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+Produced by Donald Lainson
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+
+FOUND AT BLAZING STAR
+
+
+By Bret Harte
+
+
+
+The rain had only ceased with the gray streaks of morning at Blazing
+Star, and the settlement awoke to a moral sense of cleanliness, and the
+finding of forgotten knives, tin cups, and smaller camp utensils, where
+the heavy showers had washed away the debris and dust heaps before the
+cabin doors. Indeed, it was recorded in Blazing Star that a fortunate
+early riser had once picked up on the highway a solid chunk of gold
+quartz which the rain had freed from its incumbering soil, and washed
+into immediate and glittering popularity. Possibly this may have been
+the reason why early risers in that locality, during the rainy season,
+adopted a thoughtful habit of body, and seldom lifted their eyes to the
+rifted or india-ink washed skies above them.
+
+"Cass" Beard had risen early that morning, but not with a view to
+discovery. A leak in his cabin roof,--quite consistent with his
+careless, improvident habits,--had roused him at 4 A. M., with a flooded
+"bunk" and wet blankets. The chips from his wood pile refused to kindle
+a fire to dry his bed-clothes, and he had recourse to a more provident
+neighbor's to supply the deficiency. This was nearly opposite. Mr.
+Cassius crossed the highway, and stopped suddenly. Something glittered
+in the nearest red pool before him. Gold, surely! But, wonderful to
+relate, not an irregular, shapeless fragment of crude ore, fresh from
+Nature's crucible, but a bit of jeweler's handicraft in the form of a
+plain gold ring. Looking at it more attentively, he saw that it bore the
+inscription, "May to Cass."
+
+Like most of his fellow gold-seekers, Cass was superstitious. "Cass!"
+His own name! He tried the ring. It fitted his little finger closely. It
+was evidently a woman's ring. He looked up and down the highway. No one
+was yet stirring. Little pools of water in the red road were beginning
+to glitter and grow rosy from the far-flushing east, but there was no
+trace of the owner of the shining waif. He knew that there was no woman
+in camp, and among his few comrades in the settlement he remembered to
+have seen none wearing an ornament like that. Again, the coincidence
+of the inscription to his rather peculiar nickname would have been a
+perennial source of playful comment in a camp that made no allowance
+for sentimental memories. He slipped the glittering little hoop into his
+pocket, and thoughtfully returned to his cabin.
+
+Two hours later, when the long, straggling procession, which every
+morning wended its way to Blazing Star Gulch,--the seat of mining
+operations in the settlement,--began to move, Cass saw fit to
+interrogate his fellows. "Ye didn't none on ye happen to drop anything
+round yer last night?" he asked, cautiously.
+
+"I dropped a pocketbook containing government bonds and some other
+securities, with between fifty and sixty thousand dollars," responded
+Peter Drummond, carelessly; "but no matter, if any man will return a few
+autograph letters from foreign potentates that happened to be in it,--of
+no value to anybody but the owner,--he can keep the money. Thar's
+nothin' mean about me," he concluded, languidly.
+
+This statement, bearing every evidence of the grossest mendacity, was
+lightly passed over, and the men walked on with the deepest gravity.
+
+"But hev you?" Cass presently asked of another.
+
+"I lost my pile to Jack Hamlin at draw-poker, over at Wingdam last
+night," returned the other, pensively, "but I don't calkilate to find it
+lying round loose."
+
+Forced at last by this kind of irony into more detailed explanation,
+Cass confided to them his discovery, and produced his treasure. The
+result was a dozen vague surmises,--only one of which seemed to
+be popular, and to suit the dyspeptic despondency of the party,--a
+despondency born of hastily masticated fried pork and flapjacks. The
+ring was believed to have been dropped by some passing "road agent"
+laden with guilty spoil.
+
+"Ef I was you," said Drummond, gloomily, "I wouldn't flourish that yer
+ring around much afore folks. I've seen better men nor you strung up a
+tree by Vigilantes for having even less than that in their possession."
+
+"And I wouldn't say much about bein' up so d----d early this morning,"
+added an even more pessimistic comrade; "it might look bad before a
+jury."
+
+With this the men sadly dispersed, leaving the innocent Cass with the
+ring in his hand, and a general impression on his mind that he was
+already an object of suspicion to his comrades,--an impression, it is
+hardly necessary to say, they fully intended should be left to rankle in
+his guileless bosom.
+
+Notwithstanding Cass's first hopeful superstition the ring did not seem
+to bring him nor the camp any luck. Daily the "clean up" brought the
+same scant rewards to their labors, and deepened the sardonic gravity of
+Blazing Star. But, if Cass found no material result from his treasure,
+it stimulated his lazy imagination, and, albeit a dangerous and
+seductive stimulant, at least lifted him out of the monotonous grooves
+of his half-careless, half-slovenly, but always self-contented camp
+life. Heeding the wise caution of his comrades, he took the habit of
+wearing the ring only at night. Wrapped in his blanket, he stealthily
+slipped the golden circlet over his little finger, and, as he averred,
+"slept all the better for it." Whether it ever evoked any warmer dream
+or vision during those calm, cold, virgin-like spring nights, when even
+the moon and the greater planets retreated into the icy blue, steel-like
+firmament, I cannot say. Enough that this superstition began to be
+colored a little by fancy, and his fatalism somewhat mitigated by
+hope. Dreams of this kind did not tend to promote his efficiency in the
+communistic labors of the camp, and brought him a self-isolation that,
+however gratifying at first, soon debarred him the benefits of that hard
+practical wisdom which underlaid the grumbling of his fellow workers.
+
+"I'm dog-goned," said one commentator, "ef I don't believe that Cass
+is looney over that yer ring he found. Wears it on a string under his
+shirt."
+
+Meantime, the seasons did not wait the discovery of the secret. The red
+pools in Blazing Star highway were soon dried up in the fervent June sun
+and riotous night wind of those altitudes. The ephemeral grasses that
+had quickly supplanted these pools and the chocolate-colored mud, were
+as quickly parched and withered. The footprints of spring became vague
+and indefinite, and were finally lost in the impalpable dust of the
+summer highway.
+
+In one of his long, aimless excursions, Cass had penetrated a thick
+undergrowth of buckeye and hazel, and found himself quite unexpectedly
+upon the high road to Red Chief's Crossing. Cass knew by the lurid cloud
+of dust that hid the distance, that the up coach had passed. He had
+already reached that stage of superstition when the most trivial
+occurrence seemed to point in some way to an elucidation of the mystery
+of his treasure. His eyes had mechanically fallen to the ground
+again, as if he half expected to find in some other waif a hint or
+corroboration of his imaginings. Thus abstracted, the figure of a young
+girl on horseback, in the road directly before the bushes he emerged
+from, appeared to have sprung directly from the ground.
+
+"Oh, come here, please do; quick!"
+
+Cass stared, and then moved hesitatingly toward her.
+
+"I heard some one coming through the bushes, and I waited," she went on.
+"Come quick. It's something too awful for anything."
+
+In spite of this appalling introduction, Cass could not but notice that
+the voice, although hurried and excited, was by no means agitated or
+frightened; that the eyes which looked into his sparkled with a certain
+kind of pleased curiosity.
+
+"It was just here," she went on vivaciously, "just here that I went into
+the bush and cut a switch for my mare,--and,"--leading him along at a
+brisk trot by her side,--"just here, look, see! this is what I found."
+
+It was scarcely thirty feet from the road. The only object that met
+Cass's eye was a man's stiff, tall hat, lying emptily and vacantly
+in the grass. It was new, shiny, and of modish shape. But it was so
+incongruous, so perkily smart, and yet so feeble and helpless lying
+there, so ghastly ludicrous in its very appropriateness and incapacity
+to adjust itself to the surrounding landscape, that it affected him
+with something more than a sense of its grotesqueness, and he could only
+stare at it blankly.
+
+"But you're not looking the right way," the girl went on sharply; "look
+there!"
+
+Cass followed the direction of her whip. At last, what might have seemed
+a coat thrown carelessly on the ground met his eye, but presently he
+became aware of a white, rigid, aimlessly-clinched hand protruding from
+the flaccid sleeve; mingled with it in some absurd way and half hidden
+by the grass, lay what might have been a pair of cast-off trousers but
+for two rigid boots that pointed in opposite angles to the sky. It was
+a dead man. So palpably dead that life seemed to have taken flight from
+his very clothes. So impotent, feeble, and degraded by them that the
+naked subject of a dissecting table would have been less insulting to
+humanity. The head had fallen back, and was partly hidden in a gopher
+burrow, but the white, upturned face and closed eyes had less of
+helpless death in them than those wretched enwrappings. Indeed, one limp
+hand that lay across the swollen abdomen lent itself to the grotesquely
+hideous suggestion of a gentleman sleeping off the excesses of a hearty
+dinner.
+
+"Ain't he horrid?" continued the girl; "but what killed him?"
+
+Struggling between a certain fascination at the girl's cold-blooded
+curiosity and horror of the murdered man, Cass hesitatingly lifted the
+helpless head. A bluish hole above the right temple, and a few brown
+paint-like spots on the forehead, shirt cellar, and matted hair proved
+the only record.
+
+"Turn him over again," said the girl, impatiently, as Cass was about to
+relinquish his burden. "May be you'll find another wound."
+
+But Cass was dimly remembering certain formalities that in older
+civilizations attend the discovery of dead bodies, and postponed a
+present inquest.
+
+"Perhaps you'd better ride on, Miss, afore you get summoned as a
+witness. I'll give warning at Red Chief's Crossing, and send the coroner
+down here."
+
+"Let me go with you," she said, earnestly, "it would be such fun. I
+don't mind being a witness. Or," she added, without heeding Cass's look
+of astonishment, "I'll wait here till you come back."
+
+"But you see, Miss, it wouldn't seem right--" began Cass.
+
+"But I found him first," interrupted the girl, with a pout.
+
+Staggered by this preemptive right, sacred to all miners, Cass stopped.
+
+"Who is the coroner?" she asked.
+
+"Joe Hornsby."
+
+"The tall, lame man, who was half eaten by a grizzly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, look now! I'll ride on and bring him back in half an hour.
+There!"
+
+"But, Miss--!"
+
+"Oh, don't mind ME. I never saw anything of this kind before, and I want
+to see it ALL."
+
+"Do you know Hornsby?" asked Cass, unconsciously a trifle irritated.
+
+"No, but I'll bring him." She wheeled her horse into the road.
+
+In the presence of this living energy Cass quite forgot the helpless
+dead. "Have you been long in these parts, Miss?" he asked.
+
+"About two weeks," she answered, shortly. "Good-by, just now. Look
+around for the pistol or anything else you can find, although I have
+been over the whole ground twice already."
+
+A little puff of dust as the horse sprang into the road, a muffled
+shuffle, struggle, then the regular beat of hoofs, and she was gone.
+
+After five minutes had passed, Cass regretted that he had not
+accompanied her; waiting in such a spot was an irksome task. Not that
+there was anything in the scene itself to awaken gloomy imaginings;
+the bright, truthful Californian sunshine scoffed at any illusion of
+creeping shadows or waving branches. Once, in the rising wind, the empty
+hat rolled over--but only in a ludicrous, drunken way. A search for any
+further sign or token had proved futile, and Cass grew impatient. He
+began to hate himself for having stayed; he would have fled but for
+shame. Nor was his good humor restored when at the close of a weary half
+hour two galloping figures emerged from the dusty horizon--Hornsby and
+the young girl.
+
+His vague annoyance increased as he fancied that both seemed to ignore
+him, the coroner barely acknowledging his presence with a nod. Assisted
+by the young girl, whose energy and enthusiasm evidently delighted him,
+Hornsby raised the body for a more careful examination. The dead man's
+pockets were carefully searched. A few coins, a silver pencil, knife,
+and tobacco-box were all they found. It gave no clew to his identity.
+Suddenly the young girl, who had, with unabashed curiosity, knelt
+beside the exploring official hands of the Red Chief, uttered a cry of
+gratification.
+
+"Here's something! It dropped from the bosom of his shirt on the ground.
+Look!"
+
+She was holding in the air, between her thumb and forefinger, a folded
+bit of well-worn newspaper. Her eyes sparkled.
+
+"Shall I open it?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's a little ring" she said; "looks like an engagement ring. Something
+is written on it. Look! 'May to Cass.'"
+
+Cass darted forward. "It's mine," he stammered, "mine! I dropped it.
+It's nothing--nothing," he went on, after a pause, embarrassed and
+blushing, as the girl and her companion both stared at him--"a mere
+trifle. I'll take it."
+
+But the coroner opposed his outstretched hand. "Not much," he said,
+significantly.
+
+"But it's MINE," continued Cass, indignation taking the place of shame
+at his discovered secret. "I found it six months ago in the road.
+I--picked it up."
+
+"With your name already written on it! How handy!" said the coroner,
+grimly.
+
+"It's an old story" said Cass, blushing again under the
+half-mischievous, half-searching eyes of the girl. "All Blazing Star
+knows I found it."
+
+"Then ye'll have no difficulty in provin' it," said Hornsby, coolly.
+"Just now, however, WE'VE found it, and we propose to keep it for the
+inquest."
+
+Cass shrugged his shoulders. Further altercation would have only
+heightened his ludicrous situation in the girl's eyes. He turned away,
+leaving his treasure in the coroner's hands.
+
+The inquest, a day or two later, was prompt and final. No clew to the
+dead man's identity; no evidence sufficiently strong to prove murder or
+suicide; no trace of any kind, inculpating any party, known or
+unknown, were found. But much publicity and interest were given to the
+proceedings by the presence of the principal witness, a handsome girl.
+"To the pluck, persistency, and intellect of Miss Porter," said the "Red
+Chief Recorder," "Tuolumne County owes the recovery of the body."
+
+No one who was present at the inquest failed to be charmed with the
+appearance and conduct of this beautiful young lady.
+
+"Miss Porter has but lately arrived in this district, in which, it
+is hoped, she will become an honored resident, and continue to set an
+example to all lackadaisical and sentimental members of the so-called
+'sterner sex.'" After this universally recognized allusion to Cass
+Beard, the "Recorder" returned to its record: "Some interest was excited
+by what appeared to be a clew to the mystery in the discovery of a small
+gold engagement ring on the body. Evidence was afterward offered to show
+it was the property of a Mr. Cass Beard of Blazing Star, who appeared
+upon the scene AFTER the discovery of the corpse by Miss Porter. He
+alleged he had dropped it in lifting the unfortunate remains of the
+deceased. Much amusement was created in court by the sentimental
+confusion of the claimant, and a certain partisan spirit shown by his
+fellow-miners of Blazing Star. It appearing, however, by the admission
+of this sighing Strephon of the Foot hills, that he had himself FOUND
+this pledge of affection lying in the highway six months previous, the
+coroner wisely placed it in the safe-keeping of the county court until
+the appearance of the rightful owner."
+
+Thus on the 13th of September, 186-, the treasure found at Blazing Star
+passed out of the hands of its finder.
+
+*****
+
+Autumn brought an abrupt explanation of the mystery. Kanaka Joe had been
+arrested for horse stealing, but had with noble candor confessed to
+the finer offense of manslaughter. That swift and sure justice which
+overtook the horse stealer in these altitudes was stayed a moment and
+hesitated, for the victim was clearly the mysterious unknown. Curiosity
+got the better of an extempore judge and jury.
+
+"It was a fair fight," said the accused, not without some human vanity,
+feeling that the camp hung upon his words, "and was settled by the
+man az was peartest and liveliest with his weapon. We had a sort of
+unpleasantness over at Lagrange the night afore, along of our both
+hevin' a monotony of four aces. We had a clinch and a stamp around, and
+when we was separated it was only a question of shootin' on sight. He
+left Lagrange at sun up the next morning, and I struck across a bit o'
+buckeye and underbrush and came upon him, accidental like, on the Red
+Chief Road. I drawed when I sighted him, and called out. He slipped from
+his mare and covered himself with her flanks, reaching for his holster,
+but she rared and backed down on him across the road and into the grass,
+where I got in another shot and fetched him."
+
+"And you stole his mare?" suggested the Judge.
+
+"I got away," said the gambler, simply.
+
+Further questioning only elicited the fact that Joe did not know the
+name or condition of his victim. He was a stranger in Lagrange.
+
+It was a breezy afternoon, with some turbulency in the camp, and much
+windy discussion over this unwonted delay of justice. The suggestion
+that Joe should be first hanged for horse stealing and then tried for
+murder was angrily discussed, but milder counsels were offered--that
+the fact of the killing should be admitted only as proof of the theft.
+A large party from Red Chief had come over to assist in judgment, among
+them the coroner.
+
+Cass Beard had avoided these proceedings, which only recalled an
+unpleasant experience, and was wandering with pick, pan, and wallet
+far from the camp. These accoutrements, as I have before intimated,
+justified any form of aimless idleness under the equally aimless title
+of "prospecting." He had at the end of three hours' relaxation reached
+the highway to Red Chief, half hidden by blinding clouds of dust torn
+from the crumbling red road at every gust which swept down the mountain
+side. The spot had a familiar aspect to Cass, although some freshly-dug
+holes near the wayside, with scattered earth beside them, showed the
+presence of a recent prospector. He was struggling with his memory, when
+the dust was suddenly dispersed and he found himself again at the scene
+of the murder. He started: he had not put foot on the road since the
+inquest. There lacked only the helpless dead man and the contrasting
+figure of the alert young woman to restore the picture. The body was
+gone, it was true, but as he turned he beheld Miss Porter, at a few
+paces distant, sitting on her horse as energetic and observant as on the
+first morning they had met. A superstitious thrill passed over him and
+awoke his old antagonism.
+
+She nodded to him slightly. "I came here to refresh my memory," she
+said, "as Mr. Hornsby thought I might be asked to give my evidence again
+at Blazing Star."
+
+Cass carelessly struck an aimless blow with his pick against the sod and
+did not reply.
+
+"And you?" she queried.
+
+"I stumbled upon the place just now while prospecting, or I shouldn't be
+here."
+
+"Then it was YOU made these holes?"
+
+"No," said Cass, with ill-concealed disgust. "Nobody but a stranger
+would go foolin' round such a spot."
+
+He stopped, as the rude significance of his speech struck him, and added
+surlily, "I mean--no one would dig here."
+
+The girl laughed and showed a set of very white teeth in her square jaw.
+Cass averted his face.
+
+"Do you mean to say that every miner doesn't know that it's lucky to dig
+wherever human blood has been spilt?"
+
+Cass felt a return of his superstition, but he did not look up. "I never
+heard it before," he said, severely.
+
+"And you call yourself a California miner?"
+
+"I do."
+
+It was impossible for Miss Porter to misunderstand his curt speech and
+unsocial manner. She stared at him and colored slightly. Lifting her
+reins lightly, she said: "You certainly do not seem like most of the
+miners I have met."
+
+"Nor you like any girl from the East I ever met," he responded.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked, checking her horse.
+
+"What I say," he answered, doggedly. Reasonable as this reply was, it
+immediately struck him that it was scarcely dignified or manly. But
+before he could explain himself Miss Porter was gone.
+
+He met her again that very evening. The trial had been summarily
+suspended by the appearance of the Sheriff of Calaveras and his posse,
+who took Joe from that self-constituted tribunal of Blazing Star and
+set his face southward and toward authoritative although more cautious
+justice. But not before the evidence of the previous inquest had been
+read, and the incident of the ring again delivered to the public.
+
+It is said the prisoner burst into an incredulous laugh and asked to see
+this mysterious waif. It was handed to him. Standing in the very
+shadow of the gallows tree--which might have been one of the pines that
+sheltered the billiard room in which the Vigilance Committee held their
+conclave--the prisoner gave way to a burst of merriment, so genuine
+and honest that the judge and jury joined in automatic sympathy. When
+silence was restored an explanation was asked by the Judge. But there
+was no response from the prisoner except a subdued chuckle.
+
+"Did this ring belong to you?" asked the Judge, severely, the jury and
+spectators craning their ears forward with an expectant smile already
+on their faces. But the prisoner's eyes only sparkled maliciously as he
+looked around the court.
+
+"Tell us, Joe," said a sympathetic and laughter-loving juror, under his
+breath. "Let it out and we'll make it easy for you."
+
+"Prisoner," said the Judge, with a return of official dignity, "remember
+that your life is in peril. Do you refuse?"
+
+Joe lazily laid his arm on the back of his chair with (to quote the
+words of an animated observer) "the air of having a Christian hope and a
+sequence flush in his hand," and said: "Well, as I reckon I'm not up yer
+for stealin' a ring that another man lets on to have found, and as fur
+as I kin see, hez nothin' to do with the case, I do!" And as it was here
+that the Sheriff of Calaveras made a precipitate entry into the room,
+the mystery remained unsolved.
+
+The effect of this freshly-important ridicule on the sensitive mind of
+Cass might have been foretold by Blazing Star had it ever taken that
+sensitiveness into consideration. He had lost the good humor and easy
+pliability which had tempted him to frankness, and he had gradually
+become bitter and hard. He had at first affected amusement over his own
+vanished day dream--hiding his virgin disappointment in his own breast;
+but when he began to turn upon his feelings he turned upon his comrades
+also. Cass was for a while unpopular. There is no ingratitude so
+revolting to the human mind as that of the butt who refuses to be one
+any longer. The man who rejects that immunity which laughter generally
+casts upon him and demands to be seriously considered deserves no mercy.
+
+It was under these hard conditions that Cass Beard, convicted of overt
+sentimentalism, aggravated by inconsistency, stepped into the Red Chief
+coach that evening. It was his habit usually to ride with the driver,
+but the presence of Hornsby and Miss Porter on the box seat changed
+his intention. Yet he had the satisfaction of seeing that neither had
+noticed him, and as there was no other passenger inside, he stretched
+himself on the cushion of the back seat and gave way to moody
+reflections. He quite determined to leave Blazing Star, to settle
+himself seriously to the task of money getting, and to return to
+his comrades, some day, a sarcastic, cynical, successful man, and so
+overwhelm them with confusion. For poor Cass had not yet reached that
+superiority of knowing that success would depend upon his ability to
+forego his past. Indeed, part of his boyhood had been cast among these
+men, and he was not old enough to have learned that success was not to
+be gauged by their standard. The moon lit up the dark interior of the
+coach with a faint poetic light. The lazy swinging of the vehicle that
+was bearing him away--albeit only for a night and a day--the solitude,
+the glimpses from the window of great distances full of vague
+possibilities, made the abused ring potent as that of Gyges. He dreamed
+with his eyes open. From an Alnaschar vision he suddenly awoke.
+The coach had stopped. The voices of men, one in entreaty, one in
+expostulation, came from the box. Cass mechanically put his hand to his
+pistol pocket.
+
+"Thank you, but I INSIST upon getting down."
+
+It was Miss Porter's voice. This was followed by a rapid,
+half-restrained interchange of words between Hornsby and the driver.
+Then the latter said, gruffly,--
+
+"If the lady wants to ride inside, let her."
+
+Miss Porter fluttered to the ground. She was followed by Hornsby. "Just
+a minit, Miss," he expostulated, half shamedly, half brusquely, "ye
+don't onderstand me. I only--"
+
+But Miss Porter had jumped into the coach.
+
+Hornsby placed his hand on the handle of the door. Miss Porter grasped
+it firmly from the inside. There was a slight struggle.
+
+All of which was part of a dream to the boyish Cass. But he awoke
+from it--a man! "Do you," he asked, in a voice he scarcely recognized
+himself,--"Do you want this man inside?"
+
+"No!"
+
+Cass caught at Hornsby's wrist like a young tiger. But alas! what
+availed instinctive chivalry against main strength? He only succeeded
+in forcing the door open in spite of Miss Porter's superior strategy,
+and--I fear I must add, muscle also--and threw himself passionately at
+Hornsby's throat, where he hung on and calmly awaited dissolution.
+But he had, in the onset, driven Hornsby out into the road and the
+moonlight.
+
+"Here! Somebody take my lines." The voice was "Mountain Charley's," the
+driver. The figure that jumped from the box and separated the struggling
+men belonged to this singularly direct person.
+
+"You're riding inside?" said Charley, interrogatively, to Cass. Before
+he could reply Miss Porter's voice came from the window.
+
+"He is!"
+
+Charley promptly bundled Cass into the coach.
+
+"And YOU?" to Hornsby, "onless you're kalkilatin' to take a little
+'pasear' you're booked OUTSIDE. Get up."
+
+It is probable that Charley assisted Mr. Hornsby as promptly to his
+seat, for the next moment the coach was rolling on.
+
+Meanwhile Cass, by reason of his forced entry, had been deposited in
+Miss Porter's lap, whence, freeing himself, he had attempted to climb
+over the middle seat, but in the starting of the coach was again thrown
+heavily against her hat and shoulder; all of which was inconsistent
+with the attitude of dignified reserve he had intended to display. Miss
+Porter, meanwhile, recovered her good humor.
+
+"What a brute he was, ugh!" she said, retying the ribbons of her bonnet
+under her square chin, and smoothing out her linen duster.
+
+Cass tried to look as if he had forgotten the whole affair. "Who? Oh,
+yes I see!" he responded, absently.
+
+"I suppose I ought to thank you," she went on with a smile, "but you
+know, really, I could have kept him out if you hadn't pulled his wrist
+from outside. I'll show you. Look! Put your hand on the handle there!
+Now, I'll hold the lock inside firmly. You see, you can't turn the
+catch!"
+
+She indeed held the lock fast. It was a firm hand, yet soft--their
+fingers had touched over the handle--and looked white in the moonlight.
+He made no reply, but sank back again in his seat with a singular
+sensation in the fingers that had touched hers. He was in the shadow,
+and, without being seen, could abandon his reserve and glance at her
+face. It struck him that he had never really seen her before. She was
+not so tall as she had appeared to be. Her eyes were not large, but her
+pupils were black, moist, velvety, and so convex as to seem embossed
+on the white. She had an indistinctive nose, a rather colorless
+face--whiter at the angles of the mouth and nose through the relief of
+tiny freckles like grains of pepper. Her mouth was straight, dark, red,
+but moist as her eyes. She had drawn herself into the corner of the back
+seat, her wrist put through and hanging over the swinging strap, the
+easy lines of her plump figure swaying from side to side with the motion
+of the coach. Finally, forgetful of any presence in the dark corner
+opposite, she threw her head a little farther back, slipped a trifle
+lower, and placing two well-booted feet upon the middle seat, completed
+a charming and wholesome picture.
