ffnaliab 1Rcabi«e» SPECIMENS OF THE FORMS OF d (^^^i^^'C^ ^ % English Readings for Students. Specimens of prose Composition. The Short Story. Edited by Dr. Geo. H. Nettleton of Yale, vii + 229 pp , l6mo. 50c., net. Lamb's Superanmiated Man, Irving's Rip Van Winkle, Haw- thorne's The Great Stone Face, Poe's Purloined Letter, Thackeray's Phil Fogarty, Dickens' Dr. Marette's Majiuscript, Harte's Outcasts of Poker Flat, and Stevenson's Markheim. With introduction and notes. Forms of Discourse. Edited by Prof. E. H. Lewis of Lewis Institute, Chicago. 367 pp. i6mo. 60c., net. A compact manual, with 58 selections, chiefly from contemporary authors, and designed to cover the field of the volumes below. Prose Narration. Edited by Dr. W. T. Brewster of Columbia. xxxviii+209 pp. l6mo. 50c., net. Selections from Scott, Thackeray, Hawthorne, Austen, George Eliot, Stevenson, Henry James, etc. Part L Elements — Plot, Character, Setting, and Purpose. IL Combination of the Ele- ments. HL Various Kinds. IV. Technique of Good Narrative. Prose Description. Edited by Dr. Charles Sears Baldwin of Yale. xIviii-)-i45 pp. iGmo. 50c., net. Selections from Newman, Gibbon, Du Maurier, Burroughs, Carlyle, Swinburne, Pater, Henry James, Brander Matthews, Lamb, Landor, Stevenson, etc. With introduction and notes. Exposition. Edited by Prof. Hammond Lamont of Brown. xxiv+iSo pp. i6mo. 50c., net. Includes : Development of a Brief ; G. C. V. Holmes on the Steam-engine ; Bryce on the U. S. Constitution ; *' The Nation " on the Unemployed ; Matthew Arnold on Wordsworth; etc., etc. Argumentation. Modern. Edited by Prof. Geo. P. Baker of Harvard, vii + 186 pp. i6mo. 50c., net. Speeches by Chatham, Lord Mansfield, Huxley, Erskine, etc., the first letter of Junius, and specimen brief. HcNrvY HULl tX CD., 378 Wabash Ave., Chicago. SPECIMENS OF THE FORMS OF DISCOURSE COMPILED AND EDITED BY E. H.a^EWIS Professor of English in the Lewis Institute, Chicago NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY JQOO Copyright, igoo, BY HENRY HOLT & Ca THE MERSHON COMPANY PKES3, RAHWAY, N. J. PREFACE. This volume attempts to give specimens of five forms of discourse, that of Criticism being added to the four primary types. Under the head of Expo- sition there is also a specimen of Summary (p. 138), and, under that of Argumentation, a specimen Brief. There are sixty examples all told, from forty dif- ferent authors. About the same number of exer- cises are suggested — and merely suggested — on pp. 365-367, the later tasks requiring more labor than the earlier. The purpose of the collection is to furnish illus- trations supplementary to lectures or a manual, and to supply material for the inductive infer- ence of rhetorical principles on the part of the student. Models, in the enslaving sense of that word, the selections are certainly not meant to be. Franklin may have molded himself on Addison, and Stevenson may have woven his style with an eye to patterns from a score of looms, but no such di- rect imitation is recommended to college students in this volume. Yet the study of models has its purpose to-day, as truly as when Raphael plucked out the heart of Perugino's secrets, and proceeding to other masters bettered the instruction of each. The purpose is perhaps three-fold: to help the stu- dent to underlying principles of invention; to fa- miliarize him with certain living organisms as IV PREFACE. informed by these principles, lest in forgetful haste he apply the principles mechanically; and finally to reveal his powers to himself by experiment and self- comparison. A book of this sort is best used after the student has had some introduction to the types of compo- sition. Without such an introduction, he may pro- gress fairly well until he reaches Chapter IV., where he will need some formal statements, in lecture or manual, of the principles of inference and evidence. The author's best thanks are due to several pub- lishers for permissions to reprint. Detailed credit is given at the beginning of selections. Chicago, October, 1899. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. DESCRIPTION. PAGE I. A Cottage, . Edgar Allan Poe, . I 2, Charles the Fifth, John Lothrop Motley, 3 3- A Strawberry, R. D. Blackmore, , 5 4- The Source of the Arveiron, John Tyndall, 6 5- The Dawn in Temper- ate Climates, . John C. Van Dyke, 9 6. German and Celt, John Lothrop Motley, 12 7- Common Trees Com pared. John C. Van Dyke, . 14 8. The Fagade of St Mark's, John Ruskin, . 16 9- A May Afternoon, James Lane Allen, 17 lO. The Cathedral of Ant werp. John Lothrop Motley, 19 II. The Mason, . Louis Bertrand, 21 12. The Hall Farm, . George Eliot, . 22 13- Sights and Sounds a Walden, . Henry D. Thoreau, • 24 14. Santa Croce, John Ruskin, . • 27 15. Brussels, John Lothrop Motley, 30 16. Two Early Apollos, Walter Pater, • 31 17. A Girl's Face, Theodore Watts-Dtenton . 33 18. George the Fourth, William Makepeact Thackeray, • 35 19. An Edinburgh Trio, James M. Barrie, . • 37 20. The Cliff, . Edgar Allan Poe, . 38 VI CONTENTS. 21. A Marble Bacchus, 22. A Lady with Pearls, . 23. The Harpsichord of Yeddo, . 24. Opium Dreams, . 25. An Illustration of the Vernon Lee, Henry James, George Auriol, Thomas De Quincey, Non-Thinking Level, William Jajnes, PAGE 39 42 45 47 51 CHAPTER IL NARRATION. 26. The Passage of the Mountains, Francis Parkman, 55 27. The Capture of a Trout. R. D. Blackmore, . 73 28. An Evening at the William Makepeace Theater, . Thackeray, 80 29. A Rescue, R. D. Blackinore, . 86 30. The Five Days in Milan, W. /. Stillman, 93 31. The Discovery of a Secret, George Meredith, . 108 32. The Death of the Dauphin, Alphonse Daudet, 122 CHAPTER HL EXPOSITION. 33- The Method of Scien- tific Investigation, . Thomas Henry Huxley, 127 34 Earth - Worms and Their Function, Charles Darwin, 138 35 The Character of Wil- Thomas Babington Ma- liam of Orange, caulay, . 144 36, The Protection of Elec- trical Apparatus against Lightning, . Alexander fay Wuris, 158 CONTENTS. vu 37. Marconi's Wireless Telegraph, 38. The Town-Meeting. . 39. The Coffee-House, 40. The First Period of Greek Art, 41. Tuscan Sculpture, 42. The Plastic Nature of Greek Art and Ora- tory, .... 43. The Function of Edu- cation in a Demo- cratic Society, . 44. Causes of Failure, 45. The Two Races of Men, 46. The Look of a Gentle- man, 47. English and American Gentlemen, 48. The Olympians, . 49. Rain Cleveland Moffett^ . 168 John Fiske, . . .174 Thomas Babington Ma- caulay, . . .178 Walter Pater, Vernon Lee, R. C.Jebb, Charles W. Eliot, Be7ija7nm Jowett, Charles Lamb, 182 184 187 193 200 207 William Hazlitt, . .215 Thomas Wefitworth Hig- ginson, . . . 221 Kenneth Grahame, . 225 Alice Meynell, . . 230 CHAPTER IV David Dudley Field, . 237 ARGUMENTATION. 50. Specimen Brief (of 51), 233 51. The Child and the State, 52. The Manly Virtues and Practical Politics, . 53. On the Repeal of the Union with Ireland, 54. Defense of Patrick Finney, 249 Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Babington Ma- caul ay, . , 260 John Philpot Cur ran, . 281 Vin CONTENTS. PAGE 55. Nil Nisi Bonum, . . William Makepeace Thackeray, . .317 56. The End of George the William Makepeace Third, . . . Thackeray, . . 329 CHAPTER V. CRITICISM. 57. The Action of Paradise Lost, . . . Joseph Addison, . . 335 58. The Rank of Emerson, Matthew Arnold, . . 341 59. Discontinuance of the Thomas Wentworth Hig- Guide-Board, . . ginson, . . 343 60. On a Peal of Bells, . William Makepeace Thackeray, , .350 List of Suggested Exercises, 365 SPECIMENS OF THE FORMS OF DISCOURSE. CHAPTER I. DESCRIPTION. I.— B Cottage. EDGAR ALLAN POE. The point of view from which I first saw the val- ley, was not altogether, although it was nearly, the best point from which to survey the house. I will therefore describe it as I afterwards saw it — from a 5 position on the stone wall at the southern extreme of the ampitheater. The main building was about twenty-four feet long and sixteen broad — certainly not more. Its total height, from the ground to the apex of the loroof, could not have exceeded eighteen feet. To the west end of this structure was attached one about a third smaller in all its proportions — the line of its front standing back about two yards from that of the larger house; and the line of its roof, of 15 course, being considerably depressed below that of the roof adjoining. At right angles to these build- ings, and from the rear of the main one — not ex- actly in the middle — extended a third compartment, « DESCRIPTION. very small — being, in general, one-third less than the western wing. The roofs of the two larger were very steep — sweeping down from the ridge-beam with a long concave curve, and extending at least four feet beyond the walls in front, so as to form the 5 roofs of two piazzas. These latter roofs, of course, needed no support; but as they had the air of need- ing it, slight and perfectly plain pillars were inserted at the corners alone. The roof of the northern wing was merely an extension of a portion of the 10 main roof. Between the chief building and western wing arose a very tall and rather slender square chimney of hard Dutch bricks, alternately black and red — a slight cornice of projecting bricks at the top. Over the gables the roofs also projected 15 very much — in the main building about four feet to the east and two to the west. The principal door was not exactly in the main division, being a little to the east — while the two windows were to the west. These latter did not extend to the floor, but 20 were much longer and narrower than usual — they had single shutters like doors — the panes were of lozenge form, but quite large. The door itself had its upper half of glass, also in lozenge panes — a movable shutter secured it at night. The door to 25 the west wing was in its gable, and quite simple — a single window looked out to the south. There was no external door to the north wing, and it also had only one window to the east. The blank wall of the eastern gable was relieved 30 by stairs (with a balustrade) running diagonally across it — the ascent being from the south. Under cover of the widely projecting eave these steps gave access to a door leading into the garret, or rather CHARLES THE FIFTH. 3 loft — for it was lighted only by a single window to the north, and seemed to have been intended as a store room. The piazzas of the main building and western 5 wing had no floors, as is usual ; but at the doors and at each window, large, flat, irregular slabs of gran- ite lay imbedded in the delicious turf, affording comfortable footing in all weather. Excellent paths of the same material — not nicely adapted, but lowith the velvety sod filling frequent intervals be- tween the stones, led hither and thither from the house, to a crystal spring about five paces off, to the road, or to one or two out-houses that lay to the north, beyond the brook, and were thoroughly 15 concealed by a few locusts and catalpas. — Landor's Cottage. Notes. —This description of the exterior of a building proceeds by enumeration of all the details that can be seen from a certain point of view. But Poe is careful to give first what may be called the larger details, namely 20 the general dimensions of the house, because these are what an observer sees first. Details of form and out- line are then set down with some care, and finally the immediate environment of the house is touched upon. There is very little suggestion of color. The description is 25 not technical, but attains as much precision as is consistent with artistic purpose. 2.— Cbarles ^be jFiftb. JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. Charles the Fifth was then fifty-five years and eight months old; but he was already decrepit with premature old age. He was of about the middle 4 DESCRIPTION. height, and had been athletic and well-proportioned. Broad in the shoulders, deep in the chest, thin in the flank, very muscular in the arms and legs, he had been able to match himself with all competitors in the tourney and the ring, and to vanquish the 5 bull with his own hand in the favorite national amusement of Spain. He had been able in the field to do the duty of captain and soldier, to endure fatigue and exposure, and every privation except fasting. These personal advantages were now de- 10 parted. Crippled in hands, knees, and legs, he sup- ported himself with difficulty upon a crutch, with the aid of an attendant's shoulder. In face he had always been extremely ugly, and time had certainly not improved his physiognomy. His hair, once of 15 a light color, was now white with age, close-clipped, and bristling; his beard was gray, coarse, and shaggy. His forehead was spacious and command- ing; the eye was dark-blue, with an expression both majestic and benignant. His nose was aquiline but 20 crooked. The lower part of his face was famous for its deformity. The under lip, a Burgundian inheri- tance, as faithfully transmitted as the duchy and county, was heavy and hanging; the lower jaw protruding so far beyond the upper, that it was im- 25 possible for him to bring together the few frag- ments of teeth which still remained, or to speak a whole sentence in an intelligible voice. Eating and talking, occupations to which he was always much addicted, were becoming daily more arduous, in 30 consequence of this original defect, which now seemed hardly human, but rather an original de- formity. — The Rise of the DuUh Republic. A STRAWBERRY. 5 Notes. — The method of description by enumeration is here artistically applied to a person. Although Motley allows very few details of Charles's appearance to escape mention, he so groups them that they seem vividly char- 5 acteristic. First he speaks of the king's athletic build, contrasting his former vigor with his present crippled con- dition. He then enumerates the royal features, coming last to the most striking and ugly. Note furthermore that each of the two groups of detail begins with a word or two lo of general impression ; the king's body suffered from " premature old age," and his features were "extremely ugly." 3.— B Strawberry. R. D. BLACKMORE. That is the time for the true fruit-lover to try the taste of a strawberry. It should be one that refused ^5 to ripen in the gross heat of yesterday, but has been slowly fostering goodness, with the attestation of the stars. And now (if it has been properly man- aged, properly picked without touch of hand, and not laid down profanely), when the sun comes over 2othe top of the hedge, the look of that strawberry will be this — at least, if it is of a proper sort: the beard of the footstalk will be stiff, the sepals of the calyx moist and crisp, the neck will show a narrow band of varnish, where the dew could find no hold, 25 the belly of the fruit will be sleek and gentle, firm, however, to accept its fate; but the back that has dealt with the dew, and the sides where the color of the back slopes downward, upon them such a gloss of cold and diamond chastity will lie that the hu- 30 man lips get out of patience with the eyes in no time. — Alice Lorraine. 6 DESCRIPTION. Notes. — The method of detail is applied to a fruit. No unfamiliar botanical terms are employed, but the form and texture of the berry are indicated with much exactness. No effort is made to describe the taste of the fruit, beyond its fresh chill ; but the delicious quality is suggested by 5 stating the effect of the sight upon the fruit-lover. The diction of the passage is over-ambitious, with humorous intent. 4.— Q:be Source ot tbe Brrelron. 1fcc ipfnnacles, lowers, and Cbadms ot tbe <3laciec des :A3old. passage to tbe /Iftontanvert.' JOHN TYNDALL. Our preparatory studies are for the present ended, and thus informed, let us approach the Alps, iq Through the village of Chamouni, in Savoy, a river rushes which is called the Arve. Let us trace this river backwards from Chamouni. At a little dis- tance from the village the river forks; one of its branches still continues to be called the Arve, the 15 other is the Arveiron. Following this latter we come to what is called the " source of the Arveiron " — a short hour's walk from Chamouni. Here, as in the case of the Rhone already referred to, you are fronted by a huge mass of ice, the end of a glacier, 20 and from an arch in the ice the Arveiron issues. Do not trust the arch in summer. Its roof falls at in- tervals with a startling crash, and would infallibly crush any person on whom it might fall. We must now be observant. Looking about us 25 here, we find in front of the ice curious heaps and ridges of debris, which are more or less concentric. > Reprinted from the " Forms of Water," by permission of Messrs. p. Appleton 4b Co. THE SOURCE OF THE ARVEIRON. t These are the terminal moraines of the glacier. We shall examine them subsequently. We now turn to the left, and ascend the slope be- side the glacier. As we ascend we get a better 5 view, and find that the ice here fills a narrow valley. We come upon another singular ridge, not of fresh debris, like those lower down, but covered in part with trees, and appearing to be literally as " old as the hills." It tells a wonderful tale. We soon lo satisfy ourselves that the ridge is an ancient mo- raine, and at once conclude that the glacier, at some former period of its existence, was vastly larger than it is now. This old moraine stretches right across the main valley, and abuts against the mountains at 15 the opposite side. Having passed the terminal portion of the gla- cier, which is covered with stones and rubbish, we find ourselves beside a very wonderful exhibition of ice. The glacier descends a steep gorge, and in do- 2oing so is riven and broken in the most extraordi- nary manner. Here are towers, and pinnacles, and fantastic shapes wrought out by the action of the weather, which put one in mind of rude sculpture. . . . From deep chasms in the glacier issues a 25 delicate shimmer of blue light. At times we hear a sound like thunder, which arises either from the falling of a tower of ice, or from the tumble of a huge stone into a chasm. The glacier maintains this wild and chaotic character for some time; and 30 the best iceman would find himself defeated in any attempt to get along it. We reach a place called the Chapeau, where, if we wish, we can have refreshment in a little moun- tain hut. We then pass the Mauvais Pas, a precipi- 8 DESCRIPTION. tous rock, on the face of which steps are hewn, and the unpractioed traveler is assisted by a rope. We pursue our journey, partly along the mountain side, and partly along a ridge of singularly artificial as- pect — a lateral moraine. We at length face a house b perched upon an eminence at the opposite side of the glacier. This is the auberge of the Montan- vert, well known to all visitors to this portion of the Alps. Here we cross the glacier. I should have toldio you that its lower part, including the broken por- tion we have passed, is called the Glacier des Bois; while the place that we are now about to cross is the beginning of the Mer de Glace. You feel that this term is not quite appropriate, for the glacier here 15 is much more like a river of ice than a sea. The valley which it fills is about half a mile wide. The ice may be riven where we enter upon it, but with the necessary care there is no difficulty in cross- ing this portion of the Mer de Glace. The clefts 20 and chasms in the ice are called crevasses; we shall make their acquaintance on a grander scale by and by. Look up and down this side of the glacier. It is considerably riven, but as we advance the crev- 25 asses will diminish, and we shall find very few of them at the other side. Note this for future use. The ice is at first dirty; but the dirt soon disap- pears, and you come upon the clean crisp surface of the glacier. You have already noticed that the 30 clean ice is white, and that from a distance it re- sembles snow rather than ice. This is caused by the breaking up of the surface by the solar heat. When you pound transparent rock-salt into powder THE DA WN IN TEMPERA TE CLIMA TES. 9 it is as white as table-salt, and it is the minute As- suring of the surface of the glacier by the sun's rays that causes it to appear white. Within the gla- cier the ice is transparent. After an exhilarating 5 passage we get upon the opposite lateral moraine, and ascend the steep slope from it to the Montan- vert Inn. Notes. — This is obviously description by means of narra- tive. The landscape is studied as a sort of panorama, in lo order to do justice to the many details which are impor- tant to the author's purpose — the popular presentation of a scientific topic. Every method of enumeration, since it draws the reader's attention first to one point, then to another, can hardly help blurring, or missing, the impres- ts sion of the whole ; but enumerative description which takes on the color of narrative is the most natural way of describing where large numbers of particulars are concerned. A famous example is that passage in the eighteenth Iliad where the minutiae of Achilles' golden 20 shield are described by the narrative of their forging under the hand of Vulcan. 5,—Z\ie Dawn tn tTempcrate Climates,' JOHN C. VAN DYKE. But the dawn in our temperate clime is not so un- usual in appearance. It is with us the gradual ex- pansion and intensifying of radiance. The light is 25 a soft, lustrous one, illuminating the earth entirely by reflection. While the sun is below the horizon no direct rays can possibly reach us. The shafts are shot up against the blue vault, and from this > Reprinted from " Nature for Its Own Sake," by permission of Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, lo DESCRIPTION. transparent blue of atmosphere they are reflected back to earth. It is not a bright or sharp reflection. The rays are bent and thrown back only by the in- finitesimal particles that float in the upper air. Even when the shafts strike a cloud they simply 5 make it glow like a great pearl, and the glow is in- finitely more delicate for its surrounding of trans- lucent atmosphere. Yet the great vault is illu- mined, and, as the sun rises higher, far to the north and far to the south, halfway around the circle, a xg tapestry of silver and gold is weaving on a blue- gray ground, and the dark ultramarine of the west turns a shade paler and seems to lift into space as the light grows stronger. How like the flooding of the tide this light drifts up, and in this great aerial 15 ocean bringing with it warmth and color! Sound- less and surgeless, rolling in waves too translucent to be seen, rising higher and higher, yet meeting with no ultimate shore, how gloriously it sweeps up and over the world! How swiftly even the 20 " meager cloddy earth " borrows a splendor from above and reflects the flush of light and color! The mists stir, the trees tremble gently, the dew slips from leaf to stem, and the whole globe seems to awaken from slumber. 25 There is nothing more beautiful in all nature than this flooding of light across the sky, across the earth; yet even as we watch it a great change takes place. The sun peers over the horizon and the first beam of light strikes full upon the mountain's high- 50 est minaret of rock, splashing it with a pale golden hue. At once the hue begins to creep down from the mountain-top, striking the oaks and cedars one by one with yellow shafts until the whole hillside THE DAWN IN TEMPERATE CLIMATES. n is mantled with its color. Swiftly the light spreads to the valley, and in a few moments it falls upon the fields and meadows. Immediately begins the phe- nomenon of light being broken and obstructed by 5 opaque bodies such as hills and trees, and we have the efifect of light-and-shade. Immediately, too, the swift vibration of those points of light produc- tive of color is increased, and we have the brilliant hues that mark the earth under sunshine. Every lolake and stream and open sea warms in color and glances the image of the sun, and every hillside and mountain crag receives the stain of gold. Not the great objects alone, but the infinitely little, the pale windflower, the lowly buttercup, the yellow cen- 15 tered daisy, the tiny violet, the leaf-whorl of the moss, all put on their brightest garments, each one lifting its head to the sun as the great glory of the universe. As the sun rises higher the splendor becomes 20 more widely dififused. The color of the rose leaps to a high pitch, the top of the willow is a mass of silver, the poplar seems to shake light from its leaves as though they were trembling little mirrors. By contrast the shadows across the lawn and along 25 the mountain side seem darker, though in reality they are lighter; and the light itself may seem fainter because widely dififused, whereas it is stronger and fiercer. By ten o'clock the sun is quite high in the heavens. Heat is radiating from the earth. 30 Strata of warm air are forming along the ground, moving uneasily hither and thither in their search for an exit through the colder air to the upper re- gions. Dust and moisture, too, are rising; and by noon perhaps there is a haze lying along the hills 12 DESCRIPTION. and meadows, the distant valleys look gray and warm in the sunlight, the mountains beyond them are faintly blue, the sky itself looks yellow or rosy. Color is everywhere, more predominant than in the morning, but less contrasted, because the atmos- 5 phere has blended and toned all nature to its own golden hue. Notes. — In the selection from Tyndall, the enumeration by means of narrative concerned stationary objects, the spectators themselves being in motion. In the present 10 selection the details are those of moving phenomena, the observer being stationary. The passage is rich in terms for color and atmospheric effects. The range of the vocabulary of motion is also noticeable. It is a curious fact that even in description of stationary objects (as of 15 Poe's cottage), the vocabulary is necessarily " motor " to a high degree. When a roof is said to " sweep down in along curve," what is really being described is a motion of the eye. Ruskin has pointed out that Shelley's power of describing natural objects lies mainly in his words of 20 motion. It should further be noted that the most beauti- ful motor image in the selection, that of the tide of light, is effective because it is familiar. "Familiar" does not mean " trite." " Sparkling rivulets " and "pearly dews " and "lurid glows" are the bane of freshman compo- 25 sitions. The writer whose eye is on the object will use his own words, rather than those found in ladies' journals of fifty years ago. 6.— ©erman an& Celt. JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. Physically the two races resembled each other. Both were of vast stature. The gigantic Gaul de-30 rided the Roman soldiers as a band of pygmies. GERMAN AND CELT. 13 The German excited astonishment by his huge body and muscular limbs. Both were fair, with fierce blue eyes, but the Celt had yellow hair float- ing over his shoulders, and the German long locks 5 of fiery red, which he even dyed with woad to heighten the favorite color, and wore twisted into a war-knot upon the top of his head. Here the German's love of finery ceased. A simple tunic, fastened at his throat with a thorn, while his other lo garments defined and gave full play to his limbs, completed his costume. The Gaul, on the contrary, was so fond of dress that the Romans divided his race respectively into long-haired, breeched, and gowned Gaul; (Gallia comata, braccata, togata). 15 He was fond of brilliant and parti-colored clothes, a taste which survives in the Highlander's costumg. He covered his neck and arms with golden chains. The simple and ferocious German wore no decora- tion save his iron ring, from which his first homi- 2ocide relieved him. The Gaul was irascible, furious in his wrath, but less formidable in a sustained con- flict with a powerful foe. " All the Gauls are of very high stature," says a soldier whO' fought under Julian (Amm. Marcel, xv. 12. i). " They are 25 white, golden-haired, terrible in the fierceness of their eyes, greedy of quarrels, bragging and inso- lent. A band of strangers could not resist one of them in a brawl, assisted by his strong, blue-eyed wife, especially when she begins, gnashing her 30 teeth, her neck swollen, brandishing her vast and snowy arms, and kicking with her heels at the same time, to deliver her fisticuffs, like bolts from the twisted strings of a catapult. The voices of many are threatening and formidable. They are quick to 14 DESCRIPTION. anger, but quickly appeased. All are clean in their persons; nor among them is ever seen any man or woman, as elsewhere, squalid in ragged garments. At all ages they are apt for military service. The old man goes forth to the fight with equal strength 5 of breast, with limbs as hardened by cold and assid- uous labor, and as contemptuous of all dangers, as the young. Not one of them, as in Italy is often the case, was ever known to cut off his thumbs to avoid the service of Mars." j^ — The Rise of the Dutch Republic. Notes. — Motley avoids tedious masses of details by carry ing along two enumerations side by side, so that the atten tion is rested by repeated diversion. Indeed, the passage owes most of its power to the principle of comparison and contrast. Form is compared with form, and both images are 15 sharpened by the interchange of mental energy. Colors are heightened by contrast with other colors, manners by contrast with other manners. The whole passage reminds us that the process of knowledge is by comparison, and explains the passion for antithesis which sometimes seizes 20 on a whole generation of writers ; the passion for ' ' look- ing on this picture, then on that," and for balancing every sentence. 7.— Common G:rees Compared.' JOHN C. VAN DYKE. The botanist has classed, ordered, sectioned, and specied the different trees, and christened each with 25 a Latinized name; but I have no thought of follow- ing his scientific arrangement nor of catalogfuing or ' Reprinted from " Nature for Its Own Sake," by permission of Messrs. Charles Scnbner's Sons. COMMON TREES COMPARED. IS classifying the different varieties of trees. My task has to do with surface appearances. Moreover, the general character of a tree is revealed by its form, color, or texture; and it may be assumed that the 5 average person recognizes it by these features rather than by reducing it to botanical class and species. How much depends upon outline, hue, and surface, and what distinguishing ear-marks these are, may be suggested by a few haphazard descriptions of the lo common trees about us. The spruce, for instance, is a straight-trunked tree that throws out branches that ride upward like crescents, and bear needles that hang downward like fringes. Its outline, when seen in silhouette against 15 the sky, is pyramidal; its color is dark green, often blue-green when seen from a distance, and at twi- light it is cold-purple. Tlie pine is like it, but its branches are not so crescent-shaped, and the nee- dles push outward in clusters rather than droop 20 downward in fringes. It is of a darker color than the spruce, and at night or under shadow it is bluer. The poplar is a tall tree, and often a straight one, but the branches do not swing outward like the pine. They seek rather to grow straight beside the 25 parent stem, and the twigs and the sharp-pointed foliage surround the branches as a loose sleeve the arm of a woman. It is white-trunked, with a le^ that is bright green on one side and silvery green on the other side. The black oak grows a straight 30 trunk with limbs that shoot out almost at right an- gles ; but the white oak and the pin oak are crooked and twisted, their harsh trunks are often broken with boles, and their limbs may take angle lines or prong out like the horns of a deer. Very differ- l6 DESCRIPTION. ent from such an angular growth as the oak is the stately elm, its long limbs branching and falling so gracefully, the weeping willow that throws its branches up and over like the spray from a foun- tain, the round, ball-shaped horse-chestnut, or the 5 long-armed, white-breasted birch of the mountains. Notes. — Here the method of comparison is applied, not to only two objects, but to ten. The fact that the descrip- tion is nevertheless brief rises from its being limited to certain details. The objects are trees, and the matters to lo be compared are carefully announced at the start as " out- line, hue, and surface." With much compression of phrase the author distinguishes each tree in these respects. Q—Z\iZ jfajaDc Of St. /iRarft's. JOHN RUSKIN. And round the walls of the porches there are set pillars of variegated stones, jasper, and porphyry, 15 and deep green serpentine spotted with flakes of snow, and marbles, that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like, " their bluest veins to kiss " — the shadow, as it steals back from them, re- vealing line after line of azure undulation, as a re- 20 ceding tide leaves the waved sand; their capitals rich with interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of acanthus and vine, and mys- tical signs, all beginning and ending in the Cross; and above them, in the broad archivolts, a continu-2s ous chain of language and of life — angels, and the signs of heaven, and the labors of men, each in its appointed season upon the earth; and above these, another range of glittering pinnacles, mixed with A MA Y AFTERNOON. 1 7 white arches edged with scarlet flowers, — a confu- sion of delight, amidst which the breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of golden strength, and the St. Mark's Lion, lifted on 5 a blue field covered with stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches break into a mar- ble foam, and toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore had been frost-bound lo before they fell, and the sea-nymphs had inlaid them with coral and amethyst. — The Stones of Venice. Notes. — The selections preceding this passage from Ruskin employ various forms of the enumerative method, but all with a view to such precision as may be compati- 15 ble with artistic suggestion. This description of the front of St. Mark's aims to describe the beholder's general impression rather than any particular. His glance catches much detail, but travels upward more rapidly than appreciation is able to follow, and so the result is " a con- 20 fusion of delight." The appeal is almost entirely to the eye, and mostly to the color-sense ; but the main lines of the picture are distinct enough to give some feeling of its composition. 9.— a /IRas Bfternoott.' JAMES LANE ALLEN. The middle of a fragrant afternoon of May in 25 the green wilderness of Kentucky: the year 1795. High overhead ridges of many-peaked cloud — the gleaming, wandering Alps of the blue ether; ' From "The Choir Invisible," copyright, 1897, by the Macmillan Company. 1 8 DESCRIPTION. outstretched far below, the warming bosom of the earth, throbbing with the hope of maternity. Two spirits abroad in the air, encountering each other and passing into one: the spirit of scentless spring left by melting snows and the spirit of scented sum- 5 mer born with the earliest buds. The road through the forest one of those wagon-tracks that were be- ing opened from the clearings of the settlers, and that wound along beneath trees of which those now seen in Kentucky are the unworthy survivors — oaks 10 and walnuts, maples and elms, centuries old, gnarled, massive, drooping, majestic, through whose arches the sun hurled down only some solitary spear of gold, and over whose gray-mossed roots some cold brook crept in silence; with here and there biI-15 lowy open spaces of wild rye, buffalo grass, and clover on which the light fell in sheets of radiance; with other spots so dim that for ages no shoot had sprung from the deep black mold; blown to and fro across this wagon-road, odors of ivy, pennyroyal, 20 and mint, mingled with the fragrance of the wild grape; flitting to and fro across it, as low as the violet-beds, as high as the sycamores, unnumbered kinds of birds, some of which like the paroquet are long since vanished. 25 Notes. — Here we have another impressionistic use of details, but the effect is only slightly pictorial. There is a wagon track, and there are tree-trunks and arches of foliage; but these forms linger in the reader's mind less distinctly than the successive contrasts of light and shade, 30 the delicate woodland odors, the faint suggestions of delicious coolness and warmth. THE CATHEDRAL OF ANTWERP. 1 9 10.— Cbe CatbcOral of Antwerp. JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. The church, placed in the center of the city, with the noisy streets of the busiest metropolis in Europe eddying around its walls, was a sacred island in the tumultuous main. Through the perpetual twilight, 5 tall columnar trunks in thick profusion grew from a floor checkered with prismatic lights and sepul- chral shadows. Each shaft of the petrified forest rose to a preternatural height, their many branches intermingling in the space above, to form an im- lo penetrable canopy. Foliage, flowers, and fruit of colossal luxuriance, strange birds, beasts, griffins, and chimeras in endless multitudes, the rank vegeta- tion, and the fantastic zoology of a fresher or fabu- lous world, seemed to decorate and to animate the 15 serried trunks and pendant branches, while the shat- tering symphonies or dying murmurs of the organ suggested the rushing of the wind through the for- est — now the full diapason of the storm and now the gentle cadence of the evening breeze. 20 Internally, the whole church was rich beyond ex- pression. All that opulent devotion and inventive ingenuity could devise, in wood, bronze, marble, silver, gold, precious jewelry, or blazing sacra- mental furniture, had been profusely lavished. The 25 penitential tears of centuries had incrusted the whole interior with their glittering stalactites. Di- vided into five naves, with external rows of chapels, but separated by no screens or partitions, the great temple forming an imposing whole, the effect was 30 the more impressive, the vistas almost infinf^'i in ap« 20 DESCRIPTION. pearance. The wealthy citizens, the twenty-seven guilds, the six military associations, the rhythmical collegfes, besides many other secular or religious sodalities, had each their own chapels and altars. Tombs adorned with the effigies of mailed crusaders 5 and pious dames covered the floor, tattered banners J hung in the air, the escutcheons of the Golden ' Fleece, an order typical of Flemisli industry, but of which emperors and kings were proud to be the chevaliers, decorated the columns. The vast andio beautifully painted windows glowed with scrip- tural scenes, antique portraits, homely allegories, painted in those brilliant and forgotten colors which Art has not ceased to deplore. The daylight melt- ing into gloom or colored with fantastic brilliancy, 15 priests in effulgent robes chanting in unknown lan- guage, the sublime breathing of choral music, the suffocating odor of myrrh and spikenard, sugges- tive of the Oriental scenery and imagery of Holy Writ, all combined to bewilder and exalt the senses. 20 . — The Rise of the Dutch Republic. Notes. — This passage from Motley combines to a con- siderable degree the merits of the two selections that immediately precede it. It is mainly impressionistic in method, but is sufficiently clear as to the structural lines of the picture, and it appeals not merely to the eye but to 25 all the senses. It begins with the highly suggestive simile which likens the church in the noisy city to "a sacred island in the tumultuous main." Having thus placed be- fore us the environment of the object — as Motley is usually careful to do — the author tries to suggest the general look 30 of the lofty, mysterious interior. He then proceeds to the bewildering details of decorative richness, and to the sights, sounds, odors of the sacred service, which mingle THE MASOM, 21 with the colored sunlight and retreating gloom in theit apoeal to the senses and the imagination. LOUIS BERTRAND. The mason Abraham Knupfer sings, with trowel in hand, scaffolded in the air, so high that, reading 5 the Gothic verses on the great bell, he levels under his feet the church with its thirty buttresses and the town with its thirty churches. 'He sees the stone gargoyles disgorge the water of the slates into the confused abysm of galleries, loof windows, of pendentives, of spires, of towers, of roofs, and of frames which the dented and motion- less wing of a tiercelet dashes with a spot of gray. He sees the fortifications cut in the shape of a star, the citadel that swells out like a hen in a dove- 15 cot, the courts of the palaces where the sun dries, and the fountains and the cloisters of the monas- teries where the shade revolves around the pillars. The imperial troops are quartered in the fau- bourg. And now a horseman is drumming yonder. 20 Abraham Knupfer distinguishes his three-horned chapeau, his aiguillettes of red wool, his cockade shot with gold thread, and his queue tied with a ribbon. And beyond he sees soldiers who, in the park 25 plumed with gigantic branches, upon large lawns of emerald, riddle with their arquebuses a wooden bird, stuck on the top of a May-pole. And in the evening, when the harmonious nave ' Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from " Pastels in Prose," copyright, i8go, by Harper & Brothers. «a DESCRIPTION. of the cathedral fell asleep, with its arms extended in the shape of a cross, he perceived, from his lad- der, towards the horizon, a village, fired by the men-at-arms, that flamed like a comet through the azure. 5 Notes. — The charm of this " pastel." as the French call a variety of extremely short artistic compositions, lies chiefly in the novelty of the point of view. Hawthorne has utilized the same novelty in his "Sights from a Steeple." But the chief value of M. Bertrand's pastel to lo the sti4dent is the fact of the point of view. From this point the description proceeds, beginning with the nearest objects, and to it repairs. By it the question of what detail to present is settled. It steadies the reader's mind and makes confusion impossible. I5 12.— tlbe "Jball jfarm. GEORGE ELIOT. 'Evidently that gate is never opened ; for the long grass and the great hemlocks grow close against it; and if it were opened, it is so rusty that the force necessary to turn it on its hinges would be likely to pull down the square stone-pillars, to the detriment 20 of the two stone lionesses which grin, with a doubt- ful carnivorous affability, above a coat of arms sur- mounting each of the pillars. It would be easy enough, by the aid of the nicks in the stone pillars, to climb over the brick wall, with its smooth stone 25 coping; but by putting our eyes close to the rusty bars of the gate we can see the old house well enough, and all but the very corners of the grassy inclosure. It is a very fine old place, of red brick, softened 30 THE HALL FARM. 23 by a pale powdery lichen which has dispersed itself with happy irregularity, so as to bring the red brick into terms of friendly companionship with the lime- stone ornaments surrounding the three gables, the 5 windows, and the door-place. But the windows are patched with wooden panes, and the door, I think, is like the gate — it is never opened; how it would groan and grate against the stone floor if it were! For it is a solid, heavy, handsome door and must 10 once have been in the habit of shutting with a so- norous bang behind a liveried lackey, who had just seen his master and mistress off the grounds in a carriage and pair. But at present one might fancy the house in the 15 early stage of a chancery suit, and that the fruit from that grand double row of walnut trees on the right hand of the inclosure would fall and rot among the grass, if it were not that we heard the booming bark of dogs echoing from great build- soings at the back. And now the half-weaned calves that have been sheltering themselves in a gorse-built hovel against the left-hand wall come out and set up a silly answer to that terrible bark, doubtless supposing that it has reference to buckets of milk, 25 Yes, the house must be inhabited, and we will see by whom, for imagination is a licensed trespasser; it has no fear of dogs, but may climb over walls and peep in at windows with impunity. Put your face to one of the glass panes in the right-hand window; 30 what do you see? A large open fireplace, with rusty dogs in it, and a bare-boarded floor ; at the far end fleeces of wool stacked up ; in the middle of the floor some empty corn-bags. That is the furniture of the dining room. And what through the left- 24 DESCRIPTION. hand window? Several clothes-horses, a pillion, a spinning-wheel, and an old box, wide open, and stuffed full of colored rags. At the edge of this box there lies a great wooden doll, which, so far as mutilation is concerned, bears a strong resemblance 5 to the finest Greek sculpture, and especially in the total loss of its nose. Near it there is a little chair, and the butt end of a boy's leather long-lashed whip. — Adam Bede. Notes. — Here George Eliot combines the use of the point lo of view with the " traveler's method," or narrative descrip- tion. Wishing to give all the characteristic details of an empty house, both the exterior and the interior, she invites the reader to view it first through the rusty bars of the gate and then through a window pane, 15 13.— Sigbts an& Soun56 at IQlalDen, HENRY D. THOREAU. As I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks are circling about my clearing; the tan- tivy of wild pigeons, flying by twos and threes athwart my view, or perching restless on the white- pine boughs behind my house, gives a voice to the 20 air; a fishhawk dimples the glassy surface of the pond and brings up a fish; a mink steals out of the marsh before my door and seizes a frog by the shore; the sedge is bending under the weight of the reed-birds flitting hither and thither; and for 25 the last half-hour I have heard the rattle of railroad SIGHTS AND SOUNDS AT WALDEN. 25 cars, now dying away and then reviving like the beat of a partridge, conveying travelers from Bos- ton to the country. For I did not live so out of the world as that boy, who, as I hear, was put out to a D farmer in the east part of the town, but ere long ran away and came home again, quite down at the heel and homesick. He had never seen such a dull and out-of-the-way place; the folks were all gone off; why, you couldn't even hear the whistle! II. 10 Thus for sixteen days I saw from my window a hundred men at work ^ like busy husbandmen, with teams and horses and apparently all the implements of farming, such a picture as we see on the first page of the almanac ; and as often as I looked out I 15 was reminded of the fable of the lark and the reap- ers, or the parable of the sower, and the like; and now they are all gone, and in thirty days more, probably, I shall look from the same window on the pure sea-green Walden water there, reflecting 20 the clouds and the trees, and sending up its evapo- rations in solitude, and no traces will appear that a man has ever stood there. Perhaps I shall hear a solitary loon laugh as he dives and plumes himself, or shall see a lonely fisher in his boat, like a floating 25 leaf, beholding his form reflected in the waves, where lately a hundred men securely labored. III. Late in the evening I heard the distant rumbling of wagons over bridges, — a sound heard farther ' At ice-harvesting. 26 DESCRIPTION. than almost any other at night, — the baying of dogs, and sometimes again the lowing of some disconso- late cow in a distant barnyard. In the meanwhile all the shore rang with the trump of bullfrogs, the sturdy spirits of ancient wine-bibbers and wassail- 5 ers, still unrepentant, trying to sing a catch in their Stygian lake, — if the Walden nymphs will pardon the comparison, for though there are almost no weeds, there are frogs there, — who would fain keep up the hilarious rules of their old festal tables, 10 though their voices have waxed hoarse and sol- emnly grave, mocking at mirth, and the wine has lost its flavor, and become only liquor to distend their paunches, and sweet intoxication never comes to drown the memory of the past, but mere satura-15 tion and waterloggedness and distention. The most aldermanic, with his chin upon a heart-leaf, which serves for a napkin to his drooling chaps, un- der this northern shore quafifs a deep draught of the once scorned water, and passes round the cup with 20 the ejaculation tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! and straightway comes over the water from some distant cove the same password repeated, where the next in seniority and girth has gulped down to his mark; and when this observance has made the cir-25 cuit of the shores, then ejaculates the master of ceremonies, with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonk! and each in his turn repeats the same down to the least dis- tended, leakiest, and flabbiest paunched, that there be no mistake; and then the bowl goes round again 30 ard again, until the sun disperses the morning mist, and only the patriarch is not under the pond, but vainly bellowing froonk from time to time, and paus- ing for a reply. SANTA CROCE. 27 I am not sure that I ever heard the sound of cock- crowing from my clearing-, and I thought that it might be worth the while to keep a cockerel for his music merely, as a singing bird. The note of this 5 once wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most re- markable of any bird's, and if they could be natu- ralized without being domesticated, it would soon become the most famous sound in our woods, sur- passing the clangor of the goose and the hooting of 10 the owl; and then imagine the cackling of the hens to fill the pauses when their lords' clarions rested! No wonder that man added this bird to his tame stock — ^to say nothing of the eggs and drumsticks. — Walden. Notes. — Thoreau has a scrupulous regard to the point of 15 view in his descriptions. If he did not, as in two of these selections, view the whole world from a single window, he did view it, for the space of two years, from a single clearing. Two things are noticeable in these selections : first that the point of view is, for him, equally a point of 20 hearing ; and, second, that the quietest landscape can be exhibited as full of motion. 14.— Santa Croce. JOHN RUSKIN. Please leave the little chapel for the moment, and walk down the nave, till you come to two sepulchral slabs near the west end, and then look about you 25 and see what sort of a church Santa Croce is. Without looking about you at all, you may find, in your Murray, the useful information that it is a church which " consists of a very wide na,ve and 2 8 DESCRIPTION. lateral aisles, separated by seven fine pointed arches." And as you will be — under ordinary con- ditions of tourist hurry — glad to learn so much, zmtkout looking-, it is little likely to occur to you that this nave and two rich aisles required also, for 5 your complete present comfort, walls at both ends, and a roof on the top. It is just possible, indeed, you may have been struck, on entering, by the curi- ous disposition of painted glass at the east end; — more remotely possible that, in returning down the 10 nave, you may this moment have noticed the ex- tremely small circular window at the west end; but the chances are a thousand to one that, after being pulled from tomb to tomb round the aisles and chapels, you should take so extraordinary an addi-15 tional amount of pains as to look up at the roof, — unless you do it now, quietly. It will have had its effect upon you, even if you don't, without your knowledge. You will return home with a general impression that Santa Croce is, somehow, the ugli-20 est Gothic church you ever were in. Well, that is really so; and now, will you take the pains to see why? There are two features, on which, more than on any others, the grace and delight of a fine Gothic 25 building depends; one is the springing of its vault- ings, the other the proportion and fantasy of its traceries. This church of Santa Croce has no vault- ings at all, but the roof of a farmhouse barn. And its windows are all of the same pattern, — the ex- 30 ceedingly prosaic one of two pointed arches, with a round hole above, between them. And to make the simplicity of the roof more con- spicuous, the aisles are successive sheds, built at SANTA CROCE. 29 every arch. In the aisles of the Campo Santo of Pisco, the unbroken flat roof leaves the eye free to look to the traceries; but here, a succession of up- and-down sloping beam and lath gives the impres- 5 sion of a line of stabling rather than a church aisle. And lastly, while, in fine Gothic buildings, the en- tire perspective concludes itself gloriously in the high and distant apse, here the nave is cut across sharply by a line of ten chapels, the apse being 10 only a tall recess in the midst of them, so that, strictly speaking, the church is not of the form of a cross, but of a letter T. Can this clumsy and ungraceful arrangement be indeed the design of the renowned Arnolfo? 15 Yes, this is purest Arnolfo-Gothic ; not beauti- ful by any means; but deserving, nevertheless, our thoughtfulest examination. We will trace its com- plete character another day; just now we are only concerned with this pre-Christian form of the letter 20 T, insisted upon in the lines of chapels. — Mornings in Florence. Notes.— The landscape or the building whose structural lines are distinct, and like some familiar outline, is far more easily remembered than the inchoate landscape or building. The artist need not always intrude a " funda- 25 mental image " ' upon his reader, but he is careful to sug- gest one if necessary. Thus Motley gives us indirectly the sense of a forest-aisle by his first words concerning th*^ interior of the Antwerp cathedral. In the present selec- tion Ruskin shows how the beholder of a scene may feel 30 the effect of the fundamental image before he really per- ceives it through the details. ' The phrase is that of Messrs. Fletcher and Carpenter r " Introduction to Theme Writing," p. 39, ff. 3«> DESCRIPTION. l5.--:JSrusseIs. JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. Brussels had been a city for more than five cen- turies, and, at that day, numbered about one hun- dred thousand inhabitants. Its walls, six miles in circumference, were already two hundred years old. Unlike most Netherland cities, lying usually upon 5 extensive plains, it was built along the sides of an abrupt promontory. A wide expanse of living verdure, cultivated gardens, shady groves, fertile cornfields, flowed round it like a sea. The foot of the town was washed by the little river Senne, while 10 the irregular but picturesque streets rose up the steep sides of the hill like the semicircles and stair- ways of an amphitheater. Nearly in the heart of the place rose the audacious and exquisitely embroid- ered tower of the town house, three hundred and 15 sixty-six feet in height, a miracle of needlework in stone, rivaling in its intricate carving the cobweb tracery of that lace which has for centuries been synonymous with the city, and rearing itself above a faqade of profusely decorated and brocaded archi-20 tecture. The crest of the elevation was crowned by the towers of the old ducal palace of Brabant, with its extensive and thickly wooded park on the left, and by the stately mansions of Orange, Egmont, Aremberg, Culemberg, and other Flemish gran- 25 dees, on the right. The great forest of Soignies, dotted with monasteries and convents, swarming with every variety of game, whither the citizens made their summer pilgrimages, and where the no- T^VO EARLY APOLLOS. 31 bles chased the wild boar and the stag, extended to within a quarter of a mile of the city walls. — The Rise of the Dutch Republic. Notes. — In describing a town, Motley here gives first its environment. Then he states the fundamental image 5 definitely, in order to supply a sketch map upon which the details may be located. 16.— c:wo lEarls Spollos.' WALTER PATER. That primitive worship, traceable in almost all these particulars, even in the first book of the Iliad, had given place, before the time of Canachus at loSicyon, to a more elaborate ritual and a more com- pletely designed image-work; and a little bronze statue, discovered on the site of Tenea, where Apollo was the chief object of worship,- the best rep- resentative of many similar marble figures — those 15 of Thera and Orchomenus, for instance — is sup- posed to represent Apollo as this still early age con- ceived him — youthful, naked, muscular, and with the germ of the Greek profile, but formally smiling, and with a formal diadem or fillet, over the long 20 hair which shows him to be no mortal athlete. The hands, like the feet, excellently modeled, are here extended downward at the sides; but in some simi- lar figures the hands are lifted, and held straight outwards, with the palms upturned. The Apollo of 25 Canachus also had the hands thus raised, and on > Reprinted from "Greek Studies," by permission of Messrs. The Macmillan Company. * Now preserved at Mtrnich. 3 2 DESORIP TION. the open palm of the right hand was placed a stag, while with the left he grasped the bow. Pliny says that the stag was an automaton, with a mechanical device for setting it in motion, a detail which hints, at least, at the subtlety of workmanship with which 5 those ancient critics, who had opportunity of know- ing, credited this early artist. Of this work itself nothing remains, but we possess perhaps some imi- tations of it. It is probably this most sacred pos- session of the place which the coins of Miletus dis- lo play from various points of view, though, of course, only on the smallest scale. But a little bronze fig- ure in the British Museum, with the stag in the right hand, and in the closed left hand the hollow where the bow has passed, is thought to have been 15 derived from it; and its points of style are still fur- ther illustrated by a marble head of similar char- acter, also preserved in the British Museum, which has many marks of having been copied in marble from an original in bronze. A really ancient work, 20 or only archaic, it certainly expresses, together with all that careful patience and hardness of workman- ship which is characteristic of an early age, a cer- tain Apolline strength — a pride and dignity in the features, so steadily composed, below the stifif, 25 archaic arrangement of the long, fillet-bound locks. Notes. — In all the selections preceding this, the number of details has been relatively large, the aim being a some- what complete description, whether definite or impression- istic. It is customary to say that scientific description 30 differs from artistic first in the number of details. Perhaps this is usually so, since the purpose of the former species is a sure identification. On the other hand, however, the very point in scientific classification is the single detail A GIRL'S FACE. 33 which distinguishes one variety from another. The intent of Mr. Pater's comparison of the early Apollos with later is scientific, however artistic the descriptive material or the diction. To distinguish the archaic school of Canachus She directs attention to "a certain Apolline strength," residing chiefly in the stiffness of line. 17.— a ©iri's fface.' THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON. Intense curiosity now made me suddenly forget my troubles. I scrambled back through the trees not far from that spot and looked around. There, 10 sitting upon a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl, somewhat younger than myself apparently. With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny 15 cloud that hovered like a golden feather over her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair (for she was bare- headed) gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. 20 So completely absorbed was she in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation seemed addressed, that she did not observe me when I rose and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the 25 same gauzy cloud was singing, as if in rivalry. As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead (which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl), and especially by her complexion, that > Reprinted fr«in " Aylwin," by permission of Messrs. Dodd, Mead &Co, 34 description: she was uncommonly lovely, and I was afraid lest she should look down before I got close to her, and so see my crutches before her eyes encountered my face. She (fid not, however, seem to hear me coming along the grass (so intent was she with her 5 singing) until I was close to her, and throwing my shadow over her. Then she suddenly lowered her head and looked at me in surprise. I stood trans- fixed at her astonishing beauty. No other picture has ever taken such possession of me. In its every 10 detail it lives before me now. Her eyes (which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet) were shaded by long black lashes, curving back- ward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed 15 about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this picture I did not take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glit- tering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. 20 Gradually the other features (especially the sensi- tive full-lipped mouth) grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed to me a more per- fect beauty than had ever come to me in my love- liest dreams of beauty beneath the sea. Yet it was 25 not her beauty, perhaps, so much as the look she gave me, that fascinated me, melted me. Notes. — The description of an object by its most strik- ing quality is a long-recognized literary device, from the simple essential epithets of Homer to the craftily chosen 30 adjectives of Tennyson and Mr. Henry James. The passage from Mr. Watts-Dunton shows the whole process of how the attention is sometimes arrested by one feature, so that all the others are seen for the moment in a blur. GEORGE THE FOURTH. 35 18.— (Beorgc tbe jFourtb. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. To make a portrait of him at first seemed a mat- ter of small difficulty. There is his coat, his star, his wig", his countenance simpering under it: with a slate and a piece of chalk, I could at this very desk 5 perform a recognizable likeness of him. And yet after reading of him in scores of volumes, hunting him through old magazines and newspapers, having him here at a ball, there at a public dinner, there at races and so forth, you find you have nothing — 10 nothing but a coat and a wig and a mask smiling below it — nothing but a great simula- crum. His sire and grandsires were men. One knows what they were like: what they would do in given circumstances: that on occasion 15 they fought and demeaned themselves like tough good soldiers. They had friends whom they liked according to their natures; ene- mies whom they hated fiercely: passions, and ac- tions, and individualities of their own. The sailor zo King who came after George was a man: the Duke of York was a man, big, burly, loud, jolly, cursing, courageous. But this George, what was he? I look through all his life, and recognize but a bow and a grin. I try and take him to pieces, and find 25 silk stockings, padding, stays, a coat with frogs and a fur collar, a star and blue ribbon, a pocket hand- kerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt's best nutty brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth, and a huge black stock, under-waistcoats, more un- 30 der- waistcoats, and then nothing. I know of no 36 DESCRIPTION. sentiment that he ever distinctly uttered. Docu- ments are published under his name, but people wrote them — private letters, but people spelt them. He put a great George P. or George R. at the bottom of the page and fancied he had written 5 the paper: some bookseller's clerk, some poor au- thor, some man did the work; saw to the spelling, cleaned up the slovenly sentences, and gave the lax maudlin slipslop a sort of consistency. He must have had an individuaHty: the dancing-master 10 whom he emulated, nay, surpassed — the wig-maker who curled his toupee for him — the tailor who' cut his coats, had that. But, about George, one can get at nothing actual. That outside, I am certain, is pad and tailor's work; there may be something 15 behind, but what? We cannot get at the character; no doubt never shall. Will men of the future have nothing better to do than to unswathe and interpret that royal old mummy? I own I once used to think it would be good sport to pursue him, fas- 20 ten on him, and pull him down. But now I am ashamed to mount and lay good dogs on, to sum- mon a full field, and then to hunt the poor game. — The Four Georges. Notes. — Here we have exaggeration of certain parts of a picture and deliberate suppression of others, for pur- 25 poses of satire. King George's features are unmentioned, but his gay clothes, the symbol of his superficial nature, are relentlessly exhibited. Dickens was fond of this sort of caricature, and indeed could hardly describe at all with- out throwing some feature into high relief. Mrs. Fezziwig 30 is "all one vast substantial smile," and Mr. Carker all teeth. The satiric epithet is one of the beginnings of literature among savage races, and even among savages AN EDINBURGH TRIO. 37 is often picturesque. The execution that can be done by the satiric epithet in its perfection has often been illus- trated in the United States, for it is alike a Yankee and a Southern gift. A nickname, such as Abraham Lincoln 5 could devise and relentlessly apply, is sometimes able to drive the victim out of town . 19.— Bn JEDinburfib tlrlo. JAMES M. BARRIE. iMr, James Payn, who never forgave the Scottish people for pulling down their blinds on Sundays, was annoyed by the haJo they have woven around lo the name " professor." He knew an Edinburgh lady who was scandaHzed because that mere poet, Alexander Smith, coolly addressed professors by their surnames. Mr. Payn might have known what it is to walk in the shadow of a Senatus Academicus 15 could he have met such specimens as Sellar, Era- ser, Tait, and Sir Alexander Grant marching down the Bridges abreast. 1 have seen them: an inspir- ing sight. The pavement only held three. You could have shaken hands with them from an upper 20 window. — An Edinburgh Eleveti. Notes. — Description by stating an effect, from which the reader's imagination will flash back to the cause, is one of the most effective of all descriptive modes. Its value to the playwright is obvious. The classic example of this 25 device is in the Iliad. Homer has a care to state the effect of Helen's beauty upon the Greeks and the Trojans, rather than to list her beauties. " It is not strange," say the cicada-voiced counselors of Priam as they watch the lady, ' ' that the well-greaved Greeks and the Trojans should 3^ DESCRIPTION. fight together for ten years in contest for such a woman, for she is very like to the immortal goddesses." 20.-^be dim. EDGAR ALLAN POE. We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak. 5 " Not long ago," said he at length, " and I could have guided you on this route as well as the young- est of my sons; but, about three years past, there happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal man — or at least such as no man 10 ever survived to tell of — and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me a very old nuan — but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to 15 weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am fright- ened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without getting giddy?" The "little cliff," upon whose edge he had so 20 carelessly thrown himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on its extreme and slippery edge — this " lit- tle cliff" arose, a sheer unobstructed precipice of 25 black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. Nothing would have tempted me to be within half a dozen yards of its brink. In truth so deeply was I excited A MARBLE BACCHUS. 39 by the perilous position of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at the sky — while I struggled in vain to divest myself 5 of the idea that the very foundations of the moun- tain were in danger from the fury of the winds. It was long before I could reason myself into suffi- cient courage to sit up and look out into the dis- tance. — A Descent into the Maelstrom. io Notes. — Poe indicates the terror of six hours in the Mael- strom by showing the broken condition of the survivor's body and mind. In the same passage he suggests the height of a great cHfB by two methods : first by comparison, in that the survivor of the whirlpool referred to it as a " little 15 cliff," whereas the narrator presently saw it to be 1500 feet high ; and secondlj'- by stating the terror it created in the narrator, who threw himself fiat on his face and clung to the shrubs. It may be interesting to compare Edgar's description of Dover cliff, addressed to the blind Gloster, 21.— B /IBarble asaccbus. VERNON LEE. 20 The two marble figures, to which time and a long sojourn underground had given a brownish yellow color, reddish in places with rust stains, stood out against a background of Flemish tapestr}% whose emaciated heads of kings and thin bodies of warrior 25 saints made a confused pattern on the general dusky blue and green. The group was in wonderful pres- ervation: the figure of Bacchus intact, that of the young faun lacking only the arm, which had evi« dently been freely extended. 40 DESCRIPTION. It exists in many repetitions and variations in most of our museums; a work originally of the school of Praxiteles, but in none of the copies handed to us of excellence sufficient to display the hand of the original sculptor. Besides, we have 5 been spoiled by familiarity with an older and more powerful school, by knowledge of a few great mas- terpieces, for complete appreciation of such a work. But it was different four hundred years ago; and Domenico Neroni stood long and entranced before lo the group. Tlie principal figure embodied all those beauties which he had been striving so hard to un- derstand: it was, in the most triumphant manner, the absolute reverse of the figures of Donatello. The young god was represented walking with 15 leisurely but vigorous step, supporting himself upon the shoulder of the little satyr as the vine supports itself, with tendrils trailed about branches and trunk, on the propping tree from which the child Ampelos took his name. Like the head with its 20 elaborately dressed curls, the beautiful body had an ampleness and tenderness that gave an impression almost womanly till you noticed the cuirass-like sit of the chest on the loins, and the compressed strength of the long light thighs. Tlie creature, as 25 you looked at him, seemed to reveal more and more, beneath the roundness and fairness of surface, the elasticity and strength of an athlete in training. But when the eye was not exploring the delicate, hard, and yet supple depressions and swellings of 30 the muscles, the slender shapeliness of the long legs and springy feet, the back bulging with strong muscles above, and going in, tight, with a magnifi- cent dip at the waist, all impressions were merged A MARBLE BACCHUS. 4^ in a sense of ease, of suavity, of full-blown harmony. Here was no pomp of anatomical lore, of cunning handicraft, but the life seemed to circulate strong and gentle in this exquisite effortless body. And 5 the creature was not merely alive with a life more harmonious than that of living men or carved mar- bles, but beautiful, equally in simple outline if you chose that, and in subtle detail when that came under your notice, with a beauty that seemed to JO multiply itself, existing in all manners, as it can only in things that have life, in perfect flowers and fruits, or high-bred Oriental horses. Of such things did the under-strata of consciousness consist in Neroni — vague impressions of certain bunches of grapes 15 with their great rounded leaves hanging against the blue sky, of the flame-like tapered petals of wild tu- lips in the fields, of the golden-brown flanks of cer- tain horses, and the broad white foreheads of the Umbrian bullocks ; forming as it were a background 20 for the perception of this god, for no man or woman had ever been like unto him. — A Seeker of Pagan Perfection, t'ti " Renais- sance Fancies and Studies." Notes. — The passage is noticeable in three respects. First, since the author does not intend to deal with color in her treatment of the Bacchus itself, she begins by giving 25 the group its proper color setting in the Florentine palace. With a fe\v selected details she arouses a sense of its high relief against the dusky pattern of tapestry — a rich piece of color against a pale background. Next, leading us to forget the color scheme entirely, she throws all emphasis 30 on the form of the figure as indicating effortless strength. She might have described the form for its own sake, but does not, beyond assuring us that the creature was equally beautiful " in simple outline and in subtle detail." In this 42 DESCRIPTIOI^. she avoids an error very common in descriptions of the human being ; she remembers that while pattern is a prime element in painting, it is secondary in sculpture. The chief aim of the sculptor is so to use light-and-shade as to convey a sense of the exquisite functioning of the human 5 muscles, as they appear in the serenity of rest or under some simple primal emotion. Vernon Lee succeeds in suggesting the actual muscular sensations which the beholder of the sculptured athlete experiences. It is safe to say that every good description of an athletic feat or contest does the lo same. Witness Charles Reade's description of a boat-race, " Hard Cash," ch. i, where the rowers do not seem a mere picture, but are " supple bodies swelling, the muscles writhing beneath their Jerseys, and the sinews starting on each bare arm." The third noticeable fact of the descrip- 15 tion is the effort to convey, by impressionistic comparisons, the effect of the sculptural beauty on the beholder's aesthetic sense. The perfection of youthful strength and grace calls up the perfection of other highly bred animals, or that of flowers and fruits. When this method of trans- 20 mitting an emotion is successful, as here, it is one of the triumphs of language. But the method is full of danger to the tyro. The diction one hears from crude devotees of Wagner and Maeterlinck illustrates the fact. Athletic perfection may properly suggest to a Domenico Neroni the 25 flame-like tapered petals of wild tulips, but a college student can hardly write of purple music and musical purples without inviting disaster. 22.— a XaDB witb ipearlg.' HENRY JAMES. Within a week after my return to London I went to the opera, of which I had always been much of a 30 * From the story "Glasses," in the volume "Embarrassments," copyright, 1896, by The Macmillan Company. A LADY WIIH PEARLS. 