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COMPROMISES 
 
COMPROMISES 
 
 BY 
 
 AGNES REPPLIER, LITT. D. 
 
 1 On court, helas ! apr&s la vrit ; 
 Ah ! croyez moi, 1'erreur a son merite." 
 
 VOLTAIRE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 fctoertf&e prestf, CambuD0e 
 1905 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
COPYRIGHT 1904 BY AGNES RKPPLIER 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published September 1004 
 
To C. F. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE LUXURY OP CONVERSATION .... 1 
 
 THE GAYETY OF LIFE 20 
 
 THE POINT OF VIEW 34 
 
 MARRIAGE IN FICTION 49 
 
 OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 66 
 
 THE BEGGAR'S POUCH 88 
 
 THE PILGRIM'S STAFF 105 
 
 A QUAKER DIARY 125 
 
 FRENCH LOVE-SONGS 153 
 
 THE SPINSTER 170 
 
 THE TOURIST 185 
 
 THE HEADSMAN 199 
 
 CONSECRATED TO CRIME 219 
 
 ALLEGRA . . 240 
 
COMPROMISES 
 
 THE LUXURY OF CONVERSATION 
 
 Of indoor entertainments, the truest and most human 
 is conversation. MARK PATTISON. 
 
 IN an age when everybody is writing Reminis- 
 cences, and when nothing is left untold, we 
 hear a great deal about the wit and brilliancy 
 of former days and former conversations. 
 Elderly gentlemen, conscious of an ever in- 
 creasing dulness in life, would fain have us 
 believe that its more vivacious characteristics 
 vanished with their youth, and can never be 
 tempted to return. Mournful prophecies anent 
 the gradual decay of social gifts assail us on 
 every side. Mr. Justin McCarthy, recalling 
 with a sigh the group of semi-distinguished 
 men who were wont to grace George Eliot's 
 Sunday afternoons, can " only hope that the 
 art of talking is not destined to die out with 
 the art of letter-writing." Mr. George W. 
 E. Russell entertains similar misgivings. He 
 
2 COMPROMISES 
 
 found his ideal talker in Mr. Matthew Arnold, 
 " a man of the world without being frivolous, 
 and a man of letters without being pedantic ; " 
 and he considers this admirable combination 
 as necessary as it is rare. American chron- 
 iclers point back to a little gleaming band of 
 Northern lights, and assure us sadly that if 
 we never heard these men in their prime, we 
 must live and die uncheered by wit or wisdom. 
 We are born in a barren day. 
 
 But conversation, the luxury of conversa- 
 tion, as De Quincey happily phrases it, does 
 not depend upon one or two able talkers. It 
 is not, and never has been, a question of stars, 
 but of a good stock company. Neither can it 
 decay like the art or the habit of letter- 
 writing. The conditions are totally different. 
 Letters form a by-path of literature, a charm- 
 ing, but occasional, retreat for people of cul- 
 tivated leisure. Conversation in its happiest 
 development is a link, equally exquisite and 
 adequate, between mind and mind, a system 
 by which men approach one another with sym- 
 pathy and enjoyment, a field for the finest 
 amenities of civilization, for the keenest and 
 
THE LUXURY OF CONVERSATION 3 
 
 most intelligent display of social activity. It 
 is also our solace, our inspiration, and our 
 most rational pleasure. It is a duty we owe 
 to one another ; it is our common debt to 
 humanity. " God has given us tongues," writes 
 Heine, " wherewith we may say pleasant things 
 to our neighbours." To refuse a service so 
 light, so sweet, so fruitful, is to be unworthy 
 of the inheritance of the ages. 
 
 It is claimed again, by critics disposed to 
 be pessimistic, that our modern development 
 of " specialism " is prejudicial to good con- 
 versation. A man devoted to one subject can 
 seldom talk well upon any other. Unless his 
 companions share his tastes and his knowledge, 
 he must a sad alternative either lecture or 
 be still. There are people endowed with such 
 a laudable thirst for information that they 
 relish lectures, professional and gratuitous. 
 They enjoy themselves most when they are 
 being instructed. They are eager to form an 
 audience. Such were the men and women who 
 experienced constant disappointment because 
 Mr. Browning, a specialist of high standing, 
 declined to discuss his specialty. No side-lights 
 
4 COMPROMISES 
 
 upon " Sordello " could be extracted from him. 
 We realize how far the spirit of the lecture had 
 intruded upon the spirit of conversation forty 
 years ago, when Mr. Bagehot admitted that, 
 with good modern talkers, " the effect seems to 
 be produced by that which is stated, and not by 
 the manner in which it is stated," a reversal of 
 ancient rules. We are aware of its still further 
 encroachment when we see a little book by 
 M. Charles Rozan, characteristically christened 
 " Petites Ignorances de la Conversation," and 
 find it full of odds and ends of information, of 
 phrases, allusions, quotations, facts, all the 
 minute details which are presumably embodied 
 in the talk of educated men. The world to-day 
 devoutly believes that everything can be taught 
 and learned. When we have been shown how 
 a thing is done, we can of course do it. There 
 are even little manuals composed with serious 
 simplicity, the object of which is to enable us 
 to meet specialists on their own grounds ; to 
 discuss art with artists, literature with authors, 
 politics with politicians, science with scientists, 
 the last, surely, a dangerous experiment. 
 " Conversation," I read in one of these en- 
 
THE LUXURY OF CONVERSATION 5 
 
 chanting primers, " cannot be entirely learned 
 from books," a generous admission in a day 
 given over to the worship of print. 
 
 But in good truth, the contagious ardour, 
 the urbane freedom of the spoken word lift it 
 immeasurably from the regions of pen and 
 ink. Those " shy revelations of affinity," which 
 now and then open to the reader sweet vistas 
 of familiarity and friendship, are frequent, al- 
 luring, persuasive, in well-ordered speech. It 
 is not what we learn in conversation that en- 
 riches us. It is the elation that comes of swift 
 contact with tingling currents of thought. It 
 is the opening of our mental pores, and the 
 stimulus of marshaling our ideas in words, of 
 setting them forth as gallantly and as gra- 
 ciously as we can. " A language long employed 
 by a delicate and critical society," says Mr. 
 Bagehot, " is a treasure of dexterous felicities ; " 
 and the recognition of these felicities, the grad- 
 ing of terms, the enlarging of a narrow and 
 stupid vocabulary make the charm of civilized 
 social contact. Discussion without asperity, 
 sympathy without fusion, gayety unracked by 
 too abundant jests, mental ease in approaching 
 
6 COMPROMISES 
 
 one another, these are the things which give 
 a pleasant smoothness to the rough edge of 
 life. 
 
 So much has been said about good talkers, 
 brilliant soloists for the most part, and 
 so little about good talk ! So much has been 
 said about good listeners, and so little about 
 the interchange of thought ! " Silent people 
 never spoil company," remarked Lord Chester- 
 field ; but even this negative praise was prob- 
 ably due to the type of silence with which he 
 was best acquainted, a habit of sparing 
 speech, not the muffled stillness of genuine 
 and hopeless incapacity. A man who listens 
 because he has nothing to say can hardly be a 
 source of inspiration. The only listening that 
 counts is that of the talker who alternately 
 absorbs and expresses ideas. Sainte-Beuve 
 says of Fontenelle that, while he had neither 
 tears nor laughter, he smiled at wit, never inter- 
 rupted, was never excited, nor ever in a hurry 
 to speak. These are endearing traits. They 
 embody much of the art of conversation. But 
 they are as remote from unadorned silence as 
 from unconsidered loquacity. 
 
THE LUXURY OF CONVERSATION 1 
 
 The same distinction may be drawn between 
 the amenity which forbids bickering, and the 
 flabbiness which has neither principles to up- 
 hold, nor arguments with which to uphold 
 them. Hazlitt's counsel, "You should prefer 
 the opinion of the company to your own," is 
 good in the main, but it can easily be pushed 
 too far. Proffered by a man who bristled with 
 opinions which he never wearied of defending, 
 it is perhaps more interesting than persuasive. 
 If everybody floated with the tide of talk, pla- 
 cidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the 
 strong backward stroke which stirs the ripples, 
 and gives animation and variety. "Unison is 
 a quality altogether obnoxious in conversa- 
 tion," said Montaigne, who was at least as 
 tolerant as Hazlitt was combative, but who 
 dearly loved stout words from honest men. 
 Dr. Johnson, we know, was of a similar way 
 of thinking. He scorned polite tepidity; he 
 hated chatter; he loved that unfeeling logic 
 which drives mercilessly to its goal. No man 
 knew better than he the unconvincing na- 
 ture of argument. He had too often thrust 
 his friends from the fortress of sound reason 
 
8 COMPROMISES 
 
 which they were not strong enough to hold. 
 But his talk, for all its aggressiveness, and for 
 all its tendency to negation, was real talk ; not 
 as with Coleridge a monologue, nor 
 as with Maeaulay a lecture. He did not in- 
 fringe upon other people's conversational free- 
 holds, and he was not, be it always remem- 
 bered, anecdotal. The man who lived upon 
 " potted stories " inspired him with righteous 
 antipathy. 
 
 Perhaps the saddest proof of intellectual 
 inertia, of our failure to meet one another with 
 ease and understanding, is the tendency to 
 replace conversation by story-telling. It is no 
 uncommon thing to hear a man praised as a 
 good talker, when he is really a good raconteur. 
 People will speak complacently of a "bril- 
 liant dinner," at which strings of anecdotes, 
 disconnected and illegitimate, have usurped the 
 field, to the total exclusion of ideas. After an 
 entertainment of this order like a feast of 
 buns and barley sugar we retire with men- 
 tal indigestion for a fortnight. That it should 
 be relished betrays the crudeness of social 
 conditions. "Of all the bores," writes De 
 
TEE LUXURY OF CONVERSATION 9 
 
 Quincey with unwonted ill -temper, "whom 
 man in his folly hesitates to hang, and Heaven 
 in its mysterious wisdom suffers to propagate 
 his species, the most insufferable is the teller 
 of good stories." This is a hard saying. The 
 story, like its second cousin the lie, has a 
 sphere of usefulness. It is a help in moments 
 of emergency, and it serves admirably to illus- 
 trate a text. But it is not, and never can be, 
 a substitute for conversation. People equipped 
 with reason, sentiment, and a vocabulary 
 should have something to talk about, some 
 common ground on which they can meet, and 
 penetrate into one another's minds. The ex- 
 quisite pleasure of interchanging ideas, of 
 awakening to suggestions, of finding sympathy 
 and companionship, is as remote from the lan- 
 guid amusement yielded by story-telling as a 
 good play is remote from the bald diversion of 
 the music hall. 
 
 Something to talk about appears to be the 
 first consideration. The choice of a topic, or 
 rather the possession of a topic which will 
 bear analysis and support enthusiasm, is es- 
 sential to the enjoyment of conversation. We 
 
10 COMPROMISES 
 
 cannot go far along a stony track. Diderot 
 observed that whenever he was in the company 
 of men and women who were reading Richard- 
 son's books, either privately or aloud, the talk 
 was sure to be animated and interesting. Some 
 secret springs of emotion were let loose by 
 this great master of sentiment. Our ancestors 
 allowed themselves a wider field of discussion 
 than we are now in the habit of conceding ; 
 but after all, as Stevenson reminds us, " it is 
 not over the virtues of a curate-and-tea-party 
 novel that people are abashed into high reso- 
 lutions." We may not covet Socratic discourses 
 at the dinner table, but neither can we long 
 sustain what has been sadly and significantly 
 called " the burden of conversation " on the 
 lines adopted by William the Fourth, who, 
 when he felt the absolute necessity of saying 
 something, asked the Duke of Devonshire 
 where he meant to be buried. 
 
 The most perfect and pitiful pictures of in- 
 tercourse stripped bare of interest have been 
 given us in Miss Austen's novels. Reading 
 them, we grow sick at heart to think what 
 depths of experience they reflect, what hours of 
 
THE LUXURY OF CONVERSATION 11 
 
 ennui lie back of every page. The conversation 
 of the ladies after Mrs. John Dashwood's din- 
 ner must stand forever as a perfect example 
 of sustained stupidity, of that almost miracu- 
 lous dulness which can be achieved only by 
 "want of sense, want of elegance, want of 
 spirits, and want of temper." Equal to it in 
 its way is the brief description of Lady Mid- 
 dleton's first call upon the Dashwoods. 
 
 " Conversation was not lacking, for Sir 
 John was very chatty, and Lady Middleton 
 had taken the wise precaution of bringing 
 with her their eldest child, a fine little boy 
 about six years old. By this means there was 
 one subject always to be recurred to by the 
 ladies in case of extremity, for they had to en- 
 quire his name and age, admire his beauty, 
 and ask him questions which his mother an- 
 swered for him, while he hung about her and 
 held down his head, to the great surprise of 
 her ladyship, who wondered at his being so 
 shy before company, as he could make noise 
 enough at home. On every formal visit a child 
 ought to be of the party, by way of provision 
 for discourse. In the present case, it took up 
 
12 COMPROMISES 
 
 ten minutes to determine whether the boy 
 were most like his father or mother, and in 
 what particular he resembled either, for of 
 course everybody differed, and everybody was 
 astonished at the opinion of the others." 
 
 How real it is ! How many of us have lived 
 through similar half-hours, veiling with decent 
 melancholy the impetuous protest of our souls ! 
 
 Charles Greville is responsible for the rather 
 unusual statement that a dinner at which all 
 the guests are fools is apt to be as agreeable as 
 a dinner at which all the guests are clever men. 
 The fools, he says, are tolerably sure to be gay, 
 and the clever men are perfectly sure to be 
 heavy. How far the gayety of fools is an enga- 
 ging trait it might be difficult to decide (there 
 is a text which throws some doubt upon the sub- 
 ject), but Greville appears to have suffered a 
 good deal from the ponderous society of the 
 learned. We are struck in the first place by 
 the very serious topics which made the table- 
 talk of his day. Do people now discuss primo- 
 geniture in ancient Rome over their fish and 
 game ? It sounds almost as onerous as the So- 
 cratic discourses. Then again it was his special 
 
THE LUXURY OF CONVERSATION 13 
 
 hardship to listen to the dissertations of Macau- 
 lay, and he resented this infliction with all 
 the ardour of a vain and accomplished man. 
 "Macaulay's astonishing knowledge is every 
 moment exhibited," he writes in his Memoirs, 
 " but he is not agreeable. He has none of the 
 graces of conversation, none of the exquisite 
 tact and refinement which are the result of a 
 felicitous intuition, or of a long acquaintance 
 with good society. . . . His information is 
 more than society requires." 
 
 The last line is a master-stroke of criticism. 
 It embodies all that goes before and all that 
 follows, for Greville airs his grievance at 
 length, and it is admirably illustrated in his 
 account of that famous evening at Holland 
 House, when Lady Holland, in captious mood, 
 rebelled against a course of instruction. Some- 
 body having chanced to mention Sir Thomas 
 Munro, the hostess rashly admitted that she had 
 never heard of him, whereupon Macaulay " ex- 
 plained all he had said, done, written, or thought, 
 and vindicated his claim to the title of a great 
 man, till Lady Holland, getting bored, said she 
 had had enough of Sir Thomas, and would hear 
 
14 COMPROMISES 
 
 no more. This might have dashed and silenced 
 an ordinary talker ; but to Macaulay it was no 
 more than replacing a book upon the shelf, and 
 he was just as ready as ever to open on any other 
 topic." The Fathers of the Church were next 
 discussed (it was not a frivolous company), 
 and Macaulay at once called to mind a sermon 
 of Saint Chrysostom's hi praise of the Bishop 
 of Antioch. " He proceeded to give us the sub- 
 stance of this sermon till Lady Holland got 
 tired of the Fathers, and put her extinguisher 
 on Chrysostom as she had done on Munro. 
 Then with a sort of derision, and as if to have 
 the pleasure of puzzling Macaulay, she turned 
 to him and said : ' Pray what was the origin of 
 a doll ? When were dolls first mentioned in 
 history? ' Macaulay, however, was just as much 
 up in dolls as in the Fathers, and instantly re- 
 plied that the Roman children had their dolls, 
 which they offered to Venus when they grew 
 older. He quoted Persius, 
 
 ' Veneri donatae a virgine puppae,' 
 
 and I have not the least doubt that if he had 
 been allowed to proceed, he would have told 
 
THE LUXURY OF CONVERSATION 15 
 
 us who was the Chenevix of ancient Eome, 
 and the name of the first baby that ever 
 handled a doll." 
 
 This was indeed more information than so- 
 ciety required. It is not surprising that Syd- 
 ney Smith, perhaps the most charming talker 
 of his day, was quickly silenced by such an 
 avalanche of words, and sat mute and limp in 
 the historian's company. Upon one occasion 
 Greville went to visit the Marquis of Lans- 
 downe at Bowood, and found Macaulay among 
 the guests. " It was wonderful how quiet the 
 house seemed after he had gone," comments 
 the diarist grimly, " and it was not less agree- 
 able." 
 
 That a rude invasion of the field is fatal to 
 the enjoyment of intercourse we know from 
 the sentiment of revolt expressed on every 
 side. How little the people who heard Mme. 
 de Stael's brilliant conversation appear to have 
 relished the privilege! Mackintosh admitted 
 that she was agreeable in a tete-a-tete, but too 
 much for a general assembly. Heine hated 
 her, as a hurricane in petticoats. " She hears 
 but little, and never the truth, because she is 
 
16 COMPROMISES 
 
 always talking." Byron, who felt a genuine 
 admiration for her cleverness, and was grate- 
 ful for her steadfast friendship, confessed rue- 
 fully that she overwhelmed him with words, 
 buried him beneath glittering snow and non- 
 sense. The art of being amusing in a lovable 
 way was not hers ; yet this is essentially the 
 art which lifted French conversation to its 
 highest level, which made it famous three 
 hundred years ago, and which has preserved it 
 ever since as a rational and engaging occupa- 
 tion. A page of history lies revealed and elu- 
 cidated in Saint-Simon's little sentence anent 
 Mme. de Maintenon's fashion of speech. " Her 
 language was gentle, exact, well chosen, and 
 naturally eloquent and brief." 
 
 No wonder she reigned long. Eloquent and 
 brief ! What a magnificent " blend " ! How 
 persuasive the " well-chosen " words, immacu- 
 lately free from harsh emphasis and the femi- 
 nine fault of iteration! Who would not be 
 influenced by a woman who talked always well, 
 and never too much ; who, knowing the value 
 of flattery, administered it with tact and moder- 
 ation ; and who shrank instinctively from the 
 
THE LUXURY OF CONVERSATION 17 
 
 exaggerated terms which destroy balance and 
 invite defeat? From the reign of Louis the 
 Fourteenth to the Ee volution, conversation was 
 cultivated in France with intelligent assiduity. 
 Its place in the fabric of civilization was clearly 
 understood. No time was begrudged to its de- 
 velopment, no labour was spared to its perfect- 
 ing. Mr. Henry James is of the opinion that 
 it flowered brilliantly in the middle of the 
 eighteenth century. " This was surely," he 
 says, " in France at least, the age of good so- 
 ciety, the period when the right people made 
 haste to be born in time. The sixty years that 
 preceded the Revolution were the golden age 
 of fireside talk, and of those amenities that 
 are due to the presence of women in whom 
 the social art is both instinctive and acquired. 
 The women of that period were, above all, 
 good company. The fact is attested in a thou- 
 sand documents. Chenonceaux offered a per- 
 fect setting to free conversation ; and infinite 
 joyous discourse must have mingled with the 
 liquid murmur of the Cher." 
 
 " Joyous discourse " is a beguiling phrase. 
 It carries with it the echo of laughter long 
 
18 COMPROMISES 
 
 since silenced, light laughter following the 
 light words, so swiftly spoken, yet so surely 
 placed. The time was coming fast when this 
 smooth graciousness of speech would inspire 
 singular mistrust, and when Rousseau ar- 
 dently embracing nature would write of the 
 " fine and delicate irony called politeness, which 
 gives so much ease and pliability to the inter- 
 course of civilized man, enabling him to as- 
 sume the appearance of every virtue without 
 the reality of one." Later on, illusions being 
 dispelled, the painful discovery was made that 
 the absence of politeness does not necessarily 
 imply the presence of virtue, and that taci- 
 turnity may be wholly disassociated with the 
 truth. We owe to one another all the wit and 
 good humour we can command ; and nothing 
 so clears our mental vistas as sympathetic and 
 intelligent conversation. It can never languish 
 in an age like ours, teeming with new in- 
 terests widely shared, and with new wonders 
 widely known. We must talk, because we have 
 so much to talk about ; and we ought to talk 
 well, because our inspirations are of a noble 
 order. Each new discovery made by science, 
 
THE LUXURY OF CONVERSATION 19 
 
 each fresh emotion awakened by contempora- 
 neous history, each successive pleasure yielded 
 by literature or by art is a spur to rational 
 speech. These things are our common heritage, 
 and we share them in common, through the 
 medium of the aptly spoken word. 
 
THE GAYETY OF LIFE 
 
 Grief is the sister of doubt and ill-temper, and, beyond 
 all spirits, destroyeth man. Shepherd of Hermas. 
 
 IN the beginning of the last century an in- 
 genious gentleman, Mr. James Beresford, Fel- 
 low of Merton College, Oxford, diverted himself 
 and let us hope his friends, by drawing 
 up and publishing an exhaustive list of the 
 minor miseries of life. It is a formidable 
 document, realistic in character, and ill calcu- 
 lated to promote the spirit of content. No one 
 would ever imagine that so many disagreeable 
 things could happen in the ordinary course of 
 existence, until the possibilities of each and 
 every one are plainly and pitilessly defined. 
 Some of these possibilities have passed away 
 in the hundred years that lie between King 
 George's day and ours ; but others remain for 
 our better discipline and subjection. Political 
 discussions at the dinner-table rank high among 
 Mr. Beresford's grievances ; also weak tea, 
 " an infusion of balm, sage, and rosemary," he 
 
THE GAYETY OF LIFE 21 
 
 calls it, and "being expected to be interested 
 in a baby." 
 
 A great deal of modern literature, and not 
 a little modern conversation, closely resemble 
 this unhappy gentleman's " black list." There 
 is the same earnest desire to point out what 
 we would rather not observe. Life is so full 
 of miseries, minor and major ; they press so 
 close upon us at every step of the way, that it 
 is hardly worth while to call one another's at- 
 tention to their presence. People who do this 
 thing on a more imposing scale than Mr. 
 Beresford are spoken of respectfully as " un- 
 faltering disciples of truth," or as " incapable 
 of childish self-delusion," or as " looking with 
 clear eyes into life's bitter mysteries ; " whereas 
 in reality they are merely dwelling on the 
 obvious, and the obvious is the one thing not 
 worth consideration. We are all painfully 
 aware of the seamy side, because we are 
 scratched by the seams. What we want to 
 contemplate is the beauty and the smoothness 
 of that well-ordered plan which it is so difficult 
 for us to discern. When Burke counselled a 
 grave and anxious gentleman to " live pleas- 
 
22 COMPROMISES 
 
 ant," he was turning him aside from the ordi- 
 nary aspects of existence. 
 
 There is a charming and gracious dogma 
 of Roman Catholicism which would have us 
 believe that all good deeds and holy prayers 
 make up a spiritual treasury, a public fund, 
 from which are drawn consolation for the 
 church suffering, and strength for the church 
 militant. A similar treasury (be it reverently 
 spoken) holds for us all the stored-up laughter 
 of the world, and from it comes human help 
 in hours of black dejection. Whoever enriches 
 this exchequer should be held a benefactor of 
 his race. Whoever robs it no matter what 
 heroic motives he may advance in extenuation 
 of the deed has sinned heavily against his 
 fellow men. For the gayety of life, like the 
 -beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving 
 grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy 
 is crime. There is no more than we need, 
 there is barely enough to go round. If we 
 waste our little share, if we extinguish our lit- 
 tle light, the treasury is that much poorer, 
 and our neighbour walks in gloom. 
 
 The thinkers of the world should by rights 
 
THE GAYETY OF LIFE 23 
 
 be the guardians of the world's mirth; but 
 thinking is a sorry business, and a period of 
 critical reflection, following a period of vigor- 
 ous and engrossing activity, is apt to breed 
 the " plaintive pessimist," whose self-satisfac- 
 tion is disproportionate to his worth. Litera- 
 ture, we are assured by its practitioners, " ex- 
 ists to please ; " but it has some doubtful 
 methods of imparting pleasure. If, indeed, we 
 sit down to read books on degeneracy and 
 kindred topics, we have no reason to com- 
 plain of what we find in them. It is not 
 through such gates as these that we seek an 
 escape from mortality. But why should poets 
 and essayists and novelists be so determin- 
 edly depressing? Why should "the earnest 
 prophetic souls who tear the veil from our 
 illusory national prosperity " I quote from 
 a recent review be so warmly praised for 
 their vandalism ? Heaven knows they are al- 
 ways tearing the veil from something, until 
 there is hardly a rag left for decency. Yet 
 there are few nudities so objectionable as the 
 naked truth. Granted that our habit of exag- 
 gerating the advantages of modern civilization 
 
24 COMPROMISES 
 
 and of modern culture does occasionally pro- 
 voke and excuse plain speaking, there is no 
 need of a too merciless exposure, a too insulting 
 refutation of these agreeable fallacies. If we 
 think ourselves well off, we are well off. If, 
 dancing in chains, we believe ourselves free, we 
 are free, and he is not our benefactor who weighs 
 our shackles. Reformers have unswervingly 
 and unpityingly decreased the world's content 
 that they might better the world's condition. 
 The first part of their task is quickly done. 
 The second halts betimes. Count Tolstoi has, 
 with the noblest intentions, made many a light 
 step heavy, and many a gay heart sad. 
 
 As for poets and novelists, their sin is un- 
 provoked and unpardonable. Story-telling is 
 not a painful duty. It is an art which, in its 
 best development, adds immeasurably to the 
 conscious pleasure of life. It is an anodyne in 
 hours of suffering, a rest in hours of weariness, 
 and a stimulus in hours of health and joyous 
 activity. It can be made a vehicle for impart- 
 ing instruction, for destroying illusions, and 
 for dampening high spirits ; but these results, 
 though well thought of in our day, are not 
 
THE GAYETY OF LIFE 25 
 
 essential to success. Want and disease are 
 mighty factors in life ; but they have never 
 yet inspired a work of art. The late Professor 
 Boyesen has indeed recorded his unqualified 
 delight at the skill with which Russian novel- 
 ists describe the most unpleasant maladies. 
 He said enthusiastically that, after reading 
 one of these masterpieces, he felt himself 
 developing some of the very symptoms which 
 had been so accurately portrayed ; but to many 
 readers this would be scant recommendation. 
 It is not symptoms we seek in stories. The 
 dullest of us have imagination enough to in- 
 vent them for ourselves. 
 
 "Poverty," said old Robert Burton, "is a 
 most odious calling," and it has not grown any 
 more enjoyable in the past three hundred years. 
 Nothing is less worth while than to idealize its 
 discomforts, unless it be to sourly exaggerate 
 them. There is no life so hard as to be without 
 compensations, especially for those who take 
 short views ; and the view of poverty seldom 
 goes beyond the needs of the hour and their 
 fulfilment. But there has arisen of late years 
 a school of writers for the most part Eng- 
 
26 COMPROMISES 
 
 lish, though we have our representatives 
 who paint realistically the squalor and wretch- 
 edness of penury, without admitting into their 
 pictures one ray of the sunshine that must 
 sometimes gild the dreariest hovel or the 
 meanest street. A notable example of this 
 black art was Mr. George Gissing, whose 
 novels are too powerful to be ignored, and too 
 depressing to be forgotten. The London of the 
 poor is not a cheerful place ; it is perhaps the 
 most cheerless place in Christendom ; but this 
 is the way it appeared in Mr. Gissing's eyes 
 when he was compelled to take a suburban 
 train : 
 
 " Over the pest-stricken region of East 
 London, sweltering in sunlight which served 
 only to reveal the^ intimacies of abomination ; 
 across miles of a city of the damned, such as 
 thought never conceived before this age of 
 ours ; above streets swarming with a nameless 
 populace, cruelly exposed by the unwonted 
 light of heaven ; stopping at stations which 
 it crushes the heart to think should be the 
 destination of any mortal, the train made 
 its way at length beyond the outmost limits of 
 
THE GAYETY OF LIFE 27 
 
 dread, and entered upon a land of level mead- 
 ows, of hedges and trees, of crops and cattle." 
 
 Surely this is a trifle strained. The " name- 
 less populace " would be not a little surprised 
 to hear itself described with such dark elo- 
 quence. I remember once encountering in a 
 third-class English railway carriage a butcher- 
 boy he confided to me his rank and profes- 
 sion who waxed boastful over the size and 
 wealth of London. " It 's the biggest city in 
 the world, that 's wot it is ; it 's got five mil- 
 lions of people in it, that 's wot it 's got ; and 
 I 'm a Londoner, that 's wot I am," he said, 
 glowing with pride that was not without 
 merit in one of mean estate. The " city of the 
 damned" appeared a city of the gods to this 
 young son of poverty. 
 
 Such books sin against the gayety of life. 
 
 All the earth round, 
 If a man bear to have it so, 
 Things which might vex him shall be found ; 
 
 and there is no form of sadness more wasteful 
 than that which is bred of a too steadfast 
 consideration of pain. It is not generosity of 
 spirit which feeds this mood. The sorrowful 
 
28 COMPROMISES 
 
 acceptance of life's tragedies is of value only 
 when it prompts us to guard more jealously, 
 or to impart more freely, life's manifold bene- 
 factions. Mr. Pater has subtly defined the 
 mental attitude which is often mistaken for 
 sympathy, but which is a mere ineffectual 
 yielding to depression over the sunless scenes 
 of earth. 
 
 " He " Carl of Rosenmold " had fits of 
 the gloom of other people, their dull passage 
 through and exit from the world, the threadbare 
 incidents of their lives, their dismal funerals, 
 which, unless he drove them away immediately 
 by strenuous exercise, settled into a gloom more 
 properly his own. Yet, at such times, outward 
 things would seem to concur unkindly in deep- 
 ening the mental shadows about him." 
 
 This is precisely the temper which finds ex- 
 pression in much modern verse. Its perpetra- 
 tors seem wrapped in endless contemplation of 
 other people's gloom, until, having absorbed all 
 they can hold, they relieve their oppressed souls 
 by unloading it in song. Women are espe- 
 cially prone to mournful measures, and I am 
 not without sympathy for that petulant English 
 
THE GAYETY OF LIFE 29 
 
 critic who declined to read their poetry on the 
 plea that it was " all dirges." But men can be 
 mourners, too, and 
 
 In all the endless road you tread 
 There 's nothing but the night, 
 
 is too often the burden of their verse, the unso- 
 licited assurance with which they cheer us on 
 our way. We do not believe them, of course, 
 except in moments of dejection ; but these are 
 just the moments in which we would like to 
 hear something different. When our share of 
 gayety is running pitifully low, and the sparks 
 of joy are dying on life's hearth, we have no 
 courage to laugh down the voices of those who, 
 " wilfully living in sadness, speak but the truths 
 thereof." 
 
 Hazlitt, who was none too happy, but who 
 strove manfully for happiness, used to say that 
 he felt a deeper obligation to Northcote than to 
 any of his other friends who had done him far 
 greater service, because Northcote's conversa- 
 tion was invariably gay and agreeable. " I never 
 ate nor drank with him ; but I have lived on 
 his words with undiminished relish ever since 
 I can remember 5 and when I leave him, I come 
 
30 COMPROMISES 
 
 out into the street with feelings lighter and 
 more ethereal than I have at any other time." 
 Here is a debt of friendship worth recording, 
 and blither hearts than Hazlitt's have treasured 
 similar benefactions. Mr. Robert Louis Ste- 
 venson gladly acknowledged his gratitude to 
 people who set him smiling when they came his 
 way, or who smiled themselves from sheer cheer- 
 fulness of heart. They never knew not pos- 
 ing as philanthropists how far they helped 
 him on his road ; but he knew, and has thanked 
 them in words not easily forgotten : 
 
 " There is no duty we so much underrate as 
 the duty of being happy. By being happy we 
 sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which 
 remain unknown even to ourselves, or, when 
 they are disclosed, surprise nobody so much as 
 the benefactor. ... A happy man or woman 
 is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. 
 He or she is a radiating focus of good-will; 
 and their entrance into a room is as though 
 another candle had been lighted." 
 
 There is little doubt that the somewhat in- 
 discriminate admiration lavished upon Mr. Ste- 
 venson himself was due less to his literary than 
 
THE GAYETY OF LIFE 31 
 
 to his personal qualities. People loved him, not 
 because he was an admirable writer, but because 
 he was a cheerful consumptive. There has been 
 far too much said about his ill health, and no- 
 thing is so painful to contemplate as the lack 
 of reserve on the part of relatives and executors 
 which thrusts every detail of a man's life be- 
 fore the public eye. It provokes maudlin senti- 
 ment on the one side, and ungracious asperity 
 on the other. But, in Mr. Stevenson's case, 
 silence is hard to keep. He was a sufferer who 
 for many years increased the gayety of life. 
 
 Genius alone can do this on a large scale ; 
 but everybody can do it on a little one. Our 
 safest guide is the realization of a hard truth, 
 that we are not privileged to share our 
 troubles with other people. If we could make 
 up our minds to spare our friends all details 
 of ill health, of money losses, of domestic an- 
 noyances, of altercations, of committee work, 
 of grievances, provocations, and anxieties, we 
 should sin less against the world's good-humour. 
 It may not be given us to add to the treasury of 
 mirth ; but there is considerable merit in not 
 robbing it. I have read that " the most objec- 
 
32 COMPROMISES 
 
 tionable thing in the American manner is exces- 
 sive cheerfulness," and I would like to believe 
 that so pardonable a fault is the worst we have 
 to show. It is not our mission to depress, and 
 one recalls with some satisfaction Saint-Simon's 
 remark anent Madame de Maintenon, whom he 
 certainly did not love. Courtiers less astute 
 wondered at the enduring charm which this mid- 
 dle-aged woman, neither handsome nor witty, 
 had for her royal husband. Saint-Simon held 
 the clue. It was her " decorous gayety " which 
 soothed Louis's tired heart. " She so governed 
 her humours that, at all times and under all 
 circumstances, she preserved her cheerfulness 
 of demeanour." 
 
 There is little profit in asking ourselves or 
 others whether life be a desirable possession. 
 It is thrust upon us, without concurrence on our 
 part. Unless we can abolish compulsory birth, 
 our relish for the situation is not a controlling 
 force. " Every child," we are told, " is sent to 
 school a hundred years before he is born ; " but 
 he can neither profit by his schooling nor re- 
 fuse his degree. Here we are in a world which 
 holds much pain and many pleasures, oceans of 
 
THE GAYETY OF LIFE 33 
 
 tears and echoes of laughter. Our position is 
 not without dignity, because we can endure ; 
 and not without enjoyment, because we can be 
 merry. Gayety, to be sure, requires as much 
 courage as endurance ; but without courage the 
 battle of life is lost. " To reckon dangers too 
 curiously, to hearken too intently for the threat 
 that runs through all the winning music of the 
 world, to hold back the hand from the rose be- 
 cause of the thorn, and from life because of 
 death, this is to be afraid of Pan." 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 Look contentedly upon the scattered difference of things. 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
 FICTION is the only field in which women 
 started abreast with men, and have not lagged 
 far behind. Their success, though in no wise 
 brilliant, has been sufficiently assured to call 
 forth a vast deal of explanation from male 
 critics, who deem it necessary to offer reasons 
 for what is not out of reason, to elucidate 
 what can never be a mystery. Not very many 
 years ago a contributor to the " Westminster 
 Review " asserted seriously that " the greater 
 affectionateness " of women enabled them to 
 write stories, and that " the domestic experi- 
 ences, which form the bulk of their know- 
 ledge, find an appropriate place in novels. 
 The very nature of fiction calls for that pre- 
 dominanee of sentiment which befits the femi- 
 nine mind." 
 
 It is not easy, however, to account for Miss 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 35 
 
 Austen and Miss Bronte, for George Eliot 
 and George Sand, on the score of " affection- 
 ateness " and domesticity. The quality of their 
 work has won for them and for their succes- 
 sors the privilege of being judged by men's 
 standards, and of being forever exempt from 
 that fatal word, " considering." All that is 
 left of the half -gallant, half -condescending tone 
 with which critics indulgently praised " Eve- 
 lina " is a well-defined and clearly expressed 
 sentiment in favour of women's heroines, and a 
 corresponding reluctance on the part of men 
 at least to tolerate their heroes. Mr. Hen- 
 ley voiced the convictions of his sex when he 
 declared his readiness to accept, " with the 
 humility of ignorance, and something of the 
 learner's gratitude," all of George Eliot's 
 women, " from Romola down to Mrs. Pullet " 
 (up to Mrs. Pullet, one would rather say), 
 and his lively mistrust of the " governesses in 
 revolt," whom it has pleased her to call men. 
 Heroes of the divided skirt, every one of them, 
 was his verdict. Deronda, an incarnation of 
 woman's rights. Tito, an improper female in 
 breeches. Silas Marner, a good, perplexed old 
 
36 COMPROMISES 
 
 maid. Lydgate alone has " aught of the true 
 male principle about him." 
 