+
+Five minutes elapsed. She was looking straight at the moon. Cass Beard
+felt his dignified reserve becoming very much like awkwardness. He ought
+to be coldly polite.
+
+"I hope you're not flustered, Miss, by the--by the--" he began.
+
+"I?" She straightened herself up in the seat, cast a curious glance into
+the dark corner, and then, letting herself down again, said: "Oh, dear,
+no!"
+
+Another five minutes elapsed. She had evidently forgotten him. She
+might, at least, have been civil. He took refuge again in his reserve.
+But it was now mixed with a certain pique.
+
+Yet how much softer her face looked in the moonlight! Even her square
+jaw had lost that hard, matter-of-fact, practical indication which was
+so distasteful to him, and always had suggested a harsh criticism of his
+weakness. How moist her eyes were--actually shining in the light! How
+that light seemed to concentrate in the corner of the lashes, and then
+slipped--a flash--away! Was she? Yes, she was crying.
+
+Cass melted. He moved. Miss Porter put her head out of the window and
+drew it back in a moment, dry-eyed.
+
+"One meets all sorts of folks traveling," said Cass, with what he wished
+to make appear a cheerful philosophy.
+
+"I dare say. I don't know. I never before met any one who was rude to
+me. I have traveled all over the country alone, and with all kinds of
+people ever since I was so high. I have always gone my own way, without
+hindrance or trouble. I always do. I don't see why I shouldn't. Perhaps
+other people mayn't like it. I do. I like excitement. I like to see all
+that there is to see. Because I'm a girl I don't see why I cannot go
+out without a keeper, and why I cannot do what any man can do that isn't
+wrong, do you? Perhaps you do--perhaps you don't. Perhaps you like a
+girl to be always in the house dawdling or thumping a piano or reading
+novels. Perhaps you think I'm bold because I don't like it, and won't
+lie and say I do."
+
+She spoke sharply and aggressively, and so evidently in answer to Cass's
+unspoken indictment against her, that he was not surprised when she
+became more direct.
+
+"You know you were shocked when I went to fetch that Hornsby, the
+coroner, after we found the dead body."
+
+"Hornsby wasn't shocked," said Cass, a little viciously.
+
+"What do you mean?" she said, abruptly.
+
+"You were good friends enough until--"
+
+"Until he insulted me just now, is that it?"
+
+"Until he thought," stammered Cass, "that because you were--you
+know--not so--so--so careful as other girls, he could be a little
+freer."
+
+"And so, because I preferred to ride a mile with him to see something
+real that had happened, and tried to be useful instead of looking in
+shop windows in Main Street or promenading before the hotel--"
+
+"And being ornamental," interrupted Cass. But this feeble and
+un-Cass-like attempt at playful gallantry met with a sudden check.
+
+Miss Porter drew herself together, and looked out of the window. "Do you
+wish me to walk the rest of the way home?"
+
+"No," said Cass, hurriedly, with a crimson face and a sense of
+gratuitous rudeness.
+
+"Then stop that kind of talk, right there!"
+
+There was an awkward silence. "I wish I was a man," she said, half
+bitterly, half earnestly. Cass Beard was not old and cynical enough to
+observe that this devout aspiration is usually uttered by those who have
+least reason to deplore their own femininity; and, but for the rebuff
+he had just received, would have made the usual emphatic dissent of
+our sex, when the wish is uttered by warm red lips and tender voices--a
+dissent, it may be remarked, generally withheld, however, when the
+masculine spinster dwells on the perfection of woman. I dare say Miss
+Porter was sincere, for a moment later she continued, poutingly:
+
+"And yet I used to go to fires in Sacramento when I was only ten years
+old. I saw the theatre burnt down. Nobody found fault with me then."
+
+Something made Cass ask if her father and mother objected to her boyish
+tastes. The reply was characteristic if not satisfactory,--
+
+"Object? I'd like to see them do it."
+
+The direction of the road had changed. The fickle moon now abandoned
+Miss Porter and sought out Cass on the front seat. It caressed the
+young fellow's silky moustache and long eyelashes, and took some of the
+sunburn from his cheek.
+
+"What's the matter with your neck?" said the girl, suddenly.
+
+Cass looked down, blushing to find that the collar of his smart "duck"
+sailor shirt was torn open. But something more than his white, soft,
+girlish skin was exposed; the shirt front was dyed quite red with blood
+from a slight cut on the shoulder. He remembered to have felt a scratch
+while struggling with Hornsby.
+
+The girl's soft eyes sparkled. "Let ME," she said, vivaciously. "Do! I'm
+good at wounds. Come over here. No--stay there. I'll come over to you."
+
+She did, bestriding the back of the middle seat and dropping at his
+side. The magnetic fingers again touched his; he felt her warm breath on
+his neck as she bent toward him.
+
+"It's nothing," he said, hastily, more agitated by the treatment than
+the wound.
+
+"Give me your flask," she responded, without heeding. A stinging
+sensation as she bathed the edges of the cut with the spirit brought him
+back to common sense again. "There," she said, skillfully extemporizing
+a bandage from her handkerchief and a compress from his cravat. "Now,
+button your coat over your chest, so, and don't take cold." She insisted
+upon buttoning it for him; greater even than the feminine delight in a
+man's strength is the ministration to his weakness. Yet, when this was
+finished, she drew a little away from him in some embarrassment--an
+embarrassment she wondered at, as his skin was finer, his touch gentler,
+his clothes cleaner, and--not to put too fine a point upon it--he
+exhaled an atmosphere much sweeter than belonged to most of the men her
+boyish habits had brought her in contact with--not excepting her own
+father. Later she even exempted her mother from the possession of this
+divine effluence. After a moment she asked, suddenly, "What are you
+going to do with Hornsby?"
+
+Cass had not thought of him. His short-lived rage was past with the
+occasion that provoked it. Without any fear of his adversary he would
+have been content and quite willing to meet him no more. He only said,
+"That will depend upon him."
+
+"Oh, you won't hear from him again," said she, confidently, "but you
+really ought to get up a little more muscle. You've no more than a
+girl." She stopped, a little confused.
+
+"What shall I do with your handkerchief?" asked the uneasy Cass, anxious
+to change the subject.
+
+"Oh, keep it, if you want to, only don't show it to everybody as you did
+that ring you found." Seeing signs of distress in his face, she added:
+"Of course that was all nonsense. If you had cared so much for the ring
+you couldn't have talked about it, or shown it. Could you?"
+
+It relieved him to think that this might be true; he certainly had not
+looked at it in that light before.
+
+"But did you really find it?" she asked, with sudden gravity. "Really,
+now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And there was no real May in the case?"
+
+"Not that I know of," laughed Cass, secretly pleased.
+
+But Miss Porter, after eying him critically for a moment jumped up and
+climbed back again to her seat. "Perhaps you had better give me that
+handkerchief back."
+
+Cass began to unbutton his coat.
+
+"No! no! Do you want to take your death of cold?" she screamed. And
+Cass, to avoid this direful possibility, rebuttoned his coat again over
+the handkerchief and a peculiarly pleasing sensation.
+
+Very little now was said until the rattling, bounding descent of the
+coach denoted the approach to Red Chief. The straggling main street
+disclosed itself, light by light. In the flash of glittering windows
+and the sound of eager voices Miss Porter descended, without waiting for
+Cass's proffered assistance, and anticipated Mountain Charley's descent
+from the box. A few undistinguishable words passed between them.
+
+"You kin freeze to me, Miss," said Charley; and Miss Porter, turning her
+frank laugh and frankly opened palm to Cass, half returned the pressure
+of his hand and slipped away.
+
+A few days after the stage coach incident, Mountain Charley drew up
+beside Cass on the Blazing Star turnpike, and handed him a small packet.
+"I was told to give ye that by Miss Porter. Hush--listen! It's that
+rather old dog-goned ring o' yours that's bin in all the papers. She's
+bamboozled that sap-headed county judge, Boompointer, into givin' it to
+her. Take my advice and sling it away for some other feller to pick up
+and get looney over. That's all!"
+
+"Did she say anything?" asked Cass, anxiously, as he received his lost
+treasure somewhat coldly.
+
+"Well, yes! I reckon. She asked me to stand betwixt Hornsby and you.
+So don't YOU tackle him, and I'll see HE don't tackle you," and with a
+portentous wink Mountain Charley whipped up his horses and was gone.
+
+Cass opened the packet. It contained nothing but the ring. Unmitigated
+by any word of greeting, remembrance, or even raillery, it seemed almost
+an insult. Had she intended to flaunt his folly in his face, or had she
+believed he still mourned for it and deemed its recovery a sufficient
+reward for his slight service? For an instant he felt tempted to follow
+Charley's advice, and cast this symbol of folly and contempt in the dust
+of the mountain road. And had she not made his humiliation complete by
+begging Charley's interference between him and his enemy? He would go
+home and send her back the handkerchief she had given him. But here the
+unromantic reflection that although he had washed it that very afternoon
+in the solitude of his own cabin, he could not possibly iron it, but
+must send it "rough dried," stayed his indignant feet.
+
+Two or three days, a week, a fortnight even, of this hopeless resentment
+filled Cass's breast. Then the news of Kanaka Joe's acquittal in the
+State Court momentarily revived the story of the ring, and revamped a
+few stale jokes in the camp. But the interest soon flagged; the fortunes
+of the little community of Blazing Star had been for some months
+failing; and with early snows in the mountain and wasted capital in
+fruitless schemes on the river, there was little room for the indulgence
+of that lazy and original humor which belonged to their lost youth and
+prosperity. Blazing Star truly, in the grim figure of their slang, was
+"played out." Not dug out, worked out, or washed out, but dissipated in
+a year of speculation and chance.
+
+Against this tide of fortune Cass struggled manfully, and even evoked
+the slow praise of his companions. Better still, he won a certain praise
+for himself, in himself, in a consciousness of increased strength,
+health, power, and self-reliance. He began to turn his quick imagination
+and perception to some practical account, and made one or two
+discoveries which quite startled his more experienced but more
+conservative companions. Nevertheless, Cass's discoveries and labors
+were not of a kind that produced immediate pecuniary realization, and
+Blazing Star, which consumed so many pounds of pork and flour daily,
+did not unfortunately produce the daily equivalent in gold. Blazing Star
+lost its credit. Blazing Star was hungry, dirty, and ragged. Blazing
+Star was beginning to set.
+
+Participating in the general ill luck of the camp, Cass was not without
+his own individual mischances. He had resolutely determined to forget
+Miss Porter and all that tended to recall the unlucky ring, but, cruelly
+enough, she was the only thing that refused to be forgotten--whose
+undulating figure reclined opposite to him in the weird moonlight of his
+ruined cabin, whose voice mingled with the song of the river by whose
+banks he toiled, and whose eyes and touch thrilled him in his dreams.
+Partly for this reason, and partly because his clothes were beginning to
+be patched and torn, he avoided Red Chief and any place where he would
+be likely to meet her. In spite of this precaution he had once seen her
+driving in a pony carriage, but so smartly and fashionably dressed
+that he drew back in the cover of a wayside willow that she might pass
+without recognition. He looked down upon his red-splashed clothes
+and grimy, soil-streaked hands, and for a moment half hated her. His
+comrades seldom spoke of her--instinctively fearing some temptation that
+might beset his Spartan resolutions, but he heard from time to time that
+she had been seen at balls and parties, apparently enjoying those very
+frivolities of her sex she affected to condemn.
+
+It was a Sabbath morning in early spring that he was returning from an
+ineffectual attempt to enlist a capitalist at the county town to redeem
+the fortunes of Blazing Star. He was pondering over the narrowness of
+that capitalist, who had evidently but illogically connected Cass's
+present appearance with the future of that struggling camp, when he
+became so foot-sore that he was obliged to accept a "lift" from a
+wayfaring teamster. As the slowly lumbering vehicle passed the new
+church on the outskirts of the town, the congregation were sallying
+forth. It was too late to jump down and run away, and Cass dared not
+ask his new-found friend to whip up his cattle. Conscious of his unshorn
+beard and ragged garments, he kept his eyes fixed upon the road. A voice
+that thrilled him called his name. It was Miss Porter, a resplendent
+vision of silk, laces, and Easter flowers--yet actually running,
+with something of her old dash and freedom, beside the wagon. As
+the astonished teamster drew up before this elegant apparition, she
+panted:--
+
+"Why did you make me run so far, and why didn't you look up?"
+
+Cass, trying to hide the patches on his knees beneath a newspaper,
+stammered that he had not seen her.
+
+"And you did not hold down your head purposely?"
+
+"No," said Cass.
+
+"Why have you not been to Red Chief? Why didn't you answer my message
+about the ring?" she asked, swiftly.
+
+"You sent nothing but the ring," said Cass, coloring, as he glanced at
+the teamster.
+
+"Why, THAT was a message, you born idiot."
+
+Cass stared. The teamster smiled. Miss Porter gazed anxiously at the
+wagon. "I think I'd like a ride in there; it looks awfully good." She
+glanced mischievously around at the lingering and curious congregation.
+
+"May I?"
+
+But Cass deprecated that proceeding strongly. It was dirty; he was not
+sure it was even WHOLESOME; she would be SO uncomfortable; he, himself,
+was only going a few rods farther, and in that time she might ruin her
+dress--
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, a little bitterly, "certainly, my dress must be
+looked after. And--what else?"
+
+"People might think it strange, and believe I had invited you,"
+continued Cass, hesitatingly.
+
+"When I had only invited myself? Thank you. Good-by."
+
+She waved her hand and stepped back from the wagon. Cass would have
+given worlds to recall her, but he sat still, and the vehicle moved on
+in moody silence. At the first cross road he jumped down. "Thank you,"
+he said to the teamster. "You're welcome," returned that gentleman,
+regarding him curiously, "but the next time a gal like that asks to
+ride in this yer wagon, I reckon I won't take the vote of any deadhead
+passenger. Adios, young fellow. Don't stay out late; ye might be run off
+by some gal, and what would your mother say?" Of course the young man
+could only look unutterable things and walk away, but even in that
+dignified action he was conscious that its effect was somewhat mitigated
+by a large patch from a material originally used as a flour sack, which
+had repaired his trousers, but still bore the ironical legend, "Best
+Superfine."
+
+The summer brought warmth and promise and some blossom, if not absolute
+fruition, to Blazing Star. The long days drew Nature into closer
+communion with the men, and hopefulness followed the discontent of their
+winter seclusion. It was easier, too, for Capital to be wooed and won
+into making a picnic in these mountain solitudes than when high water
+stayed the fords and drifting snow the Sierran trails. At the close
+of one of these Arcadian days Cass was smoking before the door of
+his lonely cabin when he was astounded by the onset of a dozen of his
+companions. Peter Drummond, far in the van, was waving a newspaper like
+a victorious banner. "All's right now, Cass, old man!" he panted as he
+stopped before Cass and shoved back his eager followers.
+
+"What's all right?" asked Cass, dubiously.
+
+"YOU! You kin rake down the pile now. You're hunky! You're on velvet.
+Listen!"
+
+He opened the newspaper and read, with annoying deliberation, as
+follows:--
+
+"LOST.--If the finder of a plain gold ring, bearing the engraved
+inscription, 'May to Cass,' alleged to have been picked up on the high
+road near Blazing Star on the 4th March, 186-, will apply to Bookham &
+Sons, bankers, 1007 Y Street, Sacramento, he will be suitably rewarded
+either for the recovery of the ring, or for such facts as may identify
+it, or the locality where it was found."
+
+Cass rose and frowned savagely on his comrades. "No! no!" cried a dozen
+voices, assuringly. "It's all right! Honest Injun! True as gospel! No
+joke, Cass!"
+
+"Here's the paper, Sacramento 'Union' of yesterday. Look for yourself,"
+said Drummond, handing him the well-worn journal. "And you see," he
+added, "how darned lucky you are. It ain't necessary for you to produce
+the ring, so if that old biled owl of a Boompointer don't giv' it back
+to ye, it's all the same."
+
+"And they say nobody but the finder need apply," interrupted another.
+"That shuts out Boompointer or Kanaka Joe, for the matter o' that."
+
+"It's clar that it MEANS you, Cass, ez much ez if they'd given your
+name," added a third.
+
+For Miss Porter's sake and his own Cass had never told them of the
+restoration of the ring, and it was evident that Mountain Charley had
+also kept silent. Cass could not speak now without violating a secret,
+and he was pleased that the ring itself no longer played an important
+part in the mystery. But what was that mystery, and why was the ring
+secondary to himself? Why was so much stress laid upon his finding it?
+
+"You see," said Drummond, as if answering his unspoken thought, "that
+'ar gal--for it is a gal in course--hez read all about it in the papers,
+and hez sort o' took a shine to ye. It don't make a bit o' difference
+who in thunder Cass IS or WAZ, for I reckon she's kicked him over by
+this time--"
+
+"Sarved him right, too, for losing the girl's ring and then lying low
+and keeping dark about it," interrupted a sympathizer.
+
+"And she's just weakened over the romantic, high-toned way you stuck
+to it," continued Drummond, forgetting the sarcasms he had previously
+hurled at this romance. Indeed, the whole camp, by this time, had become
+convinced that it had fostered and developed a chivalrous devotion which
+was now on the point of pecuniary realization. It was generally accepted
+that "she" was the daughter of this banker, and also felt that in
+the circumstances the happy father could not do less than develop the
+resources of Blazing Star at once. Even if there were no relationship,
+what opportunity could be more fit for presenting to capital a locality
+that even produced engagement rings, and, as Jim Fauquier put it, "the
+men ez knew how to keep 'em." It was this sympathetic Virginian who took
+Cass aside with the following generous suggestion: "If you find that you
+and the old gal couldn't hitch hosses, owin' to your not likin' red hair
+or a game leg" (it may be here recorded that Blazing Star had, for
+no reason whatever, attributed these unprepossessing qualities to the
+mysterious advertiser), "you might let ME in. You might say ez how I
+used to jest worship that ring with you, and allers wanted to borrow it
+on Sundays. If anything comes of it--why--WE'RE PARDNERS!"
+
+A serious question was the outfitting of Cass for what now was felt to
+be a diplomatic representation of the community. His garments, it
+hardly need be said, were inappropriate to any wooing except that of the
+"maiden all forlorn," which the advertiser clearly was not. "He might,"
+suggested Fauquier, "drop in jest as he is--kinder as if he'd got
+keerless of the world, being lovesick." But Cass objected strongly, and
+was borne out in his objection by his younger comrades. At last a pair
+of white duck trousers, a red shirt, a flowing black silk scarf, and
+a Panama hat were procured at Red Chief, on credit, after a judicious
+exhibition of the advertisement. A heavy wedding ring, the property of
+Drummond (who was not married), was also lent as a graceful suggestion,
+and at the last moment Fauquier affixed to Cass's scarf an enormous
+specimen pin of gold and quartz. "It sorter indicates the auriferous
+wealth o' this yer region, and the old man (the senior member of Bookham
+& Sons) needn't know I won it at draw poker in Frisco," said Fauquier.
+
+"Ef you 'pass' on the gal, you kin hand it back to me and I'LL try
+it on." Forty dollars for expenses was put into Cass's hands, and the
+entire community accompanied him to the cross roads where he was to meet
+the Sacramento coach, which eventually carried him away, followed by a
+benediction of waving hats and exploding revolvers.
+
+That Cass did not participate in the extravagant hopes of his comrades,
+and that he rejected utterly their matrimonial speculations in his
+behalf, need not be said. Outwardly, he kept his own counsel with
+good-humored assent. But there was something fascinating in the
+situation, and while he felt he had forever abandoned his romantic
+dream, he was not displeased to know that it might have proved a
+reality. Nor was it distasteful to him to think that Miss Porter would
+hear of it and regret her late inability to appreciate his sentiment.
+If he really were the object of some opulent maiden's passion, he would
+show Miss Porter how he could sacrifice the most brilliant prospects
+for her sake. Alone, on the top of the coach, he projected one of those
+satisfying conversations in which imaginative people delight, but which
+unfortunately never come quite up to rehearsal. "Dear Miss Porter,"
+he would say, addressing the back of the driver, "if I could remain
+faithful to a dream of my youth, however illusive and unreal, can you
+believe that for the sake of lucre I could be false to the one real
+passion that alone supplanted it." In the composition and delivery of
+this eloquent statement an hour was happily forgotten: the only
+drawback to its complete effect was that a misplace of epithets in rapid
+repetition did not seem to make the slightest difference, and Cass found
+himself saying "Dear Miss Porter, if I could be false to a dream of my
+youth, etc., etc., can you believe I could be FAITHFUL to the one real
+passion, etc., etc.," with equal and perfect satisfaction. As Miss
+Porter was reputed to be well off, if the unknown were poor, that might
+be another drawback.
+
+The banking house of Bookham & Sons did not present an illusive nor
+mysterious appearance. It was eminently practical and matter of fact; it
+was obtrusively open and glassy; nobody would have thought of leaving
+a secret there that would have been inevitably circulated over the
+counter. Cass felt an uncomfortable sense of incongruity in himself,
+in his story, in his treasure, to this temple of disenchanting realism.
+With the awkwardness of an embarrassed man he was holding prominently in
+his hand an envelope containing the ring and advertisement as a voucher
+for his intrusion, when the nearest clerk took the envelope from his
+hand, opened it, took out the ring, returned it, said briskly, "T'other
+shop, next door, young man," and turned to another customer.
+
+Cass stepped to the door, saw that "T'other shop" was a pawnbroker's,
+and returned again with a flashing eye and heightened color. "It's an
+advertisement I have come to answer," he began again.
+
+The clerk cast a glance at Cass's scarf and pin. "Place taken
+yesterday--no room for any more," he said, abruptly.
+
+Cass grew quite white. But his old experience in Blazing Star repartee
+stood him in good stead. "If it's YOUR place you mean," he said coolly,
+"I reckon you might put a dozen men in the hole you're rattlin' round
+in--but it's this advertisement I'm after. If Bookham isn't in,
+maybe you'll send me one of the grown-up sons." The production of the
+advertisement and some laughter from the bystanders had its effect.
+The pert young clerk retired, and returned to lead the way to the
+bank parlor. Cass's heart sank again as he was confronted by a dark,
+iron-gray man--in dress, features, speech, and action--uncompromisingly
+opposed to Cass--his ring and his romance. When the young man had told
+his story and produced his treasure he paused. The banker scarcely
+glanced at it, but said, impatiently,--
+
+"Well, your papers?"
+
+"My papers?"
+
+"Yes. Proof of your identity. You say your name is Cass Beard. Good!
+What have you got to prove it? How can I tell who you are?"
+
+To a sensitive man there is no form of suspicion that is as bewildering
+and demoralizing at the moment as the question of his identity. Cass
+felt the insult in the doubt of his word, and the palpable sense of his
+present inability to prove it. The banker watched him keenly but not
+unkindly.
+
+"Come," he said at length, "this is not my affair; if you can legally
+satisfy the lady for whom I am only agent, well and good. I believe you
+can; I only warn you that you must. And my present inquiry was to keep
+her from losing her time with impostors, a class I don't think you
+belong to. There's her card. Good day."
+
+"Miss Mortimer." It was NOT the banker's daughter. The first illusion of
+Blazing Star was rudely dispelled. But the care taken by the capitalist
+to shield her from imposture indicated a person of wealth. Of her youth
+and beauty Cass no longer thought.
+
+The address given was not distant. With a beating heart he rung the
+bell of a respectable-looking house, and was ushered into a private
+drawing-room. Instinctively he felt that the room was only temporarily
+inhabited; an air peculiar to the best lodgings, and when the door
+opened upon a tall lady in deep mourning, he was still more convinced of
+an incongruity between the occupant and her surroundings. With a smile
+that vacillated between a habit of familiarity and ease, and a recent
+restraint, she motioned him to a chair.
+
+"Miss Mortimer" was still young, still handsome, still fashionably
+dressed, and still attractive. From her first greeting to the end of the
+interview Cass felt that she knew all about him. This relieved him from
+the onus of proving his identity, but seemed to put him vaguely at a
+disadvantage. It increased his sense of inexperience and youthfulness.
+
+"I hope you will believe," she began, "that the few questions I have
+to ask you are to satisfy my own heart, and for no other purpose."
+She smiled sadly as she went on. "Had it been otherwise, I should have
+instituted a legal inquiry, and left this interview to some one cooler,
+calmer, and less interested than myself. But I think, I KNOW I can trust
+you. Perhaps we women are weak and foolish to talk of an INSTINCT, and
+when you know my story you may have reason to believe that but little
+dependence can be placed on THAT; but I am not wrong in saying,--am I?"
+(with a sad smile) "that YOU are not above that weakness?" She paused,
+closed her lips tightly, and grasped her hands before her. "You say you
+found that ring in the road some three months before--the--the--you know
+what I mean--the body--was discovered?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You thought it might have been dropped by some one in passing?"
+
+"I thought so, yes--it belonged to no one in camp."
+
+"Before your cabin or on the highway?"
+
+"Before my cabin."
+
+"You are SURE?" There was something so very sweet and sad in her smile
+that it oddly made Cass color.
+
+"But my cabin is near the road," he suggested.
+
+"I see! And there was nothing else; no paper nor envelope?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"And you kept it because of the odd resemblance one of the names bore to
+yours?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For no other reason
+
+"None." Yet Cass felt he was blushing.
+
+"You'll forgive my repeating a question you have already answered, but
+I am so anxious. There was some attempt to prove at the inquest that the
+ring had been found on the body of--the unfortunate man. But you tell me
+it was not so?"
+
+"I can swear it."
+
+"Good God--the traitor!" She took a hurried step forward, turned to the
+window, and then came back to Cass with a voice broken with emotion. "I
+have told you I could trust you. That ring was mine!"
+
+She stopped, and then went on hurriedly. "Years ago I gave it to a man
+who deceived and wronged me; a man whose life since then has been a
+shame and disgrace to all who knew him. A man who, once, a gentleman,
+sank so low as to become the associate of thieves and ruffians; sank
+so low, that when he died, by violence--a traitor even to them--his own
+confederates shrunk from him, and left him to fill a nameless grave.
+That man's body you found!"
+
+Cass started. "And his name was--?"
+
+"Part of your surname. Cass--Henry Cass."
