NRLF B M blS MOD or THf f UNIVERSITY OF STOPS OF VARIOUS QVILLS By W-D-HOWELLS Muflra.ted by Howard or TH UN1VEF OF ^ YORK HARPER AND BROTHERS MDCCCXCV * A Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All rights reserved. X^ble of Contents. I. NOVEMBER II. MIDWAY III. TIME IV. FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION V. THE BEWILDERED GUEST VI. COMPANY VII. HEREDITY VIII. TWELVE P.M. IX. CHANGE X. IN THE DARK XI. TO-MORROW XII. LIVING XIII. IF XIV. SOLITUDE XV. RESPITE XVI. QUESTION XVII. HOPE XVIII. THE BURDEN XIX. CALVARY XX. CONSCIENCE XXI. REWARD AND PUNISHMENT XXII. SYMPATHY XXIII. STATISTICS XXIV. PARABLE XXV. VISION XXVI. SOCIETY XXVII. GOOD SOCIETY XXVIII. FRIENDS AND FOES t5fi509 XXIX. SPHINX XXX. MATERIALS OF A STORY XXXI. THE KING DINES XXXII. LABOR AND CAPITAL XXXIII. EQUALITY XXXIV. JUDGMENT DAY XXXV. MORTALITY XXXVI. ANOTHER DAY XXXVII. SOME ONE ELSE XXXVIII. LIFE XXXIX. WEATHER-BREEDER XL. PEONAGE XLI. RACE XLII. TEMPERAMENT XLIII. WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT? ^^^: Impression WEFT of leafless spray Woven fine against the gray Of the autumnal day, And blurred along those ghostly garden tops Clusters of berries crimson as the drops That my heart bleeds when I remember How often, in how many a far November, Of childhood and my children s childhood I was glad, With the wild rapture of the Fall, Of all the beauty, and of all The ruin, now so intolerably sad. # MIDWAY O blithe the birds sang in the trees, The trees sang in the wind, I winged me with the morning breeze, And left Care far behind. But now both birds and trees are mute In the hot hush of noon; And I must up and on afoot, Or Care will catch me soon. . ; ti . A. H j^*^ or THF ^ NIVERSlTY J or TIME O you wish me, then, away? You should rather bid me stay: Though I seem so dull and slow, Think before you let me go! Whether you entreat or spurn I can nevermore return: Times shall come, and times shall be, But no other time like me. Though I move with leaden feet, Light itself is not so fleet; And before you know me gone Eternity and I are one. # ; c> FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION I NNOCENT spirits, bright, immaculate ghosts! Why throng your heavenly hosts, As eager for their birth In this sad home of death, this sorrow-haunted earth? Beware! Beware! Content you where you are, And shun this evil star, Where we who are doomed to die, Have our brief being and pass, we know not where or why. II We have not to consent or to refuse; It is not ours to choose: We come because we must, We know not by what law, if unjust or if just. The doom is on us, as it is on you, That nothing can undo ; And all in vain you warn: As your fate is to die, our fate is to be born. THE BEWILDERED GUEST WAS not asked if I should like to come. I have not seen my host here since I came, Or had a word of welcome in his name. Some say that we shall never see him, and some That we shall see him elsewhere, and then know Why we were bid. How long I am to stay I have not the least notion. None, they say, Was ever told when he should come or go. But every now and then there bursts upon The song and mirth a lamentable noise, A sound of shrieks and sobs, that strikes our joys Dumb in our breasts ; and then, some one is gone. They say we meet him. None knows where or when. We know we shall not meet him here again. or THF UNIVERSITY *T5X HF A SITY COMPANY THOUGHT," How terrible, if I were seen Just as in will and deed I had always been! And if this were the fate that I must face At the last day,and all else were God s grace, How must I shrink and cower before them there, Stripped naked to the soul and beggared bare Of every rag of seeming!" Then, "Why, no," I thought," Why should I, if the rest are so?" HEREDITY |HAT swollen paunch you are doomed to bear Your gluttonous grandsire used to wear; That tongue, at once so light and dull, Wagged in your grandam s empty skull; That leering of the sensual eye Your father, when he came to die, Left yours alone; and that cheap flirt, Your mother, gave you from the dirt The simper which she used upon So many men ere he was won. Your vanity and greed and lust Are each your portion from the dust Of those that died, and from the tomb Made you what you must needs become. I do not hold you aught to blame For sin at second hand, and shame: Evil could but from evil spring; And yet, away, you charnel thing! CAI L TWELVE P.M. ;et home from some scene of gayety, !ay a long dinner, and the laugh and joke, And funny story, and tobacco smoke, And all the not unkindly fatuousness Of fellow-beings not better and not worse Than others are, but gorged with course on course, And drenched with wine; and with one s evening dress To take off one s perfunctory smile, and be Wholly and solely one s sheer self again Is like escaping from some dull, dumb pain; And in the luxury of that relief, It is, in certain sort and measure, as if One had put off the body, and the whole Illusion of life, and in one s naked soul Confronted the eternal Verity. CHANGE OMETIMES, when after spirited debate Of letters or affairs, in thought I go Smiling unto myself, and all aglow With some immediate purpose, and elate As if my little, trivial scheme were great, And what I would