43 devotee. I arrived too late for the first act of " Lohengrin," but the second was just beginning, and I gave myself up to it with no more than a glance at the house. When it was over I treated 5 myself, with my glass, from my place in the stalls, to a general survey of the boxes, making doubtless on their contents the reflections, pointed by com- parison, that are most familiar to the wanderer re- stored to London. There was a certain proportion loof pretty women, but I suddenly became aware that one of these was far prettier than the others. This lady, alone in one of the smaller receptacles of the grand tier and already the aim of fifty tentative glasses, which she sustained with admirable seren- 15 ity — this single exquisite figure, placed in the quar- ter furthest removed from my stall, was a person, I immediately felt, to cause one's curiosity to linger. Dressed in white, with diamonds in her hair and pearls on her neck, she had a pale radiance of beauty 30 which even at that distance made her a distin- guished presence and, with the air that easily at- taches to lonely loveliness in public places, an agree- able mystery. A mystery however she remained to me only for a minute after I had leveled my glass 25 at her: I feel to this moment the startled thrill, the shock almost of joy with which I suddenly encoun- tered in her vague brightness a rich revival of Flora Saunt. I say a revival because, to put it crudely, I had on that last occasion left poor Flora for dead. 30 At present perfectly alive again, she was altered only, as it were, by resurrection. A little older, a little quieter, a little finer and a good deal fairer, she was simply transfigured by recovery. Sustained by the reflection that even recovery wouldn't enable 44 DESCRIPTION. her to distinguish me in the crowd, I was free to look at her well. Tlien it was it came home to me that my vision of her in her great goggles had been cruelly final. As her beauty was all there was of her, that machinery had extinguished her, and so far 5 as I thought of her in the interval I had thought of her as buried in the tomb her stern specialist had built. With the sense that she had escaped from it came a lively wish to return to her; and if I didn't straightway leave my place and rush round the thea- lo ter and up to her box it was because I was fixed to the spot some moments longer by the simple ina- bility to cease looking at her. She had been from the first of my seeing her practically motionless, leaning back in her chair ^5 with a kind of thoughtful grace and with her eyes vaguely directed, as it seemed to me, to one of the boxes on my side of the house and consequently over my head and out of my sight. The only move- ment she made for some time was to finger with an 20 ungloved hand and as if with the habit of fondness the row of pearls on her neck, which my glass showed me to be large and splendid. Notes. — The devices of description in this passage are so many and so subtle that it is perhaps hardly fair to 25 let one of them dictate a title for the whole ; yet the necklace of splendid pearls, which the lady fingered with " the habit of fondness," is perhaps the most significant detail. The noticeable values of the selection are the vagueness and fewness of the details, and yet the extraor- 30 dinary suggj^stiveness of them. We do not learn one fact about the lady's features, beyond that they were "a little finer" than of old. But there was a "pale radiance of beauty," a " vague brightness" ; there was "a THE HARPSICHORD OF YEDDO. 45 bind of thoughtful grace " and serenity, and alone in her box she was " an exquisite figure." All this is description by the use of general terms, and leaves everything to the imagination. It need hardly be remarked that the phrasal 5 power of such expressions is very great. Indeed, such a phrase as " a rich revival of Flora Sauut" reaches the debatable land between literature and other arts ; " a rich revival of Flora Saunt " is almost preciosity, the effort to say exquisitely what can hardly be said at all. In ad- lo dition to description by general phrases, the selection contains more than one instance of description by effect. The lady is "the aim of fifty tentative glasses"; she " causes one's curiosity to linger " ; the sight of her gives the narrator a startled thrill, and if he does not rush 15 around to her box it is because of "simple inability to cease looking at her." It may be added that Mr. James has a particular reason for employing so much suggestion and so little direct statement in this description. He must refrain from calling attention to any particular 20 feature, for that would lead too soon to the disclosure of the fact that the beautiful lady is blind. 23.— Q:be IbarpsicborD ot l?c2)Do.' GEORGE AURIOL. Upon an old harpsichord of the time of Marie Antoinette — that has found its way, no one knows how, to the country of the Mikados — the frivolous 25 Lou-Laou-Ti plays a love-song. Perched upon the unsteady stool, like a doll upon a stand, with head thrown back, the young girl sings softly. Her white and delicate fingers dance madly upon the yellowed ivory, then sweep very gravely over the > Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from " Pastels in Prose," copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers. 46 DESCRIPTION. keys of ebony, and recommence to flutter distract- edly hither and thither. The harpsichord, with its clear and caressing voice, seems, under the witchery of the little fairy, to find in its old heart shudders, murmurs, and vibrations long forgotten. And that 5 pufifed dress of blue, flowered with roses, is it not of a marquise? Oh, how their songs marvelously harmonize ! Dost thou speak Japanese, centenarian clavichord? Or thou, graceful Japanese maid, dost thou know, lo perchance, the pretty speech of France? The pot- bellied images, dozing on their pedestals of porce- lain, open astonished eyes at the unaccustomed con- cert, and from their stelas of bronze the familiar gods wonder what it all means. 15 And suddenly all the statuettes change into grace- ful groups of pale Saxe, and the bands of monkeys embroidered upon the silk screens become groups of rosy cupids that might have been painted by Boucher himself. And the black hair of Lou-Laou- 20 Ti seems covered with a vapory snow. Eh, but forgive me ; it is truly a marquise that is playing there on the harpsichord; it is a marquise, for she is singing, " II pleut, il pleut, bergere " 25 Then the heart of the old instrument warms; its tremulous chords vibrate in a supreme harmony, happy at having transformed, by their sole charm, the interior of a Japanese apartment, and at hav- ing procured to a young woman, who can neither 30 say papa nor maman, the great honor of singing a couplet of poor Fabre d'Eglantine, as though she had just returned from Versailles. OPIUM DREAMS. 47 Notes. — This " pastel " is an effort to convey some of the charm of a piece of music by describing the effect on the hearer's imagination. Being a directly presentive art, a language of itself, music defies description ; but, as here, 5 the vague emotions, memories, and imaginings that are elicited by it may partly be indicated in words. 24.— ©ptum ©reams. THOMAS DE QUINCEY. I now pass to what is the main subject of these latter confessions, to the history and journal of what took place in my dreams; for these were the lo immediate and proximate cause of my acutest suf- fering-. The first notice I had of any important change going- on in this part of my physical economy, was from the reawakening of a state of eye generally 15 incident to childhood, or exalted states of irrita- bility. I know not whether my reader is aware that many children, perhaps most, have a power of paint- ing, as it were, upon the darkness, all sorts of phan- toms: in some that power is simply a mechanic af- 2ofection of the eye; others have a voluntary or semi- voluntary power to dismiss or summon them; or, as a child once said to me, when I questioned him on this matter, " I can tell them to go, and they go; but sometimes they come when I don't tell them to 25 come." Whereupon I told him that he had almost as unlimited a command over apparitions as a Ro- man centurion over his soldiers. In the middle of 1817, I think it was, that this faculty became posi- tively distressing to me : at night, when I lay awake 30 in bed, vast processions passed along in mournful 48 DESCRIPTION. pomp; friezes of never-ending stories, that to my feelings were as sad and solemn as if they were sto- ries drawn from times before CEdipus or Priam, be- fore Tyre, before Memphis. And, at the same time, a corresponding change took place in my 5 dreams; a theater seemed suddenly opened and lighted up within my brain, which presented, nightly, spectacles of more than earthly splendor. And the four following facts may be mentioned, as noticeable at this time: 10 I. That, as the creative state of the eye increased, a sympathy seemed to arise between the waking and the dreaming states of the brain in one point — that whatsoever I happened to call up and to trace by a voluntary act upon the darkness was very apt 15 to transfer itself to my dreams; so that I feared to exercise this faculty; for, as Midas turned all things to gold, that yet baffled his hopes and defrauded his human desires, so whatsoever things capable of be- ing visually represented I did but think of in the 20 darkness, immediately shaped themselves into phantoms of the eye; and, by a process apparently no less inevitable, when thus once traced in faint and visionary colors, like writings in sympathetic ink, they were drawn out, by the fierce chemistry of 25 my dreams, into insufferable splendor that fretted my heart. IL For this, and all other changes in my dreams, were accompanied by deep-seated anxiety and gloomy melancholy, such as are wholly incom-30 municable by words. I seemed every night to de- scend — not metaphorically, but literally to descend — into chasms and sunless abysses, depths below depths, from which it seemed hopeless that I could OPIUM DREAMS. 49 ever reascend. Nor did I, by waking, feel that I had reascended. This I do not dwell upon; because the state of gloom which attended these gorgeous spectacles, amounting at least to utter darkness, as 5 of some suicidal despondency, cannot be ap- proached by words. III. The sense of space, and in the end the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, etc., were exhibited in proportions so lovast as the bodily eye is not fitted to receive. Space swelled, and was amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity. This, however, did not dis- turb me so much as the vast expansion of time. I sometimes seemed to have lived for seventy or one 15 hundred years in one night; nay, sometimes had feelings representative of a millennium, passed in that time, or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of any human experience. IV. The minutest incidents of childhood, or for- 20 gotten scenes of later years, were often revived. I could not be said to recollect them; for if I had been told of them when waking, I should not have been able to acknowledge them as parts of my past ex- perience. But placed as they were before me, in 25 dreams like intuitions, and clothed in all their evan- escent circumstances and accompanying feelings, I recognized them instantaneously. I was once told by a near relative of mine, that having in her child- hood fallen into a river, and being on the very 30 verge of death but for the critical assistance which reached her, she saw in a moment her whole life, in its minutest incidents, arrayed before her simulta^ neously as in a mirror; and she had a faculty de- veloped as suddenly for comprehending the whole 50 DESCRIPTION. and every part. This, from some opium experi- ences of mine, I can believe; I have, indeed, seen the same thing asserted twice in modern books, and accompanied by a remark which I am convinced is true, namely, that the dread book of account, which 5 the Scriptures speak of, is, in fact, the mind itself of each individual. Of this, at least, I feel assured, that there is no such thing as forgetting possible to the mind; a thousand accidents may and will inter- pose a veil between our present consciousness and lo the secret inscriptions on the mind. Accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil ; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains forever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all 15 know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil; and that they are waiting to be revealed, when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn. — Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Notes. — M. George Auriol describes a subjective mental state, but in such a way that he seems quite under its 20 illusion ; the magic of the music seems to him to change the room itself. De Quincey, on the other hand, possessed above most men the power of consciously analyzing and describing his own physical and mental states. Such a power commonly gives rise to scientific rather than artistic 25 description, thoiigh the great beauty of De Quincey's records, and of similar passages in the so-called psycho- logical novelists, can hardly be denied. Such a gift has perhaps a practical value. Conceivably, medicine might do more toward the alleviation of suffering if the sufferer 30 could state where and how "it hurts." Few people are able to describe their own physical symptoms with any exactitude, though it must be confessed that the com- THE NON-THINICING LEVEL. 5^ parisons of a sick child or peasant are often more descrip- tive than those of his superiors in schooling. 25.— ;rbe IRonsirbinWng Xevel. WILLIAM JAMES. The intense interest that hfe can assume when brought down to the non-thinking level, the level of 5 pure sensorial perception, has been beautifully de- scribed by a man who can write — Mr. W. H. Hud- son, in his volume, " Idle Days in Patagonia." " I spent the greater part of one winter," says this admirable author, " at a point on the Rio Negro, lo seventy or eighty miles from the sea. ". . . It was my custom to go out every morning on horseback with my gun, and, followed by one dog, to ride away from the valley; and no sooner would I climb the terrace, and plunge into 15 the gray, universal thicket, than I would find my- self as completely alone as if five hundred instead of only five miles separated me from the valley and river. So wild and solitary and remote seemed that gray waste, stretching away into infinitude, a waste 2o untrodden by man, and where the wild animals are so few that they have made no discoverable path in the wilderness of thorns. . . Not once nor twice nor thrice, but day after day I returned to this soli- tude, going to it in the morning as if to attend a fes- 25 tival, and leaving it only when hunger and thirst and the westering sun compelled me. And yet I had no object in going, — no motive which could be put into words; for, although I carried a gun, there was nothing to shoot, — the shooting was all left 30 behind in the valley. . . Sometimes I would 52 DESCRIPTION. pass a whole day without seeing one mammal, and perhaps not more than a dozen birds of any size. The weather at that time was cheerless, generally with a gray film of cloud spread over the sky, and a bleak wind, often cold enough to make my bridle- 5 hand quite numb. . . At a slow pace, which would have seemed intolerable under other circumstances, I would ride about for hours together at a stretch. On arriving at a hill, I would slowly ride to its summit, and stand there to survey the prospect. 10 On every side it stretched away in great undula- tions, wild and irregular. How gray it all was! Hardly less so near at hand than on the haze- wrapped horizon where the hills were dim and the outline obscured by distance. Descending from 15 my outlook, I would take up my aimless wanderings again, and visit other elevations to gaze on the same landscape from another point; and so on for hours. And at noon I would dismount, and sit or lie on my folded poncho for an hour or longer. One day 20 in these rambles I discovered a small grove com- posed of twenty or thirty trees, growing at a con- venient distance apart, that had evidently been re- sorted to by a herd of deer or other wild animals. This grove was on a hill differing in shape from 25 other hills in its neighborhood; and, after a time, I made a point of finding and using it as a resting place every day at noon. I did not ask myself why I made choice of that one spot, sometimes going out of my way to sit there, instead of sitting down 30 under any one of the millions of trees and bushes on any other hillside. I thought nothing about it, but acted unconsciously. Only afterward it seemed to me that, after having rested there once, each time I THE NON-THINKING LEVEL. 53 wished to rest again, the wish came associated with the image of that particular clump of trees, with polished stems and clean bed of sand beneath; and in a short time I formed a habit of returning, animal 5 like, to repose at that same spot. " It was, perhaps, a mistake to say that I would sit down and rest, since I was never tired; and yet, without being tired, that noon-day pause, during which I sat for an hour without moving, was lo strangely grateful. All day there would be no sound, not even the rustling of a leaf. One day, while listcnvng to the silence, it occurred to my mind to wonder what the effect would be if I were to shout aloud. This seemed at the time a horrible 15 suggestion, which almost made me shudder. But during those solitary days it was a rare thing for any thought to cross my mind. In the state of mind I was in, thought had become impossible. My state was one of suspense and 20 watchfulness; yet I had no expectation of meet- ing an adventure, and felt as free from apprehension as I feel now while sitting in a room in London, The state seemed familiar rather than strange, and accompanied by a strong feeling of elation; and I 25 did not know that something had come between me and my intellect until I returned to my former self — to thinking, and the old insipid existence [again]. " I had undoubtedly gmie back; and that state of intense watchfulness or alertness, rather, with sus- 30 pension of the higher intellectual faculties, repre- sented the mental state of the pure savage. He thinks little, reasons little, having a surer guide in his [mere sensory perceptions]. He is in perfect harmony with nature, and is nearly on a level, men- 54 DESCRIPTION. tally, with the wild animals he preys on, and which in their turn sometimes prey on him." 'For the spectator, such hours as Mr. Hudson writes of form a mere tale of emptiness, in which nothing happens, nothing is gained, and there is 5 nothing to describe. They are meaningless and va- cant tracts of time. To him who feels their inner secret, they tingle with an importance that unut- terably vouches for itself. I am sorry for the boy or girl, or man or woman, who has never been lo touched by the spell of this mysterious sensorial life, with its irrationality, if so you like to call it, but its vigilance and its supreme felicity. The holidays of life are its most vitally significant portions, because they are, or at least should be, covered with just this 15 kind of magically irresponsible spell. — Talks to Teachers on Psychology. New York : Henry Holt &^ Co. Notes. — Since the days of De Quincey, the study of psychology has led to very interesting descriptions of psychological states. Professor James's essay On a Car- 20 tain Blindness in Human Beings ' is full of such descrip- tion, sufficiently regardful of scientific method, yet possess- ing a fine literary charm. The selection includes a long quotation from Mr. W. H. Hudson, in which a curious mental state is admirably described, and is explained by 25 reference to the evolutionary hypothesis. ' In " Talks to Teachers on Psychology," CHAPTER II. NARRATION. 26.— passage of tbe /Hbountafns.' FRANCIS PARKMAN. When I took leave of Shaw at La Bonte's camp, I promised to meet him at Fort Laramie on the first of August. The Indians, too, intended to pass the mountains and move towards the fort. To do 5 so at this point was impossible, because there was no passage; and in order to find one we were obliged to go twelve or fourteen miles southward. Late in the afternoon the camp got in motion. 1 rode in company with three or four young Indians lo at the rear, and the moving swarm stretched before me, in the ruddy light of sunset, or the deep shadow of the mountains, far beyond my sights It was an ill-omened spot they chose to encamp upon. When they were there just a year before, a war-party of 15 ten men, led by The Whirlwind's son, had gone out against the enemy, and not one had ever returned. This was the immediate cause of this season's war- like preparations. I was not a little astonished, when I came to the camp, at the confusion of hor- 2orible sounds with which it was filled; howls, shrieks, and wailings rose from all the women present, many 1 Reprinted from "Tlie Oregon Trail," by permission of the pub- lishers, Messrs. Little, Brown & Qo, 56 NARRATION. of whom, not content with this exhibition of g^ief for the loss of their friends and relatives, were gash- ing their legs deeply with knives. A warrior in the village, who had lost a brother in the expedition, chose another mode of displaying his sorrow. The 5 Indians, who, though often rapacious, are devoid of avarice, will sometimes, when in mourning, or on other solemn occasions, give away the whole of their possessions, and reduce themselves to naked- ness and want. Tlie warrior in question led his 10 two best horses into the middle of the village, and gave them away to his friends; upon which, songs and acclamations in praise of his generosity mingled with the cries of the women. On the next morning we entered again among 15 the mountains. There was nothing in their appear- ance either grand or picturesque, though they were desolate to the last degree, being mere piles of black and broken rocks, without trees or vegetation of any kind. As we passed among them along a wide 20 valley, I noticed Raymond riding by the side of a young squaw, to whom he was addressing various compliments. All the old squaws in the neighbor- hood watched his proceedings in great admiration, and the girl herself would turn aside her head and 25 laugh. Just then his mule thought proper to dis- play her vicious pranks, and began to rear and plunge most furiously. Raymond was an excellent rider, and at first he stuck fast in his seat; but the moment after, I saw the mule's hind legs flourishing 30 in the air, and my unlucky follower pitching head foremost over her ears. There was a burst of screams and laughter from all the women, in v>'hich his mistress herself took part, and Raymond was PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. SI assailed by such a shower of witticisms, that he was glad to ride forward out of hearing. Not long after, as I rode near him, I heard him shouting to me. He was pointing towards a de- 5 tached rocky hill that stood in the middle of the valley before us, and from behind it a long file of elk came out at full speed and entered an opening in the mountain. They had scarcely disappeared, when whoops and exclamations came from fifty lo voices around me. The young men leaped from their horses, flung down their heavy buffalo robes, and ran at full speed towards the foot of the nearest mountain. Reynal also broke away at a gallop in the same direction, "Come on! come on!" he I J called to us. " Do you see that band of big-horn up yonder? If there's one of them, there's a hun- dred!" In fact, near the summit of the mountain, I could see a large number of small white objects, moving 20 rapidly upward among the precipices, while others were filing along its rocky profile. Anxious to see the sport, I galloped forward, and entering a passage in the side of the mountain, ascended among the loose rocks as far as my horse could carry me. 25 Here I fastened her to an old pine-tree. At that moment Raymond called to me from the right that another band of sheep was close at hand in that di- rection. I ran up to the top of the opening, which gave me a full view into the rocky gorge beyond; 30 and here I plainly saw some fifty or sixty sheep, al- most within rifle-shot, clattering upwards among the rocks, and endeavoring, after their usual custom, to reach the highest point. The naked Indians bounded up lightly in pursuit. In a moment the S8 Narration. game and hunters disappeared. Nothing could be seen or heard but the occasional report of a gun, more and more distant, reverberating among the rocks. I turned to descend, and as I did so, could see the 5 valley beloM^ alive with Indians passing rapidly through it, on horseback and on foot. A little far- ther on, all were stopping as they came up; the camp was preparing and the lodges rising. I de- scended to this spot, and soon after Reynal and Ray- 10 mond returned. They bore between them a sheep which they had pelted to death with stones from the edge of a ravine, along the bottom of which it was attempting to escape. One by one the hunters came dropping in; yet such is the activity of the 1.5 Rocky Mountain sheep that although sixty or sev- enty men were out in pursuit, not more than half a dozen animals were killed. Of these only one was a full-grown male. He had a pair of horns, the di- mensions of which were almost beyond belief. 1 20 have seen among the Indian ladles with long han- dles, capable of containing more than a quart, cut out from such horns. Through the whole of the next morning we were moving forward among the hills. On the follow- 25 ing day the heights closed around us, and the pas- sage of the mountains began in earnest. Before the village left its 'camping-ground, I set forward in company with the Eagle-Feather, a man of pow- erful frame, but with a bad and sinister face. His 30 son, a light-limbed boy, rode with us, and another Indian, named The Panther, was also of the party. Leaving the village out of sight behind us, we rode together up a rocky defile. After a while, FASSACE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 59 however, the Eagle-Feather discovered in the dis- tance some appearance of game, and set off with his son in pursuit of it, while I went forward with The Panther. This was a mere nom de guerre; for, 5 Hke many Indians, he concealed his real name out of some superstitious notion. He was a noble- looking fellow. As he suffered his ornamented buffalo-robe to fall in folds about his loins, his stately and graceful figure was fully displayed; and 1® while he sat his horse in an easy attitude, the long feathers of the prairie-cock fluttering from the crown of his head, he seemed the very model of a wild prairie-rider. He had not the same features with those of other Indians. Unless his face greatly isbeHed him, he was free from the jealousy, suspicion, and malignant cunning of his people. For the most part, a civilized white m.an can discover very few points of sympathy between his own nature and that of an Indian. With every disposition to do 20 justice to their good qualities, he must be conscious that an impassable gulf lies between him and his red brethren. Nay, so alien to himself do they ap- pear that, after breathing the air of the prairie for a few months or weeks, he begins to look upoi? 25 them as a troublesome and dangerous species of wild beast. Yet, in the countenance of The Pan- thei", I gladly read that there were at least some points of sympathy between him and me. We were excellent friends, and as we rode forward together 30 through rocky passages, deep dells, and little barren plains, he occupied himself very zealously in teach- ing me the Dahcotah language. After a while, we came to a grassy recess, where some gooseberry bushes were growing at the foot of a rock; and these 6o NARRA TION. offered such temptation to my companion that he gave over his instructions, and stopped so long to gather the fruit that before we were in motion again the van of the village came in view. 'An old woman appeared, leading down her pack-horse 5 among the rocks above. Savage after savage fol- lowed, and the little dell was soon crowded with the throng. That morning's march was one not to be for- gotten. It led us through a sublime waste, a wil-io derness of mountains and pine forests, over which the spirit of loneliness and silence seemed brood- ing. Above and below, little could be seen but the same dark-green foliage. It overspread the valleys, and enveloped the mountains, from the 15 black rocks that crowned their summits to the streams that circled round their base. I rode to the top of a hill whence I could look down on the savage procession as it passed beneath my feet, and, far on the left, could see its thin and broken line, 20 visible only at intervals, stretching away for miles among the mountains. On the farthest ridge, horsemen were still descending like mere specks in the distance. I remained on the hill until all had passed, and 25 then descending followed after them. A little far- ther on I found a very small meadow, set deeply among steep mountains ; and here the whole village had encamped. The little spot was crowded with the confused and disorderly host. Some of the lodges 3^ were already set up, or the squaws perhaps were busy in drawing the heavy coverings of skin over the bare poles. Others were as yet mere skeletons, while others still, poles, covering, and all, lay scat- PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 6 1 tered in disorder on the ground among buffalo robes, bales of meat, domestic utensils, harness, and weapons. Squaws were screaming to one another, horses rearing and plunging, dogs yelping, eager 5 to be disburdened of their loads, while the flutter- ing of feathers and the gleam of savage ornaments added liveliness to the scene. The small children ran about amid the crowd, while many of the boys were scrambling among the overhanging rocks, loand standing with their little bows in their hands, looking down upon the restless throng. In con- trast with the general confusion, a circle of old men and warriors sat in the midst, smoking in profound indifference and tranquillity. The disorder at length t5 subsided. The horses were driven away to feed along the adjacent valley, and the camp assumed an air of listless repose. It was scarcely past noon; a vast white canopy of smoke from a burning forest to the eastward overhung the place, and partially 20 obscured the rays of the sun; yet the heat was al- most insupportable. The lodges stood crowded to- gether without order in the narrow space. Each was a hot-house, within which the lazy proprietor lay sleeping. The camp was silent as death. 25 Nothing stirred except now and then an old woman passing from lodge to lodge. The girls and young men sat together in groups, under the pine trees upon the surrounding heights. The dogs lay panting on the ground, too languid even to growl 30 at the white man. At the entrance of the meadow, there was a cold spring among the rocks, com- pletely overshadowed by tall trees and dense under- growth. In this cool and shady retreat a number of girls were assembled, sitting together on rocks 62 NARRA TION. and fallen logs, discussing the latest gossip of the village, or laughing and throwing water with their hands at the intruding Meneaska. The minutes seemed lengthened into hours. I lay for a long time under a tree studying the Ogillallah tongue, 5 with the aid of my friend The Panther. When we were both tired of this, I lay down by the side of a deep, clear pool, formed by the water of the spring. A shoal of Httle fishes of about a pin's length were playing in it, sporting together, as it seemed, very 10 amicably; but on closer observation, I saw that they were engaged in cannibal warfare among them- selves. Now and then one of the smallest would fall a victim, and immediately disappear down the maw of his conqueror. Every moment, however, 15 the tyrant of the pool, a goggle-eyed monster about three inches long, would slowly emerge with quiv- ering fins and tail from under the shelving bank. Tlie small fry at this would suspend their hostilities, and scatter in a panic at the appearanc?^ of over- 20 whelming force. " Soft-hearted philanthropists," thought I, " may tiigh long for their peaceful millennium; for, from minnows to men, life is incessant war." Evening approached at last; the crests of the 25 mountains were still bright in sunshine, while our deep glen was completely shadowed. I left the camp, and climbed a neighboring hill. The sun was still glaring through the stiff pines on the ridge of the western mountain. In a moment he was 30 gone, and, as the landscape darkened, I turned again towards the village. As I descended, the howling of wolves and the barking of foxes came up out of the dim woods from far and near. The camp PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. (^l was glowing with a multitude of fires, and alive with dusky naked figures, whose tall shadows flitted, weird and ghost-like, among the surrounding crags. 5 I found a circle of smokers seated in their usual place; that is, on the ground before the lodge of a certain warrior, who seemed to be generally known for his social qualities. I sat down to smoke a parting pipe with my savage friends. That day was lothe first of August, on which I had promised to meet Shaw at Fort Laramie. The fort was less than two days' journey distant, and that my friend need not suffer anxiety on my account, I resolved to push forward as rapidly as possible to the place 15 of meeting. 1 went to look after the Hail-Storm, and having found him, I offered him a handful of hawks'-bells and a paper of vermilion, on condition that he would guide me in the morning through the mountains. 20 The Hail-Storm ejaculated " Hozu! " and ac- cepted the gift. Nothing more was said on either side; the matter was settled, and I lay down to sleep in Kongra-Tonga's lodge. Long before daylight, Raymond shook me by the 25 shoulder. " Everything is ready," he said. I went out. The morning was chill, damp, and dark; and the whole camp seemed asleep. The Hail-Storm sat on horseback before the lodge, and 30 my mare Pauline and the mule which Raymond, rode were picketed near it. We saddled and made our other arrangements for the journey, but before these were completed the camp began to stir, and the lodge-coverings fluttered and rustled as the 64 NARRA TION. squaws pulled them down in preparation for de- parture. Just as the light began to appear, we left the ground, passing up through a narrow opening among the rocks which led eastward out of the meadow. Gaining the top of this passage, I turned 5 and sat looking back upon the camp, dimly visible in the gray light of morning. All was alive with the bustle of preparation. I turned away, half un- willing to take a final leave of my savage associates. We passed among the rocks and pine trees, so dark lo that for a while we could scarcely see our way. The country in front was wild and broken, half hill, half plain, partly open and partly covered with woods of pine and oak. Barriers of lofty mountains encom- passed it; the woods were fresh and cool in the 15 early morning, the peaks of the mountains were wreathed with mist, and sluggish vapors were en- tangled among the forests upon their sides. At length the black pinnacle of the tallest mountain was tipped with gold by the rising sun. The Hail- 20 Storm, who rode in front, gave a low exclamation. Some large animal leaped up from among the bushes, and an elk, as I thought, his horns thrown back over his neck, darted past us across the open space, and bounded like a mad thing away among 25 the adjoining pines. Raymond was soon out of his saddle, but before he could fire, the animal was full two hundred yards distant. The ball struck its mark, though much too low for mortal effect. The elk, however, wheeled in his flight, and ran at full 30 speed among the trees, nearly at right angles to his former course. I fired and broke his shoulder; still he moved on, limping down into a neighboring woody hollow, whither the young Indian followed PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 65 and killed him. When we reached the spot, we dis- covered him to be no elk, but a black-tailed deer, an animal nearly twice as large as the common deer, and quite unknown in the East. The reports of the 5 rifles had reached the ears of the Indians, and sev- eral of them came to the spot. Leaving the hide of the deer to the Hail-Storm, we hung as much of the meat as we wanted behind our saddles, left the rest to the Indians, and resumed our journey. Mean- 10 while the village was on its way, and had gone so far that to get in advance of it was impossible. We directed our course so as to strike its line of march at the nearest point. In a short time, through the dark trunks of the pines, we could see the figures of 15 the Indians as they passed. Once more we were among them. They were moving with even more than their usual precipitation, crowded together in a narrow pass between rocks and old pine trees. We were on the eastern descent of the mountain, 20 and soon came to a rough and difficult defile, lead- ing down a very steep declivity. The whole swarm poured down together, filling the rocky passageway like some turbulent mountain stream. The moun- tains before us were on fire, and had been so for 25 weeks. The view in front was obscured by a vast dim sea of smoke, while on either hand rose the tall cliffs, bearing aloft their crests of pines, and the sharp pinnacles and broken ridges of the moun- tains beyond were faintly traceable as through a 30 veil. The scene in itself was grand and imposing, but with the savage multitude, the armed warriors, the naked children, the gayly appareled girls, pour- ing impetuously down the heights, it would have formed a noble subject for a painter, and only the 66 NARI^A TION. pen of a Scott could have done it justice in descrip- tion. We passed over a burned tract where the ground was hot beneath the horses' feet, and between the blazing- sides of two mountains. Before long we s had descended to a softer region, Vv^here we found a succession of little valleys watered by a stream, along the borders of which grew abundance of v/ild gooseberries and currants, and the children and many of the men straggled from the line of march lo to gather them as we passed along. Descending still farther, the view changed rapidly. The burn- ing mountains were behind us, and through the open valleys in front we could see the prairie, stretch- ing like an ocean beyond the sight. After passing 15 through a line of trees that skirted the brook, the Indians filed out upon the plains. I was thirsty and knelt down by the little stream to drink. As I mounted again, I very carelessly left my rifle among the grass, and my thoughts being otherwise 20 absorbed, I rode for some distance before discover- ing its absence. I lost no time in turning about and galloping back in search of it. Passing the line of Indians, I watched every warrior as he rode by me at a canter, and at length discovered my rifle in the 25 hands of one of them, who, on my approaching to claim it, immediately gave it up. Having no other means of acknowledging the obligation, I took ofT one of my spurs and gave it to him. 'He was greatly delighted, looking upon it as a distinguished 3" mark of favor, and immediately held out his foot for me to buckle it on. As soon as I had done so, he struck it with all his force into the side of his horse, which gave a violent leap. The Indian PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 67 laughed and spurred harder than before. At this the horse shot away Hke an arrow, amid the screams and laughter of the squaws, and the ejaculations of the men, who exclaimed: " Washtay! — Good!" at 5 the potent effect of my gift. The Indian had no saddle, and nothing in place of a bridle except a leather string tied round the horse's jaw. The ani- mal was of course wholly uncontrollable, and stretched away at full speed over the prairie, till he 10 and his rider vanished behind a distant swell. I never saw the man again, but I presume no harm came to him. An Indian on horseback has more lives than a cat. The village encamped on the scorching prairie, 15 close to the foot of the mountains. The heat was most intense and penetrating. The coverings of the lodgings were raised a foot or more from the ground, in order to procure some circulation of air; and Reynal thought proper to lay aside his 20 trapper's dress of buckskin and assume the very scanty costume of an Indian. Thus elegantly at- tired, he stretched himself in his lodge on a buffalo- robe, alternately cursing the heat and puffing at the pipe which he and I passed between us. There was 25 present also a select circle of Indian friends and relatives. A small boiled puppy was served up as a parting feast, to which was added, by way of des- sert, a wooden bowl of gooseberries from the moun- tains. 30 " Look there," said Reynal, pointing out of the opening of his lodge; " do you see that line of buttes about fifteen miles off? Well, now do you see that farthest one, with the white speck on the face of it? Do you think you ever saw it before? " 68 NARRATION. " It looks to me," said I, " like the hill that we were 'camped under when we were on Laramie Creek, six or eight weeks ago." " You've hit it," answered Reynal. " Go and bring in the animals, Raymond," said I ; 5 " we'll camp there to-night, and start for the fort in the morning." The mare and the mule were soon before the lodge. We saddled them, and in the mean time a number of Indians collected about us. The virtues lo of Pauline, my strong, fleet, and hardy little mare, were well known in camp, and several of the visitors were mounted upon good horses which they had brought me as presents. I promptly declined their offers, since accepting them would have involved 15 the necessity of transferring Pauline into their bar- barous hands. We took leave of Reynal, but not of the Indians, who are accustomed to dispense with such superfluous ceremonies. Leaving the camp, we rode straight over the prairie towards the white- 20 faced bluff, whose pale ridges swelled gently against the horizon, like a cloud. An Indian went with us, whose name I forget, though the ugliness of his face and the ghastly width of his mouth dwell vividly in my recollection. The antelope were numerous, but 25 we did not heed them. We rode directly towards our destination, over the arid plains and barren hills; until, late in the afternoon, half spent with heat, thirst, and fatigue, we saw a gladdening sight: the long line of trees and the deep gulf that mark 30 the course of Laramie Creek. Passing through the growth of huge dilapidated old cotton-wood trees that bordered the creek, we rode across to the other side. The rapid and foaming waters were PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 69 filled with fish playing and splashing in the shal- lows. As we gained the farther bank, our horses turned eagerly to drink, and we, kneeling on the sand, followed their example. We had not gone S far before the scene began to grow familiar, " We are getting near home, Raymond," said I. iThere stood the big tree under which we had en- camped so long; there were the white clififs that used to look down upon our tent when it stood at 10 the bend of the creek: there was the meadow in which our horses had grazed for weeks, and a little farther on, the prairie-dog village where I had be- guiled many a languid hour in shooting the unfor- tunate inhabitants. 15 " We are going to catch it now," said Raymond, turning his broad face up towards the sky. In truth the cliffs and the meadow, the stream and the groves, were darkening fast. Black masses of cloud were swelling up in the south, and the thun- 2oder was growling ominously. " We will 'camp there," I said, pointing to a dense grove of trees lower down the stream. Raymond and I turned towards it, but the Indian stopped and called earnestly after us. When we demanded what 25 was the matter, he said, that the ghosts of two war- riors were always among those trees, and that if we slept there, they would scream and throw stones at us all night, and perhaps steal our horses before morning. Thinking it as well to humor him, we 30 left behind us the haunt of these extraordinary ghosts, and passed on towards Chugwater, riding at full gallop, for the big drops began to patter down. Soon we came in sight of the poplar saplings that grew about the mouth of the little stream. We 7© NARRA TION. leaped to the ground, threw off our saddles, turned our horses loose, and drawing our knives began to slash among the bushes to cut twigs and branches for making a shelter against the rain. Bending down the taller saplings as they grew, we piled the 5 young shoots upon them, and thus made a conven- ient pent-house; but our labor was needless. The storm scarcely touched us. Half a mile on our right the rain was pouring down like a cataract, and the thunder roared over the prairie like a battery of 10 cannon; while we by good fortune received only a few heavy drops from the skirt of the passing cloud. The weather cleared and the sun set gloriously. Sitting close under our leafy canopy, we proceeded to discuss a substantial meal of wasna which Weah- 15 Washtay had given me. The Indian had brought with him his pipe and a bag of shongsasha; so before lying down to sleep, we sat for some time smoking together. First, however, our wide-mouthed friend had taken the precaution of carefully examining the 20 neighborhood. He reported that eight men, count- ing them on his fingers, had been encamped there not long before, — Bisonette, Paul Dorion, Antoine Le Rouge, Richardson, and four others, whose names he could not tell. All this proved strictly 25 correct. By what instinct he had arrived at such accurate conclusions, I am utterly at a loss to di- vine. It was still quite dark when I awoke and called Raymond. The Indian was already gone, having 30 chosen to go on before us to the fort. Setting out after him, we rode for some time in complete dark- ness, and when the sun at length rose, glowing like a fiery ball of copper, we were within ten miles of PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 7» the fort. At length, from the summit of a sandy bluff we could see Fort Laramie, miles before us, standing by the side of the stream Hke a little gray speck, in the midst of the boundless desolation. I 5 stopped my horse, and sat for a moment looking down upon it. It seemed to me the very center of comfort and civilization. We were not long in ap- proaching it, for we rode at speed the greater part of the way. Laramie Creek still intervened between lo us and the friendly walls. Entering the water at the point where we had struck upon the bank, we raised our feet to the saddle behind us, and thus kneeling as it were on horseback, passed dry-shod through the swift current. As we rode up the bank, a num- isber of men appeared in the gateway. Three of them came forward to meet us. In a moment I dis- tinguished Shaw; Henry Chatillon followed, with his face of m.anly simplicity and frankness, and Des- lauriers came last, with a broad grin of welcome. 20 The meeting was not on either side one of mere ceremony. For my own part, the change was a most agreeable one, from the society of savages and men little better than savages, to that of my gallant and high-minded companion, and our noble-hearted 25 guide. My appearance was equally welcome to Shaw, who was beginning to entertain some very uncomfortable surmises concerning me. Bordeaux greeted me cordially, and shouted to the cook. This functionary was a new acquisition, 30 having lately come from Fort Pierre with the trad- ing wagons. Whatever skill he might have boasted, he had not the most promising materials to exercise it upon. He set before me, however, a breakfast of biscuit, coffee, and salt pork. It yd NARRA TION. seemed like a new phase of existence, to be seated once more on a bench, with a knife and fork, a plate and teacup, and something resembling a table before me. The coffee seemed delicious, and the bread was a most welcome novelty, since for three 5 weeks I had tasted scarcely anything but meat, and that for the most part without salt. The meal also had the relish of good company, for opposite to me sat Shaw in elegant dishabille. If one is anxious thoroughly to appreciate the value of a congenial 10 companion, he has only to spend a few weeks by himself in an Ogillallah village. And if he can con- trive to add to his seclusion, a debilitating and somewhat critical illness, his perceptions upon this subject will be rendered considerably more vivid. 15 Shaw had been two or three weeks at the fort. I found him established in his old quarters, a large apartment usually occupied by the absent bourgeois. In one corner was a soft pile of excellent buffalo- robes, and here I lay down. 'Shaw brought me 20 three books. " Here," said he, " is your Shakspeare and Byron, and here is the Old Testament, which has as much poetry in it as the other two put together." I chose the worst of the three, and for the greater 25 part of that day I lay on the buffalo-robes, fairly rev- eling in the creations of that resplendent genius which has achieved no more signal triumph than that of half beguiling us to forget the unmanly char- acter of its possessor. 30 Notes. — We have seen in the previous chapter that the purpose of narration is often descriptive. Wlien the length of a piece of narrative is considerable and there are frequent sections of description, it is difficult to classify THE CAPTURE OF A TROUT. 73 the whole. Nor is such classification important if the presence of both types of writing is really warranted. The cases in which descriptive passages of some length may be considered as appropriate in a narration are, how- 5 ever, comparatively rare. Young writers frequently fail to /' note this fact, and impair the interest of their story by straying aside into irrelevant " word-painting." They fail to see the significance of Stevenson's conviction that no human being ever talked about scenery for more than two lo minutes at one time. The chapter from Parkman shows how great must be the skill which blends the two distinct interests, and it shows the circumstances under which the attempt to do so may be made. The purpose of Parkman's history was two-fold : to narrate the events of his journey 15 and to report the condition of the country through which he passed. His story has an objective point, namely " Fort Laramie " ; but it lacks plot suspense, because the reader is drawn into the historian's open-eyed interest in the episodes of the way, and comes to regard these as 20 more important than the question of winning through heat and fatigue to the end of the march. The selection owes its vividness to the fact of its recording the observa- tions of an eyewitness. It owes much of its charm to the personal form ; Parkman's very human personality is 25 infused through it all. 21—Z\iz Capture of a ^rout, R. D. BLACKMORE. The trout knew nothing- of all this. They had not tasted a worm for a month, except when a sod of the bank fell in, through cracks of the sun, and the way cold water has of licking upward. And 30 even the flies had no favor at all; when they fell on the water, they fell flat, and on the palate they tasted hot, even under the bushes. 74 NARRA TION. Hilary followed a path through the meadows, with the calm bright sunset casting his shadow over the shorn grass, or up in the hedge-road, or on the brown banks where the drought had struck. On his back he carried a fishing-basket, containing his 5 bits of refreshment; and in his right hand a short springy rod, the absent sailor's favorite. After long council with Mabel, he had made up his mind to walk up stream, as far as the spot where two brooks met, and formed body enough for a fly flipped in 10 very carefully to sail downward. Here he began, and the creak of his reel and the swish of his rod were music to him, after the whirl of London life. The brook was as bright as the best cut-glass, and the twinkles of its shifting facets only made it seem 15 more clear. It twisted about a little, here and there; and the brink was fringed now and then with some- thing, a clump of loose-strife, a tuft of avens, or a bed of flowering water-cress, or any other of the many plants that wash and look into the water. 20 But the trout, the main object in view, were most objectionably too much in view. They scudded up the brook at the shadow of a hair, or even the trem- ble of a blade of grass; and no pacific assurance could make them even stop to be reasoned with. 25 " This won't do," said Hilary, who very often talki d to himself, in lack of a better comrade; " I call this very hard upon me. The beggars won't rise till it is quite dark. I must have the interdict ofif my to- bacco, if this sort of thing is to go on. How 1 30 should enjoy a pipe just now! I may just as well sit on a gate and think. No, hang it, I hate think- ing now. There are troubles hanging over me, as sure as the tail of that comet grows. How I de- THE CAPTURE OF A TROUT. 75 test that comet! No wonder the fish won't rise. But if I have to strip and tickle them in the dark, I won't go back without some for her." He was lucky enough to escape the weight of such 5 horrible poaching upon his conscience ; for suddenly to his ears was borne the most melodious of all sounds, the flop of a heavy fish sweetly jumping after some excellent fly or grub. " Ha, my friend! " cried Hilary, " so you are up lofor your supper, are you? I myself will awake right early. Still I behold the ring you made. If my right hand forget not its cunning, you shall form your next ring in the frying-pan." He gave that fish a little time to think of the 15 beauty of that mouthful, and get ready for another; the while he was putting a white moth on, in lieu of his blue upright. He kept the grizzled palmer still for tail-fly, and he tried his knots, for he knew that this trout was a Triton. 20 Then, with a delicate sidling and stooping, known only to them that fish for trout in very bright water of the summer-time — compared with which art the coarse work of the salmon-fisher is as that of a scene-painter to Mr. Holman Hunt's — with, or in, 25 and by a careful manner, not to be described to those who have never studied it, Hilary won access to the water, without any doubt in the mind of the fish concerning the prudence of appetite. Then he flipped his short collar in, not with a cast, but a 30 spring of the rod, and let his flies go quietly down a sharpish run into that good trout's hole. The worthy trout looked at them both, and thought; for he had his own favorite spot for watching the v/orld go by, as the rest of us have. So he let the 76 NARRATION. grizzled palmer pass, within an inch of his upper lip; for it struck him that the tail turned up in a manner not wholly natural, or at any rate unwhole- some. He looked at the white moth also, and thought that he had never seen one at all like it. 5 So he went down under his root again, hugging himself upon his wisdom, never moving a fin, but oaring and helming his plump, spotted sides with his tail. " Upon my word, it is too bad! " said Hilary, after 10 three beautiful throws, and exquisite management down stream: "everything Kentish beats me hol- low. Now, if that had been one of our trout, I would have laid my life upon catching him.' One more throw, however. How would it be if I sunk 15 my flies? That fellow is worth some patience." While he was speaking, his flies alit on the glassy ripple, like gnats in their love-dance; and then by a turn of the wrist, he played them just below the sur- face, and let them go gliding down the stickle, into 20 the shelfy nook of shadow, where the big trout hov- ered. Under the surface, floating thus, with the check of ductile influence, the two flies spread their wings and quivered, like a centiplume moth in a spider's web. Still the old trout, calmly oaring, 25 looked at them both suspiciously. Why should the same flies come so often, and why should they have such crooked tails, and could he be sure that he did not spy the shadow of a human hat about twelve yards up the water? Revolving these things he 30 might have lived to a venerable age — but for that noble ambition to teach, which is fatal to even the wisest. A young fish, an insolent whipper-snapper, jumped in his babyish way at the palmer, and missed THE CAPTURE OF A TROUT. 77 it through overeagerness. " I'll show you the way to catch a fly," said the big trout to him; "open your mouth like this, my son," With that he bolted the palmer, and threw up his 5 tail, and turned to go home again. Alas! his sweet home now shall know him no more. For suddenly ' he was surprised by a most disagreeable sense of grittiness, and then a keen stab in the roof of his mouth. He jumped, in his wrath, a foot out of the lo water, and then heavily plunged to the depths of his hole. " You've got it, my friend," cried Hilary, in a tingle of fine emotions; " I hope the sailor's knots are tied with professional skill and care. You are a 15 big one, and a clever one too. It is much if I ever land you. No net, or gaff, or anything. I only hope that there are no stakes here. Ah, there you go! Now comes the tug." Away went the big trout down the stream, at a 20 pace very hard to exaggerate, and after him rushed Hilary, knowing that his line was rather short, and that if it ran out, all was over. Keeping his eyes on the water only, and the headlong speed of the fugitive, headlong over a stake he fell, and took a 25 deep wound from another stake. Scarcely feeling it, up he jumped, lifting his rod, which had fallen flat, and fearing to find no strain on it. " Aha, he is not gone yet! " he cried, as the rod bowed like a springle-bow. 30 He was now a good hundred yards down the brook from the corner where the fight began. Through his swiftness of foot, and good manage- ment, the fish had never been able to tighten the line beyond yield of endurance. The bank had 78 NARRA TION. been free from bushes, or haply no skill could have saved him; but now they were come to a corner where a nut-bush quite overhung the stream. " I am done for now," said the fisherman; "the villain knows too well what he is about. Here ends 5 this adventure." Full though he was of despair, he jumped any- how into the water, kept the point of his rod close down, reeled up a little, as the fish felt weaker, and just cleared the drop of the hazel boughs. The lo water flapped into the pockets of his coat, and he saw red streaks flow downward. And then he plunged out to an open reach of shallow water and gravel slope. " I ought to have you now," he said; " though no- ^5 body knows what a rogue you are; and a pretty dance you have led me! " Doubting the strength of his tackle to lift even the dead weight of the fish, and much more to meet his despairing rally, he happily saw a little shallow 20 gut, or backwater, where a small spring ran out. Into this by a dexterous turn he rather led than pulled the fish, who was ready to rest for a minute or two; then he stuck his rod into the bank, ran down stream, and with his hat in both hands 25 appeared at the only exit from the gut. It was all up now with the monarch of the brook. As he skipped and jumped, with his rich yellow belly, and chaste silver sides, in the green of the grass, joy and glory of the highest merit, and gratitude, glowed in 30 the heart of Lorraine. " Two and three-quarters you must weigh. And at your very best you are! How small your head is! And how bright your spots are! " he cried, as he gave him the stroke of THE CAPTURE OF A TROUT. 79 grace. " You really have been a brave and fine fel- low. I hope they will know how to fry you." While he cut his fly out of this grand trout's mouth, he felt for the first time a pain in his knee, 5 where the point of the stake had entered it. Un- der the buckle of his breeches blood was soaking away inside his gaiters; and then he saw hov/ he had dyed the water. — Alice Lorraine. Notes. — In the present selection, as in the preceding, lo there is a good amount of description, but here it is vigor- ously subordinated to the narrative. We catch a glimpse of the time of day from the " calm bright sunset," but that is essential to the story ; so too are the seven lines that describe the brook where the fishing is to be done. These 15 given, the author introduces the trout which is to hold our interest, and from this moment until the fish is landed never allows the reader's attention to stray from it. There are moments when the trout is apparently inactive, and when, therefore, the movement of the narrative seems to 20 flag, but the fish or its lurking place is steadily kept in view by the reader as by the fisherman. In other words, there are no digressions. The action is one and indivisible, as every writer on rhetoric, from Aristotle down, has insisted that an action should be. What is known as plot interest 25 depends largely upon the unity of the action. The intrinsic interest of the outcome, the denouement, may be small, but if the outcome is led up to steadily there will be a certain suspense till it is reached. A narrative that lacks suspense lacks it usually from one of two reasons : 30 either from the intentional multiplicity of incidents, as appears in the passage by Parkman, or from uninten- tional digressions. The style of the Blackmore passage is noticeably con- crete. Concreteness, the presence of vivid mental 35 imagery, is the best quality that narration derives from So NARRA TION. description. The concrete terms of narration are often more compressed than those of description. In narra- tion the descriptive adverb and particularly the descriptive verb are powerful instruments. The trout are " objection- ably too much in view "; the big one will " form his next 5 ring in the frying-pan"; he "oars and helms his plump, spotted sides with his tail"; he "heavily plunges to the depths of his hole." 28.— Bn JEvenins at tbe tCbeater. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. We took possession of the private box assigned to us: and Mrs. Flather seated herself in the place lo of honor — each of the young ladies taking it by turns to occupy the other corner. Miss Minny and Master Jones occupied the middle places; and it was pleasant to watch the young gentleman throughout the performance of the comedy — during 15 which he was never quiet for two minutes — now shifting his chair, now swinging to and fro upon it, now digging his elbows into the capacious sides of Mrs. Captain Flather, now beating with his boots against the front of the box, or trampling upon the 20 skirts of Mrs. Flather's satin garment. He occupied himself unceasingly, too, in working up and down Mrs. F.'s double-barreled French opera-glass — not a little to the detriment of that in- strument and the wrath of the owner; indeed, 1 25 have no doubt, that had not Mrs. Flather reflected that Mrs. Colonel Jones gave some of the most ele- gant parties in London, to which she was very anx- ious to be invited, she would have boxed Master Augustus's ears in the presence of the whole audi- 30 ence of Covent Garden. AN EVENING AT THE THEATER. 8 1 One of the young ladies was, of course, obliged to remain in the back row with Mr. Spec. We could not see much of the play over Mrs. F.'s turban ; but I trust that we were not unhappy in our retired po- 5 sition. O Miss Emily! O Miss Louisa! there is one who would be happy to sit for a week close by either of you, though it were on one of those abom- inable little private-box chairs. I know, for my part, that every time the box-keeperess popped in loher head, and asked if we would take any refresh- ment, I thought the interruption odious. Our young ladies, and their stout chaperon and aunt, had come provided with neat little bouquets of flowers, in which they evidently took a considera- isble pride, and which were laid, on their first en- trance, on the ledge in front of our box. But, presently, on the opposite side of the house, Mrs. Cutbush, of Pocklington Gardens, appeared with her daughters, and bowed in a patronizing 20 manner to the ladies of our party, with whom the Cutbush family had a slight acquaintance. Before ten minutes, the oouquets of our party were whisked away from the ledge of the box. Mrs. Flather dropped hers to the ground, where 25 Master Jones's feet speedily finished it; Miss Louisa Twigg let hers fall into her lap, and covered it with her pocket-handkerchief. Uneasy signals passed between her and her sister. I could not, at first, understand what event had occurred to make 30 these ladies so vinhappy. At last the secret came out. The Misses Cut- bush had bouquets like little haystacks before them. Our small nosegays which had quite satisfied the girls until now, had become odious in their little 82 NARRA TION. jealous eyes; and the Cutbushes triumphed over them. I have joked the ladies subsequently on this ad- venture; but not one of them will acknowledge the charge against them. It was mere accident that ?■ made them drop the flowers — pure accident. They jealous of the Catbushes — not they, indeed; and, of course, each person on this head is welcome to his own opinion. How different, meanwhile, was the behavior ofio my young friend Master Jones, who is not as yet sophisticated by the world. He not only nodded to his father's servant, who had taken a place in the pit, and was to escort his young master home, but he discovered a school-fellow in the pit likewise. 15 " By Jove, there's Smith," he cried out, as if the sight of Smith was the most extraordinary event in the world. He pointed out Smith to all of us. He never ceased nodding, winking, grinning, tele- graphing, until he had succeeded in attracting 20 the attention not only of Master Smith, but of the greater part of the house; and whenever anything in the play struck him as worthy of applause, he in- stantly made signals to Smith below, and shook his fist at him, as much as to say, " By Jove, old fellow, 25 ain't it good? I say. Smith, isn't it prime, old boy? " He actually made remarks on his lingers to Master Smith during the performance. I confess he was one of the best parts of the night's entertainment to me. How Jones and 30 Smith will talk about that play when they meet after holidays! And not only then will they re- member it, but all their lives long. Why do you remember that play you saw thirty years ago, and AN EVENING AT THE THEATER. 83 forget the one over which you yawned last week? " Ah, my brave Httle boy," I thought in my heart, " twenty years hence you will recollect this, and have forgotten many a better thing. You will have s been in love twice or thrice by that time, and have forgotten it; you will have buried your wife and forgotten her; you will have had ever so many friendships and forgotten them. You and Smith won't care for each other, very probably; but you'll 10 remember all the actors and the plot of this piece we are seeing." I protest I have forgotten it myself. In our back row we could not see or hear much of the perform- ance (and no great loss) — fitful bursts of elocution 15 only occasionally reaching us, in which we could recognize the well-known nasal twang of the excel- lent Mr. Stupor, who performed the part of the young hero; or the ringing laughter of Mrs. Bel- more, who had to giggle through the whole piece, 20 It was one of Mr. Boyster's comedies of English Life. Frank Nightrake (Stupor) and his friend Bob Fitzoffley appeared in the first scene, having a conversation with that impossible valet of English Comedy, whom any gentleman would turn out of 25 doors before he could get through half a length of the dialogue assigned. I caught only a glimpse of this act. Bob, like a fashionable young dog of the aristocracy (the character was played by Bulwer, a meritorious man, but very stout, and nearly fifty 30 years of age), was dressed in a rhubarb-colored body-coat with brass buttons, a couple of under- waistcoats, a blue satin stock with a paste brooch in it, and an eighteenpenny cane, which he never let out of his hand, and with which he poked fun at 84 NARRA TION. everybody. Frank Nightrake, on the contrary, be- ing at home, was attired in a very close-fitting chintz dressing gown, lined with glazed red calico, and was seated before a large pewter teapot, at breakfast. And, as your true English Comedy is the repre- 5 sentation of nature, I could not but think how like these figures on the stage, and the dialogue which they used, were to the appearance and talk of Eng- lish gentlemen of the present day. The dialogue went on somewhat in the following 10 fashion : — Boh FitzofHey {enters zvhistling). — " The top of the morning to thee, Frank! What! at breakfast al- ready? At chocolate and the Morning Post, like a dowager of sixty? Slang! (he pokes the servant is zuith his cane) what has come to thy master, thou Prince of Valets! thou pattern of Slaveys! thou swiftest of Mercuries! Has the Honorable Francis Nightrake lost his heart, or his head, or his health?" 20 Frank (laying down the paper). — " Bob, Bob, I have lost all three! I have lost my health. Bob, with thee and thy like, over the Burgundy at the club; I have lost my head. Bob, with thinking how I shall pay my debts; and I have lost my heart- 25 Bob, oh, to such a creature! " Bob. — "A Venus of course?" Slang. — " With the presence of Juno." Bob. — " And the modesty of Minerva." Frank. — " And the coldness of Diana." 30 Bob. — " Pish ! What a sigh is that about a wo- man! Thou shalt be Endymion, the nightrake of old: and conquer this shy goddess. Hey, Slang?" Herewith Slang takes the lead of the conversa- AN EVENING AT THE THEATER. 85 tion, and propounds a plot for running away with the heiress; and I could not help remarking how like the comedy was to life — how the gentlemen al- ways say " thou " and " prythee," and " go to," and Stalk about heathen goddesses to each other; how their servants are always their particular intimates; how when there is serious love-making between a gentleman and lady, a comic attachment invariably springs up between the valet and waiting-maid of 10 each; how Lady Grace Gadabout, when she calls upon Rose Ringdove to pay a morning visit, ap- pears in a low satin dress, with jewels in her hair; how Saucebox, her attendant, wears diamond brooches, and rings on all her fingers: while Mrs. 15 Tallyho, on the other hand, transacts all the busi- ness of life in a riding-habit, and always points her jokes by a cut of the whip. This playfulness produced a roar all over the house, whenever it was repeated, and always made aoour little friends clap their hands and shout in a chorus. Like that bon-vivant who envied the beggars staring into the cook-shop windows, and wished he could be hungry, I envied the boys, and wished I 25 could laugh, very much. In the last act, I remem- ber — for it is now very nearly a week ago — every- body took refuge either in a secret door, or behind a screen, or curtain, or under a table, or up a chim- ney: and the house roared as each person came out 30 from his place of concealment. And the old fellow in top-boots, joining the hands of the young couple (Fitzoffley, of course, pairing off with the widow), gave them his blessing, and thirty thousand pounds. And ah, ye gods ! if I wished before that comedies ^ NARRA TIOhK were like life, how I wished that life was like come- dies! Whereon the drop fell; and Augustus, clap- ping to the opera-glass, jumped up, crying — "Hurray! now for the Pantomime." — Sketches and Travels in London. Notes. — Thackeray's account of an evening at the 5 theater is personal, and has a fixed point of view. What happens is observed by a definite observer, from an unchanging position. This method is very effective when the action is a unit and can all be seen from the given place. Professor A. S. Hill ' has pointed out the superior 10 vividness of a boat-race seen from one point, toward which it proceeds, as compared with a race seen alternately from the two boats themselves. Still, what usually passes before a fixed point is not a dramatic whole, but a series of episodes, having only such unity as the place or the 15 observer's state of mind may supply. Thus Thackeray's evening at the theater has unity both of place and of feel- ing, but none of action. He notes all the events he can from his back seat in the box, and they are all welcomed by his mood, which demands amusement. A similar 20 method maj' be seen in Chapter HI. of Hawthorne's " House of the Seven Gables," where the events of a morning in a shop are viewed from behind the counter by the tremulous gentlewoman to whom this point of view is strange. 29.— B IRcscue. R. D. BLACKMORE. Before they could say a word, or look round, they 25 not only heard but saw a boy riding and raving furiously, on the other side of the water. He was coming down the course of the stream toward them ' " Principles of Rhetoric," rev. ed., p. 290 fif. A RESCUE. 87 as fast as his donkey could flounder, and slide, and tear along over the snow-drifts And at the top of his voice he was shouting: ** A swan, a swan, a girt white swan! The booti- sful leddy have turned into a girt swan! Oh, I never! " " Are you mad, you young fool? Just get back from the water! " cried Gregory Lovejoy sternly; for as Bonny pulled up, the horses, weary as they 10 were, jumped round in affright at Jack's white nose and great ears jerking in a shady place. " Get back from the water, or we shall all be in it! " For the wheeler having caught the leader's scare, was back- ing right into the Woeburn, and Mabel could not 15 help a little scream; till the sailor sprung cleverly over the wheel, and seized the shaft-horse by the head. " There she cometh! there she cometh! " shouted Bonny all the while; " oh, whatever shall I do! " 20 " I see it! I see it! " cried Mabel, leaning over the rail of the gig, and gazing up the dark stream stead- fastly; " oh, what can it be? It is all white. And it hangs upon the water so. It must be someone floating drowned! " 25 Charlie, the sailor, without a word, ran to a bulge of the bank, as he saw the white thing coming nearer, looked at it for an instant with all his eyes, then flung ofif his coat and plunged into the water, as if for a little pleasant swim. He had no idea of 30 the power of the current, but if he had known all about it, he would have gone headforemost all the same. For he saw in mid-channel the form of a woman, helpless, senseless, at the mercy of the water; and that was quite enough for him. 88 NARRA TION. From his childhood up he had been a swimmer, and was quite at his ease in rough water, and there- fore despised this sHding smoothness. But before he had taken three strokes he felt that he had mis- taken his enemy. Instead of swimming up the 5 stream, which looked very easy to do from the bank, he could not even hold his own with arms and legs against it, but was quietly washed down by the force bearing into the cups of his shoulders. But, in spite of the volume of torrent, he felt as comfort- 10 able as could be; for the water was by some twenty degrees warmer than the frosty air. "Cut the traces!" he managed to shout, as his brother and sister hung over the bank. " What does he mean? " asked Gregory. 15 "Take my little knife," said Mabel; " it cuts like a razor; but my hands shake." " I see, I see," nodded the counselor, and he cut the long traces of the leader, and knotted them to- gether. Meanwhile Charlie let both feet sink, and 20 stood edgewise in the rapid current, treading water quietly. Of course he was carried down stream as he did it; but slowly (compared with a floating body). And he found that the movement was much less rapid at three or fonjr feet from the surface. 25 Before he had time to think of this, or fairly fetch his balance, the white thing he was waiting for came gliding in the blackness toward him. He flung out his arms at once, and cast his feet back, and made toward it. In the gliding hurry, and the flit of 30 light, it passed him so far that he said " Good-by," and then perhaps from the attraction of bodies it seemed for a second to stop, and the hand he cast forth laid hold of something. His own head went A RESCUE. 89 under water, and he swallowed a good mouthful; but he stuck to what he had got hold of, as behooves an Englishman. Then he heard great shouting upon dry land, and it made him hold the tighter, 5 " Bravo, my noble fellow! " He heard; he was get- ting a little tired; but encouragement is everything. " Catch it! catch it! lay hold! lay hold! " he heard in several voices, and he saw the splash of the traces thrown, but had no chance to lay hold of them. 10 The powc of the black stream swept him on, and he vainly strove for either bank, unless he would let loose his grasp, and he would rather drown with it than do that. Now, who saved him and his precious salvage? 15 A poor, despised, and yet clever boy, whose only name was Bonny. When Gregory Lovejoy had lashed the Woeburn with his traces vainly, and Ma- bel had fixed her shawl to the end cf them, and the tall man who followed the gig had dropped into the 20 water quietly, and Bottler disturbed by the shout- ing had left his pigs and shone conspicuous — not one of them could have done a bit of good, if it had not been for Bonny. From no great vn'or on the part of the boy, but from a quick-witted sugges- 25 tion. His suggestion had to cross the water, as many good suggestions have to do; and but for Bottler's knowledge of his voice, nobody would have noticed it. 30 " Ye'll nab 'em down to bridge," he cried; " hum down to bridge, and ye'll nab 'em. Tell un not to faight so." " Let yoursen go with the strame," shouted Bot- tler to the gallant Charlie; " no use faighting for the 90 NARRA TION. bank. There's a tree as crosseth down below; and us'll pull 'ee both out, when 'a gets there." Charlie had his head well up, and saw the wisdom of this counsel. He knew by long battle that he could do nothing against the tenor of the Woeburn, 5 and the man who had leaped in to help him, brave and strong as he was, could only follow as the water listed. The water went at one set pace, and swimmers only floated. And now it was a breath- less race for the people on the dry land to gain the 10 long tree that spanned the Woeburn, ere its vic- tims were carried under. And but for sailor Love- joy's skill and presence of mind in seeking down- ward, and paddhng more than swimming, the swift stream would have been first at the bridge; and then 15 no other chance for them. As it was, the runners were just in time, with scarcely a second to spare for it. Three men knelt on the trunk of the tree, while Mabel knelt in the snow and prayed. The merciless stream was a 2c fathom below them. But they hung the stanch traces in two broad loops, made good at each end in a fork of bough, and they showed him where they were by flipping the surface of the water. Clinging to his helpless burden still, and doing 25 his best to support it, the young sailor managed to grasp the leather; but his strength was spent and he could not rise, and all things swam round him; the snowy banks, the eager faces, the white form he held, and the swift black current — all like a vision 30 swept through his brain, and might sweep on for- ever. His wits were gone, and he must have fol- lowed, and been swept away to another world, if a powerful swimmer had not dashed up in full com- A RESCUE. 