YOUNG OFEG'S DITTIES
BY GEORGE EGERTON.
Uniform with this.
Keynotes. 35. 6d. net.
(Sixth Edition ntnv Ready.)
Discords. 35. 6d. net.
(Third Edition now Ready.)
YOUNG OFEG'S DITTIES
BY OLA HANSSON
TRANSLATED FROM
THE SWEDISH BY
GEORGE EGERTON
LONDON: JOHN LANE, VIGO ST
BOSTON: ROBERTS BROS., 1895
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
IT has been urged upon me by
many that translation is an unworthy
form of literature ; and with this
view I entirely agree, if the trans-
lator be not in such sympathy with
the writer he endeavours to give in
his own tongue, as to make trans-
lation a labour of love, and not
merely a branch of literary trade.
In offering this necessarily poor
version of these beautiful prose
poems, which are an exposition of
Friedrich Nietzche's triumphant
doctrine of the Ego, / am not
5
alone actuated by my individual
admiration of Ola Hanssoris
writings, but also by a desire to
make known to others one of the
most remarkable writers of our
day.
Ola Hansson is the youngest and
most striking personality amongst
Scandinavian writers. He was
born on the \2.th of November
1860, in Skane (Skania), the most
southern province in Sweden. His
family is one of the oldest in the
province, and have held the same
estate for many centuries as free-
hold proprietors. Herr Olds father
was the first to marry an outsider,
and his eldest brother the first to
enter a University for the dis-
6
tinguishing characteristic of such
families in Sweden is jealousy of
innovation, tenacity in the preserva-
tion of family tradition, and inter-
marriage. He joined the University
at Lund, and passed a brilliant ex-
amination in philosophy as one year's
student, but the expectation that he
would be a shining light as lecturer
was not fulfilled, as he devoted him-
self to letters.
After his return to Skania he
issued his first book, " Sensitiva
Amorosa" in which he broke new
ground in literature : that of physi-
ological mysticism, with which he
plumbed greater depths in the
mysteries of human life than even
the Ibsen, Bjornson, or Strindberg
problem-plays had led one to believe
possible. As the niceties of his
psychology and the peculiar depths
of his analysis met, not alone with
little understanding, but called down
a storm of opprobrium and scurril-
ous personal attacks from the press,
he left his native land and settled
finally in Germany ; and here he
gained in a few years a leading
position as poet and critic in the
newer school of letters.
His fame spread from Germany
to France, where attention was first
drawn to him by the publication
of " Young Ofeg's Ditties" His
numerous lyrical and critical works
have been translated into most
European languages, and every
8
new issue of his pen is hailed
with eagerness. Most of his work
is in striking affinity with the
atmosphere of erotic mysticism that
pervades the paintings of Mr Burne
Jones, so much so that Amor and
Psyche, King Cophetua, and Chant
(f Amour might serve as illustra-
tions of some of Ola Hanssons
moods, save that they are lacking
a little in the sensuous intensity of
the latter s work.
Something of the Skanian atmo-
sphere has crept into his nature: the
flat land, the ever-varying delicate
nuances of the seasons, the shifting
lights, the wayward moods peculiar
to each time of the year, all find echo
in his impressionable soul.
As poet, psychological novelist,
masterly essayist, and individual
critic, he is one of the most striking
literary phenomena of the age he
is the incarnation of the nervous
life of to-day. He is a specialist
in psychology, a pathological hunter
in the terra incognita of the human
soul; laying bare hidden places
with the sure, deft touch of a
skilled surgeon. He writes by the
light of some inner illumination;
feels with delicate intellectual an-
tenncz uncommon to ordinary hu-
manity. He is a master in the
diagnosis of the elusive emotions
that flit like shadows across the
hearts and minds of men. His
writings are distinguished by
10
melancholy sentiment, delicate,
dainty joy, and sympathetic sorrow
with the fruitless struggle of man
with adverse circumstances, and
the enigmatical forces in his own
being. The peculiar rhythm of his
prose adapts itself to his moods,
fixes the fleeting expressions, the
changeful colours, and the scarcely
audible undertones of life.
He is an aristocrat in letters, for
the few, not the many. " Sensitiva
Amorosa " and " Parais" (Pariahs),
are the most individual of his many
novels ; they give the psycho-physio-
logical key to all his subsequent
work.
As critic he aims to grip the
characteristic, the individual, in a
writer s nature, to probe to the man
behind the work to interpret both.
"Interpreters and Seers" * " Young
Scandinavia" "Friedrich Nietzche,
His Personality and His System"
with a pamphlet on "Materialism
in Belles Lett res" have placed him
in the foremost rank as a critic.
As writer he has worked against
the heaviest odds. He published
most of his earliest works without
the slightest pecuniary return and
he has been absolutely true to the
principles of his art.
As a man who has seen all, staked
all, lost faith, and is yet not embit-
tered, his personality is interesting.
* The translation of this I hope to complete shortly,
before undertaking his novels.
12
He watches the game of life with a
('tis true) somewhat weary interest,
but his heart is full of pity, and his
noble sensitive soul answers to every
chord in the existence of humanity.
His keenness of vision pertains al-
most to second sight, he reads men,
with the complexity of their motives
and the duality of their being, with
appalling ease. He is a poet who
is likewise a seer.
GEORGE EGERTON.
I.
SCANDINAVIA was hushed in the greatness
and silence of a winter's night. The sky was
thickly studded with stars and the countries
slept.
The moon rose. It gleamed upon Sulitelma's
crest and up from the white farms in Skane.
The shadows lay in long slants, gliding toward
the East softly and imperceptibly, as thoughts
that have never found words ; and the stars
glimmered so vividly, that if a living being
had been there he might have heard how
they trembled through the silence.
But no living thing appeared in the night,
for all things slept : in field and wood, on sea
and cabin, in village and town.
Suddenly a form rose up by Kolmarden's
woods, taller than the tallest pine tree, broad
in the shoulders as Kolen's ridge. He cast a
shadow across the land like a Titan's pall,
and it was so long that it enveloped all
B 17
Stockholm, and dropped its other end into
the Gulf of Bothnia.
And his eyes had the sinister, furtive look
of a criminal's ; and when he lifted his face
upwards, so that the moonlight fell upon it,
it revealed such depths of disquiet and tortured
conscience that the shadows paused and the
stars ceased to tremble. And the form groaned
groaned with a despair so unspeakable, so
unfathomable, that children shrank in their
cradles and grown-up folk had bad dreams.
And the night stood silently as if waiting to
hear something ; but no living thing seemed
to exist except the solitary figure on Kol-
marden.
Yet there was another awake : the great
Spirit, he who is so great that he can never
be seen by mortal eye by some called Time,
by others Fate, by others again Justice or the
Judge.
He was reposing in space, Orion's Belt gird-
ing his loins, his armpits resting on the wagon
pole of Charles' Wain, his hair of grizzled
eld streaming out betwixt the hemispheres
18
called by men the Milky Way, and his eye
gleamed in his forehead, and the light of it
fell through the Northern Night over the
solitary figure on Kolmarden. " Judas ! "
the word echoed through the night with a
sound as when stones fall upon ice. Then the
figure cowered as under the grip of a giant's
hand, and his eyes stared wildly about him,
and a look as of millions of stifled screams of
terror gathered upon his face. But the night
stood silently around him, and no living being
seemed to exist.
" Judas ! " it echoed a second time. And he
knew not whence the voice came, for the
great Spirit is so infinitely great that he can
never be seen by mortal eye ; and when he
looked at the stars that shivered, he thought
it was they who had spoken ; and when he
watched the slanting shadows he thought it
was they ; and when he noticed the silence
and the solitude around him, he made sure
that it was their voice and nought else that
he had heard.
"Judas!" it echoed for the third time, and
19
everything spoke, and nothing spoke, and it
was outside him, and it was inside him. And
then he laughed, laughed as a man laughs
in the madness of terror ; and it echoed through
the night, and he listened to his own laugh ;
and when a while had passed, it still sounded
as if a hundred thousand people were laughing
far off in the midst of the sleeping towns.
And again the voice sounded : " What sin
have you committed to-day ? "
"I have not sinned to-day," answered the
figure.
" Then why is your conscience troubled ? "
" My conscience is not troubled."
"Then why did you shrink when you heard
my voice ? and why did you groan ? I will
tear the bandages off the wounds in your con-
science, so you may see that they still bleed ;
I will conjure forth all your sins, and they will
grip your soul like bloodhounds. So set your
heels against the side of the cliff, and wind
your arm about the wood, for your legs will
sink under you at what you are about to hear."
Then the figure shivered from the crown of
20
his head to the soles of his feet, so that Kol-
marden's woods bent as if the storm had whirled
through them. And he sank upon his knees,
and he dashed his head upon the rocks and
cried :
" I am not Judas ! I am not Judas ! "
" You are the corpse-blood of life, the cor-
ruption of humanity. Your soul is leprous,
your heart's blood black, your brain filth.
Amongst the children of men there is not one
to be found who is such a shame to the race
as you. Were one to ransack all prisons and
all the dwelling-places of vice never would
one find your equal. For you are the silent
consenter, you have kept silent ; kept silent
all your life, kept silent when you ought to
have spoken, bartered your soul for silence'
sake, lost your peace of conscience. 'Tis true
you never jeered at him who stood in the
pillory, but kept silent ; you never held the
pincers whilst others tore the heart out of the
body of the witness to the truth, but you kept
silent ; you were not amongst those who har-
nessed pregnant women to your chariot, but
21
you used them and kept silent; you never
lashed your labourers to greater exertion until
the blood spurted from the poor broken down
wretches, but you looked on while others did
it, and you kept silent. You would have kept
silent if your own father had been dragged by
his grey hairs, your own mother violated in
your presence.
" But mark now my words, when the day of
judgment comes, the great day of doom, when
all the races of the earth shall be judged, and
all the worlds will be empty, and eternity stand
waiting in silence and trembling then I will
cause the portals of my mansion to be closed :
and I will arise and say : Ye all, no matter what
sins ye have committed, they are forgiven ye
ye weak ones who could never resist the
tempter, and ye leaders who tempted, I for-
give ye. Purge your hands from impurity and
blood, and clothe ye in festive garments, and
enter ye into the everlasting joys ! I forgive
ye, all ! All except one !
" And then I will point to you, you silent
consenter, and I will cause the doors of my
mansions to be thrown open, and I will
shew you the desolate, empty worlds, and
say : You who let injustice be, well knowing
it was injustice ; you who looked on coldly,
although you had hands to help ; you who
betrayed your brethren by silent consent,
when you might have saved them by a
word ; you who possessed the truth and
spake it not ; who walked in silence past the
interminable row of witnesses crucified for
the sake of truth ; you cowardly man of
silence, whose name is Judas forgiveness will
never be yours, never in eternity. You shall
wander through the desolate spheres, and you
will never be able to pause, and you will never
find death, and the spheres will never cease
to be, and they will be always a little desolate ;
and the silence will drive you mad, and you
shall howl like dogs at midnight, and you
shall scream like a man possessed, and shriek
with laughter in the madness of terror as you
laughed a while ago, but no one will hear
you, no one answer you, nought but the
echo of your own voice, rolling on through
23
the dead infinities, the one sound, the one
living thing to be found."
The figure sprang up and his shadow fell
across the moonlit land like the grotesquely
magnified shadow of a human head upon
a white wall ; and he stretched his hands
heavenwards, and his eyes darted out of
their sockets, and he fell on his face, crashing
like a giant tree. And the dawn flamed,
and the cocks crew the land around, and
men woke in their beds bathed in a night-
mare of sweat.
II.
-
MANKIND seemed trivial and life meaning-
less. The thoughts of some were lighter than
feathers, and of others more void than ether.
And although I tested all human efforts
under the magnifier, they never seemed larger
than the millionth part of a grain of sand,
and all worths were as circles or cyphers.
As the day waned towards eventide I went
out into the forest. Autumn had come, and it
was already far advanced towards the night of
the year. The ground was sodden under my
feet, and the water trickled down the trunks
of the green trees, and only a few skeleton
leaves still hung upon the naked tree tops.
But high above me the storm raged and the
crown of the forest shivered. It lulled, it rose
again, and I heard voices, not feeble, such as
of men, but the mighty ones that echo through
the spheres.
First came a lament, wild, piercing, as if a
27
knife had been thrust through the heart of
the universe. That was the forest that writhed.
" Why do you complain ? " roared the Storm.
" I am weary," answered the Forest, " weary
in my very soul, weary with age and suffering.
Now I am shedding my leaves, then I shall
become white again, and yet I shall not die,
for again the sap will rise and the green leaves
shoot. If only one could die die ! I am
weary, weary of my very soul."