+
+"You see why Providence seems to have brought that ring to you," she
+went on. "But you ask me why, knowing this, I am so eager to know if
+the ring was found by you in the road, or if it were found on his body.
+Listen! It is part of my mortification that the story goes that this man
+once showed this ring, boasted of it, staked, and lost it at a gambling
+table to one of his vile comrades."
+
+"Kanaka Joe," said Cass, overcome by a vivid recollection of Joe's
+merriment at the trial.
+
+"The same. Don't you see," she said, hurriedly, "if the ring had been
+found on him I could believe that somewhere in his heart he still kept
+respect for the woman he had wronged. I am a woman--a foolish woman, I
+know--but you have crushed that hope forever."
+
+"But why have you sent for me?" asked Cass, touched by her emotion.
+
+"To know it for certain," she said, almost fiercely. "Can you not
+understand that a woman like me must know a thing once and forever? But
+you CAN help me. I did not send for you only to pour my wrongs in your
+ears. You must take me with you to this place--to the spot where you
+found the ring--to the spot where you found the body--to the spot
+where--where HE lies. You must do it secretly, that none shall know me."
+
+Cass hesitated. He was thinking of his companions and the collapse of
+their painted bubble. How could he keep the secret from them?
+
+"If it is money you need, let not that stop you. I have no right to
+your time without recompense. Do not misunderstand me. There has been a
+thousand dollars awaiting my order at Bookham's when the ring should be
+delivered. It shall be doubled if you help me in this last moment."
+
+It was possible. He could convey her secretly there, invent some story
+of a reward delayed for want of proofs, and afterward share that reward
+with his friends. He answered promptly, "I will take you there."
+
+She took his hands in both of hers, raised them to her lips, and smiled.
+The shadow of grief and restraint seemed to have fallen from her face,
+and a half-mischievous, half-coquettish gleam in her dark eyes touched
+the susceptible Cass in so subtle a fashion that he regained the street
+in some confusion. He wondered what Miss Porter would have thought. But
+was he not returning to her, a fortunate man, with one thousand dollars
+in his pocket! Why should he remember he was handicapped, by a pretty
+woman and a pathetic episode? It did not make the proximity less
+pleasant as he helped her into the coach that evening, nor did the
+recollection of another ride with another woman obtrude itself upon
+those consolations which he felt it his duty, from time to time, to
+offer. It was arranged that he should leave her at the "Red Chief"
+Hotel, while he continued on to Blazing Star, returning at noon to bring
+her with him when he could do it without exposing her to recognition.
+The gray dawn came soon enough, and the coach drew up at "Red Chief"
+while the lights in the bar-room and dining-room of the hotel were
+still struggling with the far flushing east. Cass alighted, placed Miss
+Mortimer in the hands of the landlady, and returned to the vehicle. It
+was still musty, close, and frowzy, with half-awakened passengers.
+There was a vacated seat on the top, which Cass climbed up to, and
+abstractedly threw himself beside a figure muffled in shawls and rugs.
+There was a slight movement among the multitudinous enwrappings, and
+then the figure turned to him and said, dryly, "Good morning!" It was
+Miss Porter!
+
+"Have you been long here?" he stammered.
+
+"All night."
+
+He would have given worlds to leave her at that moment. He would have
+jumped from the starting coach to save himself any explanation of the
+embarrassment he was furiously conscious of showing, without, as he
+believed, any adequate cause. And yet, like all inexperienced, sensitive
+men, he dashed blindly into that explanation; worse, he even told his
+secret at once, then and there, and then sat abashed and conscience
+stricken, with an added sense of its utter futility.
+
+"And this," summed up the young girl, with a slight shrug of her pretty
+shoulders, "is YOUR MAY?"
+
+Cass would have recommenced his story.
+
+"No, don't, pray! It isn't interesting, nor original. Do YOU believe
+it?"
+
+"I do," said Cass, indignantly.
+
+"How lucky! Then let me go to sleep."
+
+Cass, still furious, but uneasy, did not again address her. When the
+coach stopped at Blazing Star she asked him, indifferently: "When does
+this sentimental pilgrimage begin?"
+
+"I return for her at one o'clock," replied Cass, stiffly.
+
+He kept his word. He appeased his eager companions with a promise of
+future fortune, and exhibited the present and tangible reward. By a
+circuitous route known only to himself, he led Miss Mortimer to the road
+before the cabin. There was a pink flush of excitement on her somewhat
+faded cheek.
+
+"And it was here?" she asked, eagerly.
+
+"I found it here."
+
+"And the body?"
+
+"That was afterward. Over in that direction, beyond the clump of
+buckeyes, on the Red Chief turnpike."
+
+"And any one coming from the road we left just now and going
+to--to--that place, would have to cross just here? Tell me," she said,
+with a strange laugh, laying her cold nervous hand on his, "wouldn't
+they?"
+
+"They would."
+
+"Let us go to that place."
+
+Cass stepped out briskly to avoid observation and gain the woods beyond
+the highway. "You have crossed here before," she said. "There seems to
+be a trail."
+
+"I may have made it: it's a short cut to the buckeyes."
+
+"You never found anything else on the trail?"
+
+"You remember, I told you before, the ring was all I found."
+
+"Ah, true!" she smiled sweetly; "it was THAT which made it seem so odd
+to you. I forgot."
+
+In half an hour they reached the buckeyes. During the walk she had taken
+rapid recognizance of everything in her path. When they crossed the road
+and Cass had pointed out the scene of the murder, she looked anxiously
+around. "You are sure we are not seen?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+"You will not think me foolish if I ask you to wait here while I go in
+there"--she pointed to the ominous thicket near them--"alone?"
+
+She was quite white.
+
+Cass's heart, which had grown somewhat cold since his interview with
+Miss Porter, melted at once.
+
+"Go; I will stay here."
+
+He waited five minutes. She did not return.
+
+What if the poor creature had determined upon suicide on the spot where
+her faithless lover had fallen? He was reassured in another moment by
+the rustle of skirts in the undergrowth.
+
+"I was becoming quite alarmed," he said, aloud.
+
+"You have reason to be," returned a hurried voice. He started. It was
+Miss Porter, who stepped swiftly out of the cover. "Look," she said,
+"look at that man down the road. He has been tracking you two ever since
+you left the cabin. Do you know who he is?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Then listen. It is three-fingered Dick, one of the escaped road agents.
+I know him!"
+
+"Let us go and warn her," said Cass, eagerly.
+
+Miss Porter laid her hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"I don't think she'll thank you," she said, dryly. "Perhaps you'd better
+see what she's doing, first."
+
+Utterly bewildered, yet with a strong sense of the masterfulness of his
+companion, he followed her. She crept like a cat through the thicket.
+Suddenly she paused. "Look!" she whispered, viciously, "look at the
+tender vigils of your heart-broken May!"
+
+Cass saw the woman who had left him a moment before on her knees on the
+grass, with long thin fingers digging like a ghoul in the earth. He had
+scarce time to notice her eager face and eyes, cast now and then back
+toward the spot where she had left him, before there was a crash in
+the bushes, and a man,--the stranger of the road,--leaped to her side.
+"Run," he said; "run for it now. You're watched!"
+
+"Oh! that man, Beard!" she said, contemptuously.
+
+"No, another in a wagon. Quick. Fool, you know the place now,--you
+can come later; run!" And half-dragging, half-lifting her, he bore her
+through the bushes. Scarcely had they closed behind the pair than
+Miss Porter ran to the spot vacated by the woman. "Look!" she cried,
+triumphantly, "look!"
+
+Cass looked, and sank on his knees beside her.
+
+"It WAS worth a thousand dollars, wasn't it?" she repeated, maliciously,
+"wasn't it? But you ought to return it! REALLY you ought."
+
+Cass could scarcely articulate. "But how did YOU know it?" he finally
+gasped.
+
+"Oh, I suspected something; there was a woman, and you know you're SUCH
+a fool!"
+
+Cass rose, stiffly.
+
+"Don't be a greater fool now, but go and bring my horse and wagon from
+the hill, and don't say anything to the driver."
+
+"Then you did not come alone?"
+
+"No; it would have been bold and improper."
+
+"Please!"
+
+"And to think it WAS the ring, after all, that pointed to this," she
+said.
+
+"The ring that YOU returned to me."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Don't, please, the wagon is coming."
+
+*****
+
+In the next morning's edition of the "Red Chief Chronicle" appeared the
+following startling intelligence:--
+
+
+EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY
+
+FINDING OF THE STOLEN TREASURE OF WELLS, FARGO & CO.
+
+OVER $800,000 RECOVERED
+
+Our readers will remember the notorious robbery of Wells, Fargo & Co.'s
+treasure from the Sacramento and Red Chief Pioneer Coach on the night of
+September 1. Although most of the gang were arrested, it is known that
+two escaped, who, it was presumed, cached the treasure, amounting
+to nearly $500,000 in gold, drafts, and jewelry, as no trace of the
+property was found. Yesterday our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. Cass
+Beard, long and favorably known in this county, succeeded in exhuming
+the treasure in a copse of hazel near the Red Chief turnpike,--adjacent
+to the spot where an unknown body was lately discovered. This body is
+now strongly suspected to be that of one Henry Cass, a disreputable
+character, who has since been ascertained to have been one of the road
+agents who escaped. The matter is now under legal investigation. The
+successful result of the search is due to a systematic plan evolved from
+the genius of Mr. Beard, who has devoted over a year to this labor.
+It was first suggested to him by the finding of a ring, now definitely
+identified as part of the treasure which was supposed to have been
+dropped from Wells, Fargo & Co's boxes by the robbers in their midnight
+flight through Blazing Star.
+
+
+In the same journal appeared the no less important intelligence, which
+explains, while it completes this veracious chronicle:--
+
+"It is rumored that a marriage is shortly to take place between the
+hero of the late treasure discovery and a young lady of Red Chief, whose
+devoted aid and assistance to this important work is well known to this
+community."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Found At Blazing Star, by Bret Harte
+
+*** 

data/train/2798.txt

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+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE QUEEN OF THE PIRATE ISLE
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+I first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle. To the best of my
+recollection she had no reasonable right to that title. She was only
+nine years old, inclined to plumpness and good humor, deprecated
+violence, and had never been to sea. Need it be added that she did NOT
+live in an island and that her name was Polly?
+
+Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known other experiences
+of a purely imaginative character. Part of her existence had been passed
+as a Beggar Child,--solely indicated by a shawl tightly folded round her
+shoulders, and chills; as a Schoolmistress, unnecessarily severe; as a
+Preacher, singularly personal in his remarks, and once, after reading
+one of Cooper's novels, as an Indian Maiden. This was, I believe, the
+only instance when she had borrowed from another's fiction. Most of the
+characters that she assumed for days and sometimes weeks at a time were
+purely original in conception; some so much so as to be vague to the
+general understanding. I remember that her personation of a certain Mrs.
+Smith, whose individuality was supposed to be sufficiently represented
+by a sunbonnet worn wrong side before and a weekly addition to her
+family, was never perfectly appreciated by her own circle although she
+lived the character for a month. Another creation known as "The Proud
+Lady"--a being whose excessive and unreasonable haughtiness was
+so pronounced as to give her features the expression of extreme
+nausea--caused her mother so much alarm that it had to be abandoned.
+This was easily effected. The Proud Lady was understood to have died.
+Indeed, most of Polly's impersonations were got rid of in this way,
+although it by no means prevented their subsequent reappearance. "I
+thought Mrs. Smith was dead," remonstrated her mother at the posthumous
+appearance of that lady with a new infant. "She was buried alive and kem
+to!" said Polly with a melancholy air. Fortunately, the representation
+of a resuscitated person required such extraordinary acting, and was,
+through some uncertainty of conception, so closely allied in facial
+expression to the Proud Lady, that Mrs. Smith was resuscitated only for
+a day.
+
+The origin of the title of the Queen of the Pirate Isle may be briefly
+stated as follows:--
+
+An hour after luncheon, one day, Polly, Hickory Hunt, her cousin, and
+Wan Lee, a Chinese page, were crossing the nursery floor in a Chinese
+junk. The sea was calm and the sky cloudless. Any change in the weather
+was as unexpected as it is in books. Suddenly a West Indian Hurricane,
+purely local in character and unfelt anywhere else, struck Master
+Hickory and threw him overboard, whence, wildly swimming for his life
+and carrying Polly on his back, he eventually reached a Desert Island in
+the closet. Here the rescued party put up a tent made of a table-cloth
+providentially snatched from the raging billows, and, from two o'clock
+until four, passed six weeks on the island, supported only by a piece
+of candle, a box of matches, and two peppermint lozenges. It was at this
+time that it became necessary to account for Polly's existence among
+them, and this was only effected by an alarming sacrifice of their
+morality; Hickory and Wan Lee instantly became PIRATES, and at once
+elected Polly as their Queen. The royal duties, which seemed to be
+purely maternal, consisted in putting the Pirates to bed after a day of
+rapine and bloodshed, and in feeding them with licorice water through a
+quill in a small bottle. Limited as her functions were, Polly performed
+them with inimitable gravity and unquestioned sincerity. Even when her
+companions sometimes hesitated from actual hunger or fatigue and forgot
+their guilty part, she never faltered. It was her real existence; her
+other life of being washed, dressed, and put to bed at certain hours by
+her mother was the ILLUSION.
+
+Doubt and skepticism came at last,--and came from Wan Lee! Wan Lee of
+all creatures! Wan Lee, whose silent, stolid, mechanical performance of
+a pirate's duties--a perfect imitation like all his household work--had
+been their one delight and fascination!
+
+It was just after the exciting capture of a merchantman, with the
+indiscriminate slaughter of all on board,--a spectacle on which the
+round blue eyes of the plump Polly had gazed with royal and maternal
+tolerance,--and they were burying the booty, two tablespoons and a
+thimble, in the corner of the closet, when Wan Lee stolidly rose.
+
+"Melican boy pleenty foolee! Melican boy no Pilat!" said the little
+Chinaman, substituting "l's" for "r's" after his usual fashion.
+
+"Wotcher say?" said Hickory, reddening with sudden confusion.
+
+"Melican boy's papa heap lickee him--s'pose him leal Pilat," continued
+Wan Lee doggedly. "Melican boy Pilat INSIDE housee. Chinee boy Pilat
+OUTSIDE housee. First chop Pilat."
+
+Staggered by this humiliating statement, Hickory recovered himself in
+character. "Ah! Ho!" he shrieked, dancing wildly on one leg, "Mutiny and
+Splordinashun! 'Way with him to the yard-arm."
+
+"Yald-alm--heap foolee! Alee same clothes-horse for washee washee."
+
+It was here necessary for the Pirate Queen to assert her authority,
+which, as I have before stated, was somewhat confusingly maternal.
+
+"Go to bed instantly without your supper," she said seriously. "Really,
+I never saw such bad pirates. Say your prayers, and see that you're up
+early to church tomorrow."
+
+It should be explained that in deference to Polly's proficiency as a
+preacher, and probably as a relief to their uneasy consciences, Divine
+Service had always been held on the Island. But Wan Lee continued:--
+
+"Me no shabbee Pilat INSIDE housee; me shabbee Pilat OUTSIDE housee.
+S'pose you lun away longside Chinee boy--Chinee boy make you Pilat."
+
+Hickory softly scratched his leg; while a broad, bashful smile almost
+closed his small eyes. "Wot?" he asked.
+
+"Mebbe you too flightened to lun away. Melican boy's papa heap lickee."
+
+This last infamous suggestion fired the corsair's blood. "Dy'ar think
+we daresen't?" said Hickory desperately, but with an uneasy glance at
+Polly. "I'll show yer to-morrow."
+
+The entrance of Polly's mother at this moment put an end to Polly's
+authority and dispersed the pirate band, but left Wan Lee's proposal and
+Hickory's rash acceptance ringing in the ears of the Pirate Queen. That
+evening she was unusually silent. She would have taken Bridget,
+her nurse, into her confidence, but this would have involved a long
+explanation of her own feelings, from which, like all imaginative
+children, she shrank. She, however, made preparation for the proposed
+flight by settling in her mind which of her two dolls she would take. A
+wooden creature with easy-going knees and movable hair seemed to be more
+fit for hard service and any indiscriminate scalping that might turn up
+hereafter. At supper, she timidly asked a question of Bridget. "Did
+ye ever hear the loikes uv that, ma'am?" said the Irish handmaid with
+affectionate pride. "Shure the darlint's head is filled noight and
+day with ancient history. She's after asking me now if Queens ever run
+away!" To Polly's remorseful confusion here her good father, equally
+proud of her precocious interest and his own knowledge, at once
+interfered with an unintelligible account of the abdication of various
+queens in history until Polly's head ached again. Well meant as it was,
+it only settled in the child's mind that she must keep the awful secret
+to herself and that no one could understand her.
+
+The eventful day dawned without any unusual sign of importance. It was
+one of the cloudless summer days of the Californian foothills, bright,
+dry, and, as the morning advanced, hot in the white sunshine. The
+actual, prosaic house in which the Pirates apparently lived was a mile
+from a mining settlement on a beautiful ridge of pine woods sloping
+gently towards a valley on the one side, and on the other falling
+abruptly into a dark deep olive gulf of pine-trees, rocks, and patches
+of red soil. Beautiful as the <DW72> was, looking over to the distant
+snow peaks which seemed to be in another world than theirs, the children
+found a greater attraction in the fascinating depths of a mysterious
+gulf, or canyon, as it was called, whose very name filled their ears
+with a weird music. To creep to the edge of the cliff, to sit upon
+the brown branches of some fallen pine, and, putting aside the dried
+tassels, to look down upon the backs of wheeling hawks that seemed to
+hang in mid-air was a never-failing delight. Here Polly would try to
+trace the winding red ribbon of road that was continually losing itself
+among the dense pines of the opposite mountains; here she would listen
+to the far-off strokes of a woodman's axe, or the rattle of some heavy
+wagon, miles away, crossing the pebbles of a dried-up watercourse. Here,
+too, the prevailing colors of the mountains, red and white and green,
+most showed themselves. There were no frowning rocks to depress the
+children's fancy, but everywhere along the ridge pure white quartz bared
+itself through the red earth like smiling teeth; the very pebbles they
+played with were streaked with shining mica like bits of looking-glass.
+The distance was always green and summer-like, but the color they most
+loved, and which was most familiar to them, was the dark red of the
+ground beneath their feet everywhere. It showed itself in the roadside
+bushes; its red dust pervaded the leaves of the overhanging laurel;
+it  their shoes and pinafores; I am afraid it was often seen in
+Indian-like patches on their faces and hands. That it may have often
+given a sanguinary tone to their fancies I have every reason to believe.
+
+It was on this ridge that the three children gathered at ten o'clock
+that morning. An earlier flight had been impossible on account of Wan
+Lee being obliged to perform his regular duty of blacking the shoes
+of Polly and Hickory before breakfast,--a menial act which in the pure
+republic of childhood was never thought inconsistent with the loftiest
+piratical ambition. On the ridge they met one "Patsey," the son of a
+neighbor, sun-burned, broad-brimmed hatted, red-handed, like themselves.
+As there were afterwards some doubts expressed whether he joined the
+Pirates of his own free will, or was captured by them, I endeavor to
+give the colloquy exactly as it occurred:--
+
+Patsey: "Hallo, fellers."
+
+The Pirates: "Hello!"
+
+Patsey: "Goin' to hunt bars? Dad seed a lot o' tracks at sun-up."
+
+The Pirates (hesitating): "No--o--"
+
+Patsey: "I am; know where I kin get a six-shooter?"
+
+The Pirates (almost ready to abandon piracy for bear-hunting, but
+preserving their dignity): "Can't! We've runn'd away for real pirates."
+
+Patsey: "Not for good!"
+
+The Queen (interposing with sad dignity and real tears in her round
+blue eyes): "Yes!" (slowly and shaking her head). "Can't go back again.
+Never! Never! Never! The--the--eye is cast!"
+
+Patsey (bursting with excitement): "No-o! Sho'o! Wanter know."
+
+The Pirates (a little frightened themselves, but tremulous with
+gratified vanity): "The Perleese is on our track!"
+
+Patsey: "Lemme go with yer!"
+
+Hickory: "Wot'll yer giv?"
+
+Patsey: "Pistol and er bananer."
+
+Hickory (with judicious prudence): "Let's see 'em."
+
+Patsey was off like a shot; his bare little red feet trembling under
+him. In a few minutes he returned with an old-fashioned revolver known
+as one of "Allen's pepper-boxes" and a large banana. He was at once
+enrolled, and the banana eaten.
+
+As yet they had resolved on no definite nefarious plan. Hickory, looking
+down at Patsey's bare feet, instantly took off his own shoes. This bold
+act sent a thrill through his companions. Wan Lee took off his cloth
+leggings, Polly removed her shoes and stockings, but, with royal
+foresight, tied them up in her handkerchief. The last link between them
+and civilization was broken.
+
+"Let's go to the Slumgullion."
+
+"Slumgullion" was the name given by the miners to a certain soft,
+half-liquid mud, formed of the water and finely powdered earth that
+was carried off by the sluice-boxes during gold-washing, and eventually
+collected in a broad pool or lagoon before the outlet. There was a
+pool of this kind a quarter of a mile away, where there were "diggings"
+worked by Patsey's father, and thither they proceeded along the ridge
+in single file. When it was reached they solemnly began to wade in its
+viscid paint-like shallows. Possibly its unctuousness was pleasant
+to the touch; possibly there was a fascination in the fact that their
+parents had forbidden them to go near it, but probably the principal
+object of this performance was to produce a thick coating of mud on the
+feet and ankles, which, when dried in the sun, was supposed to harden
+the skin and render their shoes superfluous. It was also felt to be
+the first real step towards independence; they looked down at their
+ensanguined extremities and recognized the impossibility of their ever
+again crossing (unwashed) the family threshold.
+
+Then they again hesitated. There was a manifest need of some
+well-defined piratical purpose. The last act was reckless and
+irretrievable, but it was vague. They gazed at each other. There was a
+stolid look of resigned and superior tolerance in Wan Lee's eyes.
+
+Polly's glance wandered down the side of the <DW72> to the distant little
+tunnels or openings made by the miners who were at work in the bowels of
+the mountain. "I'd like to go into one of them funny holes," she said to
+herself, half aloud.
+
+Wan Lee suddenly began to blink his eyes with unwonted excitement.
+"Catchee tunnel--heap gold," he said quickly. "When manee come outside
+to catchee dinner--Pilats go inside catchee tunnel! Shabbee! Pilats
+catchee gold allee samee Melican man!"
+
+"And take perseshiun," said Hickory.
+
+"And hoist the Pirate flag," said Patsey.
+
+"And build a fire, and cook, and have a family," said Polly.
+
+The idea was fascinating to the point of being irresistible. The eyes of
+the four children became rounder and rounder. They seized each other's
+hands and swung them backwards and forwards, occasionally lifting their
+legs in a solemn rhythmic movement known only to childhood.
+
+"It's orful far off!" said Patsey with a sudden look of dark importance.
+"Pap says it's free miles on the road. Take all day ter get there."
+
+The bright faces were overcast.
+
+"Less go down er slide!" said Hickory boldly.
+
+They approached the edge of the cliff. The "slide" was simply a sharp
+incline zigzagging down the side of the mountain used for sliding
+goods and provisions from the summit to the tunnel-men at the different
+openings below. The continual traffic had gradually worn a shallow gully
+half filled with earth and gravel into the face of the mountain which
+checked the momentum of the goods in their downward passage, but
+afforded no foothold for a pedestrian. No one had ever been known to
+descend a slide. That feat was evidently reserved for the Pirate band.
+They approached the edge of the slide, hand in hand, hesitated, and the
+next moment disappeared.
+
+Five minutes later the tunnel-men of the Excelsior mine, a mile below,
+taking their luncheon on the rude platform of debris before their
+tunnel, were suddenly driven to shelter in the tunnel from an apparent
+rain of stones, and rocks, and pebbles, from the cliffs above. Looking
+up, they were startled at seeing four round objects revolving and
+bounding in the dust of the slide, which eventually resolved themselves
+into three boys and a girl. For a moment the good men held their breath
+in helpless terror. Twice one of the children had struck the outer edge
+of the bank, and displaced stones that shot a thousand feet down into
+the dizzy depths of the valley; and now one of them, the girl, had
+actually rolled out of the slide and was hanging over the chasm
+supported only by a clump of chamisal to which she clung!
+
+"Hang on by your eyelids, sis! but don't stir, for Heaven's sake!"
+shouted one of the men, as two others started on a hopeless ascent of
+the cliff above them.
+
+But a light childish laugh from the clinging little figure seemed to
+mock them! Then two small heads appeared at the edge of the slide; then
+a diminutive figure, whose feet were apparently held by some invisible
+companion, was shoved over the brink and stretched its tiny arms towards
+the girl. But in vain, the distance was too great. Another laugh of
+intense youthful enjoyment followed the failure, and a new insecurity
+was added to the situation by the unsteady hands and shoulders of the
+relieving party, who were apparently shaking with laughter. Then the
+extended figure was seen to detach what looked like a small black rope
+from its shoulders and throw it to the girl. There was another little
+giggle. The faces of the men below paled in terror. Then Polly,--for it
+was she,--hanging to the long pigtail of Wan Lee, was drawn with fits
+of laughter back in safety to the slide. Their childish treble of
+appreciation was answered by a ringing cheer from below.
+
+"Darned ef I ever want to cut off a Chinaman's pigtail again, boys,"
+said one of the tunnel-men as he went back to dinner.
+
+Meantime the children had reached the goal and stood before the opening
+of one of the tunnels. Then these four heroes who had looked with
+cheerful levity on the deadly peril of their descent became suddenly
+frightened at the mysterious darkness of the cavern and turned pale at
+its threshold.
+
+"Mebbee a wicked Joss backside holee, he catchee Pilats," said Wan Lee
+gravely.
+
+Hickory began to whimper, Patsey drew back, Polly alone stood her
+ground, albeit with a trembling lip.
+
+"Let's say our prayers and frighten it away," she said stoutly.
+
+"No! no!" said Wan Lee, with a sudden alarm. "No frighten Spillits! You
+waitee! Chinee boy he talkee Spillit not to frighten you."*
+
+     * The Chinese pray devoutly to the Evil Spirits NOT to
+     injure them.