so were already so: Suddenly I think of her that died, and know, Whatever friendly or unfriendly fate Befall me in my hope or in my pride, It is all nothing but a mockery, And nothing can be what it used to be, When I could bid my happy life abide, And build on earth for perpetuity, Then, in the deathless days before she died. IN THE DARK OW often, when I wake from sleep at night, I search my consciousness to find the ill That has lurked formlessly within it, still Haunting me with a shadowy affright; And try to seize it and to know aright Its vague proportions, and my frantic will Runs this way and runs that way, with a thrill Of horror, to all things that ban or blight! Then, when I find all well, it is as though The moment were some reef where I had crept From the wide waste of danger and of death, And for a little I might draw my breath Before the flood came up again, and swept Over it, and gulfed me in its deeps below. OF THF ! d UNIVERSITY or TO-MORROW LD fraud, I know you in that gay disguise, That air of hope, that promise of surprise: Beneath your bravery, as you come this way, I see the sordid presence of To-day; And I shall see there, long ere you are gone, All the dull Yesterdays that I have known. THE" ( UNIVERSITY LIVING OW passionately I will my life away Which I would give all that I have to stay; How wildly I hurry, for the change I crave, To hurl myself into the changeless gravel Or THF "DIVERSITY J IF ES, death is at the bottom of the cup, And every one that lives must drink it up; And yet between the sparkle at the top And the black lees where lurks that bitter drop, There swims enough good liquor, Heaven knows, To ease our hearts of all their other woes. The bubbles rise in sunshine at the brim ; That drop below is very far and dim ; The quick fumes spread and shape us such bright dreams That in the glad delirium it seems As though by some deft sleight, if so we willed, That drop untasted might be somehow spilled. or THF NIVERS1TY OF SOLITUDE H, you cannot befriend me, with all your love s tender persistence! In your arms pitying clasp sole and re mote I remain, Rapt as far from help as the last star s measureless distance, Under the spell of our life s innermost mystery, Pain. DIVERSITY 1 or J RESPITE ROWSING, the other afternoon, I lay In that sweet interlude that falls between Waking and sleeping, when all being is seen Of one complexion, and the vague dreams play Among the thoughts, and the thoughts go astray Among the dreams. My mother, who has been Dead almost half my life, appeared to lean Above me, a boy, in a house far away, That once was home, and all the troubled years That have been since were as if they were not. The voices that are hushed were in my ears, The looks and motions that I had forgot Were in my eyes; and they disowned the tears That now again beneath their lids are hot. # or THF I UNIVERSITY X^^ro_RK\^ UNIVERSITY | QUESTION HALL it be after the long misery Of easeless pillows, and the waste of flesh In sickness, till some worn and widening mesh Frays out at last, and lets the soul go free? Or, shall some violent accident suddenly Dismiss it, or some black cloud in the brain Lower till life maddens against life amain? Where, in what land, or on what lonely sea? When, in the light of what unrisen sun? Under what fatal planet? There is none Can tell, or know aught but that it shall be: The one thing certain which all other things Have taught my being in its inmost springs To feel the sole impossibility. # or THF V or X^lJlOF \ f*ITY ) HOPE E sailed and sailed upon the desert sea Where for whole days we alone seemed to be. At last we saw a dim, vague line arise Between the empty billows and the skies, That grew and grew until it wore the shape Of cove and inlet, promontory and cape; Then hills and valleys, rivers, fields, and woods, Steeples and roofs, and village neighborhoods. And then I thought/ Sometime I shall embark Upon a sea more desert and more dark Than ever this was, and between the skies And empty billows I shall see arise Another world out of that waste and lapse, Like yonder land. Perhaps perhaps perhaps!" * ?: ft %l\E X^AMl- THE BURDEN WRITHED beneath my bur den, fumed and groaned. My burden that had felt and heard me, moaned: " You do not know what misery is, nor what The bitterest part is of our common lot. The strength I load in you with my loath weight, My weakness would so gladly own its fate. Think,once,howmuch more dread ful it must be To be the burden than bear it, and pity me!" * THF UNIVERSITY CALVARY F He could doubt on His triumphant cross, How much more I, in the defeat and loss Of seeing all my selfish dreams fulfilled, Of having lived the very life I willed, Of being all that I desired to be? My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me? CONSCIENCE UDGE me not as I judge myself, O Lord! Show me some mercy, or I may not live: Let the good in me go without reward; Forgive the evil I must not forgivel REWARD AND PUNISHMENT |OU are the best and the worst of everything you require. If you have looked on shame willingly, yours is the shame. You are the evil you mean, and you are the good you desire; You shall be for yourself both the praise and the blame. V<HAH ERS1TY J SYMPATHY RIEND, neighbor, stranger, as