" You tired of life, who have scarcely yet
begun to live ! Shake off your rotten leaves and
feel how already the new Spring begins to well
up in you. Look at me who saw you birthed
and who will see you die, who lived long before
Nature even dreamed of you, and who will still
live when she will have lost you even as a
memory. Look at me : I have borne the
weight of all the worlds upon my shoulders,
through years for whose endless length there
exists no number, and yet I am as straight in the
back as when I played and leaped an urchin
over the water wastes before the egg of the
world had got its shell. Through me it is that
28
mankind connect their thoughts ; for I am the
swiftest of all messengers. Do you not see the
load I bear upon my back and in my hands ? "
"What is it? I know it not, it looks so
strange, and I never hear aught from men."
" Not for two thousand years have I carried
so heavy a burden before ; for the race that
lives now has been working at the sorriest
smiths'-work known to man : forging the screws
for its own coffin."
And the Storm scattered a handful out over
the lands.
" Is that death you are sowing ? " asked the
Forest.
" It is fire, it is sulphur," answered the Storm,
" it is poison and two-edged swords. For man-
kind shall shuffle off the old coils."
" Relate," said the Forest.
And the Storm paused awhile, resting like
a bird on its wings, and its keen, wise eyes
scanned all the countries round.
" Two thousand years ago there lived a man
called Jesus. He it was who first said that
the weak should possess the earth, and as the
29
descendants of the slaves became rich and
powerful they either burned at the stake or
hanged on the gallows all those who refused to
believe their belief.
" But below the few who sat on thrones and
ate off gold slaves' sons who had become
masters stood new millions of slaves. They
thronged outside the portals of the masters'
strongholds, one black inconceivable mass, that
peoples the earth ; and whenever they saw
windows gleaming, or heard the clink of gold
or men who were joyous, they forgot that the
masters too were the sons of slaves, and they
stoned his image, which was placed outside the
city gates, with the face of a dove and the body
of an ascetic. And they raised a cry of ven-
geance against their own God and against his
votaries, their brethren, just because the latter
were inside, whilst they themselves were shut out.
" Do you hear the cry ? Yesterday I raised
it upon my wings, to-day it shrieks with me
across the world, for the hour of change is at
hand, and the kingdom of the slaves is divided
against itself.
" Do you hear how it batters against the iron
portals ; do you hear how the windows crash ;
do you hear how the image totters on the
ancient altar, worm-eaten wood as it was ? Do
you hear those strokes as of a giant wielding
an axe ? Do you know what it is ? It is the
slaves chopping the tree in whose crown they
themselves have built their nest, but that is so
great that they do not notice it is their own
tree. They imagine it is their enemies', for their
God has stricken them with blindness, and all
slaves are stupid. To-morrow the world of the
slave will burn and they will themselves be the
incendiaries. And the night will be scarlet and
my breath will be hot and blasting, so that
even you will shrivel up as a shaving.
" And when the new day dawns and the sun
rises, the kingdoms of the earth will lie in
ashes, and the tree of the slaves will be a
charred trunk, and the sap will have dried in
its veins. But upon the desolate plain two
hosts will stand opposed ; the hordes of the one
will be reckoned in millions, for the slaves will
always be the many, and they will be like unto
31
a black cloud on the morning sky. Those
who stand opposite them will be few, but they
will shine with the brightness of dawn. And
then there will be a stir in the black cloud, and
a man will step forward in the likeness of
a slave with a black-avised face, cunning eyes,
and low hair-covered forehead ; and then a
gleam will appear in the sun-host, and again
a man will step forward, but of his beauty no
man can say aught, for such an one has not yet
been seen upon earth, for it is the Master, the
only true sovereign, he who was stolen as
a child by the demon of the slaves and left to
perish miserably, and who, unknowing of his
birth-right, grew up in the wilderness where no
slave had set his foot ; and then the last great
duel will be fought, the duel between the master
and the slave, the cloud and the suns. And
such a cry of jubilation as I then shall raise has
never yet been heard upon earth."
And the Storm rose once more upon its
wings and floated away, and the woods stood
still and listened, and when I lifted up my
eyes the sky behind the naked forest crowns
was glittering with stars.
32
III.
33
THERE was once upon a time a manikin who
wandered through the woods the whole night
long, where the glow worms sparkled in the
gloom. And when the morning came he stood
at the fringe of the wood and watched the
sun rise above the ocean.
Then the manikin sat down on the shore and
wept. And when he raised his eyes again he
saw the great Sea God resting on the surface
of the waters. He lay stretched in all his
length, with his arms folded, resting his head
on his hands. His robe of green silk floated
loosely round his body and glistened humidly
when the waves lapped ; and his hair streamed
far out to the uttermost end of the sea like
a broad streak of sunlight ; and his green eyes
rested on the manikin, who sat upon the strand
and wept.
" Why do you cry ? " asked he.
" I've lost my way," answered the manikin.
35
" I wandered the whole night through, and I am
weary. I want to sleep, but I cannot ; I want
to go home, but I hate home ; I am sick of
life."
" Well, you have got death," said the Sea God.
" I can't die," answered the manikin, and he
shuddered ; " life has been so beautiful, and I
am so young."
" Well, then, go to my brother Pan," said
the Sea God.
At that the manikin laughed ironically :
" He offered me flowers, but when I went to
pluck them they turned into butterflies and flew
on their way, and when I caught a butterfly a
maggot remained in my hand. Your brother
Pan is a rogue."
" Well, then, come to me," said the Sea God.
" What will you give me ? "
" I will give you salt and sunshine, and a
great prospect"
" You are so big you frighten me."
The Sea God lifted a periwinkle in his palm :
" And yet I find room in this tiny thing,''
said he.
36
" But you look so stern, and your face is so
lone-lorn."
Then the Sea God laughed, and his laugh
rippled like sun-ray across the sea ; and he lifted
his hand, and the depths parted, and the
manikin gazed into a crimson coral cave slung
with delicate green creepers, and its walls were
a mosaic of pearls.
" But I'm bound," he cried, in distress of soul.
" Let me go ! for I love a woman."
Again the Sea God laughed at the manikin.
" Child," said he, " you say my brother Pan is
a rogue, and yet you have never found out his
greatest piece of roguery."
And he dipped his little finger in the ocean,
and a whirlpool arose, flinging great drops of
spray that resembled green pearls, and foam
that shimmered like unto a silver white veil in
the sunlight. And under the veil the manikin
saw a woman's face, fairer than any he had
hitherto seen. And the Sea God breathed upon
it, and it vanished as a puff of smoke, dis-
solved into space.
Then the manikin stood up, and the ground
37
slipped from under his feet, and slid away and
rolled itself together far under the horizon, and
he saw himself as a little dark speck on the
boundless ocean under the boundless sky, and
there was a silence as if all life had died, and
the sun shone solitary in the universe.
And the manikin nestled with a feeling of
unfathomable security close to the heart of
the mighty solitude.
IV.
I WAS twenty years old when I went out into
the world to seek happiness. I wandered both
long and unceasingly, I wandered both far and
near. Yet I found her not. The world lay like
an inert mass, life lacked colour, and men con-
cerned me not. There was nothing to which
I could attach myself, and I was far from
sufficient to myself.
So I consulted books. " Love a woman,"
said they, " for love alone can reveal to you the
hidden meanings of things and the beauty of
existence. Love a woman ; and you will hear
harps in the air, and feel sunshine in your soul,
and happiness will fly into your mouth of
its own accord, like the roast sparrows of
Schlaraffenland."
Then I set out to seek the woman, and I
found her one day at the forest quell. Every
morning and every evening for five years I bore
her water cruse, and so she became mine. But
41
when I had owned her for three days and three
nights, I saw an earwig in the apple of her eye,
and a maggot in the corner of her mouth, and
I left her.
Again I consulted books. " Men never find
happiness," said they, " unless they find hearth
and home, and wife and child." So I fastened
a hobble to my leg, and put my head into the
social halter ; but when I found that the iron
still ate into my soul and that they wanted me
to grind the seed I desired to sow for a future
ingathering into meal for the common larder,
I jumped up, turned my house on end, and
went out into the King's highway.
And one man pointed a finger at me, and
the other called insulting names, and the
children pelted me with stones, and the grown-
up folk with rotten fruit, and every window
was propped full of jeering people. Then I
quitted the town and went out into the world,
and ascended a high mountain. Behind me,
down in the valleys, lay the dwelling-places of
men, with all their thousand towns ; I had
an endless bird's-eye view of them, and they
42
appeared as a single ant heap, but in front of
me the mountains sank perpendicularly into
an abyss of the bottom of which I could get
no glimpse; and a murmur whispered in the air
as when a multitude speaks, thousands of voices
and yet only one, and it was a human voice
but as if it came from a giant riding on the
whirl of the storm:
" What is called happiness in the world you
have forsaken is nothing more than the petty
phantasies of petty minds, a toy for children ;
but the great happiness in the face of which
you shrink as you shrink now before the
mountain cleft, she is fearful in her majesty, as
is everything great. If you dare not the leap,
turn back, for then you are fit for the small
happiness of the world ; but if you desire to
attain the greater, hurl yourself headlong into
the depths. But bear in mind : your fate is
concealed from you, no one knows what the
black gulf hides except those who have seen
it with their own eyes, and there is no return
journey for those once down. Dare win
with shut eyes with set teeth "
43
I am going to the new world that he alone
sees who has quitted the abodes of men, and
from which there is no return road. And my
thoughts circle round my head like birds, and
the most delicate moods of my soul take butter-
fly form, and my dreams wax like green leaves
and many-coloured flowers on the strand of
a sea in which they are mirrored, and the very
seas are my own soul, and the blue sky is
arched above my head by the most ethereal
of my fancies.
44
V.
WHEN wine began to lose its flavour, and
Eve lost her one front tooth, I was seized with
the desire to solve the enigma of life. I spent
five years dissecting a fly's leg, for I had heard
that one must seek the great in the infinitesi-
mal, and that the manifold scheme of creation
lay in one blade of grass ; but when at the
end of five years I took a rest and lifted my
eyes to the heavens, I discovered I was sitting
in a hole deep down in the ground, and that
I had lost sight of the whole world, and that
it was only with difficulty that I could catch a
glimpse of a strip of blue sky by straining back
my head. So I left the fly's leg alone and
climbed out of the hole. But I was almost
dazed by the light of day, and I sat in the
midst of the sunshine and richly coloured
nature blind as an owl.
In the seventh year I met an old wise man
who told me that what I had supposed to be
47
the tree of knowledge only bore unripe fruit.
Then the old wise man taught me that ab-
solutely no materials were needed to build
up one's house other than the mathematical
lines of pure reason. So I hammered away
right merrily, and it went apace like a noiseless
dance. But one day a tiny zephyr wafted by,
and the whole concern fluttered away, and I
watched it floating in the air like a rift of
gossamer.
Then I shook the old wise man by his old
white beard and bade him go and order him-
self a coffin, if it be that he could not fashion
one for himself out of his mathematical dots
and lines. And I closed my eyes and lay
musing in an agony of soul. Night came,
and suddenly I felt the pain snap as the husk
about a seed, and I felt something grow in
me, something that was sinking its roots into
my very heart, rising as sap through my
veins ; and leaves, uncurled out of their sheaths,
and they had colour and form but not of this
world, and when morning came I saw in my
soul's dawning a blossom, the great half-
48
opened blossom of a strange flower. And
of this flower there is only one stock, and
it is my blood that waters its roots, and the
plant grows inside, invisible to all but me.
But I know that when the blossom opens
I shall find at its core the great Unknown.
49
-
VI.
THE old I lay in bed between white sheets
at the point of death ; the new I sat a piece
away, and his features were lost in the gloom.
" Help me ! " whimpered the old I.
" Do you ask help from your foe ? " answered
the new I.
"Help me!"
" No, you must die."
And the delirium of death seized the sick
man, and he shrieked that great black rats
were springing over the white sheets, over
his hands and over his face.
" They are your old thoughts coming again,"
the voice made answer out of the gloom ; " they
are filth thrown off by your brain."
" Have you then no mercy ? "
" No, not for you. You are a coward to sue
me for mercy. Did you shew me any mercy ?
When I was new born did you treat me as a
father ; when the milk seethed in my mother's
pails did you give me to drink ; when I lay on the
stone floors and shivered, did you put me to bed ?"
53
" Silence ! Oh silence ! mercy ! "
" When I grew to manhood, do you re-
member how you tried to assassinate me, do
you remember how you drove me from your
house ; do you remember how you tried to
gash me in the foot, put out my eyes, so that
I might be halt and blind?"
Then the dying man writhed like a worm
that has been trodden upon, and blood-flecked
foam stained his lips.
" Do you remember how you got all your
friends and acquaintances to conspire against
me, to mock me, wound me, and embitter my
life ? You hid food from me, and gave me
sorry fare, you and yours, and you spattered
the vileness of your own souls over those who
were dear to me ?
" Now you shall die."
And the sick man shrieked as when death
bends over the bed, and he called out that the
rats were crawling into his mouth and sitting
in his brain, and he rolled himself into a ball,
arms and legs and sheets like a mass of
tangled white maggots, and gave up the
ghost.
54
VII.
I. STOOD and gazed upon the world and
marvelled at its beauty; as it lay stretched
before me it was like unto a precious gold
ornament upon a cushion of azure velvet.