+
+Tucking his hands under his blue blouse, Wan Lee suddenly produced from
+some mysterious recess of his clothing a quantity of red paper slips
+which he scattered at the entrance of the cavern. Then drawing from the
+same inexhaustible receptacle certain squibs or fireworks, he let them
+off and threw them into the opening. There they went off with a slight
+fizz and splutter, a momentary glittering of small points in the
+darkness, and a strong smell of gunpowder. Polly gazed at the spectacle
+with undisguised awe and fascination. Hickory and Patsey breathed hard
+with satisfaction: it was beyond their wildest dreams of mystery and
+romance. Even Wan Lee appeared transfigured into a superior being by the
+potency of his own spells. But an unaccountable disturbance of some
+kind in the dim interior of the tunnel quickly drew the blood from
+their blanched cheeks again. It was a sound like coughing, followed by
+something like an oath.
+
+"He's made the Evil Spirit orful sick," said Hickory in a loud whisper.
+
+A slight laugh, that to the children seemed demoniacal, followed.
+
+"See!" said Wan Lee. "Evil Spillet he likee Chinee; try talkee him."
+
+The Pirates looked at Wan Lee, not without a certain envy of this
+manifest favoritism. A fearful desire to continue their awful
+experiments, instead of pursuing their piratical avocations, was taking
+possession of them; but Polly, with one of the swift transitions of
+childhood, immediately began to extemporize a house for the party at
+the mouth of the tunnel, and, with parental foresight, gathered the
+fragments of the squibs to build a fire for supper. That frugal meal,
+consisting of half a ginger biscuit divided into five small portions,
+each served on a chip of wood, and having a deliciously mysterious
+flavor of gunpowder and smoke, was soon over. It was necessary after
+this that the pirates should at once seek repose after a day of
+adventure, which they did for the space of forty seconds in singularly
+impossible attitudes and far too aggressive snoring. Indeed, Master
+Hickory's almost upright pose, with tightly folded arms and darkly
+frowning brows, was felt to be dramatic, but impossible for a longer
+period. The brief interval enabled Polly to collect herself and to
+look around her in her usual motherly fashion. Suddenly she started and
+uttered a cry. In the excitement of the descent she had quite overlooked
+her doll, and was now regarding it with round-eyed horror.
+
+"Lady Mary's hair's gone!" she cried, convulsively grasping the Pirate
+Hickory's legs.
+
+Hickory at once recognized the battered doll under the aristocratic
+title which Polly had long ago bestowed upon it. He stared at the bald
+and battered head.
+
+"Ha! ha!" he said hoarsely; "skelped by Injins!"
+
+For an instant the delicious suggestion soothed the imaginative Polly.
+But it was quickly dispelled by Wan Lee.
+
+"Lady Maley's pigtail hangee top side hillee. Catchee on big quartz
+stone allee same Polly; me go fetchee."
+
+"No!" quickly shrieked the others. The prospect of being left in the
+proximity of Wan Lee's evil spirit, without Wan Lee's exorcising power,
+was anything but reassuring. "No, don't go!" Even Polly (dropping a
+maternal tear on the bald head of Lady Mary) protested against this
+breaking up of the little circle. "Go to bed!" she said authoritatively,
+"and sleep till morning."
+
+Thus admonished, the Pirates again retired. This time effectively; for,
+worn by actual fatigue or soothed by the delicious coolness of the cave,
+they gradually, one by one, succumbed to real slumber. Polly, withheld
+from joining them by official and maternal responsibility, sat and
+blinked at them affectionately.
+
+Gradually she, too, felt herself yielding to the fascination and mystery
+of the place and the solitude that encompassed her. Beyond the pleasant
+shadows where she sat, she saw the great world of mountain and valley
+through a dreamy haze that seemed to rise from the depths below and
+occasionally hang before the cavern like a veil. Long waves of spicy
+heat rolling up the mountain from the valley brought her the smell of
+pine-trees and bay, and made the landscape swim before her eyes. She
+could hear the far-off cry of teamsters on some unseen road; she could
+see the far-off cloud of dust following the mountain stagecoach, whose
+rattling wheels she could not hear. She felt very lonely, but was not
+quite afraid; she felt very melancholy, but was not entirely sad; and
+she could have easily awakened her sleeping companions if she wished.
+
+No; she was a lone widow with nine children, six of whom were already in
+the lone churchyard on the hill, and the others lying ill with measles
+and scarlet fever beside her. She had just walked many weary miles that
+day, and had often begged from door to door for a slice of bread for the
+starving little ones. It was of no use now--they would die! They would
+never see their dear mother again. This was a favorite imaginative
+situation of Polly's, but only indulged when her companions were asleep,
+partly because she could not trust confederates with her more serious
+fancies, and partly because they were at such times passive in her
+hands. She glanced timidly around. Satisfied that no one could observe
+her, she softly visited the bedside of each of her companions, and
+administered from a purely fictitious bottle spoonfuls of invisible
+medicine. Physical correction in the form of slight taps, which they
+always required, and in which Polly was strong, was only withheld now
+from a sense of their weak condition. But in vain; they succumbed to the
+fell disease,--they always died at this juncture,--and Polly was left
+alone. She thought of the little church where she had once seen a
+funeral, and remembered the nice smell of the flowers; she dwelt with
+melancholy satisfaction of the nine little tombstones in the graveyard,
+each with an inscription, and looked forward with gentle anticipation to
+the long summer days when, with Lady Mary in her lap, she would sit on
+those graves clad in the deepest mourning. The fact that the unhappy
+victims at times moved as it were uneasily in their graves, or snored,
+did not affect Polly's imaginative contemplation, nor withhold the tears
+that gathered in her round eyes.
+
+Presently, the lids of the round eyes began to droop, the landscape
+beyond began to be more confused, and sometimes to disappear entirely
+and reappear again with startling distinctness. Then a sound of rippling
+water from the little stream that flowed from the mouth of the tunnel
+soothed her and seemed to carry her away with it, and then everything
+was dark.
+
+The next thing that she remembered was that she was apparently being
+carried along on some gliding object to the sound of rippling water. She
+was not alone, for her three companions were lying beside her, rather
+tightly packed and squeezed in the same mysterious vehicle. Even in the
+profound darkness that surrounded her, Polly could feel and hear that
+they were accompanied, and once or twice a faint streak of light from
+the side of the tunnel showed her gigantic shadows walking slowly
+on either side of the gliding car. She felt the little hands of her
+associates seeking hers, and knew they were awake and conscious, and
+she returned to each a reassuring pressure from the large protecting
+instinct of her maternal little heart. Presently the car glided into
+an open space of bright light, and stopped. The transition from the
+darkness of the tunnel at first dazzled their eyes. It was like a dream.
+
+They were in a circular cavern from which three other tunnels, like the
+one they had passed through, diverged. The walls, lit up by fifty or
+sixty candles stuck at irregular intervals in crevices of the rock, were
+of glittering quartz and mica. But more remarkable than all were the
+inmates of the cavern, who were ranged round the walls,--men who, like
+their attendants, seemed to be of extra stature; who had blackened
+faces, wore red bandana handkerchiefs round their heads and their
+waists, and carried enormous knives and pistols stuck in their belts.
+On a raised platform made of a packing-box on which was rudely painted a
+skull and cross-bones, sat the chief or leader of the band covered with
+a buffalo robe; on either side of him were two small barrels marked
+"Grog" and "Gunpowder." The children stared and clung closer to Polly.
+Yet, in spite of these desperate and warlike accessories, the strangers
+bore a singular resemblance to "Christy Minstrels" in their blackened
+faces and attitudes that somehow made them seem less awful. In
+particular, Polly was impressed with the fact that even the most
+ferocious had a certain kindliness of eye, and showed their teeth almost
+idiotically.
+
+"Welcome!" said the leader,--"welcome to the Pirates' Cave! The Red
+Rover of the North Fork of the Stanislaus River salutes the Queen of the
+Pirate Isle!" He rose up and made an extraordinary bow. It was repeated
+by the others with more or less exaggeration, to the point of one
+humorist losing his balance!
+
+"Oh, thank you very much," said Polly timidly, but drawing her little
+flock closer to her with a small protecting arm; "but could you--would
+you--please--tell us--what time it is?"
+
+"We are approaching the middle of Next Week," said the leader gravely;
+"but what of that? Time is made for slaves! The Red Rover seeks it not!
+Why should the Queen?"
+
+"I think we must be going," hesitated Polly, yet by no means displeased
+with the recognition of her rank.
+
+"Not until we have paid homage to Your Majesty," returned the leader.
+"What ho! there! Let Brother Step-and-Fetch-It pass the Queen around
+that we may do her honor." Observing that Polly shrank slightly back,
+he added: "Fear nothing; the man who hurts a hair of Her Majesty's head
+dies by this hand. Ah! ha!"
+
+The others all said ha! ha! and danced alternately on one leg and then
+on the other, but always with the same dark resemblance to Christy
+Minstrels. Brother Step-and-Fetch-It, whose very long beard had a
+confusing suggestion of being a part of the leader's buffalo robe,
+lifted her gently in his arms and carried her to the Red Rovers in turn.
+Each one bestowed a kiss upon her cheek or forehead, and would have
+taken her in his arms, or on his knees, or otherwise lingered over
+his salute, but they were sternly restrained by their leader. When the
+solemn rite was concluded, Step-and-Fetch-It paid his own courtesy
+with an extra squeeze of the curly head, and deposited her again in the
+truck, a little frightened, a little astonished, but with a considerable
+accession to her dignity. Hickory and Patsey looked on with stupefied
+amazement. Wan Lee alone remained stolid and unimpressed, regarding the
+scene with calm and triangular eyes.
+
+"Will Your Majesty see the Red Rovers dance?"
+
+"No, if you please," said Polly, with gentle seriousness.
+
+"Will Your Majesty fire this barrel of gunpowder, or tap this breaker of
+grog?"
+
+"No, I thank you."
+
+"Is there no command Your Majesty would lay upon us?"
+
+"No, please," said Polly, in a failing voice.
+
+"Is there anything Your Majesty has lost? Think again! Will Your Majesty
+deign to cast your royal eyes on this?"
+
+He drew from under his buffalo robe what seemed like a long tress of
+blond hair, and held it aloft. Polly instantly recognized the missing
+scalp of her hapless doll.
+
+"If you please, sir, it's Lady Mary's. She's lost it."
+
+"And lost it--Your Majesty--only to find something more precious. Would
+Your Majesty hear the story?"
+
+A little alarmed, a little curious, a little self-anxious, and a
+little induced by the nudges and pinches of her companions, the Queen
+blushingly signified her royal assent.
+
+"Enough. Bring refreshments. Will Your Majesty prefer wintergreen,
+peppermint, rose, or acidulated drops? Red or white? Or perhaps Your
+Majesty will let me recommend these bull's-eyes," said the leader, as
+a collection of sweets in a hat were suddenly produced from the barrel
+labeled "Gunpowder" and handed to the children.
+
+"Listen," he continued, in a silence broken only by the gentle sucking
+of bull's-eyes. "Many years ago the old Red Rovers of these parts locked
+up all their treasures in a secret cavern in this mountain. They used
+spells and magic to keep it from being entered or found by anybody, for
+there was a certain mark upon it made by a peculiar rock that stuck out
+of it, which signified what there was below. Long afterwards, other Red
+Rovers who had heard of it came here and spent days and days trying to
+discover it, digging holes and blasting tunnels like this, but of no
+use! Sometimes they thought they discovered the magic marks in the
+peculiar rock that stuck out of it, but when they dug there they found
+no treasure. And why? Because there was a magic spell upon it. And what
+was that magic spell? Why, this! It could only be discovered by a person
+who could not possibly know that he or she had discovered it; who never
+could or would be able to enjoy it; who could never see it, never feel
+it, never, in fact, know anything at all about it! It wasn't a dead man,
+it wasn't an animal, it wasn't a baby!"
+
+"Why," said Polly, jumping up and clapping her hands, "it was a Dolly."
+
+"Your Majesty's head is level! Your Majesty has guessed it!" said the
+leader, gravely. "It was Your Majesty's own dolly, Lady Mary, who broke
+the spell! When Your Majesty came down the slide, the doll fell from
+your gracious hand when your foot slipped. Your Majesty recovered Lady
+Mary, but did not observe that her hair had caught in a peculiar rock,
+called the 'Outcrop,' and remained behind! When, later on, while sitting
+with your attendants at the mouth of the tunnel, Your Majesty discovered
+that Lady Mary's hair was gone, I overheard Your Majesty, and dispatched
+the trusty Step-and-Fetch-It to seek it at the mountain side. He did so,
+and found it clinging to the rock, and beneath it--the entrance to the
+Secret Cave!"
+
+Patsey and Hickory, who, failing to understand a word of this
+explanation, had given themselves up to the unconstrained enjoyment of
+the sweets, began now to apprehend that some change was impending, and
+prepared for the worst by hastily swallowing what they had in their
+mouths, thus defying enchantment, and getting ready for speech. Polly,
+who had closely followed the story, albeit with the embellishments of
+her own imagination, made her eyes rounder than ever. A bland smile
+broke on Wan Lee's face, as to the children's amazement, he quietly
+disengaged himself from the group and stepped before the leader.
+
+"Melican man plenty foolee Melican chillern. No foolee China boy!
+China boy knowee you. YOU no Led Lofer. YOU no Pilat--you allee same
+tunnel-man--you Bob Johnson! Me shabbee you! You dressee up allee same
+as Led Lofer--but you Bob Johnson--allee same. My fader washee washee
+for you. You no payee him. You owee him folty dolla! Me blingee you
+billee. You no payee billee! You say, 'Chalkee up, John.' You say,
+'Bimeby, John.' But me no catchee folty dolla!"
+
+A roar of laughter followed, in which even the leader apparently forgot
+himself enough to join. But the next moment springing to his feet
+he shouted, "Ho! ho! A traitor! Away with him to the deepest dungeon
+beneath the castle moat!"
+
+Hickory and Patsey began to whimper, but Polly, albeit with a tremulous
+lip, stepped to the side of her little Pagan friend. "Don't you dare
+touch him," she said with a shake of unexpected determination in her
+little curly head; "if you do, I'll tell my father, and he will slay
+you! All of you--there!"
+
+"Your father! Then you are NOT the Queen!"
+
+It was a sore struggle to Polly to abdicate her royal position; it was
+harder to do it with befitting dignity. To evade the direct question she
+was obliged to abandon her defiant attitude. "If you please, sir," she
+said hurriedly, with an increasing color and no stops, "we're not always
+Pirates, you know, and Wan Lee is only our boy what brushes my shoes in
+the morning, and runs of errands, and he doesn't mean anything bad, sir,
+and we'd like to take him back home with us."
+
+"Enough," said the leader, changing his entire manner with the most
+sudden and shameless inconsistency. "You shall go back together, and woe
+betide the miscreant who would prevent it! What say you, brothers?
+What shall be his fate who dares to separate our noble Queen from her
+faithful Chinese henchman?"
+
+"He shall die!" roared the others, with beaming cheerfulness.
+
+"And what say you--shall we see them home?"
+
+"We will!" roared the others.
+
+Before the children could fairly comprehend what had passed, they were
+again lifted into the truck and began to glide back into the tunnel they
+had just quitted. But not again in darkness and silence; the entire band
+of Red rovers accompanied them, illuminating the dark passage with the
+candles they had snatched from the walls. In a few moments they were at
+the entrance again. The great world lay beyond them once more with rocks
+and valleys suffused by the rosy light of the setting sun. The past
+seemed like a dream.
+
+But were they really awake now? They could not tell. They accepted
+everything with the confidence and credulity of all children who have
+no experience to compare with their first impressions and to whom the
+future contains nothing impossible. It was without surprise, therefore,
+that they felt themselves lifted on the shoulders of the men who were
+making quite a procession along the steep trail towards the settlement
+again. Polly noticed that at the mouth of the other tunnels they were
+greeted by men as if they were carrying tidings of great joy; that they
+stopped to rejoice together, and that in some mysterious manner their
+conductors had got their faces washed, and had become more like beings
+of the outer world. When they neared the settlement the excitement
+seemed to have become greater; people rushed out to shake hands with
+the men who were carrying them, and overpowered even the children with
+questions they could not understand. Only one sentence Polly could
+clearly remember as being the burden of all congratulations. "Struck the
+old lead at last!" With a faint consciousness that she knew something
+about it, she tried to assume a dignified attitude on the leader's
+shoulders, even while she was beginning to be heavy with sleep.
+
+And then she remembered a crowd near her father's house, out of which
+her father came smiling pleasantly on her, but not interfering with
+her triumphal progress until the leader finally deposited her in her
+mother's lap in their own sitting-room. And then she remembered being
+"cross," and declining to answer any questions, and shortly afterwards
+found herself comfortably in bed. Then she heard her mother say to her
+father:--
+
+"It really seems too ridiculous for anything, John; the idea of those
+grown men dressing themselves up to play with children."
+
+"Ridiculous or not," said her father, "these grown men of the Excelsior
+mine have just struck the famous old lode of Red Mountain, which is as
+good as a fortune to everybody on the Ridge, and were as wild as boys!
+And they say it never would have been found if Polly hadn't tumbled over
+the slide directly on top of the outcrop, and left the absurd wig of
+that wretched doll of hers to mark its site."
+
+"And that," murmured Polly sleepily to her doll as she drew it closer to
+her breast, "is all that they know of it."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Queen of the Pirate Isle, by Bret Harte
+
+*** 

data/train/2816.txt

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+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CITY OF THE SUN
+
+By Tommaso Campanella
+
+
+
+
+A Poetical Dialogue between a Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitallers
+and a Genoese Sea-Captain, his guest.
+
+
+G.M. Prithee, now, tell me what happened to you during that voyage?
+
+
+Capt. I have already told you how I wandered over the whole earth. In
+the course of my journeying I came to Taprobane, and was compelled to go
+ashore at a place, where through fear of the inhabitants I remained in
+a wood. When I stepped out of this I found myself on a large plain
+immediately under the equator.
+
+
+G.M. And what befell you here?
+
+
+Capt. I came upon a large crowd of men and armed women, many of whom did
+not understand our language, and they conducted me forthwith to the City
+of the Sun.
+
+
+G.M. Tell me after what plan this city is built and how it is governed.
+
+
+Capt. The greater part of the city is built upon a high hill, which
+rises from an extensive plain, but several of its circles extend for
+some distance beyond the base of the hill, which is of such a size
+that the diameter of the city is upward of two miles, so that its
+circumference becomes about seven. On account of the humped shape of the
+mountain, however, the diameter of the city is really more than if it
+were built on a plain.
+
+It is divided into seven rings or huge circles named from the seven
+planets, and the way from one to the other of these is by four streets
+and through four gates, that look toward the four points of the compass.
+Furthermore, it is so built that if the first circle were stormed, it
+would of necessity entail a double amount of energy to storm the second;
+still more to storm the third; and in each succeeding case the strength
+and energy would have to be doubled; so that he who wishes to capture
+that city must, as it were, storm it seven times. For my own part,
+however, I think that not even the first wall could be occupied, so
+thick are the earthworks and so well fortified is it with breastworks,
+towers, guns, and ditches.
+
+When I had been taken through the northern gate (which is shut with an
+iron door so wrought that it can be raised and let down, and locked in
+easily and strongly, its projections running into the grooves of
+the thick posts by a marvellous device), I saw a level space seventy
+paces (1) wide between the first and second walls. From hence can be seen
+large palaces, all joined to the wall of the second circuit in such
+a manner as to appear all one palace. Arches run on a level with the
+middle height of the palaces, and are continued round the whole ring.
+There are galleries for promenading upon these arches, which are
+supported from beneath by thick and well-shaped columns, enclosing
+arcades like peristyles, or cloisters of an abbey.
+
+But the palaces have no entrances from below, except on the inner or
+concave partition, from which one enters directly to the lower parts
+of the building. The higher parts, however, are reached by flights of
+marble steps, which lead to galleries for promenading on the inside
+similar to those on the outside. From these one enters the higher rooms,
+which are very beautiful, and have windows on the concave and convex
+partitions. These rooms are divided from one another by richly decorated
+walls. The convex or outer wall of the ring is about eight spans thick;
+the concave, three; the intermediate walls are one, or perhaps one and a
+half. Leaving this circle one gets to the second plain, which is nearly
+three paces narrower than the first. Then the first wall of the second
+ring is seen adorned above and below with similar galleries for walking,
+and there is on the inside of it another interior wall enclosing
+palaces. It has also similar peristyles supported by columns in the
+lower part, but above are excellent pictures, round the ways into the
+upper houses. And so on afterward through similar spaces and double
+walls, enclosing palaces, and adorned with galleries for walking,
+extending along their outer side, and supported by columns, till the
+last circuit is reached, the way being still over a level plain.
+
+But when the two gates, that is to say, those of the outmost and the
+inmost walls, have been passed, one mounts by means of steps so formed
+that an ascent is scarcely discernible, since it proceeds in a slanting
+direction, and the steps succeed one another at almost imperceptible
+heights. On the top of the hill is a rather spacious plain, and in the
+midst of this there rises a temple built with wondrous art.
+
+
+G.M. Tell on, I pray you! Tell on! I am dying to hear more.
+
+
+Capt. The temple is built in the form of a circle; it is not girt with
+walls, but stands upon thick columns, beautifully grouped. A very large
+dome, built with great care in the centre or pole, contains another
+small vault as it were rising out of it, and in this is a spiracle,
+which is right over the altar. There is but one altar in the middle of
+the temple, and this is hedged round by columns. The temple itself is on
+a space of more than 350 paces. Without it, arches measuring about eight
+paces extend from the heads of the columns outward, whence other columns
+rise about three paces from the thick, strong, and erect wall. Between
+these and the former columns there are galleries for walking, with
+beautiful pavements, and in the recess of the wall, which is adorned
+with numerous large doors, there are immovable seats, placed as it were
+between the inside columns, supporting the temple. Portable chairs are
+not wanting, many and well adorned. Nothing is seen over the altar but
+a large globe, upon which the heavenly bodies are painted, and another
+globe upon which there is a representation of the earth. Furthermore, in
+the vault of the dome there can be discerned representations of all the
+stars of heaven from the first to the sixth magnitude, with their proper
+names and power to influence terrestrial things marked in three little
+verses for each. There are the poles and greater and lesser circles
+according to the right latitude of the place, but these are not perfect
+because there is no wall below. They seem, too, to be made in their
+relation to the globes on the altar. The pavement of the temple is
+bright with precious stones. Its seven golden lamps hang always burning,
+and these bear the names of the seven planets.
+
+At the top of the building several small and beautiful cells surround
+the small dome, and behind the level space above the bands or arches of
+the exterior and interior columns there are many cells, both small and
+large, where the priests and religious officers dwell to the number of
+forty-nine.
+
+A revolving flag projects from the smaller dome, and this shows in what
+quarter the wind is. The flag is marked with figures up to thirty-six,
+and the priests know what sort of year the different kinds of winds
+bring and what will be the changes of weather on land and sea.
+Furthermore, under the flag a book is always kept written with letters
+of gold.
+
+
+G.M. I pray you, worthy hero, explain to me their whole system of
+government; for I am anxious to hear it.
+
+
+Capt. The great ruler among them is a priest whom they call by the
+name Hoh, though we should call him Metaphysic. He is head over all,
+in temporal and spiritual matters, and all business and lawsuits
+are settled by him, as the supreme authority. Three princes of equal
+power--viz., Pon, Sin, and Mor--assist him, and these in our tongue we
+should call Power, Wisdom, and Love. To Power belongs the care of all
+matters relating to war and peace. He attends to the military arts, and,
+next to Hoh, he is ruler in every affair of a warlike nature. He governs
+the military magistrates and the soldiers, and has the management of the
+munitions, the fortifications, the storming of places, the implements of
+war, the armories, the smiths and workmen connected with matters of this
+sort.
+
+But Wisdom is the ruler of the liberal arts, of mechanics, of all
+sciences with their magistrates and doctors, and of the discipline of
+the schools. As many doctors as there are, are under his control. There
+is one doctor who is called Astrologus; a second, Cosmographus; a third,
+Arithmeticus; a fourth, Geometra; a fifth, Historiographus; a sixth,
+Poeta; a seventh, Logicus; an eighth, Rhetor; a ninth, Grammaticus;
+a tenth, Medicus; an eleventh, Physiologus; a twelfth, Politicus; a
+thirteenth, Moralis. They have but one book, which they call Wisdom,
+and in it all the sciences are written with conciseness and marvellous
+fluency of expression. This they read to the people after the custom of
+the Pythagoreans. It is Wisdom who causes the exterior and interior,
+the higher and lower walls of the city to be adorned with the finest
+pictures, and to have all the sciences painted upon them in an admirable
+manner. On the walls of the temple and on the dome, which is let down
+when the priest gives an address, lest the sounds of his voice, being
+scattered, should fly away from his audience, there are pictures of
+stars in their different magnitudes, with the powers and motions of
+each, expressed separately in three little verses.
+
+On the interior wall of the first circuit all the mathematical figures
+are conspicuously painted--figures more in number than Archimedes or
+Euclid discovered, marked symmetrically, and with the explanation of
+them neatly written and contained each in a little verse. There are
+definitions and propositions, etc. On the exterior convex wall is first
+an immense drawing of the whole earth, given at one view. Following upon
+this, there are tablets setting forth for every separate country the
+customs both public and private, the laws, the origins and the power of
+the inhabitants; and the alphabets the different people use can be seen
+above that of the City of the Sun.
+
+On the inside of the second circuit, that is to say of the second ring
+of buildings, paintings of all kinds of precious and common stones, of
+minerals and metals, are seen; and a little piece of the metal itself
+is also there with an apposite explanation in two small verses for each
+metal or stone. On the outside are marked all the seas, rivers, lakes,
+and streams which are on the face of the earth; as are also the wines
+and the oils and the different liquids, with the sources from which the
+last are extracted, their qualities and strength. There are also vessels
+built into the wall above the arches, and these are full of liquids from
+one to 300 years old, which cure all diseases. Hail and snow, storms and
+thunder, and whatever else takes place in the air, are represented with
+suitable figures and little verses. The inhabitants even have the art
+of representing in stone all the phenomena of the air, such as the wind,
+rain, thunder, the rainbow, etc.
