very difficult for a woman who does nt know a nigh horse from an off one, nor the wheelers from the headers (or is it the fronters ?), to find subjects of conversation with a gentleman who spends three fourths of his existence on a coach. It was the more difficult for me because I could not decide whether Willie Beresford was cross because I was devoting myself to the whip, or be- cause Francesca had remained at home with a headache. This state of affairs continued for about fifteen miles, when it suddenly dawned upon the Honorable Arthur that, however mistaken my mo- tive, I was trying to be agreeable. This conception acted on the honest and and- able soul like magic. I gradually be- came comprehensible, and finally he gave himself up to the theory that, though ec- centric, I was harmless and amusing, so we got on famously, so famously that Willie Beresford grew ridiculously gloomy, and I decided that it could nt be Francescas headache. I dont understand your business signs in England, I said to the Honor- able Arthur, this Company, Limited, and that Company, Limited. That one, of course, is quite plain (pointing to the front of a building on the village street), Goats Milk Company, Limit- ed; I suppose they have but one or two goats, and necessarily the milk must be limited. Salemina says that this was not in the least funny, that it was absolutely flat; 84 Pc flelOpe8 Engi i8h E~petiences. [January, but it had quite the opposite effect upon the Honorable Arthur. He had no com- mand over himself or his horses for some minutes; and at intervals during the afternoon the full felicity of the idea would steal upon him, and the smile of reminiscence would flit across his ruddy face. The next day, at the Eton and Har- row games at Lords cricket ground, he presented three flowers of British aris- tocracy to our party, and asked me each time to tell the goat story, which he had previously told himself, and probably murdered in the telling. Not content with this arrant flattery, he begged to be allowed to recount some of my interna- tional episodes to a literary friend who writes for Punch. I demurred decided- ly, but Salemina said that perhaps I ought to be willing to lower myself a trifle for the sake of elevating Punch! This home thrust so delighted the Hon- orable Arthur that it remained his fa- vorite joke for days, and the poor over- worked goat was permitted to enjoy that oblivion from which Salemina insists it should never have emerged. ~XTII. The Honorable Arthur, Salemina, and I took a stroll in Hyde Park one Sun- day afternoon, not for the purpose of joining the fashionable throng of pret- ty people at Stanhope Gate, but to mingle with the common herd in its spe- cial precincts, precincts not set apart, indeed, by any legal formula, but by a natural law of classification which seems to be inherent in the universe. It was a curious and motley crowd, a little dull, perhaps, but orderly, well behaved, and self-respecting, with here and there part of the flotsam and jetsam of a great city, a ragged, sodden, hopeless wretch wend- ing his way about with the rest, thankful for any diversion. Under the trees, each in the centre of his group, large or small according to his magnetism and eloquence, stood the park shouter, airing bis special griev- ance, playing his special part, preaching his special creed, pleading his special cause, anything, probably, for the sake of shouting. We were plainly dressed, and did not attract observation as we joined the outside circle of one of these groups after another. It was as interest- ing to watch the listeners as the speak- ers. I wished I might paint the sea of faces, eager, anxious, stolid, attentive, happy and unhappy: histories written on many of them; others blank, unmarked by any thought or aspiration. I stole a sidelong look at the Honorable Arthur. He is an Englishman first, and a man af- terwards (I prefer it the other way), but he does not realize it; he thinks he is just like all other good fellows, but he is mistaken. lie and Willie Beresford speak the same language, but they are as different as Malay and Esquimaux. He is an extreme type, but he is very likable and very well worth looking at, with his long coat, his silk hat, and the white Malmaison in his buttonhole. He is always so radiantly, fascinatingly clean, the Honorable Arthur, simple, frank, di- rect, sensible, and he bores me almost to tears. The first orator was edifying his hear- ers with an explanation of the drama of The Corsican Brothers, and his elo- quence, unlike that of the other speak- ers, was largely inspired by the hope of pennies. It was a novel idea, and his in- terpretation was rendered very amusing to us by the wholly original Yorkshire accent which he gave to the French per- sonages and places in the play. An Irishman in black clerical garb held the next group together. He was in some trouble, owing to a pig-headed and quarrelsome Scotchman in the front rank, who objected to each statement that fell from his lips, thus interfering serious- ly with the effect of his peroration. If the Irishman had been more convincing, I suppose the crowd would have silenced the scoffer, for they always manage these 1893.] Penelopes English L%perienees. little matters of discipline for themselves; but the Scotchmans points were too well taken, so trenchant, in fact, at times that a voice would cry, Coom up, Sandy, an ave it all yer own wy, boy! The discussion continued as long as we were within hearing distance, for the Irish- man, though amiable and ignorant, was firm, the unconquered Scot was on his native heath of argument, and the lit- tle knot of listeners were willing to give them both a hearing. Under the next tree a fluent cockney lad of sixteen or eighteen years was de- claiming his bitter experiences with the Salvation Army. He had been sheltered in one of its beds which was not to his taste, and it had found employment for him which he had to walk twenty - two miles to get, and which was not to his liking when he did get it. A meeting of the Salvation Army at a little distance rendered his speech more interesting, as its points were repeated and denied as fast as made. Of course there were religious groups, and temperance groups, and groups de- voted to the tearing down or raising up of most things except the government; for on tbat day there were no Anarchist and Socialist shouters, as is ordinarily the case. As we strolled down one of the broad roads under the shade of the noble trees, we saw the sun setting in a red-gold haze; a glory of vivid color made indescrib- ably tender and opalescent by the kind of luminous mist that veils it; a wholly English sunset, and an altogether lovely one. And quite away from the other knots of people there leaned against a bit of wire fence a poor old man sur- rounded by half a dozen children and one tired woman with a nursing baby. He had a tattered book, which seemed to be the story of the Gospels, and his little flock sat on the greensward at his feet as he read. It may be that he, too, had been a shouter in his lustier man- hood, and had held a larger audience together by the power of his belief; but now he was helpless to attract any but the children. Whether it was the pathos of his white hairs, his garb of shreds and patches, or the mild benignity of his eye that moved me I know not, but among all the Sunday shouters in Hyde Park it seemed to me that that quaver- ing voice of the past spoke with the tru- est note. VIII. The English Park Lover, loving his love on a green bench in Kensington Gardens or Regents Park, or indeed in any spot where there is a green bench, so long as it is within full view of the passer-by, this English public Lover, male or female, is a most interesting study, for we have not his exact proto- type in America. He is thoroughly re- spectable, I should think, my urban Cohn. He does not have the air of a gay de- ceiver roving from flower to flower, steal- ing honey as he goes; he looks, on the contrary, as if it were his intention to lead Phebe to the altar on his first half- holiday; there is a dead calm in his ac- tions which bespeaks no other course. If Cohn were a Don Juan, surely he would be a trifle more ardent, for there is no tropical fervor in his matter-of-fact ca- resses. He does not embrace Pho~be in the park, apparently, because he adores her to madness; because her smile is like fire in his veins, melting down all his de- fenses; because the intoxication of her nearness is irresistible; because, in fine, he cannot wait until he finds a more se- cluded spot: nay, verily, he embraces her because tell me, ye amorous fruiterers, poulterers, soldiers, haherdashers (limit- ed), what is your reason? for it does not appear to the casual eye. Stormy wea- ther does not vex the calm of the Park Lover, for the rains of Marly do not wet when one is in love. By a clever manipulation of four arms and four hands they can manage an umbrella and enfold each other at the same time, though a feminine mackintosh is well known to be 86 Penelopes English E~periences. [January, ill adapted to the purpose, and a contin- uous drizzle would dampen almost any other lover in the universe. The park embrace, as nearly as I can analyze it, seems to be one part instinct, one part duty, one part custom, and one part reflex action. I have purposely omitted pleasure (which, in the analysis of the ordinary embrace, reduces all the other ingredients to an almost invisible fraction), because I fail to find it; but I am willing to believe that in some rudi- mentary form it does exist, because man attends to no purely unpleasant matter with such praiseworthy assiduity. Any- thing more fixedly stolid than the Park Lover when he passes his arm round his chosen one and takes her crimson hand in his, I have never seen; unless indeed it be the fixed stolidity of the chosen one herself. There is a kind of superb finish and completeness about their in- difference to the public gaze which re- moves it from ordinary immodesty, and gives it a certain scientific value. I had not at first the assurance even to glance at them as I passed by, blushing myself to the roots of my hair, though the of- fenders themselves never changed color. Many a time have I walked out of my way or lowered my parasol, for fear of invading their Sunday Eden; but a spirit of inquiry awoke in me at last, and I be- gan to make psychological investigations, with a view to finding out at what point embarrassment would appear in the Park Lover. I experimented (it was a most arduous and unpleasant task) with up- wards of two hundred couples, and it is interesting to record that self-conscious- ness was not apparent in a single in- stance. It was not merely that they failed to resent my stopping in the path directly opposite them, or my glaring most offensively at their intertwined per- sons, nor that they even allowed me to sit upon their green bench and witness their chaste salutes, but that they did fail to perceive me at all! Does not this bovine simplicity, this claimance of absolute privacy in the midst of a curi- ous crowd, approach sublimity? Ix. Among all my English experiences, none occupies so important a place as my forced meeting with the Duke of Cimici- fugas. (There can be no harm in my telling the incident, so long as I do not give the right names, which are very well known to fame.) The Duchess of Cimi- cifugas, who is charming, unaffected, and lovable, so report says, has among her chosen friends an untitled woman whom we will call Mrs. Apis Melhifica. I met her only daughter, Hilda, in America, and we became quite intimate. It seems that Mrs. Apis Mehhifica, who has an income of 20,000 a year, often exchanges pre- sents with the duchess, and at this time she had brought with her from the Con- tinent some rare old tapestries with which to adorn a new morning-room at Cimici- fugas House. These tapestries were to be hung during the absence of the duch- ess in Homburg, and were to greet her as a birthday surprise on her return. Hilda Mellifica, who is one of the most talented amateur artists in London, and who has exquisite taste in all matters of decora- tion, was to go down to the ducal resi- dence to inspect the work, and she ob- tained permission from Lady Yeratrum (the confidential companion of the duch- e~s) to bring me with her. I started on this journey to the country with all pos- sible delight, little surmising the agonies that lay in store for me in the mercifully hidden future. The tapestries were perfect, and Lady Veratrum was most amiable and affable, though the blue blood of the Belladonnas courses in her veins, and her great-grand- father was the celebrated Earl of Rhius Tox, who rendered such notable service to his sovereign. We roamed through the splendid apartments, inspected the superb picture gallery, where scores of dead - and - gone Cimicifugases (most of them very plain) were glorified by the 1893.] Penelopes English E~vperiences. 87 art of Van Dyck, Sir Joshua, or Gains- borough, and admired the priceless collec- tions of marbles and cameos and bronzcs. It was about four oclock when we were conducted to a magnificent apartment for a brief rest, as we were to return to Lon- don at half past six. As Lady Veratrum left us, she remarked casually, His Grace will join us at tea. The door closed, and at the same moment I fell upon the brocaded satin state bed and tore off my hat and gloves like one distraught. Hilda, I gasped, you brought me here, and you must rescue me, for I will never meet a duke alive I Nonsense, Penelope, dont be ab- surd, she replied. I have never hap- pened to see him myself, and I am a trifle nervous, but it cannot be very ter- rible, I should think. Not to you, perhaps, but to me im- possible, I said. I thought he was in Homburg, or I would never have en- tered this place. Does one call him your Grace or your Royal High- ness ? x. Just at this moment Lady Veratrum sent a haughty maid to ask us if we would meet her under the trees in the park which surrounds the house. I hailed this as a welcome reprieve to the dreaded function of tea with the Duke, and made up my mind, while descend- ing the marble staircase, that I would slip away and lose myself accidentally in the grounds, appearing only in time for the London train. This happy mode of issue from my difficulties lent a springiness to my step, as we followed a waxwork footman over the velvet sward to a nook under a group of cop- per beeches. But there, to my hor- ror, stood a charmingly appointed tea- table glittering with silver and Royal Worcester, with several livened servants bringing cakes and muffins and berries to Lady Veratrum, who sat behind the steaming urn. I started to retreat, when there appeared, walking towards us, a simple man, with nothing in the least extraordinary about him. That cannot be the Duke of Cimici- fugas, thought I, a man in a corduroy jacket, without a sign of a suite; proba- bly it is a Banished Duke come from the Forest of Arden for a buttered muffin. But it was the Duke of Cimicifugas, and no other. Hilda was presented first, while I tried to fire my courage by think- ing of the Puritan Fathers, and Plymouth Rock, and the Boston Tea - Party, and the battle of Bunker Hill. Then my turn came, and hastily forming myself upon Ada Rehan in The Taming of the Shrew, whose counterfeit presentment suddenly appeared to me as in a vision, I murmured some words which might have been anything. Then we talked, at least the Duke and Lady Vera- trum talked. Hilda said a few blameless words, such as befitted an untitled Eng- lish virgin in the presence of the nobili- ty; while I maintained the probationary silence required by Socrates of his first years pupils. My idea was to observe this first duke without uttering a word, to talk with the second (if I should ever meet a second), to chat with the third, and to secure the fourth for Francesca to take home to America with her. Of course I know that dukes are very dear, but she could afford any reasonable sum, if she found one whom she fancied; the principal obstacle in the path is that tire- some American lawyer with whom she considers herself in love. I have never gone beyond that first experience, how- ever, for dukes in England are as rare as snakes in Ireland. I cant think why they allow them to die out so, the dukes, not the snakes. If a country is to have an aristocracy, let there be enough of it, say I, and make it iniposing at the top, where it shows most. XI. Francesca wishes to get some old hall- marked silver for her home tea tray, and 88 Penelopes English Experiences. [January, she is absorbed at present in answering advertisements of people who have sec- ond-hand pieces for sale, and who offer to bring them on approval. The other day, when Willie Beresford and I caine in from Westminster Abbey, we thought Francesca must be giving a small and early; but it transpired that all the sil- ver-sellers had called at the same hour, and it took the united strength of Daw- son and Mr. Beresford, together with my diplomacy, to rescue the poor child from their clutches. She came out alive, but her safety was purchased at the cost of a George IV. cream jug, an Eliza- bethan sugar bowl, and a Boadicea tea caddy, which were, I doubt not, manu- factured in Wardour Street towards the close of the nineteenth century. Salemina came in just then, cold and tired. (Tower and National Gallery the same day. It s 50 much more work to go to the Tower nowadays than it used to be!) It was drizzling, so we had a cosy fire, slipped into our tea-gowns, and or- dered tea and thin bread an~l butter, a basket of strawberries with their frills on, and a jug of Devonshire cream. Willie Beresford asked if he might stay; other- wise, he said, he should have to sit at a cold marble table on the corner of Bond Street and Piccadilly, and take his tea in bachelor solitude. Yes, I said severely, we will al- low you to stay; though, as you are com- ing to dinner, I should think you would have to go away some time, if only in order that you might get ready to come back. You ye been here since breakfast time.~~ Quite so, he answered calmly, and my only error in judgment was that I did nt take an earlier breakfast, in order to begin my day here sooner. One has to snatch a moment when he can, nowa- days; for these rooms are so infested with British swells that a base-born American stands very little chance! Now I should like to know if Willie Beresford is in love with Francesca. What shall I do that is, what shall we do if he is, when she is in love with somebody else? To be sure, she may want one lover for foreign and another for domestic service. He is too old for her, but that is always the way. When Alcides, having gone through all the fa- tigues of life, took a bride in Olympus, he ought to have selected Minerva, but he chose Hebe. I wonder why so many people call him Willie Beresford, at his age. Perhaps it is because his mother sets the example; but from her lips it does not seem amiss. I suppose when she looks at him she recalls the past, and is ever seeing the little child in the strong man, mother fashion. It is very beautiful, that feeling; and when a girl surprises it in any mothers eyes it makes her heart beat faster, as in the presence of something sacred, which she can under- stand only because she is a woman, and experience is foreshadowed in intuition. The Honorable Arthur had sent us a dozen London dailies and weeklies, and we fell into an idle discussion of their contents over the teacups. I had found an exchange column which was as interesting as it was novel, and I told Francesca it seemed to me that if we managed wisely we could rid ourselves of all our useless belongings, and grad- ually amass a collection of the English articles we most desired. Here is an opportunity, for instance, I said, and I read aloud, S. C., of Kensington, will post Woman three days old regularly for a box of cut flowers. Rather young, said Mr. Beresford, or I d answer that advertisement my- self. I wanted to tell him I did nt suppose that he could find anything too young for his taste, but I did nt dare. Salemina adores cats, I went on. How is this, Sally, dear ? A handso 0 orange male Persian cat, also a tabby, immense coat, brushes 1893.] Penelopes English E~periences. 