Suddenly a shadow dropped over everything.
Methought, for I knew the noon drew near,
that it was but a cloud crossing the sun ; but
on looking about me, I discovered that it was
the century darkening to its close, and all
round me silence gathered as before a storm,
and I heard voices muttering, voices that
never reached me through the tumult of the
day.
First a voice came from afar, ay, as if from
the uttermost end of the world behind the
horizon.
" Why are men so troubled ? "
It answered from the East, it answered
from the West, it murmured in the South,
an<u' it thundered in the North :
57
" They are children afraid of the night when
the storm draws near."
And again a voice sounded, but this time
a solitary voice behind me, and so near that
I turned round.
" Why have we forgotten to rejoice ? "
I was about to reply myself, but it was
answered from the East, it was answered from
the West, it murmured in the South, and it
thundered in the North :
" Men have no time to rejoice !"
But when the noise had died away, I heard
a mournful voice repeat the question very
softly in my 'right ear :
"Tell me, you, why can men never more
rejoice ? "
And my soul swelled with trouble and was
filled with tears.
"For this reason," said I, "we shrink when
the great happiness falls to our share, and
we never can meet it face to face without
feeling the talons of the bird of terror clutch-
ing at our soul."
VIII.
ONE evening in late autumn I steered out
into the fjord. My sails were snow white, but
the sunset stained them with a hectic tinge, so
that they looked as if they had been dipped in
wine, so I sailed out alone to sea when all the
others were going to bed in their homes.
Then I saw an enormous black hand stretch
down over the fjord. It set an ugly black mark
on my sail, and then it drew back again. And
a voice pierced the lovely stillness of the autumn
evening, sharp as a knife thrust, rough as a
drunkard's bass :
" He has a stain on his sail ! He has a
stain on his sail ! Come hither, good folk,
and see ! He is not ashamed to shew his
dirty tackle!"
And when I turned about the strand was
densely packed with people. They pointed,
they jeered, they threatened. And above my
head the black stain darkened my sail as a
cloud in the time of roses. Then I felt my
61
conscience prick me, for although I knew my
hands were clean, still the stain was there on
my sail, and it cast a shadow over my soul as
if it were a real crime, and the unknown voices
seemed to me to be so convincing, and I was
so alone upon the water, and the people on the
shore were so many. The wind lulled, and the
sails hung slack like withered leaves after the
passage of a venomous wind, too, as if they
shared my mood, and I was about to scuttle
my boat and sink.
Then came the miracle that saved me. High
above the people on the strand hung a hand,
enormous as the one that had set the mark
upon my sail, but white, white, and it held a
light, and the reflection of it fell like a sudden
white dawn over the countless black multitude.
And I saw by its light men's forms with wasps'
stings, men's forms with foxes' tails, men's forms
with hounds' heads, bloodhounds' heads, with
red maws and lolling tongues. . . . And the
wind freshened, and I steered right merrily out
to sea with the black mark in the centre of my
sail, as the sun rose up over the waters.
IX.
UPON a great plain outside a city the whole
youth of the country were assembled. In the
midst of them stood a giant : his foot was as
long as a street, and his flat hand as broad as
a market-place ; and he was so tall that he could
not stand erect under the sky, but was forced
to bend his head. And when he spoke his
voice was so strong that the youth of the
country trembled like aspen leaves at a wind
puff.
" Jump Jim Crow ! " he called, and the youth
of the country immediately jumped Jim Crow.
" Couche la ! " he yelled, and all the youth
of the country crouched like dogs at his feet.
" Hie over ! " he commanded, and held out
his riding-switch, and the entire youth of the
country jumped over the riding-switch with
well-trained agility.
"Novelties! Novelties! Who'll buy?" he
wheedled, and all the youth of the country
E 65
bought his novelties, money down honestly
cheated in their change.
Then the giant took every lilliput and
Tommeliden of them on his flat hand,' not
singly, but in heaps, and he scattered them
handful by handful into space. And when
the plain was emptied, seventy times a thousand
black specks were crawling about the pulpits
and cathedras. At first I took them to be rats,
but on closer observation I discovered that
they were human beings, and since that, that
they were the youth of the country.
66
X.
I SAT on the sea-shore one forenoon in mid-
summer. The sea lay quietly gleaming in the
sun before me, and a great number of people
were bathing. The naked white bodies, the
blue water, the golden quivering air, made me
fancy I was gazing at a piece of southern
Hellenic life.
Tiny waves lapped up over the pebbles on
the shore, slid back and came again so small,
so gentle, as to hardly merit the name of waves.
They were the youngest children of the ocean,
and they babbled to themselves as children do,
and it was clear to me that all their prattle was
just something they had heard of late from
father and mother, and they were repeating
it now to themselves, without knowing the
meaning of the words.
" Ay, the sea is the greatest source of health,
the one that keeps the universe sound. I have
69
salt enough for all the corpses of life, and in me
men lave themselves clean."
There is one thing that men need to keep
their bodies clean. In this lies Salvation and the
future to cherish their bodies as a precious
vessel. Rather slay one's enemy than forget to
sniff one's shirt so runs the first commandment
in the new rnoral law, that some day, when the
journeymen have learnt to keep silent in the
assemblies, the new Master will incise on a gold
tablet before all the people. And in measure
as he shifts his shirt and scours his body white,
so will he loathe that belief or thought that he
has borne through the week, and his soul will
always walk in shining white linen.
70
XI.
I MEET them the eyes wherever I go or
stay, in everything and in everyone.
In the populous town and out in the wide
deserts, at the cradle of the new born and the
coffin that is lowered into the earth, there
where the happy laugh and the miserable
weep I meet them the eyes everywhen
and everywhere.
In the woman I desired to love and in my
best friend, in the executioner and the victim,
in the high and the low, under silk hat and
moleskin cap I meet them the eyes ever
the same.
They surround me day and night ; in the
morning when I wake they stand around my
bed, and at night when I close my eyes they
gleam out of the darkness. And they are
never just two as in a man's face, but they
surge forward in myriads as if from a bottom-
less casket, as if they belonged to a fantastic
73
giant polypus that grips the whole world in
his arms. They follow me like fate, they
fasten into my soul as teeth in meat. I am
obliged to see them no matter where I turn,
I am conscious of them, strive how I may to
tear them out, I breathe them in the air, inhale
them in the sunshine, I devour them in the
words of men and in the thoughts of books. . . .
With an expression half such as one sees in
an ill-treated hound, half as in an enemy
lying in wait, as a knife unsheathed under
a cloak, sneaking up behind one's back as
thoughts that have never been put into words,
as words that have never got beyond a hoarse
whisper anguished and cunning, deceitful,
threatening, and filled with hate they stare
into mine the eyes, eyes of the sick, the weak,
the crippled ; serfs'-eyes catching just a gleam
of the azure mantle of the Master on the
golden horizons of the future.
74
XII.
I DO not dwell behind locked doors and
closed blinds ; every passer - by can look
through my windows ye who have sus-
picion that I sit up to my neck in filth and
that blowflies buzz in swarms around my
head come and see !
I shall stand on my threshold and receive
ye, shall accompany ye through all my
rooms, shall open all cupboards, and let ye
peer into all drawers. But first ye must
change your shoes and scour your hands,
for no scouring has any much effect upon
your kind of dirt, and I am not going to
have the marks of your fingers upon my
things.
Ye will find here well - polished vessels,
furniture without a grain of dust, the perfume
of many flowers, and rooms filled with sun-
shine ; but ye will hear no blowflies buzz save
those that always swarm in your own brains.
77
Mayhap ye will point to a few flies that lie
dead in the window frame, but we all sail
with corpses in our freight, and flies are not
the worst of corpses.
" Come to me ! I fear ye not. It is ye
who are the cowards, I know ye so well. I
shall follow ye out into the desert, and ye
shall carry naked knives in your girdles, and
I alone shall only have my bare hands. I
know ye ; ye are like the snapping curs that
dare to bite my heels but slink away like
cowards with their tails between their legs if
one fix one's eyes upon them. So much
ye will dare do stick a knife in me if I
inadvertently turn my back on ye; but if
I look into your eyes ye slink away with
hanging head. I know ye, ye are cowards."
78
XIII.
I WAS devouring my black bread, dipping it
in water to soften it. My enemies sat at a
sumptuous table and ate larks' tongues and
drank exquisite wines.
" You must not imagine," said one of them,
" that we do not know how to render you the
honour that is due to you. We do you full
justice in our thoughts. We respect your
courage and your firmness. You have never
made compromises, you have always jumped
into the breach, you have never shirked any-
thing in the defence of your convictions, and
above all, you have been true to yourself,
tested, investigated, weighed and valued,
steadfastly, repeatedly. It is great, we ac-
knowledge it, we cannot do otherwise than
esteem you for this, although we are still of
the opinion that you are your own worst
enemy, and stand in your own light."
Then I answered, " Good food gives a sound
F 81
skin and a merry spirit. You see the world
through the glow of wine and the sound of the
dinner gong, and even your enemies appear
to you in this light. You fling your pity at
me and imagine you are doing a good action,
for your wretched drowsy soul never realises
that it is to me as a crumb from the rich
man's table. And even though your face is
puffed and flushed with too much eating, yet
I can see the brand of the slave burning on
your brow when you speak to me thus. Can
you not see yourself how poor and naked your
soul reveals itself in your words ? It lies
steaming in your hand, and the smoke smells
evilly as it blows up towards me. Cock your
ears and open your mouth and stare with
all your might, so that wisdom may find a
way into your soul through every opening.
You praise me because I never have been a
weathercock that turned with the wind of the
day. You praise me because I have always
taken a bird's-eye view of the world, so that
the petty every-day interests of life looked so
small that they escaped my gaze. You praise
82
me because I prefer to eat this frugal, sorry
fare, rather than lie in a common way and
kiss hands to vulgarity. All this you praise,
why ? Because you imagine I had the
option of a choice, because you yourself hap-
pened to have one ; because you cannot con-
ceive that all this is the natural outcome of
my temperament and its necessary expression.
All your life through you have weighed in a
scale, huckster like, every one of your actions.
You have no other instincts than those of a
huckster, you see in all others merely your
own huckster likeness, you measure with a
true huckster standard, and judge with a
huckster heart
" Why do you pity me ? because to you I
am a huckster with whom business has been
bad. Why do you praise me ? because to
you I am a huckster who always has used
standard weights."
XIV.
I SAT in a room surrounded by all my
friends. My blood coursed hotly through my
veins, my heart was filled with restlessness, and
I found a difficulty in breathing. I jumped up
and paced up and down the floor.
"What is the matter with you? " cried my
friends.
" It is so gloomy in here, and the air seems
close."
At this my friends started, and they all sat
dumbly and gazed at me with staring eyes.
" That is just an idea you have got into your
head," said he who had bartered his own eyes
for an office desk, "or why should we others
not have noticed it ? "
" Don't you see how the sun shines ; let us
open all the windows and the door."
" It is bound to give us the snuffles," said the
joker of the party, and he crept into the corner
near the fire, where he soon began to snore.
87
"Our room is just as good as any other,"
spouted he who was always obliged to spout
since he lost his natural voice one day in a
slough.
"Will it benefit us, or will it do you any
good ? " hissed he who sold his conviction for
threepenny bits with the idea that they were
gold coins, and who felt a sore prick of con-
science whenever he caught sight of an original
opinion.
" Pull down the blinds and then you won't
see the sun," whispered he who never ventured
to speak aloud since the day he got a kick
from his master because he had said that his
dog had long ears.
" You only need to quit our close and stuffy
room, and us, and the whole show, and betake
yourself to the wilderness," jeered he who
shuffled about on a club-foot as if he had a
ball attached to his leg.
"You have said the word," I cried, and my
face lit the room as with sunshine.
Then all my friends sprang up from their
seats, and the one-eyed one glared with his
88
one eye, and he who snored gaped wide awake
and looked stupid, and the spouter elevated
his hand pathetically, and the lips of the
jaundiced member trembled as if the words
he wished to utter were so distended with bile
that they could not find a way out, and the
whisperer looked as if he were praying, and the
club-footed one got cramps.
I rushed to the door, and they all screamed
with one accord : " Bear in mind, if you have
once closed the door behind you, you will
never get in again ! "
I halted at the threshold, turned round and
looked at my friends, and I failed to recognise
them, it was as if I had never seen them before.
They were dogs from whom I had snatched a
bone, cardsharpers whose false play I had
exposed, wild animals cheated of their prey,
slaves that I had whipped, but they were not
those whom I had formerly dubbed my friends.
And the room a wild beast's lair, a madhouse,
a viper's nest, a goat pen, anything, what you
please, only not my old room.
And I wrenched open the door and slammed
89
it to in haste, and the windows were filled with
faces ; but as for me, I wandered forth glad in
my loneness, through the May breeze kissing
the May flowers.
XV.