91 mand of all faculties. The tall man, whom nobody had heeded in the rush and hurry, came down the black gorge with his head well up, and the speed and strength of an osprey. He seized the broad 5 traces with such a grasp that the timber above them trembled, and he bore himself up with his chest tq the stream, and tearing off his neckcloth, fastened first the drowned white figure and then poor Charlie, to the loop of the strap and saw them drawn roup together; then gathering all his remaining pow- ers, he struck for the bank, and gained it. "Hurra!" shouted Bottler; and everyone pres- ent, Mabel included, joined the shout. " Be quick! be quick! It is no time for words," 15 cried the tall man, shaking his dress on the snow; "let me have the lady; you bring the fine fellow as quickly as possible to Bottler's yard. Bottler, just show us the shortest way." " To be sure, sir," Mr. Bottler answered; " but, 20 major, you cannot carry her, and the drops are freezing on you." " Do as I told you. Run in front of me ; and just show the shortest road." "Dash my stockings!" cried Master Bottler, 25 " they won't be worth looking at to-morrow. And all through the snow, I've a kept un white. And I an't got any more clean ones." However, he took a short cut to his yard; while Aylmer, with the lady in his arms, and her head 30 hanging over his shoulder, followed so fast, that the good pig-sticker could scarcely keep in front of him. " Never mind me," cried brave Charlie, reviving; " I am as right as ever. Mabel, go on and help; though I fear it is too late to do any good." 92 NARRA riON. " Whoever it is, it is dead as a stone," said the counselor, wiping the wet from his sleeves; " it fell away from me like an empty bag; you might have spared your ducking, Charlie. But it must have been a lovely young woman," 5 " Dead or alive, I have done my duty. But don't you know who it is? Oh, Mabel!" "How could I see her face?" said Mabel; "the men would not let me touch her. And about here I know no one." lo " Yes, you do. You know Alice Lorraine. It is poor Sir Roland's daughter." — Alice Lorraine. Notes. — This second selection from " Alice Lorraine" suggests the limitations under which the point of view, whether fixed or steadily moving, may be distinctly 15 changed. The several points of view in the early part of the story — Bonny's, Mabel's, and even the sailor's — are really all one ; they blend, and represent the piirsuing view of the floating object ; all the spectators are follow- ing this with the eye as it goes down stream. But this 20 hopeless point of view is changed and forgotten when once the suggestion is made to run down stream and catch the drowning person as she is swept by the log bridge. The bridge immediately becomes the waiting point of view. It may now be queried whether the end of the selection 25 (and chapter) brings the reader to the end of the incident. The drowning lady is rescued from the river, carried into a safe place, and recognized. Should the chapter also have told us whether or not she recovered ? If the passage were an independent whole, the answer would doubtless 3° be yes. In spite of the fact that a person half-frozen and almost drowned could not be restored in a few minutes, the narrative of the restoration ought in such a case to be foreshortened, and the reader's mind relieved from sus- THE FIVE DA YS IN MILAN. 93 pense. In a novel, however, there might be plot reasons which would warrant a digression at this point. Readers of " Alice Lorraine" will settle this particular question for themselves. 30.--Q;be fflve Bags in ^Uan. {March, 1848.) W. J. STILLMAN. 5 The war between Piedmont and Austria is so in- timately connected, both in its inception and its course, with the insurrection of Lombardy and Venice, that before discussing the events of that war we must trace the history of the movements in 10 the Austrian provinces, to which it was so largely due. For a good many years, no open movement had broken the apparent repose of the territories subjected to Austria in northern Italy. It may be that even during the long period of catalepsy, which 15 supervened in the provinces of Lombardy and Ven- ice, conspiracies existed, though better concealed than before, taught by the bitter experiences of the past. But this time it was not Piedmont, nor a con- stitutional sovereign that woke Italy from her sleep, 20 but the Pope. There can be no doubt that the sig- nal for the liberation of Italy was in effect given by Pius IX. And the slow vengeance of pubHc opin- ion in other lands had begun to tell on the Austrian government, which, as it had been enabled to hold 85 its possession in Italy only by the connivance of the other European powers, England included, found that the growing conviction of its unfitness to gov- ern was weakening the support in which its secu- 94 NARRA TION. rity had consisted. The initiative of the Pope for the first time reconciled religious sentiment with Italian aspirations after liberty. The clergy, with its immense ascendency over the rural population, always the last to be brought into any political 5 movement, in great part took the path of political reform, and carried with it, not only the rural classes, but that part of the nobility which still re- mained devoted to the Church. What was of still greater importance, it gave the real liberals, whoioi only wanted an authoritative name to lead them, a justification for renewing an agitation which Austria, devoted to the Church, could no longer resent as she had resented the initiative of her lay subjects. Pius IX. became the symbol of Ital-15 ian liberty, and demonstrations, nominally reli- gious, became synonymous with protests against the Austrian government. Busts of the Pope carried through the streets of Milan excited enthusiastic demonstrations, but in spite of all the vigilance of 20 the police no open act justified repressive meas- ures. The measure which finally provoked the outbreak was the prohibition by the liberal committees of the use of tobacco, the monopoly of which, held by the 25 Austrian government, was one of its principal sources of income. All the youth of the liberal party bound themselves under no circumstances to smoke, and to prevent, if possible, others from smoking in public. On the 3d of January, 1848,30 the Viceroy wrote to Governor Spaur: "As to the prohibition to smoke tobacco — in order to catch in the act those agitators who abuse or maltreat peo- ple who smoke, the best expedient would be to THE FIVE DAYS IN MILAN. 95 order some policemen in civil costume, or gen- darmes, to walk the streets with cigars in their mouths, and to have them followed at a little dis- tance by other guards also in civil costume with 5 orders to arrest those who disturb the smokers." On the same day the people attempted to snatch the cigars from the mouths of the officers, and a con- flict ensued in which live citizens were killed and fifty-nine wounded. This was the signal for the 10 bursting of the storm. Preparations were made on both sides for the conflict, and on the i8th,^ the news of the revolution at Vienna, which began on March 13, quickened the ardor of the insurgents into ac- tion. Slight concessions on the part of the gov- 15 ernment only stimulated still more the determina- tion to obtain reforms. Proclamations were se- cretly posted throughout Milan demanding reforms under the menace of immediate revolt. On the same day, a popular demonstration moved towards 20 the Governor's palace. The masses, scarcely know- ing with what purpose the demonstration had been organized, joined the demonstrators, and the sol- diers on guard, apprehending hostile movements, fired on the people. The crowd dispersed but im- 25 mediately started the cry " to arms." Barricades were thrown up, arms were gathered, and the con- flict began, in wdiich, during five days, all classes of the inhabitants, men, women and children, engaged in perhaps the most brilliant feat of unorganized 30 courage which the history of Europe can record. In every quarter of the city barricades blocked the movements of the troops, — by the 20th they amounted to 1700; cannon were made of wood with bands of iron, powder was manufactured, and a ' [Of March, 1848.] 96 NARRA TION. long, desperate and singular struggle was carried on through the streets of Milan, with horrible bru- tality on the part of the troops and incredible au- dacity on that of the population. No plans had been formed which could be be- 5 trayed, but the accumulated indignation of the en- tire people and the momentary weakness of the gov- ernment, unprepared for so sudden and spontane- ous a movement, urged discontent to action. Iso- lated collisions in the streets had led to an attack 10 on the Broletto, where in the headquarters of the municipality a few hundred people, of whom sixty only were armed, had gathered in council. They were attacked by two thousand Croats and Bohe- mian troops, and were dispersed after a conflict of 15 two hours partly carried on with tiles from the roofs. Radetzky supposed all to be over, and made known to the municipality his determination to crush all signs of discontent, even by the bombard- 20 ment, if necessary, of the city. That night it rained and the troops occupied themselves in de- stroying the barricades which were springing up, but the morning of the 19th was fine, and masses of the citizens thronged the streets, plotting mischief, 25 but without organization. It was the explosion of a long repressed fury which was indifferent to all dan- gers. Here and there, as if by inspiration, centers of organization appeared; churches, shops, and houses were closed, the bells rang the call to arms, and 30 the barricades sprang up again everywhere; arms were seized wherever they could be found — arms of all epochs and every description — the furniture of the houses was carried out to form or heighten the THE FIVE DA YS IN MILAN. 97 barricades, and the energetic and long suffering population poured out of their dwellings in a state of frenzy, which made no account of obstacles. Wherever the troops ventured into the streets to at- 5 tack the barricades, tiles, furniture, stones, beams, boiling oil, were poured on them; even the women took part in the fight. The chiefs, Luciano Ma- nara, Enrico Dandolo, Luigi della Porta, Augusto Anfossi and others, passed from street to street, 10 from house to house, to encourage the combatants, without sleeping or resting. A fever of combat spread its fiery contagion through the entire popu- ■ lation, and overpowered discipline and armaments. On this day, the 19th, Anfossi, at the head of a 15 resolute band, attacked and carried the Porta Nuova, a strong position which swept two of the principal streets, and gave a solid center for con- centration. The troops seemed stupefied, the per- petual clamor of the bells, the ever present attacks, 20 the very ragamuffins of the streets taken with the frenzy of battle and utterly indifferent to danger, mocking, jeering and deceiving the troops, the rain of projectiles from the roofs, the audacity of the assailants, all these things affected even the Marshal 25 and paralyzed his resolution. The municipal au- thorities, with the mayor at their head, made feeble efforts by half-hearted measures to reconcile popu- lace and government, but finally yielded to the drift of insurrection and practically withdrew. A coun- 3ocil of war was formed, composed of Carlo Cattaneo, the real head of the movement, Giulio Terzaghi, and Giorgio Qerici, nobles, and Enrico Cernuschi, ple- beian and republican. This self-nominated com- mittee of public safety was recognized by the in- 98 NARRA TION. surgents as in control of the insurrection, and unity of action was thus secured. The Austrians were in possession of the Cathedral — from the roof of which the Tyrolese riflemen fired on the people — the Royal palace, the Palace of Justice, the headquarters of the 5 police, the municipal palace, the barracks and the Castle. During the night of the 19th and 20th the Marshal had occupied the bastions at the right and the left of the gates to secure the way for re-enforce- ments from the outside, and threatened the bom- 10 bardment of the city. All through the 20th it rained in torrents, but the struggle continued fiercely. General Clam held his own at the Porta Ticinese, but elsewhere the Aus- trian resistance began to give way. The Tyrolese, 15 harassed by the fire of the insurgents, abandoned the pinnacles of the cathedral whence they had fired on the streets below. General Rath abandoned the royal palace, and the people captured the police office and the Courts, where they liberated all the 20 political prisoners, retaining in prison only those accused of common crimes. The spirit of the peo- ple was as humane as courageous. Bolza, one of the principal persecutors, was found hidden in a hayloft and was about to be put to death by the 25 people, when Carlo Cattaneo exclaimed: " If you kill him, you do justice; if you spare him you will be acting nobly "; and he was spared. At the Tri- bunale the people destroyed all the documents, car- ried away all the arms, and liberated all the women, 30 but spared all the police officers who had hidden in the cellars, and carried the wounded to the hospital. Count Thurn, who had ordered the arrest of Bo- gazzi, in consequence of a quarrel in the streets, was THE FIVE DA YS IN MILAN. 99 released. A proclamation put forth by the Coun- cil of War, and headed by the words : " Italia libera" ran as follows: " Brave citizens, let us keep our city pure; let us not condescend to revenge our- 5 selves by the blood of these miserable satellites whom the fugitive government leaves in our hands. It is enough now to watch them and notify them. It is true that for thirty years they have been the scourge of our families and the abomination of the lo country, but you will be generous as you have been brave. Punish them with contempt and make an offer of them to Pius IX." The brutality of the troops was in strong contrast with the conduct of the insurgents. The soldiers broke open the doors 15 of a tavern near St. Mark's and murdered the cook and three other persons, after having tortured them in various ways; they then roasted alive two chil- dren and repeatedly bayonetted a pregnant woman, after which they set fire to the house and withdrew.* 20 On the 20th, at midday, the commander of the Croats, Baron Ettinghausen, presented himself to the Council of War, saying that he came not as an envoy from the Marshal but on his own account to intervene, being moved by a sentiment of humanity. 25 He proposed a truce of fifteen days. During this time the Marshal should keep all the troops shut up in eight different localities; the civic guard should be regularly organized, and all the positions occu- pied by the citizens should be put in a state of per- 3omanent efficiency. The municipality, which de- luded itself with the idea of continuing in this state of semi-legality from which it had not yet emerged, *Archivw Trzennale, on the authority of two hundred and fifty witnesses. lOo NARRA TION. entertained the idea of the truce: at the worst, it would have been able to maintain its communica- tions with the surrounding country. But at a joint-meeting held by the municipality and the Council of War, the proposition of the truce was 5 rejected by a large majority, it being seen that in these fifteen days Radetzky could collect troops from without, sufficient to crush Milan. The reply to Ettinghausen was, " Say to the Marshal that if he insists on continuing to fight, the nobles in ^o Milan will know how to bury themselves under the ruins of their palaces." The Council of War, com- bative and republican, was in conflict with the royalist municipality, which desired to maintain a prudent attitude. The MaA^or, timid and undecided, ^5 did not enjoy the confidence of the Council of War and was kept under guard, but after the conference with Ettinghausen the municipality issued a proc- lamation claiming the entire direction of affairs, and formed itself into a committee of public secu- ^o rity for the supervision of subsistence and finance. During the 21st the struggle went on. A cer- tain number of combatants from outside made their way in and strengthened the forces of the insurg- ents, and the employees of the railways united in 25 bands under their inspector Borgazzi, who was killed on the fourth day of the struggle in the at- tack on Porta Tosa. The network of barricades, held strongly by reckless masses of the people, made all movements of the troops in the streets impossi-30 ble. Radetzky wrote to Fiquelmont: "The nature of these people, it seems to me, has been trans- formed; fanaticism has invaded all ages, all classes and both sexes," On the same day, the Council of THE FIVE DAYS IN MILAN. lOl War demanded the assistance of all who had any military experience, and numbers of those who had served in the army of Napoleon offered their serv- ices. The center of the city was now entirely aban- 5 doned by the Austrians, and the combatants who had held the barricades in that quarter, now no longer assailable, were ordered to man the external barricades. During the night the people had worked with feverish energy on movable breast- lo works which they had planted under the walls. The Council of War ordered an attack on the headquar- ters, on the barracks of the engineers and the staff, and the barracks of San Francisco. Pasquale Sot- tocorno, an old and crippled man of the people, car- 15 ried straw and hay, which he piled before the gate of the engineers' barrack and set fire to the door. In the capture of the engineers' quarters one hun- dred and sixty soldiers were taken prisoners. The foreign consuls having on the 20th of March 20 protested against the bombardment of the city, Radetzky replied that he would postpone it for an- other day on condition that all hostilities on the part of the Milanese should cease, and this propo- sition was supported by the consuls at the munici- 25 pality. The Council of War, however, refused any such concession and declined the truce. The Aus- trian troops, as Radetzky's dispatches testify, were exhausted and had need of a rest in order to en- able them to continue the struggle. On the other 30 hand, it was urged that the city had only provisions enough for twenty-four hours more, but Cattaneo re- plied, " Twenty-four hours of food and twenty-four hours of fasting give us more than time enough to conquer, and at the end it is better to die of hunger I02 NARRA TION. than on the gallows." On the discussion in the Municipal Council, the proposition of a three days' truce was rejected by twelve votes against three, and the municipality replied that the citizens who were charged with the defense of the city did not accept 5 the proposition. They added that, as Field-Mar- shal Count Radetzky had been notified, even if the truce were consented to, the ardor of the combat- ants was such that they could not insure its observ- ance. 10 Meanwhile the question of co-operation with Piedmont had arisen. A messenger had been sent to Turin on a confidential mission to the King, who replied that he wished two things: that a body of insurgents or deserters should draw the enemy into 15 a violation of the Sardinian territory, and that there should be sent to him an address signed by the no- bles. Enrico Martini, who had brought this mes- sage, also proposed that they should immediately constitute a provisional government with authority 20 to confer on Carlo Alberto the sovereignty of Lom- bardy. Cattaneo, whom circumstances placed at the head of the movement, advised that the decision of such questions should be left to the country, and that this was not the moment to consult it. " Is it 25 then," he said, " so grievous to be once in our lives our own masters? The royal houses belong to no nation: they have their own interests apart from ours, and are always ready to come to an under- standing with the foreigner against their people. 1 30 am firmly convinced that it is necessary to appeal to all Italy and to make the war a national one. If Carlo Alberto is the only one who offers to inter- vene between us and Austria, then the admiration THE FIVE DA YS IN MILAN. 103 and gratitude of the people will be the prize of his generosity, and no one can deny the right of the country to put itself under his authority." Catta- neo remembered that it was not possible to trust 5 Carlo Alberto, who had been a traitor in 1S21, and that the Lombard nobility had offered themselves to Austria in 1814. He declared that, on account of the weakness of the means of which it disposed, he would not have favored the insurrection, but that, to now that it existed, the assistance of all Italy was necessary, and this would not be obtained if Lom- bardy gave herself to Piedmont. This opposition of Cattaneo to the union with Piedmont and the un- questionably republican tendency of his opinions 15 were never forgiven him by the Lombard nobility. On the 2 1st, the Council of War invited all the communes of Lombardy to constitute local coun- cils, which should occupy themselves with the ques- tion of carrying on the war. This invitation said: 20 " We ask from every city, from every section of Italy, a little detachment of bayonets, which guided by some good captain, should come and hold a general assembly at the foot of the Alps to arrive at a final and conclusive accord 25 against the barbarians." Late that night the mu- nicipality, timid and vacillating, finally decided to form itself into a provisional government. The for- mation of this government encountered opposition from the Council of War and serious discord was 30 threatened, but finally, on the advice of Correnti, the Council of War was fused with the Committee appointed by the municipality and the two were united in a provisional government. This govern- ment issued a manifesto as follows: "The armistice 104 NARRATION. oflfered by the enemy has been refused by us accord- ing to the will of the people, which wishes to fight. We fight then with the same courage which has made us victorious in these four days and we will still conquer. Citizens, we receive unflinchingly 5 this last assault of the oppressors with the confi- dence which is born of the certainty of victory. Let the rejoicing bells respond to the sound of the cannons and the bombs, and let the enemy see that we know how to fight cheerfully and to die cheer- lo fully. The country adopts as its children the orphans of those who die in battle, and assures to the wounded its gratitude and assistance." Henceforward there was no way to turn back. Either Milan would conquer or she would be buried 15 in ruins. On the morning of the 22d, it being foggy and rainy, while one portion of the citizens strengthened the barricades by means of movable barriers consisting of masses of fagots, another at- tacked Porta Tosa, which was defended by one 20 thousand Austrians with six pieces of artillery, and at night-fall took it by assault. The city was thus opened to the outer world; the people from the dif- ferent sections entered freely, and the communica- tions of the Austrians from bastion to bastion were 25 broken. The Austrians abandoned several of the gates, and the civic forces, reassured by the prospect of being able to renew their supplies, redoubled their aggressive activity. Alarmed by the progress which the Milanese made in every direction and by 30 the rumors that the Piedmontese army had passed the frontier, thus threatening his supplies of am- munition and food, the Marshal determined to evac- uate Milan, preferring the humiliation of retreat to THE FIVE DA YS IN MILAM. 105 the risk of exposing his troops to surrender or starvation. He left behind him the treasury, with two millions of florins, and on the night of the 22d, at eleven o'clock, covering his retreat with the thun- 5 der of his guns, he withdrew from the line of forti- fications. His retreat being unobserved was unmolested, and following the line of the Austrian fortresses in the direction of Lodi, he arrived during the night at 10 Melegnano, where a slight resistance which was offered to his passage was easily overcome. He rested at Lodi from the night of the 24th to the morning of the 26th, whence he retired slowly through Crema to Verona, where he arrived be- 15 tween the 5th and 6th, without having been mo- lested in any one of the many ways by which the citizens might have harassed his retreat. Milan was exhausted by the heroic efforts of the five days, and the satisfaction of seeing the Austrians depart 20 was so great that no one dreamed of imposing ob- stacles to the retreat; Milan, in fact, on the morn- ing of the 23d of March, was surprised to find itself free. Cattaneo estimates the loss of the Austrians at four thousand men; the Austrian account esti- 25 mates it at four hundred killed and wounded — a dis- parity which suggests exaggeration on both sides; but certainly so small a sacrifice as the Austrians admit hardly justifies their evacuation of the city. The dead on the Milanese side were three hundred 30 and fifty, and there were six hundred wounded. In this conflict, which is the most memorable among all the struggles for Italian liberation, all classes of society had taken part; many young men of the higher circles mingled in the movement with 106 NARRATION. workmen, artisans and populace, and paid their por- tion of losses. The greater part of the clergy had helped in the revolution; the Archbishop of Milan had blessed it; the parish priests of the city and of the country round about had rung their bells and 5 spread the alarm, and some had even preached in its support. The parish priest of Paderno had led the people in an attack on the Austrians; a priest was wounded at Porta Tosa, and even the women, so great was the excitement, took part in the com- 10 bat. One Louisa Battistotti, in the uniform of a fusilier, never abandoned her weapons for five days. All the contemporary writers testify to the inde- scribable cruelty of the Austrians, Bodies of many children were found, and women and men were 15 murdered and burned. The list of their names is given by Tivaroni, and in it are those of thirty wo- men. It is greatly to the credit of Milan, that the wounded and sick and the families of the Austrian soldiers and functionaries remaining in Milan were 20 unmolested. The Austrians were doubtless ren- dered less averse to the evacuation of Milan by the reflection that the arrival of their re-enforcements and the want of military organization among the Milanese would facilitate the recapture of the city. 25 The tenacity with which Radetzky clung to his posi- tion had more of military amour propre than strategi- cal importance. If the country districts had risen, to be shut up in Milan would have been destruction; if the country surrendered, Milan was easy to cap- 30 ture; and while the heroism of Milan remains undi- minished in its luster, the lengthened resistance of the garrison was superfluous from the military point of view. THE FIVE DA YS IN MILAN. 107 In the country round about, the movement in sympathy with the insurrection in Milan varied greatly. Some sections caught the inspiration of combat, others remained absolutely lethargic. Had 5 the rising been general, the position of the Austri- ans would have been serious, and the retreat of the garrison of Milan might have been easily turned into a surrender. At Mantua a movement was at- tempted, but through want of union the Austrian 10 garrison was able to maintain its position. At Piz- zighettone the little garrison surrendered the forti- fications, but Brescia was the only important for- tress which followed the example of Milan. At Brescia the insurrectionary organization had 15 always been combined with the plan of co-operating with the Piedmontese whenever that should be pos- sible. On the 2ist of March the insurrection broke out. The city, after a short struggle, fell into the hands of the people, and the defense was organized 20 by exiles who had returned from Turin. On the 22d, the soldiers of an Italian regiment in the Aus- trian garrison of Brescia joined the people and sum- moned Schwartzenburg to surrender. Having cap- tured the arsenal and two barracks with a loss of 25 ten killed and thirty-five wounded, they permitted the Austrians to retire to the Oglio with four thou- sand men, where they protected the retreat of Radetzky, while another party of the insurgents captured a convoy of ammunition coming from 30 Verona. The rising of Brescia was followed by similar movements in Monza, Como and other Lombard cities. — The Union of Italy. Notes. — This specimen illustrates the impersonal type of I08 NARRATION. historical narrative. Nothing is more characteristic of a trained narrator than his ability to write, now with the personal force of an eyewitness, now with the impersonal force of events themselves. The two modes may be illus- trated from the works of the same author ; Dr. Stillman's 5 "The Subjective of It," or his "Experience in a Greek Quarantine"' may be contrasted with the present selec- tion. The impersonal quality of this is traceable not merely to third persons singular and plural. It springs in part from vivid rapidity of narration, which holds the reader's atten- lo tion to the events themselves. In part, too, it arises from moderation of statement, the acKr]ci^ of which the late Mr. Pater was fond of speaking. Further, it is increased by an interpretation of the historical causes of the uprising. Being stated first, these causes shed light on each step 15 of the ensuing narrative. 31.— ^be Discovers ot a Secret. GEORGE MEREDITH. Starting from the Hall a few minutes before Dr. Middleton and Sir Willoughby had entered the drawing room over-night, Vernon parted company with Colonel de Craye at the park gates, and be- 20 took himself to the cottage of the Dales, where nothing had been heard of his wanderer; and he re- ceived the same disappointing reply from Dr. Cor- ney, out of the bedroom window of the genial phy- sician, whose astonishment at his covering so long 25 a stretch of road at night for news of a boy like Crossjay — gifted with the lives of a cat — became violent and rapped Punchlike blows on the window > Both in ' The Old Rome and the New " (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). THE DISCOVERY OF A SECRET. log sill at Vernon's refusal to take shelter and rest. Vernon's excuse was that he had " no one but that fellow to care for," and he strode off, naming a farm five miles distant. Dr. Corney howled an invitation 5 to early breakfast to him, in the event of his passing on his way back, and retired to bed to think of him. The result of a variety of conjectures caused him to set Vernon down as Miss Middleton's knight, and he felt a strong compassion for his poor friend. lo" Though," thought he, "a hopeless attachment is as pretty an accompaniment to the tune of life as a gentleman might wish to have, for it's one of those big doses of discord which make all the minor ones fit in like an agreeable harmony, and so he shuffles 15 along as pleasantly as the fortune-favored, when they come to compute! " Sir Willoughby was the fortune-favored in the little doctor's mind; that high-stepping gentleman having wealth, and public consideration, and the £omost ravishing young lady in the world for a bride. Still, though he reckoned all these advantages en- joyed by Sir Willoughby at their full value, he could imagine the ultimate balance of good fortune to be in favor of Vernon. But to do so, he had to reduce 25 the whole calculation to the extreme abstract, and feed his lean friend, as it were, on dew and roots; and the happy effect for Vernon lay in a distant fu- ture, on the borders of old age, where he was to be blessed with his lady's regretful preference, and re- sojoice in the fruits of good constitutional habits. The reviewing mind was Irish. Sir Willoughby was a character of man profoundly opposed to Dr. Corney 's nature; the latter's instincts bristled with antagonism — not to his race, for Vernon was of the no NARRATION. same race, partly of the same blood, and Corney loved him: the type of person was the annoyance. And the circumstance of its prevailing successful- ness in the country where he was placed, while it held him silent as if under a law, heaped stores of 5 insurgency in the Celtic bosom. Corney contem- plating Sir Willoughby, and a trotting kern lass governed by Strongbow, have a point of likeness between them ; with the point of difference that Cor- ney was enlightened to know of a friend better 10 adapted for eminent station, and especially better adapted to please a lovely lady; could these high- bred English women but be taught to conceive an- other idea of manliness than the formal carved-in- wood idol of their national worship! 15 Dr. Corney breakfasted very early, without see- ing Vernon. He was off to a patient while the first lark of the morning caroled above, and the business of the day, not yet fallen upon men in the shape of cloud, was happily intermixed with nature's hues 20 and pipings. Turning off the high-road up a green lane, an hour later, he beheld a youngster prying into a hedge head and arms, by the peculiar strenu- ous twist of whose hinder parts, indicative of a frame plunged on the pursuit in hand, he clearly 25 distinguished young Crossjay. Out came eggs. The doctor pulled up. "What bird?" he bellowed. " Yellowhammer," Crossjay yelled back. " Now, sir, you'll drop a couple of those eggs in 30 the nest." " Don't order me," Crossjay was retorting. " Oh, it's you. Dr. Corney. Good-morning. I said that, because I always do drop a couple back. THE DISCOVERY OF A SECRET. m I promised Mr. Whitford I would, and Miss Mid- dleton too." "Had breakfast?" " Not yet." 5 "Not hungry?" " I should be if I thought about it." " Jump up." " I think I'd rather not, Doctor Corney." " And you'll just do what Doctor Corney tells lo you ; and set your mind on rashers of curly fat bacon and sweetly smoking coffee, toast, hot cakes, mar- malade, and damson jam. Wide go the fellow's nostrils, and there's water at the dimples of his mouth! Up, my man." 15 Crossjay jumped up beside the doctor, who re- marked, as he touched his horse: " I don't want a man this morning, though I'll enlist you in my serv- ice if I do. You're fond of Miss Middleton?" Instead of answering, Crossjay heaved a sigli of 20 love that bears a burden. " And so am I," pursued the doctor. " You'll have to put up with a rival. It's worse than fond: I'm in love with her. How do you like that? " " I don't mind how many hve her," said Cross- 25 jay. " You're worthy of a gratuitous breakfast in the front parlor of the best hotel of the place they call Arcadia. And how about your bed last night? " " Pretty middling." 30 " Hard, was it, where the bones haven't cushion?" " I don't care for bed. A couple of hours, and that's enough for me." " But you're fond of Miss Middleton anyhow, and that's a virtue." 112 NARRATION. To his great surprise, Dr. Comey beheld two big round tears force their way out of this tough young- ster's eyes, and all the while the boy's face was proud. Crossjay said, when he could trust himself to dis- 5 join his lips: " I want to see Mr. Whitford." " Have you got news for him? " " I've something to ask him. It's about what I ought to do." " Then, my boy, you have the right name ad- lo dressed in the wrong direction; for I found you turning your shoulders on Mr. Whitford. And he has been out of his bed hunting you all the unholy night you've made it for him. That's melancholy. What do you say to asking my advice? " 15 Crossjay sighed. " I can't speak to anybody but Mr. Whitford." " And you're hot to speak to him? " " I want to." " And I found you running away from him. 20 You're a curiosity, Mr. Crossjay Patterne." "Ah! so'd anybody be who knew as much as I do," said Crossjay, with a sober sadness that caused the doctor to treat him seriously. "The fact is," he said, " Mr. Whitford is beating 25 the country for you. My best plan will be to drive you to the Hall." " I'd rather not go to the Hall," Crossjay spoke resolutely. " You won't see Miss Middleton anywhere but at 30 the Hall." " I don't want to see Miss Middleton, if I can't be a bit of use to her." " No danger threatening the lady, is there? " THE DISCOVERY OF A SECRET. 113 Cross jay treated the question as if it had not been put. " Now, tell me," said Dr. Corney, " would there be a chance for me, supposing Miss Middleton were i disengaged? " The answer was easy. " I'm sure she wouldn't." "And why, sir, are you so cocksure?" There was no saying; but the doctor pressed for it, and at last Crossjay gave his opinion that she 10 would take Mr. Whitford. The doctor asked why; and Crossjay said it was because Mr. Whitford was the best man in the world. To which, with a lusty " Amen to that," Dr. Corney remarked : " I should have fancied 15 Colonel de Craye would have had the first chance; he's more of a lady's man." Crossjay surprised him again by petulantly say- ing: " Don't." The boy added : " I don't want to talk, except 20 about birds and things. What a jolly morning it is! I saw the sun rise. No rain to-day. You're right about hungry. Dr. Corney ! " The kindly little man swung his whip. Crossjay informed him of his disgrace at the Hall, and of 25 every incident connected with it, from the tramp to the baronet, save Miss Middleton's adventure and the night scene in the drawing-room. A strong smell of something left out struck Dr. Corney, and he said: " You'll not let Miss Middleton know of my 30 affection. After all, it's only a little bit of love. But, as Patrick said to Kathleen, when she owned to such a little bit, ' That's the best bit of all ! ' and he was as right as I am about hungry." Crpssjay scorned to talk of loving, he declared. 114 NARRATION. " I never tell Miss Middleton what I feel. Why, there's Miss Dale's cottage! " " It's nearer to your empty inside than my man- sion," said the doctor, " and we'll stop just to inquire whether a bed's to be had for you there to-night, 5 and if not, I'll have you with me, and bottle you, and exhibit you, for you're a rare specimen. Breakfast you may count on from Mr. Dale. I spy a gentleman." " It's Colonel de Craye." 10 " Come after news of you." "I wonder!" " Miss Middleton sends him ; of course she does." Crossjay turned his full face to the doctor. " I haven't seen her for such a long time! But he saw 15 me last night, and he might have told her that, if she's anxious. Good-morning, colonel. I've had a good walk, and a capital drive, and I'm as hungry as the boat's crew of Captain Bligh." He jumped down. 20 The colonel and the doctor saluted, smiling. " I've rung the bell," said De Craye. A maid came to the gate, and upon her steps ap- peared Miss Dale, who flung herself at Crossjay, mingling kisses and reproaches. She scarcely 25 raised her face to the colonel more than to reply to his greeting, and excuse the hungry boy for hurry- ing indoors to breakfast. " I'll wait," said De Craye. He had seen that she was paler than usual. So had Dr. Corney; and 30 the doctor called to her concerning her father's health. She reported that he had not yet risen, and took Crossjay to herself. "That's well," said the doctor, "if the invalid THE DISCOVERY OF A SECRET. I15 sleeps long. The lady is not looking- so well, though. But ladies vary; they show the mind on the counte- nance, for want of the punching we meet with to conceal it; they're like military flags for a funeral or 5 a gala; one day furled, and next day streaming. Men are ships' figure-heads, about the same for a storm or a calm, and not too handsome, thanks to the ocean. It's an age since we encountered last, col- onel: on board the Dublin boat, I recollect, and a 10 night it was ! " " I recollect that you set me on my legs, doctor." "Ah! and you'll please to notify that Corney's no quack at sea, by favor of the monks of the Char- treuse, whose elixir has power to still the waves. 15 And we hear that miracles are done with!" " Roll a physician and a monk together, doctor! " " True : it '11 be a miracle if they combine. Though the cure of the soul is often the entire and total cure of the body; and it's maliciously 20 said that the body given over to our treatment is a signal to set the soul flying. Well, perhaps we do manage somehow to work in common, without sticking. He did that night. By the way, colonel, that boy has a trifle on his mind." 25 " I suppose he has been worrying a farmer or a gamekeeper." " Try him. You'll find him tight. He's got Miss Middleton on the brain. There's a bit of a se- cret; and he's not so cheerful about it." 30 " We'll see," said the colonel. Dr. Corney nodded. "I have to visit my patient here presently. I'm too early for him ; so I'll make a call or two on the lame birds that are up,' he re- marked, and drove away. Il6 NARRATION. De Craye strolled through the garden. He was a gentleman of those actively perceptive wits which, if ever they reflect, do so by hops and jumps: upon some dancing mirror within, we may fancy. He penetrated a plot in a flash; and in a flash he formed 5 one; but in both cases, it was after long hovering and not overeager deliberation, by the patient exer- cise of his quick perceptives. The fact that Cross- jay was considered to have Miss Middleton on the brain, threw a series of images of everything relat- 10 ing to Crossjay for the last forty hours into relief before him; and as he did not in the slightest degree speculate on any one of them, but merely shifted and surveyed them, the falcon that he was in spirit as well as in his handsome face leisurely allowed his 15 instinct to direct him where to strike. A reflective disposition has this danger in action, that it com- monly precipitates conjecture for the purpose of working upon probabilities with the methods and in the tracks to which it is accustomed; and to con- 20 jecture rashly is to play into the puzzles of the maze. He who can watch circling above it awhile, quietly viewing, and collecting in his eye, gathers matter that makes the secret thing discourse to the brain by weight and balance; he will get either the right 25 clew or none; more frequently none; but he will es- cape the entanglement of his own cleverness, he will always be nearer to the enigma than the guesser or the calculator, and he will retain a breadth of vis- ion forfeited by them. He must, however, to have 30 his chance of success, be actually besides calmly perceptive, a reader of features, audacious at the proper moment. De Craye wished to look at Miss Dale. She had THE DISCOVERY OF A SECRET. 1 1? returned home very suddenly, not, as it appeared, owing to her father's illness; and he remembered a redness of her eyelids when he passed her on the corridor one night. She sent Crossjay out to him 5 as soon as the boy was well filled. He sent Cross- jay back with a request. She did not yield to it im- mediately. She stepped to the front door reluc- tantly, and seemed disconcerted. De Craye begged for a message to Miss Middleton. There was none loto give. He persisted. But there was really none at present, she said. " You won't intrust me with the smallest word? " said he, and set her visibly thinking whether she could dispatch a word. She could not; she had no 15 heart for messages. " I shall see her in a day or two. Colonel de Craye." " She will miss you severely." " We shall soon meet." 20 "And poor Willoughby! " Laetitia colored and stood silent. A butterfly of some rarity allured Crossjay. " I fear he has been doing mischief," she said. " I cannot get him to look at me." 25 " His appetite is good?" " Very good indeed." De Craye nodded. A boy with a noble appetite is never a hopeless lock. The colonel and Crossjay lounged over the gar- 30 den. " And now," said the colonel, " we'll see if we can't arrange a meeting between you and Miss Mid- dleton. You're a lucky fellow, for she's always thinking of you." Il8 NARRATION. " I know I'm always thinking of her," said Cross- jay. " If ever you're in a scrape, she's the person you must go to." " Yes, if I know where she is! " 5 " Why, generally she'll be at the Hall." There was no reply; Crossjay's dreadful secret jumped to his throat. He certainly was a weaker lock for being lull of breakfast." " I want to see Mr. Whitford so much," he lo said. " Something to tell him? " " I don't know what to do: I don't understand it! " The secret wriggled to his mouth. He swal- lowed it down. " Yes, I want to talk to Mr. Whit- 15 ford." " He's another of Miss Middleton's friends." " I know he is. He's true steel." " We're all her friends, Crossjay. I flatter my- self I'm a Toledo when I'm wanted. How long had 20 you been in the house last night before you ran into me? " " I don't know, sir; I fell asleep for some time, and then I woke " " Where did you find )'ourself ? " 25 " I was in the drawing room." " Come, Crossjay, you're not a fellow to be scared by ghosts. You looked it when you made a dash at my midriff." " I don't believe there are such things. Do you, 30 colonel? You can't!" "There's no saying. We'll hope not; for it wouldn't be fair fighting. A man with a ghost to back him 'd beat anv ten. We couldn't box him or THE DISCOVERY OF A SECRET. 119 play cards, or stand a chance with him as a rival in love. Did you, now, catch a sight of a ghost? " "They weren't ghosts! " Crossjay said what he was sure of, and his voice pronounced his convic- 5 tion. " I doubt whether Miss Middleton is particularly happy," remarked the colonel. "Why?" " Why, you upset her, you know, now and then." lo The boy swelled. " I'd do — I'd go — I wouldn't have her unhappy It's that! that's it! And I don't know what I ought to do. I wish I could see Mr. Whitford." " You get into such headlong scrapes, my lad." 15 " I wasn't in any scrape yesterday." " So you made yourself up a comfortable bed in the drawing room? Luckily Sir Willoughby didn't see you." "He didn't, though!" 20 "A close shave, was it?" " I was under a covering of something silk." " He woke you? " " I suppose he did. I heard him." " Talking? " 25 " He was talking." " What! talking to himself? " " No." The secret threatened Crossjay to be out or suffo- cate him. 30 De Craye gave him a respite. " You like Sir Willoughby, don't you? " Crossjay produced a still-born afifirmative. "He's kind to you," said the colonel; "he'll set you up and look after your interests." I20 NARRATION. " Yes, I like him," said Crossjay, with his cus- tomary rapidity in touching the subject; " I like him; he's kind and all that, and tips and plays with you, and all that; but I never can make out why he wouldn't see my father when my father came here 5 to see him ten miles, and had to walk back ten miles in the rain, to go by rail a long way, down home, as far as Devonport, because Sir Willoughby wouldn't see him, though he was at home, my father saw. We all thought it so odd; and my father wouldn't 10 let us talk much about it. My father's a very brave man." " Captain Patterne is as brave a man as ever lived," said De Craye. *' I'm positive you'd like him, colonel." 15 " I know of his deeds, and I admire him, and that's a good step to liking." He warmed the boy's thoughts of his father. " Because, what they say at home is, a little bread and cheese, and a glass of ale, and a rest, to a poor 20 man — lots of great houses will give you that, and we wouldn't have asked for more than that. My sis- ters say they think Sir Willoughby must be selfish. He's awfully proud; and perhaps it was because my father wasn't dressed well enough. But what can 25 we do? We're very poor at home, and lots of us, and all hungry. My father says he isn't paid very well for his services to the Government. He's only a marine." " He's a hero! " said De Craye. 3° " He came home very tired, with a cold, and had a doctor. But Sir Willoughby did send him money, and mother wished to send it back, and my father said she was not like a woman — with our big fam- THE DISCOVERY OF A SECRET. 12 1 ily. He said he thought Sir Willoughby an ex- traordinary man." *' Not at all ; very common ; indigenous," said De Craye. " The art of cutting is one of the branches 5 of a polite education in this country, and you'll have to learn it, if you expect to be looked on as a gen- tleman and a Patterne, my boy. I begin to see how it is Miss Middleton takes to you so. Follow her directions. But I hope you did not listen to a pri- lovate conversation. Miss Middleton would not ap- prove of that." " Colonel de Craye, how could I help myself? I heard a lot before I knew what it was." — The Egoist. Notes. — This narrative is introduced, not for its structure, 15 but for its method of character-drawing. Since a tree is known by its fruits and a man by his deeds, the most vivid of all methods of characterization is stage-acting, and next to it stage-dialogue. Mr. Marion Crawford has maintained that the business of fictitious narrative is to 20 imitate the effects of the stage ; that the novel is properly a sort of pocket-theater. This means that a story should have much action, that this should grow out of and reveal character, that the dialogue should serve a similar purpose, and that the descriptive and expository parts of the story 25 should amount to no more than stage-directions. Modern novelists differ on the last point. In the works of Tolstoi and Turgenieff the digressive, expository comment is scanty ; in those of George Eliot and Mr. Henry James it is over-abundant. The passage from Mr. Meredith has 30 some action and much dramatic dialogue ; but it has also a large share of stage-directions in the form of descriptive narration and of analysis. Some of the time the dialogue is printed almost as in a play, or even without assignment to the respective speakers. Sometimes, to flash a light on 35 character or really to advance the story, there is cotnment »22 NARRATION. in soliction — little phrases that say much. At other times there are whole paragraphs of psychological analysis, cotnjnent in bulk, almost to the degree of digression. When these paragraphs are brilliant we enjoy them, but comment in bulk is dangerous work for any save the great. Its true province is to expose mental states which are not readily symbolized in action or dialogue. Such states there undoubtedly are, and that is why stage-effects are so limited and t^ie analytic novel so unfettered ; yet Shaks- pere managed with action and dialogue merely. 32— ZTbe Deatb of tbe Daupbin.' ALPHONSE DAUDET. The little Dauphin is ill; the little Dauphin is dy- ing. In all the churches of the kingdom the Holy Sacrament remains exposed night and day, and great tapers burn, for the recovery of the royal child. The streets of the old capital are sad and 15 silent, the bells ring no more, the carriages slacken their pace. In the neighborhood of the palace the curious townspeople gaze through the railings upon the beadles with gilded paunches, who converse in the courts and put on important airs. 20 All the castle is in a flutter. Chamberlains and major-domos run up and down the marble stair- ways. The galleries are full of pages and of cour- tiers in silken apparel, who hurry from one group to another, begging in low tones for news. Upon 25 the wide perrons the maids of honor, in tears- ex- change low courtesies and wipe their eyes with daintily embroidered handkerchiefs. 'Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from "Pastels ip Prose," copyright, 1890, by liarper & Brothers. THE DEATH OF THE DAUPHIN. 123 A large assemblage of robed physicians has gath- ered in the Orangery. They can be seen through the panes waving their long black sleeves and in- clining their periwigs with professional gestures. 5 The governor and the equerry of the little Dauphin walk up and down before the door awaiting the de- cision of the Faculty. Scullions pass by without saluting them. The equerry swears like a pagan; the governor quotes verses from Horace. 10 And meanwhile, over there, in the direction of the stables, is heard a long and plaintive neighing; it is the little Dauphin's sorrel, forgotten by the hostlers, and calling sadly before his empty manger. And the King? Where is his Highness the ^5 King? The King has locked himself up in a room at the other end of the castle. Majesties do not like to be seen weeping. For the Queen it is different. Sitting by the bedside of the little Dauphin, she bows her fair face, bathed in tears, and sobs very 20 loudly before everybody, like a mere draper's wife. On the bed embroidered with lace the little Dau- phin, whiter than the pillows on which he is ex- tended, lies with closed eyes. They think that he is 7.5 asleep; but no, the little Dauphin is not asleep. He turns towards his mother, and seeing her tears, he asks: " Madame la Reine, why do you weep? Do you really believe that I am going to die? " 30 The Queen tries to answer. Sobs prevent her from speaking. " Do not weep, Madame la Reine. You forget that I am the Dauphin, and that Dauphins cannot die thus." 124 NARRATION. The Queen sobs more violently, and the little Dauphin begins to feel frightened. " Holloa ! " says he, " I do not want Death to come and take me away, and I know how to prevent him from coming here. Order up on the spot forty of 5 the strongest lansquenets to keep guard around our bed! Have a hundred big cannons watch day and night, with lighted fuses, under our windows! And woe to Death if he dares to come near us! " In order to humor the royal child, the Queen 10 makes a sign. On the spot the great cannons are heard rolling in the courts, and forty tall lansque- nets, with halberds in their fists, draw up around the room. They are all veterans, with grizzly mus- taches. The little Dauphin claps his hands on see- 15 ing them. He recognizes one, and calls : " Lorrain ! Lorrain ! " The veteran makes a step towards the bed. " I love you well, my old Lorrain. Let me see your big sword. If Death wants to fetch me, you 20 will kill him, won't you?" Lorrain answers: " Yes, Monseigneur." 'And two great tears roll down his tanned cheeks. At that moment the chaplain approaches the little 25 Dauphin, and pointing to the crucifix, talks to him in low tones. The little Dauphin listens with astonished air; then, suddenly interrupting him: " I understand well what you are saying, Mon- 30 sieur I'Abbe; but still, couldn't my little friend Beppo die in my place, if I gave him plenty of money? " The chaplain continues to talk to him in low THE DEATH OF THE DAUPHIN. 1 25 tones, and the little Dauphin looks more and more astonished. When the chaplain has finished, the little Dau- phin resumes, with a heavy sigh : 5 " What you have said is all very sad. Monsieur I'Abbe ; but one thing consoles me, and that is that up there, in the Paradise of the stars, I shall still be the Dauphin. I know that the good God is my cousin, and cannot fail to treat me according to my 10 rank." Then he adds, turning towards his mother: " Bring me my fairest clothes, my doublet of white ermine, and my pumps of velvet! I wish to look brave to the angels, and to enter Paradise in 15 the dress of a Dauphin." A third time the chaplain bends over the little Dauphin, and talks to him in low tones. In the midst of his discourse the royal child interrupts him angrily. 20 " Why, then," he cries, " to be Dauphin is noth- ing at ail!" And refusing to listen to anything more, the lit- tle Dauphin turns towards the wall and weeps bit- terly. 25 Notes. — Clever as Mr. George Meredith's method o£ narrative undeniably is, we cannot help feeling that Alphonse Daudet's in this pastel is distinctly better. Daudet's story is without comment ; it is quite without psychological analysis, beyond the one harmless generaliza- 3otion that " Majesties do not like to be seen weeping." In a word, Daudet's method is here pure drama. The material and purpose are of course simple, not complex like Meredith's ; but there is something very fine in the silent eloquence of the acts. The equerrj- swears, the 126 NARRATION. governor quotes Horace ; you may draw your own conclu- sions as to character from such facts existing under such circumstances. The queen sobs "like a mere draper's wife," but no overt moral is pointed out. The royal boy thinks he can scare away death by a bold front and the 5 help of his lansquenets ; you pity the brave child who is about to go into the great darkness alone, and your pity is not interrupted by a signboard generalization on the sad equality of men. The chaplain talks to the dying child, and you know what he says only by the little Dauphin's ic despairing cry, and his turning toward the wall. You are enraged at the thought of the court whose worldliness is to blame for the child's awful illusion, and for his awful disillusionment z>? extremis. The king has hid him- self ; well he may. All this you think and feel, — and j - yet Daudet has done no more than to state acts and results with the perfect simplicity which is the flower of art. CHAPTER III. EXPOSITION. 33.— JTbe /IftetboD of Scientific 1[nv>estlgatlon.» THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of work- ing of the human mind. It is simply the mode at which all phenomena are reasoned about, rendered 5 precise and exact. There is no more difference, but there is just the same kind of difference, be- tween the mental operations of a man of science and those of an ordinary person, as there is between the operations and methods of a baker or of a butcher lo weighing out his goods in common scales, and the operations of a chemist in performing a difficult and complex analysis by means of his balance and finely graduated weights. It is not that the action of the scales in the one case, and the balance in the other, 15 differ in the principles of their construction or man- ner of working; but the beam of one is set on an in- finitely finer axis than the other, and of course turns by the addition of a much smaller weight. You will understand this better, perhaps, if I give 20 you some familiar example. You have all heard it repeated, I dare say, that men of science work by > Reprinted from " Darwiniana," by permission of Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. I?7 128 EXPOSITION. means of induction and deduction, and that by the help of these operations, they, in a sort of sense, wring from Nature certain other things, which are called natural laws, and causes, and that out of these, by some cunning skill of their own, they build 5 up hypotheses and theories. And it is imagined by many, that the operations of the common mind can be by no means compared with these processes, and that they have to be acquired by a sort of special apprenticeship to the craft. To hear all these large 10 words, you would think that the mind of a man of science must be constituted differently from that of his fellow men ; but if you will not be frightened by terms, you will discover that you are quite wrong, and that all these terrible apparatus are being used 15 by yourselves every day and every hour of your lives. There is a well-known incident in one of Moliere's plays, where the author makes the hero express unbounded delight on being told that he 20 had been talking prose during the whole of his life. In the same way, I trust, that you will take comfort, and be delighted with yourselves, on the discovery that you have been acting on the prin- ciples of inductive and deductive philosophy during 25 the same period. Probably there is not one here who has not in the course of the day had occasion to set in motion a complex train of reasoning, of the very same kind, though differing of course in degree, as that which a scientific man goes through 30 in tracing the causes of natural phenomena. A very trivial circumstance will serve to exem- plify this. Suppose you go into a fruiterer's shop, wanting an apple, — you take up one, and, on bit- ME THOD OF SCIENTIFIC IN VE STIC A TION 1 2 9 ing it, you find it is sour; you look at it, and see that it is hard and green. You take up another one, and that too is hard, green, and sour. The shop- man offers you a third; but, before biting it, you ex- 5 amine it, and find that it is hard and green, and you immediately say that you will not have it, as it must be sour, like those that you have already tried. Nothing can be more simple than that, you think ; lo but if you will take the trouble to analyse and trace out into its logical elements what has been done by the mind, you will be greatly surprised. In the first place, you have performed the operation of induc- tion. You found that, in two experiences, hardness 15 and greenness in apples went together with sour- ness. It was so in the first case, and it was confirmed by the second. True, it is a very small basis, but still it is enough to make an induction from; you generalize the facts, and you expect to 20 find sourness in apples where you get hardness and greenness. You found upon that a general law, that all hard and green apples are sour; and that, so far as it goes, is a perfect induction. Well, having got your natural law in this way, when you 25 are offered another apple which you find is hard and green, you say, " All hard and green apples are sour; this apple is hard and green, therefore this apple is sour." That train of reasoning is what logicians call a syllogism, and has all its various 30 parts and terms, — its major premiss, its minor premiss, and its conclusion. And, by the help of further reasoning, which, if drawn out, would have to be exhibited in two or three other syllogisms, you arrive at your final determination, " I will not X30 EXPOSITION. have that apple." So that, you see, you have, in the first place, established a law by induction, arid upon that you have founded a deduction, and rea- . soned out the special conclusion of the particular case. Well now, suppose, having got your law, 5 that at some time afterwards, you are discussing the qualities of apples with a friend: you will say to him, " It is a very curious thing, — but I find that all hard and green apples are sour!" Your friend says to you, " But how do you know that? " You at onceio reply, " Oh, because I have tried them over and over again, and have always found them to be so." Well, if we were talking science instead of common sense, we should call that an experimental verifica- tion. And, if still opposed, you go further, and 15 say, " I have heard from the people in Somerset- shire and Devonshire, where a large number of ap- ples are grown, that they have observed the same thing. It is also found to be the case in Normandy, and in North America. In short, I find it to be the 20 universal experience of mankind wherever attention has been directed to the subject." Whereupon, your friend, unless he is a very unreasonable man, agrees with you, and is convinced that you are quite right in the conclusion you have drawn. He be- 25 lieves, although perhaps he does not know he be- lieves it, that the more extensive verifications are, — that the more frequently experiments have been made, and results of the same kind arrived at, — that the more varied the conditions under which the 30 same results are attained, the more certain is the ultimate conclusion, and he disputes the question no further. He sees that the experiment has been tried under all sorts of conditions, as to time, place, METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGA TION. 13 1 and people, with the same result; and he says with you, therefore, that the law you have laid down must be a good one, and he must believe it. In science we do the same thing; — the philoso- 5 pher exercises precisely the same faculties, though in a much more delicate manner. In scientific in- quiry it becomes a matter of duty to expose a sup- posed law to every possible kind of verification, and to take care, moreover, that this is done intention- loally, and not left to a mere accident, as in the case of the apples. And in science, as in common life, our confidence in a law is in exact proportion to the absence of variation in the result of our experi- mental verifications. For instance, if you let go 15 your grasp of an article you may have in your hand, it will immediately fall to the ground. That is a very common verification of one of the best estab- lished laws of nature — that of gravitation. The method by which men of science establish the ex- zoistence of that law is exactly the same as that by which we have established the trivial proposition about the sourness of hard and green apples. But we believe it in such an extensive, thorough, and unhesitating manner because the universal experi- 25 ence of mankind verifies it, and we can verify it ourselves at any time; and that is the strongest pos- sible foundation on which any natural law can rest. So much, then, by way of proof that the method of 30 establishing laws in science is exactly the same as that pursued in common life. Let us now turn to another matter (though really it is but another phase of the same question), and that is, the method by which, from the relations of certain phenomena, 132 EXPOSITION. we prove that some stand in the position of causes towards the others. I want to put the case clearly before you, and I will therefore show you what I mean by another familiar example. I will suppose that one of you, 5 on coming down in the morning to the parlor of your house, finds that a tea-pot and some spoons which had been left in the room on the previous evening are gone, — the window is open, and you observe the mark of a dirty hand on the window- 10 frame, and perhaps, in addition to that, you notice the impress of a hob-nailed shoe on the gravel out- side. All these phenomena have struck your atten- tion instantly, and before two seconds have passed you say, " Oh, somebody has broken open the win- 15 dow, entered the room, and run off with the spoons and the tea-pot!" That speech is out of your mouth in a moment. And you will probably add, " I know there has; I am quite sure of it! " You mean to say exactly what you know; but in reality 20 you are giving expression to what is, in all essen- tial particulars, an hypothesis. You do not know it at all; it is nothing but an hypothesis rapidly framed in your own mind. And it is an hypothesis founded on a long train of inductions and deduc- 25 tions. What are those inductions and deductions, and how have you got at this hypothesis? You have observed, in the first place, that the window is open; but by a train of reasoning involving many indue- 30 tions and deductions, you have probably arrived long before at the general law — and a very good one it is — that windows do not open of themselves; and you therefore conclude that something has METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION. I33 opened the window. A second general law that you have arrived at in the same way is, that tea- pots and spoons do not go out of a window sponta- neously, and you are satisfied that, as they are not 5 now where you left them, they have been removed. In the third place, you look at the marks on the window-sill, and the shoe-marks outside, and you say that in all previous experience the former kind of mark has never been produced by anything else lobut the hand of a human being; and the same ex- perience shows that no other animal but man at present wears shoes with hob-nails in them such as would produce the marks in the gravel. I do not know, even if we could discover any of those " miss- is ing links " that are talked about, that they would help us to any other conclusion! At any rate the law which states our present experience is strong enough for my present purpose. You next reach the conclusion that, as these kind of marks have not 20 been left by any other animal than men, or are lia- ble to be formed in any other way than a man's hand and shoe, the marks in question have been formed by a man in that way. You have, further, a general law, founded on observation and experi- 35 ence, and that, too, is, I am sorry to say, a very uni- versal and unimpeachable one, — that some men are thieves; and you assume at once from all these premisses — and that is what constitutes your hy- pothesis — that the man who made the marks outside 30 and on the window-sill, opened the window, got into the room, and stole your tea-pot and spoons. You have now arrived at a vera causa; — you have as- sumed a cause which, it is plain, is competent to produce all the phenomena you have observed, 134 EXPOSITION. You can explain all these phenomena only by the hypothesis of a thief. But that is a hypothetical conclusion, of the justice of which you have no ab- solute proof at all; it is only rendered highly proba- ble by a series of inductive and deductive reason- 5 ings. I suppose your first action, assuming that you are a man of ordinary common sense, and that you have established this hypothesis to your own satisfaction, will very likely be to go off for the police, and set 10 them on the track of the burglar, with the view to the recovery of your property. But just as you are starting with this object, some person comes in, and on learning what you are about, says, " My good friend, you are going on a great deal too fast. 15 How do you know that the man who really made the marks took the spoons? It might have been a monkey that took them, and the man may have merely looked in afterwacds." You would proba- bly reply, " Well, that is all very well, but you see 20 it is contrary to all experience of the way tea-pots and spoons are abstracted; so that, at any rate, your hypothesis is less probable than mine." While you are talking the thing over in this way, another friend arrives, one of the good kind of people that I was 25 talking of a little while ago. And he might say, " Oh, my dear sir, you are certainly going on a great deal too fast. You are most presumptuous. You admit that all these occurrences took place when you were fast asleep, at a time when you could 30 not possibly have known anything about what was taking place. How do you know that the laws of Nature are not suspended during the night? It may be that there has been some kind of super- METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION. 135 natural interference in this case." In point of fact, he declares that your hypothesis is one of which you cannot at all demonstrate the truth, and that you are by no means sure that the laws of Nature are the 5 same when you are asleep as when you are awake. Well, now, you cannot at the moment answer that kind of reasoning. You feel that your worthy friend has you somewhat at a disadvantage. You will feel perfectly convinced in your own mind, how- 10 ever, that you are quite right, and you say to him, *' My good friend, I can only be guided by the natu- ral probabilities of the case, and if you will be kind enough to stand aside and permit me to pass, I will go and fetch the police." Well, we will sup- 15 pose that your journey is successful, and that by good luck you meet with a policeman; that eventu- ally the burglar is found with your property on his person, and the marks correspond to his hand and to his boots. Probably any jury would consider 2o those facts a very good experimental verification of your hypothesis, touching the cause of the abnormal phenomena observed in your parlor, and would act accordingly. Now, in this supposititious case, I have taken phe- 25 nomena of a very common kind, in order that you might see what are the different steps in an ordi- nary process of reasoning, if you will only take the trouble to analyze it carefully. All the operations I have described, you will see, are involved in the 30 mind of any man of sense in leading him to a con- clusion as to the course he should take in order to make good a robbery and punish the offender. I say that you are led, in that case, to your conclusion by exactly the same train of reasoning as that which IS6 ' EXPOSITION. a man of science pursues when he is endeavoring to discover the origin and laws of the most occult phenomena. The process is, and always must be, the same; and precisely the same mode of reasoning was employed by Newton and Laplace in their en- 5 deavors to discover and define the causes of the movements of the heavenly bodies, as you, with your own common sense, would employ to detect a burglar. The only difference is, that the nature of the inquiry being more abstruse, every step has to 10 be most carefully watched, so that there may not be a single crack or flaw in your hypothesis. A flaw or crack in many of the hypotheses of daily life may be of little or no moment as affecting the general correctness of the conclusions at which we may ar- 15 rive; but, in a scientific inquiry, a fallacy, great or small, is always of importance, and is sure to be in the long run constantly productive of mischievous, if not fatal results. Do not allow yourselves to be misled by the com- 20 mon notion that an hypothesis is untrustworthy simply because it is an hypothesis. It is often urged, in respect to some scientific conclusion, that, after all, it is only an hypothesis. But what more have we to guide us in nine-tenths of the most im-25 portant affairs of daily life than hypotheses, and often very ill-based ones? So that in science, where the evidence of an hypothesis is subjected to the most rigid examination, we may rightly pursue the same course. You may have hypotheses and hypotheses. 30 A man may say, if he likes, that the moon is made of green cheese: that is an hypothesis. But another man, who has devoted a great deal of time and at- tention to the subject, and availed himself of the METHOD OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION. 137 most powerful telescopes and the results of the ob- servations of others, declares that in his opinion it is probably composed of materials very similar to those of which our own earth is made up: and that 5 is also only an hypothesis. But I need not tell you that there is an enormous difference in the value of the two hypotheses. That one which is based on sound scientific knowledge is sure to have a cor- responding value; and that which is a mere hasty lo random guess is likely to have but little value. Every great step in our progress in discovering causes has been made in exactly the same way as that which I have detailed to you. A person ob- serving the occurrence of certain facts and phe- 15 nomena asks, naturally enough, what process, what kind of operation known to occur in Nature applied to the particular case, will unravel and explain the mystery? Hence you have the scientific hypothe- sis; and its value will be proportionate to the care 20 and completeness with which its basis had been tested and verified. It is in these matters as in the commonest affairs of practical life: the guess of the fool v/ill be folly, while the guess of the wise man will contain wisdom. In all cases, you see that the 25 value of the result depends on the patience and faith- fulness with which the investigator applies to his hypothesis every possible kind of verification. Notes. — If, roughly speaking, we regard exposition as the explanation of general assertions, the merits of Hux- 30 ley's exposition become obvious. This passage is merely a very complete and lucid explanation of a single thought, namely that " The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of work- ing of the human mind." It is complete because the 138 EXPOSITION. author elaborates first one and then a second illustration of the principle. It is lucid because the diction is simple, the divisions of the whole subject are perfectly sharp, and the two illustrations are drawn from familiar sources. 34.