89 and frills, is offered in exchange for an electroplated revolving covered dish or an Allens Vapor Bath. I should like the cat, but alas! I have no covered dish, sighed Salemina. Buy one, suggested Mr. Beresford. Even then you d be getting a bargain. Do you understand that you receive the male orange cat for the dish, and the frilled tabby for the bath, or do you get both in exchange for either of these ar- ticles? Read on, Miss Hamilton. Very well, here is one for Francesca: A harmonium with seven stops is offered in exchange for a really good Plymouth cockerel hatched in May. I shoub~l want to know when the harmonium was hatched, said Francesca prudently. Now you cannot usurp the platform entirely, my dear Pen. Listen to an English marriage notice from the Times. It cbances to be the longest one to-day, but there were others just as jointed in yesterdays issue. On the 17th instant, at Emmanuel Church (Countess of Padelfords connec- tion), Weston-super-Mare, by the Rev. Canon Vernon, B. D., Rector of St. J3~d- mund the King and Martyr, Suffolk Street, uncle of the bride, assisted by the Rev. Otho Pelham, M. A., Vicar of All Saints, Upper Norwood, Dr. Philoso- phial Konrad Rascb, of Koetzsenbroda, Saxony, to Evelyn Whitaker Rake, widow of the late Richard Balaclava Rake, Bar- rister - at - law of the Inner Temple and Bombay, and third surviving daughter of George Frederic Goldspink, C. B., of Crai~, House, Sydenham Hill, Commis- sioner of her Majestys Customs, and for- merly of the War Office. By the time this was finished we were all quite exhausted, but we revived like magic when Salemina read us her con- tribution: A. NAME ENSHRINED IN LITERA- TURE AND RENOWNED IN COMMERCE, Miss Willard, Waddington, Middle- sex. Deal with her whenever you possi- bly can. When you want to purchase, ask her for anything under the canopy of heaven, from jewels, lvjouterie, and curios to rare books and high-class arti- cles of utility. When you want to sell, consign only to her, from choice gems to mundane objects. All transactions embodying the germs of small profits are welcome. Dont readily forget this or her name and address, Clara (Miss) Willard (the Lady Trader), Wadding- ton, Middlesex. Immaculate prompti- tude and scrupulous liberality observed. Intellect appeals to intellect in this ad- vertisement. Just bere Dawson entered, evidently to lay the dinner-cloth, but, seeing that we had a visitor, he took the tea-tray and retired discreetly. It is five and thirty minutes past six, Mr. Beresford, I said. Should you think you could get to the Metropole and array yourself and return in less than u.n hour? Because, even if you can, remem- ber that we ladies bave elaborate toilets in prospect, toilets intended for the complete prostration of the British gentry. Francesca bas a yellow gown which will drive Bertie Godolphin to madness. Sa- lemma has laid out a soft, dovelike gray and steel combination, directed towards the Church of England; for you may not know that Sally has a vicar in her train, Mr. Beresford, and he will proba- bly speak to-night. As for me Before these shocking personalities were finished Salemina and Francesca had fled to their rooms, and Mr. Beresford took up my broken sentence and said, As for you, Miss Hamilton, whatever gown you wear, you are sure to make one man speak, if you care about it; but I sup- pose you would not listen to him unless he were English; and with that shot he departed. I really think I shall have to give up the Francesca hypothesis. XII. I shall never forget that evening in Dovermarle Street. 90 Penelopes English Experiences. [January, Our large sitting-room has three long French windows, whose outside balconies are filled with potted ferns and blossom- ing hydrangeas. At one of these open windows sat Salemina, little Bertie Go- dolphin, Mrs. Beresford, the Honorable Arthur, and Francesca; at another, as far off as possible, sat Willie Beresford and I. Mrs. Beresford had sanctioned a post-prandial cigar, for we were not going out until ten, to see, for the sec- ond time, an act of John Hares Pair of Spectacles. They were talking and laughing at the other end of the room; Mr. Beres- ford and I were rather quiet. (Why is it that the people with whom one loves to be silent are also the very ones with whom one loves to talk?) The room was dim with the light of a single lamp; the rain had ceased; the roar of Piccadilly came to us softened by distance. A belated vender of laven- der came along the sidewalk, and as he stopped under the windows the pungent fragrance of the flowers was wafted up to us with his song. E~i4zz~ ~ -9- Wholl buy ny pretty lay-ender? Sweet laven - 2- -9- cler, Wholl buy my pret-ty lavender? N- ~ AizI~j Sweet bloomin lay- en -der? Presently a horse and cart drew up before a hotel, a little farther along, on the opposite side of the way. By the light of the street lamp under which it stopped we could see that it held a piano and two persons beside the driver. The man wa~ masked, and wore a soft felt hat and a velvet coat. He seated him- self at the piano and played a Chopin waltz with decided sentiment and bril- liancy; then, touching the keys idly for a moment or two, he struck a few chords of prelude and turned towards the wo- man who sat beside him. She rose, and, laying one hand on the corner of the instrument, began to sing one of the sea- sons favorites, The Song that touched my Heart. She also was masked, and even her figure was hidden by a long dark cloak, the hood of which was drawn over her head to meet the mask. She sang so beautifully, with such style and such feeling, it seemed incredible to hear her under circumstances like these. She followed the ballad with Handels Las- cia ch io pianga, which iang out into the quiet street with almost hopeless pathos. When she descended from the cart to undertake the more prosaic oc- cupation of passing the hat beneath the windows, I could see that she limped slightly, and that the hand with which she pushed hack the heavy dark hair under the hood was beautifully moulded. They were all mystery, that couple; not to be confounded for an instant with the common herd of London street musicians~ With what an air of the drawing-room did he of the velvet coat help the singer into the cart, and with what elegant abandon and ultra-dilet- tanteism did he light a cigarette, reseat himself at the piano, and weave Scotch ballads into a charming impromptu! I confess I wrapped my shilling in a bit of paper and dropped it over the balcony with the wish that I knew the tragedy behind this little street drama. XIII. The singing had put us in a gentle mood, and after a long peroration from Mr. Beresford, which I do not care to repeat, I said very softly (blessing the Honorable Arthurs vociferous laughter at one of Saleminas American jokes), But I thought perhaps it was Francesca. Are you quite sure? 1893.] Penelopes English Experiences. 91 He intimated that if there were any fact in his repertory of which he was particularly and absolutely sure it was this special fact. It is too sudden, I objected. Plants that blossom on shipboard This plant was rooted in American earth, and you know it, Penelope. If it chanced to blossom on the ship, it was because it had already budded on the shore; it has borne transplanting to a foreign soil, and it grows in beauty and strength every day: so no slurs, please, concerning ocean-steamer hothouses. I cannot say yes, yet I dare not say no; it is too soon. I must go off into the country quite by myself and think it over. But, urged Mr. Beresford, you cannot think over a matter of this kind by yourself. Youll continually be need- ing to refer to me for data, dont you know, on which to base your conclusions. How can you tell whether you re in love with me or not if (No, I am not shouting at all; it s your guilty con- science; I m whispering.) How can you tell whether you re in love with me, I repeat, unless you keep me under con- stant examination? That seems sensible, though I dare say it is full of sophistry; but I have made up my mind to go into the coun- try and paint while Salemina and Fran- cesca are on the Continent. One cannot think in this whirl. A winter season in Washington followed by a summer sea- son in London, one wants a breath of fresh air before beginning another win- ter season somewhere else. Be a little patient, please. I long for the calm that steals over me when I am absorbed in my brushes and my oils. Work is all very well, said Mr. Beresford with determination, but I know your habits. You have a little way of taking your brush, and with one sav- age sweep painting out a figure from your canvas. INow if I am on the can- vas of your heart, I say if tenta- tively and modestly, as becomes me, I ye no intention of allowing you to paint me out; therefore I wish to re- main in the foreground, where I can say Strike ! but hear me, if I discover any hostile tendencies in your eye. But I am thankful for small favors (the no you do not quite dare to say, for instance), and I 11 talk it over with you to-morrow, if the Englishmen will give me an opportunity, and if you 11 deign to give me a moment alone in any other place than the Royal Academy. I was alone with you to-day for a whole hour at least. Yes, first at the London and Westmin- ster Bank, second in Trafalgar Square, and third on the top of a bus, none of them congenial spots to a man in my humor. Penelope, you are not dull, but you dont seem to understand that I am What are you two people quarreling about? cried Salemina. Come, Pe- nelope, get your wrap. Mrs. Beresford, is nt she charming in her new Liberty gown? If that New York wit had seen her, he could nt have said, If that is Liberty, give me Death! Yes, Fran- cesca, you must wear something over your shoulders. Whistle for two four- wheelers, Dawson, please. That was my last London experi- ence, for I went into exile a few days later, determined to find out whether I was a woman wholly in love with a man, or an artist wholly in love with her art. Kate Douglas Wiggim. In a Wintry Wilderness. IN A WINTRY WILDERNESS. NORTH of the Sandwich Mountains, inclosed by a circle of sombre peaks, there once lay a beautiful lake. Cen- turies ago its outfiowing stream, now called Swift River, cut so deeply be- tween the spurs of Chocorua and Bear mountains that the greater part of the lake drained away into the Saco at Con- way, leaving its level bed a fair and rich- soiled intervale. By the raad upon which the lake went out man in time came in, and founded in the bosom of the spruce-grown moun- tains a small but comparatively prosper- ous settlement. Having seen this hidden valley in summer, and taken account of its rare beauty and its remoteness from the wearisome machinery of the world, I yearned to know its winter charms, feel- ing sure that they would surpass those of summer as the fairness of snow sur- passes the fairness of grass. Accordingly, in the latter part of December, 1891, I went by rail with a friend to Chatauque Corner, and thence by sleigh up the weird pass between Chocorua on the south and Moat and Bear mountains on the north, gaining at nightfall a warm haven in one of the snug farmhouses in the middle of the intervale. The township of Albany knows no priest or physician, squire or shopkeeper, and in its coat of arms, if it had one, the plough and rifle, axe and circular saw, would be quartered with bear and porcupine, owl and grouse. From the bead of the intervale the people are forced to travel nearly thirty miles to reach and bring home their mail and groceries. In spite of these drawbacks, the permanent residents are intelligent, thrifty, well housed, and well informed of the worlds doings. Though their only road to the outside is long and rough, they let no moss gather on it in summer, and no snowdrifts blockade it in winter. Setting out for this far valley in mid- winter, I felt something of the explorers thrill as he tnrns towards the unknown, and leaves home and comforts behind. The distant and the difficult of attain- ment are always seen by the mind through a golden haze, and although no fair Lorna drew me to her rescue, and no lawless Doones barred my way through the grim passes which led to the valley, romance and the spice of danger seemed mingled with my enterprise. As the journey progressed, and one stage of it after another slipped past, unreal gave way to real, and commonplace supplant- ed marvelous. Even when night fell, as we entered the valley, the light which gleamed afar through the spruces told of hospitality as truly as the sleighs ample furs spoke of comfort, and the keen wind of health. We reached the valley on the evening of Saturday, December 19, and enjoyed every moment of our stay, which was pro- longed until Saturday, the 26th. From my journal, written on the evening of each day, I take the following account of two of our tramps over the snow and through the dark and chilly forests. Wednesday, December 23, dawned under a damp sky. Tripyramid kept on his nightcap, and patches of mist clung to the dark precipice of Passaconaway. The mountains looked higher and more threatening than on previous days, and they seemed closer to us than when the sun shone. A whisper of falling drops and settling snow ruffled the morning calm. Nevertheless, patches of blue sky showed in the west, and once or twice a silvery spot in the clouds sug- gested the suns burning through. We went first to see our favorite flock of birds at the cattle trough in the pasture. They were there in full force, nearly if 92 [January,

In a Wintry Wilderness. IN A WINTRY WILDERNESS. NORTH of the Sandwich Mountains, inclosed by a circle of sombre peaks, there once lay a beautiful lake. Cen- turies ago its outfiowing stream, now called Swift River, cut so deeply be- tween the spurs of Chocorua and Bear mountains that the greater part of the lake drained away into the Saco at Con- way, leaving its level bed a fair and rich- soiled intervale. By the raad upon which the lake went out man in time came in, and founded in the bosom of the spruce-grown moun- tains a small but comparatively prosper- ous settlement. Having seen this hidden valley in summer, and taken account of its rare beauty and its remoteness from the wearisome machinery of the world, I yearned to know its winter charms, feel- ing sure that they would surpass those of summer as the fairness of snow sur- passes the fairness of grass. Accordingly, in the latter part of December, 1891, I went by rail with a friend to Chatauque Corner, and thence by sleigh up the weird pass between Chocorua on the south and Moat and Bear mountains on the north, gaining at nightfall a warm haven in one of the snug farmhouses in the middle of the intervale. The township of Albany knows no priest or physician, squire or shopkeeper, and in its coat of arms, if it had one, the plough and rifle, axe and circular saw, would be quartered with bear and porcupine, owl and grouse. From the bead of the intervale the people are forced to travel nearly thirty miles to reach and bring home their mail and groceries. In spite of these drawbacks, the permanent residents are intelligent, thrifty, well housed, and well informed of the worlds doings. Though their only road to the outside is long and rough, they let no moss gather on it in summer, and no snowdrifts blockade it in winter. Setting out for this far valley in mid- winter, I felt something of the explorers thrill as he tnrns towards the unknown, and leaves home and comforts behind. The distant and the difficult of attain- ment are always seen by the mind through a golden haze, and although no fair Lorna drew me to her rescue, and no lawless Doones barred my way through the grim passes which led to the valley, romance and the spice of danger seemed mingled with my enterprise. As the journey progressed, and one stage of it after another slipped past, unreal gave way to real, and commonplace supplant- ed marvelous. Even when night fell, as we entered the valley, the light which gleamed afar through the spruces told of hospitality as truly as the sleighs ample furs spoke of comfort, and the keen wind of health. We reached the valley on the evening of Saturday, December 19, and enjoyed every moment of our stay, which was pro- longed until Saturday, the 26th. From my journal, written on the evening of each day, I take the following account of two of our tramps over the snow and through the dark and chilly forests. Wednesday, December 23, dawned under a damp sky. Tripyramid kept on his nightcap, and patches of mist clung to the dark precipice of Passaconaway. The mountains looked higher and more threatening than on previous days, and they seemed closer to us than when the sun shone. A whisper of falling drops and settling snow ruffled the morning calm. Nevertheless, patches of blue sky showed in the west, and once or twice a silvery spot in the clouds sug- gested the suns burning through. We went first to see our favorite flock of birds at the cattle trough in the pasture. They were there in full force, nearly if 92 [January, 1893.] In a JYtntry Wilderness. 93 not quite a hundred strong. They al- lowed me to come within about twenty feet of them, and to watch them narrow- ly through my glass. Rather more than half were red crossbills. Of the re- mainder, two thirds were pinefinches, and one third goldfinches. No red- polls were to be seen. The coloring in the crossbills was amazingly diverse. There were very brilliant males with cinnabar tints wherever such color is ever found. From this maximum of in- tensity their coloring graded downward through partial red markings on the one hand, and through gradually fad- ing red markings on the other. I saw one bird with red on his rump only. The fading from red to yellow yielded many gradations of red and yellow or orange down to pure gold. The brown birds were the more numerous, and they seemed to have various combinations of light and dark, with now and then sug- gestions of bright tints. In some indi- viduals the mandibles crossed in one way, and in others the opposite way. In size the crossbills varied widely. Of- ten, in glancing quickly at a group, I mistook the smaller, duller birds for pinefinclies. A dozen times in as many minutes the flock whirled upwards and round and round, showering the air with their delicious medley music. Generally from three to six old birds remained in one of the two spruces near the fence by the trough, and a sharp call from them brought the flock down again like a fall of hail. Wher1 we had walked a mile up the valley a shower struck us, and we waited a few moments under the shelter of an old house, from which the wall boards had been removed. We heard sweet bird notes, but could not locate the sing- ers. When we turned to go, however, a flock of sixteen snow bnntimigs rose from a field where they had been feed- ing in the yellow grasses, and vibrated away with merry calls until swallowed up in fog and rain. The wasting of the snow under the hot sun of Monday and the cloudy sky but mild air of Tuesday had left many plants and dried flower stalks expozed to view. Plum-colored masses of berry bushes encroached upon the wide ex- panse of snow, as headlands reach out into a calm sea. Tiny forests of wiry grass reared their heads above the snow. In color they were what is called sandy. Goldenrod and aster stems, holding aloft dry and brittle suggestions of long-lost flowers; the heads of bin- nella, looking like chess castles, and of the Indian pipe, upright and pineap- ple-shaped; and many delicate hairlike stems, from which all trace of leaf and flower had departed, broke the evenness of the snow fields, and were beautiful in an unassuming, unconscious, uninten- tional way~ Indeed, many of them had never shone with beauty before. In summer, submerged in the wilderness of green things which crowd the un- ploughed intervale, they could not have been found by the eye of any one in chance passing. But in winter, the time of their nominal beauty gone, they lingered in their old age, and looked more beautiful in their bleached sim- plicity than those summer flowers which never gave them a chance to reveal what was in them. At the end of the intervale, instead of plunging into the woods where our barred owl lived, we turned southward towards the foot of Passaconaway. The rough road led through the forest to a sawmill under the shoulder of the first ridge of the mountains. Downes Brook had been partially dammed to form a pond, upon which hundreds of logs lay awaiting their fate. At the foot of the dam stood the mill. Its lower story was an engine room. A steam en- gine of considerable power worked four saws, a planer, and an endless chain used to draw in logs from the ice. At the dam end, these logs were being drawn in upon the floor, measured and 94 In a Wintry Wilderness. [January, marked. Then they went to the first and largest saw, which cut off their slabs, reduced them to boards or planks, and sent them along to the secoBd saw to have their ends squared. From the second saw they went to