I HAD been wandering from the early morn-
ing. It drew already towards eventide. The
district about was deserted, and I could see no
sign of human abode. Night came dark and
starless. I stopped on seeing that the high
road was cleft into two branches, and I stood
irresolute which I should choose, when a gleam
of light flashed close beside me. By its shine
I could see an old man sitting on the trunk
of a hewn tree ; his beard was so long as if it
had grown for centuries, and his hair was so
white as if whitened by the snows of glacial
times. ,
"Can you tell me, old man," I queried, "which
of these two roads I must take in order to find
shelter for the night ? "
The old fellow looked up, and his eyes seemed
to me to shine out from an immeasurable depth
and from as great a distance as the evening
stars. He scrutinised me closely.
93
" Go to the right, young man. Do you see
the light over there, the great light that looks
so great because it is so near? Follow the
road in the direction of that light, and before
midnight you will reach an inn where you will
find a warm bed waiting for you, a good supper,
and a merry company."
" But tell me too," said I, " you wonderful old
man, who look so wise, whither leads the road
to the left, and what is the little light that blinks
quite feebly in the distance ? "
" It only looks so little because it is so end-
lessly far away," answered the old man, " other-
wise it is the greatest and the clearest light that
ever shone on the world. But let it not lure
you, because to it you will never reach. Once
upon a time I too stood at these dividing paths,
just as you, young man, irresolute whither I
should go. That is a long time ago ; I was
going as you are, and it was an evening such
as this, only the gloom was a thousandfold
deeper. I lit my light and went to the left.
And the hours grew to years and the years
to centuries, but the night lay thickly about
94
me, and the light gleamed ahead of me always
just as tiny. Then I wearied and turned back,
and now I sit here once more and know not
whither I shall go. Go to the right, young
man, thither where the great light shines,
which seems so great because it is so near.
Ye will find a warm bed, a good supper, and
a merry company."
" But you yourself, old man, do not you
yearn for warmth and a roof over your head,
now that night is here and the coolness falls ? "
Then the old man lifted his lantern, and the
rays fell directly upon his face, and its expres-
sion was as sphinx-like as a starry winter night.
And he stood up and he waxed before me till
he towered like a mountain with eternal snow
on its crest ; and as for me I felt myself less
than the tiniest insect in the fields.
"For me there is no night, neither is there
day, and I find no place in men's dwellings,
and even if I were to find it, men would not
let me in, for they know me not."
95
XVI,
THE air was filled with clay-coloured mist,
the rain fell in torrents, and the thunder came
rolling and booming over the town. Dark-
ness closed over the earth ; I lit my lamp and
fastened the shutters before my windows.
As the watchman in the cathedral tower
was calling midnight, a shriek was heard as
if coming from the bowels of the world, and
right through the yellow lamp gloom a shining
blue-white sword cleft its way. I looked up : a
strange man was sitting right in front of me,
at the opposite side of the table. His hair
had a blue-white gleam, like lightning when the
storm is nearly ended ; it tumbled in serpentine
and zigzag lines over his arched brow ; his
mouth laughed like a child's, but his eyes
looked askance like a lunatic's.
" I am the wandering Jew, also called by
men Ahasuerus; I am the bird Phoenix that
is burnt at the pyre every hundred years, but
that riseth again out of his own ashes."
99
Time passed a second or an hour.
" I am the memory of mankind, that once in
the life of every generation flasheth up in its
brain as lightning in the night illumines a world
that is the world of the day and yet different.
I am the great wizard that conjures forth the
fata morgana of the future for humanity. I
stand with one foot in the greyness of the
past, and with the other in the gloom of the
to be. I am the tree of knowledge of good
and evil that the Lord planted in Eden."
Again time passed a second or an hour.
" I am he who breaks through the circle into
which the spirits of the time form themselves in
order to stay or run their course again. I am
the eld and the child, I am the conscience of
primeval man, whose blood flows out of the
universal heart ; but I too am the seeing
prophet."
And again time passed a second or an hour.
" Living, I am called mad ; dead, I am
called genius." With that the cock crew.
The stranger had flown, and the grey morning
peered through the chinks in the shutter.
100
XVII.
I HAD left the shallow firths and narrow
straits behind me, for I had wearied of pastorals
with smoke curling from rustic cabins. I had
gazed my fill at the sun that shone in stolid
stupidity over the just and unjust alike.
After I had spent all my youth in sailing
over many seas in my dainty pleasure-boat, I
was met one morning as I came on deck by
the glorious spectacle upon which my fancy had
dwelt for many years through murky days and
bright nights. From horizon to horizon and
right across the arch of the sky a portal
stretched in the form of a crescent moon, and
on this giant bow sparkled in golden letters
these words :
This is the entrance to the Kingdom of Truth.
And as the twilight dropped over the sea, my
boat glided in through the portal to the strains
of a music that is never heard in the world of
the everyday.
103
I had tarried in the new land for fifteen
months. One day I lay on the deck of my
boat gazing into space, and my soul was filled
with restful joy. The sky was red, red as
roses and wine, red as love and blood, and the
ocean was red as the sky. And the swart
sun hung in the red sky, sable as coal or the
memory of sorrow, and it was mirrored in the
sorghum depths of the ocean like a colossal
column the colour of a pomegranate when it
inclines to black. Far away on the. horizon
a tawny streak glistened like a golden fringe
on the crimson canopy. They were my newly
discovered islets, over which I roamed a new
Adam in paradise, a new being in a new
world. For that which was crooked in the
old world was straight here, and those things
which I had been used to see running in
zigzags ran here in circles. Here former
virtues hobbled on crutches, as senile oldings
at the point of death, whilst sins stood in
full flower ; and the fruits that grew on these
unknown trees provided me with a fare of
rare sweetness, for they were of the same
104
species as those into which Mother Eve bit ;
whereas in those which I had brought with me
from the old world, as its most splendid ingather-
ing, I invariably found worms in the kernel.
I lay stretched on the deck of my pleasure-
boat, and my eyes rested upon the tawny fringe
on the red canopy, and I was restfully glad
in spirit, and beautiful fancies detached them-
selves softly from the loose white network of
my thoughts, letting it slide from them ; and
rising, bent and mirrored themselves in my
soul. And their faces were full of peace, and
their eyes were laughter-lit, and their lips moved
suddenly I heard my own voice say :
" Happy, happy, happy is he who has found
the one great truth, and can rest in its meadows.
Then to him what are foes ? what is death ?
Thistledown and gossamer. Life is his own
soul, and his soul is a guest-chamber in which
he holds quiet festivals. Threefold happy he
who can rest in its meadows and listen to
the purling of the streams of eternal truth."
Suddenly it whistled through the air, and the
screams of birds sounded ; and as I lifted my
105
eyes I saw the ruby space filled with birds
swart as the sun, with the long pointed wings
of sea birds, the wings that carry them on
distant journeys. And when they were poised
right above my boat, the one that flew first
swooped down and perched upon the mast-
head, and speaking with a human voice, said :
" He who casts anchor is soon out of the
running. Yesterday the promised land flowing
with milk and honey, to-day the desert in which
no flower blows. To-morrow your Eldorado is
a fossil-land. Now we rustle away over your
head whilst you lie and dream in your arrogant
well-being, forgetting that you too swept by for-
gotten countries whilst men slept. Behind your
islets new worlds lie and new auroras blaze."
And the sable bird rose upon his broad-
pointed wings, those that carry on distant
journeys, and swept away towards the horizon,
and vanished behind the golden fringe, woven
by islets round the sea's red canopy. And the
swart sun flamed, and I set all my sails, and
my dainty craft sped away with the wind that
came rushing in the wake of the fleeting birds,
even as a bird, a sea bird, a storm bird.
106
XVIII.
WHEN on the day after my first mountain
climb I stepped out of my house and went
down the street, I became aware of a man
standing at the street corner staring at me
with two gleaming cat's eyes. I went on my
way, but I felt he was sneaking after me.
When I turned round he looked aside, when
I halted he stood and gazed at the wares in
a shop window. I entered a house : when
I came out I was met by two gleaming cat's
eyes from the street corner.
Since that time he has followed me, per-
secuted me, day out day in, year after year.
When I enter an hotel he slinks after me and
sits down with his friends at the nearest table.
I can hear him cackle with his peculiar laugh
that resembles a night-jar's note, and I have
a presentiment that he is talking about me.
If it should happen that I hurt my foot and
strike the sore place on one of the cobble
109
stones in the street, so that I wince and my face
works with the pain, he comes to meet me
with an elated self-satisfied air, and doffs his
hat to his knees as he greets me, accentuating
his politeness so that I may notice the insult
concealed under it ; but if I should happen to
have a handful of aces and trumps he slinks
down a bye-lane as soon as he sees me, even
from a great distance, for in that case he has
no desire to meet me. I only get a glimpse
of his crooked back, that reminds me of a
whipped cur's, and a furtive spiteful look out
of his gleaming cat's eyes.
But, yesterday, as I saw him from afar turn
suddenly into a side alley, I hastily took a
cross-cut and met him ; planted myself right in
front of him, and looked him in the face. He
laughed in the way men laugh in desperate
confusion, and his cat's eyes dropped as a
weapon dashed out of an opponent's hand.
" Why do enclose your dirty guts in glass ? "
asked I.
At that he jumped as if I had stuck a knife
through him, and shot a furtive look at me so
no
full of spite, so stark with gall that I felt as
if the uncleanness of it spurted over my face ;
and he blushed suddenly with an unspeakable
shame, as if I had taken him in adultery.
Then I cried gleefully : " Now I have you !
you are one of those who trade upon the
coward's shame over himself, and his spite
against sins that really exist in his own evil
conscience."
XIX.
ONE forenoon, when out upon the ocean
which stretches its boundless surface between
the old and the new world, I saw from the deck
of my yacht a black speck away on the other-
wise bare and void horizon. At first I thought
that the object was a ship, but in measure as
it approached it proved to be an animal of
unknown appearance, but resembling an ox,
that was bobbing like an eider duck on the
water. It bellowed at me when still at a great
distance.
"Who are you, vermin ?"
" Vermin yourself," I replied. " I am Young
Ofeg, but who are you ? " I added, as the
monster came abreast of my craft.
" I am the great Bos Humanitatis, round
whom the peoples dance. On your knees ! "
" But it is by no means a way of mine to
adore strange gods. Bare the marrow of your
being and the reins of your soul, so that I may
see of what stuff you are made."
With that a parchment scroll, such as one
sees in the paintings of the Middle Ages, curled
out of the beast's mouth, and the following
words were inscribed on it : " The good of All
is the Highest Weal," and the colossus bellowed
" This is the great truth, the only truth that
was for ever found in the world or ever will be
found. On your knees ! This truth is adored
by all people, and all tongues chant its praises.
Everything must fall on its face in the dust
before it. On your knees ! All things shall be
reduced to the same level, the level of mediocrity.
What is under shall be lifted up, what is over
shall be dragged down. On your knees ! I say."
" I don't believe you. I believe in the one.
I believe in myself. The God to whom 1
could bring myself to kneel dwells in my own
soul, where I have prepared him a chamber.
I treat him with my best wine. I deck his
dwelling with the rarest plants, and it is the
joy of my life to see him hourly wax in
strength. Some day, when he is full-fledged, he
will soar out into the azure spheres high above
the swamps in which your reptiles wallow.
116
It is he whom you would slay. For in the
same moment that I would bend my knee to
adore you, you monster, my proud God would
give up the ghost."
The monster snorted at that, so that the
water rose in waves and frothed with stink-
ing spume.
" On your knees ! or I will trample you
and your offspring into pulp under my claws,
make you each and all into the most wretched
stuff in existence."
" But suppose I were the stronger," laughed I.
"You vermin ! "
" Don't you know how the tiny parasite
manages with the butterfly larvae ? I will
stick in your skin like a gadfly, and you shall
plunge across the ocean in helpless fury under
my stings, like your brother in the great feeding
grounds. Will you try it on ? "
The monster got under way, and the water
waltzed about him, rising like a cloud of foam ;
and my bark glided softly ahead over the ocean
that basked quietly in the noonday sun, and
the new shore loomed ahead of her bow.
117
XX.
THE day had come when the great battle
was to take place on the plain before the city ;
both hostile hosts were marshalled. On the
heights in the North stood the blackcoats
and the star-decorated, down below these the
smock-frocks, in countless numbers, that van-
ished from the gaze as they melted into one
against the horizon. The signal for the attack
had already sounded in the camps of the
smock-frocks as I strolled through the city
gates. The road ran right through the hosts,
and there was no other road for me to take
save this one. I had hardly advanced a
hundred paces when I heard a rumbling as
if a storm was coming. It was the men in
blouses who cried
" There is a blackcoat ; seize him ! "
And again before the echo had died away I
heard a rumbling, but this time it was like unto
the chord of an organ in church. This time it
was the blackcoats, the star-decked, who cried.
" There is a smock-frock ; seize him ! "
Thereupon I lifted my hand to order silence,
and I said, " I am not a blackcoat, for I hate
the gloom and love the noonday sun. I am
not a smock-frock, for my pride is gladsome,
and my defiance sportive ; and I would rather
be a butterfly than an ant.