 This is a matter worthy of regard, because 
 the charm of a novel is based largely upon 
 the attraction its hero has for women, and its 
 heroine for men. Incident, dialogue, the de- 
 velopment of minor characters, these things 
 have power to please; but the enduring tri- 
 umph of a story depends upon the depth of 
 our infatuation for somebody that figures in 
 it, and here, as elsewhere, the instinct of sex 
 reigns supreme. Why is it impossible for a 
 man, who is not an artist or an art-critic, to 
 acknowledge that the great portraits of the 
 world are men's portraits? Because he has 
 given his heart to Mona Lisa, or to Rembrandt's 
 Saskia, or to some other beauty, dead and gone. 
 Why do we find in the Roman Catholic Church 
 that it is invariably a man who expounds the 
 glory of Saint Theresa, and a woman who 
 piously supplicates Saint Anthony ? The same 
 rule holds good in fiction. Clarissa Harlowe has 
 been loved as ardently as Helen of Troy. Mr. 
 Saintsbury gives charming expression to this 
 truth in his preface to " Pride and Prejudice." 
 
TEE POINT OF VIEW 37 
 
 " In the novels of the last hundred years," 
 he says, "there are vast numbers of young 
 ladies with whom it might be a pleasure to fall 
 in love ; there are at least five with whom, as 
 it seems to me, no man of taste and spirit can 
 help doing so. Their names are, in chrono- 
 logical order, Elizabeth Bennet, Diana Vernon, 
 Argemone Lavington, Beatrix Esmond, and 
 Barbara Grant. I should have been most in 
 love with Beatrix and Argemone ; I should, I 
 think, for mere occasional companionship, have 
 preferred Diana and Barbara Grant. But to 
 live with and to marry, I do not know that 
 any one of the four can come into competition 
 with Elizabeth." 
 
 This choice little literary seraglio is by no 
 means the only one selected with infinite care 
 by critics too large-minded for monogamy, 
 while passions more exclusive burn with in- 
 tenser flame. Of Beatrix Esmond it might be 
 said that Thackeray was the only man who 
 never succumbed to her charms. Women have 
 been less wont to confess their infatuations, 
 perhaps for lack of opportunity, but they 
 have cherished in their hearts a long succession 
 
38 COMPROMISES 
 
 of fictitious heroes, most of them eminently un- 
 worthy of regard. We know how they puzzled 
 and distressed poor Richardson by their pre- 
 ference for that unpardonable villain, Lovelace, 
 whom honest men loathe. Even in these chill 
 and seemly days they seek some semblance of 
 brutality. The noble, self -abnegating hero has 
 little chance with them. The perplexed hero 
 has even less. It is a significant circumstance 
 that, of all the characters upon whom Mrs. 
 Humphry Ward has lavished her careful art, 
 Helbeck of Bannisdale, who does n't know the 
 meaning of perplexity, and who has no weak 
 tolerance for other people's views, makes the 
 sharpest appeal to feminine taste. But mascu- 
 line taste rejects him. 
 
 Rejects him, not more sharply, perhaps, 
 than it is wont to reject any type of manhood 
 put forward urgently by a woman. There was 
 a time when Rochester was much in vogue, and 
 girls young enough to cherish illusions wove 
 them radiantly around that masterful lover 
 who wooed in the fashion of the Conqueror. 
 But men looked ever askance upon his vol- 
 canic energies and emotions. They failed to 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 39 
 
 see any charm in his rudeness, and they re- 
 sented his lack of retenue. Robust candour is 
 a quality which civilization working in the 
 interests of both sexes has wisely thought 
 fit to discard. Even Mr. Birrell, who is dis- 
 posed to leniency where Charlotte Bronte's art 
 is concerned, admits that while Rochester is 
 undeniably masculine, and not a governess in 
 revolt, he is yet " man described by woman," 
 studied from the outside by one who could only 
 surmise. And of the fierce and adorable little 
 professor, the " sallow tiger " who is the crown- 
 ing achievement of " Villette," he has still 
 more serious doubts. " Some good critics there 
 are who stick to it that in his heart of hearts 
 Paul Emanuel was a woman." 
 
 Does this mean that femininity, backed by 
 genius, cannot grasp the impalpable something 
 which is the soul and essence of masculinity? 
 Because then it follows that masculinity, backed 
 by genius, cannot grasp the impalpable some- 
 thing which is the soul and essence of femi- 
 ninity. Such a limitation has never yet been 
 recognized and deplored. On the contrary, 
 there are novelists, like Mr. Hardy, and Mr. 
 
40 COMPROMISES 
 
 George Meredith, and Mr. Henry James, who 
 are considered to know a great deal more 
 about women than women know about them- 
 selves, and to be able to give the sex some 
 valuable points for its own enlightenment. 
 Just as Luini and Leonardo da Vinci are be- 
 lieved to have grasped the subtleties hidden 
 deep in the female heart, and to have betrayed 
 them upon their imperishable canvases in a 
 lurking smile or a gleam from half-shut eyes, 
 so Mr. Meredith and Mr. James are believed 
 to have betrayed these feminine secrets in the 
 ruthless pages of their novels. Mr. Boyesen, 
 for example, did not hesitate to say that no 
 woman could have drawn a character like 
 Diana of the Crossways, and endowed her with 
 " that nameless charm," because " the senti- 
 ment that feels and perceives it is wholly 
 masculine." Why should not this rule work 
 both ways, and a nameless charm be given to 
 some complex and veracious hero, because the 
 sentiment that feels and perceives it is wholly 
 feminine? Mrs. Humphry Ward strove for 
 just such a triumph in her portrait of Edward 
 Manisty, but she strove in vain. Yet if the 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 41 
 
 attraction of one sex for the other be mutual, 
 why should it enlighten the man and confuse 
 the woman ? Or is this enlightenment less pen- 
 etrating than it appears ? Perhaps a rare per- 
 fection in recognizing and reproducing detail 
 may be mistaken for a firm grasp upon the 
 whole. 
 
 Certain it is that if men have looked with 
 skepticism at the types of manhood presented 
 with so much ardour by female novelists, if 
 they have voted Rochester a brute, and Mr. 
 Knightley a prig, and Robert Elsmere a bore, 
 and Deronda " an intolerable kind of Grandi- 
 son," women in their turn have evinced 
 resentment, or at least impatience, at the atti- 
 tude of heroines so sweetly glorified by men. 
 Lady Castlewood is a notable example. How 
 kindly Thackeray who is not always kind 
 treats this " tender matron," this " fair mis- 
 tress " of the admirable Esmond ! What plea- 
 sant adjectives, " gentlest," " truest," " loveli- 
 est," he has ever ready at her service ! How 
 frankly he forgives faults more endearing 
 than virtues to the masculine mind ! " It takes 
 a man," we are told, " to forgive Lady Castle- 
 
42 COMPROMISES 
 
 wood." She is the finest and most reverent 
 incarnation of what men conceive to be purely 
 feminine traits. In a world that belongs to its 
 masters, she is an exquisite appurtenance, a 
 possession justly prized. In a world shared 
 albeit somewhat unevenly by men and 
 women, she seems less good and gracious. 
 " I always said I was alone," cries Beatrix 
 sternly. " You were jealous of me from the 
 time I sat on my father's knee." And the 
 child's eyes saw the truth. 
 
 It has been claimed, and perhaps with jus- 
 tice, that the irritation provoked by Thackeray's 
 virtuous heroines is born of wounded vanity. 
 Mr. Lang observes that women easily pardon 
 Becky Sharp and Blanche Amory, but never 
 Amelia Sedley nor Laura Pendennis. For the 
 matter of that, men easily pardon Mr. Collins 
 and Mr. Elton. They do more than pardon, 
 they delight in these incomparable clerics, and 
 they adore Miss Austen for having created 
 them. Mr. Saintsbury vows that Mr. Collins 
 is worthy of Fielding or Swift. But their sen- 
 timents towards the excellent Edmund Bertram, 
 who is all that a parson should be, are not 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 43 
 
 wholly unlike the sentiments of women towards 
 Amelia Sedley, who is all that a wife and a 
 mother should be ; nor are they ready to admit 
 that Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightley are worthy 
 of Elizabeth and Emma. Lord Brabourne has 
 recorded a distinct prejudice against Mr. 
 Knightley, on the ground that he interferes too 
 much ; yet it is plain that Miss Austen con- 
 sidered this interference as a masculine prerog- 
 ative, exercised with judgment and discretion. 
 He is what women call " a thorough man," just 
 as Amelia is what men call " a thorough wo- 
 man." Mr. Lang bravely confesses his affec- 
 tion for her on this very score : " She is such a 
 thorough woman." It evidently does not occur 
 to him to doubt Thackeray's knowledge, or 
 his own knowledge, of the sex. 
 
 Around Fielding's heroines the battle has 
 raged for years. These kind-hearted, sweet- 
 tempered creatures have been very charming 
 in men's eyes. Scott loved Sophia Western as 
 if she had been his own daughter, he would 
 have treated her differently, and took espe- 
 cial pleasure in her music, in the way she 
 soothed her father to sleep after dinner with 
 
44 COMPROMISES 
 
 " Saint George, he is for England." Sir Walter 
 and Squire Western had a stirring taste in 
 songs. Dr. Johnson gave his allegiance without 
 reserve to Fielding's Amelia. He read the in- 
 ordinately long novel which bears her name at 
 a single sitting, and he always honoured her as 
 the best and loveliest of her sex, this, too, at 
 a time when Clarissa held the hearts of Chris- 
 tendom in her keeping. Amelia Booth, like 
 Amelia Sedley, is a " thorough woman ; " that 
 is, she embodies all the characteristics which 
 the straightforward vice of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury conceived to be virtues in her sex, and 
 which provoke the envious admiration of our 
 own less candid age. "Fair, and kind, and 
 good," so runs the verdict. " What more can 
 be desired ? " And the impatient retort of the 
 feminine reader, " No more, but possibly a little 
 less," offends the critic's ear. " Where can you 
 find among the genteel writers of this age," asks 
 Mr. Lang hotly, " a figure more beautiful, ten- 
 der, devoted, and, in all good ways, womanly, 
 than Sophia Western ? " " The adorable So- 
 phia," Mr. Austin Dobson calls her, " pure 
 and womanly, in spite of her unfavourable sur- 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 45 
 
 roundings." Womanliness is the one trait about 
 which they are all cock-sure. It is the question 
 at issue, and cannot be lightly begged. But 
 Sophia's strongest plea is the love Sir Walter 
 gave her. 
 
 For Scott, though most of his young heroines 
 are drawn in a perfunctory and indifferent fash- 
 ion mere incentives to enterprise or rewards 
 of valour knew something of the quicksands 
 beyond. He made little boast of this know- 
 ledge, frankly preferring the ways of men, 
 about whom there was plenty to be told, and 
 whose motives never needed a too assiduous an- 
 alysis. Mr. Ruskin, it is true, pronounced all 
 the women of the Waverley Novels to be finer 
 than the men ; but he was arguing on purely 
 ethical grounds. He liked the women better 
 because they were better, not because their 
 goodness was truer to life. He was incapable 
 of judging any work, literary or artistic, by 
 purely critical standards. He had praise for 
 Rose Bradwardine, and Catherine Seyton, and 
 Alice Lee, because they are such well-behaved 
 young ladies ; he excluded from his list of he- 
 roines Lucy Ashton, who stands forever as a 
 
46 COMPROMISES 
 
 proof of her author's power to probe a woman's 
 soul. Scott did not care to do this thing. The 
 experiment was too painful for his hands. But 
 critics who talk about the subtleties of mod- 
 ern novelists, as compared with Sir Walter's 
 " frank simplicity," patronizing phrase ! 
 have forgotten " The Bride of Lammermoor." 
 There is nothing more artistic within the whole 
 range of fiction than our introduction to Lucy 
 Ashton, when the doomed girl as yet unseen 
 is heard singing those curious and haunting 
 lines which reveal to us at once the struggle 
 that awaits her, and her helplessness to meet 
 and conquer fate. 
 
 There are fashions in novel-writing, as in 
 all things else, and a determined effort to be 
 analytic is imposing enough to mislead. We 
 usually detect this effort when men are writ- 
 ing of women, and when women are writing 
 of men. The former seek to be subtle ; the 
 latter seek to be strong. Both are deter- 
 mined to reveal something which is not always 
 a recognizable revelation. In the earlier " nov- 
 els of character " there is none of this delicate 
 surgery. Fielding took his material as he 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 47 
 
 found it, and so did Miss Austen. She painted 
 her portraits with absolute truthfulness, but 
 she never struggled for insight ; above all she 
 never struggled for insight into masculinity. 
 She knew her men as well as any author needs 
 to know them ; but her moments of illumina- 
 tion, of absolute intimacy, were for women. It 
 is in such a moment that Emma Woodhouse 
 realizes, " with the speed of an arrow," that Mr. 
 Knightley must marry no one but herself. 
 
 There is nothing " subtle " in this ; nothing 
 that at all resembles Mr. Hardy's careful ex- 
 plorations into the intricacies of a character 
 like Eustacia Vye, in " The Return of the Na- 
 tive." There is nothing of Mr. James's artful- 
 ness, nothing of Mr. Meredith's daring. These 
 two eminent novelists are past masters of their 
 craft. They present their heroines as interest- 
 ing puzzles to which they alone hold the key. 
 They keep us in a state of suspense from chap- 
 ter to chapter, and they too often baffle our 
 curiosity in the end. The treatment of Miriam 
 Eooth, in " The Tragic Muse," is a triumph 
 of ingenuity. " What do you think of her ? " 
 " What can you make out of her ? " " What 
 
48 CO.WPROMISES 
 
 is she now, and what is she going to be ? " are 
 the unasked, and certainly unanswerable, ques- 
 tions suggested by every phase of this young 
 woman's development. The bewildered reader, 
 unable to formulate a theory, unable to make 
 even a feeble conjecture, is much impressed 
 by the problem laid before him, and by the 
 acuteness of the author who deciphers it. If 
 to evolve a sphinx and to answer her riddle is 
 to interpret femininity, then there are modern 
 novelists who have entered upon their king- 
 dom. But one remembers Rochefoucauld's wise 
 words : " The greatest mistake of penetration 
 is, not to have fallen short, but to have gone 
 too far." 
 
MARRIAGE IN FICTION 
 
 They fought bitter and regular, like man and wife. 
 
 SINCE the days of Richardson and Fielding, 
 English novelists have devoted themselves with 
 tireless energy to the pleasant task of match- 
 making. They have held this duty to be of 
 such paramount importance that much of their 
 work has practically no other raison d'etre. 
 They write their stories so far as we can 
 see solely and entirely that they may bring 
 two wavering young people to the altar ; and 
 they leave us stranded at the church doors in 
 lamentable ignorance of all that is to follow. 
 Thackeray once asked Alexandre Dumas why 
 he did not take up the real history of other 
 people's heroes and heroines, and tell the 
 world what their married lives were like. 
 
 It would have been a perilous enterprise, 
 for, notwithstanding two centuries of practice, 
 novelists are astonishingly bad match-makers. 
 We know what happened when Thackeray 
 
50 COMPROMISES 
 
 himself undertook to continue the tale of 
 Ivanhoe and Rowena, whom Scott abandoned 
 to their fate, with merely a gentle hint of some 
 mental deviations on the bridegroom's part. 
 Sir Walter, indeed, always shook hands with 
 his young couples on their wedding-day, and 
 left them to pull through as best they could. 
 Their courtships and their marriages inter- 
 ested him less than other things he wanted to 
 write about, sieges and tournaments, crimi- 
 nal trials, and sour Scottish saints. He had 
 lived his own life bravely and happily without 
 his heart's desire ; he believed that it was the 
 fate of most men to do the same ; and he clung 
 stoutly to Dryden's axiom : 
 
 Secrets of marriage still are sacred held, 
 
 Their sweet and bitter from the world concealed. 
 
 In real life this admirable reticence is a 
 thing of the past; but the novelist, for the 
 most part, holds his peace, leaving his readers 
 a prey to melancholy doubts and misgivings. 
 
 The English-speaking novelist only. In 
 French fiction, as Mr. Lang points out, " love 
 comes after marriage punctually enough, but 
 it is always love for another." The inevitable- 
 
MARRIAGE IN FICTION 51 
 
 ness of the issue startles and dismays an Eng- 
 lish reader, accustomed to yawn gently over 
 the innocent prenuptial dallyings of Saxon 
 man and maid. The French story-writer can- 
 not and does not ignore his social code which 
 urbanely limits courtship. When he describes 
 a girl's dawning sentiment, he does so often 
 with exquisite grace and delicacy ; but he re- 
 serves his portrayal of the master passion 
 until maturity gives it strength, and circum- 
 stances render it unlawful. His conception of 
 his art imposes no scruple which can impede 
 analysis. If an English novelist ventures to 
 treat of illicit love, the impression he gives is 
 of a blind, almost mechanical force, operating 
 against rather than in unison with natural 
 laws. Those normal but most repellent as- 
 pects of the case, which the Frenchman treats 
 openly and exhaustively, the Englishman ig- 
 nores or rejects. His theory of civilization is 
 built up largely and wisely on suppres- 
 sion. 
 
 But why should the sentiment or passion 
 of love be the chosen theme of story-writers, 
 to the practical exclusion of other interests? 
 
52 . COMPROMISES 
 
 Why should it be the central point around 
 which their tales revolve? When we look 
 about us in the world we know, we cannot 
 think that love is taking up much time and 
 attention in people's lives. It dominates glori- 
 ously for a brief period, or for brief periods, 
 and then makes way for other engrossing 
 influences. Its might and authority are recog- 
 nized ; but the recognition does not imply 
 constant concern. The atmosphere of life is 
 not surcharged with emotion, as is the atmo- 
 sphere of fiction. Society is not composed of 
 young men and women falling madly but vir- 
 tuously in love with one another, nor of mar- 
 ried men and women doing the same thing on 
 less legitimate lines. 
 
 To these rational arguments, which have 
 been urged by restless critics before now, M. 
 Paul Bourget makes answer that novelists 
 deal with love because, under its white heat, 
 all characteristics become more vividly alive, 
 and are brought more actively and more 
 luminously into play. Man is never so self- 
 revealing as when consumed by passion. We 
 see into his heart, only when it is lit by the 
 
MARRIAGE JN FICTION 53 
 
 flame of desire. Moreover, love being natural, 
 and in a manner inevitable, there is not in 
 treating of it that suggestion of artifice which 
 chills our faith in most of the incidents of 
 fiction. 
 
 But is the man whom we see revealed 
 by the light of love the real man ? Can we, 
 after this transient illumination, say safely to 
 ourselves, " We know him well " ? Is it his 
 true and human self, son naturel, to use an 
 admirable old French phrase, which is both 
 quickened and betrayed by passion ? Putting 
 cynicism aside, rejecting Lord Bacon's dictum, 
 " Love is a nuisance, and an impediment to 
 important action," we are still doubtful as to 
 the value of traits studied under these power- 
 ful but perishable conditions. It is not what a 
 man does when he is in love, but what he does 
 when he is out of love (Philip drunk to Philip 
 sober) which counts for characterization. That 
 pleasant old romancer, Maistro Rusticiano di 
 Pisa, tells us that a courtier once asked Char- 
 lemagne whether he held King Meliadus or 
 his son Tristan to be the better man. To this 
 question the Emperor made wise reply : " King 
 
54 COMPROMISES 
 
 Meliadus was the better man, and I will tell 
 you why. As far as I can see, everything that 
 Tristan did was done for love, and his great 
 feats would never have been done, save under 
 the constraint of love, which was his spur and 
 goad. Now this same thing can never be said 
 of King Meliadus. For what deeds he did, he 
 did them, not by dint of love, but by dint of 
 his strong right arm. Purely out of his own 
 goodness he did good, and not by constraint 
 of love." 
 
 It is this element of coercion which gives us 
 pause. Not out of his own goodness, nor out 
 of his own badness, does the lover act ; but 
 goaded onward by a force too impetuous for 
 resistance. When this force is spent, then we 
 can test the might of his " strong right arm." 
 Who that has read it can forget the matchless 
 paragraph of adjectives in which the Ettrick 
 Shepherd contrasts the glowing deceits of 
 courtship with the sober sincerities of married 
 life ? " Love," he sighs, " is a saf t, sweet, 
 bright, balmy, triumphant, and glorious lie, in 
 place of which nature offers us in mockery 
 during a' the rest o' our lives the puir, paltry, 
 
MARRIAGE IN FICTION 55 
 
 pitiful, faded, fushionless, cauldrified, and clut- 
 tering substitute, truth." 
 
 Small wonder that novelists content them- 
 selves with making matches, and refrain from 
 examining too closely the result of their handi- 
 work. They would have more conscience about 
 it, if it were not so easy for them to withdraw. 
 They are almost as irresponsible as poets, who 
 delight in yoking unequal mates, as proof of 
 the power of love. Poetry weds King Cophetua 
 to the beggar maid, and smilingly retires from 
 any further contemplation of the catastrophe. 
 Shakespeare gives Celia Celia, with her 
 sweet brown beauty, her true heart, her nim- 
 ble wit, her grace of exquisite companion- 
 ship to that unnatural sinner, Oliver ; and 
 the only excuse he offers is that Oliver says 
 he is sorry for his sins. So I suppose Helen 
 of Troy said she regretted her indiscretion, 
 and this facile repentance reinstated her in 
 happy domesticity. But the novelist is not at 
 play in the Forest of Arden. He is presum- 
 ably grappling with the dismal realities of earth. 
 Nothing could be less like a fairy playground 
 than the village of Thrums ("If the Auld- 
 
56 COMPROMISES 
 
 Licht parishioners ever get to heaven," said 
 Dr. Chalmers, " they will live on the north 
 side of it ") ; yet it is in Thrums that Mr. 
 Barrie marries Babbie to the Little Minister, 
 marries her with a smile and a blessing, as 
 though he had solved, rather than complicated, 
 the mysterious problem of life. 
 
 The occasional and deliberate effort of the 
 novelist to arrange an unhappy union in or- 
 der to emphasize contrasts of character is an 
 advance toward realism ; but the temporary 
 nature of such tragedies (which is well under- 
 stood) robs the situation of its power. In the 
 typical instance of Dorothea Brooke and Mr. 
 Casaubon, George Eliot deemed it necessary 
 to offer careful explanation of her conduct, 
 or of Dorothea's, and she rather ungener- 
 ously threw the blame upon Middlemarch so- 
 ciety, which was guiltless before high Heaven, 
 and upon the then prevalent " modes of edu- 
 cation, which made a woman's knowledge an- 
 other name for motley ignorance." In real- 
 ity, Dorothea was alone responsible ; and it 
 is hard not to sympathize with Mr. Casaubon, 
 who was digging contentedly enough in his 
 
MARRIAGE IN FICTION 57 
 
 little dry mythological dust-heaps when she 
 dazzled him into matrimony. It is hard for 
 the unregenerate heart not to sympathize occa- 
 sionally with Kosamond Vincy and with Tito 
 Melema, whom George Eliot married to Lyd- 
 gate and to Romola, in order that she might 
 with more efficacy heap shame and scorn upon 
 their heads. The moral in all these cases is 
 pointed as unwaveringly as the compass needle 
 points to the North Star. This is what hap- 
 pens when noble and ignoble natures are linked 
 together. This is what happens when the sons 
 of God wed with the daughters of men. We 
 are not to suppose that it was poor Mr. Casau- 
 bon's failure to write his " Key to all Mytholo- 
 gies," nor even his ignorance of German, which 
 alienated his wife's affection ; but rather his 
 selfish determination to sacrifice her youth and 
 strength on the altar of his vanity, a vanity 
 to which her early homage, be it remembered, 
 had given fresh impetus and life. 
 
 The pointing of morals is not, however, the 
 particular function of married life. The pro- 
 blem it presents is a purely natural one, and 
 its ethical value is not so easily ascertained. 
 
58 COMPROMISES 
 
 For the most part the sons of men wed with 
 the daughters of men. They do not offer the 
 contrast of processional virtues and of deep 
 debasement ; but the far wider contrast of 
 manhood and of womanhood, of human crea- 
 tures whose minds and hearts and tastes and 
 instincts are radically unlike ; who differ in 
 all essentials from the very foundations of 
 their being. " Our idea of honour is not their 
 idea of honour," says Mr. Lang, speaking for 
 men, and of women ; " our notions of justice 
 and of humour are not their notions of justice 
 and of humour ; nor can we at all discover a 
 common calculus of the relative importance of 
 things." 
 
 This is precisely why we wish that novelists 
 would not neglect their opportunities, and 
 shirk their responsibilities, by escaping at the 
 church door. What did really happen when 
 Babbie married the little Minister, and added 
 to the ordinary difficulties of wedlock the ex- 
 traordinary complications of birth and training, 
 habits and character, irreconcilably at variance 
 with the traditions of the Auld-Licht rectory ? 
 We know how the mother of John Wesley, 
 
MARRIAGE IN FICTION 59 
 
 and incidentally of eighteen other children, 
 a dour, stern, pious parson's wife, refused to 
 say amen to her husband's prayer for King 
 William, and dwelt apart from her reverend 
 spouse and master for twelve long months, 
 rather than relinquish a sentiment of loyalty 
 for the rightful sovereign of the land. Such 
 incidents stand in our way when we are told 
 musically that 
 
 Love will still be lord of all. 
 
 Mrs. Wesley loved her husband, and she did 
 not love the banished and papistical James ; 
 yet it was only King William's death (a happy 
 and unforeseen solution of the difficulty) which 
 brought her back to submission and conjugal 
 
 joy 8 - 
 
 For one of the most ill-assorted marriages 
 in fiction Miss Austen must be held to blame. 
 It was this lady's firm conviction (founded on 
 Heaven knows what careful and continued 
 observation) that clever men are wont for the 
 most part to marry foolish or stupid women. 
 We see in nearly all her books the net results 
 of such seemingly inexplicable alliances. In 
 
60 COMPROMISES 
 
 what moment of madness did Mr. Bennet ask 
 Mrs. Bennet to be his wife ? Nothing can ex- 
 plain such an enigma ; but Miss Austen's philo- 
 sophy, and her knowledge of that commonplace 
 middle-class English life, which the eighteenth 
 century had stripped bare of all superfluous 
 emotions, enabled her to prove to her own 
 satisfaction at least that Mr. Bennet was 
 tolerably content with the situation. It is not 
 too much to say that he enjoys his wife's ab- 
 surdities. Only in his few earnest words to 
 Elizabeth, when Darcy has asked for her hand : 
 " My child, let me not have the grief of seeing 
 you unable to respect your partner in life," do 
 we catch a glimpse of the Valley of Humiliation 
 which he has trodden for twenty-four years. A 
 still more emphatic illustration of Miss Aus- 
 ten's point of view is afforded us in " Sense and 
 Sensibility," when Eleanor Dash wood decides 
 that Mrs. Palmer's surpassing foolishness can- 
 not sufficiently account for Mr. Palmer's rude- 
 ness and discontent. " His temper might per- 
 haps be a little soured by finding, like many 
 others of his sex, that, through some unaccount- 
 able bias in favour of beauty, he was the hus- 
 
MARRIAGE IN FICTION 61 
 
 band of a very silly woman ; but she knew that 
 this kind of blunder was too common for any 
 sensible man to be lastingly hurt by it." 
 
 Fortified by such philosophy, convinced 
 that the natural order of things, though myste- 
 rious and unpleasant, does not entail unhappi- 
 ness, Miss Austen deliberately marries Henry 
 Tilney to Catherine Morland ; marries them 
 after an engagement long enough to have 
 opened the bridegroom's eyes, were it not for 
 the seventy merciful miles which lie between 
 Northanger Abbey and the rectory of Fullerton. 
 With an acute and delicate cynicism, so gently 
 spoken that we hardly feel its sting, she proves 
 to us, in a succession of conversations, that " a 
 good-looking girl with an affectionate heart and 
 a very ignorant mind cannot fail of attracting 
 a clever young man, unless circumstances are 
 particularly untoward." When Catherine de- 
 livers her priceless views upon the unprofitable 
 labour of historians, we know that Mr. Tilney's 
 fate is sealed. 
 
 " You are fond of history ! and so are Mr. 
 Allen and my father ; and I have two brothers 
 who do not dislike it. So many instances within 
 
62 COMPROMISES 
 
 my small circle of friends is remarkable. At 
 this rate, I shall not pity the writers of history 
 any longer. If people like to read their books, 
 it is all very well ; but to be at so much trouble 
 in filling great volumes, which, as I used to 
 think, nobody would willingly ever look into, 
 to be labouring only for the torment of little 
 boys and girls, always struck me as a hard 
 fate. And though I know it is all very right 
 and necessary, I have often wondered at the 
 person's courage that could sit down on pur- 
 pose to do it." 
 
 To be told that history is made admirable 
 because you read it, is flattering indeed. Mr. 
 Tilney is satisfied that Catherine has " a great 
 deal of natural taste," an impression which 
 her artless admiration for his talents deepens 
 into agreeable certainty. When he asks her 
 hand in marriage, Miss Austen reminds us 
 with dispassionate candour that his attachment 
 originated in gratitude. " A persuasion of her 
 partiality for him had been the only cause of 
 his giving her a serious thought." There is a 
 final jest about beginning " perfect happiness " 
 at the respective ages of twenty-six and eigh- 
 
MARRIAGE IN FICTION 6c 
 
 teen, and the curtain is rung down upon a life- 
 time of irrational ennui. 
 
 The world of the novelist is full of such 
 strange mishaps, and our sense of inquietude 
 corresponds with our conviction of their reality. 
 Mrs. Ward probably does not expect us to be- 
 lieve that Jacob Delafield and Julie Le Breton 
 lived happily and harmoniously together. There 
 is something as radically inharmonious in their 
 marriage as in the union of conflicting elements. 
 It is not a question of taking chances of happi- 
 ness, as Sophia Western takes them with Tom 
 Jones (very good chances, to my way of think- 
 ing) ; it is a question of unalterable laws by 
 which the gods limit our human joy. But there 
 is no sharp sense of disappointment awakened 
 in our hearts when we read " Lady Rose's 
 Daughter," as when more powerful currents 
 of emotion turn awry. That Henry Esmond 
 should have married Lady Castlewood, or ra- 
 ther, that he should not have married Beatrix, 
 I count one of the permanent sorrows of life. 
 
 In an exceedingly clever and ruthlessly 
 disagreeable novel by Mr. Bernard Shaw, 
 44 Cashel Byron's Profession," there is a brief, 
 
64 COMPROMISES 
 
 clear exposition of that precise phase of life 
 which novelists, as a rule, decline to elucidate. 
 Cashel Byron is a prize-fighter, a champion 
 light-weight, well-born (though he does not 
 know it) and of cleanly life ; but nevertheless 
 a prize-fighter, with the instincts, habits, and 
 vocabulary of his class. A young woman, rich, 
 refined, bookish, brought up in a rarefied in- 
 tellectual atmosphere which has starved her 
 healthy sentiment to danger point, falls help- 
 lessly in love with his beauty and his strength, 
 and marries him, in mute desperate defiance of 
 social laws. The story closes at this point, but 
 the author adds a brief commentary, designed 
 to explain the limited possibilities of happi- 
 ness that exist for the ex-pugilist and his wife. 
 " Cashel's admiration for Lydia survived 
 the ardour of his first love for her, and she 
 employed all her forethought not to disappoint 
 his reliance 011 her judgment. She led a busy 
 life, and wrote some learned monographs, as 
 well as a work in which she denounced educa- 
 tion as practised in the universities and public 
 schools. Her children inherited her acuteness 
 and refinement, with their father's robustness 
 
MARRIAGE IN FICTION 65 
 
 and aversion to study. They were precocious 
 and impudent, had no respect for Cashel, and 
 showed any they had for their mother princi- 
 pally by running to her when they were in 
 difficulties. . . . The care of this troublesome 
 family had one advantage for her. It left her 
 little time to think about herself, or about the 
 fact that, when the illusion of her love passed 
 away, Cashel fell in her estimation. But the 
 children were a success, and she soon came to 
 regard him as one of them. When she had 
 leisure to consider the matter at all, which 
 seldom occurred, it seemed to her that, on the 
 whole, she had chosen wisely." 
 
 Here are conditions which, if presented at 
 length and with sufficient skill, might hold us 
 spellbound. Here is an opportunity to force 
 conviction, were the novelist disposed to grap- 
 ple with his real work. As it is, Mr. Shaw 
 contents himself with adding one more to the 
 marital failures of fiction. Dr. Johnson said 
 that most marriages would turn out as well if 
 the Lord Chancellor made them. The Lord 
 Chancellor would assuredly make them better 
 than that blundering expert, the novelist. 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 
 
 What pleasantness of teaching there is in books, how 
 easy, how secret ! How safely we lay bare the poverty of 
 human ignorance to books, without feeling any shame ! 
 They are masters who instruct us without rod or ferule, 
 without angry words, without clothes or money. If you 
 come to them, they are not asleep ; if you ask and inquire 
 of them, they do not withdraw themselves ; they do not 
 chide if you make mistakes ; they do not laugh at you if 
 you are ignorant. books, who alone are liberal and free, 
 who give to all who ask of you, and enfranchise all who 
 serve you faithfully. RICHAKD DE BURY, Bishop of 
 Durham, A. D. 1459. 
 
 ENOUGH has been written in praise of books 
 to fill a library. It is not always so eloquently 
 worded as is the Bishop of Durham's benedic- 
 tion; but the same general truths or falla- 
 cies are repeated with more or less pride 
 and persuasiveness. At the same time, a lesser 
 library might be compiled of the warnings ut- 
 tered by the anxious ones who hold that the 
 power of books is more potent than benign, 
 and that if one half of the world's readers are 
 being led gloriously to high and noble truths, 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 67 
 
 the other half is being vitiated by an influence 
 which makes for paltriness and degradation. 
 Under all circumstances, we are asked to be- 
 lieve that we are dominated by the printed 
 page. It is this conviction which induces so 
 much of austerity not to say of censorious- 
 ness in our counsellors, whose upbraidings 
 are but the echoes of those sterner protests 
 with which church and state were wont in 
 earlier days to direct the reading courses of the 
 public. That books have always been deemed 
 formidable antagonists is proven by their fre- 
 quent condemnation. The fires that were kin- 
 dled for sorcerers and for heretics flamed just 
 as fiercely for the stubborn volumes which 
 passed the border-land of orthodoxy. Calvin 
 burned all the pamphlets and manuscripts of 
 Servetus at the same time that he burned their 
 author ; in consequence of which thoroughness, 
 " Christianismi Restitutio " is said to be one 
 of the rarest dissertations in the world. 
 
 For some books that perished at the stake 
 the antiquarian can never mourn enough. An 
 act passed in the short reign of King Edward 
 VI commanded the wholesale destruction of 
 
68 COMPROMISES 
 
 all " antiphones, myssales, scrayles, procession- 
 ales, manuelles, legendes, pyes, prymars in 
 Lattyn or Inglishe, cowchers, journales, ordi- 
 nales, or other books or writings whatsoever, 
 heretofore used for the service of the churche, 
 written or prynted in the Inglishe or Lattyn 
 tongue." Owners of these precious volumes 
 were commanded to give them up (heavy fines 
 being exacted for disobedience), that they 
 might be " openlye brent, or otherways defaced 
 and destroied." None were spared, save the 
 " Prymars in the Inglishe or Lattyn tongue 
 set f orthe by the late Kinge of famous memorie, 
 Kinge Henrie the eight ; " and even from such 
 hallowed pages all " invocations or prayers to 
 saintes " were to be " blotted or clerelye put 
 out." Orthodoxy is a costly indulgence. What 
 treasures were lost to the world, what 
 
 Small rare volumes, dark with tarnished gold, 
 
 shrivelled into ashes, that the Book of Com- 
 mon Prayer might rule in undisputed au- 
 thority and right ! 
 
 Queen Elizabeth was strenuously opposed 
 to " schismatical " works, as well as to those 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 69 
 
 of a political or diplomatic character. With 
 broad-minded impartiality she burned all books 
 and pamphlets which presumed to deal no 
 matter in what spirit with subjects she did 
 not wish discussed. Like the old Tory lady 
 who objected to her Tory butler's sentiments, 
 seeing no reason why butlers should have 
 sentiments at all, Elizabeth punished the too 
 effusive piety and patriotism of her subjects 
 as severely as she punished their discontent. 
 The hall kitchen of the Stationers' Company 
 witnessed many a bonfire of books during her 
 reign ; and many an incautious author dis- 
 covered with poor Peter Wentworth that " the 
 anger of a Prince is as the roaring of a Lyon, 
 and even as the messenger of Death." James 
 I favoured St. Paul's churchyard as a spot sin- 
 gularly suitable for the cremation of books ; 
 and Oxford and Cambridge had their own ex- 
 clusive auto-da-fes for two centuries and more. 
 Edinburgh, with fine national feeling, burned 
 Drake's " Historia Anglo-Scotica," because its 
 English tone offended Scottish pride; and Eng- 
 land burned the Rev. Arthur Bury's " Naked 
 Gospel " in 1690, because she conceived that 
 
70 COMPROMISES 
 
 a rector of Exeter should veil his truths more 
 decently from the eyes of the feeble and pro- 
 fane. The last book to achieve such unmerited 
 distinction in Great Britain was a copy of Mr. 
 Froude's " Nemesis of Faith," which, being 
 discovered in the possession of an Oxford stu- 
 dent, was publicly burned by the Rev. William 
 Sewell, Dean of Exeter, in the college hall, on 
 the twenty-seventh of February, 1849. " Ox- 
 ford," says Mr. James Anson Farrer, "has 
 always tempered her love for learning with a 
 dislike for inquiry." The incident, being at 
 best unusual, gave such a healthy impetus to 
 the sale of Mr. Froude's work which had 
 won no wide hearing that it went into a sec- 
 ond edition, and became an object of keen, 
 though temporary, solicitude. Well might the 
 Marquis de Langle say that burning was as 
 a blue ribbon to any book, inspiring inter- 
 est, and insuring sales. There are those who 
 affirm that the "Index Expurgatorius," by 
 which the Roman Catholic church still seeks 
 to restrain the reading of her children, is a 
 similar spur to curiosity. This I do not be- 
 lieve, having never in my life met a Roman 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 71 
 
 Catholic who knew what works were or were 
 not upon the " Index," or who had been in- 
 cautious enough to inquire. 
 