+
+On the interior of the third circuit all the different families of trees
+and herbs are depicted, and there is a live specimen of each plant in
+earthenware vessels placed upon the outer partition of the arches. With
+the specimens there are explanations as to where they were first found,
+what are their powers and natures, and resemblances to celestial things
+and to metals, to parts of the human body and to things in the sea, and
+also as to their uses in medicine, etc. On the exterior wall are all
+the races of fish found in rivers, lakes, and seas, and their habits
+and values, and ways of breeding, training, and living, the purposes
+for which they exist in the world, and their uses to man. Further,
+their resemblances to celestial and terrestrial things, produced both
+by nature and art, are so given that I was astonished when I saw a fish
+which was like a bishop, one like a chain, another like a garment, a
+fourth like a nail, a fifth like a star, and others like images of those
+things existing among us, the relation in each case being completely
+manifest. There are sea-urchins to be seen, and the purple shell-fish
+and mussels; and whatever the watery world possesses worthy of being
+known is there fully shown in marvellous characters of painting and
+drawing.
+
+On the fourth interior wall all the different kinds of birds are
+painted, with their natures, sizes, customs, colors, manner of living,
+etc.; and the only real phoenix is possessed by the inhabitants of
+this city. On the exterior are shown all the races of creeping animals,
+serpents, dragons, and worms; the insects, the flies, gnats, beetles,
+etc., in their different states, strength, venoms, and uses, and a great
+deal more than you or I can think of.
+
+On the fifth interior they have all the larger animals of the earth, as
+many in number as would astonish you. We indeed know not the thousandth
+part of them, for on the exterior wall also a great many of immense size
+are also portrayed. To be sure, of horses alone, how great a number
+of breeds there is and how beautiful are the forms there cleverly
+displayed!
+
+On the sixth interior are painted all the mechanical arts, with the
+several instruments for each and their manner of use among different
+nations. Alongside, the dignity of such is placed, and their several
+inventors are named. But on the exterior all the inventors in science,
+in warfare, and in law are represented. There I saw Moses, Osiris,
+Jupiter, Mercury, Lycurgus, Pompilius, Pythagoras, Zamolxis, Solon,
+Charondas, Phoroneus, with very many others. They even have Mahomet,
+whom nevertheless they hate as a false and sordid legislator. In the
+most dignified position I saw a representation of Jesus Christ and
+of the twelve Apostles, whom they consider very worthy and hold to be
+great. Of the representations of men, I perceived Caesar, Alexander,
+Pyrrhus, and Hannibal in the highest place; and other very renowned
+heroes in peace and war, especially Roman heroes, were painted in lower
+positions, under the galleries. And when I asked with astonishment
+whence they had obtained our history, they told me that among them
+there was a knowledge of all languages, and that by perseverance they
+continually send explorers and ambassadors over the whole earth, who
+learn thoroughly the customs, forces, rule and histories of the nations,
+bad and good alike. These they apply all to their own republic, and with
+this they are well pleased. I learned that cannon and typography were
+invented by the Chinese before we knew of them. There are magistrates
+who announce the meaning of the pictures, and boys are accustomed to
+learn all the sciences, without toil and as if for pleasure; but in the
+way of history only until they are ten years old.
+
+Love is foremost in attending to the charge of the race. He sees that
+men and women are so joined together, that they bring forth the best
+offspring. Indeed, they laugh at us who exhibit a studious care for our
+breed of horses and dogs, but neglect the breeding of human beings. Thus
+the education of the children is under his rule. So also is the medicine
+that is sold, the sowing and collecting of fruits of the earth and of
+trees, agriculture, pasturage, the preparations for the months, the
+cooking arrangements, and whatever has any reference to food, clothing,
+and the intercourse of the sexes. Love himself is ruler, but there are
+many male and female magistrates dedicated to these arts.
+
+Metaphysic, then, with these three rulers, manages all the above-named
+matters, and even by himself alone nothing is done; all business is
+discharged by the four together, but in whatever Metaphysic inclines to
+the rest are sure to agree.
+
+
+G.M. Tell me, please, of the magistrates, their services and duties, of
+the education and mode of living, whether the government is a monarchy,
+a republic, or an aristocracy.
+
+
+Capt. This race of men came there from India, flying from the sword of
+the Magi, a race of plunderers and tyrants who laid waste their country,
+and they determined to lead a philosophic life in fellowship with one
+another. Although the community of wives is not instituted among the
+other inhabitants of their province, among them it is in use after this
+manner: All things are common with them, and their dispensation is by
+the authority of the magistrates. Arts and honors and pleasures are
+common, and are held in such a manner that no one can appropriate
+anything to himself.
+
+They say that all private property is acquired and improved for the
+reason that each one of us by himself has his own home and wife and
+children. From this, self-love springs. For when we raise a son to
+riches and dignities, and leave an heir to much wealth, we become either
+ready to grasp at the property of the State, if in any case fear
+should be removed from the power which belongs to riches and rank; or
+avaricious, crafty, and hypocritical, if anyone is of slender purse,
+little strength, and mean ancestry. But when we have taken away
+self-love, there remains only love for the State.
+
+
+G.M. Under such circumstances no one will be willing to labor, while
+he expects others to work, on the fruit of whose labors he can live, as
+Aristotle argues against Plato.
+
+
+Capt. I do not know how to deal with that argument, but I declare to
+you that they burn with so great a love for their fatherland, as I could
+scarcely have believed possible; and indeed with much more than the
+histories tell us belonged to the Romans, who fell willingly for their
+country, inasmuch as they have to a greater extent surrendered their
+private property. I think truly that the friars and monks and clergy
+of our country, if they were not weakened by love for their kindred and
+friends or by the ambition to rise to higher dignities, would be less
+fond of property, and more imbued with a spirit of charity toward all,
+as it was in the time of the apostles, and is now in a great many cases.
+
+
+G.M. St. Augustine may say that, but I say that among this race of
+men, friendship is worth nothing, since they have not the chance of
+conferring mutual benefits on one another.
+
+
+Capt. Nay, indeed. For it is worth the trouble to see that no one
+can receive gifts from another. Whatever is necessary they have, they
+receive it from the community, and the magistrate takes care that no
+one receives more than he deserves. Yet nothing necessary is denied to
+anyone. Friendship is recognized among them in war, in infirmity, in the
+art contests, by which means they aid one another mutually by
+teaching. Sometimes they improve themselves mutually with praises, with
+conversation, with actions, and out of the things they need. All those
+of the same age call one another brothers. They call all over twenty-two
+years of age, fathers; those that are less than twenty-two are named
+sons. Moreover, the magistrates govern well, so that no one in the
+fraternity can do injury to another.
+
+
+G.M. And how?
+
+
+Capt. As many names of virtues as there are among us, so many
+magistrates there are among them. There is a magistrate who is named
+Magnanimity, another Fortitude, a third Chastity, a fourth Liberality,
+a fifth Criminal and Civil Justice, a sixth Comfort, a seventh Truth, an
+eighth Kindness, a tenth Gratitude, an eleventh Cheerfulness, a twelfth
+Exercise, a thirteenth Sobriety, etc. They are elected to duties of that
+kind, each one to that duty for excellence in which he is known from
+boyhood to be most suitable. Wherefore among them neither robbery nor
+clever murders, nor lewdness, incest, adultery, or other crimes of
+which we accuse one another, can be found. They accuse themselves of
+ingratitude and malignity when anyone denies a lawful satisfaction to
+another of indolence, of sadness, of anger, of scurrility, of slander,
+and of lying, which curseful thing they thoroughly hate. Accused persons
+undergoing punishment are deprived of the common table, and other
+honors, until the judge thinks that they agree with their correction.
+
+
+G.M. Tell me the manner in which the magistrates are chosen.
+
+
+Capt. You would not rightly understand this, unless you first learned
+their manner of living. That you may know, then, men and women wear the
+same kind of garment, suited for war. The women wear the toga below the
+knee, but the men above; and both sexes are instructed in all the arts
+together. When this has been done as a start, and before their third
+year, the boys learn the language and the alphabet on the walls by
+walking round them. They have four leaders, and four elders, the first
+to direct them, the second to teach them, and these are men approved
+beyond all others. After some time they exercise themselves with
+gymnastics, running, quoits, and other games, by means of which all
+their muscles are strengthened alike. Their feet are always bare, and so
+are their heads as far as the seventh ring. Afterward they lead them to
+the offices of the trades, such as shoemaking, cooking, metal-working,
+carpentry, painting, etc. In order to find out the bent of the genius of
+each one, after their seventh year, when they have already gone through
+the mathematics on the walls, they take them to the readings of all the
+sciences; there are four lectures at each reading, and in the course of
+four hours the four in their order explain everything.
+
+For some take physical exercise or busy themselves with public services
+or functions, others apply themselves to reading. Leaving these studies
+all are devoted to the more abstruse subjects, to mathematics, to
+medicine, and to other sciences. There are continual debate and studied
+argument among them, and after a time they become magistrates of those
+sciences or mechanical arts in which they are the most proficient; for
+everyone follows the opinion of his leader and judge, and goes out to
+the plains to the works of the field, and for the purpose of becoming
+acquainted with the pasturage of the dumb animals. And they consider him
+the more noble and renowned who has dedicated himself to the study of
+the most arts and knows how to practise them wisely. Wherefore they
+laugh at us in that we consider our workmen ignoble, and hold those to
+be noble who have mastered no pursuit, but live in ease and are so many
+slaves given over to their own pleasure and lasciviousness; and thus, as
+it were, from a school of vices so many idle and wicked fellows go forth
+for the ruin of the State.
+
+The rest of the officials, however, are chosen by the four chiefs, Hoh,
+Pon, Sin and Mor, and by the teachers of that art over which they are
+fit to preside. And these teachers know well who is most suited for
+rule. Certain men are proposed by the magistrates in council, they
+themselves not seeking to become candidates, and he opposes who knows
+anything against those brought forward for election, or, if not, speaks
+in favor of them. But no one attains to the dignity of Hoh except him
+who knows the histories of the nations, and their customs and sacrifices
+and laws, and their form of government, whether a republic or a
+monarchy. He must also know the names of the lawgivers and the inventors
+in science, and the laws and the history of the earth and the heavenly
+bodies. They think it also necessary that he should understand all
+the mechanical arts, the physical sciences, astrology and mathematics.
+Nearly every two days they teach our mechanical art. They are not
+allowed to overwork themselves, but frequent practice and the paintings
+render learning easy to them. Not too much care is given to the
+cultivation of languages, as they have a goodly number of interpreters
+who are grammarians in the State. But beyond everything else it is
+necessary that Hoh should understand metaphysics and theology; that he
+should know thoroughly the derivations, foundations, and demonstrations
+of all the arts and sciences; the likeness and difference of things;
+necessity, fate, and the harmonies of the universe; power, wisdom,
+and the love of things and of God; the stages of life and its symbols;
+everything relating to the heavens, the earth, and the sea; and the
+ideas of God, as much as mortal man can know of him. He must also be
+well read in the prophets and in astrology. And thus they know long
+beforehand who will be Hoh. He is not chosen to so great a dignity
+unless he has attained his thirty-fifth year. And this office is
+perpetual, because it is not known who may be too wise for it or who too
+skilled in ruling.
+
+
+G.M. Who indeed can be so wise? If even anyone has a knowledge of the
+sciences it seems that he must be unskilled in ruling.
+
+
+Capt. This very question I asked them and they replied thus: "We,
+indeed, are more certain that such a very learned man has the knowledge
+of governing, than you who place ignorant persons in authority, and
+consider them suitable merely because they have sprung from rulers or
+have been chosen by a powerful faction. But our Hoh, a man really the
+most capable to rule, is for all that never cruel nor wicked, nor a
+tyrant, inasmuch as he possesses so much wisdom. This, moreover, is not
+unknown to you, that the same argument cannot apply among you, when you
+consider that man the most learned who knows most of grammar, or logic,
+or of Aristotle or any other author. For such knowledge as this of
+yours much servile labor and memory work are required, so that a man is
+rendered unskilful, since he has contemplated nothing but the words of
+books and has given his mind with useless result to the consideration of
+the dead signs of things. Hence he knows not in what way God rules the
+universe, nor the ways and customs of nature and the nations. Wherefore
+he is not equal to our Hoh. For that one cannot know so many arts and
+sciences thoroughly, who is not esteemed for skilled ingenuity, very apt
+at all things, and therefore at ruling especially. This also is plain to
+us that he who knows only one science, does not really know either
+that or the others, and he who is suited for only one science and has
+gathered his knowledge from books, is unlearned and unskilled. But this
+is not the case with intellects prompt and expert in every branch of
+knowledge and suitable for the consideration of natural objects, as it
+is necessary that our Hoh should be. Besides in our State the sciences
+are taught with a facility (as you have seen) by which more scholars are
+turned out by us in one year than by you in ten, or even fifteen. Make
+trial, I pray you, of these boys."
+
+In this matter I was struck with astonishment at their truthful
+discourse and at the trial of their boys, who did not understand my
+language well. Indeed it is necessary that three of them should be
+skilled in our tongue, three in Arabic, three in Polish, and three in
+each of the other languages, and no recreation is allowed them unless
+they become more learned. For that they go out to the plain for the
+sake of running about and hurling arrows and lances, and of firing
+harquebuses, and for the sake of hunting the wild animals and getting a
+knowledge of plants and stones, and agriculture and pasturage; sometimes
+the band of boys does one thing, sometimes another.
+
+They do not consider it necessary that the three rulers assisting Hoh
+should know other than the arts having reference to their rule, and so
+they have only a historical knowledge of the arts which are common to
+all. But their own they know well, to which certainly one is dedicated
+more than another. Thus Power is the most learned in the equestrian art,
+in marshalling the army, in the marking out of camps, in the manufacture
+of every kind of weapon and of warlike machines, in planning stratagems,
+and in every affair of a military nature. And for these reasons, they
+consider it necessary that these chiefs should have been philosophers,
+historians, politicians, and physicists. Concerning the other two
+triumvirs, understand remarks similar to those I have made about Power.
+
+
+G.M. I really wish that you would recount all their public duties, and
+would distinguish between them, and also that you would tell clearly how
+they are all taught in common.
+
+
+Capt. They have dwellings in common and dormitories, and couches and
+other necessaries. But at the end of every six months they are separated
+by the masters. Some shall sleep in this ring, some in another; some in
+the first apartment, and some in the second; and these apartments are
+marked by means of the alphabet on the lintel. There are occupations,
+mechanical and theoretical, common to both men and women, with this
+difference, that the occupations which require more hard work, and
+walking a long distance, are practised by men, such as ploughing,
+sowing, gathering the fruits, working at the threshing-floor, and
+perchance at the vintage. But it is customary to choose women for
+milking the cows and for making cheese. In like manner, they go to the
+gardens near to the outskirts of the city both for collecting the plants
+and for cultivating them. In fact, all sedentary and stationary pursuits
+are practised by the women, such as weaving, spinning, sewing, cutting
+the hair, shaving, dispensing medicines, and making all kinds of
+garments. They are, however, excluded from working in wood and the
+manufacture of arms. If a woman is fit to paint, she is not prevented
+from doing so; nevertheless, music is given over to the women alone,
+because they please the more, and of a truth to boys also. But the women
+have not the practise of the drum and the horn.
+
+And they prepare their feasts and arrange the tables in the following
+manner. It is the peculiar work of the boys and girls under twenty to
+wait at the tables. In every ring there are suitable kitchens,
+barns, and stores of utensils for eating and drinking, and over every
+department an old man and an old woman preside. These two have at once
+the command of those who serve, and the power of chastising, or causing
+to be chastised, those who are negligent or disobedient; and they also
+examine and mark each one, both male and female, who excels in his or
+her duties.
+
+All the young people wait upon the older ones who have passed the age of
+forty, and in the evening when they go to sleep the master and mistress
+command that those should be sent to work in the morning, upon whom in
+succession the duty falls, one or two to separate apartments. The
+young people, however, wait upon one another, and that alas! with some
+unwillingness. They have first and second tables, and on both sides
+there are seats. On one side sit the women, on the other the men; and
+as in the refectories of the monks, there is no noise. While they are
+eating a young man reads a book from a platform, intoning distinctly
+and sonorously, and often the magistrates question them upon the more
+important parts of the reading. And truly it is pleasant to observe in
+what manner these young people, so beautiful and clothed in garments so
+suitable, attend to them, and to see at the same time so many friends,
+brothers, sons, fathers, and mothers all in their turn living together
+with so much honesty, propriety, and love. So each one is given a
+napkin, a plate, fish, and a dish of food. It is the duty of the medical
+officers to tell the cooks what repasts shall be prepared on each day,
+and what food for the old, what for the young, and what for the sick.
+The magistrates receive the full-grown and fatter portion, and they from
+their share always distribute something to the boys at the table who
+have shown themselves more studious in the morning at the lectures and
+debates concerning wisdom and arms. And this is held to be one of the
+most distinguished honors. For six days they ordain to sing with music
+at table. Only a few, however, sing; or there is one voice accompanying
+the lute and one for each other instrument. And when all alike in
+service join their hands, nothing is found to be wanting. The old men
+placed at the head of the cooking business and of the refectories of the
+servants praise the cleanliness of the streets, the houses, the vessels,
+the garments, the workshops, and the warehouses.
+
+They wear white under-garments to which adheres a covering, which is at
+once coat and legging, without wrinkles. The borders of the fastenings
+are furnished with globular buttons, extended round and caught up here
+and there by chains. The coverings of the legs descend to the shoes and
+are continued even to the heels. Then they cover the feet with large
+socks, or, as it were, half-buskins fastened by buckles, over which they
+wear a half-boot, and besides, as I have already said, they are clothed
+with a toga. And so aptly fitting are the garments, that when the toga
+is destroyed, the different parts of the whole body are straightway
+discerned, no part being concealed. They change their clothes for
+different ones four times in the year, that is when the sun enters
+respectively the constellations Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn, and
+according to the circumstances and necessity as decided by the officer
+of health. The keepers of clothes for the different rings are wont to
+distribute them, and it is marvellous that they have at the same time
+as many garments as there is need for, some heavy and some slight,
+according to the weather. They all use white clothing, and this is
+washed in each month with lye or soap, as are also the workshops of the
+lower trades, the kitchens, the pantries the barns, the store-houses,
+the armories, the refectories, and the baths.
+
+Moreover, the clothes are washed at the pillars of the peristyles, and
+the water is brought down by means of canals which are continued as
+sewers. In every street of the different rings there are suitable
+fountains, which send forth their water by means of canals, the water
+being drawn up from nearly the bottom of the mountain by the sole
+movement of a cleverly contrived handle. There is water in fountains
+and in cisterns, whither the rain-water collected from the roofs of the
+houses is brought through pipes full of sand. They wash their bodies
+often, according as the doctor and master command. All the mechanical
+arts are practised under the peristyles, but the speculative are carried
+on above in the walking galleries and ramparts where are the more
+splendid paintings, but the more sacred ones are taught in the temple.
+In the halls and wings of the rings there are solar time-pieces and
+bells, and hands by which the hours and seasons are marked off.
+
+
+G.M. Tell me about their children.
+
+
+Capt. When their women have brought forth children, they suckle and rear
+them in temples set apart for all. They give milk for two years or more
+as the physician orders. After that time the weaned child is given into
+the charge of the mistresses, if it is a female, and to the masters,
+if it is a male. And then with other young children they are pleasantly
+instructed in the alphabet, and in the knowledge of the pictures, and in
+running, walking, and wrestling; also in the historical drawings, and
+in languages; and they are adorned with a suitable garment of different
+colors. After their sixth year they are taught natural science, and then
+the mechanical sciences. The men who are weak in intellect are sent
+to farms, and when they have become more proficient some of them are
+received into the State. And those of the same age and born under the
+same constellation are especially like one another in strength and in
+appearance, and hence arises much lasting concord in the State, these
+men honoring one another with mutual love and help. Names are given
+to them by Metaphysicus, and that not by chance, but designedly, and
+according to each one's peculiarity, as was the custom among the
+ancient Romans. Wherefore one is called Beautiful (Pulcher), another
+the Big-nosed (Naso), another the Fat-legged (Cranipes), another Crooked
+(Torvus), another Lean (Macer), and so on. But when they have become
+very skilled in their professions and done any great deed in war or in
+time of peace, a cognomen from art is given to them, such as Beautiful
+the Great Painter (Pulcher, Pictor Magnus), the Golden One (Aureus),
+the Excellent One (Excellens), or the Strong (Strenuus); or from their
+deeds, such as Naso the Brave (Nason Fortis), or the Cunning, or the
+Great, or Very Great Conqueror; or from the enemy anyone has overcome,
+Africanus, Asiaticus, Etruscus; or if anyone has overcome Manfred or
+Tortelius, he is called Macer Manfred or Tortelius, and so on. All these
+cognomens are added by the higher magistrates, and very often with a
+crown suitable to the deed or art, and with the flourish of music.
+For gold and silver are reckoned of little value among them except as
+material for their vessels and ornaments, which are common to all.
+
+
+G.M. Tell me, I pray you, is there no jealousy among them or
+disappointment to that one who has not been elected to a magistracy, or
+to any other dignity to which he aspires?
+
+
+Capt. Certainly not. For no one wants either necessaries or luxuries.
+Moreover, the race is managed for the good of the commonwealth, and not
+of private individuals, and the magistrates must be obeyed. They deny
+what we hold--viz., that it is natural to man to recognize his offspring
+and to educate them, and to use his wife and house and children as his
+own. For they say that children are bred for the preservation of the
+species and not for individual pleasure, as St. Thomas also asserts.
+Therefore the breeding of children has reference to the commonwealth,
+and not to individuals, except in so far as they are constituents of
+the commonwealth. And since individuals for the most part bring forth
+children wrongly and educate them wrongly, they consider that they
+remove destruction from the State, and therefore for this reason, with
+most sacred fear, they commit the education of the children, who, as it
+were, are the element of the republic, to the care of magistrates;
+for the safety of the community is not that of a few. And thus they
+distribute male and female breeders of the best natures according to
+philosophical rules. Plato thinks that this distribution ought to be
+made by lot, lest some men seeing that they are kept away from the
+beautiful women, should rise up with anger and hatred against the
+magistrates; and he thinks further that those who do not deserve
+cohabitation with the more beautiful women, should be deceived while the
+lots are being led out of the city by the magistrates, so that at all
+times the women who are suitable should fall to their lot, not those
+whom they desire. This shrewdness, however, is not necessary among the
+inhabitants of the City of the Sun. For with them deformity is unknown.
+When the women are exercised they get a clear complexion, and become
+strong of limb, tall and agile, and with them beauty consists in
+tallness and strength. Therefore, if any woman dyes her face, so that it
+may become beautiful, or uses high-heeled boots so that she may
+appear tall, or garments with trains to cover her wooden shoes, she is
+condemned to capital punishment. But if the women should even desire
+them they have no facility for doing these things. For who indeed would
+give them this facility? Further, they assert that among us abuses of
+this kind arise from the leisure and sloth of women. By these means they
+lose their color and have pale complexions, and become feeble and small.
+For this reason they are without proper complexions, use high sandals,
+and become beautiful not from strength, but from slothful tenderness.
+And thus they ruin their own tempers and natures, and consequently those
+of their offspring. Furthermore, if at any time a man is taken captive
+with ardent love for a certain woman, the two are allowed to converse
+and joke together and to give one another garlands of flowers or leaves,
+and to make verses. But if the race is endangered, by no means is
+further union between them permitted. Moreover, the love born of eager
+desire is not known among them; only that born of friendship.
+
+Domestic affairs and partnerships are of little account, because,
+excepting the sign of honor, each one receives what he is in need of.
+To the heroes and heroines of the republic, it is customary to give
+the pleasing gifts of honor, beautiful wreaths, sweet food, or splendid
+clothes, while they are feasting. In the daytime all use white garments
+within the city, but at night or outside the city they use red garments
+either of wool or silk. They hate black as they do dung, and therefore
+they dislike the Japanese, who are fond of black. Pride they consider
+the most execrable vice, and one who acts proudly is chastised with the
+most ruthless correction. Wherefore no one thinks it lowering to wait
+at table or to work in the kitchen or fields. All work they call
+discipline, and thus they say that it is honorable to go on foot, to do
+any act of nature, to see with the eye, and to speak with the tongue;
+and when there is need, they distinguish philosophically between tears
+and spittle.
+
+Every man who, when he is told off to work, does his duty, is considered
+very honorable. It is not the custom to keep slaves. For they are
+enough, and more than enough, for themselves. But with us, alas! it is
+not so. In Naples there exist 70,000 souls, and out of these scarcely
+10,000 or 15,000 do any work, and they are always lean from overwork
+and are getting weaker every day. The rest become a prey to idleness,
+avarice, ill-health, lasciviousness, usury, and other vices, and
+contaminate and corrupt very many families by holding them in servitude
+for their own use, by keeping them in poverty and slavishness, and by
+imparting to them their own vices. Therefore public slavery ruins them;
+useful works, in the field, in military service, and in arts, except
+those which are debasing, are not cultivated, the few who do practise
+them doing so with much aversion.
+
+But in the City of the Sun, while duty and work are distributed among
+all, it only falls to each one to work for about four hours every day.
+The remaining hours are spent in learning joyously, in debating, in
+reading, in reciting, in writing, in walking, in exercising the mind and
+body, and with play. They allow no game which is played while sitting,
+neither the single die nor dice, nor chess, nor others like these. But
+they play with the ball, with the sack, with the hoop, with wrestling,
+with hurling at the stake. They say, moreover, that grinding poverty
+renders men worthless, cunning, sulky, thievish, insidious, vagabonds,
+liars, false witnesses, etc.; and that wealth makes them insolent,
+proud, ignorant, traitors, assumers of what they know not, deceivers,
+boasters, wanting in affection, slanderers, etc. But with them all the
+rich and poor together make up the community. They are rich because they
+want nothing, poor because they possess nothing; and consequently they
+are not slaves to circumstances, but circumstances serve them. And on
+this point they strongly recommend the religion of the Christians, and
+especially the life of the apostles.
+
+
+G.M. This seems excellent and sacred, but the community of women is a
+thing too difficult to attain. The holy Roman Clement says that wives
+ought to be common in accordance with the apostolic institution, and
+praises Plato and Socrates, who thus teach, but the Glossary interprets
+this community with regard to obedience. And Tertullian agrees with
+the Glossary, that the first Christians had everything in common except
+wives.