" Never will I fight on your side, you smock-
frocks, for were you to gain the victory every-
thing I hold dear would be laid in pasture
under the kine's feet.
" Neither will I follow your lead, blackcoats,
for you are all tarred with the same brush.
Why do you quarrel ? Go rather into the church
that is tolling for matins in the town, and
open the place in your psalm-books and sing in
harmony the old verses. How vast be their
advantages, how great their pleasures prove,
who live like brethren and consent in offices
of love."
With that I continued my journey and went
out into the wilderness. When I had gone
some way I heard the first shot. Then I was
elated in soul, for I told myself that now the
great Beelzebub whimpers.
122
XXI.
THE battle was ended and the object attained.
I had served my five years for Rachel, and the
twelve tasks were fulfilled. I looked at every-
thing I had done and found it good. So then
I consecrated the seventh day to be a day of
rest. Rachel sat at my feet, and my kingdom lay
around me, basking quietly in the mid-day sun.
The three wise men from the East entered
and laid at my feet gold, frankincense, and
myrrh ; the second presented me with elephants'
tusks, the third with Polar bear skins ; whilst
Arabian houris danced in my halls.
But outside my doors I perceived a long line
of men clad in fair white silken garments, and
their faces were hushed in silence. Arid under
his left arm each man of them bore a silver
casket. And each man was so like unto the
next as one white hair resembleth the other,
and the caskets seemed to me to be one and
the same casket, reduplicated as through the
facets of a crystal.
125
"Who are ye?" I inquired of the nearest of the
white-clad men, he who stood in the doorway.
" We are the coming days, right to the end of
your life, that stand waiting to be admitted one
after the other into your halls," he replied,
bending himself almost to the ground, where-
upon all those that stood behind him, even as
far as the horizon, bent in the same manner, as
if someone had pulled an invisible thread that
ran through all of them.
" And what do you hide in your caskets ? "
I queried again.
"That is the score of the hymn that your
serving spirits play every morning in your
honour," added the white-clad man, and again
he bowed to the earth, and again all the other
white men followed his example. With that
I was seized with a fit of yawning so tremendous
and so long that the white men trembled as
mists before the blast, and the walls of my
chamber flickered as the wings in a theatre.
And I jumped up off my throne, seized my
staff and my field-glass and my wallet, and
woke out of my dream.
126
XXII.
ONE summer night as the full moon rose, I
wandered into the forest. In an open glade
between the alders I found the God of the time
napping in the moonshine.
"What are you seeking in the wood at
this late hour ? " asked he ; " you look so
thoughtful, and your eyes are full of fear."
" I seek help for humanity," I replied ; " the
races are listless, deedless, faint-hearted. If
they are unconcerned, it is from apathy. If
they are fearless, it is fatalism. If they are
strong, it is resignation. I seek for the witch-
wort, whose sap alone can give to mankind lust
of existence, joy in the simple fact of living,
make their feet light and their spirit bright,
create great dreams and incite to deeds of
derring-do. I seek the backbone of humanity
that is lost to it."
The God lay silent, and gazed out into the
endless space that sparkled in mystery ahead
i 129
of him. It seemed to me that he was laughing,
but suddenly I saw him knit his brows into a
frown. And from afar a growling rose through
the wood, and darkness fell upon us, and the
growling rolled nearer and the darkness grew
thicker, and in the gloom there was a fantastic
shadow-play of indistinct forms with red gleam-
ing eyes. All at once the growling turned into
the baying of hounds, and I saw many hundred
couples rushing towards me. Instinctively I
stood on guard and gripped the knife in my belt.
Then I heard someone chuckle softly, quite
close to me, chuckle heartily and quietly. And
the bay of the hounds hushed, and the gloom
lightened, and the wood about me stood silently
in the moonlit summer night, and in the open
glade amongst the alders lay the Time God
chuckling.
"When the time comes," he said, "when man-
kind comes seeking for the magic wort, like
you, then I will conjure forth the great terror.
Then the races will draw their knives from their
belts and stiffen their backs just as you did
a while ago, and find again its lost backbone."
130
XXIII.
IN a valley encircled by hills dwelt men.
The sun shone, and it was summer. And as
evening drew near, and I began to ascend
the mountain side, some were holding hands
and dancing in rings, others were drinking
coffee on the green grass, and others teaching
the children their ABC.
The next day I had accomplished the first
spiral of my mountain ascent, and I stood
on a projecting crag, from which I had a view
over the valley below me. Nothing seemed
to have changed from the yesterday: men
danced, drank coffee, and taught the children
their ABC, just as when I had quitted them.
I called to them to follow me in my journey
up towards a higher point of view, but no
one answered, no one seemed to have heard
my voice.
On the next day, towards eventide, I had
again ascended the mountain in a new spiral,
and stood upon a jutting crag right above the
one from which I had gazed on the valley the
day before. The depths below me presented
exactly the same spectacle, with this sole
difference, that all objects seemed smaller.
But when the people caught sight of me it
was evident that they grew annoyed : one
laughed mockingly, the second shrieked in
scoffing terms, and the third flung stones.
Then I continued my journey, and my soul
was filled with pity; I mentally added many
commentaries to the text to understand all
is to forgive all and I set the new religion
of human suffering into rhyme and verse.
Toward the evening of the third day I had
completed a new spiral of the ascent. I stood
once more on a projecting ledge that jutted
over the depths, just above the two ledges on
which I had stood the preceding days. I took
up a stone and hurled it with all my strength
in front of me, but although the incline of the
mountain seemed to me to be almost perpen-
dicular, it struck the crags. I saw that people
moved about in the bottom of the valley, and
fancied I could detect by their attitudes that
they had observed me. But whether they
waved a greeting or a threat I could not be
sure, they were as small as if they were seen
through the wrong end of a glass. One of
them crawled up the mountain's side, up the
same path as I had come, and he seemed to
me no bigger than an ant. But whether it was
a greeting or a threat, or whether the climber
intended to follow me, or drag me down again,
I heeded not. My chest grew light in the
mountain air, and my head was clear. Clouds
glided over the depths of the valley and all
that it held, and my gaze rested upon the
sun-tipped snow peak of the mountain, thither
where the path led.
Fourth day towards evening. . . .
135
XXIV.
IT was Sunday in Springtime, and the sing-
ing in the Church floated out over the town.
Up in the elm tree that stood behind the
churchyard wall sat two old crows.
" Now the minister ascends the pulpit," said
the one.
" What is he saying ? " exclaimed the other.
The two old crows cocked their heads on
one side and listened.
" Brothers in Christ ! " sounded the minister's
voice out from the Church. " So saith the
Lord : I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life ;
he that believeth in me shall live. . . ."
"Who is the Lord?" asked the old mother
crow.
" That is the great blackcoat in whose service
all the little blackcoats are," answered father
crow.
" What are they doing in there now ? It
strikes me it's very quiet."
Father crow hopped a few branches lower,
bent his head, and peeped in through the
Church window.
"The minister is standing taking snuff, and
the people are sitting on the benches nodding
their heads. The Lord save us ! if I don't
believe the whole crowd are asleep."
Then the two old crows chuckled and were
answered a hundredfold from the town, as the
whole swarm flapped up from the elm wood
and circled about the Church, making such an
infernal row that the congregation started up
out of their comfortable Sunday sleep, and the
minister recollected himself. But the flock
of crows flew away across the fields, and soon
the people nodded again on their benches,
and the minister's voice sounded once more :
" Brethren in Christ, I am the Way, the Truth,
and the Life; he that believeth on me shall
live, even if he were dead. . . ."
" This is getting soporific ! " interjected the
father crow, who had flown up to his old perch.
" It is the spring air that takes from one's
strength," replied the crow mother.
140
" It wouldn't be a bad idea to have a little
forenoon nap, eh ? "
"... So it pleased the Lord," echoed the
minister's voice from the Church ; and the two
old crows put their bills under their wings and
slept. Now not a single sound was to be
heard save the minister's voice, as for the
third time it echoed through the Sabbath
quiet: "Brothers in Christ, so saith the Lord;
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. . . ."
But now the minister leaves quarter of mile
of road between the words, so that he has lost
the truth out of sight when at length he
reaches the life, and is obliged to wash the
dust out of his throat with a glass of water.
But the sun shone high in the heavens. He
just cast a sly look through the Church window,
and when he perceived the blessed old peace
that reigned in the Temple he could not but
laugh. But then, as if by magic, the drowsy
Church was decked with all the glory of the
flowers of Spring, and the elm top where the
old crow pair were enjoying their forenoon
siesta drew a green veil over its barrenness.
141
XXV.
ONE day lately I sat myself on the King's
highway in order to study the animal Lepus
bipedes in its various species.
First came a middle-aged man of the lower
classes. I enveloped him in darkness, for fear is
like a snail that keeps in its shell by daylight,
and only creeps out in the dark. The prescrip-
tion worked immediately. Soon the wayfarer
halted, listened breathlessly, and stared with
wide open eyes into the gloom, then took to
his heels again, panting and out of breath ;
he was frightened of himself, he groaned when
a twig snapped under his feet, and he ducked
down when a bird stirred in the branches over
his head.
Afterwards, when I blew away the darkness,
and the broad daylight suddenly surrounded
him again, he looked about him with be-
wildered gaze, mopped the sweat off his brow
and slunk shamefacedly along the wall.
K 145
" That was the child afraid of the dark," said
I to myself.
But from the same direction as came the
vanished one, a host of Christian men and
women drew near. They all looked as if
they were paid criminals weighted by a bad
conscience. If one of them laughed his
laugh ended in a ghostly grimace, as if he
had suddenly called to mind that man should
never laugh. When one of the men cast a
sly glance at a woman both squinted heaven-
wards as if to make sure that an illicit action
were not being recorded. When a cock lured
his hen into the bushes a look of dismay
gathered upon their faces, and they crossed
themselves hurriedly.
" Those were the sick ones," said I to myself,
"whose souls are infected with ideas of sin.
They have manufactured them into spectacles
through which the world looks distorted and
gloomy, until at length they have separated
their maimed conscience from its being, placed
it outside themselves, endowed it with body
and name, made it into their table of the
146
law, their master, calling it morals, God.
They belong to the great category of the
cowardly, for they dare not rely upon them-
selves, and the word self-esteem has a hollow
sound or is a dangerously carnal idea ; but
they are cowards because their soul is dis-
eased and their brain is narrow. Their
cowardice is stupidity.
Then a third type of Lepus bipedes ap-
proached. He seemed to be one of those
persons of whom an even twelve go to the
dozen. He walked carefully along the wall,
as if he were obliged to consider something
at every step he took, something to be taken
into consideration, an obligation to be fulfilled,
a mistake to be avoided. He examined every
stone carefully before he trod upon it, as if
there was always a chance of getting a corn
through it. He scattered smiles to the right
and to the left, to every one and no one, as
if he fancied it might serve him some way
sooner or later. Constant little waves of fear
trembled across his face, as if he suddenly
remembered that he had by chance done
H7
something he ought not to have done ; and
when I made a row on purpose, he started
and the first expression on his face was fear,
and this first expression betrayed uncertainty
as to how he should conduct himself: either
cringe before a master, or bully a subordinate.
Then I said to myself:
" This is the Simon Pure of cowards. For his
cowardice is not child-like want of judgment,
neither is it disease, neither is it stupidity. He
is the most cowardly of cowards, the scurviest
of all, for he trades on his cowardice. He is
cowardly from expediency. He is cowardly
for sheer cowardice."
148
XXVI.
MY street was tightly packed with people,
and the windows of the houses were thronged
with faces. All wore masks, and all flung
abusive epithets at me ; and these foul terms
sprang up like nettles between the paving
stones, through which my feet were forced to
wade, and they hung out of the windows in
thorny garlands.
The mid-day sun sat aloft in the vault of
heaven white with heat. I had been wander-
ing from early morning, and as far as I could
see before me the street lay just as tightly
packed with people with masks upon their
faces ; the horizon was covered with them like
swarms of blowflies.
So I halted and dried the sweat of my brow
and said, " Ye slanderers, take off your masks !
Ye nettle stingers, why do you hide your
countenances ? Whom are ye, and what do
ye look like ? I know ye not at all, I have
never seen ye.
" Thou who screechest that I have evil disease,
dost thou carry red blisters on thine own face ?
Ye who shriek that I see all things askew, do
perhaps not your own eyes squint like the
wings of a weather vane ? Ye whom I never
see, but whose raven's croak I hear inside the
gloomy rooms, do you croak mayhap because
I shall some day seize the spoil that never
was yours, although ye stand right in the
sunshine. I know not, I have never seen ye.
" But now ye shall hear ! What avails it that
ye plant nettles in my path ? I wade through
them with my bare feet and they sting me not.
What matters it that ye hurl your evil thoughts
after me like evil-smelling, rotten eggs ? They
never reach me. They rebound to yourselves,
and squirt their impurity in your own eyes.