the third, where their sides were made equal, and thence through the planer, out at the lower end of the mill, down a chute to a plat- form where they were piled ready to be hauled away. The fourth saw was used to cut the slabs and edge-cuttings into the right lengths for fuel; for not only the engine demon in the under story fed on wood, but all the people in the inter- vale burned slabs. About twelve men were employed in the upper part of the mill, some Americans, some French Ca- nadians, and some Irishmen. One young Frenchman was a picture of dirty beau- ty and health. His jet-black hair, reek- ing with oil, was plastered in a curve over his forehead. His mustache was curling, and his snapping eyes, dark skin, rosy cheeks, and powerful but rather gross body made a striking picture for a day laborer. Leaving the mill, with its distracting noise, we ascended the main logging road towards Passaconaway. It follows Downes Brook southward, now clinging to one hillside, then crossing the ice- bound torrent by a rude but massive bridge of spruce logs to stay for a while on the opposite bank. On each side the timber had been cut and hauled away. The survival of the unfittest is the rule in the forest after the lumber thief has been through it. He leaves the crooked, the feeble, and the diseased trees, and packs around their roots the fertilizing branches and tops of the logs which he hauls away. On our way up we met several teams coming down the slippery, sloppy road. Two strong Cana- dian horses, low sleds, three great logs chained together and to the sleds, and an oily, tobacco-chewing French Cana- dian made up a team. We stopped and talked to one driver, who said that if the snow went off they would keep on with their hauling, using the runners on the bare ground. While he chatted with us he fed his nigh horse on pieces of chewing tobacco, which the horse took from his fingers or bit from the plug. We were told later that this is a coni- mon form of attention for the drivers to show their favorite horses. The horse swallowed the tobacco. About half a mile above the mill we came to the log- ging camp. There was a compact log stable, a log smithy manned by a sturdy Frenchman in moccasins who spoke very little English, and a living-house made of slabs covered with tarred paper well battened down. The house stood on a ribbon of ground between the road and the steep edge of the torrent. Entering through a low shed at the southern or upper end of the shanty, we found our- selves in the kitchen and dining-room. The room contained two cook-stoves, and three long, narrow board tables with benches facing them. The tables were set for thirty-five men, allowing about twenty inches of space for each man. We were welcomed by the cook, a New Euglander, who boasted of having cooked in lumber camps for twenty years. He prided himself on his bread, and cut a loaf to show its quality. I never ate bet- ter bread anywhere. The dishes on the table were simple, tin plates, tin cups, bottles of vinegar, pitchers of maple syrup, tins holding mountains of yellow butter, and plates piled high with fried holes, as doughnuts are graphically termed. Baked beans are a staple dish, but I noticed a barrel of pork at the door, and lying on the woodpile a big bundle of codfish and a side of beef cer- tified as good by Hon. Jere. Rusk. The sleeping-room of the camp was not attractive. It was dark, hot, stuffy in odor, and overcrowded. Rude bunks, three tiers deep, lined the side walls. The men turn into these pens with their clothes on, often wet with rain or snow. Teamstexn are roused at four A. M.; the 1893.] In a Wintry Wilderness. 95 rest of a crew somewhat later. In winter, four A. iii. and midnight are equal- ly gloomy, and if either is colder it is the morning hour. The cook said he could remember but one case of serious illness in his logging camps. The grip, he said, seldom kept a man from work more than one or two days. He ex- pressed great fondness for birds, and spoke of the daily visits of crossbills, and in some years of moose birds. They know their friends, as most dumb beasts do, he declared, and went on to tell of a terrible storm of snow and sleet which came one winter, threatening death to his pets. I just opened my camp doors and called and whistled to my birds, and in they came, dozens of em, until every beam and perch in the camp was full of em. We strolled up the road for a mile or more beyond the camp. At several points deposits of logs had been made at the sides of the road. Several hun- dred logs lay in each pile. Near by, hemlock bark was stacked in long rows, flanking the road. We crossed the tor- rent twice on spruce bridges, and each time gained a magnificent view of Passa- conaway. It was framed in black clouds, rushing masses of vapor, and dark hill- sides still laden with forests. In the foreground was the foaming stream, boulder-choked, bounding towards us. From this side Passaconaway shows no peak; it is simply a somewhat worn cube, to whose precipitous faces the forests cling and the snows freeze. Its coloring is dark in any light, but as we saw it through the gathering storm of that late December day a more forbidding moun- tain mass could hardly be imagined. It was so near us, yet so high above us; so black, so cold, so lonely, yet so full of natures voices, the wailing of wind, the cruel rush of waters, the weird creaking of strained trees. The stream, with its greenish waters hurling themselves over the boulders, and fretting against the ice sheets projecting from the banks, seemed like a messenger rushing head- long from the mountain to warn us back from impending danger. Resting for a while under the shelter of a giant hemlock, we called the birds. Two or three chickadees and two kinglets came to us, but they were subdued by the storm and shy about getting wet. Then we walked briskly homeward, the rain falling in earnest during the latter part of the way. A snowy fog rose from all parts of the valley, spreading most rapid- ly from the western end. The flat fields of snow vanished first; then the damp veil crept up the dark spruces and hid their tops; and finally mountain peak after mountain peak surrendered to the rising tide, and we were left alone in the dense fog, with only a narrow circle of steam- ing snow around us. As the day wore on, rain fell faster and harder, the wind rose, it grew colder, and the blackness of the winter night would have been ter- rible but for the peace and comfort within doors. On such a night, the deer in their yards must shiver with the chilling dampness; the grouse must find the snow too wet to sleep in; and foxes and rabbits, if they leave their dens and forms at all, must regret the hunger which drives them out. Where are the crossbills and siskins? I wish that I knew and could find them out, and take a friendly look at their ruffled feathers, their heads tucked under their wings, and perhaps dozens of their plump little bodies snuggled together in a dark, dry spruce. Christmas Day was warm, cloudy at best, densely foggy at worst. Soon after breakfast we were swinging westward up the valley road, determined to find Sabba Day Falls, or perish in the at- tempt. As we passed the crossbill feed- ing-ground, no birds were in sight, but a moment later, high in the air, we heard bird voices. Looking skyward, we saw a flock of from one to two hundred birds whirling round and round, like ashes drawn upwards over a fire. They were 96 In a Wintry Wilderness. [January, at a very great height, and were grad- ually rising. As they increased their distance they disappeared and reap- peared several times; then they vanished wholly, swallowed up in the high air. I think they were our crossbills, gold- finches, and siskins, and that they were soaring in search of fair weather, per- haps intending to migrate to sonic other favorite haunt. Ghristmas Day is not a time when one expects much color in a White Mountain landscape, but the warm air, the moisture, and the contrasts against snow below and fog above com- bined to produce and to make evident a great deal of exquisite tinting in the shrubs of the fields and the forests of the mountain spurs. As we strode up the line of yellow mud which made the road, our path was bordered by shallow snow, from which sprung an abundant growth of hardback and spinea. Taken in masses, their stems made a rich maroon, somewhat dull near by, but warm and deep when seen across an acre of snow. A foot or two higher than these small shrubs were viburnums and small cher- ry and maple trees growing along the skirts of the forest. Their general tone was also dull red, though somewhat brighter than the spira~a. The next band of color was ashy mottled with dark green, and made probably by young birches, poplars, beeches, and hemlocks. Then came a belt of fog mingled with snowy smoke from the sawmill, and above that a broad band of ashes-of-rose color, formed by the upper branches and twigs of the common deciduous trees. Above all were the spruces, always dark except when the piercing eye of the sun reveals the wonderful golden olive which they keep for him alone. The smoke of the sawmill showed that the timber-eater finds no time for remembering the birthday of Jesus. Teams were moving as usual, carrying the green lumber down to the railway. The men employed to demolish our for- ests are poorly paid. A dollar a day and board is what the French Canadian re- ceives here. Board is called fifty cents a day, and the married workman with a houseful of children lives on that sum. We passed the home of a French Cana- dian known in the valley as Bumble- bee. The house is twelve feet long by ten feet deep. The ridgepole is twelve feet from the ground. The chimney is a piece of stovepipe. The walls are made of boards, battened, and the roof is unshingled. Bumblebee has five chil- dren, the eldest being eight. His wifes mind is affected. The standing timber, the mill, the lumber railway, and many of the dwellings and small farms belong to non-residents, whose only object is to shear the mountains, squeeze the labor- ers, and keep Congress from putting lum- ber on the free ]ist. Not far beyond Bumblebees one- room house we entered the primeval forest. We were following the trail through the snow made by us on Sun- day. When a quarter of a mile in, we were surprised to find a bear track cross- ing our path at right angles. The huge brute had passed that way on Tuesday or Wednesday, judging by the condition of the snow. On reaching the spot where we had aroused a barred owl on Sun- day, we hid under some small hemlocks, thereby getting a thorough sprinkling, and I hooted. After my third attempt, I saw a great bird fly through the woods to a point only a hundred yards distant. In a moment or two I hooted again, and then made the fine squeaking noise which a mouse makes. The owl came nearer, and at once began hooting. Dur- ing nearly ten minutes, in which we kept up a lively exchange of hoots, he varied his notes in several ways, sometimes keeping on, without pausing, from one series of hoots to another. I never heard a more talkative owl. At last he flew into a tree so imear us that I could see him clearly through my glass. As he hooted, his throat swelled and pulsated. He searched the trees and the ground 1893.] In a Wintry Wilderness. 97 with his keen dark eyes. When at last lie saw me, I seemed to feel the force of his glare. Then he turned his head to the left and flew away with long, soft sweeps of his wings. At a distance he resumed his hooting, which we could hear for some time, as we strolled on up Sab- ba Day Brook. What we had supposed to be the river, on Sunday, proved to be Sabba Day Brook itself. The water was high, most of the ice had gone, and all the small brooks poured in liberal streams. In one pool I observed a small trout. At last we heard the thunder of the falls, and looked forward eagerly to see them. The stream seemed to issue from the solid rock, for directly across the channel rose a cliff of dark granite, crowned with black spruces and one or two pines whose lofty tops were pale in the fog. As we drew near, the ma- jestic beauty of the place became appar- ent. At the foot of the black cliff was a deep pool full of strange colors, greens, olives, and white. The waters in it were restless, rising and settling back, but forever washing the sides of their basin. Four gigantic icicles hung from the top of the cliff, extending to the bot- tom. One of them, at its lower end, touched a flat shelf of rock, and so be- came a graceful column supporting the overhanging mosses from xvhicli it start- ed. Another adhered to the rock all the way, and was a crystalline pilaster. The other two were free throughout the whole of their thirty feet of length, and tapered to needle points threatening the pool below. The colors in the pool were in fact borrowed from the mosses and ferns which grew in masses at the sides and upon the top of the cliff. Living in perpetual dampuiess, these ex- quisite plants flourish and become per- fect examples of their kind. The trail- ing fern fronds were as green and as clean in outline as in summer. They sprang from beds of mosses wonderful in tints. Some were golden olive, others pale green, and still others blood red. VOL. LXXT. so. 423. 7 Pressed against the upper edge of the black cliff, they were like a garland of bright flowers on the forehead of some sullen warrior. The water did not pour into this pool from the cliff, but came to it through a narrow flume or gap in the solid rock, which had been concealed from us as we ascended the stream by the high wooded bank opposite the cliff. On reaching the edge of the pool, in the chill shadow of the black rock, we looked up the flume between narrow walls of dark gray gran- ite, and saw, thirty feet or more beyond, another pool, into which was pouring from the left a great sheet of water. This fall, coming from a point fifty or sixty feet above us, and on the extreme left of the flume, had its side towards us; yet, after its green waters struck the upper pool and struggled there awhile, they came through the flume as their only outlet. Clambering up the right hand or north bank, we gained a point where we could see all the details of this strange cata- ract. Sabba Day Brook above the falls flows nearly (hue east. It strikes a rocky hill- side, and is deflected to the left by a sharp curve, so that it runs due north. Iii this direction it has worn a sloping passage to the edge of the falls. Drop- ping fifty feet into a great pot-hole, it turns abruptly to the east and flows out through the flume into the green pool, past the black ledge, and then, turning slightly towards the north, hurries on from basin to rapid on its way to the intervale. Standing on a shelf of snow- covered rock overhanging the angle in the fall, we first looked up at the water leaving its lcvel above and hurrying to- wards its leap, and then down at the boiling pool below and the dashing water in the flume. These falls must be beau- tiful in summer, with sunlight playing in the leaves, blue sky lending color to the water, and rainbow tints gleaming in the uprising spray. They were also beauti- ful to-day, Christmas Day, when the 98 In a Wintry Wilderness. [January, loneliness of winter was brooding over the mountains, when ice and snow min- gled in the surroundings of the falls, and when the gay coloring of the summer forest was replaced by the sombre tones of leafless trees. In summer some trace of man might have jarred upon the per- fect solitude of the spot, and made it seem less pure. As it was, standing in the untrodden snow, surrounded by the fog, the wild stream, the ice-sheathed rocks, I felt as one might if suffered to land for a while upon some far planet, strange to man, and consecrated to eter- nal cold and solitude. We turned away reluctantly, and en- tered the old forest which stands between Sabba Day Brook and Swift River, a quarter of a mile to the north. The rum- ble of the falls grew fainter and fainter, then ceased. Blue jays flew through the treetops; a great hawk floated by above the trees; kinglets and a brown creep- er lisped to us; chickadees, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and a great flock of singing siskins came in answer to our whistles; and red squirrels scolded us from their tree-strongholds. When we reached Swift River, we found it broad, still, and without a log or stones to cross upon. Having on water-tight hip-boots, I waded the stream, hearing my com- pnnion upon my shoulders. Entering a swamp on the further shore, we observed fresh hedgehog tracks. In one place the fat beast had lain down in the snow, and some of his soft quills had frozen to his bed and pulled out when he trun- dled his body along again. At every la- bored step he left the print of his body in the snow, making a track as conspic- uous as a mans. In i~ tangle of yew branches he had paused and nibbled bark from several stems. After following his trail a hundred yards or more, we lost it in a spruce thicket where the snow had melted. At the extreme western end of Swift River intervale stands a hill, seven or eight hundred feet high, having long sloping lines and a pointed top. It is called Sugarloaf. Its sides are cov- ered with as fine a growth of ancient trees as it is often ones fortune to find in New England. As this growth in- cludes few spruces, hemlocks, or pines, it has escaped the timber fiends. There are among its trees giant yellow birches, saffron - colored in the mist; beeches a century old, with trunks moulded into shapes suggestive of human limbs strong in muscles; rock maples eighty or nine- ty feet high; and hemlocks with coarse bark unbroken by limbs until, a hundred feet from the hillside, a mat of their interwoven branches finds the sunlight. The cultivated fields and pasture lands of the intervale are singularly free from rocks. Here and there a great boulder can be found, but it is conspicuous in its loneliness. On this hillside, how- ever, boulders of all shapes and sizes are strewn. Most of them are about the size of a load of hay. They are covered with showy lichens and the greenest of green mosses. Selecting one at the very summit of the hill, we searched under its overhanging sides for dry leaves and twigs. Then we broke an old stump into pieces, and tore the curling bark from a prostrate birch. All this material was more or less danip, but by l)atiei~ce we secured a little bed of coals which soon dried the rest of our fuel, so that before long a bright blaze and a warm glow gladdened our eyes and comforted our chilled bodies. Then came our cheery Christmas dinner in the primeval forest, upon a snow-covered hillside, under the projecting face of a ~reat rock, beneath which we sat, with a ruddy fire crackling in front of us. Never Christmas dinner went straighter to the right spot. While we were resting and enjoying our fire, a flock of sweet - voiced pine grosbeaks came to neighboring treetops, a white-bellied nuthatch hung head down- wards from a beech trunk, and two downy woodpeckers called uneasily to each other. At last we extinguished our fire, and de 189& j Edward Augustus Preemctm. scended the hill. Five grouse flew noisily from the hillside. Through the trees we could see the white ice on Churchs Pond, and towards it we made our way. The pond is the last remnant of the great lake which in distant ages filled the whole of this intervale. Even now an area twen- ty times as large as the lake adjoins its water, and is almost level with it; being covered with sphagnum, laurel, pitcher- plant, and other bog growth, and offer- ing very uncertain footing. Reaching the pond, we circled around it on the ice, cautiously keeping close to the shore, al- though a yoke of oxen could probably have blundered across without danger. While we were on the lake the sunset hour passed, and a dense fog crept down upon the serrated spruce forest which borders th~ water. Three pine grosbeaks flew into the advancing mists, talking in gentle music to one another. One was left on a dead tree in the bog, and nt- tered a plaintive cry again and again. Leaving the ice, we struck across the frozen bog, now and then breaking through the soft places, but generally finding ice or roots to sustain our weary feet. As we progressed, we gathered an armful of club-mosses and a hunch of checkerberry plants bearing their gay fruit. The fog closed in around us, and the air became chilly. Not a mountain could we see. It was a relief to strike firm soil, though it was only a few inches higher than the bog. Presently we came to the river, and for a second time I shouldered my friend and took him over dry-shod. Ai tei doing the same, a few moments later, at Sabba Day Brook, we gained the end of the intervale road, near Bumblebees hut. It was now growing dark, yet a mile of yellow mud still lay before us. Colors had faded; the graceful outlines of the forest were dimmed; nothing but the martial spruces remained with us, drawn up in stiff lines beside the road. When we reached home, the Christmas greens and checkerberries were made by our inexperienced fingers into a cross, a wreuth, and a long strip for festooning. These we presented to the three-year- old Lily of the intervale, whose ideas of Christmas had been obscured by the fact that no one had given her any presents. These offerings made matters better with her, and I fancied that she pommeled her four kittens less mercilessly than usual, as she gazed at the Christmas greens, and said many times to her grandmother, Man dave dose to Did- dy, he did. Frank Bolles. EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN. THE sudden death of Professor Free- man, last March, was a great calamity to the world of letters. Although his achievements in the field of historicaL writing had been so varied and volumi- nous, yet some of his most important themes some of those which had been slowly ripening and most richly devel- oped in his mind were still awaiting literary treatment at his hands, and at the time of his death he had just fin- ished the third volume of a colossal work which was still in its earlier stages. His end was premature, and it is with a keen sense of bereavement that we take this occasion to pay a brief word of tribute to so dear and honored a teacher. Edward Augustus Freeman, son of John Freeman of Redmore Hall, in Worcestershiire, was born at Harborne, Staffordshire, August 2, 1823. His life was always purely that of a scholar and teacher, and a, chronicle of its events would consist chiefly of the record of