+
+
+Capt. These things I know little of. But this I saw among the
+inhabitants of the City of the Sun, that they did not make this
+exception. And they defend themselves by the opinion of Socrates, of
+Cato, of Plato, and of St. Clement; but, as you say, they misunderstand
+the opinions of these thinkers. And the inhabitants of the solar city
+ascribe this to their want of education, since they are by no means
+learned in philosophy. Nevertheless, they send abroad to discover the
+customs of nations, and the best of these they always adopt. Practice
+makes the women suitable for war and other duties. Thus they agree
+with Plato, in whom I have read these same things. The reasoning of our
+Cajetan does not convince me, and least of all that of Aristotle.
+This thing, however, existing among them is excellent and worthy of
+imitation--viz., that no physical defect renders a man incapable of
+being serviceable except the decrepitude of old age, since even the
+deformed are useful for consultation. The lame serve as guards, watching
+with the eyes which they possess. The blind card wool with their hands,
+separating the down from the hairs, with which latter they stuff the
+couches and sofas; those who are without the use of eyes and hands give
+the use of their ears or their voice for the convenience of the State,
+and if one has only one sense he uses it in the farms. And these
+<DW36>s are well treated, and some become spies, telling the officers
+of the State what they have heard.
+
+
+G.M. Tell me now, I pray you, of their military affairs. Then you
+may explain their arts, ways of life and sciences, and lastly their
+religion.
+
+
+Capt. The triumvir, Power, has under him all the magistrates of arms,
+of artillery, of cavalry, of foot-soldiers, of architects, and of
+strategists; and the masters and many of the most excellent workmen
+obey the magistrates, the men of each art paying allegiance to their
+respective chiefs. Moreover, Power is at the head of all the professors
+of gymnastics, who teach military exercise, and who are prudent
+generals, advanced in age. By these the boys are trained after their
+twelfth year. Before this age, however, they have been accustomed to
+wrestling, running, throwing the weight, and other minor exercises,
+under inferior masters. But at twelve they are taught how to strike at
+the enemy, at horses and elephants, to handle the spear, the sword, the
+arrow, and the sling; to manage the horse, to advance and to retreat, to
+remain in order of battle, to help a comrade in arms, to anticipate the
+enemy by cunning, and to conquer.
+
+The women also are taught these arts under their own magistrates and
+mistresses, so that they may be able if need be to render assistance
+to the males in battles near the city. They are taught to watch the
+fortifications lest at some time a hasty attack should suddenly be made.
+In this respect they praise the Spartans and Amazons. The women know
+well also how to let fly fiery balls, and how to make them from lead;
+how to throw stones from pinnacles and to go in the way of an attack.
+They are accustomed also to give up wine unmixed altogether, and that
+one is punished most severely who shows any fear.
+
+The inhabitants of the City of the Sun do not fear death, because they
+all believe that the soul is immortal, and that when it has left the
+body it is associated with other spirits, wicked or good, according to
+the merits of this present life. Although they are partly followers
+of Brahma and Pythagoras, they do not believe in the transmigration of
+souls, except in some cases by a distinct decree of God. They do not
+abstain from injuring an enemy of the republic and of religion, who
+is unworthy of pity. During the second month the army is reviewed, and
+every day there is practice of arms, either in the cavalry plain or
+within the walls. Nor are they ever without lectures on the science of
+war. They take care that the accounts of Moses, of Joshua, of David, of
+Judas Maccabaeus, of Caesar, of Alexander, of Scipio, of Hannibal, and
+other great soldiers should be read. And then each one gives his own
+opinion as to whether these generals acted well or ill, usefully or
+honorably, and then the teacher answers and says who are right.
+
+
+G.M. With whom do they wage war, and for what reasons, since they are so
+prosperous?
+
+
+Capt. Wars might never occur, nevertheless they are exercised in
+military tactics and in hunting, lest perchance they should become
+effeminate and unprepared for any emergency. Besides, there are four
+kingdoms in the island, which are very envious of their prosperity,
+for this reason that the people desire to live after the manner of the
+inhabitants of the City of the Sun, and to be under their rule rather
+than that of their own kings. Wherefore the State often makes war upon
+these because, being neighbors, they are usurpers and live impiously,
+since they have not an object of worship and do not observe the religion
+of other nations or of the Brahmins. And other nations of India, to
+which formerly they were subject, rise up as it were in rebellion, as
+also do the Taprobanese, whom they wanted to join them at first. The
+warriors of the City of the Sun, however, are always the victors. As
+soon as they suffered from insult or disgrace or plunder, or when their
+allies have been harassed, or a people have been oppressed by a tyrant
+of the State (for they are always the advocates of liberty), they go
+immediately to the Council for deliberation. After they have knelt in
+the presence of God, that he might inspire their consultation, they
+proceed to examine the merits of the business, and thus war is decided
+on. Immediately after, a priest, whom they call Forensic, is sent away.
+He demands from the enemy the restitution of the plunder, asks that the
+allies should be freed from oppression, or that the tyrant should be
+deposed. If they deny these things war is declared by invoking the
+vengeance of God--the God of Sabaoth--for destruction of those who
+maintain an unjust cause. But if the enemy refuse to reply, the priest
+gives him the space of one hour for his answer, if he is a king, but
+three if it is a republic, so that they cannot escape giving a response.
+And in this manner is war undertaken against the insolent enemies of
+natural rights and of religion. When war has been declared, the deputy
+of Power performs everything, but Power, like the Roman dictator, plans
+and wills everything, so that hurtful tardiness may be avoided. And when
+anything of great moment arises he consults Hoh and Wisdom and Love.
+
+Before this, however, the occasion of war and the justice of making
+an expedition are declared by a herald in the great Council. All from
+twenty years and upward are admitted to this Council, and thus the
+necessaries are agreed upon. All kinds of weapons stand in the armories,
+and these they use often in sham fights. The exterior walls of each ring
+are full of guns prepared by their labors, and they have other engines
+for hurling which are called cannons, and which they take into battle
+upon mules and asses and carriages. When they have arrived in an
+open plain they enclose in the middle the provisions, engines of war,
+chariots, ladders, and machines, and all fight courageously. Then each
+one returns to the standards, and the enemy thinking that they are
+giving and preparing to flee, are deceived and relax their order: then
+the warriors of the City of the Sun, wheeling into wings and columns on
+each side, regain their breath and strength, and ordering the artillery
+to discharge their bullets they resume the fight against a disorganized
+host. And they observe many ruses of this kind. They overcome all
+mortals with their stratagems and engines. Their camp is fortified after
+the manner of the Romans. They pitch their tents and fortify with wall
+and ditch with wonderful quickness. The masters of works, of engines and
+hurling machines, stand ready, and the soldiers understand the use of
+the spade and the axe.
+
+Five, eight, or ten leaders learned in the order of battle and in
+strategy consult together concerning the business of war, and command
+their bands after consultation. It is their wont to take out with them a
+body of boys, armed and on horses, so that they may learn to fight, just
+as the whelps of lions and wolves are accustomed to blood. And these in
+time of danger betake themselves to a place of safety, along with many
+armed women. After the battle the women and boys soothe and relieve
+the pain of the warriors, and wait upon them and encourage them with
+embraces and pleasant words. How wonderful a help is this! For the
+soldiers, in order that they may acquit themselves as sturdy men in the
+eyes of their wives and offspring, endure hardships, and so love makes
+them conquerors. He who in the fight first scales the enemy's walls
+receives after the battle of a crown of grass, as a token of honor,
+and at the presentation the women and boys applaud loudly; that one who
+affords aid to an ally gets a civic crown of oak-leaves; he who kills
+a tyrant dedicates his arms in the temple and receives from Hoh the
+cognomen of his deed, and other warriors obtain other kinds of crowns.
+
+Every horse-soldier carries a spear and two strongly tempered pistols,
+narrow at the mouth, hanging from his saddle. And to get the barrels of
+their pistols narrow they pierce the metal which they intend to convert
+into arms. Further, every cavalry soldier has a sword and a dagger. But
+the rest, who form the light-armed troops, carry a metal cudgel. For if
+the foe cannot pierce their metal for pistols and cannot make swords,
+they attack him with clubs, shatter and overthrow him. Two chains of six
+spans length hang from the club, and at the end of these are iron balls,
+and when these are aimed at the enemy they surround his neck and drag
+him to the ground; and in order that they may be able to use the club
+more easily, they do not hold the reins with their hands, but use them
+by means of the feet. If perchance the reins are interchanged above
+the trappings of the saddle, the ends are fastened to the stirrups with
+buckles, and not to the feet. And the stirrups have an arrangement for
+swift movement of the bridle, so that they draw in or let out the rein
+with marvellous celerity. With the right foot they turn the horse to
+the left, and with the left to the right. This secret, moreover, is not
+known to the Tartars. For, although they govern the reins with their
+feet, they are ignorant nevertheless of turning them and drawing them
+in and letting them out by means of the block of the stirrups. The
+light-armed cavalry with them are the first to engage in battle, then the
+men forming the phalanx with their spears, then the archers for whose
+services a great price is paid, and who are accustomed to fight in lines
+crossing one another as the threads of cloth, some rushing forward
+in their turn and others receding. They have a band of lancers
+strengthening the line of battle, but they make trial of the swords only
+at the end.
+
+After the battle they celebrate the military triumphs after the manner
+of the Romans, and even in a more magnificent way. Prayers by the way of
+thank-offerings are made to God, and then the general presents himself
+in the temple, and the deeds, good and bad, are related by the poet
+or historian, who according to custom was with the expedition. And the
+greatest chief, Hoh, crowns the general with laurel and distributes
+little gifts and honors to all the valorous soldiers, who are for some
+days free from public duties. But this exemption from work is by no
+means pleasing to them, since they know not what it is to be at leisure,
+and so they help their companions. On the other hand, they who have been
+conquered through their own fault, or have lost the victory, are blamed;
+and they who were the first to take to flight are in no way worthy to
+escape death, unless when the whole army asks their lives, and each one
+takes upon himself a part of their punishment. But this indulgence is
+rarely granted, except when there are good reasons favoring it. But he
+who did not bear help to an ally or friend is beaten with rods. That one
+who did not obey orders is given to the beasts, in an enclosure, to be
+devoured, and a staff is put in his hand, and if he should conquer the
+lions and the bears that are there, which is almost impossible, he
+is received into favor again. The conquered States or those willingly
+delivered up to them, forthwith have all things in common, and receive
+a garrison and magistrates from the City of the Sun, and by degrees they
+are accustomed to the ways of the city, the mistress of all, to which
+they even send their sons to be taught without contributing anything for
+expense.
+
+It would be too great trouble to tell you about the spies and their
+master, and about the guards and laws and ceremonies, both within
+and without the State, which you can of yourself imagine. Since from
+childhood they are chosen according to their inclination and the star
+under which they were born, therefore each one working according to his
+natural propensity does his duty well and pleasantly, because naturally.
+The same things I may say concerning strategy and the other functions.
+
+There are guards in the city by day and by night, and they are placed
+at the four gates, and outside the walls of the seventh ring, above the
+breastworks and towers and inside mounds. These places are guarded in
+the day by women, in the night by men. And lest the guard should become
+weary of watching, and in case of a surprise, they change them every
+three hours, as is the custom with our soldiers. At sunset, when the
+drum and symphonia sound, the armed guards are distributed. Cavalry and
+infantry make use of hunting as the symbol of war and practise games and
+hold festivities in the plains. Then the music strikes up, and freely
+they pardon the offences and faults of the enemy, and after the
+victories they are kind to them, if it has been decreed that they should
+destroy the walls of the enemy's city and take their lives. All these
+things are done on the same day as the victory, and afterward they never
+cease to load the conquered with favors, for they say that there ought
+to be no fighting, except when the conquerors give up the conquered, not
+when they kill them. If there is a dispute among them concerning injury
+or any other matter (for they themselves scarcely ever contend except
+in matters of honor), the chief and his magistrates chastise the accused
+one secretly, if he has done harm in deeds after he has been first
+angry. If they wait until the time of the battle for the verbal
+decision, they must give vent to their anger against the enemy, and he
+who in battle shows the most daring deeds is considered to have defended
+the better and truer cause in the struggle, and the other yields, and
+they are punished justly. Nevertheless, they are not allowed to come to
+single combat, since right is maintained by the tribunal, and because
+the unjust cause is often apparent when the more just succumbs, and he
+who professes to be the better man shows this in public fight.
+
+
+G.M. This is worth while, so that factions should not be cherished for
+the harm of the fatherland, and so that civil wars might not occur, for
+by means of these a tyrant often arises, as the examples of Rome
+and Athens show. Now, I pray you, tell me of their works and matter
+connected therewith.
+
+
+Capt. I believe that you have already heard about their military affairs
+and about their agricultural and pastoral life, and in what way these
+are common to them, and how they honor with the first grade of nobility
+whoever is considered to have knowledge of these. They who are skilful
+in more arts than these they consider still nobler, and they set
+that one apart for teaching the art in which he is most skilful. The
+occupations which require the most labor, such as working in metals and
+building, are the most praiseworthy among them. No one declines to go
+to these occupations, for the reason that from the beginning their
+propensities are well known, and among them, on account of the
+distribution of labor, no one does work harmful to him, but only that
+which is necessary for him. The occupations entailing less labor belong
+to the women. All of them are expected to know how to swim, and for this
+reason ponds are dug outside the walls of the city and within them near
+to the fountains.
+
+Commerce is of little use to them, but they know the value of money, and
+they count for the use of their ambassadors and explorers, so that with
+it they may have the means of living. They receive merchants into their
+States from the different countries of the world, and these buy the
+superfluous goods of the city. The people of the City of the Sun refuse
+to take money, but in importing they accept in exchange those things of
+which they are in need, and sometimes they buy with money; and the young
+people in the City of the Sun are much amused when they see that for
+a small price they receive so many things in exchange. The old men,
+however, do not laugh. They are unwilling that the State should be
+corrupted by the vicious customs of slaves and foreigners. Therefore
+they do business at the gates, and sell those whom they have taken in
+war or keep them for digging ditches and other hard work without the
+city, and for this reason they always send four bands of soldiers to
+take care of the fields, and with them there are the laborers. They go
+out of the four gates from which roads with walls on both sides of them
+lead to the sea, so that goods might easily be carried over them and
+foreigners might not meet with difficulty on their way.
+
+To strangers they are kind and polite; they keep them for three days at
+the public expense; after they have first washed their feet, they show
+them their city and its customs, and they honor them with a seat at the
+Council and public table, and there are men whose duty it is to take
+care of and guard the guests. But if strangers should wish to become
+citizens of their State, they try them first for a month on a farm, and
+for another month in the city, then they decide concerning them, and
+admit them with certain ceremonies and oaths.
+
+Agriculture is much followed among them; there is not a span of earth
+without cultivation, and they observe the winds and propitious stars.
+With the exception of a few left in the city all go out armed, and with
+flags and drums and trumpets sounding, to the fields, for the purposes
+of ploughing, sowing, digging, hoeing, reaping, gathering fruit and
+grapes; and they set in order everything, and do their work in a very
+few hours and with much care. They use wagons fitted with sails which
+are borne along by the wind even when it is contrary, by the marvellous
+contrivance of wheels within wheels.
+
+And when there is no wind a beast draws along a huge cart, which is a
+grand sight.
+
+The guardians of the land move about in the meantime, armed and always
+in their proper turn. They do not use dung and filth for manuring the
+fields, thinking that the fruit contracts something of their rottenness,
+and when eaten gives a short and poor subsistence, as women who are
+beautiful with rouge and from want of exercise bring forth feeble
+offspring. Wherefore they do not as it were paint the earth, but dig
+it up well and use secret remedies, so that fruit is borne quickly and
+multiplies, and is not destroyed. They have a book for this work,
+which they call the Georgics. As much of the land as is necessary is
+cultivated, and the rest is used for the pasturage of cattle.
+
+The excellent occupation of breeding and rearing horses, oxen, sheep,
+dogs, and all kinds of domestic and tame animals is in the highest
+esteem among them as it was in the time of Abraham. And the animals are
+led so to pair that they may be able to breed well.
+
+Fine pictures of oxen, horses, sheep, and other animals are placed
+before them. They do not turn out horses with mares to feed, but at the
+proper time they bring them together in an enclosure of the stables in
+their fields. And this is done when they observe that the constellation
+Archer is in favorable conjunction with Mars and Jupiter. For the oxen
+they observe the Bull, for the sheep the Ram, and so on in accordance
+with art. Under the Pleiades they keep a drove of hens and ducks and
+geese, which are driven out by the women to feed near the city. The
+women only do this when it is a pleasure to them. There are also places
+enclosed, where they make cheese, butter, and milk-food. They also keep
+capons, fruit, and other things, and for all these matters there is a
+book which they call the Bucolics. They have an abundance of all things,
+since everyone likes to be industrious, their labors being slight and
+profitable. They are docile, and that one among them who is head of the
+rest in duties of this kind they call king. For they say that this
+is the proper name of the leaders, and it does not belong to ignorant
+persons. It is wonderful to see how men and women march together
+collectively, and always in obedience to the voice of the king. Nor do
+they regard him with loathing as we do, for they know that although he
+is greater than themselves, he is for all that their father and brother.
+They keep groves and woods for wild animals, and they often hunt.
+
+The science of navigation is considered very dignified by them, and they
+possess rafts and triremes, which go over the waters without rowers
+or the force of the wind, but by a marvellous contrivance. And other
+vessels they have which are moved by the winds. They have a correct
+knowledge of the stars, and of the ebb and flow of the tide. They
+navigate for the sake of becoming acquainted with nations and different
+countries and things. They injure nobody, and they do not put up with
+injury, and they never go to battle unless when provoked. They assert
+that the whole earth will in time come to live in accordance with their
+customs, and consequently they always find out whether there be a nation
+whose manner of living is better and more approved than the rest. They
+admire the Christian institutions and look for a realization of the
+apostolic life in vogue among themselves and in us. There are treaties
+between them and the Chinese and many other nations, both insular and
+continental, such as Siam and Calicut, which they are only just able
+to explore. Furthermore, they have artificial fires, battles on sea
+and land, and many strategic secrets. Therefore they are nearly always
+victorious.
+
+
+G.M. Now it would be very pleasant to learn with what foods and drinks
+they are nourished, and in what way and for how long they live.
+
+
+Capt. Their food consists of flesh, butter, honey, cheese, garden herbs,
+and vegetables of various kinds. They were unwilling at first to slay
+animals, because it seemed cruel; but thinking afterward that is was
+also cruel to destroy herbs which have a share of sensitive feeling,
+they saw that they would perish from hunger unless they did an
+unjustifiable action for the sake of justifiable ones, and so now they
+all eat meat. Nevertheless, they do not kill willingly useful animals,
+such as oxen and horses. They observe the difference between useful and
+harmful foods, and for this they employ the science of medicine.
+They always change their food. First they eat flesh, then fish, then
+afterward they go back to flesh, and nature is never incommoded or
+weakened. The old people use the more digestible kind of food, and take
+three meals a day, eating only a little. But the general community eat
+twice, and the boys four times, that they may satisfy nature. The length
+of their lives is generally 100 years, but often they reach 200.
+
+As regards drinking, they are extremely moderate. Wine is never given
+to young people until they are ten years old, unless the state of their
+health demands it. After their tenth year they take it diluted with
+water, and so do the women, but the old men of fifty and upward use
+little or no water. They eat the most healthy things, according to the
+time of the year.
+
+They think nothing harmful which is brought forth by God, except when
+there has been abuse by taking too much. And therefore in the summer
+they feed on fruits, because they are moist and juicy and cool,
+and counteract the heat and dryness. In the winter they feed on dry
+articles, and in the autumn they eat grapes, since they are given by God
+to remove melancholy and sadness; and they also make use of scents to a
+great degree. In the morning, when they have all risen they comb their
+hair and wash their faces and hands with cold water. Then they chew
+thyme or rock-parsley or fennel, or rub their hands with these plants.
+The old men make incense, and with their faces to the east repeat the
+short prayer which Jesus Christ taught us. After this they go to wait
+upon the old men, some go to the dance, and others to the duties of the
+State. Later on they meet at the early lectures, then in the temple,
+then for bodily exercise. Then for a little while they sit down to rest,
+and at length they go to dinner.
+
+Among them there is never gout in the hands or feet, nor catarrh, nor
+sciatica, nor grievous colics, nor flatulency, nor hard breathing.
+For these diseases are caused by indigestion and flatulency, and by
+frugality and exercise they remove every humor and spasm. Therefore it
+is unseemly in the extreme to be seen vomiting or spitting, since they
+say that this is a sign either of little exercise, or of ignoble sloth,
+or of drunkenness, or gluttony. They suffer rather from swellings or
+from the dry spasm, which they relieve with plenty of good and juicy
+food. They heal fevers with pleasant baths and with milk-food, and with
+a pleasant habitation in the country and by gradual exercise. Unclean
+diseases cannot be prevalent with them because they often clean their
+bodies by bathing in wine, and soothe them with aromatic oil, and by the
+sweat of exercise they diffuse the poisonous vapor which corrupts the
+blood and the marrow. They do suffer a little from consumption, because
+they cannot perspire at the breast, but they never have asthma, for the
+humid nature of which a heavy man is required. They cure hot fevers
+with cold potations of water, but slight ones with sweet smells, with
+cheese-bread or sleep, with music or dancing. Tertiary fevers are cured
+by bleeding, by rhubarb or by a similar drawing remedy, or by water
+soaked in the roots of plants, with purgative and sharp-tasting
+qualities. But it is rarely that they take purgative medicines. Fevers
+occurring every fourth day are cured easily by suddenly startling the
+unprepared patients, and by means of herbs producing effects opposite to
+the humors of this fever. All these secrets they told me in opposition
+to their own wishes. They take more diligent pains to cure the lasting
+fevers, which they fear more, and they strive to counteract these by
+the observation of stars and of plants, and by prayers to God. Fevers
+recurring every fifth, sixth, eighth or more days, you never find
+whenever heavy humors are wanting.
+
+They use baths, and moreover they have warm ones according to the Roman
+custom, and they make use also of olive oil. They have found out, too, a
+great many secret cures for the preservation of cleanliness and health.
+And in other ways they labor to cure the epilepsy, with which they are
+often troubled.
+
+
+G.M. A sign this disease is of wonderful cleverness, for from it
+Hercules, Scotus, Socrates, Callimachus, and Mahomet have suffered.
+
+
+Capt. They cure by means of prayers to heaven, by strengthening the
+head, by acids, by planned gymnastics, and with fat cheese-bread
+sprinkled with the flour of wheaten corn. They are very skilled in
+making dishes, and in them they put spice, honey, butter, and many
+highly strengthening spices, and they temper their richness with
+acids, so that they never vomit. They do not drink ice-cold drinks nor
+artificial hot drinks, as the Chinese do; for they are not without aid
+against the humors of the body, on account of the help they get from the
+natural heat of the water; but they strengthen it with crushed garlic,
+with vinegar, with wild thyme, with mint, and with basil, in the summer
+or in time of special heaviness. They know also a secret for renovating
+life after about the seventieth year, and for ridding it of affliction,
+and this they do by a pleasing and indeed wonderful art.
+
+
+G.M. Thus far you have said nothing concerning their sciences and
+magistrates.
+
+
+Capt. Undoubtedly I have But since you are so curious I will add more.
+Both when it is new moon and full moon they call a council after a
+sacrifice. To this all from twenty years upward are admitted, and each
+one is asked separately to say what is wanting in the State, and which
+of the magistrates have discharged their duties rightly and which
+wrongly. Then after eight days all the magistrates assemble, to wit, Hoh
+first, and with him Power, Wisdom, and Love. Each one of the three
+last has three magistrates under him, making in all thirteen, and they
+consider the affairs of the arts pertaining to each one of them: Power,
+of war; Wisdom, of the sciences; Love, of food, clothing, education,
+and breeding. The masters of all the bands, who are captains of tens, of
+fifties, of hundreds, also assemble, the women first and then the men.
+They argue about those things which are for the welfare of the State,
+and they choose the magistrates from among those who have already been
+named in the great Council. In this manner they assemble daily, Hoh and
+his three princes, and they correct, confirm, and execute the matters
+passing to them, as decisions in the elections; other necessary
+questions they provide of themselves. They do not use lots unless when
+they are altogether doubtful how to decide. The eight magistrates under
+Hoh, Power, Wisdom, and Love are changed according to the wish of
+the people, but the first four are never changed, unless they, taking
+counsel with themselves, give up the dignity of one to another, whom
+among them they know to be wiser, more renowned, and more nearly
+perfect. And then they are obedient and honorable, since they yield
+willingly to the wiser man and are taught by him. This, however, rarely
+happens. The principals of the sciences, except Metaphysic, who is Hoh
+himself, and is, as it were, the architect of all science, having rule
+over all, are attached to Wisdom. Hoh is ashamed to be ignorant of any
+possible thing. Under Wisdom therefore are Grammar, Logic, Physics,
+Medicine, Astrology, Astronomy, Geometry, Cosmography, Music,
+Perspective, Arithmetic, Poetry, Rhetoric, Painting, Sculpture. Under
+the triumvir Love are Breeding, Agriculture, Education, Medicine,
+Clothing, Pasturage, Coining.
+
+
+G.M. What about their judges?
+
+
+Capt. This is the point I was just thinking of explaining. Everyone
+is judged by the first master of his trade, and thus all the head
+artificers are judges. They punish with exile, with flogging, with
+blame, with deprivation of the common table, with exclusion from the
+church and from the company of women. When there is a case in which
+great injury has been done, it is punished with death, and they repay
+an eye with an eye, a nose for a nose, a tooth for a tooth, and so
+on, according to the law of retaliation. If the offence is wilful the
+Council decides. When there is strife and it takes place undesignedly,
+the sentence is mitigated; nevertheless, not by the judge but by the
+triumvirate, from whom even it may be referred to Hoh, not on account of
+justice but of mercy, for Hoh is able to pardon. They have no prisons,
+except one tower for shutting up rebellious enemies, and there is no
+written statement of a case, which we commonly call a lawsuit. But the
+accusation and witnesses are produced in the presence of the judge
+and Power; the accused person makes his defence, and he is immediately
+acquitted or condemned by the judge; and if he appeals to the
+triumvirate, on the following day he is acquitted or condemned. On the
+third day he is dismissed through the mercy and clemency of Hoh, or
+receives the inviolable rigor of his sentence. An accused person is
+reconciled to his accuser and to his witnesses, as it were, with the
+medicine of his complaint, that is, with embracing and kissing.