Just look ! I grip handfuls of these thorny
branches and they never even prick me.
" And now ye shall hear ! Why you
occupy the throne, why? He lies, ye say,
he is ashamed to own how sorely he is hurt.
Oh you blowfly brood, there is only one
thing exceeds your malice, your stupidity,
152
your inconceivable, boundless, elephant-footed
stupidity. You can't understand that it was
you yourselves who turned aside the point of
the thorns. If you had never donned masks
I might have met a worthy face and looked in
honest eyes, then my feet would have swelled
up and my body been as full of prickles as a
hedgehog's ; but now you stand there with
masks before your features, or hide yourselves
in dark rooms, and therefore your nettles are
but a verdant mass that strikes softly and
coolly to my naked feet."
XXVII.
I STOOD under a large tree that grew in
solitude far out in the deserted plain, seeking
the coolness of its shade from the summer heat.
I was just about to throw myself upon the
ground beneath it when I heard a rustling over
my head. As I gazed upwards I saw the
branches thickly covered with five hundred
thousand gleaming objects. At first I thought
they were peacocks, but suddenly five hundred
thousand mouths began to speak with human
voices, and when my eyes became accustomed
to the gloom I discovered five hundred thou-
sand women's faces, and I knew that these
were the women of the country. Then I doffed
my cap and made my most courteous bow,
and began to pay my respects thus :
" Ye hothouse plants and ornamental
wenches ! "
At this a tremendous cackle arose, and one
hundred thousand lifted their wings and flapped
hurriedly away across the plain.
I continued :
" Not Solomon in all his splendour was clad
as one of ye."
Then the four hundred thousand that re-
mained behind held their heads askew and
fanned with their peacocks' tails, and simpered
with such syrup and sugar in their gaze that
it simply turned up and down in my stomach,
and I added :
"But man cannot bed with a peacock's tail,
and it would be just as disgusting as with a ..."
Then four hundred thousand flapped their
wings and three hundred thousand gleaming
tails streamed out over the plain.
" But if one is to be found who will stand by
my side when the mad bull comes rushing
towards us he who was formerly called
Profanum Vulgus, but whom men now dub
L'opinion and who would feel her heart swell
with a proud joy at staring into the white of the
beast's eyes, so that he would slink aside with
shame if one such is to be found so ..."
158
But, already, before I had ended my harangue,
the tree over my head was vacant, and far
down on the horizon a spot glittered in the
sunshine, which I supposed was the last
hundred thousand peacocks' tails.
XXVIII.
THE town of my birth was one of the oldest
in the country, it made the same impression
on me as a good description of the moyen-
age. The streets were winding and narrow,
the houses a dirty yellow, with two storeys,
of which the upper jutted out above the under
in the true mediaeval style. The children
played in the gutter-stone, and the cattle
cropped the weeds in the market place.
One day I went out for a walk. My
thoughts flew low as swifts before rain cometh.
And some place, I knew not where, a voice
lurked, seeking to call something to me, what
I knew not, only that it came thundering
down I knew not where from. At the market-
place my friend the locksmith stood at the
entry leading to his garret, dozing in the sun-
shine.
"Answer me a question," I begged of him.
" Why does one yearn for the snow when one
163
sits in the midst of flowers, for verdure and
summer tidings when the sea is ice-bound ?
Why is that which man possesses without
worth, and why does one yearn just for the
thing one lacks ? Why do the lovely har-
monies of rural solitude haunt us in the midst
of the city noise, and why does life and its
motley flash before us with ever fresh delights,
a fata 'morgana of Paradise, luring us away
from peaceful dreaming in meadows green ?
Why do we yearn forward or backward in
hope or remembrance ? "
My friend the locksmith answered never a
word, but, chuckling to himself, swung round
on his heel and entered his house.
When I reached the principal street, my
friend the rabbit breeder stood on his steps,
that jutted out over the foot-walk, playing the
concertina.
"Answer me a question," I besought him.
" Suppose you found out that those who
hold the reins of Government in our town
emptied their slops into your and your neigh-
bours' wells, would you go up to the market-
164
place and tell it to all the people, even if you
knew that they would raze your house and
violate your wife and put you yourself in the
pillory ? "
My friend answered never a word ; he only
laughed in embarrassment, struck up a waltz
on his concertina and began to dance.
But, down in Mob Alley, my friend the
cobbler sat at his open window, a family
idyl, wife and eight children.
" Answer me a question," I prayed him.
" If a person came to you and said roughly :
Better anything else than sitting here like
this till the day of judgment ; better the great
sorrow than the petty joy ; rather the trouble
that turns hair grey in one night than happi-
ness in the chimney corner, listening to the
coffee-kettle singing if a person came to you
and said that, what reply would you give
him ? "
My friend answered never a word ; he
merely shut the window and turned his back
to it.
As for me, I walked down the Alley, and
165
out through the town gates, with their look
of mediaeval times ; and when evening fell
and I turned round, the Church tower of my
native town gleamed far away in the evening
sun.
1 66
XXIX.
-
I HAD crossed the great morass, and was
wandering on the opposite shore in the midst
of manifold flowers, and in a sunshine the like
of which I had never felt before. But beyond
the morass my foes were gathered in a fog, as
orange-green as gall, and they threatened and
called :
" You need not crow ! Don't you think we
did not see that you got help ? If strange
hands had not stretched forth to you, you
would be lying in the bottom of the morass
by this time, there where we would like to see
you, and where you ought to be."
Then I answered :
"The evil smell of your words reaches me
even here, from your heart and your mind's
corruption. Ye only know one way to thank,
lackey's way, bend to the dust, kiss hands
meekly, and let your words trickle like syrup.
What do you know of the silent thanks that
169
holds the kernel and marrow of a human soul
in one look, or that this look has something of
the look of youth when it loves, and something
of a child's look up to its mother, but before
all, that it is of a piece with the look with
which two who were lost in a desert fall into
one another's arms when they meet unex-
pectedly ; solitary and remote from other
human beings.
" Therefore, go home to your porridge platters,
gorge yourselves, and thank your God in the one
way you know how to thank, lackey's way,
bend to the dust, kiss hands meekly, and let
your words trickle like syrup."
170
XXX.
As the evening sun was poised above the
crest of the mountain in the west like a great
red globe, I descended to a meadow that teemed
with human forms. They looked like men, and
yet I knew not if I could call them by this
name. At first sight the scene appeared as
if a carnival were taking place ; afterwards I
fancied that I found myself in the walled
enclosure of a madhouse. One wanted a sleeve
to his coat, another had only one leg to his
trousers. The one whose head was as big as
an elephant had a toy cap, whilst his neigh-
bour, on whose body nature had clapped a pin
head, stalked about with a headgear of gigantic
dimensions. There were coats so long that
they reached to the knee, and trousers so short
that they finished there. Goliath-like feet
limped about in dancing pumps, and wading
boots slopped about children's tiny feet. But
all moved about, they never stood still a
moment, the whole meadow was like a single
teeming ant-heap. They all seemed to be
seeking, as if they had lost something, or as if
they knew not themselves for what they were
searching ; every head was bent forward, every
body bowed, eagerness glistened in every eye,
and their faces surrounded me like embodied
groans. Yet not a sound was to be heard,
not one of their steps ; it seemed to me as if
all these monsters were in such a desperate
hurry that they could not even pause to
breathe, or as if they were holding their
breaths as a person frightened at the dark.
In the meantime I had crossed right over
the plain. The sun had gone down behind
the mountain, and the coolness of night was
falling. On a stone near the wall, at some
distance from the rest of the crowd, an old
man sat alone. His clothes were one mass
of rags, and as I came in sight he made a
violent effort to wrap them better round him,
for his elbows and knee-bones stuck out through
the holes as the pointed twigs of a tree.
I halted and asked :
"Tell me, old man, who are these crowds
in the plain, and why have they clothed them-
selves like unto lunatics ? And why do you
sit here now when the night dews are falling ? "
And the old man bared his bald head, and
lifted his hollowed and sightless eye up to me,
and said :
"They are mankind looking for their lives.
There are as many kinds of lives as there are
people, and every life is a scourge that is unique
of its kind, as every man is a being that is sole
of his kind. Everything is awry, no one has
got the scourge he ought to have, everyone
is looking for one to suit him.
" You ask why I sit here now that the cool
of night is falling. Therefore, young man, that
I have jumped about as the others are jumping,
until my legs gave way, and the hair fell off
my head, and my eyes lost their sight. I
desired my proper life, I too ; but what I got,
it was never other than these rags."
Then terror seized me, and I continued my
way up amongst the mountains. And the
darkness gathered closely over the plain, but
175
although I could scarcely hear or see, I was
conscious through other inner secret senses of
the death-dance in search of life that was
footing it restlessly under me; and when
morning came, and the sun ran up above
the sea, my soul was filled with the desire
for strength to walk through life as the man
of antiquity in his toga.
176
XXXI.
M 177
I DESCENDED into the great road that runs
round the world. The windows in the houses
were shut, and gleaming eyes peered through
the closed shutters. The sun weltered upon my
head, the paving stones burnt under my feet, the
air about me smothered me as in a blanket.
When I got a piece down the street the
houses were uninhabited. Above the entrance
to each house hung a nightcap and a pair of
hobbles. Watchmen stood at the doors. I
stopped at the bottom of some steps, greeted
the man at the door, and said :
" I want a house, for the mid-day sun is very
hot, and I am a-weary, and all my friends sit
by this time in the midst of children and flowers,
so why shouldn't I, even I, have a house of my
own ? "
The man laughed at that with a laugh I did
not understand, and answered :
" You are right, why shouldn't even you have
179
your house? You ought to have this house.
But first you must go to the market-place, and
take part in the divine service of the people."
I went away to the market-place, where I
found a great congregation lying flat on their
stomachs under invocation to a mock sun that
shone faintly up in the sky. This sight dis-
gusted me, and I turned back. When I got
down again into the great street that ran round
the world, I saw the man at the door from afar
laughing at me with the same laugh that I
could not interpret.
" Now you are at liberty to enter the house
and possess it as your own. Let me first
fasten the hobbles to your feet and put the
nightcap on your head."
And as he said it he laughed again, and
suddenly I saw right through this obscure
speech, and caught sight of the worm that
wriggled underneath it. I knew his breed
only too well ; he belonged to the great race
of the malicious who delight in kill-joy.
Then I shook the hobble off my foot and
struck the cap out of the man's hand and
1 80
flung it in his face, and turned aside off the
great road that runs about the world and
that uncoiled itself before me like a giant
white worm sequestered, with the uncleanness
of a monster.
181
XXXII.
THERE is one day in the year that I pass by
with blinking eyes : my birthday ; then if I
were to look up I should see how life's chain
uncoils, and I should be able to count the
links.
There is one hour in the twenty-four that
works in my soul and leaves a taste in my
mouth more acrid than any medicine : the
hour when I lay myself to sleep, for I know
that during the night that evil happens that
can never be shriven ; that that vanishes that
once vanished can never return ; and when
I awake in the middle of the night I hear
time roll on, rushing through the darkness
above my head like a mighty stream.
When I read in books of the one's growing
loneliness and the other's poorness of life ;
and when I look round amongst the people
about me, and see how the years of all fall
from them like badly-kept teeth ; when I
185
myself gaze back over the landscape that I
have wandered over, to find wild places and
nettle woods then I recognise the species of
the sin that is the root and original source.
Let not your days be as rotten fruits, which
you must cast on the dung-heap behind you
or as poisonous wormwood, flowering in your
spirit ; but make them shining white as the
bodies of young virgins, and clothe them in
gold and silver, that they may constantly
watch round your couch as guardian spirits,
fanning refreshing coolness over your soul.
May your serving-flock suffice to attend you
through each cycle of the sun.
1 86
XXXIII.
WHEN I go to the town and people stare
and gape in the market and street, it is a habit of
mine never to drop my eyes without looking at
each and every man. I have often noticed that
the one sneaked by me and the other looked
meaningly at his neighbour, and that they all
mumbled something under their breath, but I
knew not if it was about me, and I would not
touch their dirty burdens. But once lately I got
a long yellow-green look that I held in the palm
of my hand for examination ; but before I
could test this disgusting expression in the
crucible of my thoughts, I heard a voice speak-
ing close to me.
" He harbours the devil of pride."
Then I turned round and saw him who had
cast the yellow-green look, and who had spoken
the words. He turned his back to me quickly,
but he could not conceal how his clothes hung
bedaubed with the yellow-green stuff. And I
went close up behind his neck and said :
189
" You who turn away with the idea of con-
cealing that you soiled yourself with the vomit
of your own mind, listen now to me ! What is
it that you say about pride? What do you
know about pride? You only know one kind
of pride, your own and that of the like of you.
That which inflates the soul with wind, without
being able to hinder it from collapsing suddenly,
as soon as any one points a finger towards it.