189& j Edward Augustus Preemctm. scended the hill. Five grouse flew noisily from the hillside. Through the trees we could see the white ice on Churchs Pond, and towards it we made our way. The pond is the last remnant of the great lake which in distant ages filled the whole of this intervale. Even now an area twen- ty times as large as the lake adjoins its water, and is almost level with it; being covered with sphagnum, laurel, pitcher- plant, and other bog growth, and offer- ing very uncertain footing. Reaching the pond, we circled around it on the ice, cautiously keeping close to the shore, al- though a yoke of oxen could probably have blundered across without danger. While we were on the lake the sunset hour passed, and a dense fog crept down upon the serrated spruce forest which borders th~ water. Three pine grosbeaks flew into the advancing mists, talking in gentle music to one another. One was left on a dead tree in the bog, and nt- tered a plaintive cry again and again. Leaving the ice, we struck across the frozen bog, now and then breaking through the soft places, but generally finding ice or roots to sustain our weary feet. As we progressed, we gathered an armful of club-mosses and a hunch of checkerberry plants bearing their gay fruit. The fog closed in around us, and the air became chilly. Not a mountain could we see. It was a relief to strike firm soil, though it was only a few inches higher than the bog. Presently we came to the river, and for a second time I shouldered my friend and took him over dry-shod. Ai tei doing the same, a few moments later, at Sabba Day Brook, we gained the end of the intervale road, near Bumblebees hut. It was now growing dark, yet a mile of yellow mud still lay before us. Colors had faded; the graceful outlines of the forest were dimmed; nothing but the martial spruces remained with us, drawn up in stiff lines beside the road. When we reached home, the Christmas greens and checkerberries were made by our inexperienced fingers into a cross, a wreuth, and a long strip for festooning. These we presented to the three-year- old Lily of the intervale, whose ideas of Christmas had been obscured by the fact that no one had given her any presents. These offerings made matters better with her, and I fancied that she pommeled her four kittens less mercilessly than usual, as she gazed at the Christmas greens, and said many times to her grandmother, Man dave dose to Did- dy, he did. Frank Bolles. EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN. THE sudden death of Professor Free- man, last March, was a great calamity to the world of letters. Although his achievements in the field of historicaL writing had been so varied and volumi- nous, yet some of his most important themes some of those which had been slowly ripening and most richly devel- oped in his mind were still awaiting literary treatment at his hands, and at the time of his death he had just fin- ished the third volume of a colossal work which was still in its earlier stages. His end was premature, and it is with a keen sense of bereavement that we take this occasion to pay a brief word of tribute to so dear and honored a teacher. Edward Augustus Freeman, son of John Freeman of Redmore Hall, in Worcestershiire, was born at Harborne, Staffordshire, August 2, 1823. His life was always purely that of a scholar and teacher, and a, chronicle of its events would consist chiefly of the record of 100 Edward Augustus Freeman. [January, books published and offices held at the university of Oxford. He was grad- uated at Trinity College in 1845, and remained there as a Fellow until 1847. In 1857, 1863, and 1873 he served as Examiner in Modern History. In 1880 he was chosen honorary Fellow of Trin- ity~ and in 1884 Fellow of Oriel. In the latter year he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History, succeed- ing Bishop Stubbs in that position. It is not necessary to enumerate the honor- ary degrees which he received from Ox- ford and Cambridge, and from universi- ties in various European countries. At the time of his death he was a member of learned societies in nearly all parts of the world. For many years he had been a Knight Commander of the Greek Order of the Saviour. He had also re- eeived honors of knighthood from 8cr- via and Montenegro. In 1868 he was a candidate for Parliament, but failed of election, and that seems to have been his sole venture in the world of politics. His travels upon the continent of Eu- rope were many and extensive. When at home be lived in rural seclusion, far from the madding crowd, upon his estate at Somerleaze, near Wells and its noble cathedral; only in these latter years he made a home for himself, dur- ing the Oxford terms, at St. Giles in that city. From the very beginning Mr. Free- mans historical studies were character- ized on the one hand by philosophical breadth of view, and on the other hand by extreme accuracy of statement, and such loving minuteness of detail as is apt to mark the local antiquary whose life has been spent in studying only one thing. It was to the combination of these two characteristics that the preeminent great- ness of his historical work was due. We see the combination already prefig- ured, and to some extent realized, in his first book, A History of Architecture, published in 1849, although this can hardly be called such a work of original research as the books of his maturer years. Two years afterward appeared the learned Essay on the Origin and De- velopment of Window Tracery in Eng- land, a work which I do not feel able to criticise, but which I am sure is very charming to read. I believe that this book was followed by at least three othi- ers in the same department, Architec- tural Antiquities of Gower, The Antiqui- ties of St. Davids, and The Architecture of Llandaff Cathedral, but I have never seen them. In the preface to the essay on window tracery Mr. Freeman alludes to Rev. G. W. Cox as his friend and coadjutor in many undertakings, and I have heard of a volume of poems by G. W. C. and E. A. F. published in those days, but I know no more about it. It is to be hoped that these early works, which have become very scarce, will now be collected and reprinted. When, after these publications on ar- chitecture, Mr. Freeman began publish- ing hooks and articles on ancient Greece and on the Saracens, I presume there were many of his readers who thought- lessly assumed that he had changed his vocation; he must more than once have had to answer the stupid question why he had gone over from architecture to history. But in his broad philosophical view the evolution of architecture was never separated from the course of po- litical history; and the effect of these early studies in architecture, which were indeed never abandoned, but kept up with enthusiasm in later years, was to give increased definiteness and concreto- ness to his presentation of historical events. When I use such a word as evolution in this connection, I do not mean that Mr. Freeman was in any sense a disciple of the modern evo- lution philosophy. There is nothing to show that he ever gave any time or at- tention to the study of that subject, or that he had any technical knowledge even of its terminology. Whether con- sciously or unconsciously, however, he 1893.] Edward Augustus Freeman. 101 was an evolutionist in spirit. From the outset he was deeply impressed with the solidarity of human history, and no student of political development in our time has made more effective use of the comparative method. From 1850 to 1863 Mr. Freemans published writings were chiefly concerned with Mediterranean history viewed on the broadest scale in relation to all those movements of progressive humanity which have had that great inland sea for a common centre. Here came those brilliant essays on Ancient Greece and Medi~val Italy, Homer and the Hor meric Age, The Athenian Democracy, Alexander the Great, Greece during the Macedonian Period, Moinmseas History of Rome, The Flavian C~esars, and oth- ers since collected in the second series of his Historical Essays. To this pe- riod also belongs the little book on the History of the Saracens, based upon lectures given at the Philosophical Insti- tution in Edinburgh. From these Mediterranean studies may be said to have grown two of Mr. Freemans three great works, both of them, unfortunately, left incomplete at his death, the History of Federal Government and tbe History of Sicily. Mr. Freeman was remarkably free from the common habit common even among eminent historians of concen- trating his attention upon some excep- tionally brilliant period or so - called classical age, to the exclusion of other ages that went before and came after. Such a habit is fatal to all correct un- derstanding of history, even that of the ages upon which attention is thus un- wisely concentrated. Mr. Freeman un- derstood that in some respects, if not in others, the history of Greece is just as important after the battle of Ch~ronea as before; and he became especially in- terested in the history of the Achaian League and other Greek attempts at federation. Thence grew the idea of studying the development of federal union as the highest form of nation- building, beginning with its gernis in the leagues among Greek autonomous cities. The enterprise was arduous, in- volving as it did the determination of obscure points in the history of many ages and countries, more particularly Greece, Switzerland, and America. The first volume, containing the general in- troduction and tbe history of the Greek federations, was published in 1863, a stalwart octavo of 721 pages. It bore upon the title-page a motto from The Federalist, No. xviii~, Could the in- terior structure and regular operation of the Achaiaa League be ascertained, it is probable that more light might be thrown by it on the science of federal government than by any of the like ex- periments with which we are acquaint- ed. This book is of priceless value, and if Mr. Freeman had never published anything more, it would have entitled him to a place in the foremost rank of historians. It deals thoroughly with a very importaut portion of the worlds history to which rio one before had even begun to do justice. Its admirable phi- losophical spirit is matched by its keen critical insight and its minute and ex~- haustive control of all sources of infor- mation. Its narrative, moreover, is full of human interest. Yet it never became a popular book. It was hard to make people believe that the Achaian League could be interesting, arid in order to re- alize the philosophical value of the whole story most readers would need to have the later portions of it set before their eyes. But this noble work, in some respects the grandest of the authors conceptions, was never completed. The first volume was all that ever was published. For this fact I have sometimes heard Ameri- cans offer a grotesque explanation. The volume published in 1863, in the mid- dle of our civil war, bore the title His- tory of Federal Government, from the Foundation of the Achaian League to 102 Edward Augustus Freeman. [January, the Disruption of the United States. This title gave cifense in America. It was too hastily taken to indicate that the author wished well to the Southern Confederacy, and regarded its indepen- dence as an accomplished fact. There can be no doubt that the title was ill chosen; but to suppose, as some people did, that chagrin at the success of the Union arms prevented Mr. Freeman from going on with his book was sim- ply ridiculous. It was not anything that happened in America, but something that happened in Europe, which caused him to defer the completion of his sec- ond volume. That volume was to deal with federal government as exemplified in Switzerland and otherwise in Germany; and the war of 1866 between Prussia and Austria marked the beginning of organic changes in Germany which Mr. Freeman was anxious to watch for a while before finishing his book. He therefore turned aside and took up the third of his three great works, the only one that he lived to complete, the History of the Norman Conquest of England, its Causes and its Results. Upon this subject he had thought and studied for nearly twenty years, or ever since the time when he was publishing works on architecture. As one turns the leaves of these stont volumes, each of seven or eight hundred pages, crowd- ed with minute and accurate erudition, one marvels that the author could carry along so many researches and of such exhaustive character at the same time. Alike in Greek, in German, and in Eng- lish history, along with abundant gener- alizations, often highly original and sug- gestive, we find investigations of obscure points in which every item of evidence is weighed as in an apothecarys scale, and in all these directions Mr. Freeman was working at once. When it came to publishing, volume followed volume with surprising quickness. Turning aside in 1866 from the second volume of the Federal Government when a large part of it was already written, Mr. Freeman brought out the first volume of the Nor- man Conquest in 1867, the second in 1868, the third in 1869, the fourth in 1871, the fifth more leisurely in 1876. The proportions of this work are emi- nently characteristic of the authors his- torical perspective. In order to under- stand the Norman Conquest, a survey of all previous English history, and espe- cially of the struggle between English- men and Danes, is essential; and the first volume carries us in one great sweep from the landing of Hengist to the ac- cession of Edward the Confessor, while the early history of Normandy also re- ceives due attention. We now entei the region of proxImate causes, which re- quire more detailed specification, and the second volume takes us through the four-and-twenty years of Edwards reign. His death hurries the situation to its dramatic climax, and the whole of the third volume is devoted to the events of the single year 1066. The completion of the Conquest down to the death of the Conqueror is treated with less detail, and the twenty-one years are comprised within a volume. Finally, in summing up the results of the great event, the last volume covers two centuries, and leaves us in the reign of Edward I., the king who (lid so much to make modern Eng- lish history the glorious tale that it has been. In finishing his work upon these proportions, Mr. Freeman encountered many points in the reign of William Rufus that needed fuller treatment, and so in 1882 he published in two vol- umes the history of that reign as a se- quel to the Norman Conquest. Taken as a whole, the seven volumes give us such a masterly philosophic analysis and such a picturesque and vivid narrative of the history of England in the eleventh century that it must be pronounced the monumental work upon which Mr. Free- man s reputation will chiefly rest. While these volumes were in course of publication, there was scarcely a year 1893.] Edward Augustus Freeman. 103 when its busy author, from his vast wealth of knowledge, did not bring out some other book. Sometimes it was what men count a slight affair, such as a text- book, albeit the textbook is perhaps the hardest kind of book to write well; some- times it was a brief monograph or course of lectures; sometimes a collection of earlier writings. There was an Old English History for Children (1869), a Short History of the Norman Conquest (1880), and a General Sketch of Euro- e pean History (1873). The Growth of the English Constitution was suggestive- ly treated in a small volume (1872). There was a History of the Cathedral Church at Wells (1870), and there was a collection of Historical and Architectural Sketches, chiefly from Italy (1876), fol- lowed by Sketches from the Subject and Neighbour Lands of Venice (1881). In these two last-named volumes, illustrated chiefly from the authors own drawings, one sees that his interest in Diocletian and Theodoric was scarcely less keen than in Alfred of Wessex or William the Norman. No other modern traveler has done such justice to Istria and Dal- matia. I am not joking, he writes, when I say that the best guide to those parts is still the account written by the Emperor Constantine Porphyro- genitus more than nine hundred years back. But it is surely high time that there should be another. Mr. Free- mans accurate knowledge of southeast- ern Europe and its peoples, coupled with his wide and comprehensive study of the contact between Christians and Mus- sulmans in all ages, led him to take very sound and wholesome views of the unspeakable Turk and the everlasting Eastern Question; and in 1877, when public attention was so strongly directed toward the Balkans, he published a lucid and graphic little volume on The Otto- man Power in Europe. This book was a companion to the History of the Sara- cens, above mentioned, and the two to- gether make as good an introduction to Mussulrnan history in its relations to Europe as the general reader is likely to find. Among the host of side works which were issued during these years, two call for especial mention. In the lectures on Comparative Politics, given at the Royal Institution in 1873, Mr. Freeman analyzed and described the different forms assumed by Aryan institutions among Greeks, Romans, and Teutons. This book is his most distinct attempt to make his central theme the career of an institution, such as kingship or repre- sentative assemblies, rather thau the ca- reer of a state or a people. In the His- tory of Federal Government, the two kinds of treatment, analytical and syn- thetical, were combined in a way that would, I think, have made that his grandest work, had it been completed. In the lectures we get an able analysis and comparison, full of fruitful sugges- tions, and in our authors happiest style. There is not time originality of scholar- ship here that we find in Sir Henry Maine, nor do we find the breadth of view that can be gained only when the barbaric non-Aryan world is taken into account. Such breadth was not to be expected twenty years ago, and before the patlPbreaking work of the American scholar Lewis Morgan. Mr. Freeman s outlook was confined to the Aryan do- main ; but he did not attempt more than he knew. His task was conceived with so clear a consciousness of his limitations, and every point was so richly illustrated, that the Comparative Politics remains one of his most useful and charming books. The other work calling for especial mention is The Historical Geography of Europe, published in 1880. Its object was to trace out the extent of territory which the different states and nations of Europe have held at different times in the worlds history; to mark the differ- ent boundaries which the same country has had, and the different