 The decline of church discipline and the 
 enfeeblement of law permit books now to die 
 a natural death ; but the conviction of their 
 powerful and perilous authority still lingers in 
 the teacher's heart. If he knows, as is often 
 the case, much of letters and little of life, he 
 magnifies this authority until it seems the 
 dominant influence of the world. A writer in 
 one of the British quarterlies assures us with 
 almost incredible seriousness that we are at the 
 mercy of the authors whom we read. 
 
 " We take a silent, innocent-seeming volume 
 into our hands, and, when we put it down, we 
 shall never again be what we were before. . . , 
 St. Augustine opened the book, and one single 
 sentence changed him from the brilliant, god- 
 less, self-satisfied rhetorician into a powerful 
 religious force. Here, on the other hand, is a 
 youth who opens a mere magazine article writ- 
 ten against his faith. He throws off the early 
 influence of home like a mantle, and plunges 
 thenceforward into the 4 sunless gulf of doubt,' 
 
72 COMPROMISES 
 
 with the unspeakable morasses at the bot- 
 tom." 
 
 This is a little like the man who left the 
 Unitarian church because " somebody told 
 him it was n't true." How is a soul so sensi- 
 tive to be kept in or out of any fold ? A 
 religion which dissolves before the persuasions 
 of a magazine article must necessarily be as 
 short-lived as the love " the slight, thin sort 
 of inclination " which is starved, so Eliza- 
 beth Bennett tells us, by a sonnet. " Ten 
 thousand difficulties," says Cardinal Newman 
 nobly, " do not make one doubt ; " but the 
 thinker who cannot surmount the first and 
 feeblest of the difficulties should never have 
 essayed the perilous pathway of the alphabet. 
 Neither was St. Augustine's inspiration a flash- 
 light upon darkness. The " self-satisfied rheto- 
 rician " was not converted, like Harlequin, in 
 one dazzling moment. There had been a long 
 and bitter struggle between the forces of life 
 and death, of the spirit and the flesh, before the 
 word of St. Paul penetrated with overwhelming 
 sweetness into a soul cleared by hard thinking, 
 and cleansed by a passion for perfection. 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 73 
 
 Man may be an unstable creature, we 
 have been told so until we believe it, but 
 he parts reluctantly from his convictions, and 
 is slow to break the habits of a lifetime. 
 Hear what Robert Burton has to say about 
 the obstinate perversity of heretics. 
 
 " Single out the most ignorant of them. 
 Convince his understanding. Show him his 
 errors. Prove to him the grossness and ab- 
 surdities of his sect. He will not be per- 
 suaded." 
 
 He will not, indeed, whether persuasion 
 take the form of a sermon, a magazine article, 
 or the stake. Luther said that the more he 
 read the Fathers of the early Church, the 
 more he found himself offended ; which proves 
 the strength of a mental attitude to resist the 
 most penetrating of influences. Neither are po- 
 litical heretics any easier to enlighten. "Who," 
 asks Lord Coleridge, " ever convinced an an- 
 tagonist by a speech ? " On the contrary, there 
 is a natural and healthy sentiment of revolt 
 when views we do not share are set forth with 
 unbroken continuity and insistence. In the 
 give and take of conversation, in the advance 
 
74 COMPROMISES 
 
 and retreat of argument, in the swift intrusion 
 of the spoken word, made overpowering by the 
 charm of personality, we encounter a force too 
 subtle and personal to be resisted. Uncon- 
 sciously we yield at some point to the insidious 
 attack of thoughts and ideas so presented as to 
 weaken our individual opposition, and adroitly 
 force an entrance to our souls. But books, 
 like sermons, fail by reason of the smoothness 
 of their current ; because there is no backwater 
 to stir the eddies, and whirl us into conflict and 
 submission. We feel that, could we have spent 
 our " mornings in Florence " with Mr. Ruskin, 
 have looked with him at frescoes, tombs, and 
 pavements, and have disputed at every point 
 his magnificent assumption of authority, we 
 might have ended by accepting his most un- 
 reasonable and intolerant verdicts. Could we 
 free our souls by expressing to Mr. John Morley 
 our sentiments concerning Mr. Gladstone, we 
 might in return be impelled to share the en- 
 thusiasm of the enlightened biographer. But 
 neither Mr. Buskin nor Mr. Morley has the 
 same power of persuasiveness in print. The 
 simple process of leaving out whatever is an- 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 75 
 
 tagonistic makes demonstration easy, but in- 
 conclusive. Sometimes the robust directness 
 of the method inclines us peremptorily to re- 
 sistance. It is hard for a generous heart not to 
 sympathize with the exiled Stewarts, after read- 
 ing Lord Macaulay's " History of England." 
 Mr. Froude must be held responsible for much 
 of the extravagant enthusiasm professed for 
 the Queen of Scots. And I once knew an in- 
 telligent girl who had been driven by Mr. Pres- 
 cott into worshipping Philip II as a hero. 
 
 People who have contracted the habit of 
 writing books are naturally prone to exaggerate 
 their importance. It is this sentiment which 
 has provoked the attitude of fault-finding, of 
 continuous grumbling at readers, which is so 
 marked a characteristic of modern criticism. 
 The public is reproached, admonished, warned 
 by Mr. Frederic Harrison that if it feels con- 
 tumacious which is not infrequently the case 
 it should pray for a " cleanlier and quieter 
 spirit." Whenever a handful of books is pre- 
 sented to a community, addresses are made to 
 show, on the one hand, that reading and writ- 
 ing are better than meat and drink, and, on the 
 
76 COMPROMISES 
 
 other, that the people who read and write are 
 on the brink of abysmal destruction. I have 
 heard a lecturer upon one of these august oc- 
 casions gloomily prophesy that many of the 
 volumes waiting to be perused would " deprave 
 the taste, irritate the vanity, exaggerate the ego- 
 tism, and vitiate the curiosity of their readers." 
 This seemed an unfortunate result for philan- 
 thropy to achieve ; but the speaker went on to 
 excite the godless interest of his audience by 
 warning them that romance of which the 
 new library was reasonably full would exer- 
 cise a " bewildering and blinding effect " upon 
 their minds, " filling them with false hopes and 
 enervating dreams." He then defined a good 
 novel as one which should " stimulate a healthy 
 imagination, a sober ambition, a modest ardour, 
 an eager humility, a love of what is truly 
 'great ; " and left us oppressed with the convic- 
 tion that the usefulness of our earthly careers 
 and the salvation of our immortal souls de- 
 pended upon the fiction that we read. 
 
 " There is no harm," says Mr. Birrell 
 sweetly, " in talking about books, still less in 
 reading them ; but it is folly to pretend to wor- 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 11 
 
 ship them." It is folly to exaggerate their con- 
 trolling influence in our lives. We are not 
 more modestly ardent after reading "Vanity 
 Fair," nor more eagerly humble after spending 
 long and happy hours with " Emma." No sober 
 ambition stirs chastely in our souls when we lay 
 down, with a sigh of content, " Pride and Preju- 
 dice," or " Guy Mannering," or " Henry ES- 
 mond," or "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel.' 
 Even " Anna Karenina " fails to inspire us with 
 "false hopes and enervating dreams; " and while 
 we are often bewildered by Mr. Henry James's 
 masterpieces, we have never been blinded by 
 any. As for the ordinary novels that tumble 
 headlong from the press, it is impossible to im- 
 agine them as inspiring either ardour or am- 
 bition, egotism or humility. They may perhaps 
 be trusted to weaken our literary instincts, and 
 to induce mental inertia, " the surest way of 
 having no thoughts of our own," says Schopen- 
 hauer, " is to take up a book every time we 
 have nothing to do," but they are not, as 
 their writers and their critics fearfully assert, 
 the arbiters of our destinies. 
 
 A belief in the overpowering influence of 
 
78 COMPROMISES 
 
 books was part of Carlyle's gospel. He had a 
 curious modesty about giving advice, even when 
 it was sought ; and born dictator though he 
 was he realized that his own literary needs 
 were not necessarily the literary needs of other 
 men. He said as much quite simply and sincerely 
 when people asked him what they should read, 
 holding always, with Dr. Johnson, that incli- 
 nation must prompt the choice. To be sure, like 
 Dr. Johnson, and like Emerson, he presupposed 
 inclination to be of an austere and seemly 
 order. Emerson never wearied of saying that 
 people should read what they liked ; but he 
 plainly expected them to like only what was 
 good. Carlyle was firmly convinced that author- 
 ship carried with it responsibilities too serious 
 for trifling. He reverenced the printed page, 
 and he expressed this reverence, this confession 
 of faith, in the most explicit and comprehensive 
 assertion. 
 
 " The writer of a book is he not a preacher, 
 preaching, not to this parish or that, but to 
 all men in all times and places? Not the 
 wretchedest circulating library novel which 
 foolish girls thumb and con in remote villages, 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 79 
 
 but will help to regulate the actual practical 
 weddings and households of those foolish girls." 
 More than this it would be impossible to 
 say, and few of us, I hope, would be willing 
 to say as much. The idea is too oppressive to 
 be borne. Only authors and critics can afford 
 to take this view of life. Personally I believe 
 that a foolish girl is more influenced by an- 
 other foolish girl, to say nothing of a foolish 
 boy, than by all the novels on the library 
 shelves. Companionship and propinquity are 
 forces to be reckoned with. Mind touches mind 
 like an electric current. The contagion of folly 
 is spread, like other forms of contagion, by 
 personal contact. Books may, as Carlyle says, 
 preach to all men, in all times and places; 
 but it is precisely their lack of reticence, the 
 universality of their message, their chill pub- 
 licity of tone which reduces their readers to the 
 level of an audience or of a congregation. If we 
 recall the disclosures with which we have been 
 favoured from time to time by distinguished 
 people who consented to tell the world what 
 books had influenced their lives, we cannot 
 fail to remember the perfunctory nature of 
 
80 COMPROMISES 
 
 these revelations. It was as though the speak- 
 ers had first marshalled in order the most en- 
 during masterpieces of literature, and had then 
 fitted their own sentiments and experiences 
 into appropriate grooves. This reversal of a 
 natural law is much in favour when what are 
 called epoch-making books come under public 
 discussion. There are enthusiasts who appear 
 to think that Rousseau evoked the French 
 Revolution, and that " Uncle Tom's Cabin " 
 was responsible for the Civil War. When the 
 impetus of a profound and powerful emotion, 
 the mighty will of a great event finds expres- 
 sion in literature, or at least in letters, 
 the writer's mind speeds like a greyhound 
 along the track of public sentiment. It does 
 not create the sentiment, it does not appreci- 
 ably intensify it ; but it enables people to per- 
 ceive more clearly the nature of the course 
 to which they stand committed. These sym- 
 pathetic triumphs are sometimes mistaken for 
 literary triumphs. They are often thought to 
 lead the chase they follow. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we ask ourselves 
 soberly what books have helped to mould our 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 81 
 
 characters or to control our energies, we shall 
 not find the list an imposing one. There will 
 be little or nothing to tell a listening world. 
 Rather may we incline to the open skepticism 
 of Lord Byron : " Who was ever altered by a 
 poem?" Even presuming that we are happy 
 enough to detach ourselves from contemporary 
 criticism, and to read for human delight ; even 
 presuming that, after a lifetime of effort, we 
 have learned to recognize perfection in literary 
 art, and to turn of our own free will to those 
 lonely works which " in the best and noblest 
 sense of a good and noble word, should be, and 
 forever remain, essentially unpopular ; " even 
 then it does not follow that we are mastered 
 by the books we love. There still remains to 
 us that painful and unconquerable originality, 
 which is not defiant, but only helplessly in- 
 capable of submission. " Giving a reason for 
 a thing," says Dr. Johnson, " does not make it 
 right." Let us hope that being unable to give 
 a reason for a thing does not prove us wrong. 
 The Rev. Mark Pattison, who was the most 
 unflinching reader of his day, who looked 
 upon money only as a substance convertible 
 
82 COMPROMISES 
 
 by some happy alchemy into leather-bound 
 volumes, and upon time only as a possession 
 which could be exchanged for a wider ac- 
 quaintance with literature, understood better 
 than any scholar in England the limitations 
 and futilities of print. He did not say with 
 Hobbes, " If I had read as much as other 
 men, I should doubtless have shared their 
 ignorance," because he had read more than 
 other men, and was very widely informed ; but 
 he pointed out with startling lucidity that a 
 flexible mind fortifies itself rather by conver- 
 sation, which is the gift of the few, than by 
 reading, which is the resource of the many. 
 " Books," he said, " are written in response to 
 a demand for recreation by minds roused to 
 intelligence, but not to intellectual activity." 
 There is something pathetic in his frankly en- 
 vious admiration of the French, who can and 
 do convey their thoughts to one another in 
 a language wrought up to be "the perfect 
 medium of wit and wisdom, the wisdom of 
 the serpent, the incisive medium of the prac- 
 tical intelligence." He quoted with melancholy 
 appreciation Lord Houghton's story of the 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 83 
 
 Italian who, after submitting to the heavy hos- 
 pitality of an English country-house, drew a 
 newly arrived Frenchman into a corner with 
 the eager request : " Viens done causer. Je n'ai 
 pas cause pour quinze jours." 
 
 Mr. Lang is responsible for the statement 
 spoken, let us hope, in the enjoyment of a 
 sardonic mood rather than after dispassionate 
 observation that the average Englishman or 
 Englishwoman would as soon think of buying 
 a boa-constrictor as buying a book. He or she 
 depends for intellectual sustenance upon that 
 happy lottery system which has been devised 
 by circulating libraries, and with which Ameri- 
 cans are so well acquainted, a system which 
 enables us to put in a request for Darwin's 
 " Origin of Species," and draw out the Rev. 
 W. Profeit's " Creation of Matter ; " to put 
 in a request for " Lady Rose's Daughter," and 
 draw out " The Little Shepherd of Kingdom 
 Come." It is evident that reading conducted 
 on this basis is as sure a path to cultivation 
 as a roulette table is to wealth. It has all the 
 charm of uncertainty, and all the value of 
 speculation. It eliminates selection, detaches 
 
84 COMPROMISES 
 
 quantity from quality, and replaces the elusive 
 balancing of results by the unchallenged roll- 
 call of statistics. It expresses that unshaken 
 belief which is the gospel of the librarian, 
 namely, that the number of books taken from 
 his shelves within a given time has something 
 to do with the educational efficiency of his 
 library. 
 
 Our power of self-deception without which 
 we should shrivel into humility is never so 
 comfortable nor so resourceful as in the matter 
 of reading. We are capable of believing, not 
 only that we love books which we do not love, 
 but that we have read books which we have 
 not read. A life-long intimacy with their titles, 
 a partial acquaintance with modern criticism, 
 a lively recollection of many familiar quota- 
 tions, these things come in time to be mis- 
 taken for a knowledge of the books themselves. 
 Perhaps in youth it was our ambitious purpose 
 to storm certain bulwarks of literature, but we 
 were deterred by their unpardonable length. 
 It is a melancholy truth, which may as well 
 be acknowledged in the start, that many of 
 the books best worth reading are very, very 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 85 
 
 long, and that they cannot, without mortal 
 hurt, be shortened. Nothing less than ship- 
 wreck on a desert island in company with 
 Froissart's " Chronicles " would give us leisure 
 to peruse this glorious narrative, and it is use- 
 less to hope for such a happy combination of 
 chances. We might indeed be wrecked, 
 that is always a possibility, but the volume 
 saved dripping from the deep would be " Sol- 
 diers of Fortune," or " Mrs. Wiggs of the 
 Cabbage Patch." 
 
 It is at least curious that if people love 
 books as we are perpetually assured they 
 do they should need so much persuasion to 
 read them. Societies are formed for mutual 
 encouragement and support in this engaging 
 but arduous pursuit. Optimistic counsellors 
 cheer a shrinking public to its task by recom- 
 mending minute quantities of intellectual nour- 
 ishment to be taken twenty-four hours apart. 
 They urge us to read something " solid " for 
 fifteen minutes a day, until we get used to it, 
 and they promise us that mental invalids 
 though we be we can assimilate great mas- 
 terpieces in doses so homoeopathic that we need 
 
86 COMPROMISES 
 
 hardly know we are taking them. But this is 
 not the spirit in which we pursue other plea- 
 sures. We do not make an earnest effort to 
 enjoy our friends by admitting one for fifteen 
 minutes' conversation every morning. If we 
 like a thing at all, we are apt to like a good 
 deal of it; and if we are working con amore, 
 we are wont to work very hard. To turn to 
 books, as Jeremy Collier counsels us, when we 
 are weary alike of solitude and companionship, 
 to value them, as he did, because they help us 
 to forget " the crossness of men and things," 
 is to pay a sincere, but not an ardent, tribute 
 to their worth. Even the Bishop of Durham 
 praised his library, which he truly loved, be- 
 cause it soothed his unquiet soul. The friendly 
 volumes forbore, as he gratefully noted, either 
 to chide his errors or to mock at his igno- 
 rance ; and there were contemporaries like 
 Petrarch who affirmed that, for so ardent 
 a bibliophile, the good Bishop had no great 
 store of learning. His words echo pleasantly 
 through the centuries, breathing the secret of 
 quiet hours stolen from stormy times ; and we 
 repeat them, wondering less at their eloquence 
 
OUR BELIEF IN BOOKS 87 
 
 than at their moderation. " O books, who 
 alone are liberal and free, who give to all who 
 ask of you, and enfranchise all who serve you 
 faithfully." 
 
THE BEGGAR'S POUCH 
 
 Just Heayen ! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered 
 it that beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance in 
 other countries, should find a way to be at unity in this ? 
 STERNE. 
 
 A RICH American, with a kind heart and a 
 lively sense of humour, was heard to remark 
 as he crossed the Italian frontier, en route for 
 Switzerland : " Now, if there be any one in the 
 length and breadth of Italy who has not yet 
 begged from me, this is his time to come for- 
 ward." 
 
 It was a genial invitation, betokening that 
 tolerance of mind rarely found in the travel- 
 ling Saxon, who is fortified against beggars, as 
 against many other foreign institutions, by a 
 petition-proof armour of finely welded principle 
 and prejudice. He disapproves of mendicancy 
 in general. He believes or he says he be- 
 lieves that you wrong and degrade your fel- 
 low men by giving them money. He has the 
 assurance of his guide-book that the corps of 
 
THE BEGGAR'S POUCH 89 
 
 ragged veterans who mount guard over every 
 church door in Rome are unworthy of alms, be- 
 ing themselves capitalists on no ignoble scale. 
 His irritation, when sore beset, is natural and 
 pardonable. His arguments are not easily an- 
 swered. He can be vaguely statistical, real 
 figures are hard to come by in Italy, he can be 
 earnestly philosophical, he can quote Mr. Au- 
 gustus Hare. In the end, he leaves you per- 
 plexed in spirit and dull of heart, with six- 
 pence saved in your pocket, and the memory of 
 pinched old faces which do not look at all 
 like the faces of capitalists at home spoiling 
 your appetite for dinner. 
 
 This may be right, but it is a melancholy 
 attitude to adopt in a land where beggary 
 is an ancient and not dishonourable profes- 
 sion. All art, all legend, all tradition, tell for 
 the beggar. The splendid background against 
 which he stands gives colour and dignity to 
 his part. We see him sheltered by St. Julian, 
 ah, beautiful young beggar of the Pitti ! 
 fed by St. Elizabeth, clothed by St* Martin, 
 warmed by the fagots which St. Francesca 
 Romano gathered for him in the wintry woods. 
 
90 COMPROMISES 
 
 What heavenly blessings have followed the 
 charity shown to his needs ! What evils have 
 followed thick and fast where he has been re- 
 jected ! I remember these things when I meet 
 his piteous face and outstretched palm to-day. 
 It is true that the Italian beggar almost always 
 takes a courteous, or even an impatient denial 
 in wonderfully good part ; but, should he feel 
 disposed to be malevolent, I am not one to be 
 indifferent to his malevolence. I do not like to 
 hear a shaken old voice wish that I may die 
 unshriven. There are too many possibilities 
 involved. 
 
 So sang a withered Sibyl energetical, 
 
 And banned the ungiving door with lips prophetical. 
 
 Mr. Henry James is of the opinion (and one 
 envies him his ability to hold it) that "the 
 sum of Italian misery is, on the whole, less 
 than the sum of the Italian knowledge of life. 
 That people should thank you, with a smile of 
 enchanting sweetness, for the gift of twopence 
 is a proof certainly of an extreme and constant 
 destitution ; but keeping in mind the sweet- 
 ness it is also a proof of a fortunate ability 
 not to be depressed by circumstances." This 
 
THE BEGGAR'S POUCH 91 
 
 is a comforting faith to foster, and more cred- 
 ible than the theory of secreted wealth within 
 the beggar's pouch. It takes a great many 
 pennies to build up a substantial fortune, and 
 the competition in mendicancy is too keen to 
 permit of the profits being large. The busi- 
 ness, like other roads to fortune, is " not 
 what it once was." A particularly good post, 
 long held and undisputed, an imposingly vener- 
 able and patriarchal appearance, a total ab- 
 sence of legs or arms, these things may lead 
 to modest competency ; but these things are 
 rare equipments. My belief in the affluence 
 of beggars, a belief I was cherishing carefully 
 for the sake of my own peace of mind, re- 
 ceived a rude shock when I beheld a crippled 
 old woman, whose post was in the Piazza S. 
 Claudio, tucked into a doorway one cold De- 
 cember midnight, her idle crutches lying on 
 her knees. If she had had a comfortable or 
 even an uncomfortable home to go to, why 
 should she have stayed to shiver and freeze in 
 the deserted Roman streets ? 
 
 The latitude extended by the Italian Church 
 to beggars, the patronage shown them, never 
 
92 COMPROMISES 
 
 ceases to vex the tourist mind. An American 
 cannot reconcile himself to marching up the 
 church steps between two rows of mendicants, 
 each provided with a chair, a little scaldino, 
 and a tin cup, in which a penny rattles lustily. 
 There is nothing casual about the appearance 
 of these freeholders. They make no pretence 
 as do beggars at home of sudden emer- 
 gency or frustrated hopes. They are following 
 their daily avocation, the only one for which 
 they are equipped, and following it in a spirit 
 of acute and healthy rivalry. To give to one 
 and not to all is to arouse such a clamorous 
 wail that it seems, on the whole, less stony- 
 hearted to refuse altogether. Once inside the 
 sacred walls, we find a small and well-selected 
 body of practitioners hovering around the por- 
 tals, waiting to exact their tiny toll when we are 
 ready to depart. " Exact " is not too strong a 
 word to use, for I have had a lame but comely 
 young woman, dressed in decent black, with a 
 black veil framing her expressive face, hold the 
 door of the Araco3li firmly barred with one arm, 
 while she swept the other toward me in a ges- 
 , ture so fine, so full of mingled entreaty and 
 
THE BEGGAR'S POUCH 93 
 
 command, that it was worth double the fee 
 she asked. Occasionally not often an in- 
 trepid beggar steals around during Mass, and, 
 touching each member of the congregation on 
 the shoulder, gently implores an alms. This is 
 a practice frowned upon as a rule, save in Si- 
 cily, where a " plentiful poverty " doth so abide 
 that no device for moving compassion can be 
 too rigidly condemned. I have been present at 
 a high Mass in Palermo, when a ragged woman 
 with a baby in her arms moved slowly after 
 the sacristan, who was taking up the offer- 
 tory collection, and took up a second collec- 
 tion of her own, quite as though she were 
 an authorized official. It was a scandalous 
 sight to Western eyes, in our well-ordered 
 churches at home such a proceeding would be 
 as impossible as a trapeze performance in the 
 aisle, but what depths of friendly tolerance 
 it displayed, what gentle, if inert, compassion 
 for the beggar's desperate needs ! 
 
 For in Italy, as in Spain, there is no gulf 
 set between the rich and poor. What these 
 lands lack in practical philanthropy is atoned 
 for by a sweet and universal friendliness of de- 
 
94 COMPROMISES 
 
 meanour, and by a prompt recognition of rights. 
 It would be hard to find in England or in 
 America such tattered rags, such gaunt faces 
 and hungry eyes ; but it would be impossible 
 to find in Italy or in Spain a church where 
 rags are relegated to some inconspicuous and 
 appropriate background. The Roman beggar 
 jostles but jostles urbanely the Roman 
 prince ; the noblest and the lowliest kneel side 
 by side in the Cathedral of Seville. I have heard 
 much all my life about the spirit of equality, 
 and I have listened to fluent sermons, designed 
 to prove that Christians, impelled by super- 
 natural grace, love this equality with especial 
 fervour ; but I have never seen its practical 
 workings, save in the churches of southern 
 Europe. There tired mothers hush their babies 
 to sleep, and wan children play at ease in their 
 Father's house. There I have been privileged 
 to stand for hours, during long and beautiful 
 services, because the only available chairs had 
 been appropriated by forlorn creatures who 
 would not have been permitted to intrude into 
 the guarded pews at home. 
 
 It has been always thus. We have the evi- 
 
THE BEGGAR'S POUCH 95 
 
 dence of writers who give it with reluctant 
 sincerity; of Borrow, for example, who firmly 
 believed he hated many things for which he 
 had a natural and visible affinity. "To the 
 honour of Spain be it spoken," he writes in " The 
 Bible in Spain," " that it is one of the few coun- 
 tries in Europe where poverty is never insulted 
 nor looked upon with contempt. Even at an 
 inn the poor man is never spurned from the 
 door, and, if not harboured, is at least dismissed 
 with fair words, and consigned to the mercies 
 of God and His Mother." 
 
 The more ribald Nash, writing centuries 
 earlier, finds no words too warm in which to 
 praise the charities of Catholic Rome. " The 
 bravest Ladies, in gownes of beaten gold, 
 washing pilgrims' and poor soldiours' f eete. . . . 
 This I must say to the shame of us English ; 
 if good workes may merit Heaven, they doe 
 them, we talk about them." 
 
 The Eoman ladies " doe them " still ; not 
 so picturesquely as they did three hundred 
 years ago, but in the same noble and delicate 
 spirit. Their means and their methods are far 
 below the means and methods of charitable 
 
96 COMPROMISES 
 
 organizations in England and' America. They 
 cannot find work where there is no work to be 
 done. They cannot lift the hopeless burden of 
 want which is the inevitable portion of the 
 Italian poor. They can at best give only the 
 scanty loaf which keeps starvation from the 
 door. They cannot educate the children, nor 
 make the swarming populace of Rome " self- 
 respecting," by which we mean self-supporting. 
 But they can and do respect the poverty they 
 alleviate. Their mental attitude is simpler than 
 ours. They know well that it is never the 
 wretchedly poor who "fear fate and cheat 
 nature," and they see, with more equanimity 
 than we can muster, the ever recurring tragedy 
 of birth. The hope, so dear to our Western 
 hearts, of ultimately raising the whole stand- 
 ard of humanity shines very dimly on their ho- 
 rizon ; but if they plan less for the race, they 
 draw closer to the individual. They would 
 probably, if questioned, say frankly with Sir 
 Thomas Browne : " I give no alms only to sat- 
 isfy the hunger of my Brother, but to fulfil 
 and accomplish the Will and Command of my 
 God." And if the " Religio Medici " be some- 
 
THE BEGGAR'S POUCH 97 
 
 what out of date, superseded, we are told, 
 by a finer altruism which rejects the system 
 of reward, we may still remember Mr. 
 Pater's half rueful admission that it was all 
 " pure profit " to its holder. 
 
 When Charles Lamb lamented, with innate 
 perversity, the decay of beggars, he merely 
 withdrew his mind from actualities, which 
 always annoyed him, and set it to contem- 
 plate those more agreeable figures which were 
 not suffering under the disadvantage of exist- 
 ence. It was the beggar of romance, of the 
 ballads, of the countryside, of the merry old 
 songs, whose departure he professed to regret. 
 The outcast of the London streets could not 
 have been even in Lamb's time a desir- 
 able feature. To-day we find him the most de- 
 pressing object in the civilized world ; and the 
 fact that he is what is called, in the language 
 of the philanthropist, " unworthy," makes him 
 no whit more cheerful of contemplation. The 
 ragged creature who rushes out of the dark- 
 ness to cover the wheel of your hansom with 
 his tattered sleeve manages to convey to your 
 mind a sense of degraded wretchedness, calcu- 
 
98 COMPROMISES 
 
 lated to lessen the happiness of living. His 
 figure haunts you miserably, when you want 
 to forget him and be light of heart. By his 
 side, the venerable, white-bearded old hum- 
 bugs who lift the leather curtains of Roman 
 and Venetian churches stand forth as cheer- 
 ful embodiments of self-respecting mendicancy. 
 They, at least, are no pariahs, but recognized 
 features of the social system. They are the 
 Lord's poor, whose prayers are fertile in bless- 
 ings. It is kind to drop a coin into the out- 
 stretched hand, and to run the risk not so 
 appalling as we seem to think of its being 
 unworthily bestowed. " Rake not into the 
 bowels of unwelcome truth to save a half- 
 penny ; " but remember, rather, the ever-ready 
 alms of Dr. Johnson, who pitied most those 
 who were least deserving of compassion. Little 
 doubt that he was often imposed upon. The 
 fallen women went on their way, sinning as 
 before. The " old struggler " probably spent 
 his hard-earned shilling for gin. The sick 
 beggar whom he carried on his back should 
 by rights have been languishing in the poor- 
 house. But the human quality of his kindness 
 
THE BEGGARS POUCH 99 
 
 made it a vital force, incapable of waste. It 
 warmed sad hearts in his unhappy time, as it 
 warms our sad hearts now. Like the human 
 kindness of St. Martin, it still remains a 
 priceless heritage to enrich us poor beggars 
 in sentiment to-day. 
 
 And this reminds me to ask without hope 
 of answer if the blessed St. Martin can be 
 held responsible for the number of beggars in 
 Tours ? The town is not pinched and hunger- 
 bitten like the sombre old cities of Italy, but 
 possesses rather an air of comfort and gracious 
 prosperity. It is in the heart of a province 
 where cruel poverty is unknown, and where 
 " thrift and success present themselves as mat- 
 ters of good taste." Yet we cannot walk half 
 an hour in Tours without meeting a number of 
 highly respectable beggars, engrossed in their 
 professional duties. They do not sin against 
 the harmony of their surroundings by any 
 revolting demonstration of raggedness or pen- 
 ury. On the contrary, they are always neat 
 and decent ; and on Sundays have an aspect 
 of such unobtrusive well-being that one would 
 never suspect them of mendicancy. When a 
 
100 COMPROMISES 
 
 clean, comfortably dressed old gentleman, with 
 a broad straw hat, and a rosebud in his button- 
 hole, crosses the street to affably ask an alms, 
 I own I am surprised, until I remember St. 
 Martin, who, fifteen hundred years ago, shared 
 his mantle with the beggar shivering by the 
 way. It was at Amiens that the incident oc- 
 curred, but the soldier saint became in time 
 the apostle and bishop of Tours ; wherefore it 
 is in Tours, and not in Amiens, that beggars do 
 plentifully abound to-day ; it is in Tours, and 
 not in Amiens, that the charming old tale moves 
 us to sympathy with their not very obvious 
 needs. They are an inheritance bequeathed us 
 by the saint. They are in strict accord with 
 the traditions of the place. I am told that giv- 
 ing sous to old men at church doors is not a 
 practical form of benevolence ; but neither was 
 it practical to cut a military cloak in two. 
 Something must be allowed to impulse, some- 
 thing to the generous unreason of humanity. 
 
 And, after all, it is not begging, but only 
 the beggar who has forfeited favour with the 
 elect. We are begged from on an arrogantly 
 large scale all our lives, and we are at liberty 
 
THE BEGGAR'S POUCH 101 
 
 to beg from others. It may be wrong to give 
 ten cents to a legless man at a street corner ; 
 but it is right, and even praiseworthy, to send 
 ten tickets for some dismal entertainment to 
 our dearest friend, who must either purchase 
 the dreaded things or harass her friends in 
 turn. If we go to church, we are confronted 
 by a system of begging so complicated and so 
 resolute that all other demands sink into insig- 
 nificance by its side. Mr. John Richard Green, 
 the historian, was wont to maintain that the 
 begging friar of the pre-reform period, " who 
 at any rate had the honesty to sing for his sup- 
 per, and preach a merry sermon from the port- 
 able pulpit he carried round," had been far 
 outstripped by a "finer mendicant," the beg- 
 ging rector of to-day. A hospital nurse once 
 told me that she was often too tired to go to 
 church when free on Sundays. " But it 
 does n't matter whether I go or not," she said 
 with serious simplicity, " because in our church 
 we have the envelope system." When asked 
 what the system was which thus lifted church- 
 going from the number of Christian obliga- 
 tions, she explained that envelopes marked 
 
102 COMPROMISES 
 
 with each Sunday's date were distributed to the 
 congregation, and duly returned with a quarter 
 inclosed. When she stayed at home, she sent 
 the envelope to represent her. The collecting 
 of the quarters being the pivotal feature of the 
 Sunday's service, her duty was fulfilled. 
 
 With this, and many similar recollections in 
 my mind, I own I am disposed to think leni- 
 ently of Italy's church-door mendicants. How 
 moderate their demands, how disproportionate 
 their gratitude, how numberless their disap- 
 pointments, how unfailing their courtesy! I 
 can push back a leather curtain for myself, I 
 can ring a sacristan's bell. But the patriarch 
 who relieves me of these duties has some dim, 
 mysterious right to stand in my way, a right 
 I cannot fathom, but will not pretend to dis- 
 pute. He is, after all, a less insistent beggar 
 than are the official guardians of galleries and 
 museums, who relieve the unutterable weari- 
 ness of their idle days by following me from 
 room to room with exasperating explanations, 
 until I pay them to go away. I have heard 
 tourists protest harshly against the ever-recur- 
 ring obligation of giving pennies to the old 
 
THE BEGGAR'S POUCH 103 
 
 men who, in Venice, draw their gondolas to 
 shore, and push them out again. They say 
 what is perfectly true that it is an extortion 
 to be compelled to pay for unasked and unne- 
 cessary services, and they generally add some- 
 thing about not minding the money. It is the 
 principle of the thing to which they are op- 
 posed. But these picturesque accessories of 
 Venetian life are, for the most part, worn-out 
 gondoliers, whose days of activity are over, and 
 who are saved from starvation, only by the 
 semblance of service they perform. Their suc- 
 cessors connive at their pretence of usefulness, 
 knowing that some day they, too, must drop 
 their oars, and stand patiently waiting, hook in 
 hand, for the chance coin that is so grudgingly 
 bestowed. That it should be begrudged even 
 on principle seems strange to those whose 
 love for Venice precludes the possibility of 
 fault-finding. The graybeards sunning them- 
 selves on the marble steps are as much a part 
 of the beautiful city as are the gondoliers sil- 
 houetted against the sky, or the brown boys 
 paddling in the water. Such old age is meagre, 
 but not wholly forlorn. A little food keeps 
 
104 COMPROMISES 
 
 body and soul together, and life yields sweet- 
 ness to the end. " It takes a great deal to 
 make a successful American," confesses Mr. 
 James ; " but to make a happy Venetian takes 
 only a handful of quick sensibility. . . . Not 
 the misery of Italians, but the way they elude 
 their misery, is what pleases the sentimental 
 tourist, who is gratified by the sight of a beau- 
 tiful race that lives by the aid of its imagina- 
 tion." 
 
THE PILGRIM'S STAFF 
 
 Thries hadde she been at Jerusalem ; 
 She hadde passed many a straunge strem ; 
 At Rome she hadde been, and at Boloigne, 
 At Galice at Seint Jame, and at Coloigne ; 
 She koude muchel of wandrynge by the weye. 
 
 CHAUCER. 
 