— Eartb^TKHorms an& ^beir jpunction.' CHARLES DARWIN. Summary of the part which worms have played in the his- tory of the world — Their aid in the disintegration of rocks — In the denudation of the land — In the preservation of ancient remains — In the preparation of the soil for the growth of plants — Mental powers of worms — Conclusion. Worms have played a more important part in the 5 history of the world than most persons would at first suppose. In almost all humid countries they are extraordinarily numerous, and for their size pos- sess great muscular power. In many parts of Eng- land a weight of more than ten tons (10,516 kilo- 10 grammes) of dry earth annually passes through their bodies and is brought to the surface on each acre of land; so that the whole superficial bed of vege- table mold passes through their bodies in the course of every few years. From the collapsing of the old 15 burrows the mold is in constant though slow move'- ment, and the particles composing it are thus rubbed together. By these means fresh surfaces are con- tinually exposed to the action of the carbonic acid in the soil, and of the humus-acids which appear to 20 to be still more efficient in the decomposition of rocks. Q^ie generation of the humus-acids is prob- * Reprinted from " Vegetable Mould and Earth- Worms," by per- mission of Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. EARTH-WORMS AND THEIR FUNCTION. 139 ably hastened during the digestion of the many half- decayed leaves which worms consume. Thus the particles of earth, forming the superficial mold, are subjected to conditions eminently favorable for their 5 decomposition and disintegration. Moreover, the particles of the softer rocks suffer some amount of mechanical trituration in the muscular gizzards of worms, in which small stones serve as mill-stones. The finely levigated castings, when brought to the lo surface in a moist condition, flow during rainy weather down any moderate slope; and the smaller particles are washed far down even a gently inclined surface. Castings when dry often crumble into small pellets and these are apt to roll down any »5 sloping surface. Where the land is quite level and is covered with herbage, and where the climate is humid so that much dust cannot be blown away, it appears at first sight impossible th it there should be any appreciable amount of subacrial denudation ; 20 but worm castings are blown, especially whilst moist and viscid, in one uniform direction by the prevalent winds which are accompanied by rain. By these several means the superficial mold is pre- vented from accumulating to a great thickness; and 25 a thick bed of mold checks in many ways the disin- tegration of the underlying rocks and fragments of rock. The removal of worm castings by the above means leads to results which are far from insignif- 3oicant. It has been shown that a layer of earth, .2 of an inch in thickness, is in many places annually brought to the surface per acre ; and if a small part of this amount flows, or rolls, or is washed, even for a short distance down every inclined surface, or I40 EXPOSITION. is repeatedly blown in one direction, a great effect will be produced in the course of ages. It was found by measurements and calculations that on a surface with a mean inclination of 9° 26', 2.4 cubic inches of earth which had been ejected by worms 5 crossed, in the course of a year, a horizontal line one yard in length ; so that 240 cubic inches would cross a line 100 yards in length. This latter amount in a damp state would weigh 113^ pounds. Thus a con- siderable weight of earth is continually moving 10 down each side of every valley, and will in time reach its bed. Finally this earth will be transported by the streams flowing in the valleys into the ocean, the great receptacle for all matter denuded from the land. It is known from the amount of sediment an- i5 nually delivered into the sea by the Mississippi, that its enormous drainage-area must on an average be lowered .00263 of an inch each year ; and this would suffice in four and a half million years to lower the whole drainage-area to the level of the sea-shore. 20 So that, if a small fraction of the layer of fine earth, .2 of an inch in thickness, which is annually brought to the surface by worms, is carried away, a great result cannot fail to be produced within a period which no geologist considers extremely long. 25 Archaeologists ought to be grateful to worms, as they protect and preserve for an indefinitely long period every object, not liable to decay, which is dropped on the surface of the land, by burying it be- 3° neath their castings. Thus, also, many elegant and curious tesselated pavements and other ancient re- mains have been preserved; though no doubt the worms have in these cases been largely aided by^ EARTH-WORMS AND THEIR FUNCTION, l^i earth washed and blown from the adjoining land, especially when cultivated. The old tesselated pavements have, however, often suffered by having subsided unequally from being unequally under- 5 mined by the worms. Even old massive walls may be undermined and subside; and no building is in this respect safe, unless the foundations lie 6 or 7 feet beneath the surface, at a depth at which worms cannot work. It is probable that many monoliths 10 and some old walls have fallen down from having been undermined by worms. Worms prepare the ground in an excellent man- ner for the growth of fibrous-rooted plants and for 15 seedlings of all kinds. They periodically expose the mold to the air, and sift it so that no stones larger than the particles which they can swallow are left in it. They mingle the whole intimately together, like a gardener who prepare^ fine soil for his 20 choicest plants. In this state it is well fitted to re- tain moisture and to absorb all soluble substances, as well as for the process of nitrification. The bones of dead animals, the harder parts of insects, the shells of land mollusks, leaves, twigs, etc., are before 25 long all buried beneath the accumulated castings of worms, and are thus brought in a more or less de- cayed state within reach of the roots of plants. Worms likewise drag an infinite number of dead leaves and other parts of plants into their burrows, 30 partly for the sake of plugging them up and partly as food. The leaves which are dragged into the burrows as food, after being torn into the finest shreds, partially digested, and saturated with the in- 142 EXPOSITION. testinal and urinary secretions, are commin- gled with much earth. This earth forms the dark-colored, rich humus which almost every- where covers the surface of the land with a fairly well-defined layer or mantle. Von Han- 5 sen * placed two worms in a vessel 18 inches in di- ameter, which was filled with sand, on which fallen leaves were strewed ; and these were soon dragged into their burrows to a depth of 3 inches. After about 6 weeks an almost uniform layer of sand, a 10 centimeter (.4 inch) in thickness, was converted into humus by having passed through the alimentary canals of these two worms. It is believed by some persons that worm-burrows, which often penetrate the ground almost perpendicularly to a depth of 5 ^5 or 6 feet, materially aid in its drainage; notwith- standing that the viscid castings piled over the mouths of the burrows prevent or check the rain- water directly entering them. They allow the air to penetrate deeply into the ground. They also 20 greatly facilitate the downward passage of roots of moderate size ; and these will be nourished by the humus with which the burrows are lined. Many seeds owe their germination to having been covered by castings; and others buried to a considerable 25 depth beneath accumulated castings lie dormant, un- til at some future time they are accidentally uncov- ered and germinate. Worms are poorly provided with sense-organs, for 30 they cannot be said to see, although they can just distinguish between light and darkness; they are * " Zeitschrift ixix wissenschaft. Zoolog.," B. xxviii., 1877, p. 360. EARTH-WORMS AND THEIR FUNCTION. 143 completely deaf, and have only a feeble power of smell ; the sense of touch alone is well developed. They can therefore learn little about the outside world, and it is surprising that they should exhibit 5 some skill in lining their burrows with their castings and with leaves, and in the case of some species in piling up their castings into tower-like constructions. But it is far more surprising that they should ap- parently exhibit some degree of intelligence instead loof a mere blind instinctive impulse, in their manner of plugging up the mouths of their burrows. They act in nearly the same manner as would a man, who had so close a cylindrical tube with different kinds of leaves, petioles, triangles of paper, etc., for they t5 comrrvonly seize such objects by their pointed ends. But with thin objects a certain number are drawn in- by their broader ends. They do not act in the same unvarying manner in all cases, as do most of the lower animals ; for instance, they do not drag in 20 leaves by their foot-stalks, unless the basal part of the blade is as narrow as the apex, or narrower than it. When we behold a wide, turf-covered expanse, we should remember that its smoothness, on which so 85 much of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all the inequalities having been slowly leveled by worms. It is a marvelous reflection that the whole of the superficial mold over any such expanse has passed, and will again pass, every few years through the 30 bodies of worms. The plow is one of the most an- cient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regu- larly plowed, and still continues to be thus plowed t44 EXPOSITION. by earth-worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so im- portant a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures. Some other ani- mals, however, still more lowly organized, namely 5 corals, have done far more conspicuous work in hav- ing constructed innumerable reefs and islands in the great oceans; but these are almost confined to the tropical zones. Notes. — The force of this example of Darwin's scientific 10 exposition lies in the fact that it is a summary of a three- hundred-page book, the record of a raarvelously patient investigation, years long. Paragraph by paragraph the main conclusions of the research are now stated, and each is explained by a summary of the specific facts from which 15 it was inferred. The weight and precision of the ex- tremely simple language can be appreciated only by know- ing the entire book. So perfect is the development of the subject throughout the work, and so orderly is the sum- mary, that one can almost fancy the author using the latter 2a to make the former, expanding it in the ratio of about six pages to the sentence. 35.— ^be Cbaracter of TlCltlllam of ©range. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. The place which William Henry, Prince of Orange Nassau, occupies in the history of England and of mankind is so great that it may be desirable 25 to portray with some minuteness the strong linea- ments of his character. He was now in his thirty-seventh year. But both in body and in mind he was older than other men of CHARACTER OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 145 the same age. Indeed it might be said that he had never been young. His external appearance is almost as well known to us as to his own captains and coun- selors. Sculptors, painters, and medalists exerted 5 their utmost skill in the work of transmitting his features to posterity ; and his features were such as no artist could fail to seize, and such as, once seen, could never be forgotten. His name at once calls up before us a slender and feeble frame, a lofty and 10 ample forehead, a nose curved like the beak of an eagle, an eye rivaling that of an eagle in brightness and keenness, a thoughtful and somewhat sullen brow, a firm and somewhat peevish mouth, a cheek pale, thin, and deeply furrowed by sickness and by 15 care. That pensive, severe, and solemn aspect could scarcely have belonged to a happy or a good- humored man. But it indicates in a manner not to be mistaken capacity equal to the most arduous en- terprises, and fortitude not to be shaken by re- 20 verses or dangers. Nature had largely endowed William with the qualities of a great ruler ; and education had de- veloped those qualities in no common degree. With strong natural sense, and rare force of will, he 25 found himself, when first his mind began to open, a fatherless and motherless child, the chief of a great but depressed and disheartened party, and the heir to vast and indefinite pretensions, which ex- cited the dread and aversion of the oligarchy then 30 supreme in the United Provinces. The common people, fondly attached during three generations to his house, indicated, whenever they saw him, in a manner not to be mistaken, that they regarded him as their rightful head. The able and experienced ^46 EXPOSITION. ministers of the republic, mortal enemies of his name, came every day to pay their feigned civilities to him, and to observe the progress of his mind. The first movements of his ambition were carefully watched : every unguarded word uttered by him was < noted down ; nor had he near him any adviser on whose judgment reliance could be placed. He was scarcely fifteen years old when all the domestics who were attached to his interest, or who enjoyed any share of his confidence, were removed from under lo his roof by the jealous government. He remon- strated with energy beyond his years, but in vain. Vigilant observers saw the tears more than once rise in the eyes of the young state prisoner. His health, naturally delicate, sank for a time under the 15 emotions which his desolate situation had produced. Such situations bewilder and unnerve the weak, but call forth all the strength of the strong. Sur- rounded by snares in which an ordinary youth would have perished, William learned to tread at once 20 warily and firmly. Long before he reached man- hood, he knew how to keep secrets, how to baffle curiosity by dry and guarded answers ; how to con- ceal all passions under the same show of grave tran- quillity. Meanwhile he made little proficiency in 25 fashionable or literary accomplishments. The man- ners of the Dutch nobility of that age wanted the grace which was found in the highest perfection among the gentlemen of France, and which, in an inferior degree, embellished the Court of England ; 30 and his manners were altogether Dutch. Even his countrymen thought him blunt. To foreigners he often seemed churlish. In his intercourse with the world in general he appeared ignorant or negligent CHARACTER OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 147 of those arts which double the value of a favor and take away the sting of a refusal. He was Uttle in- terested in letters or science. The discoveries of Newton and Liebnitz, the poems of Dryden and 5 Boileau, were unknown to him. Dramatic perform- ances tired him, and he was glad to turn away from the stage and to talk about public affairs, while Orestes was raving, or while Tartuffe was pressing Elmira's hand. He had indeed some talent for lo sarcasm, and not seldom employed, quite uncon- sciously, a natural rhetoric, quaint, indeed, but vigor- ous, and original. He did not, however, in the least affect the character of a wit or of an orator. His attention had been confined to those studies which 15 form strenuous and sagacious men of business. From a child he listened with interest when high questions of alliance, finance, and war were dis- cussed. Of geometry he learned as much as was necessary for the construction of a ravelin or a horn- 20 work. Of languages, by the help of a memory sin- gularly powerful, he learned as much as was neces- sary to enable him to comprehend and answer with- out assistance everything that was said to him and every letter which he received. The Dutch was his 25 own tongue. With the French he was not less fa- miliar. He understood Latin, Italian, and Spanish. He spoke and wrote English and German, inele- gantly, it is true, and inexactly, but fluently and intelligibly. No qualification could be more impor- 3otant to a man whose life was to be passed in organ- izing great alliances, and in commanding armies as- sembled from different countries. One class of philosophical questions had been forced on his attention by circumstances., and seems 148 EXPOSITION'. to have interested him more than might have been expected from his general character. Among the Protestants of the United Provinces, as among the Protestants of our island, there were two great re- ligious parties which almost exactly coincided with 5 two great political parties. The chiefs of the munic- ipal oligarchy were Arminians, and were commonly regarded by the multitude as little better than Papists. The princes of Orange had generally been the patrons of the Calvanistic divinity, and owned no 10 small part of their popularity to their zeal for the doctrines of election and final perseverance, a zeal not always enlightened by knowledge or tempered by humanity. William had been carefully in- structed from a child in the theological system to 15 which his family was attached ; and he regarded that system with even more than the partiality which men generally feel for a hereditary faith. He had ru- minated on the great enigmas which had been dis- cussed in the Synod of Dort, and had found in the 20 austere and inflexible logic of the Genevese school something which suited his intellect and his temper. That example of intolerance indeed which some of his predecessors had set he never imitated. For all persecution he felt a fixed aversion which he avowed, 25 not only where the avowal was obviously politic, but on occasions where it seemed that his interest would have been promoted by dissimulation or by silence. His theological opinions, however, were even more decided than those of his ancestors. The tenet of 30 predestination was the keystone of his religion. He often declared that, if he were to abandon that tenet, he must abandon with it all belief in a superintend- ing Providence, and must become a mere Epicurean, CHARACTER OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 149 Except in this single instance, all the sap of his vigorous mind was early drawn away from the specu- lative to the practical. The faculties which are nec- essary for the conduct of important business ripened 5 in him at a time of life when they have scarcely be- gun to blossom in ordinary men. Since Octavius the world had seen no such instance of precocious statesmanship. Skillful diplomatists were surprised to hear the weighty observations which at seventeen lothe Prince made on public affairs, and still more surprised to see a lad, in situations in which he might have been expected to betray strong passion, preserve a composure as imperturbable as their own. At eighteen he sate among the fathers of the com- 15 monwealth, grave, discreet, and judicious as the oldest among them. At twenty-one, in a day of gloom and terror, he was placed at the head of the administration. At twenty-three he was renowned throughout Europe as a soldier and a politician. 20 He had put domestic factions under his feet : he was the soul of a mighty coalition ; and he had con- tended with honor in the field against some of the greatest generals of the age. His personal tastes were those rather of a warrior 25 than of a statesman ; but he, like his great-grand- father, the silent prince who founded the Batavian commonwealth, occupies a far higher place among statesmen than among warriors. The event of bat- tles, indeed, is net an unfailing test of the abilities 30 of a commander; and it would be peculiarly unjust to apply this test to William ; for it was his fortune to be almost always opposed to captains who were consummate masters of their art, and to troops far superior in discipline to his own. Yet there is rea- 15° EXPOSITION. son to believe that he was by no means equal, as a general in the field, to some who ranked far below him in intellectual powers. To those whom he trusted he spoke on this subject with the magnani- mous frankness of a man who had done great 5 things, and who could well afford to acknowledge some deficiencies. He had never, he said, served an apprenticeship to the military profession. He had been placed, while still a boy, at the head of an army. Among his officers there had been none competent to 10 instruct him. His own blunders and their conse- quences had been his only lessons. " I would give," he once exclaimed, " a good part of my estates to have served a few campaigns under the Prince of Conde before I had to command against him." It 15 is not improbable that the circumstance which pre- vented William from attaining any eminent dexter- ity in strategy may have been favorable to the gen- eral vigor of his intellect. If his battles were not those of a great tactician, they entitled him to be 20 called a great man. No disaster could for one mo- ment deprive him of his firmness or of the entire possession of all his faculties. His defeats were re- paired with such marvelous celerity that, before his enemies had suns'- the Te Deum, he was again ready 25 for the conflict ; nor did his adverse fortune ever de- prive him of the respect and confidence of his sol- diers. That respect and confidence he owed in no small measure to his personal courage. Courage, in the degree which is necessary to carry a soldier 30 without disgrace through a campaign, is possessed, or might, under proper training, be acquired, by the great majority of men. But courage like that of William is rare indeed. He was proved by every CHARACTER OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE. IS J test ; by war, by wounds, by painful and depressing maladies, by raging seas, by the imminent and con- stant risk of assassination, a risk which has shaken very strong nerves, a risk which severely tried even 5 the adamantine fortitude of Cromwell. Yet none could ever discover what that thing was which the Prince of Orange feared. His advisers could with difficulty induce him to take any precaution against the pistols and daggers of conspirators.* Old sailors lo were amazed at the composure which he preserved amidst roaring breakers on a perilous coast. In bat- tle his bravery made him conspicuous even among tens of thousands of brave warriors, drew forth the generous applause of hostile armies, and was 15 scarcely ever questioned even by the injustice of hostile factions. During his first campaigns he ex- posed himself like a man who sought for death, was always foremost in the charge and last in the retreat, fought sword in hand, in the thickest press, and, 20 with a musket ball in his arm and the blood stream- ing over his cuirass, still stood his ground and waved his hat under the hottest fire. His friends adjured him to take more care of a life invaluable to his * William was earnestly entreated by his friends, after 25 the peace of Ryswick, to speak seriously to the French ambassador about the schemes of assassination which the Jacobites of Saint Germain's were constantly contriving. The cold magnanimity with which these intimations of danger were received is singularly characteristic. To 30 Bentinck, who had sent from Paris very alarming intelli- gence, William merely replied, at the end of a long letter of business, — " Pour les assasins je ne luy en ay pas voulu parler, croiant que c'etoit au desous de moy." May ^, 1698. I keep the original orthography, if it is to be so called. IS2 EXPOSITION. country ; and his most illustrious antagonist, the ^eat Conde, remarked after the bloody day of Se- neff, that the Prince of Orange had in all things borne himself like an old general, except in exposing himself like a young soldier. William denied that 5 he was guilty of temerity. It was, he said, from a sense of duty and on a cool calculation of what the public interest required, that he was always at the post of danger. The troops which he commanded had been little used to war, and shrank from a close 10 encounter with the veteran soldiery of France. It was necessary that their leader should show them how battles were to be won. And in truth more than one day which had seemed hopelessly lost was retrieved by the hardihood with which he rallied his 15 broken battalions and cut down the cowards who set the example of flight. Sometimes, however, it seemed that he had a strange pleasure in venturing his person. It was remarked that his spirits were never so high and his manners never so gracious and 20 easy as amidst the tumult and carni^ge of a battle. Even in his pastimes he liked the excitement of dan- ger. Cards, chess, and billiards gave him no pleas- ure. The chase was his favorite recreation ; and he loved it most when it was most hazardous. His 25 '■eaps were sometimes such that hie boldest compan- ions did not like to follow him. He seemed to have thought the most hardy field sports of England effeminate, and to have pined in the great park of Windsor for the game which he had been used to 30 drive to bay in the forests of Guelders, wolves, and wild boars, and huge stags with sixteen antlers.* * From Windsor he wrote to Bentinck, then ambassador 4t Paris. " J'ay pris avant hier un cerf dans la forest avec CHARACTER OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE. I53 The audacity of his spirit was the more remark- able because his physical organization was unusu- ally delicate. From a child he had been weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood his complaints had 5 been aggravated by a severe attack of smallpox. He was asthmatic and consumptive. His slender frame was shaKen by a constant hoarse cough. He could not sleep unless his head was propped by sev- eral pillows, and could scarcely draw his breath in loany but the purest air. Cruel headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his ene- mies by fixing some date beyond which, if there were anything certain in medical science, it was im- 15 possible that his broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through a life which was one long disease, the force of his mind never failed, on any great occa- sion, to bear up his suffering and languid body. He was born with violent passions and quick sen- ^° sibilities : but the strength of his emotions was not suspected by the world. From the multitude his joy and his grief, his affection and his resentment, were hidden by a phlegmatic serenity, which made him pass for the most cold-blooded of mankind. 25 Those who brought him good news could seldom les chains du Pr. de Denm, et ay fait un assez jolie chasse, autant que ce vilain paiis le permest." March 20, j, g^ April I, The spelling is bad, but not worse than Napoleon's. Wil- liam wrote in better humor from Loo. " Nous avons pris 30 deux gros cerfs, le premier dans Dorewaert, qui est un des plus gros que je sache avoir jamais pns. II porte „ Oct. 21;, r seize." ii 1697. Nov. 4, XS4 EXPOSITION. detect any sign of pleasure. Those who saw him after a defeat looked in vain for any trace of vexa- tion. He praised and reprimanded, rewarded and punished, with the stern tranquillity of a Mohawk chief: but those who knew him well and saw him 5 near were aware that under all this ice a fierce fire was constantly burning. It was seldom that anger deprived him of power over himself. But when he was really enraged the first outbreak of his passion was terrible. It was indeed scarcely safe to ap- 10 proach him. On these rare occasions, however, as soon as he regained his self-command, he made such ample reparation to those whom he had wronged as tempted them to wish that he would go into a fury again. His affection was as impetuous as his wrath. 15 Where he loved, he loved with the whole energy of his strong mind. When death separated him from what he loved, the few who witnessed his agonies trembled for his reason and his life. To a very small circle of intimate friends, on whose fidelity 20 and secrecy he could absolutely depend, he was a different man from the reserved and stoical William whom the multitude supposed to be destitute of hu- man feelings. He was kind, cordial, open, even convivial and jocose, would sit at table many 25 hours, and would bear his full share in festive con- versation. Highest in his favor stood a gentleman of his household named Bentinck, sprung from a noble Batavian race, and destined to be the founder of one of the great patrician houses of England. 30 The fidelity of Bentinck had been tried by no com- mon test. It was while the United Provinces were struggling for existence against the French power that the young Prince on whom all their hopes were CHARACTER OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 155 fixed were seized by the smallpox. That disease had been fatal to many members of his family, and at first wore, in his case, a peculiarly malignant as- pect. The public consternation was great. The 5 streets of The Hague were crowded from daybreak to sunset by persons anxiously asking how His Highness was. At length his complaint took a fa- vorable turn. His escape was attributed partly to his own singular equanimity, and partly to the intrepid loand indefatigable friendship of Bentinck. From the hands of Bentinck alone William took food and medicine. By Bentinck alone William was lifted from his bed and laid down in it. " Whether Ben- tinck slept or not while I was ill," said William to 15 Temple, with great tenderness, " I know not. But this I know, that, through sixteen days and nights, I never once called for anything but that Bentinck was instantly at my side." Before the faithful serv- ant had entirely performed his task, he had himself 20 caught the contagion. Still, however, he bore up against drowsiness and fever till his master was pronounced convalescent. Then, at length, Ben- tinck asked leave to go home. It was time : for his limbs would no longer support him. He was in 25 great danger, but recovered, and as soon as he left his bed, hastened to the army, where, during many sharp campaigns, he was ever found, as he had been in peril of a different kind, close to William's side. Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and 30 pure as any that ancient or modern history records. The descendants of Bentinck still preserve many let- ters written by William to their ancestor: and it is not too much to say that no person who has not studied those letters can form a correct notion of the IS 6 EXPOSITION. Prince's character. He, whom even his admirers generally accounted the most distant and frigid of men, here forgets all distinctions of rank, and pours out all his thoughts with the ingenuousness of a schoolboy. He imparts without reserve secrets of 5 the highest moment. He explains with perfect sim- plicity vast designs affecting all the governments of Europe. Mingled with his communications on such subjects are other communications of a very differ- ent, but perhaps not of a less interesting kind. All w his adventures, all his personal feelings, his long runs after enormous stags, his carousals on Saint Hubert's day, the growth of his plantations, the fail- ure of his melons, the state of his stud, his wish to procure an easy pad nag for his wife, his vexation »S at learning that one of his household, after ruining a girl of good family, refused to marry her, his fits of seasickness, his coughs, his headaches, his de- votional moods, his gratitude for the divine protec- tion after a great escape, his struggles to submit 20 himself to the divine will after a disaster, are de- scribed with an admirable garrulity hardly to have been expected from the most discreet and sedate statesman of the age. Still more remarkable is the careless effusion of his tenderness, and the brotherly sj interest which he takes in his friend's domestic fe- licity. When an heir is born to Bentinck, " he will live, I hope," says William, '" to be as good a fellow as you are ; and if I should have a son, our children will love each other, I hope, as we have done." * 30 Through life he continues to regard the little Ben- tincks with paternal kindness. He calls them by en- dearing diminutives : he takes charge of them in their father's absence, and though vexed at being * March 3, 1679. CHARACTER OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 15 7 forced to refuse them any pleasure, will not suffer them to go on a hunting party, where there would be risk of a push from a stag's horn, or to sit up late at night at a riotous supper.* When their 5 mother is taken ill in her husband's absence, Wil- liam, in the midst of business of the highest moment, finds time to send off several expresses in one day with short notes containing intelligence of her state.f On one occasion, when she is pronounced 10 out of danger after a severe attack, the Prince breaks forth into fervent expressions of gratitude to God. " I write," he says, " with tears of joy in my eyes." % There i . a singular charm in such letters, penned by a man whose irresistible energy and in- 15 flexible firmness extorted the respect of his enemies, whose cold and ungracious demeanor repelled the attachment of almost all his partisans, and whose mind was occupied by gigantic schemes which have changed the face of the world. — History of England. 20 Notes. — What is known as the character-sketch is a composite type of composition, containing description, exposition, and usually narration. According as a particu- lar kind of writing predominates, the character-sketch may be classified under anyone of the three genres. In the 25 *Voili en peu de mot le detail de nostre St. Hubert. Et j'ay eu soin que M. Woodstoc " (Bentinck's eldest son) " n'a point est6 k la chasse, bien moin au soup6, quoyqu'il fut icy. Vous pouvez pourtant croire que de n'avoir pas chass4 I'a un peu mortifi^, mais je ne I'ay pas aus6 prendre 30 sur moy , puisque vous m'aviez dit que vous ne le souhaitiez' pas." From Loo, Nov. 4, 1697. fOn the 15th of June, 1688, X September 6, 1679. 158 EXPOSITION. typical specimen, however, exposition prevails ; the aim is to set forth the underlying principles of the given char- acter. Such is the case in Macaulay's portrait of William of Orange. There is m\ich description, much narration, but all is to bring out the main principles to which the 5 king's acts were referable. Macaulay's general state- ments, each of which is illustrated fully as the sketch proceeds, are as follows : i. " Both in body and in mind he was older than other men of the same age." 2. " Nature had largely endowed William with the qualities of a great 10 ruler ; and education had developed those qualities in no common degree." 3. " One class of philosophical questions had been forced on his attention by circumstances, and seems to have interested him more than might have been expected from his general character." 4. " Except in this 15 single instance, all the sap of his vigorous mind was early drawn from the speculative to the practical." 5. " His personal tastes were those rather of a warrior than of a statesman ; but he, like his great-grandfather, the silent prince who founded the Batavian commonwealth, occupies 20 a far higher place among statesmen than among warriors." 6. " The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable that his physical organization was unusually delicate." 7. " He was born with violent passions and quick sensibili- ties ; but the strength of his emotions was not suspected 25 by the world." 36.— ttbe Cirotcctlon of Blectrical apparatus against Xlgbtning." ALEXANDER JAY WURTS, Of the Westinghouse Electrical Company. Our subject deals largely with the static spark. In the lightning-stroke we see it in its grandest and * Reprinted from The Century Magazine^ by perrnission of Messrs. The Century Company. PROTECTION AGAINST LIGHTNING. i59 most powerful form. A step or two across a thick carpet on a dry winter's day, and the spark which may be produced is so small as to be almost invisible. Benjamin Franklin with a key drew static sparks 5 from his kite-string. The lightning and the spark are the same in character, the difference being sim- ply one of degree ; moreover, the little snap of the tiny spark differs only in degree from the splitting crash of the lightning-flash. lo The static spark, or disruptive discharge, as it is often called, has many interesting characteristics quite different from the ordinary electric current found in our lighting and trolley wires. The latter is a constant and comparatively gentle force which 15 is easily controlled, like the force of wind or flowing water. The disruptive discharge is sudden and vio- lent, more like the flight of a bullet or the blow of a hammer. It is not easily controlled, and it obeys laws which are but imperfectly understood. The 20 static spark is not, as is commonly supposed, a sim- ple passage from one point to another ; it is oscilla- tory ; it surges back and forth with inconceivable ra- pidity. In lightning-flashes about twelve oscilla- tions may be observed, the time interval being 25 reckoned at about the one hundred thousandth part of a second. The oscillatory character of the dis- charge gives rise to remarkable phenomena, which are the immediate cause of many idiosyncrasies or lightning freaks. 30 Those characteristics which more particularly con- cern us are: (i) That of surging, already mentioned; (2) that of self-induction, which is a result of surging; (3) that of " side-flash," or selection, this being a re- i6o EXPOSITION. suit of self-induction; and (finally) that of pene- tration. Self-induction is a property which gives rise to a counter-force or choking effect. It is dependent on the oscillatory character of the discharge, and ex- 5 ists to a considerable degree in straight wires, but is vastly more pronounced in coils. Coils of wire, therefore, when used in connection with static dis- charges, are called choke coils. Side-flash, the result of self-induction, is com- lo monly called a freak. A disruptive discharge will often leave what would ordinarily be called an ex- cellent conductor and side-flash through the high re- sistance of the atmosphere to other objects. For ex- ample, a disruptive discharge, rather than pass 15 through a coil of bare copper wire, will take a short cut, and jump from one convolution to the other, al- though, as electrical resistance is ordinarily under- stood, the path through the copper wire offers an incomparably lowier resistance than any single one of 20 the air-spaces between the convolutions. And then, a lightning-flash will not infrequently strike some good conductor, such as a lightning-rod, follow it for a short distance, and then side-flash, selecting its own path through a wall of brick or stone to 325 neighboring gas-pipe or bell-wire. Ordinarily we should say that the lightning conductor would not offer a fraction of the resistance offered by a stone wall. It is self-induction which, giving rise to a counter-force or choking effect, causes the discharge 30 to side-flash. The penetrating power of the discharge is the bugaboo of electricians. The lightning-flash liter- ally bores a hole through the atmosphere, just as a PROTECTION AGAINST LIGHTNING. l6l bullet would bore its way through a mass of jelly. Smaller discharges will pass through shorter dis- tances of air. Solid insulating materials are also more or less easily punctured. The discharge 5 brought about by stepping over a thick carpet, as al- ready described, would pierce a sheet of thin paper, whereas sparks from an engine-belt might easily bore a hole through this magazine. If Franklin had held a piece of glass between his key and the kite- lo string, it is probable that the sparks would have readily pierced the glass with small round holes. During thunder-storms the atmosphere, and all conducting objects in the immediate neighborhood, become charged with electricity at a constantly in- 15 creasing potential or intensity as we recede from the earth. At the top of the Washington Monument a potential of three thousand volts has been meas- ured, and at the top of the Eiffel Tower ten thou- sand volts. Even objects directly on the earth, such 20 as railroad tracks, wire fences, etc., become charged, and in the high altitudes of our Western country wet rocks will frequently show signs of electrostatic charge. All such charged objects will spark, and the phenomena above described will in every case 25 be more or less plainly visible. Now, overhead wires, like the objects already mentioned, become charged during thunder-storms, but the wires themselves are rarely struck by light- ning. If they were placed in a vertical position, 30 reaching from the earth toward the clouds, then the lightning would in many cases strike the wires and follow them into the earth. But there is no electri- cal reason why lightning should pay any especial at- tention to a horizontal wire, nor does the fact that a i62 exposition: wire may be carrying ordinary electric current ren- der it any more liable to atmospheric electric dis- turbance. Overhead wires then become charged with static electricity, and will spark. These sparks are very penetrating, and will bore 5 through insulating materials of high resistance. A wire thus charged is also liable to side-flash ; that is, sparking is liable to occur at one place or another without apparent reason. A reason, of course, exists ; but, unfortunately, the explanation of 10 it serves only to show the impossibility of predeter- mining the point or points at which the discharge will take place. When a lightning-flash occurs, all electrified bodies in the neighborhood undergo a tre- mendous shaking up, as it were. A new condition 15 of electric equilibrium is at once established, and during this readjustment electric waves are set up in overhead wires, which travel with inconceivable rapidity from end to end, and which, being reflected, interfere with one another very much as water waves 20 do. For example, if a trough of water were raised at one end, and then quickly lowered, the water in the trough would quietly surge back and forth ; but if the end of the trough be raised a second time, a new system of surging may be started in such a man- 25 ner that the two will interfere with each other, and cause splashing at certain points where crests of the two systems combine to form other crests. Calm or smooth surfaces will be noticed at points where a crest of one system has been neutralized by a jo trough of the other system. In electric wires we have somewhat analogous conditions during thun- der-storms ; we have what a sailor would call a " choppy sea." It will thus be seen how impossible PROTECTION AGAINST LIGHTNING. 1 63 it v.ould be to predetermine the points at which elec- tric splashing or side-flash would be likely to occur. With a word or two now about the construction of electrical apparatus, we shall be in a position to 5 understand the particular danger which threatens electric systems during thunder-storms ; also the means employed for avoiding this danger. In general, and as far as our present purpose is concerned, electrical apparatus may be said to con- 10 sist of coils of insulated copper wire and iron cores placed within the coils. There are, then, three ma- terials present — iron, insulation, and copper. The iron is usually grounded — that is, connected with the earth. The copper is in contact with the overhead 15 wire; it is electrically a part of it, and the insulating material, which may be of shellacked muslin, fiber, hard rubber, mica, or any similar material, serves to separate the copper from the iron. It serves to con- fine the current to the copper, forcing it to pass 20 through the convolutions of the coil rather than al- low it to take a short cut through the iron, which it would certainly do if the insulating material were not present. Now, during thunder-storms the static or disruptive discharge, in side-flashing from one 25 point or another of the copper wire, frequently per- forates the insulating material, establishing thereby electrical communication between the copper and the iron, and through this opening the dynamo current will follow the spark, causing in an instant a de- 30 structive and intensely hot electric arc, which will quickly reduce both copper and iron to a blackened mass. In telephone and telegraph circuits the current is not ordinarily powerful enough to follow the dis- l64 EXPOSITION. ruptive discharge through the insulation; neverthe- less the discharge itself is quite sufficient to dam- age the instrument seriously, and interrupt the service. Having thus far described some of the important 5 phenomena which are associated with electric sys- tems during thunder-storms, and having also shown how electric apparatus may be damaged thereby, we will now consider the means which have been de- vised for protecting such apparatus. 10 The instruments used for this purpose are called " lightning-arresters " and " choke-coils." A choke- coil is simply a coil of insulated wire. It may, how- ever, have special forms. A lightning-arrester, in its simplest form, consists of two pieces of metal 15 placed about one thirty-second of an inch apart, the space between them being called a " spark-gap." When in service, one of these pieces of metal is con- nected with the overhead wire to be protected, the other with the earth. During thunder-storms the 20 static charges are expected to jump over the spark- gap of a lightning-arrester, — that is, side-flash at that point, — and so pass to earth, rather than perfo- rate the insulation of the system. If Franklin had held a sheet of paper between his key and the kite- 25 string, and if a second person had placed a second key in closer proximity to the string than Franklin's key, nearly all the sparks would have passed or have been diverted to the second key. The paper would per- haps not have been perforated at all ; the second key 30 would have protected the paper, and could properly have been called a protector or diverter. To-day a similar device is called a " lightning arrester," which name is obviously a misnomer. PROTECTION AGAINST LIGHTNING, I65 If we strip an electric installation of all its me- chanical features save those which immediately con- cern our subject, we shall find Franklin's kite-string corresponding to the copper, the sheet of paper to 5 the insulating material, and the key to the iron. A lightning-arrester as above described in its simplest form, while it allows the spark to pass, will also allow the dynamo current to follow the spark, and thereby establish a short circuit, which means an 10 enormous flow of current, a dangerous arc, and pos- sible danger from fire ; and, further, by reason of the selective character of discharges, — that is, the tend- ency to side-flash at one point or another, accord- ing to the conditions of our electric "' choppy sea," 15 — the discharge does not always pass over the spark- gap of the arrester; very often it will quite ignore this spark-gap, and pass on to do its destructive work in the electrical apparatus. The latter diffi- culty is avoided to a very great extent by placing a 20 considerable number of lightning arresters along the wire, thereby multiplying the opportunities for dis- charge. The danger to the apparatus is also very much lessened by connecting choke-coils in the wire between the apparatus and the arresters. The coils, 25 then, by virtue of their inductive resistance, tend to choke the discharge back, and force it over one or more of the lightning-arrester spark-gaps. How- ever, should the insulation of the apparatus be weak or defective, the discharge will surely find it out, in 30 spite of all the lightning-arresters and choke-coils that might be employed. In this respect the manu- facturers of light and power apparatus are far in advance of the manufacturers of telephone and tele- graph apparatus. The former have apparently made 1 66 EXPOSITION. a more thorough and searching study of the prob- lem in all its requirements, whereas the latter seem to have confined their efforts more particularly to the construction of a lightning-arrester having a sen- sitive spark-gap. It is not likely that material ad- 5 vances will be made in the art of protecting telephone and telegraph apparatus until a better grade of in- sulation is adopted. After all, it is the formation of the electric arc at the spark-gap of a lightning-arrester which has 10 probably caused more trouble, more study, and has been the cause of more novel inventions, than all the other details of this problem put together. A lightning-arrester, to be serviceable, must be capable of discharging the line indefinitely; but the 15 simple form of lightning-arrester which we have de- scribed will, when connected to light or power cir- cuits, burn up at the first discharge, unless means are taken to prevent it. In the early days this diffi- culty was avoided by placing fuses or strips of lead 2c in the lightning-arrester circuit, so that when the electric arc was formed, owing to the passage of the dynamo current, the lead fuse would melt and there- by interrupt the current. But during a thunder- storm it was often a dangerous matter to replace 25 these fuses; so other devices were invented, which had for their object the automatic interruption of the arc, without interfering with the service of the light- ning-arrester. These automatic lightning-arresters, however, were generally constructed with moving 3c parts, which were liable to get out of order, and at best they constituted a remedy rather than a preven- tive. Some of these gave excellent satisfaction for a time; but with the larger currents and higher PROTECTION AGAINST LIGHTNING. 16? working pressures of modern light and power plants, it soon became evident that arcs and moving parts were very undesirable features. And so once more the inventors went to work, 5 with the final result that lightning-arresters, as now constructed, have no moving parts, and operate without destructive arcs. In fact, nearly all the difficulties have at last been overcome, and before long it may be that atmospheric electricity, instead 10 of being an enemy, will become a boon to mankind. Is not atmospheric electricity one of the great natu- ral forces? Who can say that it may not some day obey man and do his service? Notes. — Ability to explain the principles which underlie 15 the workings of a machine is an essential part of a technical education. Mr. Wurts's article illustrates this type of expo- sition in its most difficult form — that in which every technical term must be made clear to a popular audience. It is one thing to explain a machine by free use of special 20 phraseology and frequent reference to diagrams ; it is quite another to accomplish the feat by the means of familiar Avords and comparisons. This writer on the protection of electrical apparatus from lightning begins by defining "the static or disruptive discharge," and illus- 25 trating its perforating power and its aptitude for " side- flashing." He then explains how in a thunder-storm the air and high objects become charged, and the static discharge is likely to occur on wires. Further he explains that the apparatus of which the wires are a part presents 30 an opportunity for the discharge to side-flash through insulation, and by perforating it to open a passage for the destructive dynamo current. Having placed the situation before us, — summing up each step as he makes it, — the author proceeds to explain the remedies. t6B EXPOSITION. 37.— Marconi's *GClirele60 tTelearapb.' CLEVELAND MOFFETT. ... It was at the extreme west of the Isle of Wight that I got my first practical notion of how this amazing business works. Looking down from the high ground, a furlong beyond the last railway station, I saw at my feet the horseshoe cavern of 5 Alum Bay, a steep semicircle, bitten out of the chalk cliffs, one might fancy, by some fierce sea-monster, whose teeth had snapped in the eft'ort and been strewn there in the jagged line of Needles. These gleamed up white now out of the waves, and pointed lo straight across the Channel to the mainland. On the right were low-lying reddish forts, waiting for some enemy to dare their guns. On the left, rising bare and solitary from the highest hill of all, stood the granite cross of Alfred Tennyson, alone, like the 15 man, yet a comfort to weary mariners. Here, overhanging the bay, is the Needles Hotel, and beside it lifts one of Mr. Marconi's tall masts, with braces and halyards to hold it against storm and gale. From the peak hangs down a line of wire 20 that runs through a window into the little sending room, where we may now see this mystery of talk- ing through the ether. There are two matter-of- fact young men here who have the air of doing some- thing that is altogether simple. One of them 25 stands at a table with some instruments on it, and works a black-handled key up and down. He is say- > Reprinted from McClure's Magazine, by permission of Messrs. The S. S. McClure Company. MARCONI'S WIRELESS TELEGRAPH. 1^9 ing something to the Poole station, over yonder in England, eighteen miles away. " Brripp — brripp — brripp — brrrrrr. 5 Brripp — brripp — brripp — brrrrrr — Brripp — brrrrrr — brripp. Brripp — brripp ! " So talks the sender with noise and deliberation. It is the Morse code working — ordinary dots and dashes which can be made into letters and words, as everybody knows. With each movement of the key lo bluish sparks jump an inch between the two brass knobs of the induction coil, the same kind of coil and the same kind of sparks that are familiar in ex- periments with the Roentgen rays. For one dot, a single spark jumps ; for one dash there comes a 15 stream of sparks. One knob of the induction coil is connected with the earth, the other with the wire hanging from the masthead. Each spark indicates a certain oscillating impulse from the electrical bat- tery that actuates the coil ; each one of these impulses «o shoots through the aerial wire, and from the wire through space by oscillations of the ether, traveling at the speed of light, or seven times around the earth in a second. That is all there is in the sending of these Marconi messages. 25 " I am giving them your message," said the young man presently, " that you will spend the night at Bournemouth and see them in the morning. Any- thing more ? " " Ask them what sort of weather they are hav- 30 ing," said I, thinking of nothing better. " I've asked them," he said, and then struck a vigorous series of V's, three dots and a dash, to show that he had finished. 170 EXPOSITIOh\ " Now I switch on to the receiver," he explained, and connected the aerial wire with an instrument in a metal box about the size of a valise. " You see the aerial wire serves both to send the ether waves out and to collect them as they come through space. 5 Whenever a station is not sending, it is connected to receive." " Then you can't send and receive at the same time?" " We don't want to. We listen first, and then lo talk. There, they're calling us. Hear?" Inside the metal box a faint clicking sounded, like a whisper after a hearty tone. And the wheels of a Morse printing apparatus straightway began to turn, registering dots and dashes on a moving tape. 15 " They send their compliments, and say they vv'ill be glad to see you. Ah, here comes the weather: ' Looks like snow. Sun is blazing on us at pres- ent.' " It is worthy of note that, five minutes later, it be- 20 gan to snow on our side of the Channel. " I must tell you," went on my informant, " why the receiver is put in this metal box. It is to pro- tect it against the influence of the sender, which, you observe, rests beside it on the table. You can 25 easily believe that a receiver sensitive enough to re- cord impulses from a point eighteen miles away might be disorganized if these impulses came from a distance of two or three feet. But the box keeps them out." 30 " And yet it is a metal box? " " Ah, but these waves are not conducted as ordi- nary electric waves are. These are Hertzian waves, and good conductors for everyday electricity may MARCONTS WIRELESS TELEGRAPH. 171 be bad conductors for them. So it is in this case. Yo\x heard the receiver work just now for the mes- sage from Poole, yet it makes no sound while our own sender is going. But look here, I will show , you something." He took up a little buzzer with a tiny battery, such as is used to ring electric bells. " Now listen. You see, there is no connection between this and the re- ceiver." He joined two wires so that the buzzer be- • gan to buzz, and instantly the receiver responded, dot for dot, dash for dash. " There," he said, " you have the whole principle of the thing right before you. The feeble impulses of this buzzer are transmitted to the receiver in the 15 same way that the stronger impulses are transmitted from the induction coil at Poole. Both travel through the ether." " Why doesn't the metal box stop these feeble im- pulses as it stops the strong ones of your own 20 sender ? " " It does. The effect of the buzzer is through the aerial wire, not through the box. The wire is con- nected with the receiver now, but when we are send- ing, it connects only with the induction coil, and the 2b receiver, being cut ofif, is not affected." " Then no message can be received when you are sending? " " Not at the very instant. But, as I said, we al- ways switch back to the receiver as soon as we have 30 sent a message ; so another station can always get us in a few minutes. There they are again." Once more the receiver set up its modest clicking. " They're asking about a new coherer Vv^e're put- ting in," he said, and proceeded to send the answer 17* EXPOSITION. back. I looked out across the water, which was duller now under a gray sky. There was something uncanny in the thought that my young friend here, who seemed as far as possible from a magician or supernatural being, was flinging his words across 5 this waste of sea, over the beating schooners, over the feeding cormorants, to the dim coast of England yonder. " I suppose what you send is radiated in all di- rections ? " 10 " Of course." " Then anyone within an tighteen-mile range might receive it? " " If they had the proper kind of a receiver." And he smiled complacently, which drew furthe^ ques- 15 tions from me, and presently we were discussing the relay and the tapper and the twin silver plugs in the neat vacuum tube, all essential parts of Marconi's instrument for catching these swift pulsations in the ether. The tube is made of glass, about the thick- 20 ness of a thermometer tube and abou* two inches long. It seems absurd that so tiny and simple an affair can come as a boon to ships and armies and a benefit to all mankind ; yet the chief virtue of Mar- coni's invention lies here in this fragile coherer. 35 But for this, induction coils would snap their mes- sages in vain, for none could read them. The sil- ver plugs in this coherer are so close together that the blade of a knife could scarcely pass between them ; yet in that narrow slit nestle several hundred 30 minute fragments of nickel and silver, the finest dust, siftings through silk, and these enjoy the strange property (as Marconi discovered) of being alter- nately very good conductors and very bad conduct- MARCONI'S WIRELESS TELEGRAPH. 173 ors for the Hertzian waves — very good conductors when welded together by the passing current into a continuous metal path, very bad conductors when they fall apart under a blow from the tapper. One 5 end of the coherer is connected with the aerial wire, the other with the earth and also with a home bat- tery that works the tapper and the Morse printing instrument. And the practical operation is this : When the im- lo pulse of a single spark comes through the ether down the wire into the coherer, the particles of metal cohere (hence the name), the Morse instrument prints a dot, and the tapper strikes its little hammer against the glass tube. That blow decoheres the 15 particles of metal, and stops the current of the home battery. And each successive impulse through the ether produces the same phenomena of coherence and decoherence, and the same printing of dot or dash. The impulses through the ether would never 20 be strong enough of themselves to work the printing- instrument and the tapper, but they are strong enough to open and close a valve (the metal dust), which lets in or shuts out the stronger current of the home battery — all of which is simple enough after as someone has taught the world how to do it. Notes. — This journalistic account of the Marconi tele graph has the merit of a vivid method. Being aware that machinery and technical terms are orally explained with comparative ease, by means of question and answer, 30 the writer records a dialogue which occurred at the tele- graph station. He assumes that the questions he asked were such as would naturally rise to the lips of his reader, in similar circumstances, and he lives over the scene for the benefit of the reader. First he describes the external 174 EXPOSITION. appearance of the machinery. Then he proceeds to the general principle of ether-waves, on which the apparatus depends, and finally explains the essential part of the machine, the coherer, in its relation to this principle. 38.— trbe ^own*/lReeting.' JOHN FISKE. From the outset the government of the town- 5 ship was vested in the Town-meeting, — an institu- tion which in its present form is said to be pecuHar to New England, but which, as w^e shall see, has close analogies with local self-governing bodies in other ages and countries. Once in each year — usu- 10 ally in the month of March — a meeting is held, at which every adult male residing within the limits of the township is expected to be present, and is at liberty to address the meeting or to vote upon any question that may come up. ir In the first years of the colonies it seems to have been attempted to hold town-meetings every month, and to discuss all the affairs of the community in these assemblies ; but this was soon found to be a cumbrous way of transacting public business, and as 2c early as 1635 we find selectmen chosen to administer the affairs of the township during the intervals be- tween the assemblies. As the system has perfected itself, at each annual town-meeting there are chosen not less than three or more than nine selectmen, ac- 25 cording to the size of the township. Besides these, there are chosen a town-clerk, a town-treasurer, a 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from " American Political Ideas," copyright, 1885, by Harper & Brothers. THE TOWN-MEETING. 175 school-committee, assessors of taxes, overseers of the poor, constables, surveyors of highways, fence- viewers, and other officers. In very small town- ships the selectmen themselves may act as assessors 5 of taxes or overseers of the poor. The selectmen may appoint police-officers if such are required ; they may act as a board of health ; in addition to sundry specific duties too numerous to mention here, they have the general superintendence of all public lo business save such as is expressly assigned to the other officers ; and whenever circumstances may seem to require it they are authorized to call a town- meeting. The selectmen are thus the- principal town-magistrates ; and through the annual election 15 their responsibility to the town is maintained at the maximum. Yet in many New England towns re- election of the same persons year after year has very commonly prevailed. I know of an instance where the office of town-clerk was filled by three members 20 of one family during one hundred and fourteen con- secutive years. Besides choosing executive officers, the town- meeting has the power of enacting by-laws, of mak- ing appropriations of money for town purposes, and 25 of providing for miscellaneous emergencies by what might be termed special legislation. Besides the annual meeting held in the spring for transacting all this local business, the selectmen are required to call a meeting in the autumn of each year for the elec- 3otion of State and county officeTs, each second year for the election of representatives to the federal Con- gress, and each fourth year for the election of the President of the United States. It only remains to add that, as an assembly of the 1 7^ EXPOSITION. whole people becomes impracticable in a large com- munity, so when the population of a township has grown to ten or twelve thousand, the town-meeting is discontinued, the town is incorporated as a city, and its affairs are managed by a mayor, a board of 5 aldermen, and a common council, according to the system adopted in London in the reign of Edward I. In America, therefore, the distinction between cities and towns has nothing to do with the pres- ence or absence of a cathedral, but refers solely toio differences in the communal or municipal govern- ment. In the city the common council, as a rep- resentative body, replaces (in a certain sense) the town-meeting; a representative government is sub- stituted for a pure democracy. But the city officer-?, 15 like the selectmen of towns, are elected annually ; and in no case (I believe) has municipal government fallen into the hands of a self-perpetuating body, as it has done in so many instances in England owing to the unwise policy pursued by the Tudors and 20 Stuarts in their grants of charters. It is only in New England that the township sys- tem is to be found in its completeness. In several Southern and Western States the administrative unit is the county, and local affairs are man- 25 aged by county commissioners elected by the people. Elsewhere we find a mixture of the county and township systems. In some of the Western States settled by New England people, town-meetings are held, though their powers are 30 somewhat less extensive than in New England. In the settlement of Virginia it was attempted to copy directly the parishes and vestries, boroughs and guilds of England. But in the Southern States gen- THE TOWN-MEETING. I77 erally the great size of the plantations and the wide dispersion of the population hindered the growth of towns, so that it was impossible to have an admin- istrative unit smaller than the county. As Tocque- 5 ville said fifty years ago, " the farther south we go the less active does the business of the township or parish become ; the population exercises a less imme- diate influence on affairs ; the power of the elected magistrate is augmented and that of the election di- lominished, while the public spirit of the local com- munities is less quickly awakened and less influen- tial." This is almost equally true to-day ; yet with all these differences in local organization, there is no part of our country in which the spirit of local self- » 5 government can be called weak or uncertain. I have described the Town-meeting as it exists in the States where it first grew up and has since chiefly flourished. But something very like the " town- meeting principle " lies at the bottom of all the po- zolitical life of the United States. To maintain vi- tality in the center without sacrificing it in the parts ; to preserve tranquillity in the mutual relations of forty powerful States, while keeping the people everywhere as far as possible in direct contact with 25 the government ; such is the political problem which the American Union exists for the purpose of solv- ing; and of this great truth every American citizen is supposed to have some glimmering, however crude. 20 Notes. — This exposition of a political institution begins directly with a statement of its functions, which are made the clearer by a glance at the primitive form of the insti- tution. Having thus shown what the institution is, the author shows what it is not ; he marks the limits of the 178 EXPOSITION. institution, saying when the town-meeting ceases to be such and becomes the common council. In this para- graph, addressed originally to a British audience, the author devotes a few words to a comparison of the English common council with the American. In so doing, he 5 observes the law that exposition can never proceed except in terms of what the reader already knows. Having defined the functions and limits of the town-meeting, he speaks of its distribution and its variants. Doing so leads to a page on the larger political significance of the 10 institution, the principle of which is found to inhere in the American federal government. 39.— tlbe Coffee*1bou6e. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. The coffee-house must not be dismissed with a cursory mention. It might indeed, at that time, have been not improperly called a most important 15 political institution. No parliament had sate for years. The municipal council of the city had ceased to speak the sense of the citizens. Public meetings, harangues, resolutions, and the rest of the modern machinery of agitation had not 3'et come into fash- 20 ion. Nothing resembling the modern newspaper existed. In such circumstances, the coffee-houses were the chief organs through which the public opinion of the metropolis vented itself. The first of these establishments had been set up, 25 in the time of the Commonwealth, by a Turkey mer- chant, who had acquired among the Mahometans a taste for their favorite beverage. The convenience of being able to make appointments in any part of the town, and of being able to pass evenings so- THE COFFEE-HOUSE. 179 cially at a very small charge, was so great that the fashion spread fast. Every man of the upper or middle class went daily to his coffee-house to learn the news and to discuss it. Every coffee-house had 5 one or more orators to whose eloquence the crowd listened with admiration, and who soon became, what the journalists of our own time have been called, a fourth estate of the realm. The court had long seen with uneasiness the growth of this new 10 power in the state. An attempt had been made, during Danby's administration, to close the coffee- houses. But men of all parties missed their usual places of resort so much that there was a universal outcry. The government did not venture, in oppo- 15 sition to a feeling so strong and general, to enforce a regulation of which the legality might well be questioned. Since that time ten years had elapsed, and, during those years, the number and influence of the coffee-houses had been constantly increasing. 20 Foreigners remarked that the coffee-house was that which especially distinguished London from all other cities ; that the coffee-house was the Londoner's home, and that those who wished to find a gentleman commonly asked, not whether he lived in Fleet 25 Street or Chancery Lane, but whether he frequented the Grecian of the Rainbow. Nobody was excluded from these places who laid down his penny at the bar. Yet every rank and profession and every shade of religious and political opinion had its own head- 30 quarters. There were houses near St. James Park where fops congregated, their heads and shoulders covered with black or flaxen wigs, not less ample than those which are now worn by the chancellor and by the speaker of the House of Commons. The l8o EXPOSITION. wig came from Paris, and so did the rest of the fine gentleman's ornaments, his embroidered coat, his fringed gloves, and the tassel which upheld his pan- taloons. The conversation was in that dialect which, long after it had ceased to be spoken in fash- 5 ionable circles, continued, in the mouth of Lord Foppington, to excite the mirth of theaters. The atmosphere was like that of a perfumer's shop. To- bacco in any other form than that of richly scented snuff was held in abomination. If any clown, igno- 10 rant of the usages of the house, called for a pipe, the sneers of the whole assembly and the short answers of the waiters soon convinced him that he had better go somewhere else. Nor, indeed, would he have had far to go. For, in general, the coffee-rooms 15 reeked with tobacco like a guard room ; and stran- gers sometimes expressed their surprise that so many people should leave their own firesides to sit in the midst of eternal fog and stench. Nowhere was the smoking more constant than at Will's. That cele- 2c brated house, situated between Covent Garden and 'Bow Street, was sacred to polite letters. There the talk was about poetical justice and the unities of place and time. There was a faction for Perrault and the modems, a faction for Boileau and the an- 25 cients. One group debated whether Paradise Lost ought not to have been in rhyme. To another an en- vious poetaster demonstrated that Venice Preserved ought to have been hooted from the stage. Under no roof was a greater variety of figures to be seen, 30 — earls in stars and garters, clergymen in cassock* and bands, pert templars, sheepish lads from the universities, translators and index-makers in ragged coats of frieze. The great press was to get near the THE COFFEEHOUSE, i8i chair where John Dryden sate. In winter, that chair was always in the warmest nook by the fire ; in summer, it stood in the balcony. To bow to him, and to hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy or of 5 Bossu's treatise on epic poetry, was thought a privi- lege. A pinch from his snuff-box was an honor sufficient to turn the head of a young enthusiast. There were coffee-houses where the first medical men might be consulted. Doctor John Radcliffe, lowho, in the year 1685, rose to the largest practice in London, came daily, at the hour when the Exchange was full, from his house in Bow Street, then a fash- ionable part of the capital, to Garraway's, and was to be found surrounded by surgeons and apothe- 15 caries at a particular table. There were Puritan coffee-houses where no oath was heard, and where lank-haired men discussed election and reprobation through their noses ; Jew coffee-houses where dark- eyed money-changers from Venice and Amsterdam 20 greeted each other; and Popish coffee-houses where, as good Protestants believed, Jesuits planned, over their cups, another great fire, and cast silver bullets to shoot the king. — History of England. Notes. — Mr. Fiske's description of the town-meeting, 25 though containing more or less historical narration, manages with almost no description. As a contrast in this respect we may note Macaulay's picturesque exposi- tion of the coffee-house. Here is the expository method of historical narrative, enriched with descriptive imagery 30 in every sentence. i82 EXPOSITION. 40.— G;be dflrst B>erfoD ot Oreeft art.' WALTER PATER. This whole first period of Greek art might, indeed, be called the period of graven images, and all its workmen sons of Daedalus ; for Daedalus is the mythical, or all but mythical, representative of all those arts which are combined in the making of love- 5 Her idols than had heretofore been seen. The old Greek word which is at the root of the name Daedalus, the name of a craft rather than a proper name, probably means to work curiously — all curi- ously beautiful wood-work is Daedal work ; the main 10 point about the curiously beautiful chamber in which Nausicaa sleeps, in the Odyssey, being that, like some exquisite Swiss chalet, it is wrought in wood. But it came about that those workers in wood, whom Daedalus represents, the early craftsmen of Crete es- 15 pecially, were chiefly concerned with the making of religious images, like the carvers of Berchtesgaden and Oberammergau, the sort of daintily finished images of the objects of public or private devotion which such workmen would turn out. Wherever 20 there was a wooden idol in any way fairer than others, finished, perhaps, sometimes, with color and gilding, and appropriate real dress, there the hand of Daedalus had been. That such images were quite detached from pillar or wall, that they stood free, 25 and were statues in the proper sense, showed that Greek art was already liberated from its earlier Eastern associations ; such free-standing being ap- ' Reprinted from " Greek Studies," by permission of Messrs. The Macmillan Company. THE FIRST PERIOD OF CREEK ART. 183 parently unknown in Assyrian art. And then, the effect of this Daedal skill in them was, that they came nearer to the proper form of humanity. It is the wonderful life-likeness of these early images which 5 tradition celebrates in many anecdotes, showing a very early instinctive turn for, and delighi in natur- alism, in the Greek temper. As Cimabue, in his day, was able to charm men, almost as with iJusion, by the simple device of half-closing the eyelids of his 10 personages, and giving them, instead of round eyes, eyes that seemed to be in some degree sentient, and to feel the lights ; so the marvelous progress in those Daedal wooden images was, that the eyes were open, so that they seemed to look, — the feet sepa- 15 rated, so that they seemed to walk. Greek art is thus, almost from the first, essentially distinguished from the art of Egypt, by an energetic striving after truth in organic form. In representing the human figure, Egyptian art had held by mathematical or 20 mechanical proportions exclusively. The Greek ap- prehends of it, as the main truth, that it is a living organism, with freedom of movement, and hence the infinite possibilities of motion, and of expression by motion, with which the imagination credits the 25 higher sort of Greek sculpture ; while the figures of Egyptian art, graceful as they often are, seem abso- lutely incapable of any motion or gesture, other than the one actually designed. The work of the Greek sculptor, together with its more real anatomy, be- 30 comes full also of human soul. Notes. — In this passage of historical exposition, early Greek art is contrasted with early Eastern art. Just as we found descriptive imagery heightened by juxtaposition with descriptive imagery, now we find principles height* 1 84 EXPOSITION. ened by contrast with principles. Here likewise we find the contrast strengthened by chosen detail. In description, two individuals may be compared with respect to selected particulars, and in exposition two classes of individuals may so be treated. It will be noted that, in comparing one class of individuals with another, an author is inci- dentally applying the method of limits or exclusion ; he is not only intensifying the notion of the given class, but is telling what the class is not. 41.