meanings in 104 Edward Augustus Freeman. [January, which the same name has been used. Such work is of great and fundamental importance, because men are perpetually making grotesque mistakes through ig- norance or forgetfulness of the changes which have occurred upon the map; as, for example, when somebody speaks of Lyons in the twelfth century as a French city, or supposes that Charles the Bold invaded Swiss territory. Historical writ- ings fairly swarm with blunders based upon unconscious errors of this sort, and nowhere did Mr. Freeman do better ser- vice than in pointing them out on every possible occasion. No writer has so ef- fectively warned the historical student against that besetting sin of bondage to the modern map. His exposition of historical geography is a book of purest gold, and no serious student of history can safely neglect it. In 1881 Mr. Freeman visited the United States, and gave lectures on The English People in its Three Homes and The Practical Bearings of European His- tory, which were afterward published in a volume. After returning home he pub- lished Some Impressions of the United States (1883), a very entertaining book because of the authors ingrained habit of comparing and discriminating social phenomena upon so wide a sca1~. Gauls and Illyrians, Wessex and Achain, come in to point each a moral, and show how to this great historian the whole Euro- pean past was almost as much a present and living reality as the incidents occur- ring before his eyes. In the same year, 1883, Mr. Freeman published his English Towns and Dis- tricts, a series of addresses and sketches in which he had from time to time embodied the results of his antiquarian and architectural studies in many parts of England and Wales. It is a book of rare fascination as illustrating how large- ly national history is made up of local history, and how it is impossible to nfl- derstand the former correctly without paying much attention to the latter. In further illustration of the same point, Mr. Freeman projected the well-known series of monographs on Historic Towns, to which he himself contributed the open- ing volume, on Exeter (1886). Having been called to the Regius Pro- fessorship at Oxford in 1884, Mr. Free- mans next publications were university lectures on Methods of Historical Study, The Chief Periods of European History, Fifty Years of European History, Teu- tonic Conquest in Gaul and Britain, Greater Greece and Greater Britaii* and George Washington the Expander of England (188688). Meanwhile, the colossal work on Sicily was rapidly as- suming its final shape. This topic obvi- ously touched upon Mr. Freemans other two chief topics at two points. Ancient Sicily was part of that Greek world which he had so thoroughly studied in connection ~vith the beginnings of Fed- eral Government. Medinwal Sicily was one of the most important of the Nor- mans fields of activity. But the thought of writing the history of that fateful island did not come to Mr. Freeman as an afterthought suggested by his other two great works. On the contrary, the conception of the historic position of Sicily was among the first that stimu- lated his philosophic mind to undertake comprehensive studies. The contact be- tween the Aryan and Semitic civiliza- tions along the coasts of the Mediter- ranean is surely the most interesting topic in the history of mankind, as the reader will at once admit when he re- flects that it involves the origin and rise of Christianity. I~ut, restricting our- selves to the political aspects of the sub- ject, how full of dramatic grandeur it is! How stirring were the scenes of which Sicily has been the theatre! There struggled Carthage first against Greek, and then against Roman; and in later times the conflict was renewed between Arabic-speaking Mussulmans and Greek- speaking Christians, until the Norman came to assert his sway over both, and 1893.] Edward Augustus Freeman. 105 to loosen the clutch of the Saracen upon the centre of the Mediterranean world. The theme, in its manifold bearings, was worthy of Mr. Freeman, and he was worthy of it. His design was to start with the earliest times in which Sicily is known to history, and to carry on the narrative as far as the death of the Emperor Frederick II. and the fiuial overthrow of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. The scheme lay ripening in his mind for nearly half a century, and its consumma- tion was begun with characteristic swift- ness and vigor. Two noble volumes were published in 1891, and the third was out of the authors hands by the end of last January. But for a death sadly sudden and premature there was no reason why the whole task should not have been soon accomplished. The author seems to have fallen a victim to his superabun- dant zeal and energy. He had always been a traveler, visiting in person the scenes of his narratives, narrowly scru- tinizing each locality with the eye of an antiquarian, exploring battlefields and making drawings of churches and cas- ties, running from one end of Europe to the other to verify some mooted point. It was, I believe, on some such expedi- tion as this that he found himself, last 1~Iarch, at Alicante, where an attack of smallpox suddenly ended his life. To the faithful students of his works the tidings of Freemans death must have come like the news of the loss of a personal friend. To those who enjoyed his friendship even in a slight way, the sense of loss was keen, for he was a very lovable man. Some people, indeed, seem to think of him as a gruff and growl- ing pedant, ever on the lookout for some culprit to chastise ; but, while not with- out some basis, this notion is far from the truth. Mr. Freemans conception of the duty of a historian was a high one, and he lived up to it. He had a holy horror of slovenly and inaccurate work; pretentious sciolism was some- thing that he could not endure, and he knew how easy it is to press garbled or misunderstood history into the service of corrupt politics. He found the minds of English-speaking contemporaries full of queer notions of European history, especially in the Middle Ages, notions usually misty and often grotesquely wrong; and he did more than any other Englishman of our time to correct such errors and clear up mens m2hiuds. Such work could not be done without attack- ing blunders and the propagators of blunders. Mr. Freemans assaults were not infrequent, and they, were apt to be crushing; but they were made in the in- terests of historic truth, and there were none too many of them. Like Mr. F.s Aunt, the great historian did hate a fool; and it is clearly right that fools should be silenced and made to know their place. Not only foolishness and inaccuracy did Mr. Freeman hate, but also tyranny, fraud, and social injustice, under what- ever specious disguises they might be veiled. In matters of right and wrong his perceptions were rarely clouded. He never could be duped into admiring a charlatan like the late Emperor of the French. Upon the Eastern Question he wielded a Varangian axe, and had his advice been heeded, the Commander of the Faithful would ere now have been sent back to Brusa, or beyond. But while in politics and in criticism he could hit hard, his disposition was as tender and humane as Uncle Tobys. Eminently characteristic is the discus- sion on fox-hunting which he carried on with Anthony Trollope some years ago in the Fortnightly Review, in which he condemned that tinme - honored sport as intolerably cruel. Mr. Freeman was very domestic in hi3 habits. When not traveling, he was to be found in his country home, writing in his own library. When he was in the United States, it amused him to see peo- ples surprise when told that he did not live in a city, and did not spend his 106 Shakespeare in Loves Labour s Lost. [January, time deciphering musty manuscripts in public libraries or archives. He used to say that, even in point of economy, he thought it better to dwell among plea- sant green fields and consult ones own books than to take long journeys or be stifled in dirty cities in order to consult other peoples books. His chief subjects of study favored such a policy, for most of the sources of information on the eleventh century, as well as upon an- cient Greece, are contained in printed volumes. Now and then he missed some little point upon which a manuscript might have helped him. But one can- not help wishing he might have stayed among the quiet fields of Somerset in- stead of taking that last journey to Alicante. It was chiefly with the political as- pects of history that Freeman concerned himself, not in the old-fashioned way, as a mere narrative of the deeds of kings and cabinets, but in scientific fasli- ion, as an application of the compara- tive method to the various processes of nation-building. I do not mean that his narrative was subordinated to scientific exposition, but that it was informed and vitalized by the spirit and methods of science. In pure description Free- man was often excellent; his account of the death of William Rufus, for exam- ple, is a masterpiece of impressive nar- rative. In description and in argument alike Freeman usually confined his at- tention to political history, except when he dealt in his suggestive way with ar- chitecture and archieology. To art in general, to the history of philosophy and of scientific ideas, to the development of literary expression, of manners and customs, of trade and the industrial arts, he devoted much less thought. I have heard that lie did not fully approve of his friend Greens method of carrying along political, social, and literary top- ics abreast in his History of the English People. Few will doubt, however, that in this respect Greens artistic grasp upon his subject was stronger than Freemans. It is some slight consolation for our bitter loss to know that many of the great historians books were in large part written long before he felt the time to be ripe for completing and publishing them. Some of the unfinished portions may be brought toward completeness and edited by other hands. In this way I hope we may look for one or two more volumes of the Sicily, and perhaps for the second volume of the Federal Gov- ernment, dealing with the Swiss and other German federations. Probably no other Englishman, few other men, of our time knew anything like so much as Freeman about the history of Switzer- land. I once or twice begged him to make haste and finish that volume, but desisted; for it was evident that Sicily was absorbing him, and an author does not like to be pestered with advice to turn aside from the work that is upper- ,most in his mind. John Fiske. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVES LABOUR S LOST. I WAS on a visit at an old country house in the south of England. The owner, or, as he liked better to call him- self, the family tenant, was an old In- dian civil servant, past work, but not past the enjoyments of old age, and espe daily those which he could share with the young. And as he loved his bit of Chaucer, he would apply to himself the description of the Clerk, And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche. He used to call me Mr. Foster, be-

106 Shakespeare in Loves Labour s Lost. [January, time deciphering musty manuscripts in public libraries or archives. He used to say that, even in point of economy, he thought it better to dwell among plea- sant green fields and consult ones own books than to take long journeys or be stifled in dirty cities in order to consult other peoples books. His chief subjects of study favored such a policy, for most of the sources of information on the eleventh century, as well as upon an- cient Greece, are contained in printed volumes. Now and then he missed some little point upon which a manuscript might have helped him. But one can- not help wishing he might have stayed among the quiet fields of Somerset in- stead of taking that last journey to Alicante. It was chiefly with the political as- pects of history that Freeman concerned himself, not in the old-fashioned way, as a mere narrative of the deeds of kings and cabinets, but in scientific fasli- ion, as an application of the compara- tive method to the various processes of nation-building. I do not mean that his narrative was subordinated to scientific exposition, but that it was informed and vitalized by the spirit and methods of science. In pure description Free- man was often excellent; his account of the death of William Rufus, for exam- ple, is a masterpiece of impressive nar- rative. In description and in argument alike Freeman usually confined his at- tention to political history, except when he dealt in his suggestive way with ar- chitecture and archieology. To art in general, to the history of philosophy and of scientific ideas, to the development of literary expression, of manners and customs, of trade and the industrial arts, he devoted much less thought. I have heard that lie did not fully approve of his friend Greens method of carrying along political, social, and literary top- ics abreast in his History of the English People. Few will doubt, however, that in this respect Greens artistic grasp upon his subject was stronger than Freemans. It is some slight consolation for our bitter loss to know that many of the great historians books were in large part written long before he felt the time to be ripe for completing and publishing them. Some of the unfinished portions may be brought toward completeness and edited by other hands. In this way I hope we may look for one or two more volumes of the Sicily, and perhaps for the second volume of the Federal Gov- ernment, dealing with the Swiss and other German federations. Probably no other Englishman, few other men, of our time knew anything like so much as Freeman about the history of Switzer- land. I once or twice begged him to make haste and finish that volume, but desisted; for it was evident that Sicily was absorbing him, and an author does not like to be pestered with advice to turn aside from the work that is upper- ,most in his mind. John Fiske. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVES LABOUR S LOST. I WAS on a visit at an old country house in the south of England. The owner, or, as he liked better to call him- self, the family tenant, was an old In- dian civil servant, past work, but not past the enjoyments of old age, and espe daily those which he could share with the young. And as he loved his bit of Chaucer, he would apply to himself the description of the Clerk, And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche. He used to call me Mr. Foster, be- 1893.] Shakespeare in Loves Labour s Lost. tOT cause, he said, I reminded him of a, friend of his youth, Mr. Foster in Pea- cocks Headlong Hall, or at least of Pea- cocks explanation of the name as that of the lover of light; and We were a pair of friends, though I was yonng, And Matthew seventy-two. We had breakfasted in a parlor the oak paneling and carved mantelpiece of which, the squire said, were among the embellishments of the old manor place made by Building Bess of Hardwiek, to one of whose four husbands the house belonged when built. After breakfast we walked together down the steps of the terraces, and through the avenue of huge lime-trees and oaks, which my host told me were all planted by the same great lady. My thoughts wandered from that imperious dame to her still more imperious mistress, Queen Elizabeth, and from Queen Elizabeth to Shakespeare, and so to the Forest of Arden and to the park of the king of Navarre. It was in the leafy month of June. The air was fragrant with honeysuckle and sweetbrier growing along the banks of a brook hidden from sight, but telling of itself by the pleasant noise of a little waterfall into which it was breaking; and the musical hum of unseen insects was all around, occasionally broken into by the cooing of a wood pigeon hidden some- where in the trees. We stopped under a great oak, and sat down in the shade, on a mossy seat formed by the roots of the tree. What are you thinking of? said the squire, who had been silent since lie had finished pointing out the works of the lady I have named. I answered that I was thinking this was the oak in the branches of which Berowne lay hid while he listened to the talk of the king and his other lords. I am glad to hear you call him, as Shakespeare himself did, Berowne. I respect as well as like the Cambridge editors, but I cannot conceive why they should substituto the spelling of the Sec- ond Folio, which has no authority, for that of the Quarto and the First Folio. My old friend seemed inclined to be warm on this point, so I turned the sub- ject by saying, I know you do not make much account of internal evidence, but do you not think there is something in the case of Loves Labour s Lost to show that it was one of the earliest of Shake- speares plays? The Squire. I can seldom find that the so-called internal evidence as to the date of any book is more than critical, that is more or less ingenious, conjecture. Where are you to stop if, after finding all the buoyancy and brightness of youth in this play, you go on (like Hallam, if I remember rightly) to discover a disap- pointed, it may be melancholy, and even a misanthropical Shakespeare in Hamlet and Timon, drawn from the experiences of manhood and old age? Foster. I confess that internal evi- dence is for the most part like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to nonght. Yet does not the circle start from a real stone thrown in? The Squire. Or from some bubble ris- ing from we know not where? Yet I am inclined to yield to you here, and to make an exception in favor of the indi- cations that this was one of the earli- est, if not the earliest, of Shakespeares plays. Ferdinand and Miranda, Romeo and Juliet, are even more perfect repre- sentatives of the youth and maiden than are Berowne and Rosaline; yet while these last require only that the poets pen should be dipped in ink tempered by loves sighs, it may have been that the others could not have been depicted but by an eye That hath kept watch oer man~s mortality. Besides, I too once lived in Arcady, and I should like to hear what you have 108 Shakespeare in Loves Labour s Lost. [January, still to say of the idea, or, as I suppose people would now call it, the motive of Loves Labour s Lost, and what it may possibly tell us of the poet himself, and so of its probable date. Foster. I can hardly pretend to add anything to what Coleridge has already said on the subject. The Squire. There is, indeed, not much more to be said when Coleridge has spoken, and his words have come down to us; yet forgive the imperti- nence a dwarf on a giants shoulders may see farther than the giant himself. Foster. Artists say that a portrait, while it must be true to nature and a likeness of the individual whom it re- presents, must, if it be a true work of art, show the idea, or motive, either of calm repose or of the animation of the moment in which one characteristic ex- pression is passing into another. And the motive of this play may, I think, be said to be youth at the moment of passing into manhood and womanhood. Boys and girls become dignified men and women before our eyes; and it is love which makes the magic change, a change which Berowne describes in words so burning yet so pure and chaste, so passionate yet spiritual, that I, at least, can never read or repeat them too often Other slow arts entirely keep the brain; And therefore, finding barren praetisers, Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil: But love, first learned in a ladys eyes, Lives not alone immnred in the brain; Bnt, with the motion of all elements, Courses as swift as thought in every power, And gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices. It adds a precious seeing to the eye; A lovers eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lovers ear will hear the lowest sound, When the suspicious head of theft is stopped: Loves feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockled snails; Loves tongue proves dainty Bacehus gross in taste: For valour, is not Love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical As bright Apollos lute, strung with his hair: And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Make heaven drowsy with the harmony. Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were tempered with Loves sighs; 0, then his lines would ravish savage ears, And plant in tyrants mild humility. From womens eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world: Else none at all in aught proves excellent. The Squire. They are indeed perfect; and we may well say with Berowne that when such love speaks the voice of all the gods make heaven drowsy with the harmony. Does not Coleridge say that this speech is that of the very god of love himself? But go on. Foster. rjfl~~ ladies in the play, as in nature, are at first inclined to make fun of the serious ardor of their admirers, till the whole scene becomes a tilting- match or tournament of wits, in which again with truth to nature the la- dies get the better, and the men con- fess themselves beaten with pure scoff. But love is becoming lord of all with the ladies, too. Another transition is marked when the princess exclaims, We are wise gills to mock our lovers so! Then come the tidings of the death of her fa- ther, the king of France. In a moment the electric spark crystallizes that life of fun and joyousness. The generous and noble-minded youths and maidens be- come, as I have said, dignified men and women, and turn to the duties of meal life, though agreeing that the new is still to be linked with the old. if the poet had told us the real ending, he would have called the pL y Loves La- bour s Won, and so anticipated the an- swer to a still vexed question of Dr. Dry- asdust. The Squire. Well done! I wish every one knew, and then he would prize this play as you do. Speaking in the name of Shakespeare, you stir the blood of chilled age, and make me say the dead 1893.] Shakespeare in Loves La1~our s Lost. 109 are not dead, but alive. But how does all this prove the early date of the play? Foster. You yourself said just now that you were inclined to recognize a distinction between the creations of Fer- dinand and Miranda and Romeo and Juliet and those of Berowne and Rosa- line. I think this is so, and that we must not look in this play for the expression of that mature genius which we find in the later works. But of the genius itself, not yet mature, we have abundant tokens; and here is, in truth, one especial charm and interest of this play. How pleasant it is to look at the portraits of Milton, the child, the youth, and the man, and to trace the lineaments of moral and intel- lectual as well as physical beauty in their successive developments, the child sur- viving in the man, and the man fulfilling the promise of the child! And though no such portraiture of Shakespeares face in youth exists for us, we have the portrait of his mind in its successive stages of growth, if we follow Ben Jonsons advice and looke Not on his picture, hut his Booke; and again: Look, how the fathers face Lives in his issue; even so the race Of Shakespeares mind and manners hrightly shines In his well tnrn~d and true fikd lines. The Squire. You remember that Ben Jonson said something on the other side, that he wished Shakespeare had blotted a thousand lines. Foster. Yes, but the reconciliation is obvious as we read; for we know Shake- speare does write with an accuracy as well as profoundness of thought which must have been the fruit of the highest intel- lectual training and culture; with an ease and a fluency of utterance which some- times verges on carelessness and neghi gence of language, and shows especially when the poet is under the influence of his love of fun. But his play of Loves Labour s Lost is remarkable for its care- ful accuracy of thought and word even in its fun, and indicates how much SW ke- speare must, in the days of his earliest compositions, have studied the logical use of language, even when he is employing it to express the most fanciful conceits or the most soaring imaginations. The play is full of instances of this careful composition, with its regular balance of thoughts, words, and rhymes in the suc- cessive lines. This use of language is perfect in its kind; yet how different it is from that of The Tempest, Othello, or Hamlet! Surely the difference between the youthful and the mature genius is plain enough. The Squire. Yes, and you have made a good defense or explanation shall I call it? of Coleridges saying that this play is like a portrait of the poet taken in his boyhood. And let me confess to you that when I was young I myself wrote an argument in the same sense, endeavoring to show, by an ~tnalysis of Berownes speech against learning, how exactly it must have represented Shake- speares own experiences and conclusions as to the relations between the study of books and the knowledge of life, when he first came up to London with his small Latin and less Greek. Then we got up, and walked to the wooden bridge which crossed the brook just above the waterfall; and I saw the small red and blue dragonflies and one great brown one so formidable look- ing, though so harmless darting to and fro over the water; and a king- fisher shot, flashing in the sunlight, from a hawthorn bush upon the bank. Edward Strachey. 110 Reminiscences of a German Nonagenarian. [January, REMINISCENCES OF A GERMAN NONAGENARIAN. IT is only in round numbers that Ju- lius Friibel can be called a nonagenarian; but as he is still enjoying a hearty old age in his home at Zurich, whence he sends forth his memoirs in two volumes, arid as, with mental faculties unimpaired, he has every prospect of filling out a life of more than fourscore years and ten, the reader will pardon the conven- ient license of the term. He was born early in 1805, at the obscure Thuringian village of Griesheim, in the petty princi- pality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, where his father occupied the humble position of vicar in the parish church, and held advanced rationalistic views in theolo- gy. The whole family shared these pro- gressive opinions, and one of Frobels earliest and most vivid recollections is of fierce encounters, often resulting in bruised heads and bloody noses, with or- thodox peasant boys who resented his denial of the personal existence of the devil as a dangerous innovation, which they opposed by knock-down arguments, the only form of reasoning in which they were adept. His mother was a woman of remarkable intelligence and force of character, well up in Biblical literature, and a vigorous theological controversial- ist; but her strongest passion was for politics. She was an eager reader of newspal)ers, and her lively interest in the events of the time ceased only with her death at eighty years of age. In the education of his children the father followed the pedagogical system advocated by Pestalozzi; but, unfortu- nately, he died when the eldest son, Ju- lius, was only nine years old. His salary as country parson had always been small, and his scholarly tastes and necessities led him to buy more books than his ~ Em Lebenslauf Aufzeichnungen, Erinner- ungen und Bekenntnisse von Julius Fribel. Two volumes. Stuttgart: Cotta. 1890. pecuniary circumstances warranted; and to the occasional protests of his more practical wife against such expenditures he was accustomed to reply, I be- queath my library as a treasure to my children. As a financial investment this so highly prized treasure finally proved to be little better than a salted silver mine. A few of the rarest volumes were sold to the library of the ruling prince at Rudolstadt; the rest were packed in boxes, and stored in the attic of a house which was soon afterwards destroyed by fire. That the sons of a clergyman should enter the university and study a learned profession was rendered necessary by their social position. However severe the stress of poverty, they would have regarded it as a degradation to go into trade or to earn their living by mechan- ical labor. So strong was the force of this tradition that it wouki never have occurred to Fr6bels sons or to their friends that they could engage in voca- tions so unworthy of their family. But it was deemed no disgrace to prepare themselves for their predestinated call- ing by means of private charity; and when the boy Julius entered the gym- nasmum of Rudolstadt he boarded round in several families, and re- ceived a weekly allowance of money from other benefactors. He confesses that at first this mode of life made him feel like a beggar, but the welcome be met with soon put him at his ease, and rendered this eleemosynary itinerancy really enjoyable. He was not only well fed, but also supplied with pocket money with a liberality that tended to demor- alize a youngster who, like Lord Strut, had never been flush in ready. His ample funds enabled him to become a regular frequenter of the theatre, and now and then he was taken behind the

110 Reminiscences of a German Nonagenarian. [January, REMINISCENCES OF A GERMAN NONAGENARIAN. IT is only in round numbers that Ju- lius Friibel can be called a nonagenarian; but as he is still enjoying a hearty old age in his home at Zurich, whence he sends forth his memoirs in two volumes, arid as, with mental faculties unimpaired, he has every prospect of filling out a life of more than fourscore years and ten, the reader will pardon the conven- ient license of the term. He was born early in 1805, at the obscure Thuringian village of Griesheim, in the petty princi- pality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, where his father occupied the humble position of vicar in the parish church, and held advanced rationalistic views in theolo- gy. The whole family shared these pro- gressive opinions, and one of Frobels earliest and most vivid recollections is of fierce encounters, often resulting in bruised heads and bloody noses, with or- thodox peasant boys who resented his denial of the personal existence of the devil as a dangerous innovation, which they opposed by knock-down arguments, the only form of reasoning in which they were adept. His mother was a woman of remarkable intelligence and force of character, well up in Biblical literature, and a vigorous theological controversial- ist; but her strongest passion was for politics. She was an eager reader of newspal)ers, and her lively interest in the events of the time ceased only with her death at eighty years of age. In the education of his children the father followed the pedagogical system advocated by Pestalozzi; but, unfortu- nately, he died when the eldest son, Ju- lius, was only nine years old. His salary as country parson had always been small, and his scholarly tastes and necessities led him to buy more books than his ~ Em Lebenslauf Aufzeichnungen, Erinner- ungen und Bekenntnisse von Julius Fribel. Two volumes. Stuttgart: Cotta. 1890. pecuniary circumstances warranted; and to the occasional protests of his more practical wife against such expenditures he was accustomed to reply, I be- queath my library as a treasure to my children. As a financial investment this so highly prized treasure finally proved to be little better than a salted silver mine. A few of the rarest volumes were sold to the library of the ruling prince at Rudolstadt; the rest were packed in boxes, and stored in the attic of a house which was soon afterwards destroyed by fire. That the sons of a clergyman should enter the university and study a learned profession was rendered necessary by their social position. However severe the stress of poverty, they would have regarded it as a degradation to go into trade or to earn their living by mechan- ical labor. So strong was the force of this tradition that it wouki never have occurred to Fr6bels sons or to their friends that they could engage in voca- tions so unworthy of their family. But it was deemed no disgrace to prepare themselves for their predestinated call- ing by means of private charity; and when the boy Julius entered the gym- nasmum of Rudolstadt he boarded round in several families, and re- ceived a weekly allowance of money from other benefactors. He confesses that at first this mode of life made him feel like a beggar, but the welcome be met with soon put him at his ease, and rendered this eleemosynary itinerancy really enjoyable. He was not only well fed, but also supplied with pocket money with a liberality that tended to demor- alize a youngster who, like Lord Strut, had never been flush in ready. His ample funds enabled him to become a regular frequenter of the theatre, and now and then he was taken behind the

110 Reminiscences of a German Nonagenarian. [January, REMINISCENCES OF A GERMAN NONAGENARIAN. IT is only in round numbers that Ju- lius Friibel can be called a nonagenarian; but as he is still enjoying a hearty old age in his home at Zurich, whence he sends forth his memoirs in two volumes, arid as, with mental faculties unimpaired, he has every prospect of filling out a life of more than fourscore years and ten, the reader will pardon the conven- ient license of the term. He was born early in 1805, at the obscure Thuringian village of Griesheim, in the petty princi- pality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, where his father occupied the humble position of vicar in the parish church, and held advanced rationalistic views in theolo- gy. The whole family shared these pro- gressive opinions, and one of Frobels earliest and most vivid recollections is of fierce encounters, often resulting in bruised heads and bloody noses, with or- thodox peasant boys who resented his denial of the personal existence of the devil as a dangerous innovation, which they opposed by knock-down arguments, the only form of reasoning in which they were adept. His mother was a woman of remarkable intelligence and force of character, well up in Biblical literature, and a vigorous theological controversial- ist; but her strongest passion was for politics. She was an eager reader of newspal)ers, and her lively interest in the events of the time ceased only with her death at eighty years of age. In the education of his children the father followed the pedagogical system advocated by Pestalozzi; but, unfortu- nately, he died when the eldest son, Ju- lius, was only nine years old. His salary as country parson had always been small, and his scholarly tastes and necessities led him to buy more books than his ~ Em Lebenslauf Aufzeichnungen, Erinner- ungen und Bekenntnisse von Julius Fribel. Two volumes. Stuttgart: Cotta. 1890. pecuniary circumstances warranted; and to the occasional protests of his more practical wife against such expenditures he was accustomed to reply, I be- queath my library as a treasure to my children. As a financial investment this so highly prized treasure finally proved to be little better than a salted silver mine. A few of the rarest volumes were sold to the library of the ruling prince at Rudolstadt; the rest were packed in boxes, and stored in the attic of a house which was soon afterwards destroyed by fire. That the sons of a clergyman should enter the university and study a learned profession was rendered necessary by their social position. However severe the stress of poverty, they would have regarded it as a degradation to go into trade or to earn their living by mechan- ical labor. So strong was the force of this tradition that it wouki never have occurred to Fr6bels sons or to their friends that they could engage in voca- tions so unworthy of their family. But it was deemed no disgrace to prepare themselves for their predestinated call- ing by means of private charity; and when the boy Julius entered the gym- nasmum of Rudolstadt he boarded round in several families, and re- ceived a weekly allowance of money from other benefactors. He confesses that at first this mode of life made him feel like a beggar, but the welcome be met with soon put him at his ease, and rendered this eleemosynary itinerancy really enjoyable. He was not only well fed, but also supplied with pocket money with a liberality that tended to demor- alize a youngster who, like Lord Strut, had never been flush in ready. His ample funds enabled him to become a regular frequenter of the theatre, and now and then he was taken behind the Reminiscences of a German Nonagenarian. scenes by the hairdresser of the troupe, in whose house he lived. His experi- ence in this respect led him to the re- flection, in after life, that nothing is more detrimental to the proper development of the character than early familiarity with the stage, either before or behind the footlights, and independently of the moral or immoral tendency of the plays. This injurious influence he not only felt in himself, but also observed in others, and tells how, at Munich, he had in his service a young man who was thorough- ly orderly, useful, and trustworthy, until he happened to play the harmless part of a monkey in The Magic Flute, after which he was utterly worthless. Fortunately, when Julius was twelve years of age, he was removed from the sphere of these dissipations and sent to Keilhau, near Rudolstadt, where his fa- mous uncle, Frederic Frdbel, had just established his General German Edu- cational Institute. Frederic Frtibels motto, which he was never tired of re- peating, was, All-sided evolution from within; and the only means of attain- ing this end and of promoting the sym- metrical growth of mind and body was by living near to nature, and following the course marked out by the Creator in the education of the human race. The fundamental idea of his pedagogics was to develop as completely as possible each individual as a human being, and not to prepare him for this or that profession or vocation. His aim was not to turn out lawyers, doctors, divines, mathe- maticians, mechanics, scholars, or spe- cialists of any kind, but to make mi- crocosms; although man merely as a microcosm would doubtless prove to be the most useless creature on the face of the earth, and scarcely self-supporting. He would be as fatally out of place as a megatherium, and perish for lack of a suitable environment. In this scheme of varied discipline and harmonious de- velopment no mental faculty or physical member should be neglected. One of the exercises of the pupils was to move the little finger while holding the other fin- gers perfectly still. Julius declares that he succeeded, by practice, in acquiring the power of moving every joint of each finger independently of all the other joints and fingers; but as he had no intention of becoming a prestidigitator, his skill in this particular was of no per- ceptible use to him in his subsequent career, and was finally lost altogether. In fact, the pedagogical system here pur- sued was the very reverse of that of the Jesuits. Time sacrifice of the intellect or of any of its capacities for the sake of securing the unity of the church or the safety of time state Fr~ibel would have denounced as sacrilege. Frederic Frobel is characterized by bis nephew as one of the most notable men of his time, both in outward ap- pearance and in qualities of mind. No intelligent person could see the photo- graph taken from his bust without won- dering who the man was that looked hiku that. His long, straight hair, parted in the middle and falling on his shoulders, gave him the air of an Oriental priest or prophet. His features were regular, and his profile was quite classical in its sym- metry; his expression was keen and Pun- tanic. By the inmates of the institute he was revered as a being far above ordi- nary mortals, and his utterances were re- ceived as a voice from on high speaking with the authority, if not the ambiguity, of an ancient oracle. He was endowed with an extraordinary gift as an educa- tor, and in another age and among an- other people would probably have been the founder of a religion. His power of kindling enthusiasm, even in the dullest minds, was marvelous; so that Keilhau acquired considerable celebrity for the pedagogic-climatic cure of the most ob- stinate cases of youthful doltishness and indocihity. After taking the doctors degree at Jena, Julius Frdbel went to Berlin, where he had the good fortuue to win 1893.1 111 112 Reminiscences of a German Nonagenarian. [January, the esteem and friendship of Alexander von Humboldt, through whose recom- mendation he was appointed teacher of geography in the Industrial School of Zurich, and shortly afterwards promoted to the professorship of inineralogyin the university which had been recently founded in that city. In 1840, he estab- lished there, in connection with Ruge, Siegmund, Follen, and others, a Liter- ary Bureau, which made a specialty of the publication of radical works in poli- tics and theology: a popular edition of Strausss Life of Jesus, Bruno Baners Christianity Rediscovered (Das Neu Entdeckte Christenthum, regarded by the orthodox as new-fangled rather than new-found), historical writings like Louis Blancs History of Ten Years, and pam- phlets and poems of a revolutionary and republican tendency, of which Her- weghs Gediclite cines Lebendigen at- tained an immense popularity, and gave their author a wide reputation as the Geri an bard of freedom. The Zurich pulAisliing house thus became the chief centre of agitation in Europe, and not only were its issues carefully excluded from Germany, but the Swiss authodties, in servile obedience to the wishes of their monarchical neighbors, made every effort to suppress it by a vigorous exer- cise of the censorship and an outrageous abuse of the judicial power. In 1843 husiness a airs brought Fr~- hel to Paris, where he met Arago, Lamennais, Cabet, Louis Blanc, Flocon, Lamartine and other prominent per- sonages. He formed no high opinion of Louis Blancs abilities. Lamennais impressed him as a man worthy of all esteem and reverence, xvitli a peculiar expression of countenance, such as he afterwards detected in the features of D6llinger. Cabet was busy with the project of a new religion for his Icaria, and eager in gathering materials for it from all quarters. He had hardly been presented to Frt~bel when he began to examine him on this subject, setting down the answers in a notebook. Do you believe in a God? Yes. Per- sonal? No, universal. Univer- sal, very good. And thus the in- terrogatories went on. Montalembert gave Fr~bel a letter of introduction to Lamartine, whom he called on at his country seat near Macon, and found ar- rayed in a voluminous silk dressing- gown and reclining on a sofa, with a young lady reading to him, and a secre- tary with pen in hand ready to catch and preserve any casual inspiration. The great poet excused this attitude by say- ing Je souffre with the affectation of an old coquette. The whole tableau was purposely arranged as a piece of senti- mental posing. Fr6bel had a characteristic experience with Flocon, the editor of La R6forme, at whose request he wrote an article on political parties in Switzerland, in the course of which he spoke of Professor Bluntschli as belonging to the romantic and reactionary Berlin school of jurists. To this perfectly accurate statement the sub - editor added ce mis6rable qui a ~t6 condamn6 pour escroquerie et pour vol. When called to account for this interpolation, the sub-editor admitted that he had inserted the objectionable words pour arrondir la phrase. What exclaimed Flocon indignantly, pour arrondir la phrase? Are you crazy? Eli bien, monsieur, replied the subor- dinate, cc mis~rable est un ennemi de la France; il ma pam juste de le fl6- trir. This defamation of an able and honorable publicist because he was sup- posed to be an enemy of France proves that patriotism often is what Dr. John- son affirmed it to be, the last refuge of scoundrels. In the same year Julius visited Leip- sic and Berlin, and had at Potsdam a pleasant interview with humboldt, who, in the course of the conversation, asked whether he had any interesting works in press. Fr6bel mentioned Bruno Bauers Christianity Rediscovered. A 1893.] Reminiscences of a Uerrnan Nonagenarian. 