 THE spirit that animated the Crusader ani- 
 mated the pilgrim. Piety, curiosity, the love 
 of God and the love of adventure, the natural 
 sentiment which makes one spot of ground more 
 hallowed than another, a sentiment as old as 
 religion, the natural restlessness of the hu- 
 man heart, a restlessness as old as humanity. 
 With the decay of the Crusades began the pas- 
 sion for pilgrimages, which reached its height 
 in the fourteenth century, but which at a much 
 earlier period had begun to send men wander- 
 ing from land to land, and from sea to sea, 
 broadening their outlook, sharpening their in- 
 telligence, uniting them in a common bond of 
 faith and sympathy, teaching them to observe 
 the virtues of hospitality, courtesy, and kind- 
 
106 COMPROMISES 
 
 ness. Much has been urged against the pil- 
 grim, even the genuine pilgrim ; but it counts 
 for little when contrasted with his merits. 
 His was not the wisdom of Franklin. He 
 spent time, strength, and money with reck- 
 less prodigality. He neglected duties near at 
 hand; he ran sharp risks of shipwreck, rob- 
 bers, and pestilence. But he was lifted, for a 
 time at least, out of the common round of life ; 
 he aspired, however lamely, after spiritual 
 growth ; and he assisted the slow progress of 
 civilization by breaking through the barriers 
 which divided nation from nation in the re- 
 moteness of the Middle Ages. 
 
 The universality of a custom is pledge of 
 its worth. Pious Egyptians speeding along the 
 waterways to the temple of Bubastis; pious 
 Hindoos following from hermitage to hermit- 
 age the footsteps of the exiled Rama ; pious 
 Moslems making their painful journey to 
 Mecca ; pious Christians turning their rapt 
 faces to Palestine, from the dawn of history 
 to the present day we see the long procession 
 of pilgrims moving to and fro over the little 
 earth, linking shore to shore and century to 
 
THE PILGRIM'S STAFF 107 
 
 century* Never without disaster, never with- 
 out privations, never without the echoes of dis- 
 paragement, never wholly discouraged nor 
 abashed, the procession winds brokenly along. 
 The pilgrims who visit Lourdes in this year 
 of grace are not mere victims of a spasmodic 
 enthusiasm. They are the inheritors of the 
 world's traditions and of the world's emotions. 
 Alexander, Bishop of Cappadocia, made a 
 pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the year 202. 
 He was by no means the first ecclesiastic to 
 undertake the journey, but the records that sur- 
 vive from this period of limited authorship 
 are few and far between. It was not until a 
 century later that the Empress Helena stirred 
 the hearts of Christendom, and gave the im- 
 petus that sent thousands of pilgrims to follow 
 the footsteps of the Redeemer. Many who 
 could not reach Palestine travelled as far as 
 Rome, to pray at the tombs of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul. From time to time the church 
 gently checked an enthusiasm which over- 
 stepped the bounds of reason. Women, then 
 condemned to much staying at home, showed 
 an ardour for pilgrimage as natural as it was 
 
108 COMPROMISES 
 
 disconcerting. Nuns joyously welcomed the op- 
 portunity to leave, without broken vows, their 
 convent walls, and tread for a time the beaten 
 paths of earth. They found shelter on the 
 road in other houses of religion, where all such 
 devout wanderers were lodged and generously 
 entertained. 
 
 For the virtues which blossomed most fairly 
 along the pilgrim's track were chivalry and hos- 
 pitality. For him a brotherhood of knights 
 guarded the robber-haunted forests of Ger- 
 many. For him the Spanish nobles kept watch 
 and ward over their mountain passes. For 
 him the galleys of St. John swept the Med- 
 iterranean in search of Algerine pirates. For 
 him the Hospitalers built their first asylum. 
 For him rang out the Templar's battle-cry, 
 " Beauceant ! Beauceant ! " as the dreaded ban- 
 ner of black and white bore down into the fray. 
 The pilgrim paid no tithes nor tolls. Mon- 
 asteries opened to him their gates. In every 
 seaport, and in many a royal burgh, houses 
 were erected and maintained for his accommo- 
 dation. In Calais stood the old Maison Dieu, 
 with its wide, hospitable doors. Coventry was 
 
THE PILGRIM'S STAFF 109 
 
 the first of English towns to provide a simi- 
 lar shelter. These houses were either endowed 
 by pious benefactors or were supported by the 
 strong and wealthy guilds. In Lincoln, the 
 Guild of the Resurrection, founded in 1374, 
 had the following rule : " If any brother wishes 
 to make a pilgrimage to Rome, to Saint James 
 of Galicia, or to the Holy Land, he shall fore- 
 warn the Guild ; and all the members shall go 
 with him to the city gate, and each shall give 
 him at least a half -penny." Other guilds lent 
 weightier service. Turn where we may, we see 
 on every side the animosities of nations soft- 
 ened and the self-seeking of the human heart 
 subdued by the force of that esprit de corps 
 which bound hard-fighting Christendom to- 
 gether. 
 
 Rivalry there was in plenty, as shrine after 
 shrine rose into fame and fortune. Palestine 
 lay far away, and the journey thither was be- 
 set by difficulties and dangers. Rome held 
 the great relics which from earliest years had 
 drawn thousands of pilgrims to worship at her 
 altars. Spain came next in degree, with the 
 famous shrine of Coinpostella in Galicia, where 
 
110 COMPROMISES 
 
 lay the bones of her patron, St. James. So 
 popular was this pilgrimage that in the year 
 1434 no less than 2460 licenses were granted 
 in England to travellers bound for Compo- 
 stella. Cologne claimed the relics of the Magi ; 
 France, the Holy Coat of Treves, the shrine of 
 St. Martin of Tours, and the beautiful pilgrim- 
 age churches of Boulogne and Eocamadour. 
 The last, fair still in its decay, was one of the 
 most celebrated in Europe. Great kings and 
 greater soldiers, Simon de Montfort among 
 them, had come as penitents to its rock-built 
 sanctuary ; and so many English were counted 
 among its visitors that we find that arch- 
 grumbler, Piers Plowman, bitterly conjuring 
 his countrymen to stay away. 
 
 Right so, if thou be Religious, renne thou never ferther 
 To Rome ne to Rochemadore. 
 
 In good truth there were shrines in plenty 
 at home. Glastonbury, the resting-place of 
 Joseph of Arimathea, where grew the holy 
 thorn-tree ; Bury Saint Edmunds, where all 
 might see the standard of the martyred king, 
 and where, to keep it company, Coeur de Lion 
 aent the captured banner of the king of Cy- 
 
THE PILGRIM'S STAFF 111 
 
 prus ; Waltham, or Holy Cross Abbey, founded 
 by that devout and warlike Dane, Tovi, to 
 guard the mysterious cross of black marble, of 
 which none knew the history; Edward the Con- 
 fessor's tomb at Westminster ; Our Lady of 
 Walsingham, the best-loved church in England; 
 and the ever-famous shrine of St. Thomas a 
 Becket at Canterbury. " Optimus aegrorum me- 
 dicus fit Thomas Bonorum," was the motto en- 
 graved on the little pewter flasks brought back 
 by Canterbury pilgrims. " For good people 
 who are ill, Thomas is the best of physicians." 
 Miracles apart, it was well to take the open 
 road, and to live for a few days, or for a few 
 weeks, in rain and sunshine. It was well to 
 escape the dreadful ministrations of doctors, 
 and trust to St. Thomas, who at all events 
 would not bleed and purge his patient's life 
 away. It was well to quit the foulness of the 
 towns, to push aside the engrossing cares of 
 life, and to see the fair face of an English 
 summer. 
 
 I think the long ride in the open air, 
 That pilgrimage over stocks and stones, 
 In the miracle must come in for a share !- 
 
112 COMPROMISES 
 
 Many a cure was wrought before the shrine 
 was gained, and a hopeful heart is ever a tonic 
 for body and soul together. The most constant 
 and the most curious reproach cast by reform- 
 ers at the pilgrims is that they were cheerful, 
 even merry, and that they went their way in 
 what seems to have been an irritating spirit 
 of enjoyment. One Master William Thorpe, a 
 sour and godly man, protested sternly in 1407 
 against the number of " men and women that 
 go on pilgrimages to Canterbury, to Beverley, 
 to Karlington, to Walsinghame, or to any such 
 other places " ! His accusations were three in 
 number. The pilgrims spent " their goodes in 
 waste," which was true. They boasted, not 
 always truthfully, of what they had seen, 
 a reprehensible habit of travellers since man 
 first roamed the earth. And, worst of all, they 
 sang, rang little bells, the Canterbury bells, 
 and made a joyous clatter on the road. To 
 this, Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, deeming light hearts as near to grace as 
 sad ones, stoutly replied that pilgrims did well 
 to sing and be as cheerful as the hardships of 
 the way permitted. If a man's foot were cut 
 
THE PILGRIM'S STAFF 113 
 
 and bleeding, it were better for him to sing 
 than to be silent, " for with soche solace the 
 travell and wearinesse of pylgremes is lightely 
 and inerily broughte forthe." 
 
 Not all pilgrimages, however, were under- 
 taken in this jocund spirit. Figures terrible 
 and tragic loom up in the darkness of history. 
 Fulk Nerra, the black Count of Anjou, driven 
 like Orestes by the stings of conscience, wan- 
 dered from shrine to shrine, seeking pardon 
 for nameless crimes. By his own command he 
 was dragged barefooted through the streets of 
 Jerusalem, his blood running down beneath the 
 pitiless strokes of the scourge. From Guyenne 
 to Picardy walked two noble Breton brothers, 
 their heavy chains eating into their flesh, their 
 heavier hearts burdened with unendurable re- 
 morse. Even less sinful men were sometimes 
 inclined to penitence. The Lord of Joinville, 
 before setting forth with St. Louis on the 
 Seventh Crusade, walked in his shirt to every 
 shrine within twenty leagues of his castle, im- 
 ploring strength of arm and grace of soul. In 
 blither mood, the Viscount De Werchin, Sen- 
 eschal of Hainault, started upon a pilgrimage 
 
114 COMPROMISES 
 
 to St. James of Compostella. The journey was 
 long, and by way of diversifying it, the good 
 Seneschal despatched messengers announcing 
 his readiness to meet any knight, French, Eng- 
 lish, or Spanish, who would engage with him in 
 a friendly passage of arms. That none who 
 coveted this distinction might be so unfortunate 
 as to lose it, he gave his itinerary with great 
 care, and even offered to turn aside from his 
 road as far as twenty leagues, for the felicity 
 of a little fighting. Surely St. James, the pa- 
 tron of soldiers, who has himself turned the 
 tide of more than one hard-fought battle, must 
 have smiled kindly upon that brave and pious 
 pilgrim, when he knelt in his battered armour 
 before the glittering shrine. 
 
 Kings and princes frequently went upon 
 pilgrimages. The sprig of broom, the planta 
 genistae, destined to give its name to a great 
 and royal line, was worn by Geoffrey of Anjou 
 some said in token of humility when 
 he journeyed to the Holy Land. Henry the 
 Second of England travelled piously to Roca- 
 madour, and four English Edwards knelt in 
 turn at the feet of Our Lady of Walsingham. 
 
THE PILGRIM'S STAFF 
 
 Jusserand tells us that the royal fee on such 
 occasions was seven shillings ; the ordinances 
 of Edward the Second make especial mention 
 of the sum. It does not seem munificent, when 
 we remember that Canute took off his crown 
 and laid it on St. Edmund's shrine ; but 
 there were occasions when even seven shillings 
 were notably lacking. The Chronicles of Joce- 
 lin of Brakelond, quoted by Carlyle in " Past 
 and Present," relate minutely how King John 
 came to. St. Edmundsbury with a large reti- 
 nue, how he gave the abbot thirteen pence, 
 beseeching in return a Mass, and presented to 
 the shrine a silken cloak, which was carried 
 promptly away by one of his followers, so that 
 the monks beheld it no more. When Henry 
 the Eighth and Catharine of Aragon visited 
 Walsingham, the king hung around the stat- 
 ue's neck a string of pearls and golden beads, 
 and perhaps was not unmoved subsequently by 
 a desire to have it back again. 
 
 " Of all our Ladyes, I love best our Lady 
 of Walsyngham," says Sir Thomas More in one 
 of his "Dyalogues," reflecting the common 
 sentiment of the past three hundred years, and 
 
116 COMPROMISES 
 
 defending the ancient custom of pilgrimages 
 from the raillery of Erasmus. The road to 
 Walsingham, like the road to Canterbury, was 
 called the " Pilgrims' Way ; " the town was 
 full of inns and lodgings for the accommodation 
 of the devout, and "manye faire myracles" 
 were witnessed at the shrine. When the Nor- 
 man knight, Sir Raaf de Boitetourt, fled from 
 his burning castle, he sought refuge at Wal- 
 singham, where for seven years he had kept 
 vigil on the eve of Epiphany. Hard pressed, 
 he reached the doors, and the Virgin, mindful 
 of faithful service, opened them with her own 
 hands, and drew him swiftly and gently within 
 her blessed walls. 
 
 Frequent mention is made of Walsingham 
 in state papers and in family chronicles. The 
 Paston letters contain numerous allusions to 
 this popular shrine. John Paston's wife, trou- 
 bled by the news of her husband's illness, 
 writes to him lovingly : " My mother behested 
 [vowed] another image of wax of the weight 
 of you to our Lady of Walsingham ; and she 
 sent four nobles to the four orders of friars 
 at Norwich to pray for you ; and I have be- 
 
THE PILGRIM'S STAFF 117 
 
 hested a pilgrimage to Walsingham and to St. 
 Leonards for you." Again, Justice Yelverton 
 thanks John Paston, " especially for that ye do 
 much for our Lady's house at Walsingham, 
 which I trust verily ye do the rather for the 
 great love that ye deem I have thereto ; for 
 truly if I be drawn to any worship or wel- 
 fare, and discharge of mine enemies' danger, I 
 ascribe it unto our Lady." 
 
 In proportion to the piety of the pilgrim 
 flames the wrath of the reformer. Denuncia- 
 tions from poets of a radical turn, like Lang- 
 land and Skelton, echo shrilly through English 
 letters. 
 
 Pylgrimis and palmers plyghten hem togederes, 
 To seken seint James and seintes at Rome, 
 Wenten forth in hure way with many unwyse tales, 
 And haven leve to lyen alle hure lyf-tyme. 
 
 This sounds like the bitterness of the stay-at- 
 home, resenting with his whole soul the allure- 
 ment of travellers' tales, tales to which Chau- 
 cer lent a tolerant ear. A century and a half 
 later, when reform had had its way, when the 
 relics of St. Thomas had been scattered to the 
 winds, when our Lady's image had been flung 
 
118 COMPROMISES 
 
 from its .altar into the nearest well, and Cran- 
 mer in his " Catechism " had alluded to vows 
 and pilgrimages as half-forgotten errors, one 
 poor faithful soul was accused in 1542 of going 
 to Walsingham, not blithely, indeed, with 
 song and ringing of bells, but sad, fearful, and 
 forlorn, to pray at the defaced and empty 
 shrine. 
 
 There was a little chapel built on one of the 
 eastern piers of old London Bridge, and dedi- 
 cated to St. Thomas a Becket. Hither came 
 the pilgrims bound for Canterbury, or for the 
 far-off shrines of Compostella and Kocamadour, 
 to beg a blessing on their journey ; and many 
 were the curious eyes that watched them faring 
 forth. To-day, when no spot is remote, and no- 
 thing is unknown, it is hard to understand the 
 interest which once attached itself to the wan- 
 derer, or to realize his importance as a link in 
 the human chain. At a time when the mass of 
 mankind learned orally what it learned at all, 
 when news crept slowly over the country-side, 
 and rumour passed from one village ale-house 
 to another, people were preserved from mental 
 stagnation by the " unwyse tales " which Lang- 
 
THE PILGRIM'S STAFF 119 
 
 land found so reprehensible. They heard how 
 a fair and famous courtesan, smitten with 
 blindness, travelled to Rocamadour, beseech- 
 ing a cure, and how, kneeling outside the 
 walls, she was withheld by an invisible power 
 from entering the sanctuary. Then, confess- 
 ing her sins with tears and lamentations, she 
 cut off her beautiful hair, 
 
 A net 
 
 Wherein no more shall souls be snared and slain, 
 
 and offered it to the Virgin in token of amend- 
 ment. This being done, the barrier was lifted, 
 she hastened into the church, " giving praise 
 to the Mother of God," and sight was restored 
 to her eyes.' 
 
 Many were the miracles related by pilgrims, 
 and bewildering were the wonders they de- 
 scribed. The zeal for relics having far outrun 
 discretion, a vast hoard of heterogeneous and 
 apocryphal objects had been collected in every 
 church, and were reverenced indiscriminately 
 by the devout. They were less grisly, but 
 hardly less marvellous than the weapons which 
 Christian found in the house of Prudence, 
 Piety, and Charity, when these benevolent 
 
120 COMPROMISES 
 
 ladies exhibited to their guest the "engines 
 with which God's servants had done wonderful 
 things." Christian's delight over the hammer 
 and nail with which Jael killed Sisera, the 
 sling and stone with which David killed Goliath, 
 the jaw bone of an ass with which Samson 
 killed the Philistines, and the ox goad with 
 which Shamgar killed six hundred of his ene- 
 mies, is but the reflection of a gentler senti- 
 ment which stirred the pilgrim's heart. Our 
 ancestors were not wont to reason very dis- 
 tinctly on these or on other matters ; the ab- 
 normal offered no obstacle to their credulity ; 
 and the complete absence of an historic back- 
 ground annihilated for them a dozen and more 
 intervening centuries. The Holy Coat carried 
 them in spirit to Nazareth, the Veil of Vero- 
 nica led them to the foot of the Cross. When 
 told that the head of St. John the Baptist re- 
 posed in a church at Amiens, they neither cal- 
 culated the probabilities of the case nor in- 
 quired into ways and means. When a few far- 
 travelled pilgrims heard that the same relic was 
 claimed by a church in Constantinople, they 
 either became partisans a natural sentiment 
 
THE PILGRIM'S STAFF 121 
 
 or argued with the simple sagacity of Sir 
 John Mandeville. Which was the true head he 
 could not tell. " I wot nere but God knowethe; 
 but in what wyse that men worschippen it, the 
 blessed seynte John holt him a-payd." 
 
 This is the pith and marrow of the argu- 
 ment. Pilgrims, reaching back dimly into a 
 shrouded past, grasped at the relic which bridged 
 for them the chasm, and felt the mysterious 
 blessedness of association. If it were not what 
 it was believed to be, the saints, well aware 
 both of men's fallibility and of their good faith, 
 would undoubtedly " holt them a-payd." The 
 same sentiment hallowed countless shrines, and 
 found expression in the sygnys or medals 
 which then, as now, played a prominent part 
 in pilgrimages. We know how little such cus- 
 toms change when we read of the fourteenth- 
 century pilgrims at Rocamadour, and see the 
 twentieth-century pilgrims at Lourdes. The 
 Eocamadour medals were made of pewter, 
 stamped with an image of the Virgin, and 
 pierced with holes so that they could be sewn 
 to the cap or dress. The right to make and sell 
 them belonged exclusively to the family of De 
 
122 COMPROMISES 
 
 Valon, and had been granted by the crown in 
 return for military service. So large were the 
 sales, and so comfortable the profits, that the 
 thrifty townspeople constantly infringed upon 
 the seignorial privilege, and flooded the mar- 
 ket, in defiance of all authority, with contra- 
 band medals, a pardonable offence, not with- 
 out parallel in every age and land. 
 
 The Canterbury sygnys were in the shape 
 of little flasks ; at Compostella they were 
 minute cockle-shells ; at Amiens they bore the 
 head of St. John the Baptist : " Ecce signum 
 faciei beati Johannis Baptistae." So pleased 
 were pilgrims with these devices, and so proud 
 to wear the mementoes of their piety, as 
 the Moslem, returned from Mecca, wears his 
 green turban, that we find Erasmus mock- 
 ing at their appearance " clothyd with cockle- 
 schelles, and laden on every side with bunches 
 of lead and tynne." There is not a shrine in 
 Europe to-day unprovided with similar tokens. 
 At Auray, medals of St. Anne ; at Padua, 
 medals of St. Anthony ; at Avila, medals of 
 St. Theresa ; at Prague, medals of the Holy 
 Infant ; at Loretto, medals of the Santa Casa ; 
 
TEE PILGRIM'S STAFF 123 
 
 at Genazzana, medals of Our Lady of Good 
 Counsel; at Paray-le-Monial, medals of the 
 Sacred Heart ; at the charming old pilgrimage 
 church of Maria Plain near Salzburg, medals 
 of the Blessed Virgin uncovering the Divine 
 Child ; at Lourdes, more medals and rosaries 
 than one can imagine all Catholic Christendom 
 buying in the next three hundred years. 
 
 Yet bought they are, and could Erasmus 
 behold the pilgrims leaving Lourdes, he would 
 deem himself once more on the Walsingham 
 way. It is well to watch the French country 
 people, laden with the heavy baskets which 
 hold their supply of food, grasping the inevit- 
 able umbrellas, as big and bulky as folded 
 tents, and burdened furthermore with an assort- 
 ment of pious souvenirs that require the utmost 
 care in handling. They move slowly in little 
 groups from image to image in the lower church. 
 Some scholar of the party spells out the name 
 of each saint, and then all softly rub their 
 miscellaneous treasures beads, scapulars, 
 medals, benitiers up and down the statue's 
 robe and feet. Some old, old, misty notion of 
 the blessedness of touch dwells confusedly in 
 
124 COMPROMISES 
 
 every mind. Their contentment is beautiful to 
 behold. They alone know by what sacrifices and 
 privations these days of pilgrimage were made 
 possible ; but we know how much they have 
 gained. New sensations ; the sudden opening of 
 the world's closed doors, revealing to them a 
 little corner amid wide mysterious spaces ; the 
 stirring of the heart in the presence of sacred 
 things ; one keen experience in a monotonously 
 bucolic life ; one deep breath of a diviner air ; 
 something desired, achieved, and ever to be re- 
 membered, what generous mind doubts that 
 all this is better than sensibly staying at home ? 
 No observer could have stood at the doors of 
 St. Peter's in the spring of 1900, when the 
 pilgrims of every land thronged up the sunlit 
 steps, without learning once for all the value of 
 emotions. The crowd stared, jostled, chattered, 
 as it swept along, and then, entering those vast, 
 harmonious aisles, fell silent, while there came 
 into every face a look that could never be 
 mistaken nor forgotten. It was the leaping of 
 the human soul to the ideal. It was an inar- 
 ticulate nunc dimittis, as the pilgrim entered 
 upon the inheritance of ages. 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 
 
 De tous ces titres, celui que j'aime le mieux est celui 
 de Philadelphien, ami desfreres. II y a bien des sortes de 
 vanit^, mais la plus belle est celle qui, ne s'arrogeant aucun 
 litre, rend presque tous les autres ridicules. VOLTAIRE. 
 
 IT is well for us who are interested in colo- 
 nial days and colonial ways that their leisure 
 gave men and women ample opportunity to 
 keep diaries, and that a modesty now quite un- 
 known made them willing to spend long hours 
 in writing pages not destined for publication. 
 There is something very charming about this 
 old-fashioned, long-discarded reticence, this de- 
 liberate withholding of trivial incidents and 
 fleeting impressions from the wide-mouthed curi- 
 osity of the crowd. Even when the Revolution 
 had awakened that restless spirit of change 
 which scorned the sobriety of the past, there 
 lingered still in people's hearts an inherited 
 instinct of reserve. Men breakfasted with 
 Washington, dined with John Adams, fought 
 by the side of La Fayette, and never dreamed 
 
126 COMPROMISES 
 
 of communicating these details to the world. 
 Women danced at the redcoat balls, or curtsied 
 and yawned at Mrs. Washington's receptions, 
 and then went home and confided their experi- 
 ences either to their friends, in long, gossiping 
 letters, or to the secret pages of their diaries. 
 It was a lamentable waste of " copy," but a 
 saving of dignity and self-respect. 
 
 As for the earlier, easier days, when the in- 
 fant colonies waxed fat on beef and ale, literary 
 aspirations had not then begun to afflict the 
 hearts of men. It is delightful to think how 
 well little Philadelphia, like New York, got 
 along without so much as a printing press, 
 when she had starved out her only printer, 
 Bradford, a most troublesome and seditious 
 person, and sent him over to little Boston, 
 which even then had more patience than her 
 neighbours with books. Yet all this time, hon- 
 est citizens were transcribing in letters and 
 in journals whatever was of daily interest 
 or importance to them ; and it is by help of 
 these letters and these journals that we now 
 look back upon that placid past, and realize 
 the every-day existence of ordinary people, 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 127 
 
 nearly two centuries ago. We know through 
 them, and through them only, what manner of 
 lives our forefathers led in Puritan New Eng- 
 land, in comfortable Dutch New York, in de- 
 mure Quaker Pennsylvania, before the sharp 
 individuality of each colony was merged into 
 the common tide, and with the birth of a na- 
 tion " a respectable nation," to use the words 
 of Washington, who was averse to glittering 
 superlatives the old order passed away for- 
 ever from the land. 
 
 " It is to the pages of Judge Sewall's diary," 
 writes Alice Morse Earle, " that we must turn 
 for any definite or extended contemporary pic- 
 ture of colonial life in New England ; " just as 
 we turn for the corresponding picture of old 
 England to the diaries of John Evelyn and of 
 Mr. Samuel Pepys. Mrs. Earle does not add, 
 though she well might, that it is better disci- 
 pline to read Judge Sewall's records than those 
 of all the other diarists in Christendom ; for, 
 by contrast with the bleak cheerlessness of 
 those godly days, our own age seems flooded 
 with sunshine, and warm with the joy of life. 
 And not our own age only. If we pass from 
 
128 COMPROMISES 
 
 ice-bound Massachusetts to colonies less chilly 
 and austere, we step at once into a different 
 world, a tranquil and very comfortable world ; 
 not intellectual nor anxiously religious, but 
 full of eating and drinking, and the mildest 
 of mild amusements, and general prosperity 
 and content. Even the Pennsylvania Quakers, 
 though not permitted to dally openly with 
 flaunting and conspicuous pleasures, with blue 
 ribbons, coloured waistcoats, or the shows of 
 itinerant mummers, enjoyed a fair share of 
 purely mundane delights. If Judge Sewall's 
 journal tells us plainly and pitilessly the story 
 of Puritanism, what it really meant in those 
 early uncompromising days, what virtues it 
 nourished, what sadness it endured, the diary 
 of a Philadelphia Friend gives us a correspond- 
 ingly clear insight into that old-time Quaker- 
 ism, gentle, silent, tenacious, inflexible, which 
 is now little more than a tradition in the land, 
 yet which has left its impress forever upon the 
 city it founded and sustained. 
 
 Elizabeth Sandwith, better known as Eliza- 
 beth Drinker, though even that name has 
 an unfamiliar sound, save to her descendants 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 129 
 
 and to a few students of local history, was 
 born in Philadelphia in 1735. She was the 
 daughter of wealthy Friends, and her educa- 
 tion, liberal for those days, would not be deemed 
 much amiss even in our own. It included a 
 fair knowledge of French and a very admir- 
 able familiarity with English. She read books 
 that were worth the reading, and she wrote 
 with ease, conciseness, and subdued humour. 
 Her diary, begun in 1758, was continued with- 
 out interruption for forty-nine years. It is val- 
 uable, not only as a human document, and as 
 a clear, graphic, unemotional narrative of the 
 most troubled and triumphant period in our 
 country's history, but because it contains a 
 careful record of events which of the ut- 
 most importance to the local historian may 
 be searched for in vain elsewhere. The entries 
 are for the most part brief, and to this brevity, 
 no doubt, we owe the persevering character of 
 the work. It is the enthusiasm with which the 
 young diarist usually sets about her task that 
 threatens its premature collapse. She begins 
 by being unduly confidential, and ends by hav- 
 ing nothing to confide. 
 
130 COMPROMISES 
 
 Not so this Quaker girl, reticent even with 
 herself ; avoiding, even in the secret pages of 
 her journal, all gossip about her own soul, all 
 spiritual outpourings, all the dear and inex- 
 haustible delights of egotism. She notes down, 
 indeed, every time she goes to meeting, and 
 also the date on which she begins to work 
 " a large worsted Bible cover," which Bible 
 cover is in the possession of her great-great- 
 grandchildren to-day; but neither the meet- 
 ings nor the worsted work betray her into a 
 complacent piety, and she is just as careful to 
 say when she has been drinking tea, or spend- 
 ing the afternoon with any of her young 
 friends. As a matter of fact, tea-drinking and 
 kindred frivolities are evidently more to her 
 liking, though she will not confess it, than 
 serious and improving occupations. Philadel- 
 phia, dazzled by Franklin's discoveries, was 
 pleased to think herself scientific in those days ; 
 and young men and women were in the habit 
 of attending learned lectures, or what were 
 then thought learned lectures, and pretend- 
 ing they understood and enjoyed them, a 
 mental attitude not wholly unfamiliar to us 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 131 
 
 now. So keen was the thirst for knowledge 
 that men paid four shillings for the privilege 
 of looking at a skeleton and some anatomical 
 models in the Pennsylvania Hospital. Our 
 Quaker Elizabeth, however, will have none of 
 these dreary pastimes. To electricity and to 
 skeletons she is alike indifferent ; but she pays 
 two shillings cheerfully to see a lioness, exhib- 
 ited by some enterprising showman, and she 
 records without a scruple that she and her 
 family gave the really exorbitant sum of six 
 shillings and sixpence for a glimpse at a 
 strange creature which was carried about in 
 a barrel, and which its owner said was half 
 man and half beast, but which turned out to 
 be a young baboon, very sick and sad. " I 
 felt sorry for the poor thing, and wished it 
 back in its own country," says the gentle- 
 hearted Quakeress, who has always a pitying 
 word for beasts. 
 
 The fidelity with which this delightful jour- 
 nal is kept enables us to know what sober 
 diversions fell to the lot of strict Friends, to 
 whom the famous Philadelphia Dancing As- 
 semblies and the equally famous old South- 
 
132 COMPROMISES 
 
 wark Theatre were alike forbidden joys ; who 
 never witnessed the glories of the Mischianza, 
 nor the gay routs of the redcoat winter ; who, 
 though loyal to the crown, shared in none 
 of the festivities of the king's birthday ; who 
 were too circumspect even to join the little 
 group of Quaker ladies for whom M. de Lu- 
 zerne prepared a separate apartment at the 
 beautiful fete du Dauphin, and who, wistful 
 and invisible, watched through a gauze curtain 
 the brilliant scene in which they had no share. 
 None of these dallyings with the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil, no glimpses into the fast- 
 growing dissipation of the gayest and most ex- 
 travagant city in the colonies, find a record in 
 Elizabeth Drinker's diary. Her utmost limit 
 of frivolity is reached in a sleighing party on 
 a winter afternoon ; in tea-drinking on winter 
 evenings ; in listening to a wonderful musical 
 clock, which cost a thousand guineas in Europe 
 and played twenty tunes ; and in gazing at a 
 panorama of London, which most Philadel- 
 phians considered almost as good as visiting 
 the metropolis itself. When she is well ad- 
 vanced in years, she is beguiled by her insa- 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 133 
 
 tiable curiosity into going to see an elephant, 
 which is kept in a " small ordinary room," in a 
 not very reputable alley. In fact, she is a little 
 frightened, and more than a little ashamed, 
 at finding herself in such a place, until she 
 encounters a friend, Abigail Griffitts, who has 
 come to gratify her curiosity imder pretence of 
 showing the elephant to her grandchildren ; and 
 the two women are so sustained by each other's 
 company that they forget their confusion, and 
 proceed to examine the mammoth together. 
 " It is an innocent, good-natured, ugly Beast," 
 comments Elizabeth Drinker, " which I need 
 not undertake to describe ; only to say it is 
 indeed a marvel to most who see it, one of 
 the kind never having been in this part of the 
 world before. I could not help pitying the poor 
 creature, whom they keep in constant agitation, 
 and often give it rum or brandy to drink. I 
 think they will finish it before long." The pre- 
 sence of an elephant in a small room, like one 
 of the family, seems an uncomfortable arrange- 
 ment, even if the " innocent beast " were of 
 temperate habits ; but an elephant in a state 
 of unseemly " agitation " must have been at 
 
134 COMPROMISES 
 
 such close quarters a disagreeable and dan- 
 gerous companion. 
 
 One pastime there is which dates from the 
 days of Eden, which no creed forbids and no 
 civilization forswears. Elizabeth Sandwith has 
 not recorded many little events in her diary 
 before Henry Drinker looms upon the scene, 
 though it is only by the inexpressible demure- 
 ness of her allusions to her lover that we have 
 any insight into the state of her affections. 
 Quaker training does not encourage the easy 
 unfurling of emotions, and Elizabeth's heart, 
 like her soul, was a guarded fortress which no 
 one was invited to inspect. There is a good 
 deal of tea-drinking, however, and sometimes 
 an indiscreet lingering after tea until " unsea- 
 sonable hours," eleven o'clock or thereabouts. 
 Finally, on the 28th of November, 1760, ap- 
 pears the following entry : " Went to monthly 
 meeting this morning, A. "Warner and Sister 
 with me. Declared my intentions of marriage 
 with my Friend H. D. Sarah Sansom and 
 Sarah Morris accompanied us to ye Men's meet- 
 ing." Four weeks later this formidable ordeal 
 is repeated. She announces in the December 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 135 
 
 monthly meeting that she continues her inten- 
 tions of marriage with her friend H. D. In 
 January the wedding is celebrated ; and then, 
 and then only, H. D. expands into " my dear 
 Henry," and assumes a regular, though never 
 a very prominent, place in the diary. 
 
 After this, the entries grow longer, less per- 
 sonal, and full of allusions to public matters. 
 We learn how sharply justice was administered 
 in the Quaker city ; for Benjamin Ardey, be- 
 ing convicted of stealing goods out of a shop 
 where he was employed, is whipped for two 
 successive Saturdays, " once at ye cart's 
 tail, and once at ye post." We learn all about 
 the delights of travelling in those primitive 
 days ; for the young wife accompanies her hus- 
 band on several journeys he is compelled to 
 make to the little townships of the province, 
 and gives us a lively account of the roads and 
 inns, of the Manatawny Tavern, for example, 
 and the indignation of the old Dutch landlady 
 on being asked for clean sheets. Such a notion 
 as changing sheets for every fresh traveller has 
 never dawned upon her mind before, and, with 
 the conservative instincts of her class, she takes 
 
136 COMPROMISES 
 
 very unkindly to the suggestion. She is will- 
 ing to dampen and press the bed linen, since 
 these fastidious guests dislike to see it rumpled ; 
 but that is the full extent of her complaisance. 
 If people want clean sheets, they had better 
 bring them along. 
 
 Most interesting of all, we find in this faith- 
 ful, accurate, unemotional diary a very clear 
 and graphic picture of Philadelphia on the eve 
 of the Revolution and after the Declaration of 
 Independence, when deepening discontent and 
 the sharp strife of opposing factions had for- 
 ever destroyed the old placid, prosperous colo- 
 nial life. Every one knows how stubborn was 
 the opposition offered by the Quakers to the 
 war ; how they were hurled from their high 
 estate by the impetuosity of a patriotism which 
 would brook no delay ; and how, with the pass- 
 ing away of the Assembly, they lost all vestige 
 of political power. Scant mercy was shown 
 them after their downfall by the triumphant 
 Whigs, and scant justice has been done them 
 since by historians who find it easier to be elo- 
 quent than impartial. There appears to have 
 been something peculiarly maddening in the 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 137 
 
 passive resistance of the Friends, and in their 
 absolute inability to share the emotions of the 
 hour. The same quiet antagonism which they 
 had manifested to the Stamp Act, to the three- 
 penny duty on tea, and to all unconstitutional 
 measures on the part of England, they offered 
 in turn to the mandates of Congress, and to 
 the exactions of the Executive Council. They 
 would not renounce their allegiance to the 
 crown ; they would not fight for king or coun- 
 try ; they would not pay the new state tax 
 levied for the support of the troops ; they 
 would not lift their hands when the tax col- 
 lector carried off their goods and chattels in de- 
 fault of payment ; they would not hide their 
 valuables from the collector's eyes ; they would 
 not run away when General Howe's army en- 
 tered Philadelphia in the autumn of 1777, nor 
 when the American troops took possession the 
 following June. They would not do anything 
 at all, not even talk ; and perhaps silence 
 was their most absolutely irritating character- 
 istic, at a time when other men found pulpit 
 and platform insufficient for the loud-voiced 
 eloquence of strife. 
 
138 COMPROMISES 
 
 In reading Elizabeth Drinker's journal, we 
 cannot but be struck with, the absence of in- 
 vective, and, for the most part, of comment. 
 Anxiety and irritation are alike powerless to 
 overcome the lifelong habit of restraint. Her 
 husband appears to have been a stubborn and 
 consistent Tory, though the restrictions of his 
 creed compelled him to play an idle part, and 
 to suffer for a lost cause without striking a 
 blow in its behalf. He was one of forty gentle- 
 men, nearly all Friends, who were banished 
 from Philadelphia in the summer of 1777 ; 
 and his wife, with two young children, was left 
 unprotected, to face the discomforts and dan- 
 gers of the tunes. She was more than equal to 
 the task. There is as little evidence of timidity 
 as of rancour in the quiet pages of her diary. 
 She describes the excitement and confusion 
 which the news of General Howe's approach 
 awakened in Philadelphia, and on the 26th of 
 September writes : " Well ! here are ye English 
 in earnest. About two or three thousand came 
 in through Second Street, without opposition or 
 interruption, no plundering on ye one side 
 or ye other. What a satisfaction would it be 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 139 
 
 to our dear absent friends," of whom one 
 was her absent husband, " could they but 
 be informed of it." 
 