— Tuscan Sculpture. VERNON LEE. These men brought, therefore, to the cutting of lo marble a degree of skill and knowledge of which the ancients had no notion, as they had no necessity. In their hands the chisel was not merely a second modeling tool, molding delicate planes, uniting in- sensibly broad masses of projection and depression. 15 It was a pencil, which, according as it was held, could emphasize the forms in sharp hatchings or let them die away unnoticed in subdued, impercep- tible washes. It was a brush which could give the texture and the values of the color — a brush dipped 20 in various tints of light and darkness, according as it poured into the marble the light and the shade, and as it translated into polishings and rovigh hew- ings and granulations and every variety of cutting, the texture of flesh, of hair, and of drapery ; of the 25 blond hair and flesh of children, the coarse flesh and bristly hair of old men, the draperies of wool, of linen, and of brocade. The sculptors of Antiquity took a beautiful human being — a youth in his per- TUSCAN SCULPTURE. 185 feet flower, with limbs trained by harmonious exer- cise and ripened by exposure to the air and sun — and, correcting whatever was imperfect in his in- dividual forms by their hourly experience of simi- 5 lar beauty, they copied in clay as much as clay could give of his perfections: the subtle proportions, the majestic ampleness of masses, the delicate finish of limbs, the harmonious play of muscles, the serene simplicity of look and gesture, placing him in an 10 attitude intelligible and graceful from the greatest possible distance and from the largest variety of points of view. And they preserved this perfect piece of loveliness by handing it over to the faithful copyist in marble, to the bronze, which, more faith- is ful still, fills every minutest cavity left by the clay. Being beautiful in himself, in all his proportions and details, this man of bronze or marble was beautiful wherever he was placed and from wheresoever he was seen ; whether he appeared foreshortened on a 20 temple front, or face to face among the laurel trees, whether shaded by a portico, or shining in the blaze of the open street. His beauty must be judged and loved as we should judge and love the beauty of a real human being, for he is the closest reproduction 25 that art has given of beautiful reality placed in re- ality's real surroundings. He is the embodiment of the real strength and purity of youth, untroubled by the moment, independent of place and of circum- stance. 30 Of such perfection, born of the rarest meeting of happy circumstances. Renaissance sculpture knows nothing. A lesser art, for painting was then what sculpture had been in Antiquity ; bound more or less closely to the service of architecture ; surrounded by t86 EXPOSITION'. ill-grown, untrained bodies; distracted by ascetic feelings and scientific curiosities, the sculpture of Donatello and Mino, of Jacopo della Querela and Desidirio da Settingnano, of Michelangelo himself, was one of those second artistic growths which use 5 up the elements that have been neglected or rejected by the more fortunate and vigorous efflorescence which has preceded. It failed in everything in which antique sculpture had succeeded; it accom- plished what antiquity had left undone. Its sense of 10 bodily beauty was rudimentary ; its knowledge of the nude alternately insufficient and pedantic ; the forms of Donatello's David and of Benedetto's St. John are clumsy, stunted, and inharmonious ; even Michel- angelo's Bacchus is but a comely lout. This sculp- 15 ture, has, moreover, a marvelous preference for ugly old men — gross, or ascetically imbecile ; and for ill- grown striplings : except the St. George of Dona- tello, whose body, however, is entirely incased in in- flexible leather and steel, it never gives us the per- 20 fection and pride of youth. These things are obvi- ous, and set us against the art as a whole. But see it when it does what Antiquity never attempted ; Antiquity which placed statues side by side in a gable, balancing one another, but not welded into 25 one pattern ; which made relief the mere repetition of one point of view of the round figure, the shadow of the gable group ; which, until its decline, knew nothing of the pathos of old age, of the grotesque exquisiteness of infancy, of the endearing av/k-30 wardness of adolescence ; which knew nothing of the texture of the skin, the silkiness of the hair, the color of the eye. —JRcnaissance Fancies and Studies. PLASTIC NATURE OF GREEK ART. 187 Notes. — Here the method of historical exposition by comparison is applied to the later, the full-blown, art of Greek sculpture, and to the reflorescence of sculpture in Tuscany. In applying it, Vernon Lee introduces a great 5 number of details and summarizes them frequently. For example, after a page narrating minutely the ancient method of handling a subject, she critically sums up the result thrice in succession : the Greek statue is " the closest reproduction that art has given of beautiful 10 reality " ; it is "the embodiment of the strength and purity of youth "; it is " perfection, born of rarest meeting of happy circumstances." The passage deserves study for the way in which it economizes the reader's memory. Instead of completing first one side of the picture, then 15 the other, it makes the comparison point by point. First the Tuscans have half a paragraph of pure explanation, then the Greeks a similar amount ; then the Tuscans re- ceive half a paragraph of adverse criticism, followed by a similar amount of favorable. It may be added that ao the justice is remarkably even-handed in fact as well as in form. 42.— (Tbe plastic mature of ©reck Brt and ©ratorg.' R. C. JEBB. Let us take a moment of the period when, as a matter of fact, the creative activity of Greek art was abundant — say 440 b. c. — and consider what, at '-5 that moment, was the principal characteristic of Greek reflection.* This will be best understood by 1 Reprinted from " The Attic Orators,'' bj' permission of Messrs. The Macmillan Company. *The essay on Winckelmann, in Mr. W. H. Pater's " Studies in the History of the Renaissance," is the most perfect interpretation of the Greek spirit in art that I 1 88 EXPOSITION. a comparison with two other characters of thought : that which has belonged, though in a multitude of special shapes, to the East, and that of mediaeval Europe. Oriental thought, as interpreted by Ori- ental art, fails to define humanity or to give a clear- 5 cut form to any material which the senses offer to it. Life is conceived only generally, as pervading men, animals and vegetables, but the distinctive attributes of human life, physical or spiritual, are not pondered or appreciated. The human form, the human soul, lo are not, to this Eastern thought, the objects of an absorbing and analyzing contemplation. To Euro- pean medisevalism, they are so ; but the body is re- garded as the prison and the shame of the soul ; and mediaeval art expresses the burning eagerness of the 15 soul to escape from this prison to a higher com- munion. The three marks of mediaeval art are in- dividualism, desire, and ecstacy: individualism, since the artist is struggling to interpret a personal intensity, and goes to grotesqueness in the effort ; 20 desire, since the perpetual longing of the Church on earth for her Master is the type of the artist's pas- sion ; ecstasy, since this passion demands the sur- render of reason and has its climax in the adora- tion of a mystery revealed.* Between the Oriental 25 and the Mediaeval art stands the Greek. Greek art defines humanity, the body and the soul of man. know. If the restatement of some of its points should gain for it fresh students, such a separation of its teaching from its beauty may deserve to be forgiven. 30 * I have not at hand an article on (I think) Mr. Rossetti's poems, which appeared some years ago in the Westmin- ster Review, and in which these traits of mediaevalism were very finely delineated. PLASTIC NATURE OF GREEK ART. 189 But it ha3 not reached the mediaeval point ; it has not learned to feel that the body is the prison and the shame of the soul. Rather, it regards the soul as reflecting its own divinity upon the body. " What 5 a piece of work is man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form and moving how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in appre- hension how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! " If Hamlet could have 10 stopped there, he would have been a Greek ; but he could not, he was sick with a modern distemper, abandonment to the brooding thought that sapped his will.* The Greek of the days when art was su- preme could and did stop there ; he was Narcissus, 15 standing on the river-bank, looking into the deep, clear waters where the mirror of his image shows the soul, too, through the eyes, Narcissus in love with the image that he beholds, — but Narcissus as yet master of himself, — as yet with a firm foothold upon 20 the bank, not as yet possessed by the delirious im- pulse to plunge into the depths. Here, then, was the first condition for the possibility of a great art. Re- flection had taken the right direction, had got far enough, but had not got too far; it was a pause. 25 But, in order that this pause should be joyous, and that the mind should not, from weariness or disap- pointment, hasten forward, another thing was neces- sary — that men and women should be beautiful. By some divine chance, the pause in reflection coincided 30 with the physical perfection of a race ; and the re- sult was Greek art. . . . Since, as has been seen. Oratory was fof the Greeks a fine art, it follows that Greek Oratory * Dowden, " Shakspere's Mind and Art," p. 47. I90 EXPOSITION. must have, after its own kind, that same typical character which belongs to Greek Sculpture and to Greek Tragedy. Wherein, then, does it manifest this character? We must here be on our guard against the great stumbling-block of such inquiries, 5 the attempt to find the analogy in the particulars and not in the whole. It might be possible to take a speech of Demosthenes and to work out the de- tails of a correspondence with a tragedy of Sophocles or a work of Pheidias ; but such refine- 10 ments have usually a perilous neighborhood to fan- tasy, and, even when they are legitimate, are apt to be more curious than instructive. How truly and universally Greek Oratory bears the plastic stamp, can be seen only when it is regarded in its largest 15 aspects. The first point to be observed is that, in Greek Oratory, we have a series of types developed by a series of artists, each of whom seeks to give to his own type the utmost clearness and distinction that he is capable of reaching. The same thing is 20 true of Tragedy, but not in the same degree ; for, in Tragedy, the element of consecrated convention was more persistent ; and, besides. Oratory stood in such manifold and intimate relations with the practical life that the artist, in expressing his oratorical 25 theory, could express his entire civic personality. Hence the men who molded Attic Oratory, whether statesmen or not, are good examples of conscious obedience to that law of Greek nature which con- strained every man to make himself a living work of 30 art. " In its poets and orators," says Hegel,* " its historians and philosophers, Greece cannot be con- * " Aesthetik," Part III. 'Section 2, ch, i, quoted by Pater, p. 192. PLASTIC NATURE OF GREEK ART. 191 ceived from a central point unless one brings, as a key to the understanding of it, an insight into the ideal forms of sculpture, and regards the images of statesmen and philosophers as well as epic and dra- 5 matic heroes from the artistic point of view ; for those who act, as well as those who create and think, have, in those beautiful days of Greece, this plastic character. They are great and free, and have grown up on the soil of their own mdividuality, 10 creating themselves out of themselves, and molding themselves to what they were and willed to be. The age of Pericles was rich in such characters: Pericles himself, Pheidias, Plato, above all Sopho- cles, Thucydides also, Xenophon and Socrates, 15 each in his own order, without the perfection of one being diminished by that of the others. They are ideal artists of themselves, cast each in one flaw- less mold — works of art which stand before us as an immortal presentment of the gods." 20 The plastic character of Greek oratory, — thus seen, first of all, in the finished distinction of succes- sive types, clearly modeled as the nature that wrought them, — is further seen in the individual oration. Take it whence we will, from the age of 25 Antiphon or of Demosthenes, from the forensic, from the deliberative or from the epideictic class, two great characteristics will be found. First, however little of sustained reasoning there may be, however much the argument may be mingled with 30 appeals, reminiscences, or invectives, everything bears on the matter in hand. It is an exertion of art, but of art strictly pertinent to its scope. No Greek orator could have written such a speech as that of Cicero For Archias or For Publius Sextii§, 192 EXPOSITION. In a Greek speech the main hnes of the subject are ever firm ; they are never lost amid the flowers of a picturesque luxuriance. Secondly, wherever pity, terror, anger, or any passionate feeling is uttered or invited, this tumult is resolved in a final calm; and 5 where such tumult has place in the peroration, it subsides before the last sentences of all. The end- ing of the speech On the Crown — which will be no- ticed hereafter * — is exceptional and unique. As a rule, the very end is calm ; not so much because the 10 speaker feels this to be necessary if he is to leave an impression of personal dignity, but rather because the sense of an ideal beauty in humanity and in hu- man speech governs his effort as a whole, and makes him desire that, where this effort is most distinctly 15 viewed as a whole — namely, at the close — it should have the serenity of a completed harmony. Cicero has now and then an Attic peroration, as in the Second Philippic and the Pro Milone ; more often he breaks off in a burst of eloquence — as in the First 20 Catilinarian, the Pro Flacco and the Pro Cluentio. Erskine's concluding sentences in his defense of Lord George Gordon are Attic : — " Such topics might be useful in the balance of a doubtful case ; yet, even then, I should have trusted to the honest 25 hearts of Englishmen to have felt them without ex- citation. At present the plain and rigid rules of justice are sufficient to entitle me to your verdict." Notes. — This illuminating piece of historical and critical exposition is like the two preceding passages on sculpture 30 in using the comparative method. It differs from them in two respects. First, it applies at some length a philo- sophical principle. It compares oriental art with Greek and *Vol. II. pp. 416-17. EDUCATION IN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY. 193 with mediasval by applying the test of self-consciousness.' The power of the metaphor of Narcissus will not escape the student. Secondly, it applies at some length, as a sort of running simile, the principles of Greek sculpture, which 5 it has just expounded, to the subject of Greek oratory. The effectiveness of this device is obvious. 43.— ttbe function of EOucatton in Democratic Socictg.^ CHARLES W. ELIOT. What the function of education shall be in a de- mocracy will depend on what is meant by demo- cratic education. 10 Too many of us think of education for the people as if it meant only learning to read, write, and ci- pher. Now, reading, writing, and simple ciphering are merely the tools by the diligent use of which a rational education is to be obtained through years 15 of well-directed labor. They are not ends in them- selves, but means to the great end of enjoying a ra- tional existence. Under any civilized form of gov- ernment, these arts ought to be acquired by every child by the time it is nine years of age. Compe- 20 tent teachers, or properly conducted schools, now teach reading, writing, and spelling simultaneously, so that the child writes every word it reads, and, of course, in writing spells the word. Ear, eye, and hand thus work together from the beginning in the 25 acquisition of the arts of reading and writing. As ' The advanced student will be interested in tracing Hegel's influence on the late Mr. Pater and on Professor Jebb. 'Reprinted from " Educational Reform," by permission of Messrs. The Century Company. 194 EXPOSITION. to ciphering, most educational experts have become convinced that the amount of arithmetic which an educated person who is not some sort of computer needs to make use of is but small, and that real edu- cation should not be delayed or impaired for 5 the sake of acquiring a skill in ciphering which will be of little use either to the child or to the adult. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, then, are not the goal of popular education. The goal in all education, democratic or other, is 10 always receding before the advancing contestant, as the top of a mountain seems to retreat before the climber, remoter and higher summits appearing suc- cessively as each apparent summit is reached. Nevertheless, the goal of the moment in education 15 is always the acquisition of knowledge, the training of some permanent capacity for productiveness or enjoyment, and the development of character. Democratic education being a very new thing in the world, its attainable objects are not yet fully per- 2c? ceived. Plato taught that the laborious classes in a model commonwealth needed no education whatever. That seems an extraordinary opinion for a great philosopher to hold ; but, while we wonder at it, let us recall that only one generation ago in some of our 25 Southern States it was a crime to teach a member of the laborious class to read. In feudal society education was the privilege of some of the nobility and clergy, and was one source of the power of these two small classes. Universal education in Germany 30 dates only from the Napoleonic wars; and its object has been to make intelligent soldiers and subjects, rather than happy freemen. In England the system of pubhc instruction is but twenty-seven years old. EDUCATION IN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY. 195 Moreover the fundamental object of democratic education — to lift the whole population to a higher plane of intelligence, conduct, and happiness — has not yet been perfectly apprehended even in the 5 United States. Too many of our own people think of popular education as if it were only a protection against dangerous superstitions, or a measure of po- lice, or a means of increasing the national produc- tiveness in the arts and trades. Our generation TO may, therefore, be excused if it ha& but an incom- plete vision of the goal of education in a democracy. I proceed to describe briefly the main elements of instruction and discipline in a democratic school. As soon as the easy use of what I have called the 15 tools of education is acquired, and even while this familiarity is being gained, the capacity for pro- ductiveness and enjoyment should begin to be trained through the progressive acquisition of an elementary knowledge of the external world. The 20 democratic school should begin early — in the very first grades — the study of nature ; and all its teachers should, therefore, be capable of teaching the ele- ments of physical geography, meteorology, botany, and zoology, the whole forming in the child's mind 25 one harmonious sketch of its complex environment. This is a function of the primary-school teacher which our fathers never thought of, but which every passing year brings out more and more clearly as a prime function of every instructor of little children. 30 Somewhat later in the child's progress toward ma- turity the great sciences of chemistry and physics will find place in its course of systematic training. From the seventh or eighth year, according to the quality and capacity of the child, plane and solid 196 EXPOSITION. geometry, the science of form, should find a place among the school studies, and some share of the child's attention that great subjects should claim for six or seven successive years. The process of mak- ing acquaintance with external nature through the "5 elements of these various sciences should be inter- esting and enjoyable for every child. It should not be painful, but delightful ; and throughout the proc- ess the child's skill in the arts of r-^ading, writing, and ciphering should be steadily developed. ^o There is another part of every child's environ- ment with which he should early begin to make ac- quaintance, namely, the human part. The story of the human race should be gradually conveyed to the child's mind from the time he begins to read with 15 pleasure. This story should be conveyed quite as much through biography as through history; and with the descriptions of facts and real events should be entwined charming and uplifting products of the imagination. I cannot but think, however, that the 20 wholly desirable imaginative literature for children remains, in large measure, to be written. The myth- ologies. Old Testament stories, fairy tales, and his- torical romances on which we are accustomed to feed the childish mind contain a great deal that is per- 25 verse, barbarous, or trivial; and to this infiltration into children's minds, generation after genera- tion, of immoral, cruel, or foolish ideas, is probably to be attributed, in part, the s-low ethical progress of the race. The common justification of our prac-3t> tice is that children do not apprehend the evil in the mental pictures with which we so rashly supply them. But what should we think of a mother who gave her child dirty milk or porridge, on the theory EDUCATION IN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY. I97 that the child would not assimilate the dirt ? Sbould we be less careful of mental and moral food-ma- terials ? It is, howevei , as undesirable as it is im- possible to try to feed the minds of children only 5 upon facts of observation or record. The immense product of the imagination in art and literature is a concrete fact with which every educated human be- ing should be made somewhat familiar, such prod- ucts being a very real part of every individual's ac- lotual environment. Into the education of the great majority of chil- dren there enters as an important part their con- tribution to the daily labor of the household and the farm, or, at least, of the household. It is one of the 15 serious consequences of the rapid concentration of population into cities and large towns, and of the minute division of labor which characterizes mod- ern industries, that this wholesome part of education is less easily secured than it used to be when the 20 greater part of the population was engaged in agri- culture. Organized education must, therefore, sup- ply in urban communities a good part of the man- ual and moral training which the co-operation of children in the work of father and mother affords in 25 agricultural communities. Hence the great impor- tance in any urban population of facilities for train- ing children to accurate hand-work, and for teach- ing them patience, forethought, and good judgment in productive labor. 30 Lastly, the school should teach every child, by pre- cept, by example, and by every illustration its read- ing can supply, that the supreme attainment for any individual is vigor and loveliness of character. In- dustry, persistence, veracity in word and act, gentle- 1^8 EXPOSITION. ness, and disinterestedness should be made to thrive and blossom during school life in the hearts of the children who bring these virtues from their homes well started, and should be planted and tended in the less fortunate children. Furthermore, the pu- 5 pils should be taught that what is virtue in one hu- man being is virtue in any group of human beings, large or small — a village, a city, or a nation ; that the ethical principles which should govern an empire are precisely the same as those which should govern an 10 individual; and that selfishness, greed, falseness, brutality, and ferocity are as hateful and degrading in a multitude as they are in a single savage. The education thus outlined is what I think should be meant by democratic education. It ex- 15 ists to-day only among the most intelligent people, or in places singularly fortunate in regard to the organization of their schook; but though it be the somewhat distant ideal of democratic education, it is by no means an unattainable ideal. It 20 is the reasonable aim of the public school in a thoughtful and ambitious democracy. It, of course, demands a kind of teacher much above the elemen- tary-school teacher of the present day, and it also requires a larger expenditure upon the public school 25 than is at all customary as yet in this country. But that better kind of teacher and that larger expendi- ture are imperatively called for, if democratic in- stitutions are to prosper, and to promote continu- ously the real welfare of the mass of the people. 30 The standard of education should not be set at the now attained or the now attainable. It is the privi- lege of public education to press toward a mark re- mote. EDUCATION IN DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY. 1 99 Notes.— This selection and the following one are of the tjrpe of exposition which is related to persuasion. Presi- dent Eliot is trying to influence opinion in such a way as to further educational reform. But since the subject is 5 essentially intellectual in its nature, he wisely makes no appeal to the emotions : he does not draw a prophetic picture of misery for those parents who allow their chil- dren to grow up without a knowledge of nature and life. Yet the very word "Function," in the title, conceals an lo indirect appeal ; it means true function, ideal function, function that ought to be made possible and operative in civilized life. The aim of the piece being clear, we may note the organic nature of the whole. The author begins with a statement that the true function of education in a 15 democrac}' depends on what is meant by democratic educa- tion. He proceeds to a definition of democratic education, first by exclusion, telling what it is not ; it is not merely reading, writing, and ciphering. It is something more and better ; how much more and better the author of course 20 intends to show. But first he prepares the way ; in a historical paragraph he explains by the similes of a goal and a receding mountain range that education is steadily becoming something more and better. This, it is clear, is conciliatory exposition. He then sets forth the main ele- 25 ments of a truly democratic school. They are, instruction in nature, the child's physical environment ; instruction in history and literature, significant subjects to the child in his human environment ; instruction in manual training, another necessity of the physical environment ; and instruc- 30 tion in character, another necessity of the human environ- ment. The diction of the passage is referred to on page 206. 200 EXPOSITION. 44.— Causes of ^Failure.' BENJAMIN JOWETT. And now leaving these life failures, as I may call them, I will ask why there are so many failures at the university (it is the privilege of the preacher to wander from one topic to another, in the hope that he may say something which comes home to the 5 minds of his hearers "be it ever so homely"). First, among the causes of failure at the University, I should be inclined to place " neglect of health." Young men are seldom aware how easily the brain may be overtasked ; how delicate and sensitive this lo organ is in many individuals ; they are apt to think they can do what others do ; they work the mind and the body at the same time — when they begin to fail they only increase the effort, and nothing can be more foolish than this. They do not understand i5 how to manage themselves, as the phrase is ; the common rules of diet and exercise are hardly thought of by them : " I can work so much better at night " is the constant reply to the physician or elder friend who remonstrates ; and they are apt to 20 be assured that no practice which is pleasant to them can ever be injurious to health. They find the memory fail, the head no longer clear; the interest in study flags ; and they attribute these symptoms to some mysterious cause with which they have 25 nothing to do. Will they hear the words of the Apostle ? " He that striveth for masteries is tem- perate in all things " : yet it is a more subtle kind • Reprinted from " College Sermons," by permission of Messrs. The Macmillan Company. CAUSES OF FAILURE. 261 of training than that of the athlete, in which they must exercise themselves, a training which regulates and strengthens body and mind at once. Again let them listen to the words of St. Paul, " Wherefore i 5 whether we eat or drink, let us do all to the glory of God." The care of his own health and morals is the greatest trust which is committed to a young man ; and often and often the loss of ability, the de- generacy of character, the want of self-control is lo due to his neglect of them. There are other ways in which this want of self- knowledge shows itself. Many men have serious intellectual defects which they never attempt to cure, and therefore carry them into life instead of 15 leaving them behind at school or college. Let me take for example one such defect — inaccuracy. A student cannot write a few sentences of Latin or Greek, he cannot get through a simple sum of arith- metic, without making a slip at some stage of the 20 process, because he loses his attention. Year after year he goes on indulging this slovenly habit of mind ; the remonstrances of teachers are of no avail ; he will not take the pains to be cured ; the inaccu- rate desultory knowledge of many things is more 25 acceptable to his mind than the accurate knowledge of a few, and so he grows up and goes into life unfit for any intellectual calling, unfit for any business or profession. Then again there is another kind of inaccuracy which consists in ignorance of the first 30 principles or beginnings of things; when the stu- dent has to go back not without difficulty, for there is always a painfulness and awkwardness in learning last what ought to have been learned first. We all know what is meant by a man being " a bad 202 EXPOSITION. scholar," which to one who has studied Latin and Greek for ten or more years of his life is justly held to be a reproach. And there are bad scholars, not only among students of Latin and Greek, but in every department of knowledge, in Mathematics as 5 well as in Classics, in Natural Science as well as in Literature, in Law as well as in History ; there are students who have no power of thinking, no clear recollection of what they have read, no exact per- ception of the meaning of words. 10 There is another intellectual defect very common in youth, yet also curable, if not always by our- selves, at any rate by the help of others — " bad taste " — which takes many forms both in speaking and writing: when a person talks about himself, 15 when he affects a style of language unsuited to him, or to his age and position, when he discourses au- thoritatively to his elders, when he is always asking questions, when his words grate upon the feelings of well-bred and sensible men and women, then he 20 is guilty of bad taste. Egotism or conceit is often the source of this bad taste in conversation; it may sometimes arise only from simplicity and ignorance of the world. There are natures who are always dreaming of full theaters, of audiences hanging on 25 their lips, who would like to receive for all their ac- tions the accompanying meed of approbation. A young person is about to make a speech — it is one of the most important things that he can do in life (and one of the most trying) — when many persons 30 are listening to his words and he a weak swimmer far out to sea ; he has prepared what he is going to say, tricked out his oration with metaphors and figures of speech ; he has seen himself speaking, CAUSES OF FAILURE. 203 not exactly in the looking-glass, but in the glass of his own mind ; and lo ! the result is a miserable failure. He has mistaken his own pow- ers, he has struck a wrong note, pitched his speech sin a false key. What can be more humiliating? Yet, perhaps, it is also the very best lesson which he has ever had in life. Let him try again — (there was one who said that he had tried at many things and had always succeeded at last). Let him try 10 again, and not allow himself by a little innocent merriment to be deprived of one of the greatest and most useful accomplishments which any man can possess ; the power of addressing an audience. There is another kind of bad taste which is dis- 15 played, not in manners nor in speech, but in writing. As persons have a difficulty in knowing their own characters, so has a writer in judging of his own compositions. Writings are like children, whom a parent can never regard in the same impartial man- 20 ner in which they are viewed by strangers. We too easily grow fond of them. There are many faults which are apt to beset men when they take a pen in their hands. They attempt fine writing, which of all kinds of writing is the worst ; they lose 25 the sense of proportion ; they deem anything which they happen to know relevant to the subject in hand. They pay little or no attention to the most important of all principles of composition — " logical connec- tion." They sometimes imitate the language of fa- 3omous writers, such as Lord Macaulay or Carlyle, and with a ludicrous result, because they cease to be themselves, and the attempt even if it were worth making cannot be sustained. It was excellent ad- vice that was once given to a young writer, " Al- 204 EXPOSITION. ways to blot the finest passages of his own writ- ings " ; and any one of us will do well to regard with suspicion any simile or brilliant figufe of speech, which impairs the connection or disturbs the proportion of the whole. For in the whole is 5 contained the real excellence of a writing, in the paragraph, not in the sentence ; in the chapter, not in the paragraph ; in the book, rather than in the chapter. And the character of the writer dimly seen may be often greater than the book which he lo has written. Yet once more cause of failure in our lives here may be briefly spoken of — the want of method or order. Men do not consider suflficiently, not merely what is suited to the generality, but what is suited 15 to themselves individually. They have different gifts and therefore their studies should take a dif- ferent course. One man is capable of continuous thought and reading, while another has not the full use of his faculties for more than an hour or two at 20 a time. It is clear that persons so differently con- stituted should proceed on a different plan. Again, one man is gifted with powers of memory and ac- quisition, another with thought and reflection ; it is equally clear that there ought to be a corresponding 25 difference in the branches of study to which they de- vote themselves. Things are done in half the time and with half the toil when they are done upon a well-considered system ; when there is no waste and nothing has to be unlearned. As mechanical forces 30 pressed into the service of man increase a hundred- fold more and more his bodily strength, so does the use of method, — of all the methods which science has already invented (for as actions are constantly CAUSES OF FAILURE. 205 passing into habits, so is science always being con- verted into method), — of all the methods which an individual can devise for himself, enlarge and ex- tend the mind. And yet how rarely does anyone 5 ever make a plan of study for himself — or a plan of his own life. Let me illustrate the subject of which I am speak- ing from the sphere of business. Suppose a per- son of ability to be engaged in the management of a 10 great institution — such as a public school, or a manufactory — will not his first aim be to organize such an institution in the fittest manner? He will consider how the w^ork which he has to do will be carried on in the shortest time, at the least cost and 15 with the smallest expenditure of labor. He will see his own objects clearly, and from time to time he will apply proper methods of comparison and examination which will enable him to discover whether they are being carried out. He will not 20 devote himself to small matters which can be done by others. He will know whom to trust ; he will seize upon the main points, and above all he will avoid waste. Now there may be a waste in study as well as in 25 business : such a waste, for example, is the idleness of reading when we sit in an armchair by the fire and receive passively the impression of books with- out thought, without judgment, without any effort of " what we are pleased to call ' our minds.' " We 30 may learn Latin and Greek in such a manner that we never acquire any real sense of the meaning of words or constructions, but only remember how they are to be translated in a particular passage. Can this be called education ? So we may learn history 2o6 EXPOSITION. in such a fashion that we only recollect dates and facts and have no sense of the laws which pervade it, or interest in the human beings who are the ac- tors in it : Is not this again a waste of time ? Lastly, in philosophy, that study which has so great an in- 5 terest for us at a certain time of life, which makes a sort of epoch in the mental history of many, from which we are likely to experience the greatest good and the greatest harm ; in philosophy we m.ay go on putting words in the place of things, unlearning lo instead of learning, losing definiteness and clearness in the extent of the prospect opening upon us, until we are fairly overmastered by it, seeming to have acquired new powers of thought so vast that they prevent us from thinking for ourselves, or express- 15 ing ourselves like other men : " And this also is vanity." Notes. — This section of a college sermon by the late master of Balliol College, Oxford, the famous translator of Plato, is even more persuasive in aim than the preced- 20 ing selection from President Eliot, and even more careful than that to avoid direct appeal. To any but students, — and even to some students, — the subject might seem trivial for a sermon ; but it is immediately lifted by the sermon into high significance. Jowett shows that it concerns each 25 of the audience deeply, and with true respect for his hearers he rigorously restrains himself from exhortation. The fewness of the illustrations is noteworthy ; the speaker rightly supposes that what he says will be perfectly, even painfully, intelligible to most of his hearers. The diction 30 of this passage, and of the two immediately preceding, is noticeable for scrupulous simplicity. Not many men of our time have succeeded so well as Professor Jebb, Presi- dent Eliot, and Professor Jowett in making ordinary words yield up their exactest force. The quality is rare in 35 any age ; iX'iz the Attic purity, the bvo[ia Kvpiov of Lysias. THE TWO RACES OF MEN. 207 45.— Cbe (Two IRaccs ot /IB en. CHARLES LAMB. The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those im- 5 pertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red men. All the dwellers upon earth, " Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites," flock hither, and do naturally fall in with one or other of these primary distinctions. The infinite su- 10 periority of the former, which I choose to designate as the great race, is discernible in their figure, port, and a certain instinctive sovereignty. The latter are born degraded. " He shall serve his brethren." There is something in the air of one of this cast, lean 15 and suspicious; contrasting with the open, trusting, generous manners of the other. Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all ages — Alcibiades — FalstafT — Sir Richard Steele — our late incomparable Brinsley — what a family 20 likeness in all four! What a careless, even deportment hath your bor- rowers! what rosy gills! what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he manifest, — taking no more thought than lilies! What contempt for money, — 25 accounting it (yours and mine especially) no better than dross! What a liberal confounding of those pedantic distinctions of meum and tuum! or rather, what a noble simplification of language (beyond Tooke), resolving these supposed opposites into one 30 clear, intelligible pronoun adjective! — What near 208 EXPOSITION. approaches doth he make to the primitive com- munity, — to the extent of one-half of the principle at least! — He is the true taxer " who calleth all the world up to be taxed ; " and the distance is as vast between 5 him and one of us, as subsisted betwixt the Au- gustan Majesty and the poorest obolary Jew that paid it tribute-pittance at Jerusalem ! — His exac- tions, too, have such a cheerful, voluntary air ! So far removed from your sour parochial or state-gath- 10 erers, — those ink-horn varlets, who carry their want of welcome in their faces ! He cometh to you with a smile and troubleth you with no receipt ; confin- ing himself to no set season. Every day is his Can- dlemas, or his Feast of Holy Michael. He applieth 15 the lene tormentum of a pleasant look to your purse, — which to that gentle warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak of the traveler, for which sun and wind contended ! He is the true Propontic which never ebbeth ! The sea which 20 taketh handsomely at each man's hand. In vain the victim, whom he delighteth to honor, struggles with destiny ; he is in the net. Lend therefore cheerfully, O man ordained to lend — that thou lose not in the end, with thy worldly penny, the reversion 25 promised. Combine not preposterously in thine own person the penalties of Lazarus and of Dives ! — but, when thou seest the proper authority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were half-way. Come, a handsome sacrifice ! See how light he makes of it ! 30 Strain not courtesies with a noble enemy. Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind by the death of my old friend, Ralph Bi- god, Esq., who departed this life on Wednesday THE TWO RACES OF MEN. 209 evening ; dying, as he had lived, without much trou- ble. He boasted himself a descendant from mighty ancestors of that name, who heretofore held ducal dignities in this realm. In his actions and senti- 5 ments he belied not the stock to which he pretended. Early in life he found himself invested with ample revenues ; which with that noble disinterestedness which I have noticed as inherent in men of the great race, he took almost immediate measures entirely to 10 dissipate and bring to nothing : for there is some- thing revolting in the idea of a king holding a pri- vate purse; and the thoughts of Bigod were all re- gal. Thus furnished by the very act of disfurnish- ment ; getting rid of the cumbersome luggage of 15 riches, more apt (as one sings) " To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise," he sets forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enterprise, " borrowing and to borrow ! " 30 In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this island, it has been calculated that he laid a tithe part of the inhabitants under contribu- tion. I reject this estimate as greatly exaggerated : but having had the honor of accompanying my 25 friend, divers times, in his perambulations about this vast city, I own I was greatly struck at first with the prodigious number of faces we met, who claimed a sort of respectful acquaintance with us. He was one day so obliging as to explain the phenomenon. 30 It seems, these were his tributaries ; feeders of his exchequer; gentlemen, his good friends (as he was pleased to express himself), to whom he had occa- sionally been beholden for a loan. Their multitudes 2IO EXPOSITION. did no way disconcert him. He rather took a pride in numbering them; and, with Comus, seemed pleased to be " stocked with so fair a herd." With such sources, it was a wonder how he con- trived to keep his treasury always empty. He did 5 it by force of an aphorism, which he had often in his mouth, that " money kept longer than three days stinks." So he made use of it while it was fresh. A good part he drank away (for he was an excel- lent toss-pot), some he gave away, the rest he threw 10 away, literally tossing and hurling it violently from him — as boys do burrs, or as if it had been infec- tious, — into ponds, or ditches, or deep holes, — in- scrutable cavities of the earth: — or he would bury it (where he would never seek it again) by a river's 15 side under some bank, which (he would facetiously observe) paid no interest — ^but out away from him it must go peremptorily, as Hagar's offspring into the wilderness, while it was sweet. He never missed it. The streams were perennial which fed his fisc. 20 When new supplies became necessary, the first per- ison that had the felicity to fall in with him, friend or stranger, was sure to contribute to the deficiency. For Bigod had an undeniable way with him. He had a cheerful, open exterior, a quick jovial eye, a 25 bald forehead, just touched with gray {cana Udes). He anticipated no excuse, and found none. And, waiving for a while my theory as to the great race, I would put it to the most untheorizing reader, who may at times have disposable coin in his pocket, 30 whether it is not more repugnant to the kindliness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describ- ing, than to say no to a poor petitionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who, by his mumping visnomy, THE TWO RACES OF MEN. 211 tells you, that he expects nothing better ; and there- fore, whose preconceived notions and expectations you do in reality so much less shock in the refusal. When I think of this man ; his fiery glow of heart ; 5 his swell of feeling ; how magnificent, how ideal he was ; how great at the midnight hour ; and when I compare with him the companions wnth whom I have associated since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and think that I am fallen into the so- 10 ciety of lenders, and little men. To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather cased in leather covers than closed in iron coffers, there is a class of alienators more formidable than that which I have touched upon ; I mean your borrowers 15 of hooks — those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetr}' of shelves, and creators of odd vol- umes. There is Comberbatch, matchless in his dep- redations ! That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like 20a great eye-tooth knocked out — (you are now with me in my little back study in Bloomsbury, reader!) — with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side (like the Guildhall giants, in their reformed pos- ture, guardant of nothing) once held the tallest of 25 my folios, Opera BonaventurcE, choice and massy divinity, to which its two supporters ( school divinity also, but of a lesser caliber, — Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas) showed but as dwarfs, itself an Ascapart! — that Comberbatch abstracted upon the faith of a 30 theory he holds, which is more easy, I confess, for me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that " the title to property in a book" (my Bona venture, for instance) " is in exact ratio to the claimant's powers of understanding and appreciating the same." 2 1 2 EXPOSITION. Should he go on acting upon this theory, which of our shelves is safe? The sHght vacuum in the left-hand case — two shelves from the ceiling — scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser — was whilom the 5 commodious resting-place of Browne on Urn Burial. C. will hardly allege that he knows more about that treatise than I do, who introduced it to him, and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to discover its beauties — but so have I known a fool- 10 ish lover to praise his mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry her off than himself. — Just below, Dodsley's dramas want their fourth volume, where Vittoria Corombona is ! The re- mainder nine are as distasteful as Priam's refuse 15 sons, where the fates borrowed Hector. Here stood the Anatomy of Melancholy, in sober state. — There loitered the Complete Angler; quiet as in life, by some stream side. — In yonder nook, John Buncle, a widower-volume, with " eyes closed," 20 mourns his ravished mate. One justice I must do my friend, that if he some- times, like the sea, sweeps away a treasure, at an- other time, sea like, he throws up as rich an equiva- lent to match it. I have a small under-collection of 25 this nature (my friend's gatherings in his various calls), picked up, he has forgotten at what odd places, and deposited with as little memory as mine. I take in these orphans, the twice-deserted. These proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true He- 30 brews. There they stand in conjunction; natives, and naturalized. The latter seem as little disposed to inquire out their true lineage as I am. — I charge • no warehouse-room for these deodands, nor shall THE TWO RACES OF MEN. 213 ever put myself to the ungentlemanly trouble of ad- vertising a sale of them to pay expenses. To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning in it. You are sure that he will make one 5 hearty meal on your viands, if he can give no ac- count of the platter after it. But what moved thee, wayward, spiteful K., to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of that princely woman, to the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle ? — knowing at the time, and knowing that I knew also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn over one leaf of the illustrious folio : — what but the mere spirit of con- tradiction, and childish love of getting the better 15 of thy friend? — Then, worst cut of all! to transport it with thee to the Gallican land — '* Unworthy land to harbor such a sweetness, A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt, Pure thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's wonder ! " 20 — hadst thou not thy play-books, and books of jests and fancies, about thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou keepest all companies with thy quips and mirthful tales? — Child of the Green-room, it was unkindly, unkindly done of thee. Thy wife, too, 25 that part-French, better part Englishwoman ! — that she could fix upon no other treatise to bear away, in kindly token of remembering us, than the works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brook — of which no French- man, nor woman of France, Italy, or England, was 30 ever by nature constituted to comprehend a title! Was there not Zimmermann on Solitude? Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a moderate 214 EXPOSITION. collection, be shy of showing it ; or if thy heart over- floweth to lend them, lend thy books ; but let it be to such a one as S. T. C. — he will return them (gener- ally anticipating the time appointed) with usury; enriched with annotations, tripling their value. I 5 have had experience. Many are these precious MSS. of his — (in matter oftentimes, and almost in quantity not unfrequently, vying with the originals) — in no very clerkly hand — legible in my Daniel ; in old Burton ; in Sir Thomas Browne ; and those ab- lo struser cogitations of the Greville, now, alas ! wan- dering in Pagan lands. — I counsel thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy library, against S. T. C. — Essays of Elia. Notes. — We come now to a large class of expositions which may roughly be called informal. It includes 15 some of the most delightful of essays. The charm of Lamb's " Two Races of Men " is manifold, but begins with the very fact of the expository form, the grave, insignificant classification of all mankind into two families. It uses similitudes nrofusely, but the sources are deliberately too 20 high ; the Lhing explained is always less than the thing brought to explain it. History and literature are taxed for comparisons of sufficient pretension. The diction itself is mock-heroic, drawing upon the deep wells and secret places of language ; and the phrasing is full of compressed 25 burlesque and whimsical suggestion. THE LOOK OF A GENTLEMAN. 215 4^.— ^be Xook Of a ©entleman, WILLIAM HAZLITT. The nobleman-look ? Yes, I know what you mean very well : that look which a nobleman should have, rather than what they have generally now. The Duke of Buckingham (Sheffield) was a genteel man, and had a great deal the 5 look jj-ou speak of. Wycherley was a very genteel man, and had the nobleman-look as much as the Duke of Buck- ingham. — POPB. He instanced it too in Lord Peterborough, Lord Boling- broke, Lord Hinchinbroke, the Duke of Bolton, and two or 10 three more. — Spence's Anecdotes of Pope. I have chosen the above motto to a very delicate subject, which in prudence I might let alone. I, however, like the title ; and will try, at least, to make a sketch of it. I? What it is that constitutes the look of a gentle- man is more easily felt than described. We all know it when we see it ; but we do not know how to account for it^ or to explain in what it consists. Causa latet, res ipsi notassima. Ease, grace, dig- 2onity have been given as the exponents and expres- sive symbols of this look ; but I would rather say, that an habitual self-possession determines the ap- pearance of a gentleman. He should have the com- plete command, not only over his countenance, but 25 over his limbs and motions. In other words, he should discover in his air and manner a voluntary power over his whole body, which, with every in- flection of it, should be under the control of his will. It must be evident that he looks and does as he likes, 30 without any restraint, confusion, or awkwardness. 2i6 EXPOSITION. He is, in fact, master of his person, as the professor of any art or science is of a particular instrument; he directs it to what use he pleases and intends. Wherever this power and facility appear, we recog- nize the look and deportment of the gentleman — 5 that is, of a person who by his habits and situation in life, and in his ordinary intercourse with society, has had little else to do than to study those move- ments, and that carriage of the body, which were accompanied with most satisfaction to himself, and ic were calculated to excite the approbation of the be- holder. Ease, it might be observed, is not enough ; dignity is too much. There must be a certain re- tenu, a conscious decorum, added to the first — and a certain " familiarity of regard, quenching the aus- 15 tere countenance of control," in the other, to an- swer to our conception of this character. Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman ; elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman ; dignity is proper to noblemen ; 20 and majesty to kings ! Wherever this constant and decent subjection of the body to the mind is visible in the customary ac- tions of walking, sitting, riding, standing, speaking, etc., we draw the same conclusion as to the indi- 25 vidual — whatever may be the impediments or un- avoidable defects in the machine of which he has the management. A man may have a mean or disa- greeable exterior, may halt in his gait, or have lost the use of half his limbs ; and yet he may show this 3c habitual attention to what is graceful and becoming in the use he makes of all the power he has left — in the " nice conduct " of the most unpromising and impracticable figure. A hump-bacl^ed or (jeforwietJ THE LOOK OF A GENTLEMAN. 217 man does not necessarily look like a clown or a me- chanic; on the contrary, from his care in the ad- justment of his appearance, and his desire to remedy his defects, he for the most part acquires something 5 of the look of a gentleman. The common nick- name of My Lord, applied to such persons, has al- lusion to this — to their circumspect deportment, and tacit resistance to vulgar prejudice. Lord Ogleby, in the " Clandestine Marriage," is as crazy a piece 10 of elegance and refinement, even after he is " wound up for the day," as can well be imagined ; yet in the hands of a genuine actor, his tottering step, his twitches of the gout, his unsuccessful attempts at youth and gayety, take nothing from the nobleman. 15 He has the ideal model in his mind, resents his de- viations from it with proper horror, recovers himself from any ungraceful action as soon as possible ; does all he can with his limited means, and fails in his just pretensions, not from inadvertance, but neces- 2osity. Sir Joseph Banks, who was almost bent double, retained to the last the look of a privy- councilor. There was all the firmness and dignity that could be given by the sense of his own impor- tance to so distorted and disabled a trunk. Sir 25 Charles Bunbury, as he saunters down St. James's Street, with a large slouched hat, a lack-luster eye, and aquiline nose, an old shabby drab-colored coat, buttoned across his breast without a cape — with old top-boots, and his hands in his waistcoat or breeches 30 pockets, as if he were strolling along his own gar- den-walks, or over the turf at Newmarket, after having made his bets secure — presents nothing very dazzling, or graceful, or dignified to the imagina- tion; though you can tell infallibly at the first 2i8 EXPOSITION. glance, or even a bow-shot off, that he is a gentle- man of the first water (the same that sixty years ago married the beautiful Lady Sarah Lennox, with whom the king was in love). What is the clue to this mystery? It is evident that his person costs 5 him no more trouble than an old glove. His limbs are, as it were, left to take care of themselves ; they move of their own accord ; he does not strut or stand on tip-toe to show " how tall 10 His person is above them all ; " — but he seems to find his own level, and wherever he is, to slide into his place naturally; he is equally at home among lords or gamblers ; nothing can dis- compose his fixed serenity of look and purpose; 15 there is no mark of superciliousness about him, nor does it appear as if anything could meet his eye to startle or throw him off his guard ; he neither avoids nor courts notice ; but the archaism of his dress may be understood to denote a lingering partiality for 20 the costume of the last age, and something like a prescriptive contempt for the finery of this. The old one-eyed Duke of Queensbury is another ex- ample that I might quote. As he sat in his bow- window in Piccadilly, erect and emaciated, he 25 seemed like a nobleman framed and glazed, or a well-dressed mummy of the court of George IL We have few of these precious specimens of the gentleman or nobleman-look now remaining; other considerations have set aside the exclusive impor- 30 tance of the character, and, of course, the jealous attention to the outward expression of it. Where we oftenest meet with it nowadays is, perhaps, in THE LOOK OF A GENTLEMAN. 219 the butlers in old families, or the valets, and " gen- tlemen's gentlemen " of the younger branches. The sleek pursy gravity of the one answers to the stately air of some of their quofidam masters; and the flip- 5 pancy and finery of our old-fashioned beaux, having been discarded by the heirs to the title and estate, have been retained by their lackeys. The late Admiral Byron (I have heard Northcote say) had a butler, or steward, who, from constantly observing 20 his master, had so learned to mimic him — the look, the manner, the voice, the bow were so alike — he was so " subdued to the very quality of his lord " — that it was difficult to distinguish them apart. Our modern footmen, as we see them fluttering and 15 lounging in lobbies, or at the doors of ladies' car- riages, bedizened in lace and powder, with ivory- headed cane and embroidered gloves, give one the only idea of the fine gentlemen of former periods, as they are still occasionally represented on the stage; 20 and indeed our theatrical heroes, who top such parts, might be supposed to have copied, as a last re- source, from the heroes of the shoulder-knot. We also sometimes meet with straggling personation of this character, got up in common life from pure ro- 25 mantic enthusiasm, and on absolutely ideal princi- ples. I recollect a well-grown comely haberdasher, who made a practice of walking every day from Bishopsgate Street to Pall Mall and Bond Street with the undaunted air and strut of a general- 30 officer ; and also a prim undertaker, who regularly tendered his person, whenever the weather would permit, from the neighborhood of Camberwell into the favorite promenades of the City with a mincing gait that would have become a gentleman-usher of 220 EXPOSITION. the black-rod. What a strange infatuation to live in a dream of being taken for what one is not — in deceiving others, and at the same time ourselves ; for no doubt these persons believed that they thus appeared to the world in their true characters, and 5 that their assumed pretensions did no more than jus- tice to their real merits. " Dress makes the man, and want of it the fellow : The rest is all but leather and prunella." I confess, however, that I admire this look of a lo gentleman more when it rises from the level of com- mon life, and bears the stamp of intellect, that when it is formed out of the mold of adventitious circum- stances. I think more highly of Wycherley than I do ai Lord Hinchinbroke, for looking like a lord. 15 In the one it was the effect of native genius, grace, and spirit ; in the other, comparatively speaking, of pride or custom. — Oti the Look of a Gentleman, in " Essays." Notes. — That an exposition is informal in manner is no proof that it lacks weight in substance or in implication. 20 Indeed, the light essay is often a surprisingly true index of the writer's nature. Hazlitt's classification of gentlemen by their look of "habitual self-possession," of "complete command, not only over their countenance, but over their limbs and motions," implies that Hazlitt's notion of the 25 gentleman is partly feudal. Sir Charles Bunbury has all the graces of one who is lord of his limbs, his clothes, his manners, and of men ; but there is nothing to show that Sir Charles is lord of his own envy or arrogance. "Wycherly has the look of a gentleman, from his " native genius, 30 grace, and spirit," and a gentleman he may have been, according to Hazlitt's definition. Hazlitt of course may have considered a gentleman to be a different creature from a man, a vi'r, an eor/. ENGLISH AND AMERICAN GENTLEMEN. 221 47.— Bngltsb anO Bmcrlcan ©entlemen.' THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. A report is going the rounds of the newspapers — and may, nevertheless, be true — that some Cor- nell University students were ruled out from row- ing in the Henley regatta because they had crossed 5 the ocean in a cattle-steamer ; and had therefore earned money by the work of their hands. The college oarsmen, it was stated, " must be gentle- men," and no gentleman could have worked with his hands. The rumor looks a little improbable, 10 because in " Tom Brown at Rugby," written nearly half a century ago, a college crew is described as be- ing saved by the rowing of a plebeian student, who had, it is to be presumed, done some manual la- bor. If, however, the tale be true, it points to a dif- 15 ference, still insurmountable, between the English and American students. Even in circles of in- herited wealth in this country it is not at all uncom- mon for a young man who is to enter upon manufac- turing or mining or railroad business to begin him- 20 self at the foundation, work with the laborers, dine from a tin pail, and be paid wages like the rest. Among the owners of mines and factories the greater number have begun on the tin-pail level. To all these the word " gentleman " means some- 25 thing very different from what it means in England. It means good manners and good education, whether the owner dates back to a cattle-steamer or otherwise. This might be called, in a certain way, 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from " Book an4 Heart," copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers. 2 22 EXPOSITION. the Christian meaning of the word — inasmuch as the founder of this rehgion was a carpenter's son, and, as the Church has generally held, worked at his father's trade in early youth. Yet he was called by the poet Dekker, in a line which is very likely to 5 prove immortal — " The first true gentleman that ever breathed." There are two great defects in the working of the English theory that a gentleman must never, under any circumstances, have worked with his hands. 10 The first is that it handicaps everyone who has so worked, and makes it harder for him., even in the American sense, to be a gentleman. People are very apt to be what is expected of them. Assume that a whole class will be clowns, and they are more 15 likely to be so; assume that they are to be gentle- men, you remove half the obstacle to their success. Hence much of the flexibility of American charac- ter, its ready adaptation. Since it made no differ- ence to anybody else that Whittier had been in 20 youth a farmer's boy in summer and a shoemaker in winter, it made no difference to him ; and nobody stopped to ask whether he had sustained, in child- hood, the same refining influences with Longfellow and Lowell. In Nev/ York, in Washington, one 25 often encounters eminent men who have worked with their hands. In England these men would have carried for life the stamp of that experience — some misplaced /z, some Yorkshire burr would have stamped them forever. In America the correspond- 30 ing drawbacks have been easily effaced and swept away. No doubt climate and temperament have something to do with this difference, but the recog- ENGLISH AND AMERICAN GENTLEMEN. 223 nized social theory has more. It grows largely out of the changed definition of the word " gentleman." In America this altered classification has let down the bars. The word " gentleman " denotes a class 5 that is henceforward accessible to merit. The other defect of the English standard is that it perpetuates, even inside those who rank as gen- tlemen, a permanent feudalism, a wholly artificial standard of social subordination. This lasts even 10 to the present time. In the autobiography of An- thony Trollope there is an especial chapter on the question, " How a literary man should treat his so- cial superiors " — a chapter which is, to an Ameri- can literary man, first ludicrous and then pathetic. 15 Walter Besant in his " Fifty Years Ago " enu- merated the list of eminent authors and scientists of the Victorian period, and pointed with what seemed like pride to the fact that they had nothing to do with the court of Victoria. Now that he has been 20 knighted, he doubtless acquiesces with resignation. But the crowning illustration of the curious atti- tude given by belated feudalism to the author is to be found in the lately published letters of Sir Wal- ter Scott. They are delightful in all respects but 25 one — the absolute self-subordination, the personal prostration, with which he writes to every titled nonentity about him. Men younger than himself, now utterly forgotten by the world at large, were treated by this leading Scotch intellect of his day as 30 if they conferred honor by letting him write to them; and the very grace and naturalness with which it is done shows how ingrain it is. To the chief of his clan, especially, Scott poses as the hum- ble minstrel for whom it is honor enough to sit in 224 EXPOSITION. the doorway of his liege and amuse that august leis- ure. That this attitude was not inevitable we know by the very different tone of Burns ; but the facility with which Scott fell into it shows the strength of the feudal tradition ; while the attitude of Trollope 5 and Besant shows that it still survives. But Scott's letters are of especial value for this : that they absolutely defeat the theory held by many Englishmen and some Americans as to the close re- semblance between an aristocracy of birth and one 10 of wealth. No one can read these letters of Scott's and imagine for an instant an American man of genius as writing in the same tone to any merely rich man. He might write more beseechingly when he had favors to ask, he might use more direct flat- 15 tery; but the feudal flavor would not be there, nor would it be possible to put it on. It would not, like Scott's tone, be spontaneous, unaffected, and in that point of view almost dignified. Cringing and mean it might be, but not ingrain and unconscious. 20 It would be the exceptional mean act of a con- sciously base man ; it would not represent the very organization and structure of society. It was be- cause Scott was personally a man of high tone that this deferential attitude is a thing alarming — and 25 instructive. If he had done it for a particular pur- pose it would have represented far less. It only shows that the feudal survival is really the thing nearest the heart of those who dwell under its in- fluence, and that the satiric pictures of Thackeray 30 are not obsolete, but really belong to to-day. A nation is tested not by watching the class which looks down, but by the class which looks up. In England the upper classes naturally and innocently THE OLYMPIANS. 225 look down, and the middle and lower classes look up. In the United States the so-called upper class may or may not look down, but the rest do not look up, and this makes an ineradicable difference. The 5 less favored may point with pride or gaze with cu- riosity, but they certainly do not manifest reverence for the mere social position. Something- akin to that feeling- may be called out by the political hero, the favorite author, even by the local " boss," but by 10 mere wealth never. It is better so. Notes. — Colonel Higginson's classification of gentle- men is clearly different from Hazlitt's ; indeed, it is directed against the British definition implied in Hazlitt's essay. But Colonel Higginson's real subject is the bad 15 effects of the British notion upon society. These he classi- fies as two : the bad effect by which the laborer is kept from rising in social rank, and the bad effect by which feudal sentiment is perpetuated among gentlemen toward noblemen. Thus the whole exposition, while hardly aspir- 2oing to the office of persuasion, looks toward the future. Another detail of the method deserves notice, — the grace- ful opening, by transition from a current event to a social principle. 48.— tTbe ©l^mpians.* KENNETH GRAHAME. Looking back to those days of old, ere the gate 25 shut to behind me, I can see now that to children with a proper equipment of parents these things would have worn a different aspect. But to those whose nearest were aunts and uncles, a special atti- tude of mind may be allowed. They treated us, in- > Reprinted from "The Gplden Age," by permission of Mr. John Lane. 226 EXPOSITION. deed, with kindness enough as to the needs of the flesh, but after that with indifference (an indiffer- ence, as I recognize, the result of a certain stu- pidity), and therewith the commonplace conviction that your child is merely animal. At a very early 5 age I remember realizing in a quite impersonal and kindly way the existence of that stupidity, and its tremendous influence in the world; while there grew up in me, as in the parallel case of Caliban upon Setebos. a vague sense of a ruling power, will- lo ful and freakish, and prone to the practice of vaga- ries — " just choosing so ": as, for instance, the giv- ing of authority over us to these hopeless and inca- pable creatures, when it might far more reasonably have been given to ourselves over them. These el- 15 ders, our betters by a trick of chance, commanded no respect, but only a certain blend of envy — of their good luck — and pity — for their inability to make use of it. Indeed, it was one of the most hopeless features in their character (when 20 we troubled ourselves to waste a thought on them: which wasn't often) that, having absolute li- cense to indulge in the pleasures of life, they could get no good of it. They might dabble in the pond all day, hunt the chickens, climb trees in the most 25 uncompromising Sunday clothes ; they were free to issue forth and buy gunpowder in the full eye of the sun — free to fire cannons and explode mines on the lawn: yet they never did any one of these things. No irresistible Energy haled them to church o' Sun- 30 days ; yet they went there regularly of their own ac- cord, though they betrayed no greater delight in the experience than ourselves. On the whole, the existence of these Olympians THE OLYMPIANS. 227 seemed to be entirely void of interests, even as their movements were confined and slow, and their habits stereotyped and senseless. To anything but ap- pearances they were blind. For them the orchard 5 (a place elf-haunted, wonderful!) simply produced so many apples and cherries : or it didn't, when the failures of Nature were not infrequently ascribed to us. They never set foot within fir-wood or hazel- copse, nor dreamt of the marvels hid therein. The 10 mysterious sources — sources as of old Nile — that fed the duck-pond had no magic for them. They were unaware of Indians, nor recked they anything of bisons or of pirates (with pistols!), though the whole place swarmed with such portents. They 15 cared not about exploring for robbers' caves, nor digging for hidden treasure. Perhaps, indeed, it was one of their best qualities that they spent the greater part of their time stuffily indoors. To be sure, there was an exception in the curate, 20 who would receive unblenchingly the information that the meadow beyond the orchard was a prairie studded with herds of buffalo, which it was our de- light, moccasined and tomahawked, to ride down with those whoops that announce the scenting of 25 blood. He neither laughed nor sneered, as the Olympians would have done; but, possessed of a serious idiosyncrasy, he would contribute such lots of valuable suggestion as to the pursuit of this par- ticular sort of big game that, as it seemed to us, his 30 mature age and eminent position could scarce have been attained without a practical knowledge of the creature in its native lair. Then, too, he was always ready to constitute himself a hostile army or a band of marauding Indians on the shortest possible no- 2 28 EXPOSITION. tice: in brief, a distinctly able man, with talents, so far as we could judge, immensely above the ma- jority. I trust he is a bishop by this time, — he had all the necessary qualifications, as we knew. These strange folk had visitors sometimes, — stiff s and colorless Olympians like themselves, equally without vital interests and intelligent pursuits : emerging out of the clouds, and passing away again to drag on an aimless existence somewhere out of our ken. Then brute force was pitilessly applied. lo We were captured, washed, and forced into clean collars : silently submitting, as was our wont, with more contempt than anger. Anon, with unctuous hair and faces stiffened in a conventional grin, we sat and listened to the usual platitudes. How could 15 reasonable people spend their precious time so? That was ever our wonder as we bounded forth at last — to the old clay-pit to make pots, or to hunt bears among the hazels. It was incessant matter for amazement how these 20 Olympians would talk over our heads — during meals, for instance — of this or the other social or political inanity, under the delusion that these pale phantasms of reality were among the importances of life. We illurninati, eating silently, our heads full 25 of plans and conspiracies, could have told them what real life was. We had just left it outside, and were all on fire to get back to it. Of course we didn't waste the revelation on them; the futility of im- parting our ideas had long been demonstrated. 