+
+No one is killed or stoned unless by the hands of the people, the
+accuser and the witnesses beginning first. For they have no executioners
+and lictors, lest the State should sink into ruin. The choice of death
+is given to the rest of the people, who enclose the lifeless remains in
+little bags and burn them by the application of fire, while exhorters
+are present for the purpose of advising concerning a good death.
+Nevertheless, the whole nation laments and beseeches God that his anger
+may be appeased, being in grief that it should, as it were, have to cut
+off a rotten member of the State. Certain officers talk to and convince
+the accused man by means of arguments until he himself acquiesces in
+the sentence of death passed upon him, or else he does not die. But if a
+crime has been committed against the liberty of the republic, or against
+God, or against the supreme magistrates, there is immediate censure
+without pity. These only are punished with death. He who is about to die
+is compelled to state in the presence of the people and with religious
+scrupulousness the reasons for which he does not deserve death, and also
+the sins of the others who ought to die instead of him, and further the
+mistakes of the magistrates. If, moreover, it should seem right to the
+person thus asserting, he must say why the accused ones are deserving of
+less punishment than he. And if by his arguments he gains the victory
+he is sent into exile, and appeases the State by means of prayers and
+sacrifices and good life ensuing. They do not torture those named by the
+accused person, but they warn them. Sins of frailty and ignorance are
+punished only with blaming, and with compulsory continuation as learners
+under the law and discipline of those sciences or arts against which
+they have sinned. And all these things they have mutually among
+themselves, since they seem to be in very truth members of the same
+body, and one of another.
+
+This further I would have you know, that if a transgressor, without
+waiting to be accused, goes of his own accord before a magistrate,
+accusing himself and seeking to make amends, that one is liberated from
+the punishment of a secret crime, and since he has not been accused of
+such a crime, his punishment is changed into another. They take special
+care that no one should invent slander, and if this should happen they
+meet the offence with the punishment of retaliation. Since they always
+walk about and work in crowds, five witnesses are required for the
+conviction of a transgressor. If the case is otherwise, after having
+threatened him, he is released after he has sworn an oath as the
+warrant of good conduct. Or if he is accused a second or third time, his
+increased punishment rests on the testimony of three or two witnesses.
+They have but few laws, and these short and plain, and written upon a
+flat table and hanging to the doors of the temple, that is between
+the columns. And on single columns can be seen the essences of things
+described in the very terse style of Metaphysic--viz., the essences
+of God, of the angels, of the world, of the stars, of man, of fate, of
+virtue, all done with great wisdom. The definitions of all the virtues
+are also delineated here, and here is the tribunal, where the judges of
+all the virtues have their seat. The definition of a certain virtue is
+written under that column where the judges for the aforesaid virtue sit,
+and when a judge gives judgment he sits and speaks thus: O son, thou
+hast sinned against this sacred definition of beneficence, or of
+magnanimity, or of another virtue, as the case may be. And after
+discussion the judge legally condemns him to the punishment for the
+crime of which he is accused--viz., for injury, for despondency, for
+pride, for ingratitude, for sloth, etc. But the sentences are certain
+and true correctives, savoring more of clemency than of actual
+punishment.
+
+
+G.M. Now you ought to tell me about their priests, their sacrifices,
+their religion, and their belief.
+
+
+Capt. The chief priest is Hoh, and it is the duty of all the superior
+magistrates to pardon sins. Therefore the whole State by secret
+confession, which we also use, tell their sins to the magistrates,
+who at once purge their souls and teach those that are inimical to
+the people. Then the sacred magistrates themselves confess their own
+sinfulness to the three supreme chiefs, and together they confess the
+faults of one another, though no special one is named, and they confess
+especially the heavier faults and those harmful to the State. At length
+the triumvirs confess their sinfulness to Hoh himself, who forthwith
+recognizes the kinds of sins that are harmful to the State, and succors
+with timely remedies. Then he offers sacrifices and prayers to God. And
+before this he confesses the sins of the whole people, in the presence
+of God, and publicly in the temple, above the altar, as often as it
+had been necessary that the fault should be corrected. Nevertheless, no
+transgressor is spoken of by his name. In this manner he absolves the
+people by advising them that they should beware of sins of the aforesaid
+kind. Afterward he offers sacrifice to God, that he should pardon the
+State and absolve it of its sins, and to teach and defend it. Once in
+every year the chief priests of each separate subordinate State confess
+their sins in the presence of Hoh. Thus he is not ignorant of the
+wrongdoings of the provinces, and forthwith he removes them with all
+human and heavenly remedies.
+
+Sacrifice is conducted after the following manner: Hoh asks the people
+which one among them wishes to give himself as a sacrifice to God for
+the sake of his fellows. He is then placed upon the fourth table, with
+ceremonies and the offering up of prayers: the table is hung up in
+a wonderful manner by means of four ropes passing through four cords
+attached to firm pulley-blocks in the small dome of the temple. This
+done they cry to the God of mercy, that he may accept the offering, not
+of a beast as among the heathen, but of a human being. Then Hoh orders
+the ropes to be drawn and the sacrifice is pulled up above to the centre
+of the small dome, and there it dedicates itself with the most fervent
+supplications. Food is given to it through a window by the priests, who
+live around the dome, but it is allowed a very little to eat, until it
+has atoned for the sins of the State. There with prayer and fasting he
+cries to the God of heaven that he might accept its willing offering.
+And after twenty or thirty days, the anger of God being appeased, the
+sacrifice becomes a priest, or sometimes, though rarely, returns below
+by means of the outer way for the priests. Ever after, this man is
+treated with great benevolence and much honor, for the reason that he
+offered himself unto death for the sake of his country. But God does not
+require death.
+
+The priests above twenty-four years of age offer praises from their
+places in the top of the temple. This they do in the middle of the
+night, at noon, in the morning and in the evening, to wit, four times a
+day they sing their chants in the presence of God. It is also their work
+to observe the stars and to note with the astrolabe their motions and
+influences upon human things, and to find out their powers. Thus they
+know in what part of the earth any change has been or will be, and at
+what time it has taken place, and they send to find whether the matter
+be as they have it. They make a note of predictions, true and false,
+so that they may be able from experience to predict most correctly. The
+priests, moreover, determine the hours for breeding and the days for
+sowing, reaping, and gathering the vintage, and are, as it were, the
+ambassadors and intercessors and connection between God and man. And it
+is from among them mostly that Hoh is elected. They write very learned
+treatises and search into the sciences. Below they never descend, unless
+for their dinner and supper, so that the essence of their heads do not
+descend to the stomachs and liver. Only very seldom, and that as a cure
+for the ills of solitude, do they have converse with women. On certain
+days Hoh goes up to them and deliberates with them concerning the
+matters which he has lately investigated for the benefit of the State
+and all the nations of the world.
+
+In the temple beneath, one priest always stands near the altar praying
+for the people, and at the end of every hour another succeeds him, just
+as we are accustomed in solemn prayer to change every fourth hour. And
+this method of supplication they call perpetual prayer. After a meal
+they return thanks to God. Then they sing the deeds of the Christian,
+Jewish, and Gentile heroes, and of those of all other nations, and this
+is very delightful to them. Forsooth, no one is envious of another.
+They sing a hymn to Love, one to Wisdom, and one each to all the other
+virtues, and this they do under the direction of the ruler of each
+virtue. Each one takes the woman he loves most, and they dance for
+exercise with propriety and stateliness under the peristyles. The women
+wear their long hair all twisted together and collected into one knot on
+the crown of the head, but in rolling it they leave one curl. The men,
+however, have one curl only and the rest of their hair around the head
+is shaven off. Further, they wear a slight covering, and above this a
+round hat a little larger than the size of their head. In the fields
+they use caps, but at home each one wears a biretta, white, red, or
+another color according to his trade or occupation. Moreover, the
+magistrates use grander and more imposing-looking coverings for the
+head.
+
+They hold great festivities when the sun enters the four cardinal points
+of the heavens, that is, when he enters Cancer, Libra, Capricorn, and
+Aries. On these occasions they have very learned, splendid, and, as it
+were, comic performances. They celebrate also every full and every new
+moon with a festival, as also they do the anniversaries of the founding
+of the city, and of the days when they have won victories or done any
+other great achievement. The celebrations take place with the music of
+female voices, with the noise of trumpets and drums, and the firing of
+salutations. The poets sing the praises of the most renowned leaders
+and the victories. Nevertheless, if any of them should deceive even
+by disparaging a foreign hero, he is punished. No one can exercise the
+function of a poet who invents that which is not true, and a license
+like this they think to be a pest of our world, for the reason that it
+puts a premium upon virtue and often assigns it to unworthy persons,
+either from fear of flattery, or ambition, or avarice.
+
+For the praise of no one is a statue erected until after his death; but
+while he is alive, who has found out new arts and very useful secrets,
+or who has rendered great service to the State either at home or on the
+battle-field, his name is written in the book of heroes. They do not
+bury dead bodies, but burn them, so that a plague may not arise from
+them, and so that they may be converted into fire, a very noble and
+powerful thing, which has its coming from the sun and returns to it. And
+for the above reasons no chance is given for idolatry. The statues and
+pictures of the heroes, however, are there, and the splendid women set
+apart to become mothers often look at them. Prayers are made from the
+State to the four horizontal corners of the world--in the morning to the
+rising sun, then to the setting sun, then to the south, and lastly
+to the north; and in the contrary order in the evening, first to the
+setting sun, to the rising sun, to the north, and at length to the
+south. They repeat but one prayer, which asks for health of body and of
+mind, and happiness for themselves and all people, and they conclude it
+with the petition "As it seems best to God." The public prayer for all
+is long, and it is poured forth to heaven. For this reason the altar is
+round and is divided crosswise by ways at right angles to one another.
+By these ways Hoh enters after he has repeated the four prayers, and he
+prays looking up to heaven. And then a great mystery is seen by them.
+The priestly vestments are of a beauty and meaning like to those of
+Aaron. They resemble nature and they surpass Art.
+
+They divide the seasons according to the revolution of the sun, and not
+of the stars, and they observe yearly by how much time the one precedes
+the other. They hold that the sun approaches nearer and nearer, and
+therefore by ever-lessening circles reaches the tropics and the equator
+every year a little sooner. They measure months by the course of the
+moon, years by that of the sun. They praise Ptolemy, admire Copernicus,
+but place Aristarchus and Philolaus before him. They take great pains in
+endeavoring to understand the construction of the world, and whether or
+not it will perish, and at what time. They believe that the true oracle
+of Jesus Christ is by the signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the
+stars, which signs do not thus appear to many of us foolish ones.
+Therefore they wait for the renewing of the age, and perchance for its
+end.
+
+They say that it is very doubtful whether the world was made from
+nothing, or from the ruins of other worlds, or from chaos, but they
+certainly think that it was made, and did not exist from eternity.
+Therefore they disbelieve in Aristotle, whom they consider a logican and
+not a philosopher. From analogies, they can draw many arguments against
+the eternity of the world. The sun and the stars they, so to speak,
+regard as the living representatives and signs of God, as the temples
+and holy living altars, and they honor but do not worship them. Beyond
+all other things they venerate the sun, but they consider no created
+thing worthy the adoration of worship. This they give to God alone, and
+thus they serve Him, that they may not come into the power of a tyrant
+and fall into misery by undergoing punishment by creatures of revenge.
+They contemplate and know God under the image of the Sun, and they call
+it the sign of God, His face and living image, by means of which light,
+heat, life, and the making of all things good and bad proceed. Therefore
+they have built an altar like to the sun in shape, and the priests
+praise God in the sun and in the stars, as it were His altars, and in
+the heavens, His temple as it were; and they pray to good angels, who
+are, so to speak, the intercessors living in the stars, their strong
+abodes. For God long since set signs of their beauty in heaven, and of
+His glory in the sun. They say there is but one heaven, and that the
+planets move and rise of themselves when they approach the sun or are in
+conjunction with it.
+
+They assert two principles of the physics of things below, namely, that
+the sun is the father, and the earth the mother; the air is an impure
+part of the heavens; all fire is derived from the sun. The sea is the
+sweat of earth, or the fluid of earth combusted, and fused within its
+bowels, but is the bond of union between air and earth, as the blood is
+of the spirit and flesh of animals. The world is a great animal, and we
+live within it as worms live within us. Therefore we do not belong to
+the system of stars, sun, and earth, but to God only; for in respect
+to them which seek only to amplify themselves, we are born and live by
+chance; but in respect to God, whose instruments we are, we are formed
+by prescience and design, and for a high end. Therefore we are bound to
+no father but God, and receive all things from Him. They hold as beyond
+question the immortality of souls, and that these associate with good
+angels after death, or with bad angels, according as they have likened
+themselves in this life to either. For all things seek their like. They
+differ little from us as to places of reward and punishment. They are in
+doubt whether there are other worlds beyond ours, and account it madness
+to say there is nothing. Nonentity is incompatible with the infinite
+entity of God. They lay down two principles of metaphysics, entity which
+is the highest God, and nothingness which is the defect of entity. Evil
+and sin come of the propensity to nothingness; the sin having its cause
+not efficient, but in deficiency. Deficiency is, they say, of power,
+wisdom, or will. Sin they place in the last of these three, because he
+who knows and has the power to do good is bound also to have the will,
+for will arises out of them. They worship God in trinity, saying God is
+the Supreme Power, whence proceeds the highest Wisdom, which is the same
+with God, and from these comes Love, which is both power and wisdom; but
+they do not distinguish persons by name, as in our Christian law, which
+has not been revealed to them. This religion, when its abuses have been
+removed, will be the future mistress of the world, as great theologians
+teach and hope. Therefore Spain found the New World (though its first
+discoverer, Columbus, greatest of heroes, was a Genoese), that all
+nations should be gathered under one law. We know not what we do, but
+God knows, whose instruments we are. They sought new regions for lust of
+gold and riches, but God works to a higher end. The sun strives to burn
+up the earth, not to produce plants and men, but God guides the battle
+to great issues. His the praise, to Him the glory!
+
+
+G.M. Oh, if you knew what our astrologers say of the coming age, and of
+our age, that has in it more history within 100 years than all the world
+had in 4,000 years before! of the wonderful inventions of printing and
+guns, and the use of the magnet, and how it all comes of Mercury, Mars,
+the Moon, and the Scorpion!
+
+
+Capt. Ah, well! God gives all in His good time. They astrologize too
+much.
+
+
+
+     (1) A pace was 1-9/25 yard, 1,000 paces making a mile
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The City of the Sun, by Tommaso Campanella
+
+*** 

data/train/2817.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,912 @@
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Reed
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAMBER MUSIC
+
+By James Joyce
+
+
+
+Contents:
+
+
+I
+
+Strings in the earth and air
+  Make music sweet;
+
+II
+
+The twilight turns from amethyst
+  To deep and deeper blue,
+
+III
+
+At that hour when all things have repose,
+  O lonely watcher of the skies,
+
+IV
+
+When the shy star goes forth in heaven
+  All maidenly, disconsolate,
+
+V
+
+Lean out of the window,
+  Goldenhair,
+
+VI
+
+I would in that sweet bosom be
+  (O sweet it is and fair it is!)
+
+VII
+
+My love is in a light attire
+  Among the apple-trees,
+
+VIII
+
+Who goes amid the green wood
+  With springtide all adorning her?
+
+IX
+
+Winds of May, that dance on the sea,
+  Dancing a ring-around in glee
+
+X
+
+Bright cap and streamers,
+  He sings in the hollow:
+
+XI
+
+Bid adieu, adieu, adieu,
+  Bid adieu to girlish days,
+
+XII
+
+What counsel has the hooded moon
+  Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet,
+
+XIII
+
+Go seek her out all courteously,
+  And say I come,
+
+XIV
+
+My dove, my beautiful one,
+  Arise, arise!
+
+XV
+
+From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,
+  From love's deep slumber and from death,
+
+XVI
+
+O cool is the valley now
+  And there, love, will we go
+
+XVII
+
+Because your voice was at my side
+  I gave him pain,
+
+XVIII
+
+O Sweetheart, hear you
+  Your lover's tale;
+
+XIX
+
+Be not sad because all men
+  Prefer a lying clamour before you:
+
+XX
+
+In the dark pine-wood
+  I would we lay,
+
+XXI
+
+He who hath glory lost, nor hath
+  Found any soul to fellow his,
+
+XXII
+
+Of that so sweet imprisonment
+  My soul, dearest, is fain--
+
+XXIII
+
+This heart that flutters near my heart
+  My hope and all my riches is,
+
+XXIV
+
+Silently she's combing,
+  Combing her long hair
+
+XXV
+
+Lightly come or lightly go:
+  Though thy heart presage thee woe,
+
+XXVI
+
+Thou leanest to the shell of night,
+  Dear lady, a divining ear.
+
+XXVII
+
+Though I thy Mithridates were,
+  Framed to defy the poison-dart,
+
+XXVIII
+
+Gentle lady, do not sing
+  Sad songs about the end of love;
+
+XXIX
+
+Dear heart, why will you use me so?
+  Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,
+
+XXX
+
+Love came to us in time gone by
+  When one at twilight shyly played
+
+XXXI
+
+O, it was out by Donnycarney
+  When the bat flew from tree to tree
+
+XXXII
+
+Rain has fallen all the day.
+  O come among the laden trees:
+
+XXXIII
+
+Now, O now, in this brown land
+  Where Love did so sweet music make
+
+XXXIV
+
+Sleep now, O sleep now,
+  O you unquiet heart!
+
+XXXV
+
+All day I hear the noise of waters
+  Making moan,
+
+XXXVI
+
+I hear an army charging upon the land,
+  And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:
+
+
+
+
+CHAMBER MUSIC
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+     Strings in the earth and air
+     Make music sweet;
+     Strings by the river where
+     The willows meet.
+
+     There's music along the river
+     For Love wanders there,
+     Pale flowers on his mantle,
+     Dark leaves on his hair.
+
+     All softly playing,
+     With head to the music bent,
+     And fingers straying
+     Upon an instrument.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+     The twilight turns from amethyst
+     To deep and deeper blue,
+     The lamp fills with a pale green glow
+     The trees of the avenue.
+
+     The old piano plays an air,
+     Sedate and slow and gay;
+     She bends upon the yellow keys,
+     Her head inclines this way.
+
+     Shy thought and grave wide eyes and hands
+     That wander as they list--
+     The twilight turns to darker blue
+     With lights of amethyst.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+     At that hour when all things have repose,
+     O lonely watcher of the skies,
+     Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
+     Of harps playing unto Love to unclose
+     The pale gates of sunrise?
+
+     When all things repose, do you alone
+     Awake to hear the sweet harps play
+     To Love before him on his way,
+     And the night wind answering in antiphon
+     Till night is overgone?
+
+     Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,
+     Whose way in heaven is aglow
+     At that hour when soft lights come and go,
+     Soft sweet music in the air above
+     And in the earth below.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+     When the shy star goes forth in heaven
+     All maidenly, disconsolate,
+     Hear you amid the drowsy even
+     One who is singing by your gate.
+     His song is softer than the dew
+     And he is come to visit you.
+
+     O bend no more in revery
+     When he at eventide is calling.
+     Nor muse: Who may this singer be
+     Whose song about my heart is falling?
+     Know you by this, the lover's chant,
+     'Tis I that am your visitant.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+     Lean out of the window,
+     Goldenhair,
+     I hear you singing
+     A merry air.
+
+     My book was closed,
+     I read no more,
+     Watching the fire dance
+     On the floor.
+
+     I have left my book,
+     I have left my room,
+     For I heard you singing
+     Through the gloom.
+
+     Singing and singing
+     A merry air,
+     Lean out of the window,
+     Goldenhair.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+     I would in that sweet bosom be
+     (O sweet it is and fair it is!)
+     Where no rude wind might visit me.
+     Because of sad austerities
+     I would in that sweet bosom be.
+
+     I would be ever in that heart
+     (O soft I knock and soft entreat her!)
+     Where only peace might be my part.
+     Austerities were all the sweeter
+     So I were ever in that heart.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+     My love is in a light attire
+     Among the apple-trees,
+     Where the gay winds do most desire
+     To run in companies.
+
+     There, where the gay winds stay to woo
+     The young leaves as they pass,
+     My love goes slowly, bending to
+     Her shadow on the grass;
+
+     And where the sky's a pale blue cup
+     Over the laughing land,
+     My love goes lightly, holding up
+     Her dress with dainty hand.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+     Who goes amid the green wood
+     With springtide all adorning her?
+     Who goes amid the merry green wood
+     To make it merrier?
+
+     Who passes in the sunlight
+     By ways that know the light footfall?
+     Who passes in the sweet sunlight
+     With mien so virginal?
+
+     The ways of all the woodland
+     Gleam with a soft and golden fire--
+     For whom does all the sunny woodland
+     Carry so brave attire?
+
+     O, it is for my true love
+     The woods their rich apparel wear--
+     O, it is for my own true love,
+     That is so young and fair.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+     Winds of May, that dance on the sea,
+     Dancing a ring-around in glee
+     From furrow to furrow, while overhead
+     The foam flies up to be garlanded,
+     In silvery arches spanning the air,
+     Saw you my true love anywhere?
+     Welladay! Welladay!
+     For the winds of May!
+     Love is unhappy when love is away!
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+     Bright cap and streamers,
+     He sings in the hollow:
+     Come follow, come follow,
+                All you that love.
+     Leave dreams to the dreamers
+     That will not after,
+     That song and laughter
+                Do nothing move.
+
+     With ribbons streaming
+     He sings the bolder;
+     In troop at his shoulder
+                The wild bees hum.
+     And the time of dreaming
+     Dreams is over--
+     As lover to lover,
+                Sweetheart, I come.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+     Bid adieu, adieu, adieu,
+     Bid adieu to girlish days,
+     Happy Love is come to woo
+     Thee and woo thy girlish ways--
+     The zone that doth become thee fair,
+     The snood upon thy yellow hair,
+
+     When thou hast heard his name upon
+     The bugles of the cherubim
+     Begin thou softly to unzone
+     Thy girlish bosom unto him
+     And softly to undo the snood
+     That is the sign of maidenhood.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+     What counsel has the hooded moon
+     Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet,
+     Of Love in ancient plenilune,
+     Glory and stars beneath his feet--
+     A sage that is but kith and kin
+     With the comedian Capuchin?
+
+     Believe me rather that am wise
+     In disregard of the divine,
+     A glory kindles in those eyes
+     Trembles to starlight. Mine, O Mine!
+     No more be tears in moon or mist
+     For thee, sweet sentimentalist.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+     Go seek her out all courteously,
+     And say I come,
+     Wind of spices whose song is ever
+     Epithalamium.
+     O, hurry over the dark lands
+     And run upon the sea
+     For seas and lands shall not divide us
+     My love and me.
+
+     Now, wind, of your good courtesy
+     I pray you go,
+     And come into her little garden
+     And sing at her window;
+     Singing: The bridal wind is blowing
+     For Love is at his noon;
+     And soon will your true love be with you,
+     Soon, O soon.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+     My dove, my beautiful one,
+     Arise, arise!
+     The night-dew lies
+     Upon my lips and eyes.
+
+     The odorous winds are weaving
+     A music of sighs:
+     Arise, arise,
+     My dove, my beautiful one!
+
+     I wait by the cedar tree,
+     My sister, my love,
+     White breast of the dove,
+     My breast shall be your bed.
+
+     The pale dew lies
+     Like a veil on my head.
+     My fair one, my fair dove,
+     Arise, arise!
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+     From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,
+     From love's deep slumber and from death,
+     For lo! the trees are full of sighs
+     Whose leaves the morn admonisheth.
+
+     Eastward the gradual dawn prevails
+     Where softly-burning fires appear,
+     Making to tremble all those veils
+     Of grey and golden gossamer.
+
+     While sweetly, gently, secretly,
+     The flowery bells of morn are stirred
+     And the wise choirs of faery
+     Begin (innumerous!) to be heard.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+     O cool is the valley now
+     And there, love, will we go
+     For many a choir is singing now
+     Where Love did sometime go.
+     And hear you not the thrushes calling,
+     Calling us away?
+     O cool and pleasant is the valley
+     And there, love, will we stay.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+     Because your voice was at my side
+     I gave him pain,
+     Because within my hand I held
+     Your hand again.
+
+     There is no word nor any sign
+     Can make amend--
+     He is a stranger to me now
+     Who was my friend.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+     O Sweetheart, hear you
+     Your lover's tale;
+     A man shall have sorrow
+     When friends him fail.
+
+     For he shall know then
+     Friends be untrue
+     And a little ashes
+     Their words come to.
+
+     But one unto him
+     Will softly move
+     And softly woo him
+     In ways of love.
+
+     His hand is under
+     Her smooth round breast;
+     So he who has sorrow
+     Shall have rest.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+     Be not sad because all men
+     Prefer a lying clamour before you:
+     Sweetheart, be at peace again--
+     Can they dishonour you?
+
+     They are sadder than all tears;
+     Their lives ascend as a continual sigh.
+     Proudly answer to their tears:
+     As they deny, deny.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+     In the dark pine-wood
+     I would we lay,
+     In deep cool shadow
+     At noon of day.
+
+     How sweet to lie there,
+     Sweet to kiss,
+     Where the great pine-forest
+     Enaisled is!
+
+     Thy kiss descending
+     Sweeter were
+     With a soft tumult
+     Of thy hair.
+
+     O unto the pine-wood
+     At noon of day
+     Come with me now,
+     Sweet love, away.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+     He who hath glory lost, nor hath
+     Found any soul to fellow his,
+     Among his foes in scorn and wrath
+     Holding to ancient nobleness,
+     That high unconsortable one--
+     His love is his companion.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+     Of that so sweet imprisonment
+     My soul, dearest, is fain--
+     Soft arms that woo me to relent
+     And woo me to detain.
+     Ah, could they ever hold me there
+     Gladly were I a prisoner!
+
+     Dearest, through interwoven arms
+     By love made tremulous,
+     That night allures me where alarms
+     Nowise may trouble us;
+     But sleep to dreamier sleep be wed
+     Where soul with soul lies prisoned.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+     This heart that flutters near my heart
+     My hope and all my riches is,
+     Unhappy when we draw apart
+     And happy between kiss and kiss:
+     My hope and all my riches--yes!--
+     And all my happiness.