 From this time, all public events are recorded 
 with admirable brevity and accuracy (Caesar 
 would have respected Elizabeth Drinker) : 
 the battle of Germantown, the difficulty of 
 finding shelter for the wounded soldiers, the 
 bombardment and destruction of the three 
 forts which guarded Franklin's chevaux de 
 frise and separated General Howe from the 
 fleet, the alarming scarcity of provisions be- 
 fore the three forts fell. Despite her Tory sym- 
 pathies and her husband's banishment, Eliza- 
 beth sends coffee and wine whey daily to the 
 wounded American prisoners ; rightly thinking 
 that the English ran a better chance of being 
 looked after in the hospitals than did her own 
 countrymen. She suffers no molestation save 
 once, when, as she writes, " a soldier came to 
 demand Blankets, which I did not in any wise 
 agree to. Notwithstanding my refusal, he went 
 upstairs and took one, and with good nature 
 begged I would excuse his borrowing it, as it 
 was by General Howe's orders." 
 
140 COMPROMISES 
 
 Annoyances and alarms were common 
 enough in a town overrun by redcoats, who 
 were not infrequently drunk. Elizabeth, de- 
 scending one night to her kitchen, found a 
 tipsy sergeant making ardent and irresistible 
 love to her neat maidservant, Ann. On being 
 told to go away, the man grew bellicose, flour- 
 ished his sword, and used the forcible language 
 of the camp. He had reckoned without his 
 host, however, when he thought to have mat- 
 ters all to his own liking under that quiet 
 Quaker roof. A middle-aged neighbour, a 
 Friend, hearing the tumult, came swiftly to 
 the rescue, collared the rascal, and wrenched 
 the sword out of his hand ; whereupon Eliza- 
 beth, with delightful sense and caution, carried 
 the carnal weapon into the parlour, and deliber- 
 ately locked it up in a drawer. This sobered 
 the warrior, and brought him to his senses. To 
 go back to his barracks without his sword 
 would be to court unpleasant consequences. 
 So after trying what some emphasized pro- 
 fanity would do to help him, and finding it did 
 nothing at all, he grew humble, said he had 
 only yielded up his arms" out of pure good 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 141 
 
 nature," and announced his willingness to drink 
 a glass of wine with such peaceable and friendly 
 folk. No liquor was produced in response to 
 this cordial condescension, but he was con- 
 ducted carefully to the step, the sword returned 
 to him, and the door shut in his face ; upon 
 which poor foolish Ann, being refused permis- 
 sion to follow, climbed the back fence in pur- 
 suit of her lover, and returned to her duties 
 no more. 
 
 Of the brilliant gayety which marked this 
 memorable winter, of the dinners and balls, of 
 the plays at the old Southwark Theatre, of the 
 reckless extravagance and dissipation which 
 filled the lives of the fair Tory dames who 
 danced the merry nights away, there is not the 
 faintest reflection in the pages of this diary. 
 Even the Mischianza that marvellous combi- 
 nation of ball, banquet, and tournament is 
 dismissed in a few brief sentences. " Ye scenes 
 of Vanity and Folly," says the home-staying 
 Quaker wife, though still without any rancor- 
 ous disapprobation of the worldly pleasures in 
 which she has no share. To withstand stead- 
 fastly the allurements of life, yet pass no cen- 
 
142 COMPROMISES 
 
 sure upon those who yield to them, denotes a 
 gentle breadth of character, far removed from 
 the complacent self-esteem of the " unco guid." 
 When a young English officer, whom Elizabeth 
 Drinker is compelled to receive under her roof, 
 gives an evening concert in his rooms, and the 
 quiet house rings for the first time with mu- 
 sic and loud voices, her only comment on the 
 entertainment is that it was " carried on with 
 as much soberness and good order as the na- 
 ture of the thing admitted." And when he in- 
 vites a dozen friends to dine with him, she 
 merely records that "they made very little 
 noise, and went away timeously." It is a good 
 tonic to read any pages so free from com- 
 plaints and repining. 
 
 The diary bears witness to the sad distress of 
 careless merrymakers when the British army 
 prepared to take the field, to the departure of 
 many prominent Tories with Admiral Howe's 
 fleet, and to the wonderful speed and silence 
 with which Sir Henry Clinton withdrew his 
 forces from Philadelphia. " Last night," writes 
 Elizabeth on the 18th of June, 1778, " there 
 were nine thousand of ye British Troops left 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 143 
 
 in Town, and eleven thousand in ye Jerseys. 
 This morning, when we arose, there was not 
 one Red-Coat to be seen in Town, and ye En- 
 campment in ye Jerseys had vanished." 
 
 With the return of Congress a new era of 
 discomfort began for the persecuted Friends, 
 whose houses were always liable to be searched, 
 whose doors were battered down, and whose 
 windows were broken by the vivacious mob ; 
 while the repeated seizures of household effects 
 for unpaid war taxes soon left rigid members 
 of the society bound at any cost to obey the 
 dictates of their uncompromising consciences 
 without a vestige of furniture in their pil- 
 laged homes. " George Schlosser and a young 
 man with him came to inquire what stores we 
 have," is a characteristic entry in the journal. 
 " Looked into ye middle room and cellar. Be- 
 haved complaisant. Their authority, the Pop- 
 ulace." And again : " We have taxes at a 
 great rate almost daily coming upon us. Yes- 
 terday was seized a walnut Dining Table, five 
 walnut Chairs, and a pair of large End-Irons, 
 as our part of a tax for sending two men out 
 in the Militia." This experience is repeated 
 
144 COMPROMISES 
 
 over and over again, varied occasionally by 
 some livelier demonstrations on the part of the 
 " populace," which had matters all its own way 
 during those wild years of misrule. When 
 word came to Philadelphia that Lord Corn- 
 wallis had surrendered, the mob promptly ex- 
 pressed its satisfaction by wrecking the houses 
 of Friends and Tory sympathizers. " We had 
 seventy panes of glass broken," writes Eliza- 
 beth calmly, " ye sash lights and two panels 
 of the front Parlour broke in pieces ; ye Door 
 cracked and violently burst open, when they 
 threw stones into ye House for some time, but 
 did not enter. Some fared better, some worse. 
 Some Houses, after breaking ye door, they 
 entered, and destroyed the Furniture. Many 
 women and children were frightened into fits, 
 and 't is a mercy no lives were lost." 
 
 When peace was restored and the federal 
 government firmly established, these disorders 
 came to an end ; a new security reigned in 
 place of the old placid content; and a new 
 prosperity, more buoyant but less solid than 
 that of colonial days, gave to Philadelphia, as 
 to other towns, an air of gayety, and habits of 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 145 
 
 increased extravagance. We hear no more of 
 the men who went with clubs from shop to shop, 
 " obliging ye people to lower their prices," 
 a proceeding so manifestly absurd that 
 " Tommy Kedman, the Doctor's apprentice, 
 was put in prison for laughing as ye Regula- 
 tors passed by." We hear no more of houses 
 searched or furniture carted away. Elizabeth 
 Drinker's diary begins to deal with other mat- 
 ters, and we learn to our delight that this se- 
 date Quakeress was passionately fond of read- 
 ing romances ; those alluring, long-winded, 
 sentimental, impossible romances, dear to our 
 great-grandmothers' hearts. It is true she does 
 not wholly approve of such self-indulgence, 
 and has ever ready some word of excuse for 
 her own weakness ; but none the less " The 
 Mysteries of Udolpho " and its sister stories 
 thrill her with delicious emotions of pity and 
 alarm. " I have read a foolish romance called 
 4 The Haunted Priory ; or the Fortunes of the 
 House of Rayo,' " she writes on one occasion ; 
 " but I have also finished knitting a pair of 
 large cotton stockings, bound a petticoat, and 
 made a batch of gingerbread. This I mention 
 
146 COMPROMISES 
 
 to show that I have not spent the whole day 
 reading." Again she confesses to completing 
 two thick volumes entitled "The Victim of 
 Magical Illusions ; or the Mystery of the Revo- 
 lution of P L ," which claimed to be a 
 " magico - political tale, founded on historic 
 fact." " It may seem strange," she muses, 
 "that I should begin the year, reading ro- 
 mances. 'T is a practice I by no means highly 
 approve, yet I trust I have not sinned, as I 
 read a little of most things." 
 
 She does indeed, for we find her after a 
 time dipping into of all books in the world 
 Rabelais, and retiring hastily from the ex- 
 periment. " I expected something very sensi- 
 ble and clever," she says sadly, " but on look- 
 ing over the volumes I was ashamed I had 
 sent for them." Mary Wollstonecraft's " Vin- 
 dication of the Rights of Women " pleases her 
 infinitely better ; though she is unwilling to 
 go so far as the impetuous Englishwoman, in 
 whom reasonableness was never a predominant 
 trait. Unrestricted freedom, that curbless wan- 
 dering through doubtful paths which end in 
 social pitfalls, offered no allurement to the 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 147 
 
 Quaker wife in whom self-restraint had become 
 second nature ; but her own intelligence and 
 her practical capacity for affairs made her 
 respect both the attainments and the preroga- 
 tives of her sex. In fact, she appears to have 
 had exceedingly clear and definite opinions 
 upon most matters which came within her ken, 
 and she expresses them in her diary without 
 diffidence or hesitation. The idol of the Revo- 
 lutionary period was Tom Paine ; and when we 
 had established our own republic, the enthusi- 
 asm we felt for republican France predisposed 
 us still to believe that Paine's turbulent elo- 
 quence embodied all wisdom, all justice, and 
 all truth. In Philadelphia the French craze 
 assumed more dangerous and absurd propor- 
 tions than in any other city of the Union. 
 Her once decorous Quaker streets were orna- 
 mented with liberty-poles and flower-strewn 
 altars to freedom, around which men and 
 women, girls and boys, danced the carmagnole, 
 and shrieked wild nonsense about tyrants and 
 the guillotine. The once quiet nights were 
 made hideous with echoes of " Ca ira " and the 
 Marseillaise. Citizens, once sober and sensi- 
 
148 COMPROMISES 
 
 ble, wore the bonnet rouge, exchanged frater- 
 nal embraces, recited mad odes at dinners, and 
 played tricks fantastic enough to plunge the 
 whole hierarchy of heaven into tears, or 
 laughter. " If angels have any fun in them," 
 says Horace Walpole, "how we must divert 
 them ! " Naturally, amid this popular excita- 
 tion, " The Eights of Man " and " The Age of 
 Keason " were the best-read books of the day, 
 and people talked about them with that fierce 
 fervour which forbade doubt or denial. 
 
 Now Elizabeth Drinker was never fervent. 
 Hers was that critical attitude which uncon- 
 sciously, but inevitably, weighs, measures, and 
 preserves a finely adjusted mental balance. 
 She read " The Age of Reason," and she read 
 " The Rights of Man," and then she read Ad- 
 dison's " Evidences of the Christian Religion," 
 by way of putting her mind in order, and then 
 she sat down and wrote : 
 
 " Those who are capable of much wicked- 
 ness are, if their minds take a right turn, 
 capable of much good ; and we must allow 
 that Tom Paine has the knack of writing, or 
 putting his thoughts and words into method. 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 149 
 
 Were he rightly inclined, he could, I doubt 
 not, say ten times as much in favour of the 
 Christian religion as he has advanced against 
 it. And if Lewis ye 17 th were set up as King 
 of France, and a sufficient party in his favour, 
 and Paine highly bribed or flattered, he would 
 write more for a monarchical government than 
 he has ever written on the other side." 
 
 Yet orthodoxy alone, unsupported by intel- 
 lect, had scant charm for this devout Quaker- 
 ess. She wanted, as she expresses it, thoughts 
 and words put into method. Of a most ortho- 
 dox and pious little book, which enjoyed the 
 approbation of her contemporaries, she writes 
 as follows : " Read a pamphlet entitled ' Re- 
 wards and Punishments ; or Satan's Kingdom 
 Aristocratical,' written by John Cox, a Phila- 
 delphian, in verse. Not much to the credit of 
 J. C. as a poet, nor to the credit of Philadel- 
 phia ; tho' the young man may mean well, and 
 might perhaps have done better in prose." 
 
 " Pilgrim's Progress," however, she confesses 
 she has read three times, and finds that, " tho' 
 little thought of by some," she likes it better 
 and better with each fresh reading. Lavater 
 
150 COMPROMISES 
 
 she admires as a deep and original thinker, 
 while mistrusting that he has " too good a con- 
 ceit " of his own theories and abilities ; and the 
 " Morals " of Confucius she pronounces " a 
 sweet little piece," and finer than most things 
 produced by a more enlightened age. 
 
 This is not a bad showing for those easy old 
 days, when the higher education of women 
 had not yet dawned as a remote possibility 
 upon any mind ; and when, in truth, the edu- 
 cation of men had fallen to a lower level than 
 in earlier colonial times. Philadelphia was 
 sinking into a stagnant mediocrity, her col- 
 lege had been robbed of its charter, and the 
 scholarly ambitions (they were never more than 
 ambitions) of Franklin's time were fading fast 
 away. Even Franklin, while writing admira- 
 ble prose, had failed to discover any difference 
 between good and bad verse. His own verse is 
 as cheerfully and comprehensively bad as any 
 to be found, and he always maintained that 
 men should practise the art of poetry, only 
 that they might improve their prose. This 
 purely utilitarian view of the poet's office was 
 not conducive to high thinking or fine criticism ; 
 
A QUAKER DIARY 151 
 
 and Elizabeth Drinker was doubtless in a very 
 small minority when she objected to " Satan's 
 Kingdom Aristocratical," on the score of its 
 halting measures. 
 
 The most striking characteristic of our 
 Quaker diarist is precisely this clear, cold, un- 
 biased judgment, this sanity of a well-ordered 
 mind. What she lacks, what the journal lacks 
 from beginning to end, is some touch of hu- 
 man and ill-repressed emotion, some word of 
 pleasant folly, some weakness left undisguised 
 and unrepented. The attitude maintained 
 throughout is too judicial, the repose of heart 
 and soul too absolute to be endearing. Here is 
 a significant entry, illustrating as well as any 
 other this nicely balanced nature, which gave 
 to all just what was due, and nothing more : 
 
 " There has been a disorder lately among ye 
 cats. Our poor old Puss, who has been for 
 some time past unwell, died this morning, in ye 
 13th year of her age. Peter dug a grave two 
 feet deep on ye bank in our garden, under ye 
 stable window, where E. S., Peter and I saw 
 her decently interred. / had as good a regard 
 for her as was necessary." 
 
152 COMPROMISES 
 
 Was ever affection meted out like this? 
 Was there ever such Quaker-like precision of 
 esteem ? For thirteen years that cat had been 
 Elizabeth Drinker's companion, and she had 
 acquired for her just as good a regard as was 
 necessary, and no more. It was not thus Sir 
 Walter spoke, when Hinse of Hinsdale lay dead 
 beneath the windows of Abbotsford, slain by 
 the great staghound, Nimrod. It was not thus 
 that M. Gautier lamented the consumptive 
 Pierrot. It is not thus that the heart mourns, 
 when a little figure, friendly and familiar, sits 
 no longer by our desolate hearth. 
 
FRENCH LOVE-SONGS 
 
 Quand on est coquette, il faut etre sage ; 
 
 L'oiseau de passage 
 
 Qui vole a plein coeur 
 Ne dort pas en 1'air comme une hirondelle, 
 
 Et peut, d'un coup d'aile, 
 
 Briser une fleur. 
 
 ALFRED DE MUSSET. 
 
 THE literature of a nation is rooted in na- 
 tional characteristics. Foreign influences may 
 dominate it for a time ; but that which is born 
 of the soil is imperishable, and must, by virtue 
 of tenacity, conquer in the end. England, 
 after the Restoration, tried very hard to be 
 French, and the " happy and unreflecting wan- 
 tonness " of her earlier song was chilled into 
 sobriety by the measured cadences of Gallic 
 verse ; yet the painful and perverse effort to 
 adjust herself to strange conditions left her 
 more triumphantly English than before. We 
 are tethered to our kind, and the wisest of all 
 wise limitations is that which holds us well 
 
154 COMPROMISES 
 
 within the sphere of natural and harmonious 
 development. 
 
 It is true, however, that nationality betrays 
 itself less in lyrics, and, above all, less in love 
 lyrics, than in any other form of literature. 
 Love is a malady, the common symptoms of 
 which are the same in all patients ; and though 
 love-songs like battle-songs and drinking- 
 songs are seldom legitimate offsprings of ex- 
 perience, they are efforts to express in words 
 that sweet and transient pain. " Les ames 
 bien nees " without regard to birthplace 
 sing clearly of their passion, and seek their 
 "petit coin de bonheur" under Southern and 
 Northern skies. The Latin races have, indeed, 
 depths of reserve underlying their apparent 
 frankness, and the Saxons have a genius for 
 self-revelation underlying their apparent reti- 
 cence ; but these traits count for little in the 
 refined duplicity of the love-song. 
 
 Garde bien ta belle folie ! 
 
 has been its burden ever since it was first 
 chanted by minstrel lips. 
 
 M. Brunetiere frankly admits the inferiority 
 
FRENCH LOVE-SONGS 155 
 
 of the French lyric, an inferiority which he at- 
 tributes to the predominance of social charac- 
 teristics in the literature, as in the life of 
 France. When poetry is compelled to fulfil a 
 social function, to express social conditions and 
 social truths, to emphasize fundamental princi- 
 ples and balance contrasted forces, the founts of 
 lyrical inspiration are early dried. Individual- 
 ism is their source, the sharp, clear striking 
 of the personal note ; and the English, says 
 M. Brunetiere, excel in this regard. " To Lu- 
 casta. Going to the Warres," has no perfect 
 counterpart in the love-songs of other lands. 
 
 Even the eager desire of the Frenchman to 
 be always intelligible (" That which is not 
 lucid is not French ") militates against the per- 
 fection of the lyric. So too does his exquisite 
 and inborn sense of proportion. "Measure," 
 says Mr. Brownell, " is a French passion ; " but 
 it is a passion that refuses to lend itself to rap- 
 turous sentiment. 
 
 Et veut que Ton soit sage avec sobrtet^ 
 
 is hardly a maxim to which the genius of the 
 love-song gives willing ear. Rather is she the 
 
156 COMPROMISES 
 
 La Belle Dame sans Merci, or the Elfin Lady 
 who rode through the forests of ancient France. 
 
 My sire is the nightingale, 
 That sings, making his wail, 
 
 In the wild wood, clear ; 
 The mermaid is mother to me, 
 That sings in the salt sea, 
 
 In the ocean mere. 
 
 "What," asks Mr. BrowneU hopelessly, 
 " has become of this Celtic strain in the French 
 nature ? " a strain which found vent in the 
 "poesie courtoise" playful, amorous, laden 
 with delicate subtleties and fond conceits. This 
 poesie once the delight of Christendom 
 echoes still in Petrarch's sonnets and in Shake- 
 speare's madrigals ; but it is difficult to link its 
 sweet extravagances with the chiselled verse of 
 later days, and critics forget the past in their 
 careful contemplation of the present. " French 
 poetry," says Mr. Zangwill, " has always leant 
 to the frigid, the academic, the rhetorical, 
 in a word, to the prosaic. The spirit of Boileau 
 has ruled it from his cold marble urn." 
 
 But long before Boileau lay in his urn or 
 in his cradle the poets of France, like the 
 poets of Albion, sang with facile grace of love, 
 
FRENCH LOVE-SONGS 157 
 
 and dalliance, and the glory of youth and spring. 
 The fact that Boileau ignored and despised 
 their song, and taught his obedient followers to 
 ignore and despise it also, cannot silence those 
 early notes. When he descended frigidly to 
 his grave, Euterpe tucked up her loosened hair, 
 and sandalled her bare white feet, and girdled 
 her disordered robes into decent folds. Per- 
 haps it was high time for these reforms. No- 
 thing is less seductive in middle age than the 
 careless gayety of youth. But once France 
 was young, and Euterpe a slip of a girl, and 
 no grim shadow of that classic urn rested on 
 the golden days when Aucassin model of defi- 
 ant and conquering lovers followed Nicolette 
 into the deep, mysterious woods. 
 
 Jeunesse sur moy a puissance, 
 Mais Vieillesse fait son effort 
 De m'avoir en sa gouvernance, 
 
 sang Charles d' Orleans, embodying in three 
 lines the whole history of man and song. Youth 
 was lusty and folly riotous when Konsard's mis- 
 tress woke in the morning, and found Apollo 
 waiting patiently to fill his quiver with arrows 
 from her eyes; or when Jacques Tahureau 
 
158 COMPROMISES 
 
 watched the stars of heaven grow dim before 
 his lady's brightness ; or when Vauquelin de la 
 Fresnaye saw Philis sleeping on a bed of lilies, 
 regardless of discomfort, and surrounded by in- 
 fant Loves. 
 
 J'admirois toutes ces beautez 
 figalles a mes loyautez, 
 Quand 1'esprit me dist en 1'oreille : 
 Fol, que fais-tu ? Le temps perdu 
 Souvent est cherement vendu ; 
 S'on le recouvre, c'est merveille. 
 
 Alors, je m'abbaissai tout bas, 
 Sans bruit je marcbai pas a pas, 
 Et baisai ses levres pourprines : 
 Savourant un tel Men, je dis 
 Que tel est dans le Paradis 
 Le plaisir des a~mes divines. 
 
 With just such sweet absurdities, such par- 
 donable insincerities, the poets of Elizabeth's 
 England fill their amorous verse. George Gas- 
 coigne " swims in heaven " if his mistress smiles 
 upon him ; John Lyly unhesitatingly asserts 
 that Daphne's voice " tunes all the spheres ; " 
 and Lodge exhausts the resources of the vege- 
 table and mineral kingdoms in searching for 
 comparisons by which to set forth the beauties 
 
FRENCH LOVE-SONGS 159 
 
 of Kosalind. The philosophy of love is alike on 
 both sides of the Channel, and expressed in 
 much the same terms of soft insistence. Carpe 
 diem is, and has always been, the lover's maxim ; 
 and the irresistible eloquence of the lyric re- 
 solves itself finally into these two words of warn- 
 ing, whether urged by Celt or Saxon. Herrick 
 is well aware of their supreme significance when 
 he sings : 
 
 Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, 
 
 Old Time is still a-flying : 
 And this same flower that smiles to-day, 
 
 To-morrow will be dying. 
 
 Then be not coy, but use your time, 
 
 And while ye may, go marry ; 
 For having lost but once your prime, 
 
 You may forever tarry. 
 
 Ronsard, pleading with his mistress, strikes 
 the same relentless note : 
 
 Done, si vous me croyez, Mignonne, 
 Tandis que vostre age fleuronne 
 En sa plus vert nouveaute", 
 Cueillez, cueillez vostre jeunesse ; 
 Comme a cette fleur, la vieillesse 
 Fera ternir vostre beaute*. 
 
 May-day comes alike in England and in 
 France. Herrick and Jean Passerat, poets of 
 
160 COMPROMISES 
 
 Devonshire and of Champagne, are equally de- 
 termined that two fair sluggards, who love their 
 pillows better than the dewy grass, shall rise 
 from bed, and share with them the sparkling 
 rapture of the early dawn. Herrick's verse, 
 laden with the freshness of the Spring, rings 
 imperatively in Corinna's sleepy ears : 
 
 Get up, get up, for shame ! The blooming Morn 
 Upon her wings presents the god unshorn. 
 See how Aurora throws her fair 
 Fresh-quilted colours through the air. 
 Get up, sweet Slug-a-bed, and see 
 The dew bespangling herb and tree. 
 
 And then across the gayety of the song 
 the deepening note of persuasion strikes a 
 familiar chord : 
 
 Come, let us go, while we are in our prime ; 
 And take the harmless folly of the time I 
 We shall grow old apace, and die 
 Before we know our liberty. 
 
 Passerat is no less insistent. The suitors of 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries seem 
 to have dedicated the chill hours of early 
 morning to their courtship. Nor was the cus- 
 tom purely pastoral and poetic. When Love- 
 lace makes his appointments with Clarissa Har- 
 
FRENCH LOVE-SONGS 161 
 
 lowe at five A. M., the modern reader if 
 Richardson has a modern reader is wont to 
 think the hour an unpropitious one ; but to 
 Herrick and to the Pleiade it would have 
 seemed rational enough. 
 
 Laissons le lit et le sommeil 
 
 Ceste jour ne'e : 
 Pour nous, 1'Aurore au front vermeil 
 
 Est desja ne'e 
 
 sings the French poet beneath his lady's win- 
 dow ; adding, to overcome her coyness or her 
 sleepiness the old dominant argument : 
 
 Ce vieillard, contraire aus amans, 
 
 Des aisles porte, 
 Et en f uyant, nos meilleurs ans 
 
 Bien Icing emporte. 
 Quand ride*e un jour tu seras, 
 Me*lancholique, tu diras : 
 
 J'estoy peu sage, 
 Qui n'usoy point de la beaute* 
 Que si tost le temps a oste" 
 
 De mon visage. 
 
 No less striking is the similarity between 
 the reproachful couplets in which the singers 
 of England and of France delight in denoun- 
 cing their unfaithful fair ones, or in confessing 
 with harmonious sighs the transient nature of 
 
162 COMPROMISES 
 
 their own emotions. Inconstancy is the breath 
 of love's nostrils, and the inspiration of love's 
 songs, which enchant us because they express 
 an exquisite sentiment in its brief moment of 
 ascendency. The tell-tale past, the dubious fu- 
 ture, are alike discreetly ignored. Love in the 
 drama and in the romance plays rather a heavy 
 part. It is too obtrusively omniscient. It is 
 far too self-assertive. Yet the average tax- 
 payer, as has been well remarked, is no more 
 capable of a grand passion than of a grand 
 opera. The utmost he can achieve is some fair, 
 fleeting hour, and with the imperative glad- 
 ness of such an hour the love-song thrills sym- 
 pathetically. It is not its business to 
 
 recapture 
 That first fine careless rapture. 
 
 It does not essay the impossible. 
 
 Now the old and nameless French poet who 
 wrote 
 
 Femme, plaisir de demye heure, 
 Et ennuy qui sans fins demeure, 
 
 was perhaps too ungraciously candid. Such 
 things, when said at all, should be said pret- 
 tily. 
 
FRENCH LOVE-SONGS 163 
 
 Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, 
 
 Men were deceivers ever ; 
 One foot in sea, and one on shore, 
 
 To one thing constant never. 
 
 Gay voices came bubbling with laughter 
 from the happy days that are dead. Sir John 
 Suckling, whose admirable advice to an over- 
 faithful young suitor has been the most in- 
 vigorating of tonics to suitors ever since, vaunts 
 with pardonable pride his own singleness of 
 heart : 
 
 Out upon it ! I have loved 
 
 Three whole days together, 
 And am like to love three more, 
 
 If it prove fair weather. 
 
 Time shall moult away his wings 
 
 Ere he shall discover 
 In the whole wide world again 
 
 Such a constant lover. 
 
 Sir John Sedley epitomizes the situation in 
 his praises of that jade, Phillis, whose smiles 
 win easy pardon for her perfidy : 
 
 She deceiving, 
 I believing, 
 What need lovers wish for more ? 
 
 And Lovelace, reversing the medal, pleads 
 
164 COMPROMISES 
 
 musically and not in vain for the same 
 gracious indulgence : 
 
 Why shoulclst thou sweare I am forsworn, 
 
 Since thine I vowed to be ? 
 Lady it is already Morn, 
 And 't was last night I swore to thee 
 
 That fond impossibility. 
 
 Mr. Lang is of the opinion that no Gallic 
 verse has equalled in audacity this confession 
 of limitations, this " Apologia pro Vita Sua ; " 
 and perhaps its light-heartedness is well out of 
 general reach. But the French lover, like the 
 English, was made of threats and promises 
 alike fruitless of fulfilment, and Phillis had 
 many a fair foreign sister, no whit more 
 worthy of regard. Only, amid the laughter 
 and raillery of a Latin people, there rings ever 
 an undertone of regret, not passionate and 
 heart-breaking, as in Drayton's bitter cry, 
 
 Since there 's no help, come let us kiss and part, 
 
 but vague and subtle, linking itself tenderly to 
 some long-ignored and half -forgotten sentiment, 
 buried deep in the reader's heart. 
 
 Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ? 
 
FRENCH LOVE-SONGS 165 
 
 A little sob breaks the smooth sweetness of 
 Belleau's verse, and Ronsard's beautiful lines 
 to his careless young mistress are heavy with 
 the burden of sighs : 
 
 Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir, a la chandelle, 
 Assise aupres du feu, devisant et filant, 
 Direz, chantant mes vers, en voua esmerveillant : 
 * Ronsard me ce'le'broit du temps que j'estois belle.' 
 
 The note deepens as we pass into the more 
 conscious art of later years, but it is always 
 French in its grace and moderation. How en- 
 durable is the regret with which de Musset 
 sings of Juana, who loved him for a whole year ; 
 how musical his farewell to Suzon, whose 
 briefer passion lasted eight summer days : 
 
 Que notre amour, si tu m'oublies, 
 Suzon, dure encore un moment ; 
 Comme un bouquet de fleurs palies ; 
 Cache-le dans ton sein charmant ! 
 Adieu ! le bonheur reste au gite ; 
 Le souvenir part avec moi : 
 Je 1'emporterai, ma petite, 
 
 Bien loin, bien vite, 
 
 Toujours a toi. 
 
 In Murger's familiar verses, so pretty and 
 gay and heartsick, in the finer art of Gautier, 
 
166 COMPROMISES 
 
 in the cloudy lyrics of Verlaine, we catch 
 again and again this murmur of poignant but 
 subdued regret, this sigh for the light love that 
 has so swiftly fled. The delicacy of the senti- 
 ment is unmatched in English song. The 
 Saxon can be profoundly sad, and he can or 
 at least he could be ringingly and recklessly 
 gay ; but the mood which is neither sad nor 
 gay, which is fed by refined emotions, and 
 tranquillized by time's subduing touch, has 
 been expressed oftener and better in France. 
 Four hundred and fifty years ago Francois Vil- 
 lon touched this exquisite chord in his " Bal- 
 lade des Dames du Temps Jadis," and it has 
 vibrated gently ever since. We hear it echo- 
 ing with melancholy grace in these simple lines 
 of Gerard de Nerval : 
 
 Oh sont les amoureuses ? 
 
 Elles sont au tombeau ! 
 Mies sont plus heureuses, 
 
 Dans un se*jour plus beau. 
 
 Nerval, like Villon, had drunk deep of the 
 bitterness of life, but he never permitted its 
 dregs to pollute the clearness of his song : 
 
 Et vent que 1'on soit triste avec sobrie'te'. 
 
FRENCH LOVE-SONGS 167 
 
 In the opinion of many critics, the lyric was 
 not silenced, only chilled, by the development 
 of the classical spirit in France, and the corre- 
 sponding conversion of England. Its flute notes 
 were heard now and then amid the decorous 
 couplets that delighted well-bred ears. Waller 
 undertook the reformation of English verse, and 
 accomplished it to his own and his readers' radi- 
 ant satisfaction ; yet Waller's seven-year suit 
 of Lady Dorothy Sidney is the perfection of 
 that poetic love-making which does not lead, 
 and is not expected to lead, to anything definite 
 and tangible. Never were more charming trib- 
 utes laid at the feet of indifferent beauty ; 
 never was indifference received with less con- 
 cern. Sacharissa listened and smiled. The 
 world the august little world of rank and 
 distinction listened and smiled with her, 
 knowing the poems were written as much for 
 its edification as for hers ; and Waller, well 
 pleased with the audience, nursed his passion 
 tenderly until it flowered into another delicate 
 blossom of verse. The situation was full of en- 
 joyment while it lasted ; and when the seven 
 years were over, Lady Dorothy married Henry, 
 
168 COMPROMISES 
 
 Lord Spencer, who never wrote any poetry 
 at all ; while her lover said his last good-bye in 
 the most sparkling and heart-whole letter ever 
 penned by inconstant man. What would the 
 author of "The Girdle," and "Go, Lovely Rose," 
 have thought of Browning's uneasy rapture ? 
 
 O lyric love, half angel and half bird, 
 And all a wonder and a wild desire. 
 
 He would probably have pointed out the exag- 
 geration of the sentiment, and the correspond- 
 ing looseness of the lines. He would certainly 
 have agreed with the verdict of M. Sevelinges, 
 had that acute critic uttered it in his day. " It 
 is well," says M. Sevelinges, " that passionate 
 love is rare. Its principal effect is to detach 
 men from all their surroundings, to isolate them, 
 to render them independent of the relations 
 which they have not formed for themselves ; 
 and a civilized society composed of lovers would 
 return infallibly to misery and barbarism." 
 
 Here is the French point of view, expressed 
 with that lucidity which the nation so highly 
 esteems. Who shall gainsay its correctness? 
 But the Saxon, like the Teuton, is sentimental 
 to his heart's core, and finds some illusions 
 
FRENCH LOVE-SONGS 169 
 
 better worth cherishing than truth. It was an 
 Englishman, and one to whom the epithet 
 " cynical " has been applied oftenest, and with 
 least accuracy, who wrote, 
 
 When he was young as you are young, 
 When he was young, and lutes were strung, 
 And love-lamps in the casement hung. 
 
THE SPINSTER 
 
 The most ordinarie cause of a single life is liberty, 
 cially in certain self -pleasing and humorous minds, which 
 are so sensible of every restriction, as they wil goe neere to 
 thinke their girdles and garters to be bonds and shakles. 
 BACON. 
 
 IN the Zend-Avesta, as translated by Anquetil- 
 Duperron, there is a discouraging sentence 
 passed upon voluntary spinsterhood : "The 
 damsel who, having reached the age of eighteen, 
 shall refuse to marry, must remain in Hell until 
 the earth is shattered." 
 
 This assurance is interesting, less because of 
 its provision for the spinster's future than be- 
 cause it takes into consideration the possibility 
 of her refusing to marry ; a possibility which 
 slipped out of men's minds from the time of 
 Zoroaster until our present day. A vast deal 
 has been written about marriage in the interval ; 
 but it all bears the imprint of the masculine 
 intellect, reasoning from the masculine point of 
 view, for the benefit of masculinity, and ignor- 
 
THE SPINSTER 171 
 
 ing in the most natural manner the woman's 
 side of life. The trend of argument is mainly 
 in one direction. While a few cynics gibe at 
 love and conjugal felicity, the mass of poets 
 and philosophers unite in extolling wedlock. 
 Some praise its pleasures, others its duties, and 
 others again merely point out with Euripides 
 that, as children cannot be bought with gold 
 or silver, there is no way of acquiring these 
 coveted possessions save by the help of women. 
 Now and then a rare word of sympathy is flung 
 to the wife, as in those touching lines of Soph- 
 ocles upon the young girls sold in their " glee- 
 ful maidenhood " to sad or shameful marriage- 
 beds. But the important thing to be achieved is 
 the welfare and happiness of men. The welfare 
 and happiness of women are supposed not 
 without reason to follow as a necessary 
 sequence ; but this is a point which excites 
 no very deep concern. 
 
 Catholic Christendom throughout the Middle 
 Ages, and long afterwards, offered one practi- 
 cal solution to the problem of unmated and un- 
 protected womanhood, the convent. The girl 
 robbed of all hope of marriage by bitter stress 
 
172 COMPROMISES 
 
 of war or poverty, the girl who feared too deeply 
 the turmoil and violence of the world, found 
 shelter in the convent. Within its walls she 
 was reasonably safe, and her vows lent dignity 
 to her maidenhood. Bride of the Church, she 
 did not rank as a spinster, and her position had 
 the advantage of being accurately defined ; she 
 was part of a recognized social and ecclesias- 
 tical system. No one feels this more solidly 
 than does a nun to-day, and no one looks with 
 more contempt upon unmarried women in the 
 world. In her eyes there are but two voca- 
 tions, wifehood and consecrated virginity. 
 She perceives that the wife and the religious 
 are transmitters of the world's traditions ; while 
 the spinster is an anomaly, with no inherited 
 background to give repute and distinction to 
 her role. 
 
 This point of view is the basis of much crit- 
 icism, and has afforded scope for the ridicule 
 of the satirist, and for the outpourings of the 
 sentimentalist. A great many brutal jests 
 have been flung at the old maid, and floods of 
 sickly sentiment have been wasted on her be- 
 half. She has been laughed at frankly as one 
 
THE SPINSTER 173 
 
 rejected by men, and she has been wept over as 
 a wasted force, withering patiently under the 
 blight of this rejection. " Envy, hatred, malice, 
 and all uncharitableness " have been ascribed 
 to her on one side, and a host of low-spirited 
 and treacly virtues, on the other. The spinster 
 of comedy is a familiar figure. A perfectly 
 simple and ingenuous example is the maiden aunt 
 in " Pickwick," Miss Eachel Wardle, whom 
 Mr. Tupman loves, and with whom Mr. Jingle 
 elopes. She is spiteful and foolish, envious of 
 youth and easy to dupe. She is utterly ridicu- 
 lous, and a fair mark for laughter. She is 
 pinched, and withered, and hopelessly removed 
 from all charm of womanhood ; and it may 
 be mentioned parenthetically she is fifty 
 years old. We have her brother's word for it. 
 There is nothing in this straightforward 
 caricature that could, or that should, wound 
 anybody's sensibilities. The fun is of a robust 
 order ; the ridicule has no subtlety and no sting. 
 But the old maid of the sentimentalists, a crea- 
 ture stricken at heart, though maddeningly 
 serene and impossibly unselfish, is every bit as 
 remote from reality, and far less cheerful to 
 
174 COMPROMISES 
 
 contemplate. What can be more offensive than 
 the tearful plea for consideration put forward 
 by her apologists, who, after all, tolerate her 
 only because, having no career of her own, she 
 is expected to efface herself in the interests of 
 other people. " The peculiar womanly virtues," 
 says a recent writer upon this fruitful theme, 
 " the power of self-sacrifice, warm sympathies, 
 compassion, patient endurance, represent an 
 untold amount of suffering on the part of the 
 weaker sex in past ages. It is to the world's 
 advantage that the fruit of such suffering be 
 not lost." 
 