the case may be, You who are sitting in the stall next me, And listening also to this pitiless play That says for me all that I would not say, And follows me, however I wind about, And seems to turn my whole life inside out: 1 wonder, should I speak and be the first To own just where in my soul it hurt worst, And you revealed in yours the spot its flame Scorched fiercest, if it might not be the same. STATISTICS O many men, on such a date of May, Despaired and took their hopeless lives away In such an area, year after year; In such another place, it would appear The assassinations averaged so and so, Through August after August, scarce below A given range; and in another one, March after March, it seems there were undone So many women still about the same, With little varying circumstance in their shame; Burglaries, arsons, thefts, and forgeries Had their own averages as well as these; And from these figures science can discern The future in the past. We but return Upon our steps, although they seem so free. The thing that has been is that which shall be. Dark prophet, yes! But still somehow the round Is spiral, and the race s feet have found The path rise under them which they have trod. Your facts are facts, yet somewhere there is God. PARABLE HE young man who had great possessions dreamed That once again he came to Christ and seemed To hear Him making answer as before, "Sell all thou hast and give unto the poor, And come and follow me." And now he did In all immediately as Jesus bid. Then some of them to whom he gave his wealth Mocked at him for a fool or mad,by stealth Or openly; and others he could see Wasting his substance with a spendthrift glee; And others yet were tempted, and drawn in The ways of sin that had not dreamed of sin: Others, besides, that took were robbed and killed: Some that had toiled their whole lives were un willed By riches, and began the life accurst Of idleness, like rich men from the first. Some hid his money in the earth, a root From which should grow a flower of deadly fruit; Some kept, and put it out at usury, And made men slaves with it that had been free. The young man s dream was broken with his grief, And he awoke to his immense relief, And wept for joy, and cried," He could not know What dire results from His behests would flow! I must not follow Him, but I can fulfil The spirit, if not the letter, of His will. Seeing the things I have been shown in sleep, I realize how much better twere to keep The means that Providence has bestowed on me, Doubtless for some wise purpose, and to be The humble agency and instrument Of good to others not intelligent Enough to use the gifts of God aright." He rose up with a heart at peace, and light; And thenceforth none of the Deserving Poor Ever went empty-handed from his door. VISION ITHIN a poor man s squalid home I stood: The one bare chamber, where his work- worn wife Above the stove and wash-tub passed her life, Next the sty where they slept with all their brood. But I saw not that sunless, breathless lair, The chamber s sagging roof and reeking floor; The smeared walls, broken sash, and battered door; The foulness and forlornness everywhere. I saw a great house with the portals wide Upon a banquet room, and, from without, The guests descending in a brilliant line By the stair s statued niches, and beside The loveliest of the gemmed and silken rout The poor man s landlord leading down to dine. * SOCIETY LOOKED and saw a splendid pageantry Of beautiful women and of lordly men, Taking their pleasure in a flowery plain, Where poppies and the red anemone, And many another leaf of cramoisy, Flickered about their feet, and gave their stain To heels of iron or satin, and the grain Of silken garments floating far and free, As in the dance they wove themselves, or strayed By twos together, or lightly smiled and bowed, Or curtseyed to each other, or else played At games of mirth and pastime, unafraid In their delight; and all so high and proud They seemed scarce of the earth whereon they trod. I looked again and saw that flowery space Stirring, as if alive, beneath the tread That rested now upon an old man s head And now upon a baby s gasping face, Or mother s bosom, or the rounded grace Of a girl s throat; and what had seemed the red Of flowers was blood, in gouts and gushes shed From hearts that broke under that frolic pace. And now and then from out the dreadful floor An arm or brow was lifted from the rest, As if to strike in madness, or implore For mercy; and anon some suffering breast Heaved from the mass and sank; and as before The revellers above them thronged and prest. or THF 1 UNIVERSITY ) OF GOOD SOCIETY ES, I suppose it is well to make some sort of exclusion, Well to put up the bars, under whatever pretence; Only be careful, be very careful, lest in the con fusion You should shut yourself on the wrong side of the fence. FRIENDS AND FOES ITTER the things one s enemies will say Against one sometimes when one is away, But of a bitterness far more intense The things one s friends will say in one s defence. t ? L< ^ u " V r THE SPHINX E who are nothing but self, and have no manner of being Save in the sense of self, still have no other delight Like the relief that comes with the blessed