You know the low vulgar pride, the dastard
pride that sticks its nose in the air whilst
inwardly a spirit of shame sits in you, and
gnaws at you and fleers at you, so that as you
walk along you stumble over a stone or fall into
a ditch. Your pride is not genuine, you wear
it as a bargee would wear the dress of a knight,
you strut with it with as ill a grace as if you
had donned a decoration, knowing in your
soul that you deserved it not ; that is why
you feel conscious of being ludicrous, and why
you are ashamed.
" Why then do you speak of pride, you who
know no other than your own and that of your
equals ? What do you know of the true, great
190
pride, that which surpasses all other feeling
upon earth, that which rings like true metal
and makes the brow as clear and as open as the
sea on a sunshine day. That is the pride that
he who casts malignant looks about him, and
who cringes when threatened with words more
offensive than the lashes that fall upon the back
of a slave will never know. For that pride is
the one that makes a man dare to pit his
stubborn no against every yes, and kick over
the old ideals as if they were potsherds and
puffballs. Why do you speak of pride ? you have
never conceived what it feels like to be proud.
Get you to your trading in the market-place,
and your gossip at the street corner, but never
seek to imprison the sunshine in your fist.
" Pride is a haughty virgin who loves alone a
noble knight, with casque, and plume, and coat
of mail."
191
PRINTED BY
TURNBULL AND SPEARS
EDINBURGH
List of Books
m
J^elles Retires
1895
ALL BOOKS IN THIS CATALOGUE
ARK PUBLISHED AT NET PRICES
Telegraphic Address
' BODLEIAN, LONDON
1895.
List of Books
IN
BELLES LETTRES
(Including some Transfers)
Published by John Lane
C&e Botolep ^ead
VIGO STREET, LONDON, W.
N. B. The A uthors and Publisher reserve the right of reprinting
any book in this list if a new edition is called for, except in cases
where a stipulation has been made to the contrary, and of printing
a separate edition of any of the books for America irrespective of the
numbers to which the English editions are limited. The numbers
mentioned do not include copies sent to the public libraries, nor those
tent for review.
Most of the books are published simultaneously in England and
America, and in many instances the names of the American
Publishers are appended.
ADAMS (FRANCIS).
ASSAYS IN MODERNITY. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. [Shortly.
Chicago : Stone & Kimball.
A CHILD OF THE AGE. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE
ALLEN (GRANT).
THE LOWER SLOPES : A Volume of Verse. With Title-
page and Cover Design by J. ILLINGWORTH KAY.
600 copies. Crown 8vo. 55. net.
Chicago : Stone & Kimball.
THE WOMAN WHO DID. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
BEARDSLEY (AUBREY).
THE STORY OF VENUS AND TANNHAUSER, in which is set
forth an exact account of the Manner of State held by
Madam Venus, Goddess and Meretrix, under the
famous Ilorselberg, and containing the adventures of
Tannhauser in that place, his repentance, his jour-
neying to Rome, and return to the loving mountain.
By AUBREY BEARDSLEY. With 20 full-page illus-
trations, numerous ornaments, and a cover from the
same hand. Sq. i6mo. ios.6d.net. [In preparation.
BEDDOES (T. L.).
See GOSSE (EDMUND).
BEECHING (REV. H. C.).
IN A GARDEN : Poems. With Title-page designed by
ROGER FRY. Crown 8vo. 55. net.
New York : Macmillan & Co.
BENSON (ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER).
LYRICS. Fcap. 8vo., buckram. 55. net.
New York: Macmillan & Co.
BROTHERTON (MARY).
ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE. With Title-page and
Cover Design by WALTER WEST. Fcap. 8vo. 3s.6d.net.
CAMPBELL (GERALD).
THE JONESES AND THE ASTERISKS. Illustrated. Fcap.
8vo. 35. 6d. net. [In preparation.
CASTLE (EGERTON).
See STEVENSON (ROBERT Louis).
THE PUBLICATIONS OF
DALMON (C. W.).
SONG FAVOURS. With a specially-designed Title-page.
Sq. i6mo. 4S.6d.net. [In preparation.
D'ARCY (ELLA).
A VOLUME OF STORIES. (See KEYNOTES SERIES. )
DAVIDSON (JOHN).
PLAYS : An Unhistorical Pastoral ; A Romantic Farce ;
Bruce, a Chronicle Play ; Smith, a Tragic Farce ;
Scaramouch in Naxos, a Pantomime, with a Frontis-
piece and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEV.
Printed at the Ballantyne Press. 500 copies. Small
4to. 75. 6d. net.
Chicago : Stone & Kimball.
FLEET STREET ECLOGUES. Fcap. 8vo, buckram. 55.
net. [Out of Print at present.
A RANDOM ITINERARY AND A BALLAD. With a Fron-
tispiece and Title-page by LAURENCE HOUSMAN.
600 copies. Fcap. 8vo, Irish Linen. 53. net.
Boston : Copeland & Day.
BALLADS AND SONGS. With a Title-page and Cover
Design by WALTER WEST. Third Edition. Fcap.
8vo, buckram. 53. net.
Boston : Copeland & Day.
DB TABLEY (LORD).
POEMS, DRAMATIC AND LYRICAL. By JOHN LEICESTER
WARREN (Lord De Tabley). Illustrations and Cover
Design by C. S. RICKETTS. Second Edition.
Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net
New York : Macmillan & Co.
POEMS, DRAMATIC AND LYRICAL. Second Series, uni-
form in binding with the former volume. Crown 8vo.
5s. net.
New York : Macmillan & Co.
JOHN LANK S
DIX (GERTRUDE).
THE GIRL FROM THE FARM. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
DOSTOIEVSKY (F.).
See KEYNOTES SERIES, Vol. HI.
ECHEGARAY (JOSE).
See LYNCH (HANNAH).
EGERTON (GEORGE).
KEYNOTES. (See KEYNOTES SERIES. )
DISCORDS. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
YOUNG OFEG'S DITTIES. A translation from the Swedish
of OLA HANSSON. Crown 8vo. 33. 6d. net.
Boston : Roberts Bros.
FARR (FLORENCE).
THE DANCING FAUN. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
FLETCHER (J. S.).
THE WONDERFUL WAPENTAKE. By 'A SON OF THE
SOIL.' With 18 full-page Illustrations by J. A.
SYMINGTON. Crown 8vo. js. 6d. net.
Chicago : A. C. M'Clurg & Co.
GALE (NORMAN).
ORCHARD SONGS. With Title-page and Cover Design
by J. ILLINGWORTH KAY. Fcap. 8vo, Irish Linen.
55. net.
Also a Special Edition limited in number on hand-made p*p*r
bound in English vellum. i, is. net.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
GARNETT (RICHARD).
POEMS. With Title-page by J. ILLINGWORTH KAY.
350 copies. Crown 8vo. 55. net.
Boston : Copeland & Day.
THE PUBLICATIONS OF
SSE (EDMUND).
THB LETTERS OF THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES. Now
first edited. Pott 8vo. 55. net.
Also 25 copies large paper. 12$. 6d. net.
New York : Macmillan & Co.
GRAHAME (KENNETH).
PAGAN PAPERS : A Volume of Essays. With Title-
page by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net.
Chicago : Stone & Kimball.
THE GOLDEN AGE. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d. net.
Chicago : Stone & Kimball. [In preparation.
GREENE (G. A.).
ITALIAN LYRISTS OF TO-DAY. Translations in the
original metres from about thirty-five living Italian
poets, with bibliographical and biographical notes.
Crown 8vo. 55. net.
New York : Macmillan & Co.
GREENWOOD (FREDERICK).
IMAGINATION IN DREAMS. Crown 8vo. 55. net.
New York : Macmillan & Co.
HAKE (T. GORDON).
A SELECTION FROM HIS POEMS. Edited by Mrs.
MEYNBLL. With a Portrait after D. G. ROSSETTI,
and a Cover Design by GLEESON WHITE. Crown
Svo. 55. net.
Chicago : Stone & Kimball.
HARLAND (HENRY).
THB BOHEMIAN GIRL. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
HAYES (ALFRED).
THE VALE OF ARDEN AND OTHER POEMS. With a
Title-page and a Cover designed by E. H. NEW.
Fcap. Svo. 35. 6d. net.
Also 25 copies large paper. 155. net
HEINEMANN (WILLIAM)
THE FIRST STEP A Dramatic Moment. Small 410.
35. 6d. net.
JOHN LANE 7
HOPPER (NORA).
BALLADS IN PROSE. With a Title-page and Cover by
WALTER WEST. Sq. i6mo. 55. net.
Boston : Roberts Bros.
IRVING (LAURENCE).
GODEFROI AND YOLANDE : A Play. With three Illus-
trations by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Sm. 4to. 55. net.
[In preparation,
JAMES (W. P.).
ROMANTIC PROFESSIONS : A Volume of Essays. With
Title page designed by J. ILLINGWORTH KAY.
Crown 8vo. 53. net.
New York : Macmillan & Co.
JOHNSON (LIONEL).
THE ART OF THOMAS HARDY : Six Essays. With Etched
Portrait by WM. STRANG, and Bibliography by JOHN
LANE. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 53. 6d. net.
Also 150 copies, large paper, with proofs of the portrait. 1, is.
net.
New York : Dodd, Mead & Co.
JOHNSON (PAULINE).
WHITE WAMPUM : Poems. With a Title-page and Cover
Design by E. H. NEW. Crown 8vo. 55. net.
[In preparation.
JOHNSTONE (C. E.).
BALLADS OF BOY AND BEAK. Fcap. 8vo. as. 6d. net.
[In preparation .
KEYNOTES SERIES.
Each volume with specially designed Title-page by AUBREI
BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo, cloth. 33. 6d. net.
Vol. i. KEYNOTES. By GEORGE EGERTON.
[Sixth edition now ready.
Vol. ii. THE DANCING FAUN. By FLORENCE FARR.
Vol. III. POOR FOLK. Translated from the Russian of
F. Dostoievsky by LENA MILMAN. With
a Preface by GEORGE MOORE.
Vol. iv. A CHILD OF THE AGE. By FRANCIS ADAMS.
THE PUBLICATIONS OF
KEYNOTES SERIES continued.
al. v. THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST
LIGHT. By ARTHUR MACHEN.
Vol. vi. DISCORDS. By GEORGE EGERTON.
[ Third Edition now ready.
Vol. vii. PRINCE ZALESKI. By M. P. SHIEL.
Vol. vin. THE WOMAN WHO DID. By GRANT ALLKN.
The following Volumes are in rapid preparation.
Vol. ix. WOMEN'S TRAGEDIES. By H. D. LOWRY.
_^- Vol. x. THE BOHEMIAN GIRL AND OTHER STORIES.
By HENRY HARLAND.
Vol. xi. AT THE FIRST CORNER AND OTHER STORIES.
By H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON.
Vol. xn. A VOLUME OF STORIES. By ELLA D'ARCY.
JVol. xiii. AT THE RELTON ARMS. By EVELYN SHARP.
"" Vol. xiv. THE GIRL FROM THE FARM. By GERTRUDB
Dix.
Vol. xv. THE MIRROR OF Music. By STANLEY V.
MAKOWER.
Boston : Roberts Bros.
LEATHER (R. K.).
VERSES. 250 copies. Fcap. 8vo. 35. net.
Trans/erred by the Author to the present Publisher.
LE GALLIENNE (RICHARD).
PROSE FANCIES. With Portrait of the Author by
WILSON STEER. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. Purple
cloth. 55. net.
Also a limited large paper edition. izs. 6d. net.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
THE BOOK BILLS OF NARCISSUS. An Account rendered
by RICHARD LE GALLIENNE. Third Edition. With
a Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. Purple cloth. 35. 6d. net.
Also 50 copies on large paper. 8vo. los. 6d. net.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON, AN ELEGY, AND OTHER
POEMS. With Etched Title-page by D. Y. CAMERON.
Crown 8vo. Purple cloth. 43. 6d. net.
[In preparation.
JOHN LANK 9
LE GALLIENNE (RICHARD).
GEORGE MEREDITH : Some Characteristics. With a Biblio-
graphy (much enlarged) by JOHN LANE, portrait, etc.
Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. Purple cloth, uniform
with 'The Religion of a Literary Man.' 53. 6d. net.
THE RELIGION OF A LITERARY MAN. 5th thousand.
Crown 8vo. Purple cloth. 35. 6d. net.
Also a special rubricated edition on hand-made paper. 8vo.
IDS. 6d. net.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
LOWRY (H. D.).
WOMEN'S TRAGEDIES. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
LUCAS (WINIFRED).
A VOLUME OF POEMS. Fcap. 8vo. 45. 6d. net.
[In preparation.
LYNCH (HANNAH).
THE GREAT GALEOTO AND FOLLY OR SAINTLINESS. Two
Plays, from the Spanish of JOSE ECHEGARAY, with an
Introduction. Small 4to. 55. 6d. net.
[In preparation.
MACHEN (ARTHUR).
THE GREAT GOD PAN. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
MAKOWER (STANLEY V.).
THE MIRROR OF Music. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
MARZIALS (THEO.).