 Here is a sparkling view of life; here is 
 a joyous standpoint of observation. There is 
 generosity enough in the world to win for the 
 dejected, the wistful, the pathetic woman a 
 fair share of commiseration; provided always 
 that she does not oppose her own interests to 
 the interests of those around her. But what 
 if she honestly prefers her own interests, a 
 not uncommon attitude of mind? What if 
 patient endurance be the very last virtue to 
 which she can lay claim ? What if she is not 
 in the least wistful, and never casts longing 
 
THE SPINSTER 175 
 
 looks at her sister-in-law's babies, nor strains 
 them passionately to her heart, nor deems it a 
 privilege to nurse her nephews through whoop- 
 ing-cough and measles, nor offers herself in 
 any fashion as a holocaust upon other people's 
 domestic altars? What if, holding her life in 
 her two hands, and knowing it to be her only 
 real possession, she disposes of it in the way 
 she feels will give her most content, swimming 
 smoothly in the stream of her own nature, and 
 clearly aware that happiness lies in the devel- 
 opment of her individual tastes and acquire- 
 ments ? Such a woman may, as Mr. Brownell 
 says, exhibit transparently "her native and ele- 
 mental inconsistencies ; " but she calls for no 
 commiseration, and perhaps adds a trifle to the 
 harmonious gayety of earth. 
 
 That she should be censured for laying claim 
 to what is truly hers seems unkind and irra- 
 tional, a tyranny of opinion. Marriage is a 
 delightful thing ; but it is not, and never can 
 be, a duty ; nor is it as a duty that men and 
 women have hitherto zealously practised it. 
 The outcry against celibacy as a " great social 
 disease " is louder than the situation warrants. 
 
176 COMPROMISES 
 
 It is the echo of an older protest against the 
 deferring of the inevitable wedding-day; against 
 the perverse " boggling at every object," which 
 Burton found so exasperating a trait in youth, 
 and which La Bruyere calmly and conclusively 
 condemns. " There is," says the French mor- 
 alist, "a time when even the richest women 
 ought to marry. They cannot allow their 
 youthful chances to escape them, without the 
 risk of a long repentance. The importance 
 of their reputed wealth seems to diminish with 
 their beauty. A young woman, on the contrary, 
 has everything in her favour ; and if, added to 
 youth, she possesses other advantages, she is 
 so much the more desirable." 
 
 This is the simplest possible exposition of 
 the masculine point of view. It is plain that 
 nothing is farther from La Bruyere's mind 
 than the possibility of a lifelong spinsterhood 
 for even the most procrastinating heiress. He 
 merely points out that it would be more rea- 
 sonable in her to permit a husband to enjoy 
 her youth and her wealth simultaneously. The 
 modern moralist argues with less suavity that 
 the rich woman who remains unmarried because 
 
THE SPINSTER 177 
 
 she relishes the wide and joyous activity fostered 
 by her independence is a transgressor against 
 social laws. She sins through dire selfishness, 
 and her punishment is the loss of all that gives 
 dignity and importance to her life. Only a 
 few months ago a strenuous advocate of mat- 
 rimony as if matrimony had need of advo- 
 cates pointed out judicially in " Harper's 
 Magazine" that the childless woman has no- 
 thing to show for all the strength and skill she 
 has put into the business of living. She may 
 be intelligent, stimulating, and serene. She may 
 have seen much of the world, and have taken its 
 lessons to heart. She may have filled her days 
 with useful and agreeable occupations. Never- 
 theless, he considers her existence " in the long 
 run, a bootless sort of errand ; " doubting 
 whether she has acquired anything that can 
 make life more interesting to her at thirty-five, 
 at forty-five, at seventy. "And so much the 
 worse for her." 
 
 This is assuming that there are no interests 
 outside of marriage; no emotions, ambitions, 
 nor obligations unconnected with the rearing 
 of children. We are invited to believe that the 
 
178 COMPROMISES 
 
 great world, filled to its brim with pleasures 
 and pains, duties, diversions, and responsibil- 
 ities, cannot keep a woman going even to 
 thirty-five without the incentive of maternity. 
 Accustomed as we are to the expansive utter- 
 ances of conjugal felicity, this seems a trifle 
 overbearing. Charles Lamb thought it hard to 
 be asked by a newly wedded lady how being 
 a bachelor he could assume to know anything 
 about the breeding of oysters. To-day the 
 expressed doubt is how being spinsters or 
 bachelors we can assume to know anything 
 about the serious significance of life. 
 
 It is not the rich and presumably self-indul- 
 gent woman alone who is admonished to mend 
 her ways and marry. The sentence extends to 
 the working classes, who are held to be much 
 in fault. Even the factory girl, toiling for her 
 daily bread, has been made the subject of cen- 
 sure as unjust as it is severe. What if she does 
 covet the few poor luxuries, the neat shoes 
 and pretty frock which represent her share of 
 aesthetic development ? What if she does enjoy 
 her independence, and the power to spend as 
 she pleases the money for which she works so 
 
THE SPINSTER 179 
 
 hard ? These things are her inalienable rights. 
 To limit them is tyranny. To denounce them 
 is injustice. We may sincerely believe that she 
 would be better and happier if she married; 
 and that the bringing up of children on the 
 precarious earnings of a working-man would be 
 a more legitimate field for her intelligence and 
 industry. But it is her privilege to decide this 
 point for herself ; and no one is warranted in 
 questioning her decision. She does not owe 
 matrimony to the world. 
 
 There is still another class of women whose 
 spinsterhood is hardly a matter of choice, yet 
 whose independence has aroused especial criti- 
 cism and denunciation. A few years ago there 
 appeared in " Macmillan's Magazine " a well- 
 written article on the educated, unmarried, and 
 self-supporting women, who, in London alone, 
 fill countless clerical, official, and academic 
 positions. It was pointed out that these toilers, 
 debarred by poverty from agreeable social con- 
 ditions, lead lives of cheerful and honourable 
 frugality, preserving their self-respect, seeking 
 help and commiseration from none, enjoying 
 their scanty pleasures with intelligence, and 
 
180 COMPROMISES 
 
 doing their share of work with eager and anx- 
 ious precision. Surely if any creatures on God's 
 earth merit some esteem, these spinsters may 
 be held in deference. Yet the writer of the 
 article unhesitatingly, though not unkindly, 
 summed up the case against them. No woman 
 with a sensitive conscience, he avowed, can be 
 happy on such terms. " She more than suspects 
 she is in danger of serious moral deterioration. 
 . . . She is aware that her mode of life is 
 essentially selfish, and therefore stands con- 
 demned." 
 
 In the name of Heaven, why ? Would her 
 mode of life be less selfish if she asked a 
 support from a married brother, or a wealthy 
 aunt ? Is it necessary to her moral well-being 
 that she should pass her days in polite servi- 
 tude ? Apparently it is ; for hardly had the 
 " Macmillan " article appeared, when a more 
 strenuous critic in the " Spectator " took its 
 writer severely to task, not for his censorship, 
 but for his leniency. The " Spectator " de- 
 clared in round terms that the woman who 
 devotes herself to the difficult problem of her 
 own support " lives a more or less unnatural 
 
THE SPINSTER 181 
 
 life of self-dependence ; the degree of the 
 unnaturalness depending on the degree of her 
 self-dependence, and the completeness of the 
 disappearance of that religious devoutness 
 which prevents loneliness from degenerating 
 into self-dependence." 
 
 Shades of Addison and Steele pardon 
 this cumbrous sentence ! That self-dependence 
 might degenerate into loneliness we can un- 
 derstand ; but how or why should loneliness 
 degenerate into self-dependence, and what has 
 either loneliness or self-dependence to do with 
 the " disappearance of religious devoutness " ? 
 Is religion also a perquisite of family life ? 
 May we not be devout in solitude ? "Be able 
 to be alone," counsels Sir Thomas Browne, 
 whose piety was of a most satisfying order. 
 It is not profane to plan or to advance an in- 
 dividual career. We do not insult Providence 
 by endeavouring to provide for ourselves. 
 And if the restlessness of modern life impels 
 women of independent fortune to enter con- 
 genial fields of work, the freedom to do this 
 thing is their birthright and prerogative. "We 
 can no more sweep back the rising tide of in- 
 
182 COMPROMISES 
 
 terests and ambitions than we can sweep back 
 the waves of the Atlantic. A hundred years 
 ago, marriage was for an intelligent woman 
 a necessary entrance into life, a legitimate 
 method of carrying out her ideas and her aims. 
 To-day she tries to carry them out, whether 
 she be married or not. Perhaps some awkward- 
 ness of self-assertion disfigures that " polished 
 moderation " which is her highest grace ; but 
 the frank resoluteness of her attitude is more 
 agreeable to contemplate than sad passivity 
 and endurance. Mr. John Stuart Mill said 
 that a woman's inheritance of " subjection " 
 he never minced words induced, on the one 
 hand, a capacity for self-sacrifice, and, on the 
 other, a habit of pusillanimity. Both character- 
 istics have been modified by changing circum- 
 stances. But with more courage and less self- 
 immolation has come a happier outlook upon 
 life, and an energy which is not always mis- 
 placed. Mariana no longer waits tearfully in 
 the Moated Grange. She leaves it as quickly 
 as possible for some more healthful habitation, 
 and a more engaging pursuit. 
 
 There is one English author who has de- 
 
THE SPINSTER 183 
 
 fended with delicacy that sagacious self-respect 
 which, even in his time, preserved a woman 
 now and then from the blunder of an unequal 
 and unbecoming marriage. De Quincey, ex- 
 tolling the art of letter-writing, pays this curi- 
 ous bit of homage to his most valued corre- 
 spondents : 
 
 " Three out of four letters in the mail-bag 
 will be written by that class of women who have 
 the most leisure, and the most interest in a 
 correspondence by the post ; and who combine 
 more intelligence, cultivation, and thoughtful- 
 ness than any other class in Europe. They are 
 the unmarried women over twenty-five, who, 
 from mere dignity of character, have renounced 
 all prospects of conjugal and parental life, 
 rather than descend into habits unsuitable to 
 their birth. Women capable of such sacrifices, 
 and marked by such strength of mind, may be 
 expected to think with deep feeling, and to 
 express themselves (unless when they have been 
 too much biassed by bookish connections) with 
 natural grace." 
 
 This is something very different from the 
 "All for Love, and the World well lost," 
 
184 COMPROMISES 
 
 flaunted by novelists and poets ; very different 
 from the well-worn " Quand on n'a pas ce qu'on 
 aime, il faut aimer ce qu'on a," which has 
 married generations of women. But in the 
 philosophy of life, the power to estimate and to 
 balance scores heavily for success. It is not an 
 easy thing to be happy. It takes all the brains, 
 and all the soul, and all the goodness we 
 possess. We may fail of our happiness, strive 
 we ever so bravely ; but we are less likely to 
 fail if we measure with judgment our chances 
 and our capabilities. To glorify spinsterhood is 
 as ridiculous as to decry it. Intelligent women 
 marry or remain single, because in married or 
 in single life they see their way more clearly to 
 content. They do not, in either case, quarrel 
 with fate which has modelled them for, and 
 fitted them into, one groove rather than another ; 
 but follow, consciously or unconsciously, the 
 noble maxim of Marcus Aurelius : " Love that 
 only which the gods send thee, and which is 
 spun with the thread of thy destiny." 
 
THE TOURIST 
 
 See Thrale's grey widow with a satchel roam, 
 And bring in pomp laborious nothings home. 
 
 The Baviad. 
 
 " POTTER hates Potter, and Poet hates Poet," 
 so runs the wisdom of the ancients, but 
 tourist hates tourist with a cordial Christian 
 animosity that casts all Pagan prejudices in 
 the shade. At home we tolerate sometimes 
 we even love our fellow creatures. We can 
 see large masses of them in church and theatre, 
 we can be jostled by them in streets, and be 
 kept waiting by them in shops, and be incon- 
 venienced by them at almost every turn, with- 
 out rancorous annoyance or ill will. But abroad 
 it is our habit to regard all other travellers in 
 the light of personal and unpardonable griev- 
 ances. They are intruders into our chosen 
 realms of pleasure, they jar upon our sensi- 
 bilities, they lessen our meagre share of com- 
 forts, they are everywhere in our way, they 
 
186 COMPROMISES 
 
 are always an unnecessary feature in the land- 
 scape. 
 
 I love not man the less, but nature more, 
 
 wrote Byron, when sore beset ; but the remark 
 cannot be said to bear the stamp of truth. 
 Nine tenths of the poet's love for nature was 
 irritation at the boundless injustice and the 
 sterling stupidity of man. He would never have 
 expressed so much general benevolence had 
 Europe in his time been the tourist-trodden 
 platform it is to-day. 
 
 We might, were we disposed to be reason- 
 able, bear in mind the humiliating fact that 
 we too are aliens, out of harmony with our 
 surroundings, and marring, as far as in us lies, 
 the charm of ancient street or the still moun- 
 tain side. Few of us, however, are so candid 
 as Mr. Henry James, who, while detesting his 
 fellow travellers, frankly admits his own in- 
 herent undesirability. " We complain," he 
 says, "of a hackneyed and cockneyized Eu- 
 rope ; but wherever, in desperate search of the 
 untrodden, we carry our much-labelled lug- 
 gage, our bad French, our demand for a sitz- 
 
 e o " 
 
 bath and pale ale, we rub off the bloom of 
 
THE TOURIST 187 
 
 local colour, and establish a precedent for 
 unlimited intrusion." 
 
 This is generous, and it is not a common 
 point of view. "Americans do roam so," I 
 heard an Englishwoman remark discontentedly 
 in Cook's Paris office, where she was waiting 
 with manifest impatience while the clerk made 
 up tickets for a party of trans- Atlantic kin- 
 dred. It never seemed to occur to her that she 
 was not upon her own native heath. The habit 
 of classifying our distastes proves how strong 
 is our general sense of injury. We dislike 
 English tourists more than French, or French 
 more than English, or Americans more than 
 either, or Germans most of all, the last a 
 common verdict. There is a power of universal 
 mastery about the travelling Teuton which 
 affronts our feebler souls. We cannot cope 
 with him ; we stand defeated at every turn by 
 his resistless determination to secure the best. 
 The windows of the railway carriages, the little 
 sunny tables in the hotel dining-rooms, the 
 back seats commanding the view of the 
 Swiss funiculaires ; all these strong positions 
 he occupies at once with the strategical genius 
 
188 COMPROMISES 
 
 of a great military nation. No weak concern 
 for other people's comfort mars the simple 
 straightforwardness of his plans, nor interferes 
 with their prompt and masterly execution. 
 Amid the confusion and misery of French and 
 Italian railway stations, he plays a conqueror's 
 part, commanding the services of the porters, 
 and marching off triumphantly with his in- 
 numerable pieces of hand luggage, while his 
 fellow tourists clamour helplessly for aid. " The 
 Germans are a rude, unmannered race, but 
 active and expert where their personal advan- 
 tages are concerned," wrote the observant 
 Froissart many years ago. He could say nei- 
 ther more nor less were he travelling over the 
 Continent to-day. 
 
 Granted that the scurrying crowds who in- 
 fest Italy every spring, and Switzerland every 
 summer, are seldom " children of light ; " that 
 their motives in coming are, for the most part, 
 unintelligible, and their behaviour the reverse 
 of urbane ; even then there seems to be no 
 real cause for the demoralization that follows 
 in their wake, for the sudden and bitter change 
 that comes over a land when once the stranger 
 
THE TOURIST 189 
 
 claims it as his own. It is the cordial effort 
 made to meet the tourist halfway, to minister 
 to his supposed wants, and to profit by his sup- 
 posed wealth, that desolates the loveliest cities 
 in the world, that flouts the face of nature, and 
 rasps our most tender sensibilities. Venice 
 turned into a grand bazaar, Yaucluse packed 
 with stalls for the sale of every object which 
 ought never to be found there, the Falls of the 
 Rhine lit up by electricity, like the transforma- 
 tion scene of a ballet ; is it our misfortune 
 or our fault that these things may be directly 
 traceable to us ? Do we like to see a trolley- 
 car bumping its way to Chillon, or to find the 
 castle entrance stocked with silver spoons, and 
 wooden bears, and miniature Swiss chalets? 
 Shall I confess that I watched a youthful 
 countrywoman of my own carrying delightedly 
 away as an appropriate souvenir of the 
 spot a group consisting of Mother bear sit- 
 ting up languidly in bed, Nurse bear wrapping 
 Infant bear in swaddling-cloths, and Doctor 
 bear holding a labelled bottle of medicine ? 
 There seemed a certain incongruity about the 
 purchase, and a certain lack of sensibility in 
 
190 COMPROMISES 
 
 the purchaser. Chillon is not without sombre 
 associations, nor poetic life ; and if Byron's 
 " Prisoner " no longer wrings our hearts, still 
 youth is youth, or, at least, it used to be, 
 and the 
 
 seven columns, massy and grey, 
 
 were at one time part of its inheritance. Is it 
 better, I wonder, to begin life with a few illu- 
 sions, a little glow, a pardonable capacity for 
 enthusiasm, or to be so healthily free from 
 every breath of sentiment as to be capable 
 at eighteen of buying comic bears within the 
 melancholy portals of Chillon. 
 
 Travelling, like novel-writing, is but a mod- 
 ern form of activity ; and tourists, like novel- 
 ists, are increasing at so fearful a rate of speed 
 that foreign countries and library shelves bid 
 fair to be equally overrun. There was a time 
 when good men looked askance both upon the 
 page of fable, and upon those far countries 
 where reality was stranger than romance. " I 
 was once in Italy myself," confesses the pious 
 Koger Ascham ; " but I thank God my abode 
 there was but nine days." Nine days seem a 
 scant allowance for Italy. Even the business- 
 
THE TOURIST 191 
 
 like traveller who now scampers " more Ameri- 
 cano " over Europe is wont to deal more gen- 
 erously with this, its fairest land. But in Roger 
 Ascham's time nine days would hardly have 
 permitted a glimpse at the wonders from which 
 he so swiftly and fearfully withdrew. 
 
 Now and then, as years went by, men with 
 a genuine love of roving and adventure wan- 
 dered far afield, unbaffled by difficulties, and 
 unscandalized by foreign creeds and customs. 
 James Howell, that most delightful of gossips 
 and chroniclers, has so much to say in praise 
 of " the sweetness and advantage of travel," 
 that even now his letters nearly three hun- 
 dred years old stir in our hearts the way- 
 farer's restless longing. After being "toss'd 
 from shore to shore for thirty-odd months," he 
 can still write stoutly : " And tho' these fre- 
 quent removes and tumblings under climes of 
 differing temper were not without some danger, 
 yet the delight which accompany'd them was 
 far greater ; and it is impossible for any man 
 to conceive the true pleasure of peregrination, 
 but he who actually enjoys and puts it into 
 practice." Moreover, he is well assured that 
 
192 COMPROMISES 
 
 travel is " a profitable school, a running acad- 
 emy, and nothing conduceth more to the build- 
 ing up and perfecting of a man. They that 
 traverse the world up and down have the clear- 
 est understanding ; being faithful eye-witnesses 
 of those things which others receive but in 
 trust, whereunto they must yield an intuitive 
 consent, and a kind of implicit faith." 
 
 In one respect, however, Howell was a true 
 son of his day, of the day when Prelacy and 
 Puritanism alternately afflicted England. For 
 foreign cities and foreign citizens he had a keen 
 and intelligent appreciation ; nothing daunted 
 his purpose, nor escaped his observation ; but 
 he drew the line consistently at the charms of 
 nature. The " high and hideous Alps " were as 
 abhorrent to his soul as they were, a century 
 later, to Horace Walpole's. It was the gradual 
 I had almost said the regrettable discovery 
 of beauty in these " uncouth, huge, monstrous 
 excrescences " which gave a new and powerful 
 impetus to travel. Here at least were innocent 
 objects of pilgrimage, wonders uncontaminated 
 by the evils which were vaguely supposed to 
 lurk in the hearts of Paris and of Rome. It 
 
THE TOURIST 193 
 
 was many, many years after Roger Ascham's 
 praiseworthy flight from Italy that we find Patty 
 More, sister to the ever-virtuous Hannah, writ- 
 ing apprehensively to a friend : 
 
 " What is to become of us ? All the world, 
 as it seems, flying off to France, that land of 
 deep corruption and wickedness, made hotter 
 in sin by this long and dreadful Revolution. 
 The very curates in our neighbourhood have 
 been. I fear a deterioration in the English 
 character is taking place. The Ambassador's 
 lady in Paris could not introduce the English 
 ladies till they had covered up their bodies." 
 
 This sounds rather as though England were 
 corrupting France. Perhaps, notwithstanding 
 the truly reprehensible conduct of the curates, 
 for whom no excuse can be made, the 
 exodus was not so universal as the agitated 
 Mrs. Patty seemed to think. There were still 
 plenty of stay-at-homes, lapped in rural virtues, 
 and safe from contamination ; like the squire 
 who told Jane Austen's father that he and his 
 wife had been quarrelling the night before as 
 to whether Paris were in France, or France in 
 Paris. The " Roman Priest Conversion Branch 
 
194 COMPROMISES 
 
 Tract Society " gave to bucolic Britain all the 
 Continental details it required. 
 
 But when the " hideous Alps " became the 
 " matchless heights," the " palaces of Nature," 
 when poets had sung their praises lustily, and 
 it had dawned upon the minds of unpoetic men 
 that they were not merely obstacles to be 
 crossed, but objects to be looked at and ad- 
 mired ; then were gathered slowly the ad- 
 vance guards of that mighty army of sight-seers 
 which sweeps over Europe to-day. " Switzer- 
 land," writes Mr. James gloomily, " has become 
 a show country. I think so more and more 
 every time I come here. Its use in the world 
 is to reassure persons of a benevolent imagi- 
 nation who wish the majority of mankind had 
 only a little more elevating amusement. Here 
 is amusement for a thousand years, and as 
 elevating certainly as mountains five miles high 
 can make it. I expect to live to see the summit 
 of Mount Kosa heated by steam-tubes, and 
 adorned with a hotel setting three dinners a 
 day." 
 
 The last words carry a world of weight. 
 They are the key-note of the situation. Tour- 
 
THE TOURIST 195 
 
 ists in these years of grace need a vast deal of 
 food and drink to keep their enthusiasm warm. 
 James Howell lived contentedly upon bread 
 and grapes for three long months in Spain. 
 Byron wrote mockingly from Lisbon : " Com- 
 fort must not be expected by folks that go 
 a-pleasuring ; " and no one ever bore manifold 
 discomforts with more endurance and gayety 
 than he did. But now that the " grand tour " 
 once the experience of a lifetime has 
 become a succession of little tours, undertaken 
 every year or two, things are made easy for 
 slackened sinews and impaired digestions. The 
 average traveller concentrates his attention 
 sternly upon the slowness of the Italian trains, 
 the shortness of the Swiss beds, the surliness 
 of the German officials, the dirt of the French 
 inns, the debatableness of the Spanish butter, 
 the universal and world-embracing badness of 
 the tea. These things form the staple topics 
 of discussion among men and women who ex- 
 change confidences at the table d'hote, and they 
 lend a somewhat depressing tone to the conver- 
 sation, which is not greatly enlivened by a few 
 side remarks connecting the drinking water 
 
196 COMPROMISES 
 
 with the germs of typhoid fever. It is possible 
 that the talkers have enjoyed some exhilarating 
 experiences, some agreeable sensations, which 
 they hesitate mistakenly to reveal; but 
 they wax eloquent on the subject of cost. " The 
 continual attention to pecuniary disburse- 
 ments detracts terribly from the pleasure of all 
 travelling schemes," wrote Shelley in a moment 
 of dejection ; and the sentiment, couched in less 
 Johnsonian English, is monotonously familiar 
 to-day. Paying for things is a great trouble 
 and a great expense ; and the tourist's uneasy 
 apprehension that he is being overcharged turns 
 this ordinary process which is not wholly 
 unknown at home into a bitter grievance. 
 To hear him expatiate upon the subject, one 
 might imagine that his fellow creatures had 
 heretofore supplied all his wants for love. 
 
 Great Britain had sent her restless children 
 out to see the world for many years before far- 
 away America joined in the sport, while the 
 overwhelming increase of German travellers 
 dates only from the Franco-Prussian War. 
 Now the three armies of occupation march and 
 countermarch over the Continent, very much in 
 
THE TOURIST 197 
 
 one another's way, and deeply resentful of one 
 another's intrusion. " The English " again 
 I venture to quote Froissart " are affable to 
 no other nation than their own." The Ameri- 
 cans so other Americans piteously lament 
 are noisy, self-assertive, and contemptuous. 
 The fault of the Germans, as Canning said of 
 the Dutch, 
 
 Is giving- too little and asking too much. 
 
 All these unlovely characteristics are stimu- 
 lated and kept well to the fore by travel. It is 
 only in our fellow tourists that we can recog- 
 nize their enormity. When Mr. Arnold said 
 that Shakespeare and Virgil would have found 
 the Pilgrim Fathers "intolerable company," 
 he was probably thinking of poets and pietists 
 shut up together in fair weather and in foul, 
 while the little Mayflower pitched its slow way 
 across the " estranging sea." 
 
 It requires a good deal of courage to quote 
 Lord Chesterfield seriously in these years of 
 grace. His reasonableness is out of favour 
 with moralists, and sentimentalists, and earnest 
 thinkers generally. But we might find it help- 
 ful now and then, were we not too wrapped 
 
198 COMPROMISES 
 
 in self-esteem to be so easily helped. " Good 
 breeding," he says thoughtfully, " is a combi- 
 nation of much sense, some good nature, and 
 a little self-denial for the sake of others, with a 
 view to obtain the same indulgence from them." 
 Here is a "Tourist's Guide," the briefest 
 ever penned. We cannot learn to love other 
 tourists, the laws of nature forbid it, but, 
 meditating soberly on the impossibility of their 
 loving us, we may reach some common platform 
 of tolerance, some common exchange of recog- 
 nition and amenity. 
 
THE HEADSMAN 
 
 Et cependant, toute grandeur, toute puissance, toute 
 subordination repose sur l'exe"cuteur : il est 1'horreur et 
 le lien de 1'association humaine. Otez du monde cet agent 
 incomprehensible ; dans 1'instant meme 1'ordre fait place 
 au chaos, les trones s'abiment, et la soci^te" disparait. 
 
 JOSEPH DB MAISTBE. 
 
 WHAT a sombre and striking figure in the 
 deeply coloured background of history is the 
 headsman, that passive agent of strange tyran- 
 nies, that masked executor of laws which were 
 often but the expression of man's violence ! He 
 stands aloof from the brilliant web of life, yet, 
 turn where we will, his shadow falls across 
 the scene. In the little walled towns of me- 
 dieval Europe, in the splendid cities, in the 
 broad lands held by feudal lord or stately mon- 
 astery, wherever the struggle for freedom and 
 power was sharpest and sternest, the headsman 
 played his part. An unreasoning and richly 
 imaginative fear wrapped him in a mantle of 
 romance, as deeply stained as the scarlet cloak 
 
200 COMPROMISES 
 
 which was his badge of office. Banished from 
 the cheerful society of men (de Maistre tells 
 us that if other houses surrounded his abode, 
 they were deserted, and left to crumble and 
 decay), he enjoyed privileges that compen- 
 sated him for his isolation. His tithes were 
 exacted as ruthlessly as were those of prince 
 or baron ; and if his wife chattered little 
 on summer days with friendly gossips, she was 
 sought in secret after nightfall for hideous 
 amulets that blessed or cursed the wearer. 
 From father to son, from son to grandson, 
 the right was handed down ; and the young 
 boy was taught to lift and swing the heavy 
 sword, that his hand might be as sure as his 
 eye, his muscles as hard as his heart. 
 
 Much of life's brilliant panorama was seen 
 from the elevation of the scaffold in the days 
 when men had no chance nor leisure to die 
 lingeringly in their beds. They fell fighting, 
 or by the assassin's hand, or by the help of 
 what was then termed law ; and the headsman, 
 standing ever ready for his role, beheld hu- 
 man nature in its worst and noblest aspects, 
 in moments of stern endurance and supreme 
 
THE HEADSMAN 201 
 
 emotion, of heroic ecstasy and blank despair. 
 Had he a turn for the marvellous, it was grati- 
 fied. He saw Saint Denis arise and carry his 
 severed head from Montmartre to the site of 
 the church which bears his name to-day. He 
 saw Saint Felix and Saint Alban repeat 
 the miracle. He heard Lucre tia of Ancona 
 pronounce the sacred name three times after 
 decapitation. Ordericus Vitalis, that most en- 
 gaging of historians, tells us the story of the 
 fair Lucretia ; and also of the Count de Galles, 
 who asked upon the scaffold for time in which 
 to say his Pater Noster. When he reached 
 the words, Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, 
 the headsman all unworthy of his office 
 grew impatient, and brought down his shining 
 sword. The Count's head rolled on the ground, 
 but from his open lips came with terrible dis- 
 tinctness the final supplication, Sed libera nos 
 a malo. 
 
 These were not trivial experiences. What a 
 tale to tell o' nights was that of Theodoric 
 Schawembourg, whose headless trunk arose 
 and walked thirty paces from the block ! Au- 
 berive, who has preserved this famous legend, 
 
202 COMPROMISES 
 
 embroiders it with so many fantastic details 
 that the salient point of the narrative is well- 
 nigh lost ; but the dead and forgotten heads- 
 man beheld the deed in all its crude simplicity. 
 Had he, on the other hand, a taste for experi- 
 mental science, it was given him to watch the 
 surgeons of Prague, who in 1679 replaced a 
 severed head upon a young criminal's shoulders, 
 and kept the lad alive for half an hour. Pan- 
 urge, it will be remembered, was permanently 
 successful in a similar operation ; but Panurge 
 was a man of genius. We should hardly expect 
 to find his like among the doctors of Prague. 
 
 Strange and unreasonable laws guaranteed 
 to the headsman his full share of emoluments. 
 He was well paid for his work, and never suf- 
 fered from a dull season. From the towns he 
 received poultry and fodder, from the monas- 
 teries, fish and game. The Abbaye de Saint- 
 Germain gave him every year a pig's head ; 
 the Abbaye de Saint-Martin five loaves of 
 bread and five bottles of wine. Cakes were 
 baked for him on the eve of Epiphany. From 
 each leper in the community he exacted 
 Heaven knows why ! a tax at Christmas- 
 
THE HEADSMAN 203 
 
 time. Les files dejoie were his vassals, and 
 paid him tribute. He had the power to save 
 from death any woman on her way to the scaf- 
 fold, provided he were able and willing to marry 
 her. He was the first official summoned to the 
 body of a suicide ; and standing on the dead 
 man's breast, he claimed as his own everything 
 he could touch with the point of his long sword. 
 He might, if he chose, arrest the little pigs that 
 strayed in freedom through the streets of Paris, 
 
 like the happy Plantagenet pigs of London, 
 
 and carry them as prisoners to the Hotel 
 Dieu. Here, unless it could be shown that 
 they belonged to the monks of Saint Anthony, 
 and so, for the sake of the good pig that loved 
 the blessed hermit, were free from molestation, 
 their captor demanded their heads, or a fine of 
 five sous for every ransomed innocent. It was 
 his privilege to snatch in the market-place as 
 much corn as he could carry away in his hands, 
 and the peasants thus freely robbed submitted 
 without a murmur, crossing themselves with 
 fervour as he passed. The representative of law 
 and order was not unlike a licensed libertine 
 in the easy day of old. 
 
204 COMPROMISES 
 
 The element of picturesqueness entered into 
 this life, sombre traditions enriched it, terror 
 steeped it in gloom, the power for which it 
 stood lent to it dignity and weight. In Spain 
 the headsman wore a distinctive dress, and his 
 house was painted a deep and ominous red. 
 In France the ancient title "Executeur de la 
 haute justice " had a full-blown majesty of 
 sound. In Germany superstition grew like a 
 fungus beneath the scaffold's shade, until even 
 the sword was believed to be a sentient thing 
 with strange powers of its own. Who can 
 forget the story of the child Annerl, whose 
 mother took her to the headsman's house, 
 whereupon the great weapon stirred uneasily 
 in its cupboard, thirsting for her blood. Then 
 the headsman besought the mother to allow 
 him to cut the little girl very lightly, that the 
 sword might be appeased ; but she shudder- 
 ingly refused, and Annerl, abandoned to her 
 destiny, was led thirty years later to the block. 
 Executions at night were long in favour, and by 
 the flare of torches the scaffold stood revealed 
 to a great and gaping crowd. For centuries la 
 place de Greve was the theatre for this ghastly 
 
THE HEADSMAN 205 
 
 drama, until every foot of the soil was satu- 
 rated with blood. Only in 1633 were these 
 torchlight decapitations forbidden throughout 
 France. They had grown too turbulently en- 
 tertaining. 
 
 The headsman's office was hereditary, and if 
 there were no sons, a son-in-law succeeded to the 
 post. Henri Sanson, the last of his dread name, 
 claimed that he was of good blood, and that 
 the far-off ancestor who handed down his sword 
 to nine generations had been betrayed by love 
 to this dark destiny. He had married a heads- 
 man's daughter, and could not escape the ter- 
 rible dowry she brought him. It is not possible 
 to attach much weight to the Sanson memoirs, 
 they are so plainly apocryphal ; but we know 
 that the family plied its craft for nearly two 
 hundred years, and that one woman of the race 
 bore seven sons, who all became executioners. 
 In 1726 Charles Sanson died, leaving a little 
 boy, Jean Baptiste, only seven years old. Upon 
 him devolved his father's office ; but, in view 
 of his tender infancy, an assistant was ap- 
 pointed to do the work until he came of age. 
 It was required, however, that the child should 
 
206 COMPROMISES 
 
 stand upon the scaffold at every execution, 
 sanctioning it with his presence. 
 
 The pride of the headsman lay in his dex- 
 terity. The sword was heavy, the stroke was 
 sure. Capeluche, who during the furious strug- 
 gle between the Armagnacs and the Bur- 
 gundiaus severed many a noble head, was a 
 true enthusiast, practising his art con amore, 
 and with incredible delicacy and skill. When 
 the fortunes of war brought him in turn upon 
 the scaffold, he proved no craven ; but took 
 a lively and intelligent interest in his own 
 decapitation. His last moments were spent in 
 giving a practical lesson to the executioner ; 
 showing him where to stand, where to place 
 the block, and how best to handle his weapon. 
 
 The vast audience that assembled so often to 
 witness a drama never staled by repetition was 
 wont to be exceedingly critical. Bungling work 
 drew down upon the headsman the execrations 
 of the mob, and not infrequently placed his 
 own Jife in danger. De Thou's head fell only 
 at the eleventh stroke, the Duke of Monmouth 
 was mangled piteously, and in both these in- 
 stances the fury of the mob rose to murder 
 
THE HEADSMAN 207 
 
 point. It was ostensibly to save such suffer- 
 ings and such scenes that the guillotine was 
 adopted in France ; but for the guillotine it is 
 impossible to cherish any sentiment save ab- 
 horrence. Vile, vulgar, and brutalizing, its 
 only merit was the hideous speed with which it 
 did its work ; a speed which the despots of the 
 Terror never found fast enough. In October, 
 1792, twenty-one Girondists were beheaded in 
 thirty-one minutes ; but as practice made per- 
 fect, these figures were soon outdistanced. The 
 highest record reached was sixty-two decapita- 
 tions in forty-five minutes, which sounds like 
 the work of the shambles. 
 
 Charles Henri Sanson, the presiding genius 
 of the guillotine, has been lifted to notoriety 
 by the torrents of blood he shed ; but his is 
 a contemptible figure, without any of the dark 
 distinction that marked his predecessors. His 
 pages of the family memoirs are probably 
 mendacious, and certainly, as M. Loye pa- 
 thetically laments, " insipid." He poses as a 
 physiologist, and tells strange tales of the 
 condemned who long survived beheading, as 
 though sixty -two executions in forty -five 
 
208 COMPROMISES 
 
 minutes left leisure for the study of such 
 phenomena. He also affects the tone of a phil- 
 anthropist, commiserates the king who died by 
 his hands, and is careful to assure us that it 
 was an assistant named Legros who, holding 
 up the severed head of Charlotte Corday, 
 struck the fair cheek which blushed beneath 
 the blow. We are even asked to believe that 
 he, Sanson, whispered to Marie Antoinette 
 as she descended from the cart, "Have 
 courage, Madame ! " counsel of which that 
 daughter of the Caesars stood in little need. 
 