113 dangerous title, declared Humboldt. Besides, there is not much to discov- er: a bit of naive cosmogony, a bit of primitive mythology, a bit of question- able metaphysics, and a more or less crude morality, these are found iii every religion without much searching. To FrObels statement that the Literary Bureau did not aim to be merely sub- versive, but to prove the inefficiency of the censorship and to contribute to its abolition, Humboldt replied: There you have to contend with a stupidity that is hard to overcome. I am old, but you are still young, and will live to see the ignominious end of the whole system now prevailing here. The great misfortune in German history is that the movement of the Peasants War did not succeed. I could hardly believe my ears, adds Frdbel, when hearing such opinions expressed in a room adjoin- ing the royal apartment in the Potsdam palace, by a man who was the chamber- lain and daily companion of the king. How deeply the great naturalist must have felt the degradation of his position as courtier, if he avenged himself by such utterances In 1846 Fr6bel settled in Dresden, where he associated almost exclusively with authors and artists, and devoted himself to literary pursuits. Among other things, he began the composition of a great historical drama in the form of a trilogy, of which, however, only the first part, The Republicans, was fin- ished and put on the stage. The scene was laid in Geneva at the time of Bon- nivard, nuder the oppressive rule of the Dukes of Savoy. Geneva, under the equally despotic r6gime of Calvin, was to be the scene also of the second part, The Libertines. The third part was to be called The Puritans, and the action was to be transferred to New England. He also wrote a play entitled The Prus- sians in Africa, in the style which Offen- bachs operettas have now made familiar to frequenters of the opera buffa. VOL. LXXI. NO. 423. 8 Frt~bel was a prominent participant in the revolution of 1848, as journalist and member of the Frankfort Parlia- ment, and gives lively descriptions of the course of events, as well as of the cranks and self-seeking demagogues with whom his political activity brought him in contact. After the gradual disintegration of the Frankfort Parliament and the total collapse of the revolution, Frdbel took refuge in Switzerland, about the last of June, 1849. Early in July, he made a tour on foot through the Bernese High- lands and over the Gemini to Lake Le- man, and took passage at Villeneuve on a steamer for Geneva. A young Amer- ican on board fell into conversation with him, and said, You are going to the United States, and I will give you a letter to my father in Philadelphia. To Fro- bels assurance that he had no intention of going to America, the young man re- plied: Oh, yes, you will. What can you do here in Europe? You are no longer suited to this hemisphere. At Geneva Frdbel received the letter of introduc- tion, in which he was spoken of as one of the literati who wished to found a republic in Germany, and which he had the pleasure of presenting, less than a year later, to the father, a wealthy merchant of the Quaker city, by whom he was cordially welcomed and hospita- bly entertained. The strong reactionary tide that bad now set in throughout all Germany de- feated his plan of settling down as a publicist in Hamburg, and on September 29 he left Liverpool in an American sailing-vessel, and arrived in New York November 9. Captain Doane, who had shown him many kind attentions dur- ing the voyage, remarked, as they were sailing up the bay: Now we are in the United States, and I hope you will find a new home here. As a refugee you are perhaps without means until you can secure some position. If I can serve you with a small sum of money, it will 114 Reminiscence8 of ct German 2Yomagenarvtn. [January, give me great pleasure. Fr~ibel thanked him for his generosity, and assured him that he had enough for his present needs. If you have money, replied the cap- tain, so much the better; but every new-coiner in this country has to pay for his experience, and often at a very dear rate. Here is the address of my sister in Connecticut, through whom letters are sure to reach me. If you ever need help, let me know. Are you familiar with our coinage? That is absolutely necessary. Look here, be continued, putting some pieces in Fr~jbels hand: that is an eagle, and worth ten dollars; that s a half - eagle; that s a dollar; that s a dime, of which ten make a dollar; and that s a cent, the hundredth part of a dollar. Fr~ibel thanked him for the information, and returned him the money. No, said the captain, drawing back his hand, you must keep them; otherwise you might forget. Frdbel could not return the gift without hurting the feelings of the warm-hearted man who had taken this delicate way of attaining his purpose, and replied, Ii shall prize these coins as a souvenir of Captain Doane. Unfortunately, we have not space to recount at length the adventures of Frd- bel in America, which form one of the most fascinating portions of his autobio- graphy. Of course he fell in with many fellow-exiles, and gives some ludicrous examples of their crude and mostly con- demnatory judgments of American insti- tutions, formed within a few hours after landing. One day he met on the street a Saxon revolutionist, a quondam colleague in the Frankfort Parliament. You here? exclaimed Fr6bel. When did you arrive? Last week, was the re- ply. Is nt there a disgraceful state of affairs in this country? And they call this a republic! I tell you what, there s got to be a change. Frdbel declared his intention of be- coming a citizen of the United States, and several prominent Americans wished to procure for him a professorship in some institution of learning, but he de- clined their kind offer with thanks. His experience in Germany had filled him with intense disgust for the vapid the- orizing and pedagogical arrogance of men like Dahlmann and Gervinus, who were after all the best of their class, and he was firmly resolved not to bear the professorial title in the New World. A rabid radical, Dr. Esselen, who died an inmate of an American insane asy- lum, had once publicly accused him of aristocratic tendencies because he had been seen wearing kid gloves on the streets of Frankfort. But the fact that he began life in New York as a soap- boiler proves that he was not above any honest kind of manual labor. It is equally to his credit that when he after- w~ rds took part in politics he did not imitate some native partisans by carry- ing into it the kind of 5Oap that corrupts instead of cleansing what it touches. It was impossible, however, for a man of Fr6bels ability and energy to hide himself permanently in an obscure base- ment, behind caidrons of boiling grease and potash, and we find him soon af- terwards in Washington, associating with President Taylor, Vice-President Fill- more, Senator Seward, Professor Hen- ry, Dr. Bache, Lieutenant Maury, and other persons eminent in political and scientific circles. There he met also an Austrian refugee, the Hofrath Gritzner, who was apparently in high favor, and consequently in high feather, and conde- scended to let Fr~ibel into the secret of his success. Here, he said, tbere is one way to the goal, although you are probably, unlike myself, too scrupulous to take it: it is through the Jesuits, and the way to tbe Jesuits is through the la- dies. Frdbel accepted an invitation from Professor Rogers to visit him at the University of Virginia, and made an ex- tended tour through the Old Dominion, 1893.] Reminiscences of a German Nonagenarian. 115 charmed with the beauty of the country and the genial hospitality of the in- habitants, which appear to have cast a glamour upon his perceptions of the peculiar institution. It is just to add that a subsequent journey through the South, from Charleston to New Orleans, imparted a darker hue to the somewhat rose-colored view of slavery obtained in Virginia. The Charleston Hotel, which had the reputation of being a first-class house, was so dirty that it was hardly habitable, and nowhere in the city was there any trace of the elegance and the superior taste upon which the South- era aristocrats prided themselves. The through passengers were chiefly North- erners, but the people who entered the train in Georgia and Alabama were a loud, swaggering, rough, and seedy-look- ing set, each with a slave carrying an old hat-box and other shabby baggage, the very picture of beggarly grandee- ship. At that time Frdbel could have bought a hundred square miles of land near Warm Springs for five thousand dollars, and a few years later he was offered a large estate near Harpers Ferry, if he would only live on it and induce German immigrants to settle there. This tempting offer, which was made by Mr. Mason, then American minister to France, and his son-in-law, Archer Anderson, was, after mature de- liberation, declined, since F~ibel could not conscientiously advise his country- men to make their home in a part of the United States which he thought must sooner or later be the theatre of a fierce civil war. Iii 1850, when the project of a Nica- ragu a ship canal began to be agitated, and a stock company had been formed in New York for piercing the isthmus, Fr6bel, on the recommendation of E. G. Squier, was invited by the Nicaraguan government to visit the country and re- port on its natural resources, and espe- cially its mineral treasures. With this scientific mission he united also the func tion of correspondent of the New York Tribune, then owned by Horace Greeley, and edited by Charles A. Dana. To this journal he had been already a fre- quent contributor, and as Dana once handed him a fifty-dollar check in pay- ment for a single communication, Frd- bel remarked, You are very generous. We are never generous, was Dana s reply, and never pay for an article more than it is worth. Frtibel gives an ad- mirable account of Nicaragua, politically, socially, geologically, ethnologically, and indeed from every point of view, and in- terweaves the narration with striking in- cidents of travel, personal adventures, intrigues of British diplomatists, outrages of American filibusters, and other tragic or humorous episodes. On his. return to New York, in Sep- tember, 1851, he was offered the direc- torship of a Nicaragua gold-mining com- pany; but he declined the honor, his geological knowledge convincing him that the enterprise was an intentional or unintentional swindle. His political affiliations were with the Whigs, whose principles lie advocated in the press, and thereby incurred the ill will of the ma- jority of hi~ German compatriots, who, misled by a name, had not yet discov- ered that American democracy at that time was the servile instrument of an arrogant oligarchy. He took a lively in- terest in the reformatory enthusiasms of the period, vegetarianism, spiritualism, Fourierism, and the doctrine of the sov- ereignty of the individual as proclaimed by Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews, and practically exemplified in the Free Love League, whose members, nevertheless, seemed for the most part to be distinguished for a purity in their private lives which was wholly inconsis- tent with their public profession of prin- ciples, amid rendered Horace Greeleys assertion of the necessity of compulsory morality quite superfluous. In the spring of 1852, a New York firm, which had an extensive overland 116 Reminiscences of a German Nonagenarian. [January, commerce with Texas, northern Mexico, and California, asked him to accompany one of their trading expeditions as ac- countant and paymaster, an opportunity which he gladly seized, because it would enable him to travel across prairies and through primeval forests, and to observe savage and pioneer life in the far West. The caravan started from Independence, Missouri, and after a days journey plunged into the wilderness at a point where there was a division of the road with a guidepost pointing on the one hand the Way to California, and on the other the Way to Oregon. Imagine, adds Fr6bel, a guidepost at Frankfort on the Main showing the Way to Rus- sia and the Way to Turkey! In- dependence was then the frontier station of civilization, and harbored eccentric characters of almost every nationality. Frdbel mentions one American there, a man of considerable culture and impor- tance, who regarded the Chinese form of government as the model for America and for the world, and who hoped that with the completion of the Pacific rail- road, then already projected, the amelio- rating influence of Chinese civilization would be widely felt. American cul- ture, he observed, is the primitive cul- ture of mankind, but corrupted and de- generated, whereas in China it has kept itself pure. The regeneration of Amer- ica, therefore, must come from China, and be effected by the introduction o1~ the patriarchal democracy of the Celestial Kingdom. Americans of to-day would hardly accept this crotchet as an ade- quate solution of the Chinese question, or be brought to believe that their redemp- tion and restoration as a people must come to them from Chung - Ku& ~, the realm of the middle. The feature of this border town that struck Frt~bel most forcibly was the cu- rious contrast between the keen com- mercial character and the zealous reli- gious life of its inhabitants. Methodists formed the predominant sect, and were divided into two hostile camps, Northern and Southern, each of which used the Bible against or in favor of slavery. The Northern church excluded slave- holders from its communion, but the ne- groes belonged to the Southern church. It is the will of God, said a sable preacher, that we blacks should be slaves, but in the next world we shall be white and free, a pathetic prospect which did not diminish their present value as chattels, and with which their masters were glad to have them console them- selves. The prevailing notion among the negroes was that the bad ones would be condemned to be apes after death; but by good conduct in the simian state they would ultimately become negroes again, gradually turn white, grow wings, and enjoy other beatitudes. This naive and primitive eschatology is probably of African pagan origin, since the psychical affinity of man with monkeys, and the be- lief that the latter are human beings un- dergoing punishment for their misdeeds, are conceptions common to many native negro tribes. Frdbel gives graphic descriptions of life on the plains, and interesting obser- vations, as a naturalist, of the regions extending from Independence to Chihua- hua, and from Galveston to San Fran- cisco; and the record of his impressions of California and the Californians forty years ago is a valuable contribution to the history of a rare transition period in American civilization, and an admirable study of American character under ex- ceptional and peculiarly trying circum- stances. His judgment in this respect is, on the whole, very favorable. He de- clares that society in San Francisco at that time was more agreeable and ani- mating, and contained a proportionate- ly greater number of highly cultivated, truly humane, and really companionable persons, men of remarkable intelligence, uncommon energy, large experience of the world, and tried qualities of mind and heart, than any city of the Old 1893.] Reminiscences of a German Nonagenarian. liT World. Every Californian regarded himself, and not without reason, as be- longing to the 6lite of the human race; and although this was true in a bad as well as in a good sense, I found the good predominating over the bad in a wonderful degree, and had occasion to observe in Californian life the rise and growth, the organization and ennoble- ment, of human society through sheer stress of necessity. Soon after his arrival, Fr6hel aided in establishing, and edited during his so- journ there, a German Whig paper, the San Francisco Journal, which did good service in opposition to the California Demokrat, a sheet conducted in the inter- ests of Catholic propagandism, and also of slavery extension, by one Dr. L~hr, who advocated the formation of a slave State out of southern California. On the eve of his leaving San Francis- co a public dinner was given in Fr~ibels honor, and a cane of the strawberry-tree (arbutus unedo) presented to him, the head of which was of massive gold cut in six facets, two bearing inscriptions, and the other four adorned with the figures of a gold-digger, a Mexican horse- man swinging a lasso, a Chinaman, and an Indian, carved in high relief; even the iron point was made of metal ob- tained from Californian gold-sand. Some gentlemen also gave him as a souvenir a large piece of native gold in octahedral crystals of rare beauty. On the 20th of September, 1855, he sailed through the Golden Gate for New York via Pa- nama, as the invited guest of the Nica- ragua Steamship Company. The pas- sengers, he says, were on the whole the most cultivated persons he had ever met with on shipboard. I shared my cabin with a former governor of Oregon and a lawyer from San Francisco, whose in- structive and entertaining conversation shortened the days and hours of the passage. Jurists, judges, physicians, prominent merchants, some with their wives, formed the remaining elements of the society, in which a cheerful tone, good breeding, and mutual civility pre- vailed. The vessel, in its arrangement and administration, was a model of neat- ness, order, and decency absolutely un- known to the Old World. Under such circumstances the sea voyage was a source of unalloyed pleasure. S One of the first letters received by Fr6bel after his arrival in New York, in 1849, brought the sad news of the death of his wife at Zurich, where he had left her with their only child, while he sought a home for them in the New World. In