30 One in thought and purpose, linked by the ne- cessity of combating one hostile fate, a power an- tagonistic ever, — a pov/er we lived to evade, — we had no confidants save ourselves. This strange THE OLYMPIANS. 229 anaemic order of beings was further removed from us, in fact, than the kindly beasts who shared our natural existence in the sun. The estrangement was fortified by an abiding sense of injustice, arising 5 from the refusal of the Olympians ever to defend, retract, or admit themselves in the wrong, or to ac- cept similar concessions on our part. For instance, when I flung the cat out of an upper window (though I did it from no ill-feeling, and it didn't 10 hurt the cat), I was ready, after a moment's reflec- tion, to own I was wrong, as a gentleman should. But was the matter allowed to end there? I trow not. Again, when Harold was locked up in his room all day, for assault and battery upon a neigh- 15 bor's pig, — an action he would have scorned, be- ing indeed on the friendliest terms with the porker in question, — ^^there was no handsome expression of regret on the discovery of the real culprit. What Harold had felt was not so much the imprisonment, 20 — indeed he had very soon escaped by the window, with assistance from his allies, and had only gone back in time for his release, — as the Olympian habit. A word would have set all right ; but of course that word was never spoken. 25 Well ! The Olympians are all past and gone. Somehow the sun does not seem to shine so brightly as it used ; the trackless meadows of old time have shrunk and dwindled away to a few poor acres. A saddening doubt, a dull suspicion, creeps over me. 30 £; in Arcadia ego, — I certainly did once inhabit Ar- cady. Can it be I too have become an Olympian? Notes. — The selection just given illustrates how, in imaginative exposition, the point of view is important. Quite as Mr. Grahame enters into the child's poipt of 230 EXPOSITION. view, so the good historian lays aside his own beliefs and tries to realize those which actuated men in other days, other circumstances ; even so also the successful novelist merges himself in his characters until each becomes a living personality. 49,— IRatn.' ALICE MEYNELL. Not excepting the falling stars — for they are far less sudden — there is nothing in nature that so out- strips our unready eyes as the familiar rain. The rods that thinly stripe our landscape, long shafts from the clouds, if we had but agility to make the lo arrowy downward journey with them by the glanc- ing of our eyes, would be infinitely separate, units, an innumerable flight of single things, and the sim- ple movement of intricate points. The long stroke of the raindrop, which is the drop 15 and its path at once, being our impression of a shower, shows us how certainly our impression is the effect of the lagging, and not of the haste, of our senses. What we are apt to call our quick impres- sion is rather our sensibly tardy, unprepared, sur- 20 prised, outrun, lightly bewildered sense of things that flash and fall, wink, and are overpast and re- newed, while the gentle eyes of man hesitate and mingle the beginning with the close. These in- expert eyes, delicately baffled, detain for an instant 25 the image that puzzles them, and so dally with the bright progress of a meteor, and part slowly from the slender course of the already fallen raindrop, 'Reprinted from "The Spirit of Place," by permission of Mr John Lane. RAIN. 231 whose moments are not theirs. There seems to be such a difference of instants as invests all swift movement with mystery in man's eyes, and causes the past, a moment old, to be written, vanishing, 5 upon the skies. The visible world is etched and engraved with the signs and records of our halting apprehension ; and the pause between the distant woodman's stroke with the ax and its sound upon our ears is repeated 10 in the impressions of our clinging sight. The round wheel dazzles it, and the stroke of the bird's wing shakes it off like a captivity evaded. Every- where the natural haste is impatient of these timid senses ; and their perception, outrun by the shower, 15 shaken by the light, denied by the shadow, eluded by the distance, makes the lingering picture that is all our art. One of the most constant causes of all the mystery and beauty of that art is surely not that we see by flashes, but that nature flashes on our 20 meditative eyes. There is no need for the impres- sionist to make haste, nor would haste avail him, for mobile nature doubles upon him, and plays with his delays the exquisite game of visibility. Momently visible in a shower, invisible within the 25 earth, the ministration of water is so manifest in the coming rain-cloud that the husbandman is allowed to see the rain of his own land, yet unclaimed in the arms of the rainy wind. It is an eager lien that he binds the shower withal, and the grasp of his anx- 30 iety is on the coming cloud. His sense of property takes aim and reckons distance and speed, and even as he shoots a little ahead of the equally uncertain ground-game, he knows approximately how to hit the cloud of his possession. So much is the rain 232 EXPOSITION. bound to the earth that, unable to compel it, man has yet found a way, by lying in wait, to put his price upon it. The exhaustible cloud " outweeps its rain," and only the inexhaustible sun seems to re- peat and to enforce his cumulative fires upon every 5 span of ground, innumerable. The rain is wasted upon the sea, but only by a fantasy can the sun's waste be made a reproach to the ocean, the desert, or the sealed-up street. Rossetti's " vain virtues " are the virtues of the rain, falling unfruitfully. lo Baby of the cloud, rain is carried long enough within that troubled breast to make all the multi- tude of days unlike each other. Rain, as the end of the cloud, divides light and withholds it ; in its flight warning away the sun, and in its final fall dismiss- 15 ing shadow. It is a threat and a reconciliation ; it removes mountains compared with which the Alps are hillocks, and makes a childlike peace between opposed heights and battlements of heaven. Notes. — This short essay is the type of a certain modern 20 species of informal exposition marked by close observation of nature, and by imaginative power. Full of descrip- tion, it transcends this with acute generalizations, some- times scientific, sometimes poetic, sometimes psychological or even metaphysical. In its most abstract form it has 25 representatives among the essays of Ruskin and Emerson ; in its most descriptive form it is found in the works of Thoreau, Richard Jefferies, John Burroughs, and Mrs. Meynell. CHAPTER IV. ARGUMENTATION. 50.— SPECIMEN BRIEF.' Drawn from " The Child and the State," an Argument BY DAVID DUDLEY FIELD. INTRODUCTION. 1. The Children's Aid Society makes the state- ment that $20 will give the homeless boy a home. 2. There are in New York City 12,000 homeless children under twelve years of age. Of these 5 7000 do not know in the morning where they can sleep at night. ' A brief differs from a topical outline in one important respect. It gives in the form of propositions, with their proofs, every thought that is essential to the argument. 10 Even the following brief by Abraham Lincoln, though perhaps the shortest on record, gives more than mere topics. The case was to recover for the widow of a Revo- lutionary veteran the sum of $200 which a rascally agent had retained out of $400 of pension money. "No con- 15 tract. — Not professional services. — Unreasonable charge. — Money retained by Deft not given to Pl'ff. — Revolutionary War. — Describe Valley Forge privations. — Pl'ff's husband. — Soldier leaving home for army. — Skin Deft. — Close." 333 234 ARGUMENTA TION. 3. Money enough is daily spent in New York in idle luxury to give each homeless child a home. 4. That this sad condition continues is due not to lack of charity, but to popular ignorance. Let us examine the situation. 5 5. The tenement houses are incredibly over- crowded, a family of ten living in one room. The overcrowding is against the law, but we are not now to discuss that question of state duty. The poverty and crowding result in sending intelligent 10 children as young as five years into the streets to pick refuse. 6. Has the state any duty to these little children? All will agree that it has some duty, if only to pro- tect them from personal violence. 15 BRIEF PROPER. The state ought to rescue the child and give him a home, because A. It will be economical to rescue him, because I. The boy may become a pauper, and II. Almshouses are an enormous expense, 20 since New York City pays a large share of $300,000 for them, III. Or he may become a criminal, and IV. Police and prisons are an enormous ex- pense, the police of New York City cost- 25 ing yearly $3,700,000. B. It will be self-protective to rescue him, because I. He may be a voter in ten or twenty years, II. And may use his vote to the detriment of the state. 30 C. There are precedents for rescuing him, because THE CHILD AND THE STATE. 235 I. The compulsory education acts are pre- cedents, II. The corporations to prevent cruelty to children are precedents, 5 III. The unincorporated societies organized for children's relief are precedents. The Penal Code furnishes precedents by implication in those sections which make it a crime 10 IV. To desert a child (Sec. 287), V. To fail to furnish food, clothing, shelter, or medical attendance (Sec. 288), VI. To endanger a child's life or morals (Sec. 289), or 15 VII. To allow children to pick rags, etc. (Sec. 291). The Code of Criminal Procedure furnishes precedents by implication in those sec- tions which declare 20 VIII. That a truant is a vagrant (Sec. 887, 888), and IX. That child beggars must be committed to the poor-house (Sec. 893). D. The present provisions of the law are not ade- 35 quate, because I. Very young children are classed as criminals, for (a) the word " arrest " is made ap- plicable to them, 30 II. And this classification places a perma- nent stigma on them. III. The children are sometimes made to as- sociate with criminals, for (c) they may be brought before a criminal magistrate. 236 ARGUMENTA TION. CONCLUSION. I. The state should, if possible, require the parent of an abused or abandoned child to support the child. II. The state should place in a home every abused or abandoned child not charged with crime. 5 III. The state should, for this purpose, make use of homes established by private institutions incor- porated for charitable purposes, because (c) it can thus regulate the institutions, and (&) it will find these agencies sufficient, at 10 least for the present. " If these views are sound, they lead logically to the following conclusions: IV. That there should be a public guardian of homeless children under twelve years of age, 15 whose duty it should be to find out the con- dition and treatment of those brought before him, and when he sees that they require it, to place them in some institution incorporated for the care of such children, to be kept there or 20 sent by them to homes here or in other states. In the category of homeless children may be in- cluded not only orphans without homes, but all children under twelve years of age who are abandoned by their parents or so neglected or 25 abused as to require that they be taken in charge. V. That every police officer should be required and every citizen should be permitted to bring a homeless child before this guardian. 3c VI. That a child under seven years of age should THE CHILD AND THE STATE. 237 •never under any circumstances be treated as a criminal, and a child between seven and twelve should not be so treated until he has been ex- amined by the guardian and by him sent to the criminal magistrate. No child under twelve should ever be left in the society of criminals under any circumstances whatever." 5l.-Cbe CbilD anJ) tbe State' DAVID DUDLEY FIELD. " The Homeless Boy " is the title of a wood-cut circulated by the Children's Aid Society. It is a 10 sad picture. The little waif sits on a stone step, with his head bent over and resting on his hands, stretched across bare knees, his iiowing hair cover- ing his face, and his tattered clothes and bare feet betokening utter wretchedness. Turning the leaf, 15 we are informed that twenty dollars will enable the society to give the boy a home. Can this picture be real and the statement true? The picture is too real, and that the statement is made in good faith and for reasons sufficient, we 20 have the guaranty of the society's good name and the known fidelity of its excellent secretary, Mr. Brace. How many of such homeless children are there in the city of New York ? We are told that there are 25 at least twelve thousand under twelve years of age ; seven thousand of them having no shelter, not knowing at morning where they can sleep at night, * Reprinted from The Works of David Dudley Field, by permission of Messrs D. Appleton & Co. 238 ARGUMENTA TION. and the rest having only shelters revolting to be- hold. Less than $250,000 then would give them all decent and comfortable homes. Every night that these twelve thousand children are wandering in the streets or lurking about rum-shops and dance- 5 houses, or huddled in dens that are as foul in air as they are foul in occupants, that sum many times over is spent in superfluous luxury. Rich parlors and wide halls are filled nightly with pleasure seek- ers, where the air is sweetened with the perfume of -lo flowers, music wafted with the perfume, and the light is like " a new morn risen on mid noon." The voice of mirth in the ball-room drowns the wail of the children beyond, and when the night pales into morning, the dancers go home rejoicing and the 15 children go about the streets. Surely there must be something wrong with our civilization, our Chris- tian civilization, so long as these strange contrasts are permitted to last. It is not for the lack of sympathy or Christian 20 charity. New York is charitable and generous be- yond most cities, and I think I might have said be- yond any city of Christendom, which is as much as to say beyond any city of the earth. Private charity is great and association for public charity is 25 greater. On every hand are asylums, retreats, dis- pensaries ; more than a hundred institutions organ- ized for the relief of poverty and suffering; asso- ciations for mutual help established in all trades and nearly all professions; and over four hundred 30 churches have their societies and committees in aid of needy members. How, then, is it that we behold this dreadful apparition of helpless and innocent suffering, these homeless children, who, by no fault THE CHILD AND THE STATE. 239 of their own, are in want of food, clothing and shel- ter, and are lurking in corners or scattered in the streets. It is because there is not a wider knowl- edge of the extent of the evil and a closer study of 5 the means to counteract it. Let us enter into some details. In one of the tenement houses of the city, and their number is legion, there is a room, nineteen feet long, fifteen feet broad and eleven high, where live 10 a man and his wife and eight children. They sleep, dress, wash, cook and eat in this one room. These ten persons have altogether thirty-one hundred and thirty-five cubic feet of air, while the law requires at least six thousand feet — nearly twice as much as 15 they get. From tenement houses like this there flows out daily a stream of children, ragged and dirty, to pick up rags, cigar stumps, and other refuse of the streets, or to pilfer or beg, as best they can. This is not the place to describe the horrors of the 20 tenement house, nor to discuss the duty or failure of duty on the part of the state in respect of its con- struction and occupation. I ask attention only to the condition of the children, and for illustration take the case of a boy, five years old, who is found, 25 in a chill November day, barefooted, scantily clothed, searching among the rag heaps in the street. He is a well-formed child, his face is fair, and as he turns his bright eyes upon you when you ask him where he lives, yoM see that he has quick intelli- sogence. Altogether he is such a child as a father should look upon with pride and a true mother v>rould press to her bosom. Yet the parents are miserably poor, the father half the time out of work, and the mother wan with the care of her family. 240 ARGUMENTA TION. This is not all. Father and mother both drink to excess, and each is intoxicated as often at least as Saturday night comes round. Has the state any duties toward this little boy, and if so what are they? 5 All will agree that it has some duty, at least that of protection from personal violence. May it go further, and rescue the child from its loathsome oc- cupation, its contaminating surroundings and its faithless parents ? I think that it may, and having 10 the right, that it is charged with the duty of rescu- ing the child. This is a large subject, larger indeed than can be fully treated in this paper, but some of the reasons for my opinion shall be stated. At the outset, let me say that I am not a believer in the 15 paternal theory of government. The great ends for which men are associated in political communities are mutual protection, and the construction of those public works, of which roads and bridges are ex- amples, for which individuals are not competent. 20 The state should interfere as little as possible with the economy of the family and the liberty of the in- dividual to pursue his own happiness in his own way. And as a general rule parents are the best guardians of their children. The family is the 25 primaeval institution of the race. The love of the parent is the strongest of motives for the care of the child. But when parental love fails, and the off- spring is either abandoned or educated in vice, the state may rightfully intervene. Its right is derived 30 from its duty to protect itself and to protect all its people. I am not deducing the right of interference from an impulse of the heart, though that be the founda- THE CHILD AND THE STATE. 241 tion on which our hospitals and almshouses are built, but I place it upon the inherent and all-per- vading right of protection and self-defense. Charity is an individual privilege ; the impulse is an 5 individual gift from Heaven. The state is not founded for charity, but for protection. The dic- tate of humanity is without doubt to take a child from an unfaithful parent and give it the training: most likely to lead to an honest and indus- 10 trious life. This is to transfer the child from an unclean home to one that is clean, from indecency to decency, from foul air to pure, from unhealthy food to that which is healthy, from evil ways to good. Who can doubt that 15 the greatest good which can be done to a child neglected by its parent or taught beggary or crime, is to take it from the wicked parent, and give it into the care of one who will teach it, not only the rudi- ments of learning, but honest labor. In what other 20 way can we better follow the example of the Di- vine Master than by caring for these little ones, who are unable to take care of themselves ? Protection, however, is the foundation of the right I am asserting. We must of course have a care 25 that interference for protection be not carried be- yond its rightful limits. If any general rule could be laid down for marking these limits it would per- haps be this, that the state should not invade one man's rights in order to protect another's. What 30 the individual can do for himself the state should not undertake. But in the case supposed, the faithless parent has forfeited his right to his child, and the only point to be considered is the relation of the child to the state. This relation involves consid- 242 ARGUMBNTA TION. erations of economy and of safety, each of which may be considered by itself. The question of economy has political and social aspects. The prevention of crime and the punish- ment of the criminal impose upon the state some of 5 its heaviest burdens. The cost of the police, of the courts and the prisons, makes one of the longest items in the roll of public expenditure. In the year ending September 30, 1885, the maintenance of the three state prisons cost about $400,000. Besides 10 these prisons there are penitentiaries at New York, Brooklyn, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, and there is a county prison in each county. What all these cost there are no readily accessible statis- tics to tell. The yearly cost of the police in the city 15 of New York is about $3,700,000, and that of the criminal courts $300,000. The cost, defrayed from the city treasury, of prisons, reformatories, asylums, and other charitable institutions is over $3,000,000. The expense of prisons alone is with difificulty sepa- 20 rated from the rest. These are approximate fig- ures. It is hard to find out how much the people of this state, in all their municipalities and political di- visions, pay for police, courts and prisons. We know that the amount is appalling. Much of this, 25 how much cannot be told, might be saved by ful- filling the scriptural injunction : " Train up a child in the way he should go,- and when he is old he will not depart from it." The question of safety is more vital still. Every 30 one of these boys may be a voter ten or twenty years hence. His vote will then be as potent as yours or mine. In countries where the sovereign is a prince it has ever been thought prudent to bestow special THE CHILD AND THE STATE. 243 care upon the training of an heir to the throne. Here the people are sovereign, and the Uttle boy, now wandering about the streets, neglected or led astray, is in one sense joint heir to a throne. Every 5 dictate of prudence points to his being fitted to fulfill the duties of his station. Who can say that if duly cared for he may not grow to the stature of a leader of the people ranking with the foremost men of his time, a benefactor of the race, a teacher of 10 great truths, a helper of the helpless, a brave sol- dier in the " sacramental host of God's elect." If, on the other hand, he is left to himself in the swift current of want and vice, floating in the scum of sewers and the company of thieves, he will prove a 15 scourge to the state, and may bring up in a prison, or perchance on the scaffold. For this reason, and the one preceding, it should seem to be the duty of the community to look after children whose parents abandon them or lead them 20 into evil ways, or are incapable of taking care of them. We have already in many instances acted upon a like theory. The compulsory education acts, the corporations formed to prevent cruelty to children, 25 and the unincorporated societies organized for their relief, are so many agencies established upon this principle. Take, for example, the eighth section of the elementary education act of 1874, as amended in 1876: which provides that the board of educa- 3otion in each city and incorporated village, and the trustees of the school districts and union school in each town, by the vote of a majority at a meeting called for the purpose, shall make all needful regu- lations concerning habitual truants and children be- 244 ARGUMENTA TION. tween the ages of eight and fourteen, who may be found wandering about the streets or pubHc places during school hours, having no lawful occupation or business, and growing up in ignorance; the regu- lations to be such as in the judgment of the board 5 will be conducive to the welfare of the children, and to the good order of the city or town, and to be ap- proved by a judge of the Supreme Court. Suitable places are to be provided for the discipline, instruc- tion and confinement, when necessary, of the chil- 10 dren, and the aid of the police of cities, or incor- porated villages, and constables of towns, may be required to enforce the regulations. The Penal Code makes it a crime to desert a child "with intent wholly to abandon it" (Sec. 15 287), or to omit without lawful excuse to perform a duty imposed by law to " furnish food, clothing, shelter or medical attendance" (Sec. 288), or will- fully to permit a child's " life to be endangered, or its health to be injured, or its morals to become de-20 praved " (Sec. 289), or "the child to be placed in such a situation or to engage in such an occupation " as that any of these things may happen. Another section (291) provides that a child under sixteen who is found " gathering or picking rags, cigar 25 stumps, bones or refuse from markets," or without a home, or improperly exposed or neglected, or in a state of want or suffering or destitute of means of support, being an orphan or being in certain im- moral company, " must be arrested and brought be- 30 fore a proper court or magistrate as a vagrant, dis- orderly or destitute child." The Code of Criminal Procedure (Sec. 887) declares, as vagrant, any child between five and fourteen, " having sufficient THE CHILD AND THE STATE. 245 bodily health and mental capacity to attend the pub- lic schools, found wandering in the streets or lanes of any city or incorporated village, a truant without any lawful occupation; " and it provides in the next 5 section (888), that when a complaint is made against any such vagrant, the magistrate must cause the child and its parent to be brought before him, and may order the parent to take care of the child, and if he does not, " the magistrate shall, by 10 warrant, commit the child to such place as shall be provided for his reception." If no such place has been provided, the child must be committed to the almshouse of the county, and a child so committed may be bound out as an apprentice. A child found 15 begging (Sec. 893) must be committed to the poor- house, and there kept at useful labor until duly dis- charged or bound out. These are very sweeping provisions, but they are said to fail of the effect intended, by reason of de- 20 fects in the machinery for working them. Indeed, the theory upon which they are framed is in some respects erroneous. A child under twelve should never be treated as a criminal except after convic- tion for crime, in the few cases in which a child be- 25 tween seven and twelve may be convicted. To treat him as a criminal leaves a stigma, which after years do not efface. A friend who visited lately one of the reformatory schools in Boston described an in- spection of the inmates, noting in particular the 30 bearing of a little boy, three years old, who went through the exercises with the greatest spirit, in- telligence, and glee. Should this little child be classed with criminals, brought into contact with them, or be exposed ever to be told that he had been 246 ARGUMENTA TION. SO classed? Our laws now use in regard to such a child the expressions " arrest," " prefer complaint," " bring before a magistrate for hearing." and the like. When the word " arrest " is used in respect of legal process it is darkened with the shadow of s criminality. Why not say " take," or better still " rescue." A child under seven years of age is, and one between seven and twelve is presumed to be, in- capable of committing crime. A policeman finding such a child homeless should be required to bring 10 him before an officer specially charged with the duty of examining such cases, not a police justice. The state would thus appear to take the child under its protection as one of its wards or children. Such should be the treatment of every child under twelve 15 years of age, whatever might be the circumstances ; and the same officer should be the one to decide in the first instance whether a child between seven and twelve should be sent to a criminal magistrate. When a child not charged with crime is brought 20 before such an officer and is shown to be abused or abandoned, what should be done with him and with the parent? The latter should be required to sup- port the child, so far as the law can make him re- sponsible. The like is required of persons classed 25 as disorderly by Section 901 of the Code of Criminal Procedure,' and under the education acts is also re- quired of parents who fail to send their children to school. How to reach the parent is a question for the criminal law, with which we arc not dealing 30 at present. But for the child, what should be done with him? Most certainly he should be placed in a healthy and sufficient home and taught the rudi- ments of knowledge and honest ways. Here the THE CHILD AND THE STATE. 247 State should seek the aid of private charity, acting through incorporated institutions, because the state can in this way best control the institutions, and look after the treatment and welfare of the chil- 5 dren. These agencies are sufficient for the present and may be sufficient always. Show the people the way in which they can best help the outcast, and their benevolence will supply the motive. If these views are sound, they lead logically to 10 the following conclusions : I. That there should be a public guardian of homeless children under twelve years of age, whose duty it should be to find out the condition and treat- ment of those brought before him, and when he 15 sees that they require it, to place them in some insti- tution incorporated for the care of such children, to be kept there or sent by them to homes here or in other states. In the category of homeless chil- dren may be included not only orphans without 20 homes, but all children under twelve years of age who are abandoned by their parents or so neg- lected or abused as to require that they should be taken in charge. II. That every police officer should be required 25 and every citizen should be permitted to bring a homeless child before this guardian. III. That a child under seven years of age should never under any circumstances be treated as a criminal, and a child between seven and twelve 30 should not be so treated until he has been examined by the guardian and by him sent to the criminal magistrate. No child under twelve should ever be left in the society of criminals under any circum- stances whatever. 248 ARGUMENTA TION. This paper has already reached the Hmit intended. It has not gone into particulars : on the contrary, it has been carefully confined to certain general propositions. Their development and execution are matters of detail. The aim of the article is attained, 5 if it has helped to impress upon the reader this les- son, partly social and partly political : Take care of the children and the men and women will take care of themselves. Notes. — This argument is typical of a large class, those 10 not intended for oral delivery. Magazines and editorial columns acquire an incalculable influence through such arguments. The force of this one by the eminent jurist Field springs chiefly from {a) its appeal to two deep-seated selfish emotions, the love of money and the instinct of 15 self-defense ; ' {b) its definite formulation of practicable measures. The practicability of these measures is made clear by the citing of precedents which have proved prac- ticable. The use of precedents is a fundamental principle, or let us say habit, in English and American law, whereas 20 Roman law made use of codal authority, '•' The proposed measures derive an added appearance of practicability from the character of the author himself. The eminence of Field as the framer of American law-codes and as a master of constitutional law cannot but influence the 25 ' As we- see from Dr. Field's words, he might have made an appeal to the religious and ethical sentiments, but that he thought it the business of the state to proceed on the selfish basis. For a moving appeal, on this same subject, to the religious and ethical sentiments and to the imagina- 30 tion, see Phillips Brooks's speech at Philadelphia in behalf of the Children's Aid Society, in " Essays and Addresses " (Dutton). -vSee Sir Henry Maine, "Village Communities, etc.," p. 330 ff. 35 THE MANLY VIRTUES AND POLITICS. 249 reader who is aware of it. The ancient writers on rhetoric are somewhat divided in mind as to how much weight is lent to an argument by the character of the speaker (^^oj iv TV \iyovTC) ; but most of them follow Aristotle in 5 ranking this means of proof (tt/o-tis) among the principal ones. Compare Emerson's remark, " What you are speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say." 52.— ^be /iBanlB virtues an& ipracttcal politics.' THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Sometimes, in addressing men who sincerely de- sire the betterment of our public affairs, but who 10 have not taken active part in directing them, I feel tempted to tell them that there are two gospels which should be preached to every reformer. The first is the gospel of morality ; the second is the gospel of efficiency. 15 To decent, upright citizens it is hardly necessary to preach the doctrine of morality as applied to the affairs of public life. It is an even graver offense to sin against the commonwealth than to sin against an individual. The man who debauches our public 20 life, whether by malversation of funds in office, by the actual bribery of voters or of legislators, or by the corrupt use of the offices as spoils wherewith to reward the unworthy and the vicious for their nox- ious and interested activity in the baser walks of 25 political life, — this man is a greater foe to our well- being as a nation than is even the defaulting cash- ier of a bank, or the betrayer of a private trust. 1 Reprinted from "American Ideals," by permission of Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 25^ ARGUMENTATION. No amount of intelligence and no amount of energy will save a nation which is not honest, and no gov- ernment can ever be a permanent success if admin- istered in accordance with base ideals. The first requisite in the citizen who wishes to share the 5 work of our public life, whether he wishes himself to hold office or merely to do his plain duty as an American by taking part in the management of our political machinery, is that he shall act disinter- estedly and with a sincere purpose to serve the 10 whole commonwealth. But disinterestedness and honesty and unselfish desire to do what is right are not enough in them- selves. A man must not only be disinterested, but he must be efficient. If he goes into politics he 15 must go into practical politics, in order to make his influence felt. Practical politics must not be construed to mean dirty politics. On the contrary, in the long run the politics of fraud and treachery and foulness are unpractical politics, and the most 20 practical of all politicians is the politician who is clean and decent and upright. But a man who goes into the actual battles of the political world must prepare himself much as he would for the struggle in any other branch of our life. He must 25 be prepared to meet men of far lower ideals than his own, and to face things, not as he would wish them, but as they are. He must not lose his own high ideal, and yet he must face the fact that the majority of the men with whom he must work have 30 lower ideals. He must stand firmly for what he believes, and yet he must realize that political ac- tion, to be effective, must be the joint action of many men, and that he must sacrifice somewhat of THE MANLY VIRTUES AND POLITICS. 25 1 his own opinions to those of his associates if he ever hopes to see his desires take practical shape. The prime thing that every man who takes an interest in poHtics should remember is that he must 5 act, and not merely criticise the actions of others. It is not the man who sits by his fireside reading his evening paper, and saying how bad our politics and politicians are, who will ever do anything to save us ; it is the man who goes out into the rough 10 hurly-burly of the caucus, the primary, and the political meeting, and there faces his fellows on equal terms. The real service is rendered, not by the critic who stands aloof from the contest, but by the man who enters into it and bears his part as a 15 man should, underterred by the blood and the sweat. It is a pleasant but a dangerous thing to associate merely with cultivated, refined men of high ideals and sincere purpose to do right, and to think that one has done all one's duty by discussing politics 20 with such associates. It is a good thing to meet men of this stamp ; indeed it is a necessary thing, for we thereby brighten our ideals, and keep in touch with the people who are unselfish in their purposes ; but if we associate with such men exclusively we 25 can accomplish nothing. The actual battle must be fought out on other and less pleasant fields. The actual advance must be made in the field of practical politics among the men who represent or guide or control the mass of the voters, the men who are 30 sometimes rough and coarse, who sometimes have lower ideals than they should, but who are capable, masterful, and efficient. It is only by mingling on equal terms with such men, by showing them that one is able to give and to receive heavy punishment 252 ARGUMEN TA TION. without flinching, and that one can master the de- tails of political management as well as they can, that it is possible for a man to establish a standing that will be useful to him in fighting for a great re- form. Every man who wishes well to his country 5 is in honor bound to take an active part in political life. If he does his duty and takes that active part he will be sure occasionally to commit mistakes and to be guilty of shortcomings. For these mistakes and shortcomings he will receive the unmeasured 10 denunciation of the critics who commit neither be- cause they never do anything but criticise. Never- theless he will have the satisfaction of knowing that the salvation of the country ultimately lies, not in the hands of his critics, but in the hands of those 15 who, however imperfectly, actually do the work of the nation. I would not for one moment be under- stood as objecting to criticism or failing to appre- ciate its importance. We need fearless criticism of our public men and public parties ; we need un- 2c sparing condemnation of all persons and all princi- ples that count for evil in our public life : but it be- hooves every man to remember that the work of the critic, important though it is, is of altogether sec- ondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is 25 accomplished by the man who does the things, and not by the man who talks about how they ought or ought not to be done. Therefore the man who wishes to do good in his community must go into active political life. If he 30 is a Republican, let him join his local Republican association ; if a Democrat, the Democratic asso- ciation ; if an Independent, then let him put him- self in touch with those who think as he does. In THE MANLY VIRTUES AND POLITICS. 253 any event let him make himself an active force and make his influence felt. Whether he works within or without party lines he can surely find plenty of men who are desirous of good government, and 5 who, if they act together, become at once a power on the side of righteousness. Of course, in a gov- ernment like ours, a man can accomplish anything only by acting in combination with others, and equally of course, a number of people can act to- 10 gether only by each sacrificing certain of his beliefs or prejudices. That man is indeed unfortunate who cannot in any given district find some people with whom he can conscientiously act. He may find that he can do best by acting within a party organ- 15 ization ; he may find that he can do best by acting, at least for certain purposes, or at certain times, out- side of party organizations, in an independent body of some kind ; but with some association he must. act if he wishes to exert any real influence. 20 One thing to be always remembered is that neither independence on the one hand nor party fealty on the other can ever be accepted as an ex- cuse for failure to do active work in politics. The party man who offers his allegiance to party as an 25 excuse for blindly follovv'ing his party, right or wrong, and who fails to try to make that party in any way better, com.mits a crime against the coun- try ; and a crime quite as serious is committed by the independent who makes his independence an ex- 3oCUse for easy self-indulgence, and who thinks that when he says he belongs to neither party he is ex- cused from the duty of taking part in the practical work of party organizations. The party man is bound to do his full share in party management. He 254 ARC UMEN TA TION. is bound to attend the caucuses and the primaries, to see that only good men are put up, and to exert his influence as strenuously against the foes of good government within his party, as, through his party machinery, he does against those who are without 5 the party. In the same way the independent, if he cannot take part in the regular organizations, is bound to do just as much active constructive work (not merely the work of criticism) outside; he is bound to try to get up an organization of his own 10 and to try to make that organization felt in some effective manner. Whatever course the man who wishes to do his duty by his country takes in refer- ence to parties or to independence of parties, he is bound to liy to put himself in touch with men who 15 think as he does, and to help make their joint in- fluence felt in behalf of the powers that go for de- cency and good government. He must try to ac- complish things ; he must not vote in the air unless it is really necessary. Occasionally a man must 20 cast a " conscience vote," when there is no possi- bility of carrying to victory his principles or his nominees ; at times, indeed, this may be his highest duty ; but ordinarily this is not the case. As a gen- eral rule a man ought to work and vote for some- 25 thing 'which there is at least a fair chance of put- ting into effect. Yet another thing to be remembered by the man who wishes to make his influence felt for good in our politics is that he must act purely as an Ameri- 30 can. If he is not deeply imbued with the American spirit he cannot succeed. Any organization which tries to work along the line of caste or creed, which fails to treat all American citizens on their merits as THE MANLY VIRTUES AND POLITICS. 255 men, will fail, and will deserve to fail. Where our political life is healthy, there is and can be no room for any movement organized to help or to antago- nize men because they do or do not profess a certain 5 religion, or because they were or were not born here or abroad. We have a right to ask that those with whom we associate, and those for whom we vote, shall be themselves good Americans in heart and spirit, unhampered by adherence to foreign ideals, 10 and acting without regard to the national and reli- gious prejudices of European countries; but if they really are good Americans in spirit and thought and purpose, that is all that we have any right to con- sider in regard to them. In the same way there 15 must be no discrimination for or against any man because of his social standing. On the one side, there is nothing to be made out of a political organi- zation which draws an exclusive social line, and on the other it must be remembered that it is just as un- co American to vote against a man because he is rich as to vote against him because he is poor. The one man has just as much right as the other to claim to be treated purely on his merits as a man. In short, to do good work in politics, the men who organize 25 must organize v/holly without regard to whether their associates were born here or abroad, whether they are Protestants or Catholics, Jews or Gentiles, whether they are bankers or butchers, professors or day-laborers. All that can rightly be asked of one's 30 political associates is that they shall be honest men, good Americans, and substantially in accord as re- gards their political ideas. Another thing that must not be forgotten by the man desirous of doing good political work is the 256 ARGUMEN TA TION. need of the rougher, manlier virtues, and above all the virtue of personal courage, physical as well as moral. If we wish to do good worlv for our country we must be unselfish, disinterested, sincerely desir- ous of the well-being of the commonwealth, and ca- 5 pable of devoted adherence to a lofty ideal ; but in addition we must be vigorous in mind and body, able to hold our own in rough conflict with our fel- lows, able to suffer punishment without flinching, and, at need, repay it in kind with full interest. A 10 peaceful and commercial civilization is always in danger of suffering the loss of the virile fighting qualities without which no nation, however cul- tured, however refined, however thrifty and prosper- ous, can ever amount to anything. Every citizen 15 should be taught, both in public and in private life, that while he must avoid brawling and quarreling, it is his duty to stand up for his rights. He must real- ize that the only man who is more contemptible than the blusterer and bully is the coward. No man 20 is worth much to the commonwealth if he is not ca- pable of feeling righteous wrath and just indigna- tion, if he is not stirred to hot anger by misdoing, and is not impelled to see justice meted out to the wrongdoers. No man is worth much anywhere if 25 he does not possess both moral and physical cour- age. A politician who really serves his country well, and deserves his country's gratitude, must usu- ally possess some of the hardy virtues which we ad- mire in the soldier who serves his country well in 30 the field. An ardent young reformer is very apt to try to begin by reforming too much. He needs always to keep in mind that he has got to serve as a sergeant THE mANLY VIRTUES AND POLITICS. 257 before he assumes the duties of commander in chief. It is right for him from the beginning to take a great interest in national, State, and muni- cipal affairs, and to try to make himself felt in them 5 if the occasion arises ; but the best work must be done by the citizen working in his own \vard or dis- . trict. Let him associate himself Vv'ith the men who think as he does, and who, like him, are sincerely de- voted to the public good. Then let them try to 10 make themselves felt in the choice of alderman, of councilman, of assemblyman. The politicians will be prompt to recognize their power, and the peo- ple will recognize it too, after a while. Let them organize and work, undaunted by any temporary 15 defeat. If they fail at first, and if they fail again, let them merely make up their minds to redouble their efforts, and perhaps alter their methods ; but let them keep on working. It is sheer unmanliness and cowardice to shrink 20 from the contest because at first there is failure, or because the work is difficult or repulsive. No man who is worth his salt has any right to abandon the eft'ort to better our policies merely because he does not find it pleasant, merely because it entails associa- 25 tions which to him happen to be disagreeable. Let him keep right on, taking the buffets he gets good- humoredly.and repaying them with heartiness when the chance arises. Let him make up his mind that he will have to face the violent opposition of the 30 spoils politician, and also, too often, the unfair and ungenerous criticism of those who ought to know better. Let him be careful not to show himself so thin-skinned as to mind either; let him fight his way forward, paying only so much regard to both as 258 ARG UMENTA TION. is necessary to enable him to win in spite of them. He may not, and indeed probably will not, accom- plish nearly as much as he would like to, or as he thinks he ought to : but he will certainly accomplish something ; and if he can feel that he has helped to 5 elevate the type of representative sent to the muni- cipal, the State, or the national legislature from his district, or to elevate the standard of duty among the public officials in his own ward, he has a right to be profoundly satisfied with what he has accomplished. 10 Finally, there is one other matter which the man who tries to wake his fellows to higher political ac- tion would do well to ponder. It is a good thing to appeal to citizens to work for good government be- cause it will better their estate materially, but it is a 15 far better thing to appeal to them to work for good government because it is right in itself to do so. Doubtless, if we can have clean, honest politics, we shall be better off in material matters. A thor- oughly pure, upright, and capable administration of 20 the affairs of New York city results in a very appre- ciable increase of comfort to each citizen. We should have better systems of transportation ; we should have cleaner streets, better sewers, and the like. But it is sometimes difficult to show the indi- 25 vidual citizen that he will be individually better off in his business and in his home affairs for taking part in politics. I do not think it is always worth while to show that this will always be the case. The citizen should be appealed to primarily on the 30 ground that it is his plain duty, if he wishes to de- serve the name of freeman, to do his full share in the hard and difficult work of self-government. He must do his share unless he is willing to prove him- THE MANLY VIRTUES AND POLITICS. 259 self unfit for free institutions, fit only to live under a government where he will be plundered and bul- lied because he deserves to be plundered and bullied on account of his selfish timidity and short-sighted- 5 ness. A clean and decent government is sure in the end to benefit our citizens in the material cir- cumstances of their lives ; but each citizen should be appealed to, to take part in bettering our politics, not for the sake of any possible improvement it may 10 bring to his affairs, but on the ground that it is his plain duty to do so, and that this is a duty which it is cowardly and dishonorable in him to shirk. To sum up, then, the men who wish to work for decent politics must work practically, and yet must 15 not swerve from their devotion to a high ideal. They must actually do things, and not merely con- fine themselves to criticising those who do them. They must work disinterestedly, and appeal to the disinterested element in others, although they must 20 also do work which will result in the material bet- terment of the community. They must act as Americans through and through, in spirit and hope and purpose, and, while being disinterested, unself- ish, and generous in their dealings with others, they 25 must also show that they possess the essential manly virtues of energy, of resolution, and of indomitable personal courage. Notes. — This short argument is praiseworthy first for structure. It consists of a dozen paragraphs, of which 50 the first states the two-fold proposition. The next two treat the proposition in general. Then follow eight arguments, or rather appeals, and finally a paragraph of summary. The argument is praiseworthy also for the directness of its app&ai to the emotions of courage 2 6o ARGUMEN TA TION. and endurance. These emotions once aroused, the per- suasion intended is easy. The complex difficulties of the tasks under discussion are not argued away, but the reader is made to feel that they will partly recede before the courageous attitude, and can partly be overcome by persistent effort. Although an ideal argument addresses the will through the intellect, yet if the will can be some- 5 what stirred early in the argument, the task of convincing the intellect is much reduced. 53,— ©n tbe IRepeal of tbe "Glnion with ITrelanO, SPEECH OF THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (m. p. for LEEDS). (House of Comtnons — February b, 1833.) Last night, Sir, I thought that it would not be «o necessary for me to take any part in the present de- bate : but the appeal which has this evening been made to me by my honorable friend the member for Lincoln * has forced me to rise. I will, how- ever, postpone the few words which I have to say in 15 defense of my own consistency, till I have expressed my opinion on the much more important subject which is before the House. My honorable friend tells us that we are now called upon to make a choice between two modes 20 of pacifying Ireland; that the government recom- mends coercion ; that the honorable and learned member for Dublin f recommends redress ; and that it is our duty to try the effect of redress before we have recourse to coercion. The antithesis is framed 25 * Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer. f Mr. O'Connell. REPEAL OF THE UNWN WITH IRELAND. 261 with all the ingenuity which is characteristic of my honorable friend's style; but I cannot help thinking that, on this occasion, his ingenuity has imposed on himself, and that he has not sufficiently considered 5 the meaning of the pointed phrase which he used with so much effect. Redress is no doubt a very well sounding word. What can be more reasonable than to ask for redress? What more unjust than to refuse redress? But my honorable friend will 10 perceive, on reflection, that, though he and the hon- orable and learned member for Dublin agree in pro- nouncing the word redress, they agree in nothing else. They utter the same sound ; but they attach to it two diametrically opposed meanings. The 15 honorable and learned member for Dublin means by redress simply the Repeal of the Union. Now, to the Repeal of the Union my honorable friend the member for Lincoln is decidedly adverse. When we get at his real meaning, we find that he is just 20 as unwilling as we are to give the redress which the honorable and learned member for Dublin de- mands. Only a small minority of the House will, I hope and believe, vote with that honorable and learned member; but the minority which thinks 25 with him will be very much smaller. We have, indeed, been told by some gentlemen who are not themselves repealers, that the question of Repeal deserves a much more serious considera- tion than it has yet received. Repeal, they say, is 30 an object on which millions have, however unwisely, set their hearts : and men who speak in the name of millions are not to be coughed down or sneered down. That which a suffering nation regards, rightly or wrongly, as the sole cure for all its dis- 262 ARGUMENTATION. tempers, ought not to be treated with levity, but to be the subject of full and solemn debate. All this. Sir, is most true: but I am surprised that this lec- ture should have been read to us who sit on your right. It would, I apprehend, have been with more 5 propriety addressed to a different quarter. Whose fault is it that we have not yet had, and that there is no prospect of our having, this full and solemn debate? Is it the fault of his Majesty's Ministers? Have not they framed the Speech which their Royal 10 Master delivered from the throne, in such a manner as to invite the grave and searching discussion of the question of Repeal? And has not the invita- tion been declined? Is it not fresh in our recollec- tion that the honorable and learned member for 15 Dublin spoke two hours, perhaps three hours, — nobody keeps accurate account of time while he speaks, — but two or three hours without venturing to join issue with us on this subject? In truth, he suffered judgment to go against him by default. 20 We on this side of the House did our best to pro- voke him to the conflict. We called on him to main- tain here those doctrines which he had proclaimed elsewhere with so much vehemence, and, I am sorry to be forced to add, with a scurrility unworthy of 25 his parts and eloquence. Never was a challenge more fairly given ; but it was not accepted. The great champion of Repeal would not lift our glove. He shrank back; he skulked away; not, assuredly, from distrust of hi^ powers, which have never been 30 more vigorously exerted than in this debate, but evidently from distrust of his cause. I have seldom heard so able a speech as his : I certainly never heard a speech so evasive. From the beginning to REPEAL OF THE UNION WITH IRELAND. ^63 the end he studiously avoided saying a single vord tending to raise a discussion about that Repeal which, in other places, he constaiitly affirms to be the sole panacea for all the evils by which his coun- 5 try is afflicted. Nor is this all. Yesterday night he placed on our order book not less than fourteen notices; and of those notices not a single one had any reference to the Union between Great Britain and Ireland. It is therefore evident to me, not only 10 that the honorable and learned gentleman is not now prepared to debate the question in this House, but that he has no intention of debating it in this House at all. He keeps it, and prudently keeps it, for au- diences of a very different kind. I am therefore, I 15 repeat, surprised to hear the government accused of avoiding the discussion of this subject. Why should we avoid a battle in which the bold and skill- ful captain of the enemy evidently knows that we must be victorious? 20 One gentleman, though not a repealer, has begged us not to declare ourselves decidedly adverse to Re- peal till we have studied the petitions which are coming in from Ireland. Really, Sir, this is not a subject on which any public man ought to be now 25 making up his mind. My mind is made up. My reasons are such as, I am certain, no petition from Ireland will confute. Those reasons have long been ready to be produced ; and, since we are accused of flinching, I will at once produce them. I am pre- 30 pared to show that the Repeal of the Union would not remove the political and social evils which af- flict Ireland, nay, that it would aggravate almost every one of those evils. I understand, though I do not approve, the pro 2^4 ARGUMENTA i lON. ceedings of poor Wolfe Tone and his confederates. They wished to make a complete separation be- tween Great Britain and Ireland. They wished to establish a Hibernian republic. Their plan was a very bad one; but, to do them justice, it was per- 6 fectly consistent ; and an ingenious man might de- fend it by some plausible arguments. But that is not the plan of the honorable and learned member for Dublin. He assures us that he wishes the con- nection between the islands to be perpetual. He is lo for a complete separation between the two parlia- ments ; but he is for indissoluble union between the two Crowns. Nor does the honorable and learned gentleman mean, by an union between the Crowns, such an union as exists between the Crown 15 of this kingdom and the Crown of Hanover, For I need not say that, though the same per- son is king of Great Britain and of Hanover, there is no more political connection between Great Britain and Hanover than between Great 20 Britain and Hesse, or between Great Britain and Bavaria. Hanover may be at peace with a state Vv^ith which Great Britain is at war. Nay, Hanover may, as a member of the Germanic body, send a contingent of troops to cross bayonets with the 25 king's English footguards. This is not the relation in which the honorable and learned gentleman pro- poses that Great Britain and Ireland should stand to each other. His plan is, that each of the two countries shall have an independent legislature, but 30 that both shall have the same executive government. Now is it possible that a mind so acute and so well informed as his should not at once perceive that this plan involves an absurdity, a downright contra- REPEAL OF THE UNION WITH IRELAND. 265 diction? Two independent legislatures! One ex- ecutive government ! How can the thing be ? No doubt, if the legislative power were quite distinct from the executive power, England and Ireland 5 might as easily have two legislatures as two Chan- cellors and two Courts of King's Bench. But though, in books written by theorists, the ex- ecutive power and the legislative power may be treated as things quite distinct, every man ac- loquainted with the real working of our constitution knows that the two powers are most closely connected, nay intermingled with each other. During several generations, the whole administra- tion of affairs has been conducted in conformity 15 with the sense of parliament. About every exercise of the prerogative of the Crown it is the privilege of parliament to oft"er advice; and that advice no wise king will ever slight. It is the prerogative of the sovereign to choose his own servants ; but it is im- 20 possible for him to maintain them in office unless parliament will support them. It is the preroga- tive of the sovereign to treat with other princes ; but it is impossible for him to persist in any scheme of foreign policy which is disagreeable to parliament. 25 It is the prerogative of the sovereign to make war ; but he cannot raise a battalion or man a frigate without the help of parliament. The repealers may therefore be refuted out of their own mouths. They say that Great Britain and Ireland ought to 30 have one executive power. But the legislature has a most important share of the executive power. Therefore, by the confession of the repealers them- selves. Great Britain and Ireland ought to have one legislature. 266 ARGUMENTATION. Consider for one moment in what a situation the executive government will be placed if you have two independent legislatures, and if those legislatures should differ, as all bodies which are independent of each other will sometimes differ. Suppose the case 5 of a commercial treaty which is unpopular in Eng- land and popular in Ireland. The Irish parliament expresses its approbation of the terms, and passes a vote of thanks to the negotiator. We at Westmin- ster censure the terms and impeach the negotiator. lo Or we are to have two foreign offices, one in Down- ing Street and one in Dublin Castle? Is his Maj- esty to send to every court in Christendom two diplomatic agents, to thwart each other and to be spies upon each other? It is incon- 15 ceivable, but that, in a very few years, disputes such as can be terminated only by arms must arise between the communities so absurdly united and so absurdly disunited. All history confirms this rea- soning. Superficial observers have fancied that 20 they have found cases on the other side. But as soon as you examine those cases you will see either that they bear no analogy to the case with which we have to deal, or that they corroborate my argu- ment. The case of Ireland herself has been cited. 25 Ireland, it has been said, had an independent legisla- ture from 1782 to 1800: during eighteen years there were two co-equal parliaments under one Crown ; and yet there was no collision. Sir, the reason that there was not perpetual collision was, as we all 30 know, that the Irish parliament, though nominally independent, was generally kept in real dependence by means of the foulest corruption that ever ex- isted in any assembly. But it is not true that there REPEAL OF THE UNION WITH IRELAND. 267 was no collision. Before the Irish legislature had been six years independent, a collision did take place, a collision such as might well have produced a civil war. In the year 1788, George III. was in- 5 capacitated by illness from discharging his regal functions. According to the constitution, the duty of making provision for the discharge of those func- tions devolved on the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland. Between the government of Great !• Britain and the government of Ireland there was, during the interregnum, no connection whatever. The sovereign who was the common head of both governments had virtually ceased to exist: and the two legislatures were no more to each other than 15 this House and the Chamber of Deputies at Paris. What followed? The parliament of Great Britain resolved to offer the regency to the Prince of Wales under many important restrictions. The parliament of Ireland made him an offer of the regency with- ^ jut any restrictions whatever. By the same right by which the Irish Lords and Commons made that offer, they might, if Mr. Pitt's doctrine be the con- stitutional doctrine, as I believe it to be, have made the Duke of York or the Duke of Leinster regent. 25 To this regent they might have given all the pre- rogatives of the king. Suppose, — no extravagant supposition, — that George III. had not recovered, that the rest of his long life had been passed in se- clusion, Great Britain and Ireland would then have 3« been, during thirty-two years, as completely sepa- rated as Great Britain and Spain. There would have been nothing in common between the govern- ments, neither executive power nor legislative power. It is plain, therefore, that a total separa- 268 ARGUMENTATION. tion between the two islands might, in the natural course of things, and without the smallest violation of the constitution on either side, be the effect of the arrangement recommended by the honorable and learned gentleman, who solemnly declares that he 5 should consider such a separation as the greatest of calamities. No doubt. Sir, in several continental kingdoms there have been two legislatures, and indeed more than two legislatures, under the same Crown. But jo the explanation is simple. Those legislatures were of no real weight in the government. Under Louis XIV. Brittany had its States ; Burgundy had its States; and yet there was no collision between the States of Brittany and the States of Burgundy. 15 But why? Because neither the States of Brittany not the States of Burgundy imposed any real re- straint on the arbitrary power of the monarch. So, in the dominions of the House of Hapsburg, there is the semblance of a legislature in Hungary and the 20 semblance of a legislature in the Tyrol : but all the real power is with the emperor. I do not say that you cannot have one executive power and two mock parliaments, two parliaments which merely trans- act parish business, two parliaments which exercise 25 no more influence on great affairs of state than the vestry of St. Pancras or the vestry of Marylebone. What I do say, and what common sense teaches, and what all history teaches, is this, that you cannot have one executive power and two real parliaments, two 30 parliaments possessing such powers as the parlia- ment of this country has possessed ever since the revolution, two parliaments to the deliberate sense of which the sovereign must conform. If they dif- REPEAL OF THE UNION WITH IRELAND. 269 fer, how can he conform to the sense of both ? The thing is as plain as a proposition in Euclid. It is impossible for m.e to believe that considera- tions so obvious and so important should not have 5 occurred to the honorable and learned member for Dublin. Doubtless they have occurred to him ; and therefore it is that he shrinks from arguing the question here. Nay, even when he harangues more credulous assemblies on this subject, he carefully 10 avoids precise explanations; and the hints which sometimes escape him are not easily to be recon- ciled with each other. On one occasion, if the newspapers are to be trusted, he declared that his object was to establish a federal union between 15 Great Britain and Ireland. A local parliament, it seems, is to sit at Dublin, and to send deputies to an imperial parliament which is to sit at Westminster. The honorable and learned gentleman thinks, I sup- pose, that in this way he evades the difficulties which 20 1 have pointed out. But he deceives himself. If, indeed, his local legislature is to be subject to his imperial legislature, if his local legislature is to be merely what the Assembly of Antigua or Barbadoes is, or what the Irish parliament was before 1782, 25 the danger of collision is no doubt removed : but what, on the honorable and learned gentleman's own principles, would Ireland gain by such an arrange- ment? If, on the other hand, his local legislature is to be for certain purposes independent, you have 30 again the risk of collision. Suppose that a differ- ence of opinion should arise between the imperial parliament and the Irish parliament as to the limits of their powers, who is to decide betvv^een them ? A dispute between the House of Commons and the 1 7 o ARGUMEN TA TION. House of Lords is bad enough. Yet in that case the sovereign can, by a high exercise of his pre- rogative, produce harmony. He can send us back to our constituents ; and, if that expedient fails, he can create more lords. When, in 1705, the dispute s between the Houses about the Aylesbury men ran high, Queen Anne restored concord by dismissing the parliament. Seven years later she put an end to another conflict between the Houses by making twelve peers in one day. But who is to arbitrate 10 between two representative bodies chosen by differ- ent constituent bodies? Look at what is now pass- ing in America. Of all federal constitutions that of the United States is the best. It was framed by a convention which contained many wise and experi- 15 enced men, and over which Washington presided. Yet there is a debatable ground on the frontier which separates the functions of Congress from those of the state legislatures. A dispute as to the exact boundary has lately arisen. Neither party 20 seems disposed to yield: and, if both persist, there can be no' umpire but the sword. For my part, Sir, I have no hesitation in saying that I should very greatly prefer the total separation which the honorable and learned gentlemen pro- 25 fesses to consider as a calamity, to the partial sepa- ration which he has taught his countrymen to re- gard as a blessing. If, on a fair trial, it be found that Great Britain and Ireland cannot exist happily together as parts of one empire, in God's name let 30 them separate. I wish to see them joined as the limbs of a well formed body are joined. In such a body the members assist each other: they are nour- ished by the same food : if one member suffer, all REPEAL OF THE UNION WITH IRELAND. 271 suffer with it: if one member rejoice, all rejoice with it. But I do not wish to see the countries united, like those wretched twins from Siam, who were ex- hibited here a little while ago, by an unnatural liga- 5 ment which made each the constant plague of the other, always in each other's way, more helpless than others because they had twice as many hands, slower than others because they had twice as many legs, sympathizing with each other only in evil, not 10 feeling each other's pleasures, not supported by each other's aliment, but tormented by each other's in- firmities, and certain lo perish miserably by each other's dissolution. Ireland has undoubtedly just causes of complaint. 15 We heard those causes recapitulated last night by the honorable and learned member, who tells us that he represents not Dublin alone, but Ireland, and that he stands between his country and civil war. I do not deny that most of the grievances which he 20 recounted exist, that they are serious, and that they ought to be remedied as far as it is in the power of legislation to remedy them. What I do deny is that they were caused by the Union, and that the Repeal of the Union would remove them. I listened atten- 25 tively while the honorable and learned gentleman went through that long and melancholy list: and I am confident that he did not mention a single evil which was not a subject of bitter complaint while Ireland had a domestic parliament. Is it fair, is it 30 reasonable in the honorable gentleman to impute to the Union evils which, as he knows better than any other man in the house, existed long before the Union? Post hoc: ergo, propter hoc is not always sound reasoning. But ante hoc: ergo, non propter 2 72 ARG UMENTA TION. hoc is unanswerable. The old rustic who told Sir Thomas More that Tenterden steeple was the cause of Godwin sands reasoned much better than the honorable and learned gentleman. For it was not till after Tenterden steeple was built that the fright- 5 ful wrecks on the Godwin sands were heard of. But the honorable and learned gentleman would make Godwin sands the cause of Tenterden steeple. Some of the Irish grievances which he ascribes to the Union are not only older than the Union, but 10 are not peculiarly Irish. They are common to Eng- land, Scotland, and Ireland ; and it was in order to get rid of them that we, for the common benefit of England, Scotland, and Ireland, passed the Reform Bill last year. Other grievances which the honor- 15 able and learned gentleman mentioned are doubt- less local: but is there to be a local legislature wherever there is a local grievance? Wales has had local grievances. We all remember the com- plaints which were made a few years ago about the 20 Welsh judicial system ; but did anybody therefore propose that Wales should have a distinct parlia- ment? Cornwall has some local grievances; but does anybody propose that Cornwall shall have its own House of Lords and its own House of Com- 25 mons? Leeds has local grievances. The majority of my constituents distrust and dislike the munici- pal government to which they are subject: they therefore call loudly on us for corporation reform: but they do not ask us for a separate legislature. 3c Of this I am quite sure, that every argument Avhich has been urged for the purpose of showing that Great Britain and Ireland ought to have two dis- tinct parliaments may be urged with far greater REPEAL OF THE UNION WITH IRELAND. 273 force for the purpose of showing that the north of Ireland and the south of Ireland ought to have two distinct parliaments. The House of Commons of the United Kingdom, it has been said, is chiefly 5 elected by Protestants, and therefore cannot be trusted to legislate for Catholic Ireland. If this be so, how can an Irish House of Commons, chiefly elected by Catholics, be trusted to legislate for Protestant Ulster? It is perfectly notorious that 10 theological antipathies are stronger in Ireland than here. I appeal to the honorable and learned gentle- man himself. He has often declared that it is im- possible for a Roman Catholic, whether prosecutor or culprit, to obtain justice from a jury of Orange- 15 men. It is indeed certain that, in blood, religion, language, habits, character, the population of some of the northern counties of Ireland has much more in common with the population of England and Scotland than with the population of Munster and 20 Connaught. I defy the honorable and learned member, therefore, to find a reason for having a parliament at Dublin which will not be just as good a reason for having another parliament at Lon- donderry. 25 Sir, in showing, as I think I have shown, the ab- surdity of this cry for Repeal, I have in a great measure vindicated myself from the charge of in- consistency which has been brought against me by my honorable friend the member for Lincoln. It 30 is very easy to bring a volume of Hansard to the House, to read a few sentences of a speech made in very dififerent circumstances, and to say, " Last year you were for pacifying England by concession : this year you are for pacifying Ireland by coercion. 274 ARGUMENTA TION. How can you vindicate your consistency ? " Surely my honorable friend cannot but know that nothing is easier than to write a theme for severity, for clem- ency, for order, for liberty, for a contemplative life, for an active life, and so on. It was a common ex- 5 ercise in the ancient schools of rhetoric to take an abstract question, and to harangue first on one side and then on the other. The question, Ought popu- lar discontents to be quieted by concession or co- ercion? would have been a very good subject for 10 oratory of this kind. There is no lack of common- places on either side. But when we come to the real business of life, the value of these commonplaces depends entirely on the particular circumstances of the case which we are discussing. Nothing is easier 15 than to write a treatise proving that it is lawful to resist extreme tyranny. Nothing is easier than to write a treatise setting forth the wickedness of wan- tonly bringing on a great society the miseries in- separable from revolution, the bloodshed, the spolia- 20 tion, the anarchy. Both treatises may contain much that is true; but neither will enable us to decide whether a particular insurrection is or is not justi- fiable without a close examination of the facts. There is surely no inconsistency in speaking with re- 25 spect of the memory of Lord Russell and with hor- ror of the crime of Thistlewood ; and, in my opin- ion, the conduct of Russell and the conduct of This- tlewood did not differ more widely than the cry for Parliamentary Reform and the cry for the Repeal of the Union. The Reform Bill I believe to be a 3° blessing to the nation. Repeal I know to be a mere delusion. I know it to be impracticable and I know that, if it were practicable, it would be pernicious REPEAL OF THE UNION WITH IRELAND. 