 The contrast is sharp between this business- 
 like butchery, where the condemned were be- 
 grudged the time it took to die, and the earlier 
 executions, so full of dignity and composure. 
 The vilest criminals felt intuitively that the 
 fulness of their atonement consecrated those 
 last sad moments, and behaved often with un- 
 expected propriety and grace. Mme. de Brin- 
 villiers was a full half hour upon the scaffold. 
 The headsman prepared her for death, untying 
 her cap-strings, cutting off her hair, baring her 
 shoulders, and binding her hands. She was 
 composed without bravado, contrite without 
 
THE HEADSMAN 209 
 
 sanctimoniousness. " I doubt," wrote her con- 
 fessor, the Abbe Piron, " whether in all her 
 "life she had ever been so patient under the 
 hands of her maid." Some natural scorn she 
 expressed at sight of the crowd straining with 
 curiosity to see her die : " Un beau spectacle, 
 Mesdames et Messieurs ! " but this was all. 
 The executioner swept off her head with one 
 swift stroke ; then, hastily opening a flask, 
 took a deep draught of wine. "That was a 
 good blow," he said to the Abbe. " At these 
 times I always recommend myself to God, and 
 He has never failed me. This lady has been 
 on my mind for a week past. I will have six 
 Masses said for her soul." Surely such a 
 headsman ennobled in some degree the direful 
 post he bore. 
 
 If a murderess, inconceivably callous and 
 cruel, could die with dignity, what of the 
 countless scenes where innocence was sacri- 
 ficed to ambition, and where the best and 
 noblest blood of Europe was shed upon the 
 block ? What of the death of Conradin on a 
 Neapolitan scaffold? In the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, boys grew quickly into manhood, and 
 
210 COMPROMISES 
 
 Conradin was seventeen. He had embarked 
 early upon that desperate game, of which the 
 prize was a throne, and the forfeit, life. He 
 had missed his throw, and earned his penalty. 
 But he was the grandson of an emperor, the 
 heir of an imperial crown, and the last of a 
 proud race. There was a pathetic boyishness 
 in the sudden defiance with which he hurled 
 his glove into the throng, and in the low mur- 
 mur of his mother's name. The headsman had 
 a foitter part to play that day, for Conradin's 
 death is one of the world's tragedies ; but 
 there are other scaffolds upon which we still 
 glance back with a pity fresh enough for pain. 
 When Count Egmont and Admiral Horn were 
 beheaded in the great square of Brussels, 
 the executioner wisely hid beneath the black 
 draperies until it was time for him to do his 
 work. He had no wish to parade himself as 
 part of that sad show. 
 
 In England the rules of etiquette were 
 never more binding than upon those who were 
 about to be beheaded. When the Duke of 
 Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, and Lord 
 Capel went to the block together, they were 
 
THE HEADSMAN 211 
 
 told they must die in the order of their rank, 
 as though they were going in to dinner ; and 
 upon Lord Capel's offering to address the 
 crowd without removing his hat, it was ex- 
 plained to him that this was incorrect. The 
 scaffold was not the House of Parliament, and 
 those who graced it were expected to uncover. 
 On a later and very memorable occasion, the 
 Earl of Kilmarnock, " with a most just mixture 
 of dignity and submission," offered the melan- 
 choly precedence to Lord Balmerino. That 
 gallant soldier "a natural, brave old gentle- 
 man," says Horace Walpole, though he was but 
 fifty-eight would have mounted first, but the 
 headsman interfered. Even upon the scaffold, 
 a belted earl enjoyed the privileges of his rank. 
 All this formality must have damped the 
 spirits of the condemned ; but it seems to have 
 been borne with admirable gayety and good 
 temper. Lord Balmerino, "decently unmoved," 
 was ready to die first or last, and he gave the 
 punctilious executioner three guineas, to prove 
 that he was not impatient. " He looked quite 
 unconcerned," says an eye-witness, " and like 
 some one going on a party of pleasure, or upon 
 
212 COMPROMISES 
 
 t 
 
 some business of little or no importance." Lord 
 Lovat, beheaded at eighty for his active share 
 in the Jacobite rising of 'forty-five, derived 
 much amusement from the vast concourse of 
 people assembled to witness his execution ; 
 an amusement agreeably intensified by the 
 giving way of some scaffolding, which occa- 
 sioned the unexpected death of several eager 
 sight-seers. " The more mischief, the better 
 sport," said the old lord grimly, and proceeded 
 to quote Ovid and Horace with fine scholarly 
 zest. If the executioner were seldom a person 
 of education, it was from no lack of oppor- 
 tunity. He might, had he chosen, have learned 
 at his post much law and more theology. When 
 Archbishop Laud stood waiting by the block, 
 Sir John Clotworthy conceived it to be a sea- 
 sonable occasion for propounding some knotty 
 points of doctrine. The prelate courteously 
 answered one or two questions, but time pressed, 
 and controversy had lost its charms. Even so 
 good a churchman may be pardoned for turn- 
 ing wearily away from polemics, when his life's 
 span had narrowed down to minutes, and the 
 headsman waited by his side. 
 
THE HEADSMAN 213 
 
 In the burial registry of Whitechapel, under 
 the year 1649, is the following entry : 
 
 " June 21st, Richard Brandon, a man out 
 of Rosemary Lane. This Brandon is held to 
 be the man who beheaded Charles the First." 
 
 " Held to be " only, for the mystery of the 
 King's executioner was one which long excited 
 and baffled curiosity. Wild whispers credited 
 the deed to men of rank and station, among 
 them Viscount Stair, the type of strategist to 
 whom all manner of odium naturally and rea- 
 sonably clings. A less distinguished candidate 
 for the infamy was one William Hewlett, 
 actually condemned to death after the Restora- 
 tion for a part he never played, and saved from 
 the gallows only by the urgent efforts of a few 
 citizens who swore that Brandon did the deed. 
 Brandon was not available for retribution. He 
 had died in his bed, five months after Charles 
 was beheaded, and had been hurried ignomini- 
 ously into his grave in Whitechapel church- 
 yard. As public executioner of London, he 
 could hardly escape his destiny ; but it is said 
 that remorse and horror shortened his life. In 
 his supposed " Confession," a tract widely cir- 
 
214 COMPROMISES 
 
 culated at the time, he claimed that he was 
 " fetched out of bed by a troup of horse," and 
 carried against his will to the scaffold. Also 
 that he was paid thirty pounds, all in half- 
 crowns, for the work; and had "an orange 
 stuck full of cloves, and a handkerchief out 
 of the King's pocket." The orange he sold for 
 ten shillings in Rosemary Lane. 
 
 The shadow that falls across the headsman's 
 path deepens in horror when we contemplate 
 the scaffolds of Charles, of Louis, of Marie 
 Antoinette, and of Mary Stuart. The hand 
 that has shed royal blood is stained forever, yet 
 the very magnitude of the offence lends to it a 
 painful and terrible distinction. It is the zenith 
 as well as the nadir of the headsman's history ; 
 it is the corner-stone of the impassable barrier 
 which divides the axe and the sword from the 
 hangman's noose, the death of Straff ord from 
 the death of Jonathan Wild. 
 
 If we turn the page, and look for a moment 
 at the " gallows tree," we find that it has its 
 romantic and its comic side, but the comedy is 
 boisterous, the romance savours of melodrama. 
 For centuries one of the recognized amuse- 
 
THE HEADSMAN 215 
 
 ments of the English people was to see men 
 hanged, and the leading features of the enter- 
 tainment were modified from time to time to 
 please a popular taste. Dr. Johnson, the sanest 
 as well as the best man of his day, highly 
 commended these public executions as " satis- 
 factory to all parties. The public is gratified 
 by a procession, the criminal is supported by 
 it." That the enjoyment was often mutual, it 
 is impossible to deny. There was a world of 
 meaning in the gentle custom, supported for 
 years by a very ancient benefaction, of giving 
 a nosegay to the condemned man on his way 
 to Tyburn. Before the cart climbed Holborn 
 Hill, " the heavy hill " as it was called, 
 with a touch of poetry rivalling the " Bridge 
 of Sighs," it stopped at Saint Sepulchre's 
 church, and on the church steps stood one 
 bearing in his hands the flowers that were to 
 yield their fresh fragrance to the dying. Nor 
 were the candidates without their modest pride. 
 When the noted chimney-sweep, Sam Hall, 
 achieved the honour of a hanging, he was 
 rudely jostled, and bidden to stand off by a 
 highwayman, stepping haughtily into the cart, 
 
216 COMPROMISES 
 
 and annoyed at finding himself in such low 
 company. " Stand off, yourself ! " was the in- 
 dignant answer of the young sweep. " I have 
 as good a right to be here as you have." 
 
 " Nothing," says Voltaire, " is so disagree- 
 able as to be obscurely hanged," and the lone- 
 liness which in this moral age encompasses 
 the felon's last hours should be as salutary 
 as it is depressing. Mr. Housman, who gets 
 closer to the plain thoughts of plain men than 
 any poet of modern times, has given stern 
 expression to the awful aloofness of the con- 
 demned criminal from his fellow creatures, an 
 aloofness unknown in the cheerful, brutal days 
 of old. 
 
 They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail : 
 
 The whistles blow forlorn, 
 And trains all night groan on the rail 
 
 To men who die at morn. 
 
 The sociability of Tyburn, if somewhat 
 vehement in character, was a jocund thing by 
 the side of such solitude as this. 
 
 Parish registers make curious reading. 
 They tell so much in words so scant and bald 
 that they set us wondering on our own ac- 
 
THE HEADSMAN 217 
 
 counts over the unknown details of tragedies 
 which even in their day won no wide hearing, 
 and which have been wholly forgotten for cen- 
 turies. Mr. Lang quotes two entries that are 
 briefly comprehensive ; the first from the reg- 
 ister of Saint Nicholas, Durham, August 8, 
 1592 : " Simson, Arington, Featherston, Fen- 
 wick, and Lancaster, were hanged for being 
 Egyptians." 
 
 Featherston and Fenwick might have been 
 hanged on the evidence of their names, good 
 gypsy names both of them, and famous for 
 years in the dark annals of the race ; but 
 were these men guilty of no other crime, no 
 indiscretion even, that has escaped recording ? 
 Five stalwart rogues might have served the 
 queen in better fashion than by dangling idly 
 on a gallows. The second entry, from the par- 
 ish church of Richmond in Yorkshire, 1558, is 
 still shorter, a model of conciseness : " Richard 
 SneU b'rnt, bur. 9 Sept." 
 
 Was Snell a martyr, unglorified by Fox, or 
 a particularly desperate sinner ; and if a sin- 
 ner, what was the nature of his sin ? Warlocks 
 were commonly hanged in the sixteenth cen- 
 
218 COMPROMISES 
 
 tury, even when their sister witches were 
 burned. " C'est la loi de rhomme." In fact, 
 burning was an unusual, and save in Queen 
 Mary's mind an unpopular mode of punish- 
 ment. " You are burnt for heresy," says Mr. 
 Birrell with great good humour. " That is 
 right enough. No one would complain of that. 
 Hanging is a different matter. It is very easy 
 to get hung ; but to be burnt requires a com- 
 bination of circumstances not always forth- 
 coming." 
 
 Yet Richard Snell, yeoman of Yorkshire, 
 mastered these circumstances ; and a single 
 line in a parish register is his meagre share of 
 fame. 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 
 
 The breathless fellow at the altar-foot, 
 Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there, 
 With the little children round him in a row 
 
 Of admiration. 
 
 FBA LIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 NOT long ago I saw these lines quoted to show 
 the blessedness of sanctuary; quoted with a 
 serious sentimentality which left no room for 
 their more startling significance. The writer 
 drew a parallel between the ruffian sheltered by 
 his church and the soldier sheltered by his 
 flag, forgiven much wrong-doing for the sake 
 of the standard under which he has served and 
 suffered. But Mr. Browning's murderer has 
 not served the church. He is unforgiven, and, 
 let us hope, eventually hanged. In the inter- 
 val, however, he poses as a hero to the chil- 
 dren, and as an object of lively interest to the 
 pious and Mass-going Florentines. A lean 
 monk praying on the altar steps would have 
 awakened no sentiment in their hearts; yet 
 even the frequency, the cheapness of crime 
 
220 COMPROMISES 
 
 failed to rob it of its lustre. It was not with- 
 out reason that Plutarch preferred to write of 
 wicked men. He had the pardonable desire 
 of an author to be read. 
 
 In these less vivid days we are seldom 
 brought into such picturesque contact with 
 assassins. The majesty of the law is strenu- 
 ously exerted to shield them from open adula- 
 tion. We have grown sensitive, too, and prone 
 to consider our own safety, which we call the 
 welfare of the public. Some of us believe that 
 criminals are madmen, or sick men, who should 
 be doctored rather than punished. On the 
 whole, our emotions are too complex for the 
 straightforward enjoyment with which our ro- 
 bust ancestors contemplated and often com- 
 mitted deeds of violence. Murder is to us no 
 longer as 
 
 ... a dish of tea, 
 And treason, bread and butter. 
 
 We have ceased to stomach such sharp condi- 
 ments. 
 
 Yet something of the old glamour, the gla- 
 mour with which the Serpent beguiled Eve, 
 still hangs about historic sins, making them 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 221 
 
 as Plutarch knew more attractive than his- 
 toric virtues. Places consecrated to the mem- 
 ory of crime have so keen an interest that trav- 
 ellers search for them painstakingly, and are 
 often both grieved and indignant because some 
 blood-soaked hovel has not been carefully pre- 
 served by the ungrateful community which 
 harboured and hanged the wretch who 
 lived in it. I met in Edinburgh a disappointed 
 tourist, a woman and an American, who 
 had spent a long day searching vainly for the 
 house in which Burke and Hare committed 
 their ghastly murders, and for the still more 
 hideous habitation of Major Weir and his 
 sister. She had wandered for hours through 
 the most offensive slums that Great Britain 
 has to show ; she had seen and heard and smelt 
 everything that was disagreeable ; she had 
 made endless inquiries, and had been regarded 
 as a troublesome lunatic; and all that she 
 might look upon the dilapidated walls, behind 
 which had been committed evils too vile for 
 telling. And this in Edinburgh, the city of 
 great and sombre tragedies, where Mary Stuart 
 held her court, and Montrose rode to the scaf- 
 
222 COMPROMISES 
 
 fold. With so many dark pages in her chron- 
 icles, one has scant need to burrow for ignoble 
 guilt. 
 
 There are deeds, however, that have so col- 
 oured history, stained it so redly and so im- 
 perishably, that their seal is set upon the abodes 
 that witnessed them, and all other associations 
 grow dim and trivial by comparison. The 
 murder of a Douglas or of a Guise by his 
 sovereign is the apotheosis of crime, the zenith 
 of horror. As long as the stones of Stirling or 
 of Blois shall hold together, that horror shall be 
 their dower. The walls shriek their tale. They 
 make a splendid and harmonious background 
 for the tragedy that gives them life. They are 
 fitting guardians of their fame. It can never 
 be sufficiently regretted that the murder of 
 Darnley had so mean a setting, and that the 
 methods employed by the murderers have left 
 us little even of that meanness. Some bleak 
 fortress in the north should have sheltered 
 a crime so long impending, and so grimly 
 wrought ; but perhaps the paltriness of the 
 victim merited no better mise en scene. The 
 Douglas and the Guise were made of sterner 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 223 
 
 stuff, and the world the tourist world 
 pays in its vapouring fashion a tribute to their 
 strength. It buys pathetically incongruous sou- 
 venirs of the " Douglas room ; " and it traces 
 every step by which the great Duke, the head 
 and the heart of the League, went scornfully 
 to his death. 
 
 Blois has associations that are not murder- 
 ous. It saw the solemn consecration of the 
 standard of Joan of Arc, and the splendid feasts 
 which celebrated the auspicious betrothal of 
 Henry of Navarre to his Valois bride. The 
 statue of Louis the Twelfth, " Father of his peo- 
 ple," sits stiffly astride of its caparisoned charger 
 above the entrance gate. But it is not upon 
 Joan, nor upon Navarre, nor upon good King 
 Louis that the traveller wastes a thought. The 
 ghosts that dominate the chateau are those of 
 Catherine de Medici, of her son, wanton in 
 wickedness, and of the murdered Guise. Castle 
 guides are notoriously short of speech, sparing 
 of time, models of bored indifference. But the 
 guardian of Blois waxes eloquent over the tale 
 he has to tell, and, with the dramatic instinct 
 of his race, strives to put its details vividly 
 
224 COMPROMISES 
 
 before our eyes. He assigns to each assassin 
 ,his post, shows where the wretched young king 
 concealed himself until the deed was done, and 
 points out the exact spot in the Cabinet Vieux 
 where the first blow was struck. " Behold the 
 perfect tableau ! " he winds up enthusiastically, 
 and we are forced to admit that, as a tableau, 
 it lacks no element of success. Mr. Henry 
 James's somewhat cynical appreciation of this 
 " perfect episode " perfect, from the dram- 
 atist's point of view recurs inevitably to our 
 minds : 
 
 " The picture is full of light and darkness, 
 full of movement, full altogether of abomina- 
 tions. Mixed up with them all is the great 
 theological motive, so that the drama wants 
 little to make it complete. The insolent pro- 
 sperity of the victim ; the weakness, the vices, 
 the terrors of the author of the deed; the 
 admirable execution of the plot ; the accumula- 
 tion of horror in what followed, render it, 
 as a crime, one of the classic things." 
 
 Classic surely were the repeated warnings, 
 so determinedly ignored. Caesar was not more 
 plainly cautioned of his danger than was the 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 225 
 
 Duke of Guise. Caesar was not more resolved 
 to live his life fearlessly, or to die. Caesar was 
 not harder to kill. It takes many a dagger 
 stroke to release a strong spirit from its 
 clay. 
 
 There were dismal prophecies months ahead, 
 advance couriers of the slowly maturing plot. 
 " Before the year dies, you shall die," was the 
 message sent to the Duke when the States-Gen- 
 eral were summoned to Blois. His mother, 
 ceaselessly apprehensive, his mistress, Charlotte 
 de Sauves, besought him to leave the chateau. 
 Nine ominous notes, crumpled bits of paper, 
 each written at the peril of a life, admonished 
 him of his fate. The ninth was thrust into his 
 hand as he made his way for the last time to 
 the council chamber. " Le del sombre et 
 triste " frowned forebodingly upon him as he 
 crossed the terrace, and La Salle and D'Auber- 
 court strove even then to turn him back. At 
 the foot of the beautiful spiral staircase sat the 
 jester, Chicot, singing softly under his breath 
 a final word of warning, " He, fay Guise." He 
 dared no more, and he dared that much in 
 vain. The Duke passed him disdainfully, and 
 
226 COMPROMISES 
 
 smitten by the gods with madness went 
 lightly up the steps to meet his doom. 
 
 This is the story that Blois has to tell, and 
 she tells it with terrible distinctness. She is so 
 steeped in blood, so shadowed by the memory 
 of her crime, that there is scant need for her 
 guides to play their official parts, nor for her 
 museum walls to be hung round with feeble re- 
 presentations of the tragedy. But it is strange, 
 after all, that the beautiful home of Francis the 
 First should not speak to us more audibly of 
 him. He built its right wing, " the most joyous 
 utterance of the French Renaissance." He 
 stamped his own exuberant gayety upon every 
 detail. His salamander curls its carven tail over 
 stairs and doors and window sills. He is surely 
 a figure striking enough, and familiar enough to 
 enchain attention. Why do we not think about 
 him, and about those ladies of " mutable con- 
 nections " whose names echo buoyantly from his 
 little page of history ? Why do our minds turn 
 obstinately to the Cabinet Yieux, or to those 
 still more mirthless rooms above where Cath- 
 erine de Medici lived and died. " 11 y a de 
 mechanics qualites qui font de grandes tal- 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 227 
 
 ents" but these qualities were noticeably lack- 
 ing in the Queen Mother. It is not the good 
 she tried and failed to do, but the evil that she 
 wrought which gives her a claim to our magnet- 
 ized interest and regard. 
 
 To the tolerant observer it seems a work of 
 supererogation, a gilding of refined gold, to add 
 to the sins of really accomplished sinners like 
 Catherine and Louis the Eleventh. These 
 sombre souls have left scant space for our riot- 
 ous imaginations to fill in. Their known deeds 
 are terrible enough to make us quail. It might 
 be more profitable as it is certainly more irk- 
 some to search for their redeeming traits : 
 the tact, the mental vigour of the queen, 
 and the efforts she made to bind together the 
 distracted factions of France ; the courage, 
 sagacity, and unflinching resolution with which 
 Louis strengthened his kingdom, and protected 
 those whose mean estate made them wholly unin- 
 teresting to nobler monarchs. These things are 
 worth consideration, but far be it from us to 
 consider them. High lights and heavy shadows 
 please us best ; and by this time the shadows 
 have been so well inked that their blackness is 
 
228 COMPROMISES 
 
 impenetrable. It can never be said of Cath- 
 erine de Medici, as it is said of Mary Stuart, 
 that she has been injured by the zeal of her 
 friends, and helped by the falsehoods of her 
 enemies. Catherine has few friends, and none 
 whose enthusiasm is burdensome to bear. She 
 has furnished easily-used material for writers 
 of romance, who commonly represent her as 
 depopulating France with poisoned gloves and 
 perfumery ; and she has served as a target 
 too big to be missed for tyros in historical 
 invective. We have come to regard her in a 
 large, loose, picturesque way as an embodiment 
 of evil, very much, perhaps, as Mr. John 
 Addington Symonds regards Clytemnestra, 
 fed and nourished by her sins, waxing fat upon 
 iniquity, and destitute alike of conscience and 
 of shame. And this is the reason that women 
 who have spent their lives in the practice of 
 laborious virtues stand fluttering with delight 
 in that dark Medicean bedchamber. " Blois is 
 the most interesting of all the chateaux," said 
 one of them to me ; she looked as if she 
 could not even tell a lie ; " you see the very 
 bed in which Catherine de Medici died." And 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 229 
 
 I thought of the Florentine children at the 
 altar steps. 
 
 Mr. Andrew Lang is of the opinion that if 
 an historical event could be discredited, like a 
 ghost story, by discrepancies in the evidence, 
 we might maintain that Darnley was never mur- 
 dered at all. We might also be led to doubt 
 the existence of Cardinal Balue's cage, that 
 ingenious torture-chamber which has added so 
 largely and so deservedly to the reputation 
 of Louis the Eleventh. There is a drawing 
 of the cage, or rather of a cage, still to be 
 seen, and there is the bill for its making; 
 what a prop to history are well-kept household 
 accounts ! while, on the other hand, its ubi- 
 quitous nature staggers our trusting faith. 
 Loches claims it as one of her traditions, and 
 so does Plessis-les-Tours. Loches is so rich in 
 horrors that she can afford to dispense with 
 a few ,' but the cage, if it ever existed at all, 
 was undoubtedly one of the permanent decora- 
 tions of her tower. The room in which it hung 
 is cheerful and commodious when compared to 
 the black prison of Saint Valier, or to the still 
 deeper dungeon of the Bishops of Puy and 
 
230 COMPROMISES 
 
 Autun. The cardinal could at least see and be 
 seen, if that were any amelioration of his lot, 
 and we are still shown the turret stairs down 
 which the king stepped warily when he came 
 to visit his prisoner. 
 
 But Plessis-les-Tours covets the distinction 
 of the cage. She is not without some dismal 
 memories of her own, though she looks like a 
 dismantled factory, and she strives with par- 
 donable ambition to make them dismaler. The 
 energetic and intelligent woman who conducts 
 visitors around her mouldering walls has, in a 
 splendid spirit of assurance, selected for this 
 purpose a small dilapidated cellar, open to the 
 sky, and a small dilapidated flight of steps, not 
 more than seven in number. Beneath these 
 steps where a terrier might perhaps curl 
 himself in comfort she assured us with an 
 unflinching front the cardinal's cage was tucked ; 
 and reading the doubt in our veiled eyes, she 
 stooped and pointed out a rusty bit of iron 
 riveted in the wall. " See," she said triumph- 
 antly, " there still remains one of the fastenings 
 of the cage." The argument was irresistible : 
 
 Behold this Walrus tooth. 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 231 
 
 The fact is that it has been found necessary 
 to exert a great deal of ingenuity in order to 
 meet the popular demand for cold-blooded 
 cruelty where Louis the Eleventh is concerned. 
 He is an historic bugbear, a hobgoblin, at 
 whose grim ghost we grown-up children like to 
 shudder apprehensively. Scott, with a toler- 
 ance as wide as Shakespeare's own, has dared 
 to give a finer colour to the picture, has dared 
 to engage our sympathy for this implacable old 
 man who knew how to " hate and wait," how 
 to lie in ambush, and how to drive relentlessly 
 to his goal. But even Scott has been unable to 
 subdue our cherished antipathy, or to modify 
 the deep prejudices instilled early into our 
 minds. Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, who of 
 all writers has least patience with schoolbook 
 verdicts, hits hard at our narrow fidelity to 
 censorship. "It is probably more instructive," 
 he says, " to entertain a sneaking kindness for 
 any unpopular person than to give way to 
 perfect raptures of moral indignation against 
 his abstract vices." 
 
 Now a more unpopular, a more comprehen- 
 sively unlovable person than Louis it would be 
 
232 COMPROMISES 
 
 hard to find. He did much for France, yet 
 France drew a deep breath of relief when he 
 died. 
 
 II n'est pas sire de son pays, 
 Quy de son peple n'est pas amez. 
 
 Those who fail to entertain the "sneaking 
 kindness " recommended by Mr. Stevenson may 
 shelter themselves behind this ancient couplet. 
 " Of him there is an end. God pardon him his 
 sins," is Froissart's fashion of summing up 
 every man's career. It will serve as well for 
 Louis as for another. 
 
 But to gratify at once our prejudices and 
 our emotions, a generous mass of legend has 
 been added to the chronicles of Loches, Blois, 
 Amboise, and other castles that are consecrated 
 to the crimes of kings. History, though flex- 
 ible and complaisant up to a certain point, has 
 her limits of accommodation. She has also her 
 cold white lights, and her disconcerting truths, 
 so annoying, and so invariably ill-timed in their 
 revelations. We can never be quite sure that 
 History, however obliging she seems, will not 
 suddenly desert our rightful cause, and go over 
 to our opponents. We have but to remember 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 233 
 
 what trouble she has given, and in what an in- 
 vidious, not to say churlish spirit she has con- 
 tradicted the most masterly historians. It is 
 best to ignore her altogether, and to tell our 
 stories without any reference to her signature. 
 
 So thought the sensible young woman who 
 led us captive through the collegiate church 
 at Loches, and who insisted upon our descend- 
 ing into the crypt, at one time connected with 
 the fortress by a subterranean gallery. Its 
 dim walls are decorated here and there with 
 mural paintings, rude and half effaced. She 
 pointed out the shadowy outline of a saint in 
 cope and mitre, his stiff forefinger raised in 
 benediction. "That," she said with startling 
 composure, " is the bishop who was the confessor 
 of Louis the Eleventh. The king had him 
 buried alive in this chapel, so that he might 
 not betray the secrets of his confession." 
 
 " And did the king have him painted on the 
 wall afterwards, to commemorate the circum- 
 stance?" asked the scoffer of the party, at 
 whom others gazed reproachfully, while I won- 
 dered how the story of Saint John of Nepo- 
 muk had travelled so far afield, and why it had 
 
234 COMPROMISES 
 
 been so absurdly reset to add another shade to 
 Louis's memory. It hardly seemed worth while, 
 in view of the legitimate darkness of the hori- 
 zon. It even seemed a pity. It forced a laugh, 
 and laughter is inharmonious beneath the walls 
 of Loches. But if the king, whose piety was of 
 a vigorous and active order, had the habit 
 of walling up his confessors, there must have 
 been some rational hesitation on the part of 
 even the most devoted clerics when his Majesty 
 sought to be shriven ; and the stress of royal 
 conscientiousness combined with royal appre- 
 hension must have shortened the somewhat 
 hazardous road to church preferment. The fact 
 that Louis never wasted his cruelties, that they 
 were one and all the fruits of deep and secret 
 hostility, might have saved him from being the 
 hero of such fantastic myths. 
 
 It was more amusing to visit the picturesque 
 old house in Tours, known as le Maison de 
 Tristan 1'Ermite. How it came to be asso- 
 ciated with that melancholy and industrious 
 hangman, who had been dead half a century 
 when its first stone was laid, has never been 
 made clear ; unless, indeed, the familiar device 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 235 
 
 of the festooned cord, the emblem of Anne de 
 Bretagne, which is carved over door and win- 
 dows, may be held responsible for the sugges- 
 tion. Once christened, however, it has become 
 a centre of finely imaginative romance, ro- 
 mance of a high order, which for finish of 
 detail may be recommended to the careless 
 purveyors of historic fiction. Passing through 
 the heavy doorway into a beautiful sombre 
 courtyard, we had hardly time to admire its 
 proportions, and the curious little stone beasts 
 which wanton wickedly in dark corners, before 
 a gaunt woman, who is the guardian spirit of 
 the place, summoned us to ascend an intermin- 
 able flight of steps, much worn and dimly lit. 
 They had an ominous look, and the woman's 
 air of mystery, subtly blent with resolution, was 
 in admirable accord with her surroundings. 
 From time to time she paused to point out a 
 shallow niche which had formerly held a lamp, 
 or a broken place in the wall's rough masonry. 
 " L' oubliette " she whispered grimly, pointing 
 to the hole which revealed and gainsaid 
 nothing. There was a small walled-up door, 
 equally reserved, which she said was, or had 
 
236 COMPROMISES 
 
 been, the opening of a secret passage connect- 
 ing the house with the chateau of Plessis-les- 
 Tours, more than two miles away. The full 
 significance of this remark failed to dawn 
 upon us until we had climbed up, up, up, and 
 emerged at last upon a narrow balcony over- 
 looking the sad courtyard far below, and pro- 
 tected by a heavy iron railing. It was a dis- 
 agreeable place, not without its suggestions of 
 horror ; yet were we in no wise prepared for 
 the recital that followed. From this railing, 
 said our guide, Tristan FErmite was in the 
 habit of hanging the victims whom Louis the 
 Eleventh, " that great and prompt chastener," 
 confided to his mercy. I could not help mur- 
 muring at the cruelty which compelled the un- 
 fortunates to mount nearly two hundred steps 
 to be hanged, when the courtyard beneath 
 offered every reasonable accommodation ; but, 
 even as I spoke, I recognized the poverty of 
 imagination which could prompt such a stupid 
 speech. Perhaps some direful memory of the 
 Balcon des Conjures at Amboise may be held 
 responsible for the web of fiction which has 
 been woven about this grim eyrie of Tours ; 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 237 
 
 and if the picture lacks the magnificent set- 
 ting of the Amboise tragedy, it is by no means 
 destitute of power. There is a certain grandeur 
 in being hanged from such a dizzy height. 
 
 Our guide next pointed out the opening of 
 the mythical oubliette. If the condemned toiled 
 wearily up to their beetling scaffold, the exe- 
 cutioners were spared at least the labour of 
 carrying their bodies down again. After they 
 had been picturesquely hanged under the king's 
 own eye, for we were asked to believe that 
 Louis walked two miles along a subterranean 
 passage to inspect the ordinary, and by no 
 means infrequent, processes of justice, the 
 corpses were tumbled into the oubliette, and 
 made their own headlong way to the Loire. 
 
 One more detail was added to this interesting 
 and deeply coloured fable. The right-hand wall 
 of the courtyard was studded, on a level with 
 the balcony, with huge rusty iron nails. There 
 were rows upon rows of these unlovely and 
 apparently useless objects which tradition had 
 not failed to turn to good account. For every 
 man hanged on that spot by the indefatigable 
 Tristan, a nail was, it seems, driven into the 
 
238 COMPROMISES 
 
 wall, which thus became a sort of baker's tally 
 or tavern slate. We counted forty-four nails. 
 The woman nodded her head with serious 
 satisfaction. Frequent repetitions of her story 
 had brought her almost to the point of believ- 
 ing it. She had ministered so long to the tastes 
 of tourists who like to think that Louis 
 hanged his subjects as liberally as Catherine 
 de Medici poisoned hers that she had 
 gradually moulded her narrative into symmetry, 
 making use of every available feature to give 
 it consistency and grace. The fine old house 
 which may have harboured tragedies of its 
 own as sombre as any wrought by Tristan's 
 hand lent itself with true architectural sym- 
 pathy to the illusion. Some habitations can do 
 this thing, can look to perfection the parts as- 
 signed them by history or by tradition. Who 
 that has ever seen the " Jew's House " at Lin- 
 coln can forget the peculiar horror that broods 
 over the dark, ill-omened doorway ? The place 
 is peopled by ghosts. Beneath its heavy lintel 
 pass little trembling feet. From out the shad- 
 ows comes a strangled cry. It tells its tale 
 better than Chaucer or the balladists ; with 
 
CONSECRATED TO CRIME 239 
 
 less pity and more fear, less detail and more 
 suggestiveness. We shudder as we peer into 
 its gloom, yet we linger, magnetized by the 
 subtlety of association. It may be innocent, 
 poor, huddled mass of stone, but we hope 
 not. We are like the children at the altar-foot, 
 spellbound by the vision of a crime. 
 
ALLEGRA 
 
 A lovelier toy sweet Nature never made ; 
 A serious, subtle, wild, yet gentle being ; 
 Graceful without design, and unforeseeing ; 
 With eyes Oh ! speak not of her eyes ! which seem 
 Two mirrors of Italian heaven. 
 
 IN these Wordsworthian lines Shelley describes 
 Lord Byron's little daughter, Allegra, then 
 under two years of age ; and the word " toy " 
 so keenly suggestive of both the poetic and 
 the masculine point of view has in this case 
 an unconscious and bitter significance. Allegra 
 was a toy at which rude hands plucked vio- 
 lently, until death lifted her from their clutches, 
 and hid her away in the safety and dignity 
 of the tomb. " She is more fortunate than we 
 are," said her father, with a noble and rare 
 iapse into simplicity, and the words were sadly 
 true. Never did a little child make a happier 
 escape from the troublesome burden of life. 
 
 In the winter of 1816, a handsome, viva- 
 cious, dark-eyed girl sought the acquaintance 
 
ALLEGE A 241 
 
 of Lord Byron, and begged him to use his 
 influence in obtaining for her an engagement 
 at Drury Lane. She was the type of young 
 woman who aspires to a career on the stage, 
 or in any other field, without regard to quali- 
 fications, and without the burden of study. 
 She wrote in her first letter (it had many 
 successors) : " The theatre presents an easy 
 method of independence." She objected vehe- 
 mently to "the intolerable drudgery of provin- 
 cial boards." She wanted to appear at once in 
 London. And she signed her name, " Clara 
 Clairmont," which was prettily alliterative, and 
 suited her better than Jane. 
 
 It was an inauspicious beginning of an un- 
 happy intimacy, destined to bring nothing but 
 disaster in its train. Miss Clairmont's step- 
 father, William Godwin, had confessed, not 
 without reason, " a feeling of incompetence for 
 the education of daughters." His own child, 
 Mary, had fled to Europe eighteen months 
 before, with the poet Shelley. Miss Clairmont 
 accompanied their flight ; and their inexplicable 
 folly in taking her with them was punished 
 as folly always is with a relentless severity 
 
242 COMPROMISES 
 
 seldom accorded to sin. To the close of Shel- 
 ley's life, his sister-in-law continued to be a 
 source of endless irritation and anxiety. 
 
 No engagement at Drury Lane was procur- 
 able. Indeed, Miss Clairmont soon ceased to 
 desire one. Her infatuation for Lord Byron 
 drove all other thoughts and hopes and am- 
 bitions from her heart. She wrote to him 
 repeatedly, clever, foolish, half-mad, and 
 cruelly long letters. She praised the " wild 
 originality of his countenance." She sent him 
 her manuscripts to read. There is something 
 pathetic in Byron's unheeded entreaty that she 
 should " write short." There is something im- 
 measurably painful in his unconcealed indiffer- 
 ence, in his undisguised contempt. The glamour 
 of his fame as a poet gave a compelling power 
 to that fatal beauty which was his undoing. 
 When we read what men have written about 
 Byron's head ; when we recall the rhapsodies 
 of Moore, the reluctant praise of Trelawney, 
 the eloquence of Coleridge ; when we remember 
 that Scott the sanest man in Great Britain 
 confessed ruefully that Byron's face was a 
 thing to dream of, we are the less surprised 
 
ALLEGE A 243 
 
 that women should have flung themselves at his 
 feet in a frenzy of self -surrender, which a cold 
 legacy of busts and portraits does little to ex- 
 plain. Miss Clairmont to use one of Profes- 
 sor Dowden's flowers of speech "was lightly 
 whirled out of her regular orbit." In the spring 
 she travelled with Shelley and Mary Godwin to 
 Switzerland, and at Secheron, a little suburb 
 of Geneva, they met Lord Byron, who was then 
 writing the splendid third canto of " Childe Har- 
 old." His letter to his sister, the Hon. Augusta 
 Leigh, bears witness to his annoyance at the 
 encounter ; but the two poets became for a sea- 
 son daily companions, and, in some sort, friends. 
 Shelley thought Byron " as mad as the winds " 
 (an opinion which was returned with interest), 
 and deeply regretted his slavery " to the vilest 
 and most vulgar prejudices ; " among them 
 a prejudice in favour of Christianity, for which 
 ancient institution Byron always entertained a 
 profound though unfruitful reverence. Indeed, 
 despite the revolutionary impetus of his verse, 
 and despite the fact that he died for revolting 
 Greece, the settled order of things appealed 
 with force to his eminently practical nature. 
 