obliv ion freeing Self from self in the deep sleep of some dream less night. Losing alone is finding; the best of being is ceas ing Now and again to be. Then at the end of this strife, That which comes, if we will it or not, for our re leasing, Is it eternal death, or is it infinite life? * MATERIALS OF A STORY MET a friend of mine the other day Upon the platform of a West End car; We shook hands, and my friend began to say Quickly, as if he were not going far, " Last summer something rather in your way Came to my knowledge. I was asked to see A young man who had come to talk with me Because I was a clergyman; and he Told me at once that he had served his time In the state-prison for a heinous crime, And was just out. He had no friends, or none To speak of; and he seemed far gone or THF UNIVERSITY ) With a bad cough. He said he had not done The thing. They all say that. You cannot tell. He might not have been guilty of it. Well, What he now wanted was some place to stay, And work that he could do. I managed it With no great trouble. And then, there began The strangest thing I ever knew. The man, Who showed no other signs of a weak wit, Was hardly settled in his place a week When he came round to see me, and to speak About his lodging. What the matter was He could not say, or would not tell the cause, But he must leave that place; he could not bear To stay. I found another room, but there After another week he could not stay. Again I placed him, and he came to say At the week s end that he must go away. So it went on, week after week, and then At last I made him tell me. It appears That his imprisonment of fifteen years Had worn so deep into the wretch s brain That any place he happened to remain Longer than one day in began to seem His prison and all over again to him ; And when the thing had got into this shape, He was quite frantic till he could escape. Curious, was not it? And tragical." "Tragical? I believe you! Was that all? What has become of him?" "Oh, he is dead. I told some people of him, and we made A decent funeral for him. At the end It came out that his mother was alive An outcast and she asked our leave to attend The ceremony, and then asked us to give The silver coffin plate, carved with his name, And the flowers, to her." "That was touching. She Had some good left her in her infamy." "Why, I don t know! I think she sold the things, Together with a neck-pin and some rings That he had left, and drank. . . . But as to blame. . . . Good-morning to you!" and my friend stepped down At the street crossing. I went on up town. or THF > : }Xti\bl THE KING DINES Impression WO people on a bench in Boston Com mon, An ordinary laboring man and woman, Seated together, In the November weather Slit with a thin, keen rain; The woman s mouth purple with cold and pain, And her eyes fixed as if they did not see The passers trooping by continually, Smearing the elm leaves underfoot that fall Before her on the miry mall; The man feeding out of the newspaper Wrapped round the broken victuals brought with her, And gnawing at a bent bone like a dog, Following its curve hungrily with his teeth, And his head twisted sidewise; and beneath His reeking boots the mud, and the gray fog Fathomless over him, and all the gloom Of the day round him for his dining-room. LABOR AND CAPITAL Impression SPITEFUL snow spit through the bitter day In little stinging pellets gray, And crackling on the frozen street About the iron feet, Broad stamped in massy shoes Sharpened and corked for winter use, Of the huge Norman horses plump and round, In burnished brass and shining leather bound, Dragging each heavy fetlock like a mane, And shaking as they pull the ponderous wain With wheels that jar the ground In a small earthquake, where they jolt and grind, And leave a span-wide track behind: And hunched upon the load Above the Company s horses like a toad, All hugged together Against the pitiless weather, In an old cardigan jacket and a cap Of mangy fur, And a frayed comforter Around his stiffened chin, too scant to wrap His purple ears, And in his blinking eyes what had been tears, But that they seemed to have frozen there ere they ran, The Company s man. EQUALITY HE beautiful dancing-women wove their maze, With many a swift lascivious leer and lure For the hot theatre, whose myriad gaze Burned on their shamelessness with eyes im pure. Then one that watched unseen among them dread, Mystical, ineffable of presence said, " Patience! And leave me these poor wanton ones: Soon they shall lie as meek and cold as nuns; And you that hire them here to tempt your lust Shall be as all the saints are, in the dust." JUDGMENT DAY EFORE Him weltered like a shoreless sea The souls of them that had not sought to be, With all their guilt upon them, and they cried, They that had sinned from hate and lust and pride, Thou that didst make us what we might become, Judge us!" The Judge of all the earth was dumb; But high above them, in His sovereign place, He lifted up the pity of His face. # ; -% MORTALITY OW many times have I lain down at night, And longed to fall into that gulf of sleep Whose dreamless deep Is haunted by no memory of The weary world above; And thought myself most miserable that I Must impotently lie So long upon the