275 to every part of the empire, and utterly ruinous to Ireland. Is it not then absurd to say that, because I wished last year to quiet the English people by giving them that which was beneficial to them, I am 5 therefore bound in consistency to quiet the Irish people this year by giving them that which will be fatal to them? I utterly deny, too, that, in consent- ing to arm the government with extraordinary pow- ers for the purpose of repressing disturbances in 10 Ireland, I am guilty of the smallest inconsistency. On what occasion did I ever refuse to support any government in repressing disturbances? It is per- fectly true that, in the debates on the Reform Bill, I imputed the turiiults and outrages of 1830 to mis- 15 rule. But did I ever say that those tumults and outrages ought to be tolerated ? I did attribute the Kentish riots, the Hampshire riots, the burning of cornstacks, the destruction of threshing machines, to the obstinacy with which the Ministers of the 20 Crown had refused to listen to the demands of the people. But did I ever say that the rioters ought not to be imprisoned, that the incendiaries ought not to be hanged? I did ascribe the disorders of Nottingham and the fearful sacking of Bristol to the 25 unwise rejection of the Reform Bill by the Lords. But did I ever say that such excesses as were com- mitted at Nottingham and Bristol ought not to be put down, if necessary, by the sword? I would act towards Ireland on the same princi- 30 pies on which I acted towards England. In Ireland, as in England, I would remove every just cause of complaint; and in Ireland as in England I would support the government in preserving the public peace. What is there inconsistent in this? My 276 ARC UMEN TA TION. honorable friend seems to think that no person who beHeves that disturbances have been caused by mal- administration can consistently lend his help to put down these disturbances. If that be so, the hon- orable and learned member for Dublin is quite as :: inconsistent as I am ; indeed, much more so ; for he thinks very much worse of the government than I do ; and yet he declares himself willing to assist the government in quelling the tumults which, as he assures us, its own misconduct is likely to produce. 10 He told us yesterday that our harsh policy might perhaps goad the unthinking populace of Ireland into insurrection ; he should, while execrating us as the authors of all the mischief, be found in our ranks, and should be ready to support us in every- 15 thing that might be necessary for the restoration of order. As to this part of the subject, there is no difference in principle between the honorable and learned gentleman and myself. In his opinion, it is probable that a time may soon come when vigor- 20 ous coercion may be necessary, and when it may be the duty of every friend to co-operate in the work of coercion. In m.y opinion, that time has already come. The grievances of Ireland are doubtless great, so great that I never would have connected 25 myself with a government which I did not believe to be intent on redressing those grievances. But am I, because the grievances of Ireland are great, and ought to be redressed, to abstain from redress- ing the worst grievance of all ? Am I to look on 30 quietly while the laws are insulted by a furious rab- ble, while houses are plundered and burned, while my peaceable fellow-subjects are butchered? The distribution of Church property, you tell us, is un- REPEAL OF THE UNION WITH IRELAND. 277 just. Perhaps I agree with you. But what then? To what purpose is it to talk about the distribution of Church property, while no property is secure? Then you try to deter us from putting down rob- 5 bery, arson, and murder, by telHng us that if we re- sort to coercion we shall raise a civil war. We are past that fear. Recollect that, in one county alone, there have been within a few weeks sixty murders or assaults with intent to murder, and six hundred bur- 10 glaries. Since we parted last summer, the slaughter in Ireland has exceeded the slaughter of a pitched battle : the destruction of property has been as great as would have been caused by the storming of three or four towns. Civil war, indeed ! I would rather 15 live in the midst of any civil war that we have had in England during the last two hundred years than in| some parts of Ireland at the present moment. Rather would I have lived on the line of march of the Pretender's army in 1745 than 20 in Tipperary now. It is idle to threaten us with civil war; for we have it already; and it is because we are resolved to put an end to it that we are called base, and brutal, and bloody. Such are the epithets which the honorable 25 and learned member for Dublin thinks it becoming to pour forth against the party to which he owes every political privilege that he enjoys. He need not fear that any member of that party will be pro- voked into a conflict of scurrility. Use makes even 30 sensitive minds callous to invective : and, copious as his vocabulary is, he will not easily find in it any foul name which has not been many times applied to those who sit around me, on account of the zeal and steadiness with which they supported the emancipa- 278 AUG UMEN TA TION. tion of the Roman Catholics. His reproaches are not more stinging than the reproaches which, in times not very remote, we endured unflinchingly in his cause. I can assure him that men who faced the cry of No Popery are not likely to be scared by 5 the cry of Repeal. The time will come when his- tory will do justice to the Whigs of England, and will faithfully relate how much they did and suf- fered for Ireland ; how, for the sake of Ireland, they quitted office in 1807; bow, for the sake of Ireland, 10 they remained out of office more than twenty years, braving the frowns of the Court, braving the hisses of the multitude, renouncing power, and patronage, and salaries, and peerages, and garters, and yet not obtaining in return even a little fleeting popularity. 15 I see on the benches near me men who might, by uttering one word against Catholic emancipation, nay, by merely abstaining from uttering a word in favor of Catholic emancipation, have been returned to this house without difficulty or expense, and who, 20 rather than wrong their Irish fellow-subjects, were content to relinquish all the objects of their honor- able ambition, and to retire into private life with conscience and fame untarnished. As to one emi- nent person, who seems to be regarded with especial 25 malevolence by those who ought never to mention his name without reverence and gratitude, I will say only this : that the loudest clamor which the hon- orable and learned gentleman can excite against Lord Grey will be trifling when compared with the 30 clamour which Lord Grey withstood in order to place the honorable and learned gentleman where he now sits. Though a young member of the Whig party, I will venture to speak in the name of the REPEAL OF THE UNION WITH IRELAND. 279 whole body. T tell the honorable and learned gen- tleman, that the same spirit which sustained us in a just contest for him will sustain us in an equally just contest against him. Calumny, abuse, royal 5 displeasure, popular fury, exclusion from office, ex- clusion from parliament, we were ready to endure them all, rather than that he should be less than a British subject. We never will suffer him to be more. 10 I stand here. Sir, for the first time as the repre- sentative of a new constituent body, one of the larg- est, most prosperous, and most enlightened towns in the kingdom. The electors of Leeds, believing that at this time the service of the people is not in- 15 compatible with the service of the Crown, have sent me to this House charged, in the language of his Majesty's writ, to do and consent, in their name and in their behalf, to such things as shall be proposed in the great Council of the nation. In the name, 20 then, and on the behalf of my constituents, I give my full assent to that part of the Address wherein the House declares its resolution to maintain invio- late, by the help of God, the connection between Great Britain and Ireland, and to intrust to the 25 sovereign such powers as shall be necessary to se- cure property, to restore order, and to preserve the integrity of the empire. Notes. — This deliberative ' speech of the young Ma- caulay against O'Connell is noticeable for its brilliant logi- 00 cal method, and for its skillful manner of refutation. It is open to the criticism of dealing too much in generalities, * Deliberative, /. e., delivered before an assembly whose business is deliberation. -8o argumentation: but it was in criticism of a plan which dealt in generalities.* The speaker begins by pointing out that two of his oppo- nents do notagree in theirnotion of what ought to be done for Ireland; they use the word "redress" in opposite senses. He then skillfully utilizes against his chief adver- 5 sary the fact of his silence on the King's Speech, which invites discussion of the Repeal question. Macaulay infers that O'Connell dare not speak to it because O'Connell sees the illogical nature of the Repeal he desires. O'Connell is not consistent, like Wolfe Tone, who wants an 10 Irish Republic. O'Connell wants two legislatures with one executive. But a house divided against itself cannot stand. If strong and real, the legislatures will disagree, and the executive be unable to represent both. If not strong and real, if one is a slave to the other or both to the crown, then 15 they might better not exist. History shows that the gov- ernment will run upon one of the horns of this dilemma. In appealing to various historical parallels, Macaulay is using the argument from analogy. This is sometimes very effective, but often treacherous because of the likeli- 20 hood of overlooking disturbing elements. He uses the same kind of argument in likening O'Connell's proposed Union to the Siamese twins, " sympathizing with each other only in evil, not feeling each other's pleasures." Having apparently finished his criticism of O'Connell's 25 plan, Macaulay explains his own, which is that of oppor- ' The long fight for home-rule in Ireland has been so complicated because neither side has succeeded in con- vincing the other of the applicability of any general prin- ciple to the situation. It may be said, however, that the 30 Irish have often injured their own cause by insistence on some sweeping theory the weak points of which could easily be pointed out by a speech of this sort. It is since the day of Macaulay that both parties to the dispute have descended to the consideration of practical ameliorative 35 measures, a ground on which the Englishman is more sus- ceptible to appeal than on any philosopl;ical ground. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 281 tunism. He believes that every just cause of complaint can be removed one by one, under the provisions of the Reform bill. He admits the grievances, and here he returns to O'Connell's plan in order to apply the reductio 5 ad absiirdum argument. The grievances are local, and if it were true that tV.ey were removable only by the creation of an Irish parliament, then, so great are the differences between Protestant Ireland and Catholic Ire- land, there ought to be two Irish parliaments, one in the lo north, one in the south. Next he defends himself from the charge of inconsistency in voting last year for the redress of grievances and this for the suppression of riots. He closes with an attempt to persuade parliament of his own party's sincerity, courage, and patriotism, 15 which he contrasts with O'Connell's ingratitude. There is no logical contrast, but a favorable impression of Whig loyalty is produced. 54.— Defense of Patrick jflnne^, CHARGED WITH HIGH TREASON. JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. NoTE^. — On the 31st of May, 1797, Patrick Fin- ney was arrested at Tuite's public house, in Thomas »o Street. He was indicted for High Treason, at the Commission held in Dublin, in July, 1797; and on Tuesday, the i6th of January, 1798, was brought to trial. The indictment was in substance as fol- lows : — 25 The first count of the indictment charged — " That Patrick Finney, yeoman, on the 30th day of April, iThis note, by Mr. Jas. A. L. Whittier, is reprinted by permission of Messrs. Callaghan & Co., from their one- volume edition of Curran. ^82 ARGUMENTA TION. in the 37th year of the King, and divers other days, at the city of Dubhn, being a false traitor, did com- pass and imagine the death of our said Lord the King, and did traitorously and feloniously intend our said Lord the King to kill, murder, and put to 5 death." The overt acts laid were as follows : — " i. Adher- ing to the persons exercising the powers of govern- ment in France, in case they should invade, or cause to be invaded this kingdom of Ireland, they being 10 enemies to the King, and at war. 2. That the con- spirators aforesaid did meet, &c., confer, consult, and deliberate, about adhering to the persons ex- ercising the powers of government in France. 3. Adhering to the persons exercising the powers of 15 government in France. 4. Conspiring that one or more persons should be sent into France, to excite an invasion of Ireland. 5. Conspiring that one or more persons should be sent into France, to excite an invasion of this kingdom, and to make war 20 therein and for that purpose did ask, levy, and re- ceive, &c., from other traitors, money, to wit, from each £20, to defray the expenses of the persons to be sent. 6. That conspiring, &c., they did send into France four persons unknown, to excite the persons 25 exercising the powers of government in France to invade this kingdom, and make war therein. 7. Conspiring to send, and sending, four persons into France, to persuade invasion, and to aid them in in- vading and raising, and making war ; and Finney, 30 then and there, demanding and receiving money, viz. £20 to defray the charges of said persons. 8. That said Patrick Finney became a United Irishman for the purpose of assisting the persons exercising DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 283 the powers of government in France, and being met to the number of forty-eight other traitors, did di- vide into four spHts, each of which contained twelve traitors, and each spHt did then choose one to be sec- 5 retary, to consult on behalf thereof with other splits, under the denomination of baronial meetings, for the purpose of adhering and making war, in case of an invasion of Ireland from France, and then and there conspiring an attack upon the Castle of Dub- lolin, &c., and to deprive his Majesty of the stores and ammunition therein; and said Finney, to facilitate such attack, did advise and commend other traitors to view White's Court, &c., and give their opinion to their several splits, so that their secretaries might 15 report the same to their baronial meetings. 9. Ad- hering to the persons exercising the powers of gov- ernment in France, &c., and with forty-eight other conspirators, divided into four splits, each contain- ing twelve, each split choosing a secretary to con- 20 fer for the purpose of adhering to the enemy in case of invasion, and confederating and agreeing that a violent attack should be made on the ordnance stores, &c. 10. Consulting, &c., to procure an in- vasion. II. Consulting to raise insurrection, rebel- 25 lion, and war, in case of invasion of Ireland or Great Britain, from France. 12. Conspiring to as- sist the persons exercising the powers of govern- ment in France, in case of their invading this realm with ships and arms." 30 There was a second count, for " adhering to the King's enemies within the realm ; " and in support of this count, the overt acts laid were exactly the same as those above recited. The Attorney-General (Wolfe) stated the case, 2 84 AUG UMEN TA TION. describing the United Irish organization, and al- leging their communication with France. He in- troduced the charge against the prisoner and the chief witness — the eminent informer, Jemmy O'Brien, in these words : — 5 " A man of the name of James O'Brien, upon the 25th of April, 1797, was passing through Thomas Street, in this city ; he met a man who was his acquaintance, named Hyland, standing at the door of one Blake, who kept a public house. The 10 prisoner at the bar, then, as I believe, a stranger to O'Brien, was standing at the door; Hyland asked O'Brien was he up? — which is, I presume, a tech- nical expression to signify that a man is a member of the society. They tried O'Brien by the signs, 15 whether he was, or not. They told him that no man's life was safe if he was not up; and, particu- larly the prisoner at the bar, told O'Brien his life would not be safe, if he were not up; they desired O'Brien to go into the house, in a room of which 20 eight people were sitting. There, after some dis- course, O'Brien was sworn to secrecy, and after- wards he was sworn to that oath which is called the oath of the United Irishmen. They talked much of their strength — of the number of men and arms pro- 25 vided in various parts of the kingdom, so great as to render the attainment of their object certain ; and after much other discourse, which it is unnecessary to state, they adjourned their meeting to the house of one Coghran, in Newmarket on the Coombe, to 30 be held the next Sunday, the 30th of April ; they agreed that the password to gain admittance at Coghran's should be ' Mr. Green.' And it ap- pears (for the trade is attended with some profit) DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 285 that O'Brien was called upon to pay, and did pay the prisoner one shilling for swearing him. " As soon as O'Brien left the house, and escaped the danger he imagined he was in, he went to Mr. 5 Higgins, a magistrate of the Queen's county, to whom he was known, then in Dublin, and disclosed to him what had passed. Mr. Higgins told O'Brien he was right to reveal the matter, and brought him to Lord Portarlington, who brought him to one of 10 the committee rooms of the House of Lords, where he was examined by one of the Lord Lieutenant's secretaries. It was then thought expedient, that at- tention should be paid to this society, seeing its dan- gerous tendency, in order to counteract the designs 15 entertained. O'Brien, conceiving that he might be in some danger from a society formed upon such principles, was advised to enlist in one of the regi- ments of dragoons then quartered in Dublin, and to attend the society, to learn their designs. With this 20 view, O'Brien attended at Coghran's house, in New- market, and was admitted on giving the password, ' Mr. Green.' He there found the prisoner at the bar, with forty others assembled ; he was desired to pay sixpence to the funds of the society ; he said 25 he had not then sixpence ; they told him he was to return in the evening, and that it made no differ- ence, whether he then paid, or brought it in the evening. Finney informed him and the society that the money collected was to constitute a fund for the 30 purpose of the society ; that upon that day there was to be a collection from the United societies in Dub- lin, sixpence from each man, and that there was to be collected that evening from the various societies, io,cco sixpences; and he further informed them 286 ARGUMENTATION. (for he was an active man at that meeting) that there was to be a great funeral, that of one Ryan, a mill-wright, whose corpse lay at PimUco, which was to be attended by all the societies in Dublin; that after the funeral, that particular society was again to 5 assemble at the same place, Coghran's." Various other meetings were stated in a very moderate speech, and O'Brien swore firmly to the facts. Curran cross-examined the man calmly, and tempted him into confidential insolence. The lo ruffian described his career as the hanger on of an excise ofiicer, drinking and extorting in public houses ; he candidly avowed not only that he had practiced coining, but he identified a receipt for coining, which he had, in a missionary spirit, given ^5 to another person ; he admitted that, when told that Mr. Roberts of Stradbally would give evidence against his character, he (having a sword and pistol in his hands,) had said he " would settle him." For this he made a trivial explanation. Peter Clarke 20 swore that on the 31st of May, Finney gave him a copy of the United Irish test, and Lord Portarling- ton swore that O'Brien told him of one or two of the early meetings. Curran was to have opened the defense ; but a principal witness being absent, a 25 chaise was dispatched for him, and Mr. MacNally set to speak against time. The court had then to adjourn for twenty minutes' rest. Then Curran, after examining some persons of the middle class to prove O'Brien's infamy of character, and one to 30 Finney's general loyalty, spoke as follows : — My Lords, and Gentlemen of the Jury.^ In the 'In contrast to the deliberative speech, the speech to a judge or jury is called &. forensic. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 287 early part of this trial, I thought I should have had to address you on the most important occasion pos- sible, on this side of the grave, a man laboring for life, on the casual strength of an exhausted, and, at 5 best, a feeble advocate. But, gentlemen, do not im- agine that I rise under any such impressions; do not imagine that I approach you sinking under the hopeless difficulties of my cause. I am not now so- liciting your indulgence to the inadequacy of my 10 powers, or artfully enlisting your passions at the side of my client. No, gentlemen ; but I rise with what of law, of conscience, of justice, and of con- stitution, there exists within this realm., at my back, and, standing in front of that great and powerful 15 alliance, I demand a verdict of acquittal for my cli- ent ! ^ What is the opposition of evidence ? It is a tissue which requires no strength to break through; it vanishes at the touch, and is sundered into tatters. 20 The right honorable gentleman who stated the case in the first stage of this trial, has been so kind as to express a reliance, that the counsel for the prisoner would address the jury with the same can- dor which he exemplified on the part of the Crown ; 25 readily and confidently do I accept the compliment, the more particularly, as in my cause I feel no temp- tation to reject it. Life can present no situation ' The Irish impulsiveness of this outburst, preceded by self-disparagement and a bold assumption that all justice 30 is back of the speaker, was calculated to impress the jury with the inherent strength of Finney's case. A more artistic but similar beginning is that of Erskine's speech for Lord George Gordon, delivered almost exactly three years later. (See Baker, " Specimens of Argumentation.") 2 88 ARGUMENTA TION. wherein the humble powers of man are so awfully and so divinely excited, as in defense of a fellow- creature placed in the circumstances of my client ; and if any labors can peculiarly attract the gracious and approving eye of Heaven, it is when God looks 5 down on a human being assailed by human turpi- tude, and struggling with practices against which the Deity has placed his special canon, when he said " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor ; thou shalt do no murder." ^ 10 Gentlemen, let me desire you again and again to consider all the circumstcmces of this man's case, abstracted from the influence of prejudice and habit ; and if aught of passion assumes dominion over you, let it be of that honest, generous nature 15 that good men must feel when they see an innocent man depending on their verdict for his life; to this passion I feel myself insensibly yielding ; but un- clouded, though not unwarmed, I shall, I trust, pro- ceed in my great duty. 20 Wishing to state my client's case with all possible succinctness which the nature of the charge admits, I am glad my learned colleague has acquitted him- self on this head already to such an extent, and with such ability, that anything I can say will chance to 25 be superfluous : in truth, that honesty of heart, and integrity of principle, for which all must give him credit, uniting with a sound judgment and sympa- thetic heart, have given to his statement all the ad- vantages it could have derived from these qualities.' 30 ' This paragraph is to impress the jury with a sense of the sincerity of a speaker who dares to invoke a divine blessing upon his effort. * A further attempt to convince the jury of the sincerity and strength of the defense. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 289 He has truly said that " the declaratory act, the 25th of Edward III., is that on which all charges of high treason are founded " ; and I trust the observa- tion will be deeply engraven on your hearts. It is 5 an act made to save the subject from the vague and wandering uncertainty of the law. It is an act which leaves it no longer doubtful whether a man shall incur conviction by his own conduct, or the sagacity of Crown construction : whether he shall 10 sink beneath his own guilt, or the cruel and bar- barous refinement of Crown prosecution. It has been most aptly called the blessed act ; and oh ! may the great God of justice and of mercy give repose and eternal blessing to the souls of those honest men 15 by whom it was enacted ! By this law, no man shall be convicted of high treason, but on provable evi- dence; the overt acts of treason, as explained in this law, shall be stated clearly and distinctly in the charge ; and the proof of these acts shall be equally 20 clear and distinct, in order that no man's life may depend on a partial or wicked allegation. It does everything for the prisoner which he could do him- self, it does everything but utter the verdict, which alone remains with you, and which, I trust, you will 25 give in the same pure, honest, saving spirit, in which that act was formed. Gentlemen, I would call it an omnipotent act, if it could possibly appall the in- former from our courts of justice ; but law cannot do it, religion cannot do it, the feelings of human 30 nature frozen in the depraved heart of the wretched informer, cannot be thawed ! ^ ' Erskine, speaking three years later of the same act, calls attention in the same way to the precision with which it defines the point at issue : but Erskine's Scotch restraint 290 ARGUMENTA TION. Law cannot prevent the envenomed arrow from being pointed at the intended victim ; but it has given him a shield in the integrity of a jury ! Everything is so clear in this act, that all must un- derstand : the several acts of treason must be re- 5 cited, and provable conviction must follow. What is provable coviction? Are you at a loss to know? Do you think if a man comes on the table, and says, " By virtue of my oath, I know a con- spiracy against the state, and such and such persons 10 are engaged in it," do you think that his mere alle- gation shall justify you in a verdict of conviction? A witness coming on this table, of whatsoever de- scription, whether the noble Lord who has been ex- amined, or the honorable Judges on the bench, oris Mr. James O'Brien, who shall declare upon oath that a man bought powder, ball, and arms, intend- ing to kill another, this is not provable conviction; the unlawful intention must be shown by cogency of evidence, and the credit of the witness must stand 20 strong and unimpeached. The law means not that infamous assertion or dirty ribaldry is to overthrow the character of a man ; even in these imputations, flung against the victim, there is fortunately some- thing detergent, that cleanses the character it was 25 destined to befoul.^ would not allow him such an outburst of joy over the act which was to save his client's life. Curran speaks of " the blessed act " with Irish impulsiveness and out of the bitter depths of Irish experience. 30 ' Curran makes use of a simple illustration to define the point at issue, showing exactly what is meant by provable conviction. He sees the importance of perfectly clear definition of every term with which the jury must do its thinking. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 29 1 In stating the law, gentlemen, I have told you that the overt acts must be laid and proved by posi- tive testimony of untainted witnesses ; and in so saying, I have only spoken the language of the most 5 illustrious writers on the law of England. I should, perhaps, apologize to you for detaining your attention so long on these particular points, but that in the present disturbed state of the public mind, and in the abandonment of principle which it 10 but too frequently produces, I think I cannot too strongly impress you with the purity of legal dis- tinction, so that your souls shall not be harrowed with those torturing regrets which the return of reason would bring along with it, were you, on the 15 present occasion, for a moment to resign it to the subjection of your passions; for these, though some- times amiable in their impetuosity, can never be dignified and just, but under the control of reason. The charge against the prisoner is two-fold: com- 20 passing and imagining the King's death, and ad- hering to the King's enemies. To be accurate on this head is not less my intention than it is my in- terest; for if I fall into errors, they will not escape the learned counsel who is to come after me, and 25 whose detections will not fail to be made in the cor- rect spirit of Crown prosecution. Gentlemen, there are no fewer than thirteen overt acts, as described, necessary to support the indict- ment; these, however, it is not necessary to reca- 3opitulate. The learned counsel for the Crown has been perfectly candid and correct in saying, that if any of them suppose either species of treason charged in the indictment, it will be sufificient to at- tach the guilt. I do not complain that on the part 292 ARGUMENTA TION. of the Crown it was not found expedient to point out wiiich act or acts went to support the indict- ment; neither will I complain, gentlemen, if you fix your attention particularly on the circumstances. Mr. Attorney-General has been pleased to make 5 an observation which drew a remark from my col- league with which I fully agree, that the atrocity of a charge should make no impression on you. It was the judgment of candor and liberality,^ and should be yours ; nor though you should more than lo answer the high opinion I entertain of you, and though your hearts betray not the consoling confi- dence which your looks inspire, yet do not disdain to increase your stock of candor and liberality, from whatsoever source it flows; though the abundance 15 of my client's innocence may render him independ- ent of its exertions, your country wants it all. You are not to suffer impressions of loyalty, or an en- thusiastic love for the sacred person of the King, to give your judgments the smallest bias. You are to 20 decide from the evidence which you have heard; and if the atrocity of the charge were to have any influ- ence with you, it should be that of rendering you more incredulous to the possibility of its truth. I confess I cannot conceive a greater crime 25 against civilized society, be the form of government what it may, whether monarchical, republican, or, I had almost said, despotic, than attempting to de- stroy the life of the person holding the executive au- thority; the counsel for the Crown cannot feel a 30 greater abhorrence against it than I do; and happy ' An advocate loses nothing by giving due praise to his opponent's character, or by apparent willingness to allow full weight to his arguments. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 293 am T, at this moment, that I can do justice to my principles, and the feeHngs of my heart, without en- dangering the defense of my cHent, and that defense is, that your hearts would not feel more reluctant to 5 the perpetration of the crimes with which he is charged, than the man who there stands at the bar of his country, waiting until you shall clear him from the foul and unmerited imputation, until your verdict, sounding life and honor to his senses, shall 10 rescue him from the dreadful fascination of the in- former's eye.^ ' The overt acts in the charge against the prisoner are many, and all apparently of the same nature, but they, notwithstanding, admit of a very material dis- 15 tinction. This want of candor I attribute to the base imposition of the prosecutor on those who brought him forward. You find at the bottom of the charge a founda- tion stone attempted to be laid by O'Brien, — the de- 20 liberations of a society of United Irishmen, and on this are laid all the overt acts. I said the distinc- tion was of moment, because it is endeavored to be held forth to the public, to all Europe, that, at a time like this, of peril and of danger, there are, in one 25 province alone, one hundred and eleven thousand of your countrymen combined for the purpose of destroying the King, and the tranquillity of the country, which so much depends on him, an asser- tion which you should consider of again and again, 30 before you give it any other existence than it derives from the attainting breath of the informer.^ If - Curran states the feelings of the prosecution more vividly than the prosecution itself could do. * From tl]is point the treatment of evidence should b^ 294 ARGUMENTATION. nothing should induce that consideration but the name of Irishman, the honors of which you share, a name so foully, and as I shall demonstrate, so falsely aspersed, if you can say that one fact of O'Brien's testimony deserves belief, all that can 5 from thence be inferred is, that a great combina- tion of mind and will exists on some public sub- ject.^ What says the written evidence on that subject? What are the obligations imposed by the test- to oath of the society of United Irishmen? Is it un- just to get rid of religious differences and distinc- tions? W^ould to God it were possible! Is it an oflfense against the state, to promote a full, free, and adequate representation of all the people of Ireland 15 in parliament? If it be, the text is full of its own comment, it needs no comment of mine. As to the last clause, obliging to secrecy: Now, gentlemen of the jury, in the hearing of the court, I submit to the opposite counsel this question. I will make my ad- 20 versary my arbiter. Taking the test-oath as thus written, is there anything of treason in it? How- ever objectionable it may be, it certainly is not trea- sonable.^ I admit there may be a colorable combination of 25 words to conceal a really bad design; but to what evils would it not expose society, if, in this case, to noted. Before attending to the particular charges of O'Brien, the chief witness, Curran calls the common sense of his hearers to note the improbability of the basis on 30 which they all rest. He will return later to the same point. ' A skillful appeal to the sentiment of clan. - Again Curran scores by his courteous and confident attitude toward the opposition. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINAEY. 295 suppose were to decide. A high legal authority thus speaks on this subject: " Strong, indeed, must the evidence be which goes to prove that any man can mean, by words, anything more than what is con- 5 veyed in their ordinary acceptation." If the test of any particular community were an open one — if, like the London Corresponding Society, it was to be openly published, then, indeed, there might be a reason for not using words in their common appli- io cation; but, subject to no public discussion, at least not intended to be so, why should the proceedings of those men, or the obligation by which they are con- nected, be expressed in the phraseology of studied concealment? If men meet in secret, to talk over 15 how best the French can invade this country, to what purpose is it that they take an engagement different in meaning? Common sense rejects the idea! Gentlemen, having stated these distinctions, I am 20 led to the remaining divisions of the subject you are to consider. I admit, that because a man merely takes this obligation of union, it cannot prevent his becoming a traitor if he pleases ; but the question for you to decide on would then be, whether every 25 man who takes it must necessarily be a traitor? Independent of that engagement, have any super- added facts been proved against the prisoner? What is the evidence of O'Brien? What has he stated? Here, gentlemen, let me claim the benefits 30 of that great privilege which distinguishes trial by jury in this country from all the world. Twelve men, not emerging from the must and cobwebs of a study, abstracted from human nature, or only ac- quainted with its extravagancies; but twelve men. 29^ ARGUMENTATION. conversant with life, and practiced in those feeUngs which mark the common and necessary intercourse between man and man, such are you, gentlemen.^ How, then, does Mr. O'Brien's tale hang to- gether? Look to its commencement. He walks 5 along Thomas Street, in the open day (a street not the least populous in this city), and is accosted by a man who, without any preface, tells him he'll be murdered before he goes half the street, unless he becomes a United Irishman ! Do you think this is 10 a probable story? Suppose any of you, gentlemen, be a United Irishman, or a Freemason, or a Friendly Brother, and that you meet me walking imwcently along, just like Mr. O'Brien, and meaning no harm, would you say, " Stop, Mr. Curran, don't go fur- 15 ther, you'll be murdered before you go half the street, if you do not become a United Irishman, a Freemason, or a Friendly Brother " ? Did you ever hear so coaxing an invitation to felony as this? " Sweet Mr. James O'Brien! come in and save your 20 precious life — come in and take an oath, or you'll be murdered before you go half the street! Do, sweetest, dearest Mr. James O'Brien, come in, and do not risk your valuable existence." What a loss had he been to his King, whom he loves so mar- 25 velously ! Well, what does poor Mr. O'Brien do? Poor, dear man, he stands petrified with the mag- nitude of his danger, — all his members refuse their office, — he can neither run from the danger, nor call out for assistance ; his tongue cleaves to his mouth, 30 and his feet incorporate with the paving-stones; it ' This paragraph not only flatters the jurors subtly, but is undeniably reasonable. Curran directs all his art to per- suade the jury that the whoie case is easily comprehensible. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 297 is in vain that his expressive eye silently implores protection of the passenger; he yields at length, as men have done, and resignedly submits to his fate. He then enters the house, and being led into a room, 5 a parcel of men make faces at him ; but mark the metamorphosis ; well may it be said, that " miracles will never cease ; " he who feared to resist in open air, and in the face of the public, becomes a bravo when pent up in a room, and environed by sixteen 10 men ; and one is obliged to bar the door, while an- other swears him, which, after some resistance, is accordingly done, and poor Mr. O'Brien becomes a United Irishman, for no earthly purpose whatever, but merely to save his sweet life.^ 15 But this is not all, — the pill, so bitter to the per- cipiency of his loyal palate, must be washed down; and, lest he should throw it off his stomach, he is filled up to the neck with beef and whisky. What further did they do? 20 Mr. O'Brien, thus persecuted, abused and terri- fied, would have gone and lodged his sorrows in the sympathetic bosom of the Major; but to prevent him even this little solace, they made him drunk. The next evening they used him in the like barbar- 25 ous manner ; so that he was not only sworn against his will, but, — poor man, — he was made drunk, against his inclination. Thus was he besieged with united beefsteaks and whisky ; and against such po- tent assailants not even Mr. O'Brien could prevail. -Q Whether all this whisky that he has been forced to drink has produced the effect or not, Mr. O'Brien's loyalty is better than his memory. In ' This ridiciile is undignified, but it was warranted, and was certainly effective. 2^9^ ARGUMENTATION'. the spirit of loyalty he became prophetic, and told Lord Portarlington the circumstances relative to the intended attack on the ordnance stores full three weeks before he had obtained the information through mortal agency. Oh, honest James O'Brien ! 5 honest James O'Brien! Let others vainly argue on logical truth and ethical falsehood; but if I can once fasten him to the ring of perjury, I will bait him at it, until his testimony shall fail of producing a ver- dict, although human nature were as vile and mon- 10 strous in you as she is in him ! He has made a mis- take! but surely no man's life is safe if such evidence were admissible ; what argument can be founded on his testimony, when he swears he has perjured him- self, and that anything he says must be false? I 15 must not believe him at all, and by a paradoxical conclusion, suppose, against " the damnation " of his own testimony, that he is an honest man! Strongly as I feel my interest keep pace with that of my client, I would not defend him at the expense 20 of truth ; I seek not to make the witness worse than he is : whatever he may be, God Almighty convert his mind ! May his reprobation, — but I beg his pardon, — let your verdict stamp that currency on his credit; it will have more force than any casual re- 25 marks of mine.^ How this contradiction in Mr. O'Brien's evidence occurred, I am at no loss to un- derstand. He started from the beginning with an intention of informing against some person, no mat- ter against whom ; and whether he ever saw the 30 prisoner at the time he gave the information to Lord Portarlington, is a question; but none, that he ' More subtle flattery, without the least digression in order to administer it. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 299 fabricated the story for the purpose of imposing on the honest zeal of the law officers of the crown. Having now glanced at a part of this man's evi- dence, I do not mean to part with him entirely ; I 5 shall have occasion to visit him again ; but before I do, let me, gentlemen, once more impress upon your minds the observation which my colleague ap- plied to the laws of high treason, that if they are not explained on the statute-book, they are ex- 10 plained on the hearts of all honest men; and, as St. Paul says, " though they know not the law, they obey the statutes thereof." The essence of the charge submitted to your consideration tends to the dissolution of the connection between Ireland and 15 Great Britain. 1 own it is with much warmth and self-gratula- tion that I feel this calumny answered by the at- tachment of every good man to the British constitu- tion. I feel, — I embrace its principles ; and when 20 I look on you, the proudest benefit of that constitu- tion, I am relieved from the fears of advocacy, since I place my client under the influence of its sacred shade. This is not the idle sycophancy of words. It is not crying " Lord ! Lord ! " but doing " the will 25 of my Father who is in heaven." If my client were to be tried by a jury of Ludgate-hill shopkeepers, he would, ere now, be in his lodging. The law of England would not suffer a man to be cruelly butchered in a court of justice.^ The law of Eng- S'^ land recognizes the possibility of villains thirsting for the blood of their fellow-creatures; and the peo- ' There was doubtless much truth in this assertion, but Curran's chief purpose was to reap the benefit of the reac^ tioQ which would follow his stinging taunt. 3 oo ARC UMEN TA TION. pie of Ireland have no cause to be incredulous of the fact. In that country, St. Paul's is not more public than the charge made against the poorest creature that crawls upon the soil of England. There must be 5 two witnesses to convict the prisoner of high trea- son. The prisoner must have a copy of the juror's names, by whom he may eventually be tried; he must have a list of the witnesses that are to be pro- duced against him, that they may not, vampire like, lo come crawling out of the grave to drink his blood ; but that, by having a list of their names and places of abode, he may inquire into their char- acters and modes of life, that, if they are in- famous, he may be enabled to defend himself 15 against the attacks of their perjury and suborna- tion. There must, I say, be two witnesses, that the jury may be satisfied, if they believe the evidence, that the prisoner is guilty; and if there be but one witness, the jury shall not be troubled 20 with the idle folly of listening to the prisoner's de- fense. If there be but one witness, there is the less possibility of contradicting him ; he the less fears any detection of his murderous tale, having only infernal communication between him and the 25 author of all evil ; and when on the table, which he makes the altar of his sacrifice, however common men may be affected at sight of the innocent victim, it cannot be supposed that the prompter of his per- jury will instigate him to retribution : this is the law 30 in England, and God forbid that Irishmen should so differ, in the estimation of the law, from Eng- lishmen, that their blood is not equally worth pre- serving. I do not, gentlemen, apply any part of DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 3° I this observation to you ; you are Irishmen your- selves, and I know you will act proudly and hon- estly. The law of England renders two witnesses necessary, and one witness insufficient, to take away 5 the life of a man on a charge of high treason.^ This is founded on the principle of common sense, and common justice; for, unless the subject were guarded by this wise prevention, every wretch who could so pervert the powers of invention, as to to trump up a tale of treason and conspiracy, would have it in his power to defraud the Crown into the most abominable and afflicting acts of cruelty and oppression. Gentlemen of the jury, though from the evidence 15 which has been adduced against the prisoner, they have lost their value, yet had they been necessary, I must tell you, that my client came forward under a disadvantage of great magnitude, the absence of two witnesses very material to his defense; I am 20 now at liberty to say, what I am instructed would have been proved by May, and Mr. Roberts. But, you will ask, why is not Mr. Roberts here? Recollect the admission of O'Brien, that he threatened to settle him, and you will cease to won- 25 der at his absence, when, if he came, the dagger was in preparation to be plunged into his heart. I said ' Curran has damaged if not demolished the first part of the adverse testimony, but he takes no chances. He points out that O'Brien's evidence, even if valid, would be inade- 20 quate to convict, for there must be two witnesses in order to prove treason. It was precisely under a similar defini- tion that Aaron Burr escaped hanging. There was little doubt of Burr's treason, but there were not two witnesses of it. 302 ARGUMENTATION. Mr. Roberts was absent, I correct myself ; no ! in effect he is here : I appeal to the heart of that ob- durate man [O'Brien], what would have been his [Roberts's] testimony, if he had dared to venture a personal evidence on this trial? Gracious God! is ^ a tyranny of this kind to be borne with, where law is said to exist? Shall the horrors which surround the informer, the ferocity of his countenance, and the terrors of his voice, cast such a wide and ap- palling influence, that none dare approach and save ic the victim, which he marks for ignominy and death ! ^ Now, gentlemen, be pleased to look to the rest of O'Brien's testimony : he tells you there are one hundred and eleven thousand men in one prov- ince, added to ten thousand of the inhabitants of the 15 metropolis, ready to assist the object of an inva- sion ! - Gentlemen, are you prepared to say that the kingdom of Ireland has been so forsaken by all principles of humanity and of loyalty, that there are now no less than 111,000 men sworn by the most 20 solemn of all engagements, and connected in a deadly combination to destroy the constitution of the country, and to invite the common enemy, the French, to invade it — are you prepared to say this by your verdict? When you know not the inten- 25 tions or the means of that watchful and insatiable enemy, do you think it would be wise by your ver- dict of guilty, to say, on the single testimony of a common informer, that you do believe ' Perhaps Roberts stayed away out of feat, and perhaps 30 Curran told him to stay away, in order to magnify O'Brien's threat. We shall never know. '^ Here Curran returns to apply the argument from high probability. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 303 Upon your oaths that there is a body con- sisting of no less a number than 111,000 men ready to assist the French, if they should make an attempt upon this country, and ready 5 to fly to their standard whenever they think proper to invade it? This is another point of view in which to examine this case. You know the dis- tress and convulsion of the public mind for a con- siderable length of time ; cautiously will I_ abstain 10 from making observations that could refresh the public memory, situated as I am, in a court of jus- tice. But, gentlemen, this is the first, the only trial for high treason, in which an informer gives his no- tions of the propriety or impropriety of public meas- 15 ures ; I remember none — except the trial of that un- fortunate wanderer, that unhappy fugitive, for so I may call him, Jackson, a native of this country — guilty he was, but neither his guilt nor innocence had any affinity with any other system. But this is 20 the first trial that has been brought forward for high treason, except that, where such matters have been disclosed ; and, gentlemen, are you prepared to think well of the burden of embarking your char- acter, high and respectable, on the evidence of an 25 abandoned, and I will show you, a perjured and common informer, in declaring you are ready to offer up to death 111,000 men, one by one, by the sentence of a court of justice? Are you ready to meet it ? Do not suppose I am base or mean enough 30 to say anything to intimidate you, when I talk to you of such an event ; but if you were prepared for such a scene, what would be your private reflec- tions were you to do any such thing? Therefore I put the question fairly to you — have you made up 304 ARGUMENTA TION. your minds to tell the public, that as soon as James O'Brien shall choose to come forward again, to make the same charge against 111,000 other men, you are ready to see so many men, so many of your fellow-subjects and fellow-citizens, drop one by one 5 into the grave, dug for them by his testimony ? Do not think I am speaking disrespectfully of you when I say, that while an O'Brien may be found, it may be the lot of the proudest among you to be in the dock instead of the jury-box. If you 10 were standing there, how would you feel if you found that the evidence of such a wretch would be admitted as sufficient to attaint your life, and send you to an ignominious death? Remember, I do be- seech you, that great mandate of your religion — 15 " Do thou unto all men as you would they should do unto you." Give me leave to put another point to you — what is the reason that you deliberate — that you con- descend to listen to me with such attention ? Why 2c are you so anxious, if, even from me, anything should fall tending to enlighten you on the present awful occasion? It is, because, bound by the sa- cred obligations of an oath, your heart will not al- low you to forfeit it. Have you any doubt that it is 25 the object of O'Brien to take down the prisoner for the reward that follows? Have you not seen with what more than instinctive keenness this blood- hound has pursued his victim? how he has kept him in view from place to place, until he hunts him "h^ through the avenues of the court to where the un- happy man stands now, hopeless of all succor but that which your verdict shall afford. I have heard of assassination by sword, by pistol, and by dagger; DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 305 but here is a wretch who would dip the Evangelists in blood; if he thinks he has not sworn his victim to death, he is ready to swear, without mercy and without end: but oh! do not, I conjure you, suffer 5 him to take an oath ; the hand of the murderer should not pollute the purity of the gospel: if he will swear, let it be on the knife, the proper symbol of his profession! Gentlemen, I am again reminded of that tissue 10 of abominable slander and calumny with which O'Brien has endeavored to load so great a portion of the adult part of your country. Is it possible you can believe the report of that wretch, that no less than 111,000 men are ready to destroy and overturn 15 the government? I do not believe the abominable slander. I may have been too quick in condemn- ing this man ; and I know the argument which will be used, and to a certain degree, it is not without sense — that you cannot always expect witnesses of 20 the most unblemished character, and such things would never be brought to light if witnesses like O'Brien were rejected altogether. The argument is of some force ; but does it hold here ? or are you to believe it as a truth, because the fact is sworn to by 25 an abominable and perjured witness? No; the law of England, the so-often-mentioned principle upon which that important statute is framed, denies the admission. An English judge would be bound to tell you, and the learned judges present will tell you, 30 that a single accomplice is not to be believed with- out strong corroborative confirmation — I do not know where a contrary principle was entertained; if such has been the case, I never heard of it. O'Brien stated himself to have been involved in the guilt of 306 ARGUMENTA TION. the prisoner, in taking the obligation which was forced on him, and which he was afterwards obhged to wash down ; but may not the whole description given by him be false? May he not have fabricated that story, and come forward as an informer in a 5 transaction that never happened, from the expecta- tion of pay and profit? How does he stand? He stands divested of a single witness to support his character or the truth of his assertions, when num- bers were necessary for each. You would be most lo helpless and unfortunate men, if everything said by the witness laid you under a necessity of believ- ing it. Therefore he must be supported either by collateral or confirmatory evidence.^ Has he been supported by any collateral evidence, confirming 15 what was sworn this day? No. Two witnesses have been examined, they are not additional wit- nesses to the overt acts ; but if either of them should carry any conviction to your minds, you must be satisfied that the evidence given by O'Brien is false. 20 I will not pollute the respectable and honorable char- acter of Lord Portarlington, by mentioning it with the false and perjured O'Brien. Does his lordship tell you a single word but what O'Brien said to ^ him? Because, if his lordship told all here that 25 O'Brien told him, O'Brien has done the same too; and though he has told Lord Portarlington every word which he has sworn on the table, yet still the evidence given by his lordship cannot be corrobo- rative, because the probability is that he told a false- 30 hood; you must take that evidence by comparison. ' Having shown the probable absurdity of O'Brien's testi- mony, Curran now proceeds to show that it is without con- firmation of any sort. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 30? And what did he tell Lord Portarlington ? or, rather, what has Lord Portarlington told you? That O'Brien did state to him the project of robbing the ordnance some time before he could possibly have 5 known it himself. And it is material that he swore on the table that he did not know of the plot till his ' third meeting with the societies ; and Lord Portar- lington swears that he told it to him on the first in- terview with him : there the contradiction of O'Brien lo by Lord Portarlington is material ; and the testi- mony of Lord Portarlington may be put out of the case, except so far as it contradicts that of O'Brien. [Mr. Justice Chamberlain — It is material, Mr. Curran, that Lord Portarlington did not swear 15 positively it was at the first interview, but that he was inclined to believe it was so.] Mr. Curran — Your lordship will recollect that he said O'Brien did not say anything of con- sequence at any of the other interviews; but 2o I put his lordship out of the question, so far as he does not contradict O'Brien, and he does so. If I am stating anything through mis- take, I would wish to be set right; but Lord Portarlington said he did not recollect anything 25 of importance at any subsequent meeting; and as far as he goes, he does beyond contradiction es- tablish the false swearing of O'Brien. I am strictly right in stating the contradiction : so far as it can be compared with the testimony of O'Brien, it does 30 weaken it ; and, therefore, I will leave it there, and put Lord Portarlington out of the question — that is, as if he had not been examined at all, but where he differs from the evidence given by O'Brien. As to the witness Clarke, after all he has sworn, 3o8 ARGUMENTATION. you cannot but be satisfied he has not said a single word materially against the prisoner; he has not given any confirmatory evidence in support of any one overt act laid in the indictment. You have them upon your minds — he has not said one word 5 as to the various meetings — levying money, or send- ing persons to France;^ and, therefore, I do warn you against giving it that attention for which it has been introduced. He does not make a second wit- ness. Gentlemen, in alluding to the evidence of 10 Lord Portarlington, which I have already men- tioned, I was bound to make some observations. On the evidence of Clarke I am also obliged to do the same, because he has endeavored to prejudice your minds by an endeavor to give a sliding evi- 15 dence of what does not by any means come within this case ; that is, a malignant endeavor to impute a horrid transaction — the murder of a man of the name of Thompson — to the prisoner at the bar; but I do conjure you to consider what motives there can 20 be for insinuations of this sort, and why such a (transaction, so remote from the case before you, should be endeavored to be impressed on your minds. Gentlemen, I am not blinking the question ; I come boldly up to it; and I ask you, in the pres- 2s ence of the court and of your God, is there one word of evidence that bears the shadow of such a charge, as the murder of that unfortunate man, to the prisoner at the bar? Is there one word to show how he died — whether by force, or by any other 30 means? Is there a word how he came to his end? ' Curran insists that no evidence which does not bear directly on the issue shall be admitted or allowed to divert the minds of the jury. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY 309 Is there a word to bring- a shadow of suspicion that can be attached to the prisoner? Gentlemen, my cHent has been deprived of the benefit of a witness, May, (you have heard of it,) who, had the trial been 5 postponed, might have been able to attend; we have not been able to examine him, but you may guess what he would have said — he would have dis- credited the informer O'Brien.^ The evidence of O'Brien ought to be supported by collateral circum- 10 stances. It is not ; and though Roberts is not here, yet you may conjecture what he would have said. But, gentlemen, I have examined five witnesses, and it does seem as if there had been some providential interference carried on in bringing five witnesses to 15 contradict O'Brien in his testimony, as to direct matters of fact, if his testimony could be put in com- petition with direct positive evidence. O'Brien said, he knew nothing of ordering back any money to Margaret Moore ; he denied that fact. The wo- 20 man was examined — what did she say on the table in the presence of O'Brien ? That " an order was made, and the money refunded, after the magis- trate had abused him for his conduct." What would you think of your servant, if you found him 25 committing such perjury — would you believe him? What do you think of this fact ? O'Brien denies he knew anything of the money being refunded ! What does Mrs. Moore say? That after the 1 Curran has shown the absurdity of one part of O'Brien's 30 testimony, the highly probable absurdity of another part, and the absence of all collateral and confirmatory evidence. Having disposed of these matters on their own demerits, he now proceeds to discredit O'Brien by a bitter attack on his character. 3 1 o ARG UMENTA TION. magistrate had abused him for his conduct, the money was refunded, and that " she and O'Brien walked down stairs together! " Is this an accidental trip, a little stumble of conscience, or, is it not downright, willful perjury? What 5 said Mr. Clarke? I laid the foundation of the evidence by asking O'Brien, did you ever pass for a revenue officer? I call, gentlemen, on your knowledge of the human character, and of hu- man life, what was the conduct of the man? lo Was it what you would have acted, if you had been called on in a court of justice? Did he answer me candidly ? Do you remember his manner ? " Not, sir, that I remember ; it could not be when I was sober." " Did you do it at all?" What was the 15 answer — " I might, sir, have done it ; but I must have been drunk. I never did anything dishonest." Why did he answer thus? Because he did imagine he would have been opposed in his testimony, he not only added perjury to his prevarication, but he 20 added robbery to both. There are thousands of your fellow-subjects waiting to know, if the fact charged upon the nation of 1 1 1,000 men ready to as- sist the common enemy be true ; if upon the evidence of an abandoned wretch, a common cheat, a robber, 25 and a perjurer, you will convict the prisoner at the bar. As to his being a coiner. I will not pass that felony in payment among his other crimes, but I will offer it by itself: I will offer it as an emblem of his conscience, copper-washed — I will offer it by 30 itself. What has O'Brien said? "I never remember that I did pretend to be a revenue officer; but I re- member there was a man said somethinsr about DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 31 1 whisky; and I remember, I threatened to complain, and he was a little frightened — and he gave me three and three pence ! " I asked him, " Did his wife give you anything? " " There was three and 5 three pence between them." " Who gave you the money? " " It was all I got from both of them! " Gentlemen, would you let him into your house as a servant? Suppose one of you wanted a servant, and went to the other to get one ; and suppose that 10 you heard that he personated a revenue officer ; that he had threatened to become an informer against persons not having licenses, in order to extort money to compromise the actions, would you take him as a servant? If you would not take him as 15 servant in exchange for his wages, would you take his perjuries in exchange for the life of a fellow- subject? Let me ask you, how would you show your faces to the public, and justify a barter of that kind, if you were to establish and send abroad his zoassignats of perjury to pass current as the price of human blood? How could you bear the tyranny your consciences would exercise over you; the dag- ger that would turn upon your heart's blood, if in the moment of madness you could suffer by your 25 verdict the sword of justice to fall on the head of a victim committed to your sworn humanity, to be massacred in your presence by the perjured and abominable evidence that has been offered! But does it stop there? Has perjury rested there? — No. 30 What said the honest-looking, unlettered mind of the poor farmer ? What said Cavanagh ? "I keep a public-house, — O'Brien came to me, and pretended he was a revenue officer, — I knew not but it might be so ;— he told me he was so — he examined the lit- 312 ARGUMENTATION. tie beer I had, and my cask of porter." And, gen- tlemen, what did the villain do? While he was dip- ping his abandoned tongue in perjury and in blood, he robbed the wretched man of two guineas.^ Where is he now? Do you wonder he is afraid of 5 my eye? that he has buried himself in the crowd? that he has shrunk into the whole of the multitude, when the witness endeavored to disentangle him and his evidence ? Do you not feel that he was appalled with horror by that more piercing and penetrating 10 eye that looks upon him, and upon me, and upon us all? The chords of his heart bore testimony by its flight, and proved that he fled for the same. But does it rest there? No. Witness upon witness ap- peared for the prisoner, to whom, I dare say, you 15 will give that credit you must deny to O'Brien. Jn the presence of God they swore, that they " would not believe him upon his oath, in the smallest mat- ter." Do you know him, gentlemen of the jury? Are you acquainted with James O'Brien? If you 20 do, let him come forward from that crowd where he has hid himself, and claim you by a look. Have you been fellow-companions? If you have I dare say you wiU recognize him. Have I done with him yet? No; while there is a thread of his villainy to- 25 gether, I will tatter it, lest you should be caught with it. iDid he dare to say to the solicitor for the Crown, to the counsel that are prosecuting the prisoner, that " there is some one witness on the sur- face of the globe that will say, he believes I am not 30 a villain ; but I am a man that deserves some credit on my oath in a court of justice? " Did he venture ' Here Curran's fierce facility leads him into a delightful Irish bull. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 313 to call one human being to that fact?* But why did they not venture to examine the prisoner's wit- nesses, as to the reasons of their disbelief? What, if I was bold enoug-h to say to any of you, gentle- 5 men, that I did not think you deserved credit on your oath, would not the first question you would ask be the reason for that opinion ? Did he venture to ask that question? No. I think the trial has been fairly and humanely carried on. Mrs. Moore 10 was examined ; she underwent cross-examination — the object was to impeach her credit. I offered to examine to her character; no — I would not be suf- fered to do it ; they were right in the point of law. Gentlemen, let me ask you another question ; — Is the 15 character of O'Brien such, that you think he did not know that any human creature was to attack it? Did you not see him coiling himself in the scaly cir- cles of his perjury, making anticipated battle against the attack, that he knew would be made, and spit- 2® ting his venom against the man that might have given such evidence of his infamous character if he had dared to appear? Gentlemen, do you feel now that I was mali- ciously aspersing the character of O'Brien? What 25 language is strong enough to describe the mixture of swindling and imposition which, in the face of justice, this wretch has been guilty of? Taking on himself the situation of one of the King's officers, to rob the King's subjects of the King's money; but 30 that is not enough for him — in the vileness and turpitude of his character he afterwards wants to rob them of their lives by perjury. Do I speak ' Failure to produce evidence is strong presumptive argu* ment that it does not exist. 314 A RG OMENTA TIOM. truly to you, gentlemen, when I have shown you the witness in his real colors — when I have shown you his habitual fellowship with baseness and fraud? ^ He gave a recipe for forging money. " Why did you give it to him? " " He was an inquisitive man, 5 and I gave it as a matter of course." " But why did you do it? " " It was a light, easy way of getting money — I gave it as a humbug." He gave a recipe for forging the coin of the country, because it was a light, easy way of getting money ! Has it, gen- 10 tlemen, ever happened to you in the ordinary pas- sages of life, to have met with such a constellation of atrocities and horrors, and that in a single man? What do you say to Clarke? Except his perjury, he has scarcely ground to turn on. What was his 15 cross-examination? "Pray, sir, were you in court yesterday?" "No, Sir, I was not." "Why?" " Mr. Kemmis sent me word not to come." There happened to be several persons who saw him in court: one of them swore it — the rest were ready. 20 Call up " little Skirmish " again.* " Pray, Skir- mish, why did you say you were not in court yesterday, when you were?" "Why, it was a little bit of a mistake, not being a lawyer. It being a matter of law, I was mistaken." " How 25 did it happen you were mistaken ? " "I was puz- zled by the hard questions that Mr. M'Nally asked me." What was the hard question he was asked? " Were you In court yesterday? " " No ; Mr. Kem- ' Here follows in review a sort of " stichomathia." or con- 30 tinual repartee, of contradictory evidence. The real nature of evidence is often shown by such foreshortening into narrow limits. ♦ " Little Skirmish," a character in " The Deserter." DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 3^5 mis sent me word I need not come?" Can you, gentlemen of the jury, suppose that any simple, well- meaning man would commit such a gross and abom- inable perjury? I do not think he is a credible 5 man ; that is, that he swore truer than Lord Portar- lington did, because his lordship stands on a single testimony ; he may be true, because he has sworn on both sides ; he has sworn positively that he was not in the court yesterday ; and he has sworn positively lohe was! so that, wherever the truth is, he is found in it; let the ground be clean or dirty, he is in the midst of it. There is no person but deserves some little degree of credit ; if the soul was as black as night, it would burn to something in hell. But let 15 me not appear to avoid the question by any seeming levity upon it. O'Brien stands blackened by the unimpeached proofs of five positive perjuries. If he was indicted on any one of them, he could not ap- pear to give evidence in a court of justice ; and I do 20 call upon you, gentlemen of the jury, to refuse him on his oath that credit which never ought to be squandered on the evidence of an abandoned and self-convicted perjurer. The charge is not merely against the prisoner at 25 the bar ; it takes in the entire character of your coun- try. It is the first question of the kind for ages brought forward in this nation to public view, after an expiration of years. It is the great experiment of the informers of Ireland, to 30 see with what success they may make this traffic of human blood. Fifteen men are now in jail, depending on the fate of the unfor- tunate prisoner, and on the same blasted and perjured evidence of O'Brien, I have stated at 3 1 6 ARG UMENTA TION. large the case, and the situation of my chent ; I make no apology for wasting your time; I regret I have not been more able to do my duty ; it would insult you if I were to express any such feeling to you. I have only to apologize to my client for delaying his 5 acquittal. I have blackened the character of O'Brien in every point of view ; and, though he an- ticipated the attack that would be made on it, yet he could not procure one human- being even base enough to depose that he was to be believed on his lo oath. The character of the prisoner has been given. ^ Am I warranted in saying, that I am now defend- ing an innocent and unfortunate fellow-subject, on the grounds of eternal justice and immutable law?i5 and on that eternal law I do call upon you to acquit my client. I call upon you for your justice! Great is the reward, and sweet is the recollection in the hour of trial, and in the day of dissolution, when casualties of life are pressing close upon your heart, 20 and when, in the agonies of death, you look back to the justifiable and honorable transactions of your life. At the awful foot of eternal justice I do, therefore, invite you to acquit my client; and may God, of his infinite mercy, grant you that great com- 25 pensation which is a reward more lasting than that perishable crown we read of, which the ancients gave to him who saved the life of a fellow-citizen in battle. In the name of public justice, I do im- plore you to interpose between the perjurer and his 30 intended victim ; and, if ever you are assailed by the villainy of an informer, may you find refuge in the ' Now follows an almost homiletical appeal to the sense of religious fear, of future punishment and reward. DEFENSE OF PATRICK FINNEY. 317 recollection of that example, which, when jurors, you set to those that might be called to pass judg- ment upon your lives; to repel at the human tri- bunal the intended effects of hireling perjury, and 5 premeditated murder! If it should be the fate of any of you to count the tedious moments of cap- tivity, in sorrow and in pain, pining in the damps and gloom of a dungeon, recollect there is another more awful tribunal than any on earth, which we 10 must all approach, and before which the best of us will have occasion to look back to what little good he has done on this side of the grave ; I do pray, that Eternal Justice may record the deed you have done, and give you the full benefit of your claims to an 15 eternal reward, a requital in mercy upon your souls ! After a reply from the Solicitor-General (Toler), Justice Chamberlain and Baron Smith charged, inclining to the prisoner, and in a quarter of an hour the jury returned a 20 verdict of Not Gicilty. On the igth, fifteen other persons, who had been indicted on the same charge, were formally tried and acquitted, and, on taking the oath of allegiance, and filing recognizances for good behavior, were dis- charged. So ended the first of the ninety-eight trials. — 25 Whittier. SS.-mil misi JBonum. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. Almost the last words which Sir Walter spoke to Lockhart, his biographer, were, " Be a good man, my dear ! " and with the last flicker of breath on his dying lips, he sighed a farewell to his family, and 30 passed away blessing them. 3 1 8 ARC UMENTA TION. Two men, famous, admired, beloved, have just left us, the Goldsmith and the Gibbon of our time.* Ere a few weeks are over, many a critic's pen will be at work, reviewing their lives, and passing judg- ment on their works. This is no review, or history, 5 or criticism : only a word in testimony of respect and regard from a man of letters, who owes to his own professional labor the honor of becoming acquainted with these two eminent literary men. One was the first ambassador whom the New World of Letters 10 sent to the Old. He was born almost with the re- public; the pater patrice had laid his hand on the child's head. He bore Washington's name : he came amongst us bringing the kindest sympathy, the most artless, smiling good-will. His new country (which 15 some people here might be disposed to regard rather superciliously) could send us, as he showed in his own person, a gentleman, who, though him- self born in no very high sphere, was most finished, polished, easy, witty, quiet ; and socially, the equal 20 of the most refined Europeans. If Irving's welcome in England was a kind one, was it not also grate- fully remembered? If he ate our salt, did he not pay us with a thankful heart? Who can calculate the amount of friendliness and good feeling for our 25 country which this writer's generous and untiring regard for us disseminated in his own? His books are read by millions f of his countrymen, whom he has taught to love England, and why to love her. It would have been easy to speak otherwise than he 30 * Washington Irving died. November 28, 1859; Lord Macaulay died, December 28, 1859. f See his "Life" in the most remarkable " Dictionary of Authors," published lately at Philadelphia, by Mr. Allibone, NIL NISI BONUM. 