THE GALLERY OF PIGEONS AND OTHER POEMS. Post
8vo. 45. 6d. net. [ Very few remain.
Transferred by the Author to the present Publisher.
MEREDITH (GEORGE).
THE FIRST PUBLISHED PORTRAIT OF THIS ADTHOR,
engraved on the wood by W. BISCOMBE GARDNER,
after the painting by G. F. WATTS. Proof copies on
Japanese vellum, signed by painter and engraver.
i, is. net.
MEYNELL (MRS.), (ALICE C. THOMPSON).
POEMS. Fcap. 8vo. 3s.6d.net. [Out of Print at present.
A few of the 50 large paper copies (First Edition) remain, izs. 6d. net.
THE PUBLICATIONS OF
MEYNELL (MRS.).
THE RHYTHM OF LIFE AND OTHER ESSAYS. Second
Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 35. 6d. net.
A few of the 50 large paper copies (First Edition) remain. 125. 6d. net.
See also HAKE.
MILLER (JOAQUIN).
THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL. Fcap 8vo.
With a Decorated Cover. 55. net.
Chicago : Stone & Kimball.
MILMAN (LENA).
POOR FOLK. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
MONKHOUSE (ALLAN).
BOOKS AND PLAYS : A Volume of Essays on Meredith,
Borrow, Ibsen, and others. 400 copies. Crown 8vo.
5s. net.
Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott Co.
MOORE (GEORGE).
See KEYNOTES SERIES, Vol. HI.
NESBIT (E.).
A VOLUME OF POEMS. Cr. 8vo. 53. net. [In preparation.
NETTLESHIP (J. T.).
ROBERT BROWNING : Essays and Thoughts. Third
Edition. With a Portrait. Crown 8vo. 55. 6d. net.
New York : Chas. Scribner's Sons.
NOBLE (JAS. ASHCROFT).
THE SONNET IN ENGLAND AND OTHER ESSAYS. Title-
page and Cover Design by AUSTIN YOUNG. 600
copies. Crown 8vo. 55. net.
Also 50 copies large paper. ias. fid. net.
O'SHAUGHNESSY (ARTHUR).
His LIFE AND His WORK. With Selections from his
Poems. By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. Por-
trait and Cover Design. Fcap. 8vo. 53. net.
Chicago : Stone & Kimball.
JOHN LANE ii
OXFORD CHARACTERS.
A series of lithographed portraits by WILL ROTHENSTEIN,
with text by F. YORK POWELL and others. To be
issued monthly in term. Each number will contain
two portraits. Parts I. to V. ready. 200 sets only,
folio, wrapper, 53. net per part ; 25 special large
paper sets containing proof impressions of the por-
traits signed by the artist, IDS. 6d. net per part.
PETERS (WM. THEODORE).
POSIES ODT OF RINGS. Sq. i6mo. 35. 6d. net.
[In preparation.
PLARR (VICTOR).
A VOLUME OF POEMS. Cr. 8vo. 53. net. [In preparation.
RADFORD (DOLLIE).
SONGS AND OTHER VERSES. Fcap. 8vo. 33. 6d. net.
[In preparation.
RICKETTS (C. S.)AND C. H. SHANNON.
HERO AND LEANDER. By CHRISTOPHER MARLOWB
and GEORGE CHAPMAN. With Borders, Initials, and
Illustrations designed and engraved on the wood by
C. S. RICKETTS and C. H. SHANNON. Bound in
English vellum and gold. 200 copies only. 353. net.
Boston : Copeland & Day.
RHYS (ERNEST).
A LONDON ROSE AND OTHER RHYMES. With Title-page
designed by SELWYN IMAGE. 350 copies. Crown
8vo. 53. net.
New York : Dodd, Mead & Co.
SHARP (EVELYN).
AT THE RELTON ARMS. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
SHIEL (M. P.).
PRINCE ZALESKI. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
STEVENSON (ROBERT LOUIS).
PRINCE OTTO. A Rendering in French by EGERTON
CASTLE. Crown 8vo. 55. net. [In preparation.
Also zoo copies on large paper, uniform in size with the Edinburgh
Edition of the Works.
THE PUBLICATIONS OF
STREET (G. S.).
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY. Passages selected by
his friend G. S. S. With Title-page designed by
C. W. FURSE. Fcap. 8vo. 35. 6d. net.
[Fourth Edition now ready.
Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott Co.
MINIATURES AND MOODS. Fcap. 8vo. 35. net.
Transferred ty tht Author to the present PuUisker.
SWETTENHAM (F. W.).
MALAY SKETCHES. Crown 8vo. 5s. 6d. net.
[In preparation.
TABB (JOHN B.).
POEMS. Sq. 32010. 45. 6d. net.
Boston : Copeland & Day.
THIMM (C. F.).
A COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ART OF FENCE,
DUELLING, ETC. With Illustrations.
[In preparation.
THOMPSON (FRANCIS).
POEMS. With Frontispiece, Title-page, and Cover Design
by LAURENCE HOUSMAN. Fourth Edition. Pott
4to. 5s. net.
Boston : Copeland & Day.
TYNAN HINKSON (KATHARINE).
CUCKOO SONGS. With Title-page and Cover Design by
LAURENCE HOUSMAN. Fcap. 8vo. 53. net.
Boston : Copeland & Day.
MIRACLE PLAYS. [In preparation.
WATSON (H. B. MARRIOTT).
AT THE FIRST CORNER. (See KEYNOTES SERIES.)
WATSON (WILLIAM).
ODES AND OTHER POEMS. Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo,
buckram. 45. 6d. net.
New York : Macmillan & Co.
JOHN LANE ij
WATSON (WILLIAM).
THB ELOPING ANGELS : A Caprice. Second Edition.
Square i6mo, buckram. 35. 6d. net.
New York : Macmillan & Co.
EXCURSIONS IN CRITICISM : being some Prose Recrea-
tions of a Rhymer. Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. 55. net.
New York : Macmillan & Co.
THE PRINCE'S QDEST AND OTHER POEMS. With a
Bibliographical Note added. Second Edition. Fcap.
Svo. 45. 6d. net.
WATTS (THEODORE).
POEMS. Crown Svo. 53. net. [In preparation.
There will also be an Edition de Luxe of this volume printed at
the Kelmscott Press.
WELLS (Hi G )
A VOLUME OF ESSAYS. Fcap. Svo. [In preparation.
WHARTON (H. T.).
SAPPHO. Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings, and a
Literal Translation by HENRY THORNTON WHARTON.
With three Illustrations. Fcap. Svo. 7s. 6d. net.
[In preparation.
WILDE (OSCAR).
THE SPHINX. A poem decorated throughout in line and
colour, and bound in a design by CHARLES RICKETTS.
250 copies. 2, 2s. net. 25 copies large paper.
$, 53. net.
Boston : Copeland & Day.
THE INCOMPARABLE AND INGENIOUS HISTORY OF MR.
W. H., being the true secret of Shakespear's Sonnets
now for the first time here fully set forth, with Initial
Letters and Cover Design by CHARLES RICKETTS.
500 copies. IQS. 6d. net.
Also 50 copies large paper. 215. net. [In preparation.
THE PUBLICATIONS OF
WILDE (OSCAR).
DRAMATIC WORKS, now printed for the first time. With a
specially-designed binding to each volume, by CHAS.
SHANNON. 500 copies. Sm. 4to. 7s. 6d. net per vol.
Also 50 copies large paper. 155. net per vol.
Vol. i. LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN : A Comedy in
Four Acts. [Out of print.
Vol. II. A WOMAN OF No IMPORTANCE : A Comedy
in Four Acts. [Just published.
Vol. in. THE DUCHESS OF PADUA : A Blank Verse
Tragedy in Five Acts. [ Very shortly.
Boston : Copeland & Day.
SALOME : A Tragedy in One Act done into English.
With 10 Illustrations, Title-page, Tail-piece, and
Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. 500 copies.
Small 4to. 155. net.
Also 100 copies large paper. 305. net.
Boston : Copeland & Day.
THE YELLOW BOOK
An Illustrated Quarterly
Vol. I. Fourth Edition, 272 pages t 15 Illustrations, Title-page,
and a Cover Design. Cloth. Price $s. net. Pott 4/0.
The Literary Contributions by MAX BEERBOHM, A. C. BENSON,
HUBERT CRACKANTHORPE, ELLA D'ARCY, JOHN DAVID-
SON, GEORGE EGERTON, RICHARD GARNETT, EDMUND
GOSSE, HENRY HARLAND, JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, HENRY
JAMES, RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, GEORGE MOORE,
GEORGE SAINTSBURY, FRED. M. SIMPSON, ARTHUR
SYMONS, WILLIAM WATSON, ARTHUR WAUGH.
The Art Contributions by Sir FREDERIC LEIGHTON, P.R.A.,
AUBREY BEARDSLEY, R. ANNING BELL, CHARLES W.
FURSE, LAURENCE HOUSMAN, J. T. NETTLESHIP, JOSEPH
PENNELL, WILL ROTHENSTEIN, WALTER SICKERT.
JOHN LANE ij
Vol. If. l^hird Edition. Pott 4(0, 364 pages, 23 Illustrations,
and a New Title-page and Cover Design. Cloth. Price 5.?. net.
The Literary Contributions by FREDERICK GREENWOOD,
ELLA D ARCY, CHARLES WILLEBY, JOHN DAVIDSON,
HENRY HARLAND, DOLLIE RADFORD, CHARLOTTE M.
MEW, AUSTIN DOBSON, V., O., C. S., KATHARINE DE
MATTOS, PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON, RONALD CAMP-
BELL MACFIE, DAUPHIN MEUNIER, KENNETH GRAHAME,
NORMAN GALE, NETTA SYRETT, HUBERT CRACKAN-
THORPE, ALFRED HAYES, MAX BEERBOHM, WILLIAM
WATSON, and HENRY JAMES.
The Art Contributions by WALTER CRANE, A. S. HARTRICK,
AUBREY BEARDSLEY, ALFRED THORNTON, P. WILSON
STEER, JOHN S. SARGENT, A.R.A., SYDNEY ADAMSON,
WALTER SICKERT, W. BROWN MACDOUGAL, E. J.
SULLIVAN, FRANCIS FORSTER, BERNHARD SICKERT,
and AYMER VALLANCE.
A Special Feature of Volume II. is a frank criticism of
the Literature and Art of Volume I. by PHILIP GILBERT
HAMERTON.
Vol. III. Third Edition. Now Ready. Pott 4/0, 280 page s,
1 5 Illustrations, and a New Title-page and Cover Design.
Cloth. Price $s. net.
The Literary Contributions by WILLIAM WATSON, KENNETH
GRAHAME, ARTHUR SYMONS, ELLA D'ARCY, JOSE MARIA
DE HEREDIA, ELLEN M. CLERKE, HENRY HARLAND,
THEO MARZIALS, ERNEST DOWSON, THEODORE WRATIS-
LAW, ARTHUR MOORE, OLIVE CUSTANCE, LIONEL JOHN-
SON, ANNIE MACDONELL, C. S., NORA HOPPER, S.
CORNISH WATKINS, HUBERT CRACKANTHORPE, MORTON
FULLERTON, LEILA MACDONALD, C. W. DALMON, MAX
BEERBOHM, and JOHN DAVIDSON.
The Art Contributions by PHILIP BROUGHTON, GEORGE
THOMSON, AUBREY BEARDSLEY, ALBERT FOSCHTER,
WALTER SICKERT, P. WILSON STEER, WILLIAM HYDE,
and MAX BEERBOHM.
THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE
Vol. IV. Now Ready. Pott 4(0, 285 pages, 16 Full-page
Illustrations. With a New Cover Design and a Double-
page Supplement by Aubrey Beardsley. Price 5-f. net.
The Literary Contributions by RICHARD LB GALLIENNB,
HENRY HARLAND, GRAHAM R. TOMSON, H. B. MARRIOTT
WATSON, DOLF WYLLARDE, MENIE MURIEL DOWIE,
OLIVE CUSTANCE, JAMES ASHCROFT NOBLE, LEILA MAC-
DONALD, C. S., RICHARD GARNETT, VICTORIA CROSS,
CHARLES SYDNEY, KENNETH GRAHAME, C. NEWTON
ROBINSON, NORMAN HAPGOOD, E. NESBIT, MARION HEP-
WORTH DIXON, C. W. DALMON, EVELYN SHARP, MAX
BEERBOHM, and JOHN DAVIDSON.
The Art Contributions by H. J. DRAPER, WILLIAM HYDB,
WALTER SICKERT, PATTEN WILSON, W. W. RUSSELL,
A. S. HARTRICK, CHARLES CONDER, WILL ROTHENSTEIN.,
Miss SUMNER, P. WILSON STEER, and AUBREY BEARDS-
LEY.
Prospectuses Post Free on Application.
LONDON : JOHN LANE
BOSTON : COPELAND & DAY
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press
DATE DUE
University of California
SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388
Return this material to the library
from which it was borrowed.
REC'D ID-URL
MAY 13
A 000 649 434 8