244 COMPROMISES 
 
 " Sanity and balance," says Mr. Morley, " mark 
 the foundations of his character. An angel of 
 reasonableness seems to watch over him, even 
 when he comes most dangerously near to an 
 extravagance." 
 
 Miss Clairmont did not confide to her guard- 
 ians the secret of her intimacy with Lord By- 
 ron until after the meeting at Geneva. When 
 her relations with him were understood, neither 
 Shelley nor Mary Godwin saw at first any 
 occasion for distress. They cared nothing for 
 the broken marriage bond, and they believed, or 
 hoped, that some true affection had been as 
 in their own case the impelling and uphold- 
 ing power. It was the swift withering of this 
 hope which filled their hearts with apprehen- 
 sion. They carried Miss Clairmont back to 
 England in the autumn (" I have had all the 
 plague possible to persuade her to go back," 
 wrote Byron to his sister) ; and in Bath, the 
 following January, her little daughter was born. 
 
 It was a blue-eyed baby of exceptional love- 
 liness. Mrs. Shelley (Mary Godwin had been 
 married to the poet on the death of his wife, 
 two months earlier) fills her letters with praises 
 
ALLEGE A 245 
 
 of its beauty. Miss Clairmont wrote to Byron 
 in 1820 that her health had been injured by 
 her " attentions " to her child during its first 
 year ; but she found time to study Italian, and 
 to write a book, for which Shelley tried in vain 
 to find a publisher, and the very title of which 
 is now forgotten. The little household at Great 
 Marlow was not a tranquil one. Mrs. Shelley 
 had grown weary of her step-sister's society. 
 Her diary all these young people kept dia- 
 ries with uncommendable industry abounds 
 in notes, illustrative of Claire's ill-temper, and 
 of her own chronic irritation. " Clara imagines 
 that I treat her unkindly." " Clara in an ill- 
 humour." " Jane l gloomy." " Jane for some 
 reason refuses to walk." "Jane is not well, 
 and does not speak the whole day." 
 
 This was bad enough, but there were other 
 moods more trying than mere sulkiness. Miss 
 Clairmont possessed nerves. She had " the 
 horrors " when " King Lear " was read aloud. 
 She was, or professed to be, afraid of ghosts. 
 She would come downstairs in the middle of 
 the night to tell Shelley that an invisible 
 
 1 Clara Mary Jane Clairmont was " Claire's " full name. 
 
246 COMPROMISES 
 
 hand had lifted her pillow from her bed, and 
 dumped it on a chair. To such thrilling re- 
 citals the poet lent serious attention. "Her 
 manner," he wrote in his journal, " convinced 
 me that she was not deceived. We continued 
 to sit by the fire, at intervals engaged in awful 
 conversation, relative to the nature of these 
 mysteries ; " that is, to the migrations of the 
 pillow. As a result of sympathetic treatment, 
 Claire would wind up the night with hysterics, 
 writhing in convulsions on the floor, and shriek- 
 ing dismally, until poor Mrs. Shelley would 
 be summoned from a sick-bed to soothe her 
 to slumber. " Give me a garden, and absentia 
 Claire, and I will thank my love for many 
 favours," is the weary comment of the wife, 
 after months of inextinguishable agitation. 
 
 There was no loophole of escape, however, 
 from a burden so rashly shouldered. Miss 
 Clairmont made one or two ineffectual efforts 
 at self-support ; but found them little to her 
 liking. She could not, and she would not, live 
 with her mother, Mrs* Godwin; "a very 
 disgusting woman, and wears green specta- 
 cles," is Charles Lamb's description of this 
 
ALLEGRA 247 
 
 lady, whom, in common with most of her 
 acquaintances, he cordially disliked. When 
 Byron wrote, offering to receive and provide 
 for his little daughter, Shelley vehemently op- 
 posed the plan, thinking it best that so young 
 an infant should remain under its mother's 
 care. But his wife, who was at heart a singu- 
 larly sagacious woman, never ceased to urge 
 the advisability of the step. Claire, though 
 reluctant to part from her baby, yielded to 
 these persuasions; and the journey to Italy 
 in the spring of 1818 was undertaken mainly 
 as a sure though expensive method of convey- 
 ing Allegra to her father. 
 
 That Byron wanted the child, there is no 
 doubt, nor that he had been from the first 
 deeply concerned for her uncertain future. 
 Three months after her birth, he wrote to his 
 sister that he had resolved to send for her, and 
 place her in a convent, "to become a good 
 Catholic, and (it may be) a nun, being a 
 character somewhat needed in our family." 
 " They tell me," he adds, " that she is very 
 pretty, with blue eyes and dark hair; and 
 although I never was attached, nor pretended 
 
248 COMPROMISES 
 
 attachment to the mother, still, in case of the 
 eternal war and alienation which I foresee 
 about my legitimate daughter, Ada, it may be 
 as well to have something to repose a hope 
 upon. I must love something in my old age ; 
 and circumstances may render this poor little 
 creature a great, and perhaps my only, comfort." 
 It is not often that Byron's letters reveal 
 this grace of sentiment. Never, after Allegra's 
 arrival, does he allude to any affection he bears 
 her, and he once assured Moore that he did 
 not bear any ; a statement which that par- 
 tial biographer thought fit to disregard. On 
 the other hand, he dwells over and over again, 
 both in his correspondence and in his journal, 
 upon plans for her education and future settle- 
 ment. He was at all times sternly practical, 
 and pitilessly clear-sighted. He never regarded 
 his daughter as a " lovely toy," but as a very 
 serious and troublesome responsibility. The 
 poetic view of childhood failed to appeal to 
 him. "Any other father," wrote Claire bit- 
 terly, " would have made of her infancy a sweet 
 idyl of flowers and innocent joy." Byron was 
 not idyllic. He dosed Allegra with quinine 
 
ALLEGRA 249 
 
 when she had a fever. He abandoned a medi- 
 tated journey because she was ill. He dis- 
 missed a servant who had let her fall. He 
 added a codicil to his will, bequeathing her 
 five thousand pounds. These things GO not 
 indicate any stress of emotion, but the}' have 
 their place in the ordinary calendar of parental 
 cares. 
 
 A delicate baby, not yet sixteen months old, 
 was a formidable and inharmonious addition to 
 the poet's Venetian household. The Swiss nurse, 
 Elise, who had been sent by the Shelleys from 
 Milan, proved to be a most incapable and un- 
 worthy woman, who later on made infinite mis- 
 chief by telling the foulest of lies. Byron was 
 sorely perplexed by the situation: and when 
 Mrs. Hoppner, the Genevan wife of the Eng- 
 lish consul-general, offered to take temporary 
 charge of the child, he gladly and gratefully 
 consented. One difficulty in his path he had 
 not failed to foresee ; that Claire, having re- 
 linquished Allegra of her own free will, would 
 quickly want her back again. In fact, before 
 the end of the summer, Miss Clairmont insisted 
 upon going to Venice, and poor Shelley very 
 
250 COMPROMISES 
 
 ruefully and reluctantly accompanied her. 
 Byron received him with genuine delight, and, 
 in an access of good humour, proposed lending 
 the party his villa at Este. There Mrs. Shelley, 
 who had lost her infant daughter, might recover 
 from sorrow and fatigue, and there Allegra 
 might spend some weeks under her mother's 
 care. The offer was frankly accepted, and the 
 two men came once more to an amicable under- 
 standing. They were not fitted to be friends, 
 the gods had ruled a severance wide and 
 deep ; but when unpricked by the conten- 
 tiousness of other people, they passed pleasant 
 and profitable hours together. 
 
 Meanwhile, the poor little apple of discord 
 was ripening every day into a fairer bloom. 
 " Allegra has been with me these three months," 
 writes Byron to his sister in August. " She is 
 very pretty, remarkably intelligent, and a great 
 favourite with everybody. . . . She has very 
 blue eyes, a singular forehead, fair curly hair, 
 and a devil of a Spirit, but that is Papa's." 
 " I have here my natural daughter, by name 
 Allegra," he tells Moore six weeks later. " She 
 is a pretty little girl enough, and reckoned like 
 
ALLEGRA 251 
 
 Papa." To Murray he writes in the same pa- 
 ternal strain. " My daughter Allegra is well, 
 and growing pretty ; her hair is growing darker, 
 and her eyes are blue. Her temper and her 
 ways, Mr. Hoppner says, are like mine, as well 
 as her features. She will make, in that case, 
 a manageable young lady." 
 
 Other pens bear ready witness to Allegra's 
 temper. Mr. Jeaffreson, who has written a 
 very offensive book about Lord Byron, takes 
 pains to tell us that the poor child was " greedy, 
 passionate, and, in her fifth year, precocious, 
 vain and saucy." Mr. Hoppner, after the pub- 
 lication of the Countess Guiccioli's " Recollec- 
 tions," wrote an agitated letter to the " Athe- 
 na3um," assuring an indifferent public that he 
 had no acquaintance with the lady, and that his 
 own respectability was untarnished by any in- 
 timacy with the poet, of whose morals he disap- 
 proved, and whose companionship he eschewed, 
 save when they rode together, on Byron's 
 horses. " Allegra was not by any means an 
 amiable child," he added sourly, " nor was Mrs. 
 Hoppner nor I particularly fond of her." 
 
 It could hardly have been expected that the 
 
252 COMPROMISES 
 
 daughter of Byron and Claire Clairmont would 
 have been " amiable ; " nor can we wonder 
 that Mr. Hoppner, who had a seven-months- 
 old baby of his own, should have failed to 
 wax enthusiastic over another infant. But his 
 warm-hearted wife did love her little charge, 
 and grieved sincerely when the child's quick 
 temper subsided into listlessness under the 
 fierce Italian heat. "Mon petit brille, et il 
 est tou jours gai et sautillant," she wrote pret- 
 tily to the Shelley s, after their departure from 
 Venice ; " et Allegra, par contre, est devenue 
 tranquille et serieuse, comme une petite vieille, 
 ce que nous peine beaucoup." 
 
 Byron was frankly grateful to Mrs. Hoppner 
 for her kindness to his daughter ; and after he 
 had carried the child to Ravenna, where the 
 colder, purer air brought back her gayety and 
 bloom, he wrote again and again to her former 
 guardians, now thanking them for "a whole 
 treasure of toys" which they had sent, now 
 assuring them that "Allegrina is flourishing 
 like a pomegranate blossom," and now reiterat- 
 ing the fact which seemed to make most im- 
 pression upon his mind, that she was growing 
 
ALLEGE A 253 
 
 prettier and more obstinate every day. He 
 added many little details about her childish 
 ailments, her drives with the Countess Guic- 
 cioli, and her popularity in his household. It 
 was to the over-indulgence of his servants, as 
 well as to heredity, that he traced her high 
 temper and imperious will. He consulted Mrs. 
 Hoppner more than once about Allegra's 
 education ; and he poured into her husband's 
 ears his bitter resentment at Miss Clairmont's 
 pardonable, but exasperating interference. 
 
 For Claire, clever about most things, was 
 an adept in the art of provocation. She wrote 
 him letters calculated to try the patience of 
 a saint, and he retaliated by a cruel and con- 
 temptuous silence. In vain Shelley attempted 
 to play the difficult part of peacemaker. " I 
 wonder," he pleaded, " at your being provoked 
 by what Claire writes, though that she should 
 write what is provoking is very probable. You 
 are conscious of performing your duty to Al- 
 legra, and your refusal to allow her to visit 
 Claire at this distance you conceive to be part 
 of that duty. That Claire should have wished 
 to see her is natural. That her disappointment 
 
254 COMPROMISES 
 
 should vex her, and her vexation make her 
 write absurdly, is all in the natural order of 
 things. But, poor thing, she is very unhappy 
 and in bad health, and she ought to be treated 
 with as much indulgence as possible. The 
 weak and the foolish are in this respect the 
 kings, they can do no wrong." 
 
 Byron was less generous. The weak and 
 the foolish especially when their weakness 
 and folly took the form of hysteria irritated 
 him beyond endurance. The penalty that an 
 hysterical woman pays for her self-indulgence 
 is that no one believes in the depth or sincerity 
 of her emotions. Byron had no pity for the 
 pain that Claire was suffering. She was to him 
 simply a young woman who never lost an op- 
 portunity to make a scene, and he hated scenes. 
 On one point he was determined. Allegra 
 should never again be sent to her mother, nor 
 to the Shelleys. He had views of his own upon 
 the education of little girls, which by no means 
 corresponded with theirs. 
 
 "About Allegra," he writes to Mr. Hopp- 
 ner in 1820, "I can only say to Claire that I 
 so totally disapprove of the mode of Children's 
 
ALLEGRA 255 
 
 treatment in their family, that I should look 
 upon the Child as going into a hospital. Is it 
 not so? Have they reared one? Her health 
 has hitherto been excellent, and her temper not 
 bad. She is sometimes vain and obstinate, but 
 always clean and cheerful; and as, in a year 
 or two, I shall either send her to England, or 
 put her in a Convent for education, these 
 defects will be remedied as far as they can in 
 human nature. But the Child shall not quit 
 me again to perish of Starvation and green 
 fruit, or be taught to believe that there is no 
 Deity. Whenever there is convenience of vicin- 
 ity and access, her Mother can always have her 
 with her; otherwise no. It was so stipulated 
 from the beginning." 
 
 Five months later, he reiterates these pain- 
 fully prosaic views. He has taken a house in 
 the country, because the air agrees better wjth 
 Allegra. He has two maids to attend her. 
 He is doing his best, and he is very angry at 
 Claire's last batch of letters. " Were it not for 
 the poor little child's sake," he writes, " I am 
 almost tempted to send her back to her atheist- 
 ical mother, but that would be too bad. ... If 
 
256 COMPROMISES 
 
 Claire thinks that she shall ever interfere with 
 the child's morals or education, she mistakes ; 
 she never shall. The girl shall be a Christian, 
 and a married woman, if possible." 
 
 On these two points Byron had set his heart. 
 The Countess Guiccioli kindly creature 
 assures us that " his dearest paternal care was 
 the religious training to be given to his natural 
 daughter, Allegra ; " and while the words of 
 this sweet advocate weigh little in the scale, 
 they are in some degree confirmed by the poet's 
 conduct and correspondence. When he felt 
 the growing insecurity of his position in Ra- 
 venna, he determined to place the child at a 
 convent school twelve miles away, and he ex- 
 plained very clearly and concisely to all whom 
 it might concern his reasons for the step. " Al- 
 legra is now four years old complete," he wrote 
 to Mr. Hoppner in April, 1821 ; " and as she 
 is quite above the control of the servants, and 
 as a man living without any woman at the 
 head of his house cannot much attend to a nur- 
 sery, I had no resource but to place her for a 
 time (at a high pension too) in the convent of 
 Bagnacavallo (twelve miles off), where the air 
 
ALLEGRA 257 
 
 is good, and where she will, at least, have her 
 learning advanced, and her morals and religion 
 inculcated. I had also another motive. Things 
 were and are in such a state here, that I have 
 no reason to look upon my own personal safety 
 as insurable, and thought the infant best out 
 of harm's way for the present. 
 
 " It is also fit that I should add that I by no 
 means intended nor intend to give a natural 
 child an English education, because, with the 
 disadvantages of her birth, her after settlement 
 would be doubly difficult. Abroad, with a fair 
 foreign education, and a portion of five or six 
 thousand pounds, she might and may marry 
 very respectably. In England, such a dowry 
 would be a pittance, while elsewhere it is a 
 fortune. It is, besides, my wish that she should 
 be a Roman Catholic, a religion which I look 
 upon as the best, as it is assuredly the oldest, 
 of the various branches of Christianity. I have 
 now explained my notions as to the place where 
 she is. It is the best I could find for the pre- 
 sent, but I have no prejudices in its favour." 
 
 Both Mr. and Mrs. Hoppner were strongly 
 in favour of a Swiss, rather than an Italian 
 
258 COMPROMISES 
 
 school ; and Byron, who never doubted the 
 sincerity of their affection for his child, lent a 
 ready ear to their suggestions. " If I had but 
 known your ideas about Switzerland before," 
 he wrote to Mr. Hoppner in May ; " I should 
 have adopted them at once. As it is, I shall 
 let Allegra remain in her convent, where she 
 seems healthy and happy, for the present. But 
 I shall feel much obliged if you will inquire, 
 when you are in the cantons, about the usual 
 and better modes of education there for fe- 
 males, and let me know the result of your 
 inquiries. It is some consolation that both 
 Mr. and Mrs. Shelley have written to approve 
 entirely of my placing the child with the nuns 
 for the present. I can refer to my whole con- 
 duct, as having spared no trouble, nor kind- 
 ness, nor expense, since she was sent to me. 
 People may say what they please. I must con- 
 tent myself with not deserving (in this case) 
 that they should speak ill. 
 
 " The place is a country town, in a good air, 
 where there is a large establishment for educa- 
 tion, and many children, some of considerable 
 rank, placed in it. As a country town, it is 
 
ALLEGE A 259 
 
 less liable to objections of every kind. It has 
 always appeared to me that the moral defect 
 in Italy does not proceed from a conventual 
 training, because, to my certain knowledge, 
 girls come out of their convents innocent, 
 even to ignorance, of moral evil ; but to the 
 society into which they are plunged directly 
 on coming out of it. It is like educating an 
 infant on a mountain top, and then taking 
 him to the sea, and throwing him into it, and 
 desiring him to swim." 
 
 Other letters to Mr. Hoppner, to Shelley, 
 and to Moore are equally practical and explicit. 
 Byron writes that he has regular reports of 
 Allegra's health; that she has mastered her 
 alphabet ; that he is having her reared a Catho- 
 lic, " so that she may have her hands full ; " 
 that he meditates increasing her dowry, "if 
 I live, and she is correct in her conduct ; " that 
 he thinks a Swiss gentleman might make her 
 a better husband than an Italian. Pamela the 
 virtuous was not more set upon her own " mar- 
 riage lines " than was Lord Byron upon his 
 daughter's. Respectability was the golden boon 
 he coveted for the poor little pledge of an 
 
260 COMPROMISES 
 
 illicit and unhappy passion. No one knew bet- 
 ter than he how well it is to walk a safe and 
 sheltered road; and no correct church-going 
 father in England was ever more concerned 
 for the decent settlement of his child. 
 
 There were others who took a more impas- 
 sioned view of the situation. Miss Clairmont 
 was spending her Carnival merrily in Flor- 
 ence, when word came that Allegra had been 
 sent to school. It was a blow, says Professor 
 Dowden, "under which she staggered and 
 reeled." In vain Shelley and his wife repre- 
 sented to her the wisdom of the step. In vain 
 Byron wrote that the air of the Komagna was 
 exceptionally good, and that he paid double fees 
 for his little daughter, to insure her every care 
 and attention. Claire, piteously unreasonable, 
 answered only with frenzied reproaches and 
 appeals. She taunted the poet with his un- 
 happy married life, which was applying 
 vitriol to a raw wound ; she inveighed against 
 the " ignorance and degradation " of convent- 
 reared women, she implored permission to 
 carry her child to England. " I propose," she 
 wrote, with maddening perversity, " to place 
 
ALLEGRA 261 
 
 her at my own expense in one of the very best 
 English boarding-schools, where, if she is de- 
 prived of the happiness of a home and pater- 
 nal care, she at least would receive an English 
 education, which would enable her, after many 
 years of painful and unprotected childhood, to 
 be benefited by the kindness and affection of 
 her parents' friends. . . . By adopting this 
 plan, you will save yourself credit and also 
 the expense ; and the anxiety for her safety 
 and well-being need never trouble you. You 
 will become as free as if you had no such tie." 
 As an example of the purely exasperating, 
 this letter has few peers in recorded corre- 
 spondence. " At my own expense," meant at 
 Shelley's expense ; and Byron, loving or un- 
 loving, had never sought to shirk his paternal 
 responsibilities. The alluring prospect of free- 
 dom from all concern offered little temptation 
 to a father who had his child's future very 
 seriously at heart. Miss Clairmont was sur- 
 rounded at this time by a group of eminently 
 foolish counsellors, the most prominent of 
 whom were Lady Mountcashell, Mr. Tighe, 
 and Miss Elizabeth Parker. Lady Mount- 
 
262 COMPROMISES 
 
 cashell had a venerable husband in England, 
 but preferred living in Italy with Mr. Tighe. 
 There she employed her leisure in writing a 
 book upon the training of children, a work 
 which her friends highly esteemed, and which 
 they held to be an ample compensation to 
 society for any irregularities in her own life. 
 The couple were known as Mr. and Mrs. 
 Mason. Miss Parker was an orphan girl, sent 
 from England by Mrs. Godwin to be a com- 
 panion to Lady Mountcashell, and profit by 
 her example. These people kept alive in 
 Claire's heart the flame of resentment and 
 unrest. Mr. Tighe dwelt mournfully upon the 
 austerity, as well as upon the degradation of 
 convent life, until the mother's grief grew so 
 excessive that in August, 1821, the long-suffer- 
 ing Shelley made a pilgrimage to Ravenna and 
 to Bagnacavallo, to see how Allegra was placed, 
 and to assure himself of her health and happi- 
 ness. His charming letter too long to be 
 quoted hi full gives us the prettiest imagin- 
 able picture of a little school-girl, not yet five 
 years old. 
 
 " I went the other day to see Allegra at her 
 
ALLEGRA 263 
 
 convent, and stayed with her about three 
 hours. She is grown tall and slight for her 
 age, and her face is somewhat altered. She 
 yet retains the beauty of her deep blue eyes 
 and of her mouth ; but she has a contemplative 
 seriousness, which, mixed with her excessive 
 vivacity which has not yet deserted her, has a 
 very peculiar effect in a child. She is under 
 strict discipline, as may be observed from the 
 immediate obedience she accords to the will of 
 her attendants. This seems contrary to her 
 nature ; but I do not think it has been ob- 
 tained at the expense of much severity. Her 
 hair, scarcely darker than it was, is beautifully 
 profuse, and hangs in large curls on her neck. 
 She was prettily dressed in white muslin, and 
 an apron of black silk, with trousers. Her 
 light and airy figure and her graceful motions 
 were a striking contrast to the other children 
 there. She seemed a thing of a finer and a 
 higher order. At first she was very shy ; but 
 after a little caressing, and especially after I 
 had given her a gold chain which I had bought 
 for her at Ravenna, she grew more familiar, 
 and led me all over the garden, and all over 
 
264 COMPROMISES 
 
 the convent, running and skipping so fast that 
 I could hardly keep up with her. She showed 
 me her little bed, and the chair where she sat at 
 dinner, and the carozzina in which she and her 
 favourite companions drew each other along a 
 walk in the garden. I had brought her a bas- 
 ket of sweetmeats, and, before eating any of 
 them, she gave her friends and each of the 
 nuns a portion. This is not like the old Alle- 
 gra. . . . Her intellect is not much cultivated. 
 She knows certain orazioni by heart, and talks 
 and dreams of Paradiso and all sorts of things, 
 and has a prodigious list of saints, and is always 
 talking of the Bambino. This will do her no 
 harm ; but the idea of bringing up so sweet a 
 creature in the midst of such trash 'till six- 
 teen." 
 
 Shelley's content with Allegra's situation 
 (the little tempest-tossed bark had at last sailed 
 into quiet waters) failed to bring comfort to 
 Claire. The convent walls rose a hopeless 
 barrier between mother and child ; and the 
 finality of the separation weighed cruelly upon 
 her spirits. One of her most bitter grievances 
 was the fear that her daughter was being edu- 
 
ALLEGE A 265 
 
 cated with the children of tradespeople, -~ an 
 unfounded alarm, as we see from the list com- 
 piled by Signer Biondi of the little marchesas 
 and contessas who were Allegra's playmates. 
 Another, and a reasonable anxiety, came with 
 the approach of winter. Miss Clairmont then 
 thinks less about the ignorance and immorality 
 of Italian women, and more about the un- 
 doubted cold of Italian convents. She is afraid, 
 and naturally afraid, that her child is not warm 
 enough. There is one piteous letter in which 
 she says that she cannot look at a glowing fire 
 without a sorrowful remembrance of her little 
 daughter in the chilly convent halls. 
 
 All these sources of disquietude were strength- 
 ened the following year by a new and unreason- 
 ing terror. Miss Clairmont appears to have 
 actually persuaded herself that Lord Byron 
 meant to leave Allegra at Bagnacavallo, in the 
 event of his own departure from Italy. We 
 know now from his letters that it was his 
 settled purpose to take her with him, wherever 
 he went. Even when he meditated briefly 
 an exile to South America, the child was to 
 accompany his flight. But his persistent silence, 
 
266 COMPROMISES 
 
 his maddening refusal to answer Claire's ap- 
 peals or remonstrances, left her in painful 
 ignorance, and a prey to consuming fears. She 
 conceived the mad design of stealing AUegra 
 from the convent, a scheme which was 
 warmly supported by those discreet monitors, 
 Lady Mountcashell and Mr. Tighe. Together 
 they discussed ways and means. Mr. Tighe 
 was of the opinion that the time had come for 
 extreme measures ; and the ardent Miss Parker 
 assured Miss Clairmont that, were she AUegra's 
 mother, she would not hesitate to stab Lord 
 Byron to the heart, and so free his unhappy 
 offspring from captivity. 
 
 In the midst of this melodramatic turmoil 
 we hear Mrs. Shelley's voice, pleading vainly 
 for patience and common sense. She points 
 out in an earnest letter to Claire that Lady 
 Noel's death will probably compel Byron to go 
 to England, and may even lead to a reconcili- 
 ation with his wife. In that event he will be 
 more willing to give back AUegra to her 
 mother ; and for the present, there is no cause 
 for apprehension. "Your anxiety about the 
 child's health," she writes reassuringly, " is to 
 
ALLEGRA 267 
 
 a great extent unfounded. You ought to know, 
 and any one will tell you, that the towns of 
 Eomagna, situated where Bagnacavallo is, enjoy 
 the best air in Italy. Imola and the neighbour- 
 ing paese are famous. Bagnacavallo especially, 
 being fifteen miles from the sea, and situated 
 on an eminence, is peculiarly salutary. Consid- 
 ering the affair reasonably, Allegra is well 
 taken care of there. She is in good health, and 
 in all probability will continue so." 
 
 One fact she strives to make clear. Her hus- 
 band has no money for the furtherance of any 
 plots that Miss Clairmont and Mr. Tighe may 
 devise. On this score, Shelley himself is equally 
 explicit. He had never wanted Allegra to go 
 to her father, and he cannot resist the tempta- 
 tion of saying, " I told you so," though he says 
 it with grave kindness. But he was even less 
 willing that, having been given up, she should be 
 stolen back again. His letter of remonstrance 
 proves both the anxiety he felt, and his sense 
 of shame at the part he was expected to play. 
 
 MY DEAR CLARE, I know not what to 
 think of the state of your mind, nor what to 
 
268 COMPROMISES 
 
 fear for you. Your plan about Allegra seems 
 to me, in its present form, pregnant with irre- 
 mediable infamy to all the actors in it except 
 yourself ; in any form wherein I must act- 
 ively cooperate, with inevitable destruction. 
 I could not refuse Lord Byron's challenge ; 
 though that, however to be deprecated, would 
 be the least in the series of mischiefs conse- 
 quent upon my intervention in such a plan. I 
 am shocked at the thoughtless violence of your 
 designs, and I wish to put my sense of their 
 madness in the strongest light. I may console 
 myself, however, with the reflection that the 
 attempt even is impossible, as I have no money. 
 So far from being ready to lend me three or 
 four hundred pounds, Horace Smith has lately 
 declined to advance six or seven napoleons for 
 a musical instrument which I wished to buy 
 for Jane Williams in Paris. Nor have I any 
 other friends to whom I could apply. 
 
 There was no need of heroics on the one side, 
 nor of apprehension on the other. While Miss 
 Clairmont was fretting and scheming in Flor- 
 ence, fever was scourging the Romagna, so 
 
ALLEGRA 269 
 
 seldom visited by infection, and the little Eng- 
 lish-born girl fell one of its earliest victims. 
 Allegra died at her convent school in the spring 
 of 1822. Byron admitted that death was kind. 
 " Her position in the world would scarcely have 
 allowed her to be happy," he said, pitying re- 
 morsefully the " sinless child of sin," so harshly 
 handicapped in life. But he felt his loss, and 
 bitterly, though silently, mourned it. The 
 Countess Guiccioli was with him when the 
 tidings came. In her eyes, he had always been 
 a fond and solicitous father ; yet the violence of 
 his distress amazed and frightened her. He 
 sent her away, and faced his grief, and his re- 
 morse if he felt remorse alone. The next 
 day, when she sought him, he said very simply, 
 " It is God's will. She is more fortunate than 
 we are ; " and never spoke of the child again. 
 " From that time " she adds, " he became more 
 anxious about his daughter Ada ; so much 
 so as to disquiet himself when the usual ac- 
 counts sent him were for a post or two de- 
 layed." 
 
 Byron's letters to Shelley, to Murray, and to 
 Scott, bear witness to the sincerity of his grief, 
 
270 COMPROMISES 
 
 and also to his sense of compunction. He was 
 still ready to defend his conduct ; but to Shel- 
 ley, at least, he admitted : " It is a moment 
 when we are apt to think that, if this or that 
 had been done, such an event might have been 
 prevented." Indeed, of the four actors so deeply 
 concerned in this brief tragedy of life, Shelley 
 alone could hold himself free from blame. 
 From first to last he had been generous, reason- 
 able, and kind. It was his painful part to com- 
 fort Miss Clairmont, to restrain her frenzy of 
 anger and wretchedness, to make what shadow 
 of peace he could between the parents of the 
 dead child. In all this he endured more than 
 his share of worry and vexation. Two weeks 
 after Allegra's death, he wrote to Lord Byron : 
 " I have succeeded in dissuading Clare from 
 the melancholy design of visiting the coffin at 
 Leghorn, much to the profit of my own shat- 
 tered health and spirits, which would have suf- 
 fered greatly in accompanying her on such a 
 journey. She is much better. She has, indeed, 
 altogether suffered in a mannerless terrible than 
 I expected, after the first shock, during which, 
 of course, she wrote the letter you enclose. I 
 
ALLEGRA 271 
 
 had no idea that her letter was written in that 
 temper ; and I think I need not assure you 
 that, whatever mine or Mary's ideas might have 
 been respecting the system of education you 
 intended to adopt, we sympathize too much in 
 your loss, and appreciate too well your feelings, 
 to have allowed such a letter to be sent to you, 
 had we suspected its contents." 
 
 A dead grief is easier to bear than a live 
 trouble. By early summer, Shelley was able 
 to report Miss Clairmont as once more " talk- 
 ative and vivacious." It was he who befriended 
 her to the end, and who bequeathed her a large 
 share of his estate. It was he who saw or 
 deemed he saw the image of Allegra rise 
 smiling and beckoning from the sea. 
 
 According to the Countess Guiccioli, Byron 
 bore the " profound sorrow " occasioned by his 
 little daughter's death " with all the fortitude 
 belonging to his great soul." In reality his 
 sense of loss was tempered by relief. Allegra's 
 future had always been to him a subject of 
 anxiety, and it was not without an emotion of 
 joy that he realized the child's escape from a 
 world which he had found bad, and which he 
 
272 COMPROMISES 
 
 had done little to make better. Two days after 
 she died, he wrote to Murray : " You will re- 
 gret to hear that I have received intelligence 
 of the death of my daughter, Allegra, of a fever, 
 in the convent of Bagnacavallo, where she was 
 placed for the last year to commence her edu- 
 cation. It is a heavy blow for many reasons, 
 but must be borne, with time." 
 
 A fortnight later he wrote to Scott : " I 
 have just lost my natural daughter, Allegra, 
 by a fever. The only consolation, save time, is 
 the reflection that she is either at rest or happy ; 
 for her few years (only five) prevented her 
 from having incurred any sin, except what we 
 inherit from Adam. 
 
 " ' Whom the gods love die young.' " 
 
 In a third letter, published by Mr. Prothero, 
 Byron repeats these sentiments with even 
 greater emphasis, and with a keener apprecia- 
 tion of their value. " Death has done his work, 
 and I am resigned. . . . Even at my age I 
 have become so much worn and harassed by 
 the trials of the world, that I cannot refrain 
 from looking upon that early rest which is at 
 
ALLEGRA 273 
 
 times granted to the young, as a blessing. 
 There is a purity and holiness in the apotheo- 
 sis of those who leave us in their brightness 
 and their beauty, which instinctively lead us 
 to a persuasion of their beatitude." 
 
 It was the irony of fate that, after being 
 an innocent object of contention all her life, 
 Allegra should, even in death, have been made 
 the theme of an angry and bitter dispute. Her 
 body was sent to England, and Byron begged 
 Murray to make all the necessary arrangements 
 for her burial. His directions were exceedingly 
 minute. He indicated the precise spot in Har- 
 row Church where he wished the child interred, 
 and he wrote the inscription to be engraved 
 upon her tablet. 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALLEGRA, 
 
 DAUGHTER OF G. G. LORD BYRON, 
 WHO DIED AT BAGNACAVALLO, 
 
 IN ITALY, APRIL 20TH, 1822, 
 AGED FIVE YEARS AND THREE MONTHS. 
 
 I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me. 
 
 2 SAMUEL, xii. 23. 
 
274 COMPROMISES 
 
 The funeral he desired to be " as private as is 
 consistent with decency ; " and he expressed 
 a hope that his friend, the Rev. Henry Drury, 
 would read the church service. 
 
 Murray found himself beset by unexpected 
 difficulties. The vicar of Harrow, the Rev. 
 J. W. Cunningham, objected strenuously to 
 the erection of Allegra's tablet, and stated his 
 objections at length ; not to Lord Byron 
 (which was prudent), but to the unhappy 
 publisher, who, all his life, had everybody's 
 business to attend to. Mr. Cunningham de- 
 clared that the proposed inscription " would be 
 felt by every man of refined taste, to say no- 
 thing of sound morals, to be an offence against 
 taste and propriety." He explained cautiously 
 that, as he did not dare to say this to Byron, 
 he expected Murray to do so. " My corre- 
 spondence with his Lordship has been so 
 small that I can scarcely venture myself to 
 urge these objections. You, perhaps, will feel 
 no such scruple. I have seen no person who 
 did not concur in the propriety of stating 
 them. I would intreat, however, that, should 
 you think it right to introduce my name 
 
ALLEGE A 275 
 
 into any statement made to Lord Byron " 
 (as if it could well have been left out), 
 "you will not do so without assuring him 
 of my unwillingness to oppose the smallest 
 obstacle to his wishes, or give the slightest 
 pain to his mind. The injury which, in my 
 judgment, he is from day to day inflicting upon 
 society is no justification for measures of 
 retaliation and unkindness." 
 
 Even the expansive generosity of this last 
 sentiment failed to soften Byron's wrath, when 
 the vicar's scruples were communicated to him. 
 He anathematized the reverend gentleman in 
 language too vigorous for repetition, and he 
 demanded of Murray, " what was the matter 
 with the inscription," apparently under the 
 impression that he had mistaken his dates, or 
 misquoted his text. His anger deepened into 
 fury when he was subsequently informed that 
 Allegra's interment in Harrow Church was held 
 to be a deliberate insult to Lady Byron, who oc- 
 casionally attended the services there. He wrote 
 passionately that of his wife's church-goings he 
 knew nothing; but that, had he known, no 
 power would have induced him to bury his 
 
276 COMPROMISES 
 
 poor infant where her foot might tread upon 
 its grave. Meanwhile, Mr. Cunningham had 
 marshalled his church-wardens, who obediently 
 withheld their consent to the erection of the 
 tablet; so that matter was settled forever. 
 Two years later, Dr. Ireland, Dean of West- 
 minster, refused to permit Lord Byron's body 
 to be buried in Westminster Abbey. Even 
 Thorwaldsen's statue of the poet, now in 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, was rejected by 
 this conscientious dignitary. "I do indeed 
 greatly wish for a figure by Thorwaldsen here," 
 he wrote piously to Murray ; " but no taste 
 ought to be indulged to the prejudice of a 
 duty." The statue lay unheeded for months 
 in a shed on the Thames wharf, and was 
 finally transferred to the library of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge. Comment is superfluous. 
 Byron was denied a grave in Westminster 
 Abbey; but Gifford, through Dr. Ireland's 
 especial insistence, was buried within its 
 walls. 
 
 Allegra lies in Harrow Church, with no 
 tablet to mark her resting-place, or to preserve 
 her memory. Visitors searching sentimentally 
 
ALLEGE A 277 
 
 for "Byron's tomb," by which they mean a 
 stone in the churchyard, " on the brow of 
 the hill, looking towards Windsor," where, 
 as a boy, he was wont to sit and dream for 
 hours, seldom know the spot where his little 
 daughter sleeps. 
 
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