319 did : to inflame national rancors, which, at the time when he first became known as a public writer, war had just renewed: to cry down the old civilization at the expense of the new: to point out our faults, 5 arrogance, shortcomings, and give the republic to infer how much she was the parent state's superior. There are writers enough in the United States, hon- est and otherwise, who preach that kind of doctrine. But the good Irving, the peaceful, the friendly, had 10 no place for bitterness in his heart, and no scheme but kindness. Received in England with extraor- dinary tenderness and friendship (Scott, Southey, Byron, a hundred others have borne witness to their liking for him), he was a messenger of good-will 15 and peace between his country and ours. " See, friends ! " he seems to say, " these English are not so wicked, rapacious, callous, proud, as you have been taught to believe them. I went amongst them a humble man ; won my way by my pen ; and, when 20 known, found every hand held out to me with kind- liness and welcome. Scott is a great man, you ac- knowledge. Did not Scott's King of England give a gold medal to him, and another to me, your coun- tryman, and a stranger ? " 25 Tradition in the United States still fondly retains the history of the feasts and rejoicings which awaited Irving on his return to his native country from Europe. He had a national welcome; he stammered in his speeches, hid himself in confusion, 30 and the people loved him all the better. He had worthily represented America in Europe. In that r young community a man who brings home with him abundant European testimonials is still treated with 5 respect (I have found American writers, of wide- 320 ARGUMENTATION. world reputation, strangely solicitous about the opinions of quite obscure British critics, and elated or depressed by their judgments); and Irving went home medaled by the King, diplomatized by the University, crowned and honored and admired. He 5 had not in any way intrigued for his honors, he had fairly won them ; and, in Irving's instance, as in others, the old country was glad and eager to pay them. In America the love and regard for Irving was a ic national sentiment. Party wars are perpetually raging there, and are carried on by the press with a rancor and fierceness against individuals which ex- ceed British, almost Irish, virulence. It seemed to me, during a year's travel in the country, as if no 15 one ever aimed a blow at Irving. All men held their hand from that harmless, friendly peacemaker. I had the good fortune to see him at New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington,* and re- marked how in every place he was honored and wel- 20 come. Every large city has its " Irving House." The country takes pride in the fame of its men of letters. The gate of his own charming little do- main on the beautiful Hudson River was forever swinging before visitors who came to him. He 25 shut out no one.f I had seen many pictures of his * At Washington, Mr. Irving came to a lecture given by the writer, which Mr, Fillmore and General Pierce, the President and Presiuent-Elect, were also kind enough to attend together. "Two Kings of Brentford smelling at 30 one rose," says Irving, looking up with his good-humored smile. f Mr. Irving described to me, with that humor and good- humor which he always kept, how, amongst other visitors, «i. NIL NISI BO NUM. 32 1 house, and read descriptions of it, in both of which it was treated with a not unusual American exag- geration. It was but a pretty httle cabin of a place ; the gentleman of the press who took notes of the 5 place, whilst his kind old host was sleeping, might have visited the whole house in a couple of minutes. And how came it that this house was so small, when Mr. Irving's books were sold by hundreds of thousands, nay,' millions, when his profits were 10 known to be large, and the habits of life of the good old bachelor were notoriously modest and simple? He had loved once in his life. The lady he loved died ; and he, whom all the world loved, never sought to replace her. I can't say how much the 15 thought of that fidelity has touched me. Does not the very cheerfulness of his after life add to the pathos of that untold story? To grieve always was not in his nature ; or, when he had his sorrow, to bring all the world in to condole with him and be- 20 moan it. Deep and quiet he lays the love of his heart, and buries it ; and grass and flowers grow over the scarred ground in due time. Irving had such a small house and such narrow rooms, because there was a great number of people 25 to occupy them. He could only afford to keep one member of the British press who had carried his distin- guished pen to America (where he employed it in vilifying his own country) came to Sunnyside, introduced himself to Irving, partook of his wine and luncheon, and in two 30 days described Mr. Irving, his house, his nieces, his meal, and his manner of dozing afterwards, in a New York paper. On another occasion, Irving said, laughing, " Two persons came to me, and one held me in conversation whilst the other miscreant took my portrait ! " 32 2 ARGUMEN TA TION. old horse (which, lazy and aged as it was, managed once or twice to run away with that careless old horseman). He could only afford to give plain sherry to that amiable British paragraph-monger from New York, who saw the patriarch asleep over 5 his modest, blameless cup, and fetched the public into his private chamber to look at him. Irving could only live very modestly, because the wifeless, childless man had a number of children to whom he was as a father. He had as many as nine nieces, 1 10 am told — I saw two of these ladies at his house — with all of whom the dear old man had shared the produce of his labor and genius. " Be a good man, my dear." One can't but think of these last words of the veteran Chief of Letters, 15 who had tasted and tested the value of worldly suc- cess, admiration, prosperity. Was Irving not good, and, of his works, was not his life the best part? In his family, gentle, generous, good-humored, affectionate, self-denying ; in society, a delightful 20 example of complete gentlemanhood ; quite un- spoiled by prosperity ; never obsequious to the great (or, worse still, to the base and mean, as some pub- lic men are forced to be in his and other countries) ; eager to acknowledge every contemporary's merit ; 25 always kind and affable to the young members of his calling; in his professional bargains and mercantile dealings delicately honest and grateful; one of the most charming masters of our lighter language ; the constant friend to us and our nation ; to men of let- 3a ters doubly dear, not for his wit and genius merely, but as an exemplar of goodness, probity, and pure life : — I don't know what sort of testimonial will be raised to him in his own country, where gener- NIL NISI BONUM. 323 ous and enthusiastic acknowledgment of American merit is never wanting; but Irving was in our serv- ice as well as theirs ; and as they have placed a stone at Greenwich yonder in memory of that gallant 5 young Bellot, who shared the perils and fate of some of our Arctic seamen, I would like to hear of some memorial raised by English writers and friends of letters in affectionate remembrance of the dear and good Washington Irving. 10 As for the other writer, whose departure many friends, some few most dearly loved relatives, and multitudes of admiring readers deplore, our repub- lic has already decreed his statue, and he must have known that he had earned this posthumous honor. IS He is not a poet and man of letters merely, but citi- zen, statesman, a great British worthy. Almost from the first moment when he appears, amongst boys, amongst college students, amongst men, he is marked, and takes rank as a great Englishman. 20 All sorts of successes are easy to him: as a lad he goes down into the arena with others, and wins all the prizes to which he has a mind. A place in the senate is straightway offered to the young man. He takes his seat there ; he speaks, when so minded, 25 without party anger or intrigue, but not without party faith and a sort of heroic enthusiasm for his cause. Still he is poet and philosopher even more than orator. That he may have leisure and means to pursue his darling studies, he absents himselt lor 30 a while, and accepts a richly remunerative post in the East. As learned a man may live in a cottage or a college common-room ; but it always seemed to me that ample means and recognized rank were Macaulay's as of right. Years ago there was a 324 ARG UMENTA TION. wretched outcry raised because Mr. Macaulay dated a letter from Windsor Castle, where he was staying. Immortal gods! Was this man not a fit guest for any palace in the world ? or a fit companion for any man or woman in it ? I dare say, after Austerlitz, 5 the old K. K. court officials and footmen sneered at Napoleon for dating from Schonbrunn. But that miserable " Windsor Castle " outcry is an echo out of fast-retreating old-world remembrances. The place of such a natural chief was amongst the first lo of the land ; and that country is best, according to our British notion at least, where the man of emi- nence has the best chance of investing his genius and intellect. If a company of giants were got together, very 15 dikely one or two of the mere six-feet-six people might be angry at the incontestable superiority of the very tallest of the party; and so I have heard some London wits, rather peevish at Macaulay's su- periority, complain that he occupied too much of the 20 talk, and so forth. Now that wonderful tongue is to speak no more, will not many a man grieve that he no longer has the chance to listen? To remem- ber the talk is to wonder: to think not only of the treasures he had in his memory, but of the trifles he 25 had stored there, and could produce with equal readiness. Almost on the last day I had the for- tune to see him, a conversation happened suddenly to spring up about senior wranglers, and what they had done in after life. To the almost terror of the 30 persons present, Macaulay began with the senior wrangler of 1801-2-3-4, and so on, giving the name of each, and relating his subsequent career and rise. Every man who has known him has his story re- NIL NISI BONUM. 325 garding that astonishing memory. It may be that he was not ill pleased that you should recognize it; but to those prodigious intellectual feats, which were so easy to him, who would grudge his trib- 5 ute of homage? His talk was, in a word, admir- able, and we admired it. '^ Of the notices which have appeared regarding Lord Macaulay, up to the day when the present lines are written (the 9th of January), the reader should 10 not deny himself the pleasure of looking especially at two. It is a good sign of the times when such articles as these (I mean the articles in The Times and Saturday Review) appear in our public prints about our public men. They educate us, as it were, 15 to admire rightly. An uninstructed person in a museum or at a concert may pass by without recog- nizing a picture or a passage of music, which the connoisseur by his side may show him is a master- piece of harmony, or a wonder of artistic skill. After 20 reading these papers you like and respect more the person you have admired so much already. And so with regard to Macaulay's style there may be faults of course — what critic can't point them out? But for the nonce we are not talking about faults : 25 we want to say nil nisi bonum. Well — take at haz- ard any three pages of the " Essays " or " His- tory"; — and, glimmering below the stream of the narrative, as it were, you, an average reader, see one, two, three, a half-score of allusions to other his- 30 toric facts, characters, literature, poetry, with which you are acquainted. Why is this epithet used? Whence is that simile drawn? How does he man- age, in two or three words, to paint an individual, or to indicate a landscape? Your neighbor, who i26 ARGUMENTA TION. has his reading, and his Httle stock of Hterature stowed away in his mind, shall detect more points, allusions, happy touches, indicating not only the prodigious memory and vast learning of this master, but the wonderful industry, the honest, humble pre- 5 vious toil of this great scholar. He reads twenty books tO' write a sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make a line of description. Many Londoners — not all — have seen the British Museum Library. I speak a cceur ouvert and pray lo the kindly reader to bear with me. I have seen all sorts of domes of Peters and Pauls, Sophia, Pan- theon, — what not? — and have been struck by none of them so much as by that catholic dome in Bloomsbury, under which our million volumes are 15 housed. What peace, what love, what truth what beauty, what happiness for all, what generous -iiid- ness for you and me, are here spread out! It 'cems to me one cannot sit down in that place without a heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said 20 my grace at the table, and to have thanked Heaven for this my English birthright, freely to partake of these bountiful books, and to speak the truth I find there. Under the dome which held Macaulay's brain, and from which his solemn eyes looked out 25 on the world but a fortnight since, what a vast, bril- liant, and wonderful store of learning was ranged ! what strange lore would he not fetch for you at your bidding! A volume of law, or history, a book of poetry familiar or forgotten (except by himself, who 3° forgot nothing), a novel ever so old, and he had it at hand. I spoke to him once about " Clarissa." "Not read 'Clarissa!'" he cried out. "If you have once thoroughly entered on ' Clarissa * andl NIL NISI BO NUM. 327 are infected by it, you can't leave it. When I was in India I passed one hot season at the hills, and there were the Governor-General, and the Secretary of Government, and the Commander in Chief, and 5 their wives. I had ' Clarissa ' with me : and, as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her scoundrelly Lovelace! The Governor's wife seized the book, and the Secretary 10 waited for it, and the Chief Justice could not read it for tears! " He acted the whole scene: he paced up and down the " Athenaeum " library : I dare say he could have spoken pages of the book — of that book, and of what countless piles of others! 15 In this little paper let us keep to the text of nil nisi honum. One paper I have read regarding Lord Macaulay says ** he had no heart." Why, a man's books may not always speak the truth, but they speak his mind in spite of himself: and it seems to 20 me this man's heart is beating through every page he penned. He is always in a storm of revolt and indignation against wrong, craft, tyranny. How he cheers heroic resistance ; how he backs and ap- plauds freedom struggling for its own ; how he hates 25 scoundrels, ever so victorious and successful ; how he recognizes genius, though selfish villains possess it! The critic who says Macaulay had no heart, might say that Johnson had none: and two men more generous, and more loving, and more hating, 30 and more partial, and more noble, do not live in our history. Those who knew Lord Macaulay knew how admirably tender and generous,* and affection- * Since the above was written, I have been informed that it has been found, on examining Lord Macaulay's papers, 328 ARGUMENTA TION. ate he was. It was not his business to bring his family before the theater footlights, and call for bouquets from the gallery as he wept over them. If any young man of letters reads this little ser- mon — and to him, indeed, it is addressed — I would 5 say to him, " Bear Scott's words in your mind, and * he good, my dear.' " Here are two literary men gone to their account, and, laus Deo, as far as we know, it is fair, and open, and clean. Here is no need of apologies for shortcomings, or explanations 10 of vices which would have been virtues but for un- avoidable, &c. Here are two examples of men most differently gifted: each pursuing his calling; each speaking his truth as God bade him; each honest in his life; just and irreproachable in his dealings; 15 dear to his friends ; honored by his country ; beloved at his fireside. It has been the fortunate lot of both to give incalculable happiness and delight to the world, which thanks them in return with an im- mense kindliness, respect, affection. It may not be 20 our chance, brother scribe, to be endowed with such merit, or rewarded with such fame. But the re- wards of these men are rewards paid to our service. We may not win the baton or epaulets ; but God give us strength to guard the honor of the flag! 25 — Roundabout Papers. Notes. — This selection and the following are specimens of indirect persuasion. The method of Thackeray's essay- is the use of informal narrative, biographical in this case, and informal character-drawing, to lend persuasive force to a general principle of conduct. Doubtless the 3° that he was in the habit of giving away more than a fourth part of his annual income. THE END OF GEORGE III. 32 g purpose of Thackeray was also to pay a tribute to the two noble friends he had lost ; but he fairly succeeds in util- izing them as a persuasive power. It is the method of the skillful funeral orator, the method of Bossuet and of 5 Lincoln. 56.— ^be lEnD of (Beorgc irilir. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. But the pretty Amelia was his darHng; and the little maiden, prattling and smiling in the fond arms of that old father, is a sweet image to look on. There is a family picture in Burney, which a man 10 must be hard-hearted not to like. She describes an after-dinner walk of the royal family at Windsor: — " It was really a mighty pretty procession," she says. " The little Princess, just turned of three years old, in a robe-coat covered with 15 fine muslin, a dressed close cap, white gloves, and fan, walked on alone and first, highly delighted with the parade, and turning from side to side to see everybody as she passed; for all the terraces stand up against the walls, 20 to make a clear passage for the royal family the moment they come in sight. Then followed the King and Queen, no less delighted with the joy of their little darling. The Princess Royal leaning on Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave, the Princess Augusta 25 holding by the Duchess of Ancaster, the Princess Elizabeth led by Lady Charlotte Bertie, followed. Office here takes place of rank," says Burney, — to explain how it was that Lady E. Waldegrave, as lady of the bedchamber, walked before a duchess; 30 — " General Bude, and the Duke of Montague, and 330 ARGUMENTA TION. Major Price as equerry, brought up the rear of the procession." One sees it; the band playing- its old music, the sun shining on the happy, loyal crowd; and lighting the ancient battlements, the rich elms, the purple landscape, and bright greensward; the 5 royal standard drooping from the great tower yon- der ; as old George passes, followed by his race, pre- ceded by the charming infant, who caresses the crowd with her innocent smiles. " On sight of Mrs. Delany, the King instantly 10 stopped to speak to her; the Queen, of course, and the little Princess, and all the rest, stood still. They talked a good while with the sweet old lady, during which time the King once or twice addressed him- self to me. I caught the Queen's eye, and saw in it 15 a little surprise, but by no means any displeasure, to see me of the party. The little Princess went up to Mrs. Delany, of whom she is very fond, and be- haved like a little angel to her. She then, with a look of inquiry and recollection, came behind Mrs. 20 Delany to look at me. * I am afraid,' said I, in a whisper, and stooping down, ' your Royal High- ness does not remember me? ' Her answer was an arch little smile, and a nearer approach, with her lips pouted out to kiss me." 25 The Princess wrote verses herself, and there are some pretty plaintive lines attributed to her, which are more touching than better poetry: — ♦' Unthinking, idle, wild, and young, I laughed, and danced, and talked, and sung ; 30 And, proud of health, of freedom vain, Dreamed not of sorrow, care, or pain ; Concluding, in those hours of glee, That all the world was made for me. THE END OF GEORGE III. 33? *• But when the hour of trial came. When sickness shook this trembling frame, When folly's gay pursuits were o'er, And I could sing and dance no more, 5 It then occurred, how sad 'twould be, Were this world only made for me." The poor soul quitted it — and ere yet she was dead the agonized father was in such a state, that the officers round about him were obliged to set lo watchers over him, and from November, 1810, George III. ceased to reign. All the world knows the story of his malady : all history presents no sad- der figure than that of the old man, blind and de- prived of reason, wandering through the rooms of 15 his palace, addressing imaginary parliaments, re- viewing fancied troops, holding ghostly courts. I have seen his picture as it was taken at this time, hanging in the apartment of his daughter, the Land- gravine of Hesse Hombourg — amidst books and 20 Windsor furniture, and a hundred fond reminis- cences of her English home. The poor old father is represented in a purple gown, his snowy beard fall- ing over his breast — the star of his famous Order still idly shining on it. He was not only sightless : 25 he became utterly deaf. All light, all reason, all sound of human voices, all the pleasures of this world of God, were taken from him. Some slight lucid moments he had ; in one of which, the Queen, desiring to see him, entered the room, and found 30 him singing a hymn, and accompanying himself at the harpsichord. When he had finished, he knelt down and prayed aloud for her, and then for his family, and then for the nation, concluding with a prayer for himself, that it might please God to avert 332 ARGUMENTA TION. his heavy calamity from him, but if not, to give him resignation to submit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again fled. What preacher need morahze on this story; what words save the simplest are requisite to tell it? It 5 is too terrible for tears. The thought of such a mis- ery smites me down in submission before the Ruler of kings and men, the Monarch Supreme over em- pires and republics, the inscrutable Dispenser of life, death, happiness, victory. " O brothers," I said to lo those who heard me first in America — " O brothers! speaking the same dear mother tongue — O com- rades ! enemies no more, let us take a mournful hand together as we stand by this royal corpse, and call a truce to battle ! Low he lies to whom the proudest i? used to kneel once, and who was cast lower than the poorest: dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off his throne ; buffeted by rude hands ; with his children in revolt; the darling of his old age killed before him untimely; our Lear hangs over 20 her breathless lips and cries, ' Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little!' ' Vex not his ghost — oh ! let him pass — he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer ! ' 25 Hush ! Strife and Quarrel, over the solemn grave ! Sound, trumpets, a mournful march. Fall, dark curtain, upon his pageant, his pride, his grief, his awful tragedy." — The Four Georges. Notes. — A composition is persuasive in proportion as it 30 succeeds in moving the elementary human emotions. We have found, in the preceding selections of this chapter, THE END OF GEORGE III. 333 appeals to love of money, to love of life, to manly courage and perseverance, to the feeling of hostile rivalry, and to the sentiments of patriotism, generosity, and mercy. Skillful speakers often appeal to the great social instincts, espe- 5 cially the love between parent and child. But just because this sentiment is easily touched, some speakers harp on it. There are preachers who never fail to refer to dead mothers — a sacred duty no doubt at times, but too sacred for frequent performance. This passage from lo Thackeray is noticeable for the delicate strength of its appeal to three inborn sentiments, — sympathy with parent- hood, sympathy with suffering, and love of country or king. CHAPTER V. CRITICISM. 57.— ?rbe action of ©ara&fse Host. JOSEPH ADDISON. [Spectator No. 267 J] Cedite Romani Scriptores, credit Graii. — Propeht. Give place, ye Roman and ye Grecian wits. There is nothing in nature more irksome than general discourses, especially when they turn chiefly upon words. For this reason I shall waive the dis- cussion of that point which was started some years 5 since, Whether Milton's Paradise Lost may be called an heroic poem? those who will not give it that title, may call it (if they please) a Divine Poem. It will be sufficient to its perfection, if it has in it all the beauties of the highest kind of poetry ; and as 10 for those who allege it is not an heroic poem, they advance no more to the diminution of it, than if they should say Adam is not ^neas, nor Eve, Helen. I shall therefore examine it by the rules of epic poetry, and see whether it falls short of the Iliad or i5.^neid, in the beauties which are essential to that kind of writing. The first thing to be considered in an epic poem, is the fable, which is perfect or im- perfect, according as the action which it relates is 33^ CRITICISM. more or less so. This action should have three qualifications in it. First, it should be but one ac- tion. Secondly, it should be an entire action; and thirdly, it should be a great action. To consider the action of the Iliad, ^neid, and Paradise Lost, in {^ these three several lights, Homer, to preserve the unity of his action, hastens into the midst of things, as Horace has observed; had he gone up to Leda's ^'gg, or begun much later, even at the rape of Helen, or the investing of Troy, it is manifest that the story lo of the poem would have been a series of several ac- tions. He therefore opens his poem with the dis- cord of his princes, and artfully interweaves, in the several succeeding parts of it, an account of every- thing material which relates to them, and had i? passed before this fatal dissension. After the same manner 'yEneas makes his first appear- ance in the Tyrrhene seas, and within sight of Italy, because the action proposed to be celebrated was that of his settling himself in 20 Latium. But because it was necessary for the reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, and in the preceding parts of his voyage, Virgil makes his hero relate it by way of episode in the second and third books of the yEneid. 25 The contents of both which books come before those of the first book in the thread of the story, though for preserving of this unity of action, they follow it in the disposition of the poem. Milton, in imitation of these two great 30 poets, opens his Paradise Lost with an in- fernal council plotting the fall of man, which is the action he proposed to celebrate; and as for those great actions, the battle of the angels, and THE ACTION OF PARADISE LOST. 337 the creation of the world, (which preceded in point of time, and which, in my opinion, would have en- tirely destroyed the unity of his principal action, had he related them in the same order that they hap- 5 pened) he cast them into the fifth, sixth, and sev- enth books, by way of episode to this noble poem. Aristotle himself allows, that Homer has nothing to boast of as to the unity of his fable, though at the same time, that great critic and philosopher en- 10 deavors to palliate this imperfection in the Greek poet, by imputing it in some measure to the very na- ture of an epic poem. Some have been of opinion, that the .^Eneid also labors in this particular, and has episodes which may be looked upon as excrescencies 15 rather than as parts of the action. On the contrary, the poem which we have now under our considera- tion, hath no other episodes than such as naturally arise from the subject, and yet is filled with such a multitude of astonishing incidents, that it gives us 20 at the same time a pleasure of the greatest variety, and of the greatest simplicity; uniform in its nature, though diversified in its execution. I must observe, also, that as Virgil, in the poem, which was designed to celebrate the original of the 25 Roman empire, has described the birth of its great rival, the Carthaginian commonwealth ; Milton, with the like art, in his poem on the Fall of Man, has re- lated the fall of those angels who are his professed enemies. Beside the many other beauties in such so an episode, its running parallel with the great action of the poem, hinders it from breaking the unity so much as another episode would have done, that had not so great an affinity with the principal subject. In short, this is the same kind of beauty which the 338 CRITICISM. critics admire in the Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery, where the two different plots look like counterparts and copies of one another, The second qualification required in the action of an epic poem is, that it should be an entire action: 5 an action is entire when it is complete in all its parts; or, as Aristotle describes it, when it consists of a beginning-, a middle, and an end. Nothing should go before it, be intermixed with it, or follow after it, that is not related to it ; as, on the contrary, 10 no single step should be omitted in that just and regular process which it must be supposed to take from its original consummation. Thus we see the anger of Achilles in its birth, its continuance, and effects; and .^Eneas's settlement in Italy, carried on 15 through all the oppositions in his way to it both by sea and land. The action in Milton excels (I think) both the former in this particular; we see it contrived in hell, executed upon earth, and punished by heaven. The parts of it are told in the most dis- 20 tinct manner, and grow out of one another in the most natural order. The third qualification of an epic poem is its greatness. The anger of Achilles was of such con- sequence, that it embroiled the kings of Greece, de- 25 stroyed the heroes of Asia, and engaged all the gods in factions. The settlement of -lEneas in Italy pro- duced the Caesars, and gave birth to the Roman em- pire. Milton's subject was still greater than either of the former ; it does not determine the fate of sin- 30 gle persons or nations, but of a whole species. The united powers of hell are joined together for the destruction of mankind, which they effected in part, and would have completed, had not Omnipotence it- THE ACTION OF PARADISE 10 ST. 339 self interposed. The principal actors are man in his greatest perfection, and woman in her highest beauty. Their enemies are the fallen angels: the Messiah their friend, and the Almighty their pro- Stector. In short, everything that is great in the whole circle of being, whether within the verge of nature, or out of it, has a proper part assigned it in this admirable poem. In poetr)', as in architecture, not only the whole, robut the principal members, and every part of them, should be great. I will not presume to say, that the book of Games in the ^neid, or that in the Iliad, are not of this nature; nor to reprehend Virgil's simile of a top, and many others of the same kind 15 in the Iliad, as liable to any censure in this particu- lar; but I think we may say, without derogating from those wonderful performances, that there is an indisputable and unquestioned magnificence in every part of Paradise Lost, and, indeed, a much greater 20 than could have been formed upon any Pagan sys- tem. But Aristotle, by the greatness of the action, does not only mean that it should be great in its nature, but also in its duration ; or, in other words, that it 25 should have a due length in it, as well as what we properly call greatness. The just measure of this kind of magnitude, he explains by the following similitude. An animal, no bigger than a mite, can- not appear perfect to the eye, because the sight takes 30 it in at once, and has only a confused idea of the whole, and not a distinct idea of all its parts ; if, on the contrary, you should suppose an animal of ten thousand furlongs in length, the eye would be so filled with a single part of it, that it could not give 340 CRITICISM. the mind an idea of the whole. What these animals are to the eye, a very short or a very long action would be to the memory. The first would be, as it were, lost and swallowed up by it, and the other difficult to be contained in it. Homer and Virgil 5 have shown their principal art in this particular ; the action of the Iliad, and that of the '^neid were in themselves exceeding short; but are so beautifully extended and diversified by the invention of epi- sodes, and the machinery of the gods, with the like 10 poetical ornaments, that they make up an agreeable story sufficient to employ the memory without over- charging it. Milton's action is enriched with such variety of circumstances, that I have taken as much pleasure in reading the contents of his books, as in 15 the best invented story I ever met with. It is pos- sible, that the traditions on which the Iliad and Mxv€\^ were built, had more circumstances in them than the history of the Fall of Man, as it is related in scripture. Besides, it was easier for Homer and 20 Virgil to dash the truth with fiction, as they were in no danger of offending the religion of their country by it. But as for Milton, he had not only a very few circumstances upon which to raise his poem, but was also obliged to proceed with the greatest 25 caution in everything that he added out of his own invention. And, indeed, notwithstanding all the re- straints he was under, he has filled his story with so many surprising incidents, which bear so close an analogy with what is delivered in holy writ, that it 30 is capable of pleasing the most delicate reader, with- out giving offense to the most scrupulous. The modern critics have collected, from several hints in the Iliad and ^neid, the space of time THE RANK OF EMERSON. 341 which is taken up by the action of each of those poems; but as a great part of Milton's story was transacted in regions that he out of the reach of the sun, and the sphere of 3 day, it is impossible to gratify the reader with such a calculation, which, indeed, would be more curious than instructive; none of the critics, either ancient or modern, having laid down rules to circumscribe the action of an epic poem with any t^ determined number of years, days, or hours. But of this more particularly hereafter. Notes. — In this piece of applied criticism, the second of a long series of Spectators devoted to the consideration of " Paradise Lost," Addison speaks of " the Rules of Epic J5 Poetry," states them, and applies them to the poem under discussion. By these rules he means chiefly the principles inferred by Aristotle from an examination of Homer, and formulated by him in his Poetics. In Addison's day these principles had become an essential part of literary theory 20 and practice in France. They had suffered various modifi- cations at the hands of critics like Bossu, and had acquired a categoric definiteness not dreamed of by Aristotle. Criti- cism like this of Addison's, appealing as it does to well- established authority, and savoring of the schools, we may 25 call academic criticism. It recognizes objective standards and applies them without reference to the critic's personal likes and dislikes. 58.— ^be IRanf? of Emerson. MATTHEW ARNOLD. We have not in Emerson a great poet, a great writer, a great philosophy-maker. His relation to 30 us is not that of one of those personages ; yet it is a 34* CRITICISM. relation of, I think, even superior importance. His relation to us is more like that of the Roman Em- peror Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius is not a great writer, a great philosophy-maker; he is the friend and aider of those who would live in 5 the spirit. Emerson is the same. He is the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit. All the points in thinking which are necessary for this purpose he takes; but he does not combine them into a system, or lo present them as a regular philosophy. Combined in a system by a man with the requisite talent for this kind of thing, they would be less useful than as Emerson gives them to us; and the man with the talent so to systematize them would be less 15 impressive than Emerson. — Emerson, in "Discourses in Afnerica." Notes. — The discourse of the late Matthew Arnold on Emerson attempted to show that there is such a thing as greatness, seen in thinkers like Kant and in stylists like Swift ; that this greatness, whether of thought or of style, 20 is something roughly determinable ; and that this great- ness Emerson has not. It then proceeded to maintain that Emerson's relation to us is more important than that of men who really outrank him ; and in order to name this re- lation it offered a new critical term — " the friend and aider 25 of those who would live in the spirit." Arnold's criticism is partly academic in fact, because it assumes that certain long-recognized standards are real and definable ; it is wholly academic in spirit, because it attempts to set up norms in the way of terminology. 30 DISCONTINUANCE OF THE GUIDE-BOARD. 343 59.— Discontinuance ot tbe 6uiDc*3BoarD. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. Perhaps the last indulgence yet to be won by the writer of fiction will be that of discontinuing the time-honored institution of the guide-board. Many still expect it to stand visible on his closing pages, 5 at least, and to be marked, when necessary, *' Pri- vate Way," " Dangerous Passing," that there may be no mistake. Yet surely all tendencies now lead to the abandonment of that time-honored proclama- tion; and this change comes simply from the fact lo that fiction is drawing nearer to life. In real life, as we see it, the moral is usually implied and inferen- tial, not painted on a board; you must often look twice, or look many times, in order to read it. The eminent sinner dies amid tears and plaudits, not in 15 the state-prison, as he should; the seed of the right- eous is often seen begging bread. We have to read very carefully between the lines if we would fully recognize the joy of Marcellus exiled, the secret ennui of Caesar with a senate at his heels. Thus it 2o is in daily life — that is, in nature ; and yet many still think it a defect in a story if it leaves a single moral influence to be worked out by the meditation of the reader. On my lending to an intelligent young woman, the 25 other day, Mr. Hamlin Garland's remarkable vol- ume, " Main-Travelled Roads," she returned it with the remark that she greatly admired all the stories except the first, which seemed to her immoral. ' Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from " Book aod Heart," copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers, 344 CRITICISM. It closed, indeed, as she justly pointed out, with a striking scene in which a long-absent lover carries off the wife and child of a successful but unworthy rival, and the tale ends with the words : " The sun shone on the dazzling, rustling wheat; the fathom- 5 less sky as a sea bent over them, and the world lay before them." But when I pointed out to her, what one would think must be clear at a glance to every reader, that behind this momentary gleam of beauty lay an absolutely hopeless future; that 10 though the impulse of action was wholly gen- erous, and not even passional, yet Nemesis was close behind; and that the mere fact of the woman's carrying another man's baby in her arms would prevent all permanent hap- 15 piness with her lover; my friend could only reply that it was all very true, but she had never thought of it. In other words, the guide-board was not there. The only thing that could have disarmed her criticism would have been a distinct announce- 20 ment on the author's part : " N. B. The situation is dangerous;" just as Miss Edgeworth used to ap- pend to every particularly tough statement: " N. B. This is a fact." The truth is, that in Miss Edgeworth's day they 25 ordered the matter differently. Either the sinners and saints were called up by name in the closing chapter, and judgment rendered in detail, or else very explicit reasons were given why the obvious award was impracticable. " The Lord Lilburnes of 30 this hollow world are not to be pelted with the soft roses of poetical justice. He is alone with old age and in the sight of death." Thus stands the guide- board at the close of Bulwer's " Nig^ht and Mom- DISCONTINUANCE OF THE GUIDE-BOARD. 345 ing " ; and in the discontinuance of such aids there is doubtless a certain risk. Some of the most power- ful works of modern fiction have apparently failed to impress their moral on the careless reader. All 5 really strong novels involving illicit love are neces- sarily tragedies at last, not vaudevilles ; and nowhere is this more true than in French literature. The clever woman who said that nothing was worse than French immorality except French morality, simply lo failed to go below the surface ; for in France the family feeling is so potent that the actual destruction of the domestic tie is often punished with cruel se- verity, even by the most tolerant novelists. The retribution in " Madame Bovary," for instance, is al- 15 most too merciless, since it wreaks itself even upon the body of the poor sinner after death, and pur- sues her unoffending child to the poor house. No one has painted a climax of unlawful passion more terrific than that portrayed in the closing pages of 2^ " Monsieur de Camors " ; the guilty pair, false to every human obligation, successful in their wishes to their own destruction, nuniinibus vota exaudita malignis, detached by their crime from all the world and finally from one another, wander like gloomy 25 shadows amid an earthly paradise, meeting some- times unwarily, but never exchanging a word. Yet both these novels are sometimes classed among the bad books, simply because the guide-board is omit- ted and the reader left to draw his own moral. 30 The same mis judgment is often passed for the same reason upon Tolstoi's "Anna Karenina," which surely is, among all books upon this same theme, the most utterly relentless. Not merely does it not con- tain, from beginning to end, a prurient scene or 34^ CRITICISM. ■even a voluptuous passage, but its plot moves £Ld inexorably and almost as visibly as a Greek fate. Even Hawthorne allows his guilty lovers, in " The Scarlet Letter," a moment of delusive Aiappiness ; even Hawthorne recognizes the un- 5 ^questionable truth that the foremost result of a broken law is sometimes an enchanting sense of freedom. Tolstoi tolerates no such enchant- ment, and he has written the only novel of illicit love, perhaps, in which the offenders — both 10 being persons otherwise high-minded and noble — fail to derive from their sin one hour of even tem- porary happiness. From the moment of their yield- ing we see the shadow already over them; the au- thor is as merciless to these beings of his own con- 15 struction as if he hated them ; and one feels like call- ing in an Omar Khayyam to defend once more the created against an unjust creator. Yet " Anna Karenina " has often been condemned as immoral, in the absence of the guide-board. 20 If, now, we consider, in the light of these strik- ing instances, what it is that has brought about this gradual disuse of the overt and visible moral, we shall soon see that it is a part of the general ten- dency of modern literature to do without external 25 aids to make its meaning clear. There is undoubt- edly a tendency to rely more and more upon what has been well called " the presumption of brains " in the reader. Note, for instance, the steady dis- appearance of the italic letter from the printed page. 30 Once used as freely as in an epistle from one of Thackeray's fine ladies, it is now employed by care- ful writers almost wholly to indicate foreign words or book titles; a change m which Emerson and DISCONTINUANCE OF THE GUIDE-BOARD. 347 Hawthorne were conspicuous leaders. There is a feehng that only a very crude literary art will now depend on typography for shades of meaning which should be rendered by the very structure of 5 the sentence. The same fate of banishment is over- taking the exclamation-point, so long used by poets — conspicuously by Whittier — as a note of admira- \ tion also. Here, too, as in the other case, the em- phasis is now left to render itself ; and even the last lo verse of the poem, which often — to cite Whittier again — contained the detached moral of the lay, is now commonly clipped off, leaving the reader to draw the moral for himself. The poet now makes his point as best he can, and leaves it without a 15 guide-board; in this foreshadowing precisely that change which has also come over the prose novel. Granting that much fiction, at any rate, has a moral expressed or implied, it is to be observed that all fiction has changed its note in other respects 20 within the last century, and must accept its own laws. Formerly conveying its moral often through a symbol, it now conveys it, if at all, by direct nar- rative. The distinction has never been better put than in a remarkable and little-known letter ad- 25 dressed by Heine on his death-bed ( 1856) to Varn- hagen von Ense, in giving a personal introduction to Ferdinand Lassalle. " The new generation," wrote Heine, " means to enjoy itself and make the best of the visible ; we of the older one bowed hum- 3obly before the invisible, yearned after shadow kisses and blue-flower fragrances, denied ourselves, wept and smiled and were perhaps happier than these fierce gladiators who walk so proudly to meet their death-struggle." The blue-flower allusion is 348 CRITICISM. to the favorite ideal symbol of the German Novalis ; and certainly the young men who grew up fifty or sixty years ago in America obtained some of their very best tonic influences through such thoroughly ideal tales as that writer's " Heinrich von Ofterdin- 3 gen," Fouque's " Sintram," Hoffmann's " Goldene Topf," and Richter's " Titan " ; whether these were read in the original German or in the translations of Carlyle, Brooks, and others. All these books are now little sought, and rather alien to the iQ present taste. To these were added, in English, such tales as Poe's " William Wilson " and Haw- thorne's " The Birthmark " and " Rappaccini's Daughter " ; and, in French, Balzac's " Le Peau de Chagrin," which Professor Longfellow used 15 warmly to recommend to his college pupils. Works like these represented the prevailing sentiment of a period ; they exerted a distinct influence on the molding of a generation. Their moral was irresistible for those who really cared 20 enough for the books to read them ; they needed no guide-boards; the guide-board was for the eadier efforts at realism, before it had proved its strength. Realism has since achieved its maturity, and un- doubtedly has won — if it has not already lost again 25 — possession of the field. Whether its sway be, as many think, a permanent change, or only, as I my- self believe, a swing of the pendulum, the fact is the same. It is as useless to resist such changes as it is for Lowell to go on lighting his pipe for 30 years with flint and steel, which I well remember his doing rather than accept the innovation of a friction-match. Realism must hold the field so long as it has a right to do it, and it can only be asked to DISCONTINUANCE OF THE GUIDE-BOARD. 349 fulfill the conditions of its being. If we excuse it, as we plainly must, from the perpetuation of the guide-board, we can only ask that it shall go on and do its work so well that no such aid shall be needed ; 5 that its moral, where there is one, shall be reason- ably plain; that is, so clearly put as to produce a minimum of misunderstanding. How important this is may be appreciated when we consider that so great an artist as Goethe, writing " Die Wahlver- lo wandschaften," expressly, as he thought, to vindi- cate the marriage laws, was supposed by his whole generation to have written against them, simply through an ill-chosen title and a single unseemly incident. And another reasonable condition is that 15 fiction, being thus set free, should be a law unto itself and stop short of undesirable materials ; that it should obey that high and significant maxim of the Roman augurs — never to let the sacred entrails be displayed outside the solemnity of the temple. It is 20 for disregard in this respect, and not for any want of serious purpose — since he usually has such a pur- pose, and does not write with levity — that Zola is to be condemned. But granting these simple conditions fulfilled, the 25 writer of fiction should surely be allowed henceforth to wind up his story in his own way, without formal proclamation of his moral ; or, better still, to leave the tale without technical and elaborate winding up, as nature leaves her stories. His work is a great 30 one, to bring comedy and even tragedy down from the old traditions of kingliness to the vaster and more complex currents of modern democratic life. When the elder Scaliger wrote, in 1561, that work on Poetry which so long ruled the traditions of 35° CRITICISM. European literature, he defined the difference be- tween tragedy and comedy to consist largely in this — that tragedy concerned itself only with kings, princes, cities, citadels, and camps ; m tragedia reges, principes, ex urbibus, arcibtis, castris. All 5 these things are now changed. Kings, princes, camps, citadels are passing away, and the cities that will soon alone survive them are filled with a demo- cratic world, which awaits its chronicles of joy or pain. The writer of fiction must tell his tale, and 10 leave it to yield its own moral. The careless or hasty reader will often misinterpret it, and would do so were the guide-board ever so conspicuous ; but the serious student will bear away an influence pro- portioned to the hidden wealth of meaning, and this 15 meaning will be more precious in proportion as he has been left to discern it for himself. Notes. — This essay of Colonel Higginson evidently proceeds with reference to some objective standards, if no others than certain rhetorical principles of emphasis. But 20 the phrasing, the style of the piece, is not academic ; it reveals few or no recognized technical terms. The whole piece is an expansion of a figure of speech. The com- parison of the sign-board is a personal one of Colonel Higginson's ; it records a personal impression. Since the 25 piece recognizes some standard, but is impressionistic in style, we may classify it as partly academic and partly impressionistic. 60.— ®n a |>eal of JBclIs. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. As some bells in a church hard by are making a great holiday clanging in the summer afternoon, 30 I am reminded somehow of a July day, a garden, ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 35 1 and a great clanging of bells years and years ago, on the very day when George IV. was crowned. I remember a little boy lying in that garden reading his first novel. It was called the " Scottish Chiefs." 5 The little boy (who is now ancient and not little) read this book in the summer-house of his great- grandmamma. She was eighty years of age then. A most lovely and picturesque old lady, with a long tortoise-shell cane, with a little puff, or tour of 10 snow white (or was it powdered?) hair under her cap, with the prettiest little black-velvet slippers and high heels you ever saw. She had a grandson, a lieutenant in the navy ; son of her son, a captain in the navy; grandson of her husband, a captain in 15 the navy. She lived for scores and scores of years in a dear little old Hampshire town inhabited by the wives, widows, daughters of navy captains, admi- rals, lieutenants. Dear me! Don't I remember Mrs. Duval, widow of Admiral Duval; and the Miss 2o Dennets, at the Great house at the other end of the town. Admiral Dennet's daughters ; and the Miss Barrys, the late Captain Barry's daughters ; and the good old Miss Maskews, Admiral Maskew's daugh- ters ; and that dear little Miss Norval, and the kind 25 Miss Bookers, one of whom married Captain, now Admiral Sir Henry Excellent, K. C. B.? Far, far away into the past I look and see the little town with its friendly glimmer. That town was so like a novel of Miss Austen's that I wonder was she born 30 and bred there? No, we should have known, and the good old ladies would have pronounced her to be a little idle thing, occupied with her silly books and neglecting her housekeeping. There were other towns in England, no doubt, where dwelt the wid- 352 CRITICISM. ows and wives of other navy captains; where they tattled, loved each other, and quarreled ; talked about Betty the maid, and her fine ribbons indeed ! took their dish of tea at six, played at quadrille every night till ten, when there was a little bit of 5 supper, after which Betty came with the lanthorn ; and next day came, and next, and next, and so forth, until a day arrived when the lanthorn was out, when Betty came no more : all that little company sank to rest under the daisies, whither some folks will pres- lo ently follow them. How did they live to be so old, those good psople? Moi qui vous parle, I per- fectly recollect old Mr. Gilbert, who had been to sea with Captain Cook ; and Captain Cook, as you justly observe, dear Miss, quoting out of your " Mang- 15 nail's Questions," was murdered by the natives of Owhyhee, anno 1779. Ah ! don't you remember his picture, standing on the seashore, in tights and gaiters, with a musket in his hand, pointing to his people not to fire from the boats, whilst a great tat- 20 tooed savage is going to stab him in the back? Don't you remember those houries dancing before him and the other officers at the great Otaheite ball ? Don't you know that Cook was at the siege of Que- bec, with the glorious Wolfe, who fought under the 25 Duke of Cumberland, whose royal father was a dis- tinguished officer at Ramillies, before he com- manded in chief at Dettingen? Huzza! Give it them, my lads! My horse is down. Then I know I shall not run away. Do the French run? then I 30 die content. Stop. Wo! Quo me rapis? My Pegasus is galloping off, goodness knows where, like his Majesty's charger at Dettingen. How do these rich historical and personal reminis- ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 353 cences come out of the subject at present in hand? What is that subject, by the way? My dear friend, if you look at the last essaykin (though you may leave it alone, and I shall not be in the least sur- 5 prised or offended), if you look at the last paper, where the writer imagines Athos and Porthos, Dal- getty and Ivanhoe, Amelia and Sir Charles Grandi- son, Don Quixote and Sir Roger, walking in at the garden window, you will at once perceive that lo Novels and their heroes and heroines are our present subject of discourse, into whicTi we will presently plunge. Are you one of us, dear sir, and do you love novel-reading? To be reminded of your first novel will surely be a pleasure to you. 15 Hush ! I never read quite to the end of my first, the " Scottish Chiefs." I couldn't. I peeped in an alarmed furtive manner at some of the closing pages. Miss Porter, like a kind dear tender- hearted creature, would not have Wallace's head 20 chopped off at the end of Vol. V. She made him die in prison,* and if I remember right (protesting I have not read the book for forty-two or three years), Robert Bruce made a speech to his soldiers, in which he said, " And Bannockburn shall equal 25 Cambuskenneth." f But I repeat I could not read * I find, on reference to the novel, that Sir William died on the scaffold, not in prison. His last words were, "'My prayer is heard. Life's cord is cut by heaven. Helen ! Helen ! May heaven preserve my country, 30 and — ' He stopped. He fell. And with that mighty shock the scaffold shook to its foundations." f The remark of Bruce (which I protest I had not read for forty-two years), I find to be as follows : — " When this was uttered by the English heralds, Bruce turned to Ruth- 354 CRITICISM. the end of the fifth volume of that dear delightful book for crying. Good heavens! It was as sad, as sad as going back to school. The glorious Scott cycle of romances came to me some four or five years afterwards ; and I think boys 5 of our year were specially fortunate in coming upon those delightful books at that special time when we could best enjoy them. Oh, that sunshiny bench on half-holidays, with Claverhouse or Ivanhoe for a companion ! I have remarked of very late days 10 some little men in a great state of delectation over the romances of Captain Mayne Reid, and Gustave Aimard's Prairie and Indian Stories, and during oc- casional holiday visits, lurking off to bed with the volume under their arms. But are those Indians 15 and warriors so terrible as our Indians and warriors were? (I say, are they? Young gentlemen, mind, I do not say they are not.) But as an oldster I can be heartily thankful for the novels of the i-io Geo. IV., let us say, and so downward to a period not 20 unremote. Let us see; there is, first, our dear ven, with an heroic smile, ' Let him come, my brave barons ! and he shall find that Bannockburn shall page with Cambuskenneth ! '" In the same amiable author's famous novel of " Thaddeus of Warsaw," there is more crj'- 25 ing than in any novel I ever remember to have read. See, for example, the last page. "... Incapable of speak- ing, Thaddeus led his wife back to her carriage. . . . His tears gushed out in spite of himself, and mingling with hers, poured those thanks, those assurances of animated 30 approbation through her heart, which made it even ache with excess of happiness. . . ." And a sentence or two further. " Kosciusko did bless him, and embalmed the benediction with a shower of tears." ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 355 Scott. Whom do I love in the works of that dear old master? Amo — The Baron of Bradwardine and Fergus. (Cap- tain Waverly is certainly very mild.) 5 Amo Ivanhoe ; LOCKSLEY ; the Templar. Amo Quentin Durward, and especially Quentin's \ uncle, who brought the boar to bay. I forget the gentleman's name. I have never cared for the Master of Ravenswood, lo or fetched his hat out of the water since he dropped it there when I last met him (circa 1825). Amo Saladin and the Scotch Knight in the " Talisman." The Sultan best. Amo Claverhouse. 15 Amo Major Dalgetty. Delightful Major. To think of him is to desire to jump up, run to the book, and get the volume down from the shelf. About all those heroes of Scott, what a manly bloom there is, and honorable modesty? They are not at all heroic. 20 They seem to blush somehow in their position of hero, and as it were to say, " Since it must be done, here goes ! " They are handsome, modest, upright, simple, courageous, not too clever. If I were a mother (which is absurd), I should like to be 25 mother-in-law to several young men of the Walter- Scott-hero sort. Much as I like those most unassuming, manly, unpretending gentlemen, I have to own that I think the heroes of another writer, viz. : — 30 Leather-stocking, TJncas, Hardheart, Tom Coffin, are quite the equals of Scott's men; perhaps 35^ CRITICISM. Leather-Stocking is better than any one in " Scott's lot." La Longue Carabine is one of the great prize men of fiction. He ranks with your Uncle Toby, Sir Roger de Coverley, FalstafT — heroic figures, all — American or British, and the artist has deserved 5 well of his country who devised them. At school, in my time, there was a public day, when the boys' relatives, an examining bigwig or two from the universities, old school- fellows, and so forth, came to the place. The 10 boys were all paraded; prizes were adminis- tered; each lad being in a new suit of clothes — and magnificent dandies, I promise you, some of us were. Oh, the chubby cheeks, clean col- lars, glossy new raiment, beaming faces, glorious in 15 youth — at tueri caelum — bright with truth, and mirth, and honor! To see a hundred boys mar- shaled in a chapel or old hall; to hear their sweet fresh voices when they chant, and look in their brave calm faces ; I say, does not the sight and 20 sound of them smite you, somehow, with a pang of exquisite kindness? . . . Well. As about boys, so about Novelists. I fancy the boys of Parnassus School all paraded. I am a lower boy myself in that academy. I like our fellows to look well, upright, 25 gentlemanlike. There is Master Fielding — he with the black eye. What a magnificent build of a boy ! There is Master Scott, one of the heads of the school. Did you ever see the fellow more hearty and manly? Yonder lean, shambling, cadaverous 3^ lad, who is always borrowing money, telling lies, Inering after the housemaids, is Master Laurence Sterne — a bishop's grandson, and himself intepvied ON- A PEAL OF BELLS. 357 for the Church ; for shame, you Httle reprobate ! But what a genius the fellow has ! Let him have a sound flogging, and as soon as the young scamp is out of the whipping room give him a gold medal. 5 Such would be my practice if I were Doctor Birch, and master of the school. Let us drop this school metaphor, this birch and all pertaining thereto. Our subject, I beg leave to remind the reader's humble servant, is novel heroes ioand heroines. How do you like your heroes, ladies? Gentlemen, what novel heroines do you prefer? When I set this essay going, I sent the above ques- tion to two of the most inveterate novel-readers of my acquaintance. The gentleman refers me to Miss 15 Austen; the lady says Athos, Guy Livingston, and (pardon my rosy blushes) Colonel Esmond, and owns that in youth she was very much in love with Valancourt. " Valancourt? and who was he? " cry the young 20 people. Valancourt, my dears, was the hero of one of the most famous romances which ever was pub- lished in this country. The beauty and elegance of Valancourt made your young grandmammas' gen- tle hearts to beat with respectful sympathy. He 25 and his glory have passed away. Ah, woe is me that the glory of novels should ever decay ; that dust should gather round them on the shelves; that the annual checks from Messieurs the publishers should dwindle, dwindle! Inquire at Mudie's, or the Lon- 30 don Library, who asks for the " Mysteries of Udol- pho " now ? Have not even the " Mysteries ol Paris " ceased to frighten ? Alas, our novels are but for a season; and I know characters whom a painful modesty forbids me to mention, who shall 35 S CRITICISM. go to limbo along with " Valancourt " and " Dori- court " and " Thaddeus of Warsaw." A dear old sentimental friend, with whom I dis- coursed on the subject of novels yesterday, said that her favorite hero was Lord Orville, in " Evelina," 5 that novel which Dr. Johnson loved so. I took down the book from a dusty old crypt at a club, where Mrs. Barbauld's novelists repose: and this is the kind of thing, ladies and gentlemen, in which your ancestors found pleasure : — lo " And here, whilst I was looking for the books, I was followed by Lord Orville. He shut the door after he came in, and, approaching me with a look of anxiety, said, ' Is this true. Miss Anville — are you going? ' 15 " ' I believe so, my lord,' said I, still looking for the books. " ' So suddenly, so unexpectedly : must I lose you? ' " ' No great loss, my lord,' said I, endeavoring to 20 speak cheerfully. " ' Is it possible,' said he, gravely, * Miss Anville can doubt my sincerity ? ' " ' I can't imagine,' cried I, ' what Mrs. Selwyn has done with those books.' 25 " ' Would to heaven,' continued he, ' I might flat- ter myself you would allow me to prove it ! ' " ' I must run upstairs,' cried I, greatly confused, ' and ask what she has done with them.' " ' You are going then,' cried he, taking my hand, 30 * and you give me not the smallest hope of any re- turn! Will you not, my too lovely friend, will you not teach me, with fortitude like your own, to sup- port your absence? ' ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 359 " ' My lord,' cried I, endeavoring to disengage my hand, ' pray let me go ! ' " * I will,' cried he, to my inexpressible confusion, dropping on one knee, ' if you wish me to le^ve 5 you.' " ' Oh, my lord,' exclaimed I, ' rise, I beseech you ; rise. Surely your lordship is not so cruel as to mock me.' " ' Mock you! ' repeated he earnestly, ' no, I re- lovere you. I esteem and admire you above all hu- man beings ! You are the friend to whom my soul is attached, as to its better half. You are the most amiable, the most perfect of women ; and you are dearer to me than language has the power of tell- 15 ing.' " I attempt not to describe my sensations at that moment ; I scarce breathed ; I doubted if I existed ; the blood forsook my cheeks, and my feet refused to sustain me. Lord Orville hastily rising supported 20 me to a chair upon which I sank almost lifeless. " I cannot write the scene that followed, though every word is engraven on my heart; but his pro- testations, his expressions, were too flattering for repetition; nor would he, in spite of my repeated 25 efforts to leave him, suffer me to escape ; in short, my dear sir, I was not proof against his solicitations, and he drew from me the most sacred secret of my heart ! " * ♦Contrast this old perfumed, powdered D'Arblay con- 30 versation with the present modern talk. If the two young people wished to hide their emotions nowadays, and express themselves in modest language, the story would run : — " Whilst I was looking for the books, Lord Orville came 3^0 CRITICISM, Other people may not much like this ex- tract, madam, from your favorite novel, but when you come to read it, you will like it. I suspect that when you read that book which you so love, you read is d deux. Did you i not yourself pass a winter at Bath, when you were the belle of the assembly? Was there not a Lord Orville in your case too? As you think of him eleven lusters pass away. You look at him with the bright eyes of those days, and your heroio in. He looked uncommonly down in the mouth, as he said : ' Is this true, Miss Anville ; are you going to cut ? ' "'To absquatulate, Lord Orville,' said I, still pretend- ing that I was looking for the books. " ' You are very quick about it,' said he. 15 " ' Guess it's no great loss,' I remarked, as cheerfully as I could. " ' You don't think I'm chaffing_? ' said Orville, with much emotion. "'What has Mrs. Selwyn done with the books?' 1 20 went on. " ' What, going ? ' said he, ' and going for good ? I wish I was such a good-plucked one as you, Miss Anville,' " etc. The conversation, you perceive, might be easily written down to this key ; and if the hero and heroine were 25 modern, they would not be suffered to go through their dialogue on stilts, but would converse in the natural grace- ful way at present customary. By the way, what a strange custom that is in modern lady novelists to make the men bully the women ! In the time of Miss Porter and Madame 30 d'Arblay, we have respect, profound bows and courtesies, graceful courtesy, from men to women. In the time of Miss Bront6, absolute rudeness. Is it true, mesdames, that you like rudeness, and are pleased at being ill-used by men ? I could point to more than one lady novelist who 35 so represents you. ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 3^1 Stands before you, the brave, the accomplished, the simple, the true gentleman ; and makes the most ele- gant of bows to one of the most beautiful young wo- men the world ever saw : and he leads you out to the 5 cotillon, to the dear unforgotten music. Hark to the horns of Elfland, blowing, blowing! Bonne vieille, you remember their melody, and your heart- strings thrill with it still. Of your heroic heroes, I think our friend Mon- lo seigneur Athos, Count de la Fere, is my favorite. I have read about him from sunrise to sunset with the utmost contentment of mind. He has passed through how many volumes? Forty? Fifty? I wish for my part there were a hundred more, and 15 would never tire of him rescuing prisoners, pun- ishing ruffians, and running scoundrels through the midriff with his most graceful rapier. Ah, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, you are a magnificent trio. I think I like d'Artagnan in his own memoirs best. 20 1 bought him years and years ago, price fivepence, in a little parchment-covered Cologne-printed vol- ume, at a stall in Gray's Inn Lane. Dumas glorifies him and makes a Marshal of him ; if I remember rightly, the original d'Artagnan was a needy ad- 25 venturer, who died in exile very early in Louis XIV.'s reign. Did you ever read the " Chevalier d'Harmenthal "? Did you ever read the " Tulipe Noire," as modest as a story by Miss Edge- worth? I think of the prodigal banquets to 30 which this Lucullus of a man has invited me, with thanks and wonder. To what a series of splendid entertainments he has treated me! Where does he find the money for these prodigious feasts? They say that all the 362 CRITICISM. works bearing Dumas's name are not written by him. Well? Does not the chief cook have aides under him? Did not Rubens's pupils paint on his canvases? Had not Lawrence assistants for his backgrounds? For myself, being also du 'metier, I 5 confess I would often like to have a competent, re- spectable, and rapid clerk for the business part of my novels; and on his arrival, at eleven o'clock, would say, " Mr. Jones, if you please, the arch- bishop must die this morning in about five pages. 10 Turn to article ' Dropsy ' (or what you will) in En- cyclopedia. Take care there are no medical blun- ders in his death. Group his daughters, physicians, and chaplains round him. In Wales's ' London,' letter B, third shelf, you will find an account of 15 Lambeth, and some prints of the place. Color in with local coloring. The daughter will come down, and speak to her lover in his wherry at Lambeth Stairs," etc., etc. Jones (an intelligent young man) examines the medical, historical, topographical 20 books necessary ; his chief points out to him in Jeremy Taylor (fol., London, m. dclv.) a few re- marks, such as might befit a dear old archbishop de- parting this life. When I come back to dress for dinner, the archbishop is dead on my table in five 25 pages; medicine, topography, theology, all right, and Jones has gone home to his family some hours. Sir Christopher is the architect of St. Paul's. He has not laid the stones or carried up the mortar. There is a great deal of carpenter's and joiner's 30 work in novels which surely a smart professional hand might supply. A smart professional hand? I give you my word, there seem to me parts of nov- els — let us say the love-making, the " business," the ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 3^3 villain in the cupboard, and so forth, which I should like to order John Footman to take in hand, as I de- sire him to bring the coals and polish the boots. Ask me indeed to pop a robber under a bed, to hide 5 a will which shall be forthcoming in due season, or at my time of life to write a namby-pamby love con- versation between Emily and Lord Arthur! I feel ashamed of myself, and especially when my busi- ness obliges me to do the love-passages, I blush so, lo though quite alone in my study, that you would fancy I was going off in an apoplexy. Are authors affected by their own works? I don't know about other gentlemen, but if I make a joke myself I cry; if I write a pathetic scene I am laughing wildly all 15 the time — at least Tomkins thinks so. You know I am such a cynic ! The editor of the Carnhill Magazine (no soft and yielding character like his predecessor, but a man of stern resolution) will only allow these harmless pa- 2opers to run to a certain length. But for this veto I should gladly have prattled over half a sheet more, and have discoursed on many heroes and heroines of novels whom fond memory brings back to me. Of these books I have been a diligent student from 25 those early days, which are recorded at the com- mencement of this little essay. Oh, delightful nov- els, well remembered ! Oh, novels, sweet and de- licious as the raspberry open-tarts of budding boy- hood ! Do I forget one night after prayers (when 30 we under-boys were sent to bed) lingering at my cupboard to read one little half-page more of my dear Walter Scott — and down came the monitor's dictionary upon my head! Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York, I have loved thee faithfully for forty 364 CRITICISM. years! Thou wert twenty years old (say) and I but twelve, when I knew thee. At sixty odd, love, most of the ladies of thy Oriental race have lost the bloom of youth, and bulged beyond the line of beauty ; but to me thou art ever young and fair, and 5 I will do battle with any felon Templarr who assails thy fair name. — Roundabout Papers. Notes. — Finally we have a piece of criticism which recognizes no objective standards, avowedly at least. It is a statement of personal likes and dislikes. The value 10 of such a criticism may be great, representing as it does the best impressions of a cultivated taste. Whether personal impressions can be reduced to formal principles is a question too large to be entered upon here. LIST OF SUGGESTED EXERCISES. DESCRIPTIONS. Theme Selection 1. A building, by general impression and enumera- tion, I 2. A person, by general impression and enumera- tion, 2 3. A fruit or flower, by general impression and enumeration, 3 4. A landscape, enumeration by the traveler's method, 4 5. A moving object or scene, with many details, . 5 6. Two persons, by running comparison of many details, fc 7. Two plants or other objects, by running com- parison of many details, 7 8. An impressionistic scene, with many details, . 8 9. An impression touching various senses, . . g, 10 10-12. Views from a fixed point, . . . .11,12 13. Sights and sounds from a fixed point, ... 13 14. A building, by fundamental image, ... 14 15. A town or landscape, by fundamental image. . 15 16. Two persons or objects, by running comparison of chosen details, 16 17. A face, by salient details 17 18. 19. Faces or persons, by exaggeration of a single trait, iS 20. A person or persons, by effects, .... 19 21. A room, by effects, ao 22. An athletic pose, to arouse motor images, . 21 23. A person, by the use of vague general phrases, 2a 366 LIST OF SUGGESTEb EXERCISES. ' Theme Selection 24. An effect produced by music, .... 23 25. A mental state, 24, 25 NARRATIVES. 26. A personal narrative, selecting the chief events of a considerable period, .... 26 27. An impersonal narrative, covering all the events of an hour or two, and arousing suspense, . 27 28. A personal narrative, referable to one point of view, 28 2g. A narrative, personal or impersonal, with moving point of view 29 30. An impersonal historical narrative, giving causes, 30 31. A narrative with comment and dialogue, . 31 32. A narrative with dialogue, but without comment, 32 EXPOSITIONS. 33. A scientific principle, 33 34. Results of a scientific investigation, ... 34 35. A character-sketch, from life 35 36. A character-sketch, imaginative, • • • 35 37. Theconstructionof a machine, without diagrams, 36 38. The construction of a machine, by narrative of its building or operation 37 39. A political institution, 38 40. A social institution, 39 41. An historical period, from reading or observa- tion, 40 42. A national or racial character, . . . . 41, 42 43. Some ideal social condition, .... 43 44. An indirect appeal for conduct, through exposi- tion, . 44 45. A humorous classification of persons, . . 45 46. Exegesis of some word or proverb, . . 46, 47 47. The point of view of some other person or animal than yourself, 48 LIST OF SUGGESTED EXERCISES. 3^7 Theme Selection 48. The principle of some beautiful phenomenon of nature, 49 ARGUMENTS. 49. Brief of selection 52 52 50. Brief of selection 53 53 51. Argument on a social subject, not for delivery, 51 52. Argument on a political subject, not for delivery, 52 53. Deliberative argument, for delivery, ... 53 54. Appeal to given emotion 54 55. Appeal to given emotion 55 CRITICISMS. 56. Rhetorical criticism, from academic point of view 57= 58 57. Expository interpretation 59, 60 58. Personal impressions, .... . 59, 60 Bn^tfsb WatfiwQS ilden's Specimens of English Verse. By Raymond M. Ai,den, Asjistant Professor in Inland Stanfoj^ University, xiv+459 pp. i6mo. $1.25. Arnold: Prose Selections. Edited witli notes and an introduction by Lewis E. GATJis sometime Assistant Professor in Harvard College. xci+ 348 pp, i6mo. BiLckram, $1.00. Cloth, 90 cents. leaker's Specimens of Argumentation. Chosen and edited by George P. Baker, Assistant Professor or Harvard College. i6mo. 186 pp. 50 cents. Faker's Specimens of Public Exposition and Argumentation. By George P. Baker, Assistant Professor in Harvard Uni versity, assisted by H. B. 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