brink Without the power to sink. Into that nothingness, and neither feel nor think! How many times, when day brought back the light After the merciful oblivion Of such unbroken slumber, And once again began to cumber My soul with her forgotten cares and sorrows, And show in long perspective the gray morrows, Stretching monotonously on, Forever narrowing but never done, Have I not loathed to live again and said, It would have been far better to be dead, And yet somehow, I know not why, Remained afraid to die! ANOTHER DAY NOTHER day, and with it that brute joy, Or that prophetic rapture of the boy Whom every morning brings as glad a breath As if it dawned upon the end of death! All other days have run the common course, And left me at their going neither worse Nor better for them; only, a little older, A little sadder, and a little colder. But this, it seems as if this day might be The day I somehow always thought to see, And that should come to bless me past the scope And measure of my farthest-reaching hope. To-day, maybe, the things that were concealed Before the first day was, shall be revealed, The riddle of our misery shall be read, And it be clear whether the dead are dead. Before this sun shall sink into the west The tired earth may have fallen on his breast, And into heaven the world have passed away. . At any rate, it is another day! SOME ONE ELSE IVE my life over? I would rather not. Though I could choose, perhaps, a fairer lot, I cannot hope I should be worthier it, Or wiser by experience any whit. Being what I am, I should but do once more The things that brought me grief and shame before. But I should really fancy trying again For some one else who had lived once in vain: Somehow another s erring life allures; And were I you, I might improve on yours. * LIFE NCE a thronged thoroughfare that wound afar By shining streams, and waving fields and woods, And festal cities and sweet solitudes, All whither, onward to the utmost star: Now a blind alley, lurking by the shore Of stagnant ditches, walled with reeking crags, Where one old heavy-hearted vagrant lags, Footsore, at nightfall limping to Death s door. WEATHER-BREEDER H, not to know that such a happiness To be wished greater were to be made less That one drop more must make it spill in tears Of agony that blisters and that sears; That the supreme perfection of thy bliss Alone could mother misery like thisl PEONAGE OW tired the Recording Angel must begin To be of setting down the same old sin, The same old folly, year out and year in, Since I knew how to err, against my name! It makes me sick at heart and sore with shame To think of that monotony of blame, For things I fancied once that I should be Quits with in doing; but at last I see All that I did became a part of me, And cannot be put from me, but must still Remain a potent will within my will, Holding me debtor, while I live, to ill. # RACE HAVE me here those looks of yours! All those pretty airs and lures: Flush of cheek and flash of eye; Your lips smile and their deep dye; Gleam of the white teeth within; Dimple of the cloven chin; All the sunshine that you wear In the summer of your hair; All the morning of your face; All your figure s wilding grace; The flower-pose of your head, the light Flutter of your footsteps" flight: I own all, and that glad heart I must claim ere you depart. Go, yet go not unconsoled! Sometime, after you are old, You shall come, and I will take From your brow the sullen ache, From your eyes the twilight gaze Darkening upon winter days, From your feet their palsy pace, And the wrinkles from your face, From your locks the snow; the droop Of your head, your worn frame s stoop, And that withered smile within The kissing of the nose and chin: I own all, and that sad heart I will claim ere you depart. I am Race, and both are mine, Mortal Age and Youth divine: Mine to grant, but not in fee; Both again revert to me From each that lives, that I may give Unto each that yet shall live. TEMPERAMENT HERE love and hate, honor and infamy, Change and dissolve away, and cease to be; Where good and evil in effect are one In the long tale of years beneath the sun; Where like the face a man sees in a glass And turns from, character itself shall pass- Out of the mystery whence we came we bring One thing that is the one immutable thing, Through which we fashion all that we do here, Which is the body of our hope and fear, The form of all we feel and all we know, The color of our weal and of our woe, And which alone, it may be, we shall bear Back to that mystery when we go there. WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT? F I lay waste and wither up with doubt The blessed fields of heaven where once my faith Possessed itself serenely safe from death; If I deny the things past finding out; Or if I orphan my own soul of One That seemed a Father, and make void the place Within me where He dwelt in power and grace, What do I gain by that I have undone? o rue UNIVERSITY r RETUl This bo Re 20 JL ! JUL RETURN TO the circulation desk ot any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (510)642-6753 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date. DUE AS STAMPED BELOW APR H 199? IN STACKS WAR 2 7 19 . APR 2 LD 21-100m-l, 12,000(11/95)