consequence of this event, his son, then eleven years of age, was sent to him un- der the care of a kindly stranger. He was educated in America, partly at Cam- bridge, where lie studied natural science under Agassiz, whose friendship Fr~be1 enjoyed. He was appointed to the pro- fessorship of chemistry and pharmacy in the University of Nexv York, and died many years later in that city. On his return from San Francisco to New York in 1855, Fr~bel made the acquaintance of a German widow named M~jrdes, the daughter of Count von Ar- manspcrg, well known as Greek chan- cellor under the reign of King Otto I. The first husband of this lady was a young jurist and revolutionist, and the newly married pair, in consequence of the events of 1849, made their wedding journey as political refugees to Texas, where the husband died of cholera. Caroline von Armansperg (as she is called in the autobiography) now wished to return to Bavaria, and sailed from New York in a vessel laden with cotton, which was struck by lightning in the waters of the West Iiidies and slowly burned, notwithstanding every effort to extinguish the fire in the cargo. After three days of fearful anxiety the ships company were taken off by a passing vessel, and landed in Charleston. At another time Caroline took passage from New York, and went on board, but lost 118 Reminiscences of a German Nonagenarian. [January, her courage, and was put ashore, forfeit- ing her fare. The ship sai~d, and was never heard of again. The death of her father and the settlement of the fam- ily estate improved her condition finan- cially. A Saxon lawyer, residing in New York, urged her to place her funds in his hands for investment, and to go to Panama for Her health, well knowing that she would probably never survive that treacherous climate. Fortunately, she rejected this offer, and was still in New York, devoting herself to the edu- cation of her son, when she met Fr6bel and became his wife. Her boy, who had never known his own father, legally assumed Frdbels name combined with that of his mother, William Friibel-Ar- mansperg. After extended journeys through the southern part of the United States and in Central America, Frdbel and his wife set sail for Europe, and landed at Havre July 9, 1857. Both of them, each inde- pendently of the other, had gone through essentially like experiences, and become completely changed as the result of eight years of eventful and decidedly vicissitu- dinous life. I once fell into conversation with an evidently well - to - do and wide - awake German in the famous museum at Nu- remberg. He was a Nuremberger by birth, but had spent the greater part of his active life as a merchant in New York, and had now come, with wife and child, to visit the place of his nativity. To my remark that it must be pleasant for him to see the quaint and pictur- esque old city again, he replied, with a deprecatory shrug of the shoulders, Oh, yes, but it is small potatoes This pettiness appeared to Frdbels Americanized eyes the most con- spicuous feature of life in Paris, where he spent his first twelve days in Europe, and where, as he observes, Americans like to make their home, but, as a rule, not to the advantage of their character. Voluntary expatriation tends to dena tionalize and denaturalize them, so that they cease to be good Americans with- out becoming Europeans, and pay a heavy ransom for the pleasures they enjoy by losing all earnest aims and worthy purposes. Many faces in the United States may show the effects of a wearing and too often grinding life; but it is a life of serious work, and not of dissoluteness, and has nothing in com- mon with the faded features and shabby finery of the boulevard flaneur sport- ing a red pink as the cheap substitute for the bit of red ribbon which every Frenchman is ambitious to have in his buttonhole. In Germany, this sense of estrange- ment was aggravated by petty annoy- ances on the part of the police, and Frdbel resolved to pass the winter of 185859 in London, and to return in the follow- ing spring to the United States. Mean- while, he published at Leipsic Amerika, Erfahrungen, Reisen, und Studien (two volumes, 185758), and early in 1859 an English edition of the same work, in somewhat abridged form, under the title Seven Years fravel in Central Amer- ica, Northern Mexico, and the Far West of the United States, was issued by Bent- ley in one large volume, with excellent illustrations. Fi~ibel also printed at Ber- lin what Humboldt called a timely and suggestive treatise on Amerika, Europa, und die Politischen Gesichtspunkte der Gegenwart, in which he called attention, on the one hand to the growing power of the United States as a political factor hitherto overlooked by European states- men, and on the other hand to the fact that Russia, by its expansion in Asia, was becoming more and more a colossal em- pire foreign to Europe. The corollary to these demonstrations was the neces- sity of the unification of Germany and the confederation of the states of west- era Europe as an efficient member of the great political triad in which Chris- tendom was gradually organizing itself, and as the only means of preserving the 1893.] Reminiscences of a & ermau~ Nonagenarian. 119 balance of power between these mighty opposites. In England Frdbel met Lothar Bucher, afterwards well known as a diplomatist and publicist in confidential relations with Bismarck, and was introduced by him to David Urquhart, the oddest fish, perhaps, in all the shoals of British eccen- trics, whose hatred of the United States was so intense that he would not tolerate an American pine or fir tree in his park, but put himself to immense trouble and expense to acclimate deodar cedars from the Himalayan Mountains. In his way he was as hobbyhorsical as his ancestral kinsman, Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cro- marty, who published in 1652 a book called Pantochronochanon, in which he attempted to trace the house of Urquhart hack to Adam, although he never did such a good piece of literary work as Sir Thomass translation of Rabelais. One of his whimseys was the notion that by proper diet and discipline from in- fancy a person could be made proof against physical injury, and perfectly in- sensible to pain. To this end he fed his boy, then five years of age, on milk, and used to pinch his arm at table, in the presence of guests, asking, Do you feel any pain? to which the child gave the almost sobbing reply, No, turning red and pale under the torture. When Friibel declined to take a bath before dinner, Urquhart grew angry and inso- lent. You wish to be a political re- former! he exclaimed. First reform yourself; and so long as you have not accomplished that, give up your foolish talking and writing. The sudden death of Fri5bels mother- in - law, Countess Armansperg, necessi- tated his return to Germany, where old ties of friendship were renewed and his former interest in German politics re- vived. At Schwalbach, where his wife had been ordered to take the baths, he met ex-President Franklin Pierce, whom he had always held in slight esteem, but whom now, when no longer the pliant tool of a party, he found to be a far more sensible politician and honorable charac- ter than one would have expected from his general reputation. Once they vis- ited Heidelberg together, and as they were walking up to the old castle Frobel remembered that he had left his pocket- book at the hotel, and went back to fetch it, while Pierce proceeded on his way. On reaching the ruins, FrObel was ac- costed by a stranger, who said: Per- haps you are looking for President Pierce? You will find him on the ter- race. In fact I am looking for Presi- dent Pierce, replied Fr~ibel, but how did you come to suspect it? Well, answered the stranger, you seemed to be seeking for somebody, and President Pierce up there was apparently waiting for somebody, and so I thought he must be the one you wanted. Frdbel joined Pierce on the terrace and related the in- cident. Pierce laughed, and said: The same man addressed me, and inquired whether I were President Pierce; and to my inquiry as to how he arrived at this correct supposition, he replied, I read in the papers that General Pierce, ex-President of the United States, had just come froni Spain, where he bad greatly admired the Alhambra, and was now traveling on the Rhine; and as I saw a stranger contemplating with evi- dent pleasure the ruins of our old cas- tle, and perhaps comparing them with the remains of Moorish architecture, I surmised that he must be President Pierce. What talent, exclaimed Fr~ibel, for historic combinations, hap- py hypotheses, and conjectural poli- tics! At Heidelberg, in 1862, Fr6bel made the acquaintance of Dr. Chapman, editor of the Westminster Review, who in the course of a political discussion spoke of the tyrannical governments of Ger- many. Frdbel replied that there was no longer any tyrannical government in Germany. But there are no repre- sentations of the people, retorted Chap- 120 Reminiscences of a German Nona~jenarnan. [January, man. Frt~bel pointed to a hewer of wood on the street and said, That man is not only a voter, but may be also elected a member of the Parliament of this coun- try, which in this respect is far in ad- vance of England. Why then are you discontented ? asked the English Liberal. In Nicaragua, says Frt~bel, a man once showed me a cow, and in- uiired if I had ever seen such an am- tital before; when I assured him that there were cows in Europe, lie expressed his wonder that in that case people should emigrate to Nicaragua. Dr. Chapman seems to have entertained an equally naive conception of parliamen- tary government as the ne plus ultra of blessedness. To his incredibly silly question Fr~ibel answered, We are dis- contented because we demand a political power that shall correspond to our great- ness and pre~3minent culture as a nation, and enable us to rebuke all foreign ar- rogance. It was Frt~bels fIrm conviction that his fatherland could secure this desirable position among European nations only through the realization of the so-called German Trias, consisting of Austria, Prussia, and a federation of the smaller German states acting as one body. It is not necessary to enter into the details of this complex and clumsy scheme, the defects of which were recognized even by its most earnest advocates, who ac- cepted it as the best that could be at- tained under the circumstances. The executive power was to be vested in a directory of three sovereigns, namely, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia as hereditary members, and a third member to be chosen by the re- maining federated German rulers from their own number. There was also to be a federal constitution, a federal assem- bly, and a federal court of justice, the proposed organization of which is fully described in Frdbels second volume. Ertibel was furthermore of the opin- ion that Austria should take the lead in this movement, and compel the other states to join in it. Here he confesses that he made a fatal mistake. I held Prussia to be weaker, and Austria and France stronger, than they proved to be. I did not assume that Prussia had either the energy or the will to solve the Ger- man problem. Even now I might be tempted to affirm that except for Bis- marck, then as little known to the world as to myself, I should have been right; although it might be said in reply that Prussia alone was capable of producing a Bisinarck, and that is really true. Laboring nnder this delusion, Fi& ~bel naturally entered the Austrian service; and although Ritter von Schmerling was minister of state, and Count Rechberg was minister of foreign affairs, the man whom an Austrian court-martial had sentenced to death in 1849 was for three years (186265), without portfolio or of- ficial recognition, the real director of Aus- trian politics. A semi - official journal, Der Botschafter, was established, for the purpose of promoting what was called the great German or Trias project, to prepare Austria for taking the initia- tive in this direction. It is hardly neces- sary to state that the whole scheme was a dismal failure, due in a great measure to party intrigues and petty dynastic pretensions, as well as to the conceited incompetency and personal venality of Austrian politicians. A single incident will suffice to illustrate the latter point. As Fr6bel was about to retire, declaring that he was tired of threshing empty straw, Baron Gruben urged him to re- main, and promised that he should be put in an agreeable position, in which the sheaves should not turn their stub- ble ends towards him; thus interpreting Fr~ibels discontent as an expression of regret that he had not been able to de- rive pecuniary profit from his patriotic labors. Frdbel was in Munich soon after the accession of Ludwig II. of Bavaria, and witnessed with disgust the excessive ad- 1893.] Reminiscences of a German Nonagenarian. 121 ulation which turned the head of that young and enthusiastic romanticist on the throne. Thus Professor Liher, the director of the state archives, spoke of the wholly inexperienced and mentally unripe monarch in the most extravagant terms, falling into a fit of ecstasy and a muddle of mixed metaphor: He is as daring and towering as an eagle, and as innocent as a lily. He is accessible to every great idea, and it is astounding how much he has studied without its be- ing noticed. This was the sort of in- cense that was constantly going up in the presence of the king, inflaming his van- ity and clouding his intellect, until he began to believe that all knowledge and wisdom came to him, like his crown, by the grace of God. He soon showed a longing for autocratic power, and could not see why a being divinely endowed and inspired, as his courtiers affirmed him to be, should not be invested with absolute authority. Once, at Aschaffen- burg, he declared to his uncle, the Grand Duke of Hesse Darmstadt, that the po- sition of the Emperor of Russia was the only one worthy of a sovereign. Ta that case, was the reply, your royal Majesty, my most charming nephew, would have to work often and vigorously at the pump (bfters tUchtig anpump- sen; that is, raise the wind by frequent loans). Of all the persons who flattered the Bavarian king for their own selfish purposes, Wagner was, in Frdbels opin- ion, the least mercenary, since he pur- sued ideal and artistic rather than purely personal ends. His rivals for the royal favor did everything they could to dis- credit him; and when Ludwig relieved the composer of his heavy burden of debt by the payment of forty thousand forms, the minister Pflstermeister had the whole sum counted out in silver coin and con- veyed in a cart to Wagners house, in order to attract the attention and to ex- cite the indignation of the people. Wag- ner became the victim because he refused to be the sport of political intrigues. His character was not lacking in weak points, which made him unenjoyable to many persons; but it was a delight to see how he maintained his footing on the slippery ground of his position in Munich, and kept his integrity under dangerous temptations.~~ Fr~ibel states on the authority of Count Rechberg that as early as 1846 a party iu Mexico wished to have an Austrian prince, one of the sons of the Archduke Charles, proclaimed Emperor of that country. Metternichi, however, refused to consent to the scheme except on con- ditions which could not be complied with. The movement that placed Maximilian on the Mexican throne in 1864 was started by Spain, and taken up by Na- poleon and the Duke de Morny partly as a means of checking the growing power of the United States, and partly as a financial speculation. In this connec- tion, Rechberg spoke of Maximilian as a fantastic buffoon, without dignity or force of character, and described Char- lotte as a vain, conceited, and arrogant person, boundlessly ambitious, utterly heartless, and always calculating. Our autobiographer saw Bismarck for the first time December 14, 1868, and again in the following spring. In these interviews, the Prussian statesman set forth his ideas with great frankness, and solicited Frdbels criticism. He deemed it impolitic to proceed too rapidly with the work of German unification, and thought that Italy was still suffering, and would continue for a long time to suffer, the consequences of her error in this respect. We must not require that the great objects which we are striv- ing after shall be attained in our life- time. The south of Germany must join the north of its own free will, even if it takes thirty years. As to Austria, he WOul(l deal gently with her, and gratify her wishes so far as possible, as a man humors the whims of an exacting and capricious woman to whom he is bound for better or for worse; but when indul 122 Rerniniscenees of a Cerman Nonagenarian. [January, gence is abused and conciliation fails, harsh measures must be adopted. Be- tween the velvet hand and the naked sword there is for me no middle. On the visitors taking leave, the chancellor accompanied him through the second anteroom, where Frdbel was about to pass through a door on the right, when Bismarek motioned to him to go straight on, and added: I accompany many persons to this point; the civilians uni- formly turn to the right, the soldiers al- ways go straight ahead. But you will find your way in politics all the better for that. Good-by! In this respect, remarks Fr6bel, Bismarek seems to have combined the soldier with the civilian. A short time afterward Frtibel was in Paris, and breakfasted with the minister Ollivier, who, in discussing French and German affairs, said: I will tell you the secret of French politics. War with Prussia is inevitable. We assume that a few days after the declaration of hos- tilities a battle will be fought, and of course we shall be victorious. French prestige will be saved; peace will fol- low; Prussia will be permitted to do as she pleases in Germany, and France will be content with Belgium and a rectifi- cation of her eastern frontier. But suppose the French should not win the first battle? interposed Frbbel. In that case, replied Ollivier, the Em- peror would never return to Paris. A few days later Fr6bel called upon Prince Napoleon, at the latters request. The topic of conversation was the na- tional unity of Germany, which the prince admitted to be a necessary result of the natural evolution of European politics, and not to be prevented. But Prus- sia, he added, is not the same thing as Germany, and the German nation is a dangerous nation. So weit die deutsche Zunge klingt, that s what you are al- ways singing. It is a long time since I have heard that song, replied Frdbel, and the principle of nationality is no longer understood by us in a linguistic sense. Quant ~ rnoi je dirais que le principe de nationalit6 nest autre chose que la d6mocratie dans le droit interna- tional. rfhe prince accepted this defi- nition, and turned the conversation to the eventuality of Franco-German hostilities, which he thought might be avoided by a slight regulation of boundaries, with a small addition of territory, hinting that Belgium would be a sop sufficient to ap- pease the appetite of the French dogs of war. He expressed great admira- tion for Bismarck as the only states- man of the present day, and believed that he would have the will and the wisdom to preserve peace. One must be either the accomplice or the decided enemy of a power like Prussia. We have been neither the one nor the other. But it is not I who make French poli- tics, he remarked, with a shrug, and in- timated that the Emperor would be re- sponsible for any disaster arising froni this source. In April, 1873, Frdbel was appointed consul-general of the German Empire at Smyrna, and it is significant of the strictness of the German civil service regulations that this man, though sixty- eight years of age, of acknowledged po- litical capacity, and the personal friend of Bismarck, was obliged to pass the prescribed examination before he could receive this office, for which every one knew him to be pre~minently qualified. Indeed, it was at the imperial chancel- lors earnest request that he consented to become a candidate for the position. We shall not attempt to follow Frobel in the varied experiences and vivid re- cords of his Oriental life, first in Asia Minor, and afterward in Algiers. In the summer of 1888 he retired from ac- tive service, after the death of his wife, and has since lived with his adopted son in Zurich, where fifty-five years before he had begun his scientific, journalis~ic, and political career. In many respects his memoirs are 1893.] Some Holiday Bo