+
+     For there, as in some mossy nest
+     The wrens will divers treasures keep,
+     I laid those treasures I possessed
+     Ere that mine eyes had learned to weep.
+     Shall we not be as wise as they
+     Though love live but a day?
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+     Silently she's combing,
+     Combing her long hair
+     Silently and graciously,
+     With many a pretty air.
+
+     The sun is in the willow leaves
+     And on the dapplled grass,
+     And still she's combing her long hair
+     Before the looking-glass.
+
+     I pray you, cease to comb out,
+     Comb out your long hair,
+     For I have heard of witchery
+     Under a pretty air,
+
+     That makes as one thing to the lover
+     Staying and going hence,
+     All fair, with many a pretty air
+     And many a negligence.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+     Lightly come or lightly go:
+     Though thy heart presage thee woe,
+     Vales and many a wasted sun,
+     Oread let thy laughter run,
+     Till the irreverent mountain air
+     Ripple all thy flying hair.
+
+     Lightly, lightly--ever so:
+     Clouds that wrap the vales below
+     At the hour of evenstar
+     Lowliest attendants are;
+     Love and laughter song-confessed
+     When the heart is heaviest.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+     Thou leanest to the shell of night,
+     Dear lady, a divining ear.
+     In that soft choiring of delight
+     What sound hath made thy heart to fear?
+     Seemed it of rivers rushing forth
+     From the grey deserts of the north?
+
+     That mood of thine
+     Is his, if thou but scan it well,
+     Who a mad tale bequeaths to us
+     At ghosting hour conjurable--
+     And all for some strange name he read
+                In Purchas or in Holinshed.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+     Though I thy Mithridates were,
+     Framed to defy the poison-dart,
+     Yet must thou fold me unaware
+     To know the rapture of thy heart,
+     And I but render and confess
+     The malice of thy tenderness.
+
+     For elegant and antique phrase,
+     Dearest, my lips wax all too wise;
+     Nor have I known a love whose praise
+     Our piping poets solemnize,
+     Neither a love where may not be
+     Ever so little falsity.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+     Gentle lady, do not sing
+     Sad songs about the end of love;
+     Lay aside sadness and sing
+     How love that passes is enough.
+
+     Sing about the long deep sleep
+     Of lovers that are dead, and how
+     In the grave all love shall sleep:
+     Love is aweary now.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+     Dear heart, why will you use me so?
+     Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,
+     Still are you beautiful--but O,
+     How is your beauty raimented!
+
+     Through the clear mirror of your eyes,
+     Through the soft sigh of kiss to kiss,
+     Desolate winds assail with cries
+     The shadowy garden where love is.
+
+     And soon shall love dissolved be
+     When over us the wild winds blow--
+     But you, dear love, too dear to me,
+     Alas! why will you use me so?
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+     Love came to us in time gone by
+     When one at twilight shyly played
+     And one in fear was standing nigh--
+     For Love at first is all afraid.
+
+     We were grave lovers. Love is past
+     That had his sweet hours many a one;
+     Welcome to us now at the last
+     The ways that we shall go upon.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+     O, it was out by Donnycarney
+     When the bat flew from tree to tree
+     My love and I did walk together;
+     And sweet were the words she said to me.
+
+     Along with us the summer wind
+     Went murmuring--O, happily!--
+     But softer than the breath of summer
+     Was the kiss she gave to me.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+     Rain has fallen all the day.
+     O come among the laden trees:
+     The leaves lie thick upon the way
+     Of memories.
+
+     Staying a little by the way
+     Of memories shall we depart.
+     Come, my beloved, where I may
+     Speak to your heart.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+     Now, O now, in this brown land
+     Where Love did so sweet music make
+     We two shall wander, hand in hand,
+     Forbearing for old friendship' sake,
+     Nor grieve because our love was gay
+     Which now is ended in this way.
+
+     A rogue in red and yellow dress
+     Is knocking, knocking at the tree;
+     And all around our loneliness
+     The wind is whistling merrily.
+     The leaves--they do not sigh at all
+     When the year takes them in the fall.
+
+     Now, O now, we hear no more
+     The vilanelle and roundelay!
+     Yet will we kiss, sweetheart, before
+     We take sad leave at close of day.
+     Grieve not, sweetheart, for anything--
+     The year, the year is gathering.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+     Sleep now, O sleep now,
+     O you unquiet heart!
+     A voice crying "Sleep now"
+     Is heard in my heart.
+
+     The voice of the winter
+     Is heard at the door.
+     O sleep, for the winter
+     Is crying "Sleep no more."
+
+     My kiss will give peace now
+     And quiet to your heart--
+     Sleep on in peace now,
+     O you unquiet heart!
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+     All day I hear the noise of waters
+     Making moan,
+     Sad as the sea-bird is when, going
+     Forth alone,
+     He hears the winds cry to the water's
+     Monotone.
+     The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing
+     Where I go.
+     I hear the noise of many waters
+     Far below.
+     All day, all night, I hear them flowing
+     To and fro.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+     I hear an army charging upon the land,
+     And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:
+     Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,
+     Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers.
+     They cry unto the night their battle-name:
+     I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.
+     They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
+     Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.
+     They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:
+     They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.
+     My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?
+     My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chamber Music, by James Joyce
+
+*** 

data/train/2826.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,1694 @@
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sandra Laythorpe
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO CAPTAINS.
+
+By Friedrich Heinrich Karl, Freiherr de La Motte-Fouque
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+
+A Mild summer evening was resting on the shores of Malaga, awakening the
+guitar of many a merry singer among the ships in the harbor, and in
+the city houses, and in many an ornamental garden villa. Emulating
+the voices of the birds, the melodious tones greeted the refreshing
+coolness, and floated like perfumed exhalations from meadow and water,
+over the enchanting region. Some troops of infantry who were on the
+shore, and who purposed to spend the night there, that they might be
+ready for embarkation early on the following morning, forgot amid the
+charms of the pleasant eventide that they ought to devote these last few
+hours on European soil to ease and slumber; they began to sing military
+songs, to drink to each other with their flasks filled to the brim with
+the rich wine of Xeres, toasting to the long life of the mighty Emperor
+Charles V., who was now besieging the pirate-nest Tunis, and to whose
+assistance they were about to sail. The merry soldiers were not all
+of one race. Only two companies consisted of Spaniards; the third
+was formed of pure Germans, and now and then among the various
+fellow-combatants the difference of manners and language had given
+rise to much bantering. Now, however, the fellowship of the approaching
+sea-voyage and of the glorious perils to be shared, as well as the
+refreshing feeling which the soft southern evening poured over soul and
+sense, united the band of comrades in perfect and undisturbed harmony.
+The Germans tried to speak Castilian, and the Spaniards to speak German,
+without its occurring to any one to make a fuss about the mistakes and
+confusions that happened. They mutually helped each other, thinking of
+nothing else but the good-will of their companions, each drawing near to
+his fellow by means of his own language.
+
+Somewhat apart from the merry tumult, a young German captain, Sir
+Heimbert of Waldhausen, was reclining under a cork-tree, gazing
+earnestly up at the stars, apparently in a very different mood to the
+fresh, merry sociability which his comrades knew and loved in him.
+Presently the Spanish captain, Don Fadrique Mendez, approached him;
+he was a youth like the other, and was equally skilled in martial
+exercises, but he was generally as austere and thoughtful as Heimbert
+was cheerful and gentle. "Pardon, Senor," began the solemn Spaniard, "if
+I disturb you in your meditations. But as I have had the honor of often
+seeing you as a courageous warrior and faithful brother in amrs in many
+a hot encounter, I would gladly solicit you above all others to do me
+a knightly service, if it does not interfere with your own plans and
+projects for this night." "Dear sir," returned Heimbert courteously, "I
+have certainly an affair of importance to attend to before sunrise,
+but till midnight I am perfectly free, and ready to render you any
+assistance as a brother in aims." "Enough," said Fadrique, "for at
+midnight the tones must long have ceased with which I shall have taken
+farewell of the dearest being I have ever known in this my native city.
+But that you may be as fully acquainted with the whole affair as behoves
+a noble companion, listen to me attentively for a few moments.
+
+"Some time before I left Malaga to join the army of our great emperor
+and to aid in spreading the glory of his arms through Italy, I was
+devoted, after the fashion of young knights, to the service of a
+beautiful girl in this city, named Lucila. She had at that time scarcely
+reached the period which separates childhood from ripe maidenhood, and
+as I--a boy only just capable of bearing arms--offered my homage with a
+childlike, friendly feeling, it was also received by my young mistress
+in a similar childlike manner. I marched at length to Italy, and as you
+yourself know, for we have been companions since then, I was in many a
+hot fight and in many an enchantingly alluring region in that luxurious
+land. Amid all our changes, I held unalterably within me the image of my
+gentle mistress, never pausing in the honorable service I had vowed to
+her, although I cannot conceal from you that in so doing it was rather
+to fulfil the word I had pledged at my departure than from any impelling
+and immoderately ardent feeling in my heart. When we returned to my
+native city from our foreign wanderings, a few weeks ago, I found my
+mistress married to a rich and noble knight residing here. Fiercer
+far than love had been was the jealousy--that almost almighty child of
+heaven and hell--which now spurred me on to follow Lucila's steps,
+from her home to the church, from thence to the house of a friend, from
+thence again to her home or to some noble circle of knights and ladies,
+and all this as unweariedly and as closely as was possible. When I had
+at length assured myself that no other young knight attended her, and
+that she devoted herself entirely to the husband chosen for her by her
+parents rather than desired by herself, I felt perfectly satisfied, and
+I should not have troubled you at this moment had not Lucila approached
+me the day before yesterday and whispered in my ear that I must not
+provoke her husband, for he was very passionate and bold; that not the
+slightest danger threatened her in the matter, because he loved and
+honored her above everything, but that his wrath would vent itself
+all the more furiously upon me. You can readily understand, my noble
+comrade, that I could not help proving my contempt of all personal
+danger by following Lucila more closely than ever, and singing nightly
+serenades beneath her flower-decked windows till the morning star began
+to be reflected in the sea. This very night Lucila's husband sets out
+at midnight for Madrid, and from that hour I will in every way avoid
+the street in which they live; until then, however, as soon as it
+is sufficiently dark to be suitable for a serenade, I will have
+love-romances unceasingly sang before his house. It is true I have
+information that not only he but Lucila's brothers are really to enter
+upon a quarrel with me, and it is for this reason, Senor, that I have
+requested you to bear me company with your good sword in this short
+expedition."
+
+Heimbert seized the Spaniard's hand as a pledge of his readiness, saying
+as he did so, "To show you, dear sir, how gladly I will do what you
+desire of me, I will requite your confidence with confidence, and will
+relate a little incident which occurred to me in this city, and will beg
+you after midnight also to render me a small service. My story is short,
+and will not detain us longer than we must wait before the twilight has
+become deeper and more gloomy.
+
+"On the day after we arrived here I amused myself with walking in the
+beautiful gardens with which the place abounds. I have now been long
+in these southern lands, but I cannot but believe that the dreams which
+transport me nightly back to my German home are the cause for my feeling
+everything here so strange and astonishing. At all events, every morning
+when I wake I wonder anew, as if I were only just arrived. So I was
+walking then, like one infatuated, among the aloe trees, which were
+scattered among the laurels and oleanders. Suddenly a cry sounded near
+me, and a slender girl, dressed in white, fled into my arms, fainting,
+while her companions dispersed past us in every direction. A soldier
+can always tolerably soon gather his senses together, and I speedily
+perceived a furious bull was pursuing the beautiful maiden. I threw
+her quickly over a thickly planted hedge, and followed her myself, upon
+which the beast, blind with rage, passed us by, and I have heard no more
+of it since, except that some young knights in an adjacent courtyard had
+been making a trial with it previous to a bull-fight, and that it was on
+this account that it had broken so furiously through the gardens.
+
+"I was now standing quite alone, with the fainting lady in my arms, and
+she was so wonderfully beautiful to look at that I have never in my life
+felt happier than I then did, and also never sadder. At last I laid
+her down on the turf, and sprinkled her angelic brow, with water from a
+neighboring little fountain. And so she came to herself again, and when
+she opened her bright and lovely eyes I thought I could imagine how the
+glorified spirits must feel in heaven.
+
+"She thanked me with graceful and courteous words, and called me her
+knight; but in my state of enchantment I could not utter a syllable, and
+she must have almost thought me dumb. At length my speech returned, and
+the prayer at once was breathed forth from my heart, that the sweet lady
+would often again allow me to see her in this garden; for that in a few
+weeks the service of the emperor would drive me into the burning land
+of Africa, and that until then she should vouchsafe me the happiness
+of beholding her. She looked at me half smiling, half sadly, and said,
+'Yes.' And she has kept her word and has appeared almost daily, without
+our having yet spoken much to each other. For although she has been
+sometimes quite alone, I could never begin any other topic but that of
+the happiness of walking by her side. Often she has sung to me, and I
+have sung to her also. When I told her yesterday that our departure was
+so near, her heavenly eyes seemed to me suffused with tears. I must also
+have looked sorrowful, for she said to me, in a consoling tone, 'Oh,
+pious, childlike warrior! one may trust you as one trusts an angel.'
+After midnight, before the morning dawn breaks for your departure, I
+give you leave to take farewell of me in this very spot. If you could,
+however, find a true and discreet comrade to watch the entrance from the
+street, it would be well, for many a soldier may be passing at that hour
+through the city on his way from some farewell carouse. Providence has
+now sent me such a comrade, and at one o'clock I shall go joyfully to
+the lovely maiden."
+
+"I only wish the service on which you require me were more rich in
+danger," rejoined Fadrique, "so that I might better prove to you that
+I am yours with life and limb. But come, noble brother, the hour for my
+adventure is arrived."
+
+And wrapped in their mantles, the youths walked hastily toward the city,
+Fadrique carrying his beautiful guitar under his arm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+
+The night-smelling flowers in Lucila's window were already beginning to
+emit their refreshing perfume when Fadrique, leaning in the shadow of
+the angle of an old church opposite, began to tune his guitar. Heimbert
+had stationed himself not far from him, behind a pillar, his drawn sword
+under his mantle, and his clear blue eyes, like two watching stars,
+looking calmly and penetrating around. Fadrique sang:
+
+
+                  "Upon a meadow green with spring,
+                   A little flower was blossoming,
+                   With petals red and snowy white;
+                   To me, a youth, my soul's delight
+                        Within that blossom lay,
+                   And I have loved my song to indite
+                        And flattering homage pay.
+
+                  "Since then a wanderer I have been,
+                   And many a bloody strife have seen;
+                        And now returned, I see
+                   The little floweret stands no more
+                   Upon the meadow as before;
+                   Transplanted by a gardener's care,
+                   And hedged by golden trellis there,
+                        It is denied to me.
+
+                  "I grudge him not his trelllsed guard,
+                   His bolts of iron, strongly barred;
+                   Yet, wandering in the cool night-air,
+                        I touch my zither's string,
+                   And as afore her beauties rare,
+                   Her wondrous graces sing,
+                   And e'en the gardener shall not dare
+                        Refuse the praise I bring."
+
+
+"That depends, Senor," said a man, stepping close, and as he thought
+unobserved, before Fadrique; but the latter had already been informed
+of his approach by a sign from his watchful friend, and he was therefore
+ready to answer with the greater coolness, "If you wish, Senor, to
+commence a suit with my guitar, she has, at all events, a tongue of
+steel, which has already on many occasions done her excellent service.
+With whom is it your pleasure to speak, with the guitar or the
+advocate?"
+
+While the stranger was silent from embarrassment, two mantled figures
+had approached Heimbert and remained standing a few steps from him,
+as if to cut off Fadrique's flight in case he intended to escape. "I
+believe, dear sirs," said Heimbert in a courteous tone, "we are here on
+the same errand--namely, to prevent any intrusion upon the conference of
+yonder knights. At least, as far as I am concerned, you may rely upon it
+that any one who attempts to interfere in their affair will receive my
+dagger in his heart. Be of good cheer, therefore; I think we shall both
+do our duty." The two gentlemen bowed courteously and were silent.
+
+The quiet self-possession with which the two soldiers carried on the
+whole affair was most embarrassing to their three adversaries, and
+they were at a loss to know how they should begin the dispute. At last
+Fadrique again touched the strings of his guitar, and was preparing
+to begin another song. This mark of contempt and apparent disregard of
+danger and hazard so enraged Lucila's husband (for it was he who had
+taken his stand by Don Fadrique) that without further delay he drew his
+sword from his sheath, and with a voice of suppressed rage called out,
+"Draw, or I shall stab you!" "Very gladly, Senor," replied Fadrique
+quietly; "you need not threaten me; you might as well have said so
+calmly." And so saying he placed his guitar carefully in a niche in the
+church wall, seized his sword, and, bowing gracefully to his opponent,
+the fight, began.
+
+At first the two figures by Heimbert's side, who were Lucila's brothers,
+remained quite quiet; but when Fadrique began to get the better of their
+brother-in-law they appeared as if they intended to take part in the
+fight. Heimbert therefore made his mighty sword gleam in the moonlight,
+and said, "Dear sirs, you will not surely oblige me to execute that of
+which I previously assured you? I pray you not to compel me to do so;
+but if it cannot be otherwise, I must honorably keep my word, you may
+rely upon it." The two young men remained from that time motionless,
+surprised both at the decision and at the true-hearted friendliness that
+lay in Heimbert's words.
+
+Meanwhile Don Fadrique, although pressing hard upon his adversary,
+had generously avoided wounding him, and when at last by a dexterous
+movement he wrested his sword from him. Lucila's husband, surprised at
+the unexpected advantage, and in alarm at being thus disarmed, retreated
+a few steps. But Fadrique threw the weapon adroitly into the air, and
+catching it again near the point of the blade, he said, as he gracefully
+presented the hilt to his opponent, "Take it, Senor, and I hope
+our affair of honor is now settled, as you will grant under these
+circumstances that I am only here to show that I fear no sword-thrust in
+the world. The bell of the old cathedral is now ringing twelve o'clock,
+and I give you my word of honor as a knight and a soldier that neither
+is Dona Lucila pleased with my attentions nor am I pleased with paying
+them; from henceforth, and were I to remain a hundred years in Malaga,
+I would not continue to serenade her in this spot. So proceed on your
+journey, and God be with you." He then once more greeted his conquered
+adversary with serious and solemn courtesy, and withdrew. Heimbert
+followed him, after having cordially shaken hands with the two youths,
+saying, "No, dear young sirs, do not let it ever again enter your heads
+to interfere in any honorable contest. Do you understand me?"
+
+He soon overtook his companion, and walked on by his side so full of
+ardent expectation, and with his heart beating so joyfully and yet so
+painfully, that he could not utter a single word. Don Fadrique Mendez
+was also silent; it was not till Heimbert paused before an ornamented
+garden-gate, and pointed cheerfully to the pomegranate boughs richly
+laden with fruits which overhung it, saying, "This is the place, dear
+comrade," that the Spaniard appeared as if about to ask a question,
+but turning quickly round he merely said, "I am pledged to guard this
+entrance for you till dawn. You have my word of honor for it." So saying
+he began walking to and fro before the gate, with drawn sword, like a
+sentinel, and Heimbert, trembling with joy, glided within the gloomy and
+aromatic shrubberies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+
+He was not long in seeking the bright star, which he indeed felt was
+destined henceforth to guide the course of his whole life. The delicate
+form approached him not far from the entrance; weeping softly, it seemed
+to him, in the light of the full moon which was just rising, and yet
+smiling with such infinite grace, that her tears were rather like a
+pearly ornament than a veil of sorrow. In deep and infinite joy and
+sorrow the two lovers wandered silently together through the flowery
+groves; now and then a branch waving in the night-air would touch the
+guitar on the lady's arm, and it would breathe forth a slight murmur
+which blended with the song of the nightingale, or the delicate fingers
+of the girl would tremble over the strings and awaken a few scattered
+chords, while the shooting stars seemed as if following the tones of the
+instrument as they died away. Oh, truly happy was this night both to
+the youth and the maiden, for no rash wish or impure desire passed even
+fleetingly across their minds. They walked on side by side, happy that
+Providence had allowed them this delight, and so little desiring any
+other blessing that even the transitoriness of that they were now
+enjoying floated away into the background of their thoughts.
+
+In the middle of the beautiful garden there was a large open lawn,
+ornamented with statues and surrounding a beautiful and splashing
+fountain. The two lovers sat down on its brink, now gazing at the waters
+sparkling in the moonlight, and now delighting in the contemplation
+of each other's beauty. The maiden touched her guitar, and Heimbert,
+impelled by a feeling scarcely intelligible to himself, sang the
+following words to it:
+
+
+                  "There is a sweet life linked with mine,
+                      But I cannot tell its name;
+                   Oh, would it but to me consign
+                   The secret of that life divine,
+                   That so my lips in whispers sweet
+                   And gentle songs might e'en repeat
+                      All that my heart would fain proclaim!"
+
+
+He suddenly paused, and blushed deeply, fearing he had been too bold.
+The lady blushed also, touched her guitar-strings with a half-abstracted
+air, and at last sang as if dreamily:
+
+
+                  "By the spring where moonlight's gleams
+                      O'er the sparkling waters pass,
+                   Who is sitting by the youth,
+                      Singing on the soft green grass?
+                   Shall the maiden tell her name,
+                      When though all unknown it be,
+                   Her heart is glowing with her shame,
+                      And her cheeks burn anxiously,
+                   First, let the youthful knight be named.
+                     'Tis he that on that glorious day
+                      Fought in Castilla's proud array;
+
+                     'Tis he the youth of sixteen years,
+                   At Pavia, who his fortunes tried,
+                   The Frenchman's fear, the Spaniard's pride.
+                      Heimbert is the hero's name,
+                      Victorious in many a fight!
+                      And beside the valiant knight,
+                      Sitting in the soft green grass,
+                   Though her name her lips shall pass,
+                      Dona Clara feels no shame "
+
+
+"Oh!" said Heimbert, blushing from another cause than before, "oh,
+Dona Clara, that affair at Pavia was nothing but a merry and victorious
+tournament, and even if occasionally since then I have been engaged in
+a tougher contest, how have I ever merited as a reward the overwhelming
+bliss I am now enjoying! Now I know what your name is, and I may
+in future address you by it, my angelic Dona Clara, my blessed and
+beautiful Dona Clara! But tell me now, who has given you such a
+favorable report of my achievements, that I may ever regard him with
+grateful affection?"
+
+"Does the noble Heimbert of Waldhausen suppose," rejoined Clara, "that
+the noble houses of Spain had none of their sons where he stood in the
+battle? You must have surely seen them fighting by your side, and must I
+not have heard of your glories through the lips of my own people?"
+
+The silvery tones of a little bell sounded just then from a neighboring
+palace, and Clara whispered, "It is time to part. Adieu, my hero!" And
+she smiled on the youth through her gushing tears, and bent toward him,
+and he almost fancied he felt a sweet kiss breathed from her lips. When
+he fully recovered himself Clara had disappeared, the morning clouds
+were beginning to wear the rosy hue of dawn, and Heimbert, with a heaven
+of love's proud happiness in his heart, returned to his watchful friend
+at the garden gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+
+"Halt!" exclaimed Fadrique, as Heimbert appeared from the garden,
+holding his drawn sword toward him ready for attack. "Stop, you are
+mistaken, my good comrade," said the German, smiling, "it is I whom you
+see before you." "Do not imagine, Knight Heimbert of Waldhausen," said
+Fadrique, "that I mistake you. But my promise is discharged, my hour of
+guard has been honorably kept, and now I beg you without further delay
+to prepare yourself, and fight for your life until heart's blood has
+ceased to flow through these veins." "Good heavens!" sighed Heimbert,
+"I have often heard that in these southern lands there are witches, who
+deprive people of their senses by magic arts and incantations. But
+I have never experienced anything of the sort until to-day. Compose
+yourself, my dear good comrade, and go with me back to the shore."
+Fadrique laughed fiercely, and answered, "Set aside your silly delusion,
+and if you must have everything explained to you, word by word, in order
+to understand it, know then that the lady whom you came to meet in the
+shrubbery of this my garden is Dona Clara Mendez, my only sister. Quick,
+therefore, and without further preamble, draw!" "God forbid!" exclaimed
+the German, not touching his weapon. "You shall be my brother-in-law,
+Fadrique, and not my murderer, and still less will I be yours." Fadrique
+only shook his head indignantly, and advanced toward his comrade with
+measured steps for an encounter. Heimbert, however, still remained
+immovable, and said, "No, Fadrique, I cannot now or ever do you harm.
+For besides the love I bear your sister, it must certainly have been you
+who has spoken to her so honorably of my military expeditions in
+Italy." "When I did so," replied Fadrique in a fury, "I was a fool. But,
+dallying coward, out with your sword, or--"
+
+Before Fadrique had finished speaking, Heimbert, burning with
+indignation, exclaimed, "The devil himself could not bear that!" and
+drawing his sword from the scabbard, the two young captains rushed
+fiercely and resolutely to the attack.
+
+Different indeed was this contest to that previously fought by Fadrique
+with Lucila's husband. The two young soldiers well understood their
+weapons, and strove with each other with equal boldness, their swords
+flashing like rays of light as now this one now that one hurled a
+lightning thrust at his adversary, which was with similar speed and
+dexterity turned aside. Firmly they pressed the left foot, as if rooted
+in the ground, while the right advanced to the bold onset and then
+again they quickly retired to the safer attitude of defence. From the
+self-possession and the quiet unremitting anger with which both the
+combatants fought, it was evident that one of the two would find his
+grave under the overhanging branches of the orange-tree, which were now
+tinged with the red glow of morning, and this would undoubtedly have
+been the case had not the report of a cannon from the harbor sounded
+through the silence of the twilight.
+
+The combatants paused, as if at some word of command to be obeyed by
+both, and listened, counting to themselves; then, as each uttered the
+number thirty, a second gun was heard. "It is the signal for immediate
+embarkation, Senor," said Don Fadrique; "we are now in the emperor's
+service, and all dispute ceases which is not against the foes of Charles
+the Fifth." "Right," replied Heimbert, "but when there is an end of
+Tunis and the whole war. I shall demand satisfaction for that 'dallying
+coward.'" "And I for that in intercourse with my sister," said Fadrique.
+"Certainly," rejoined the other; and, so saying, the two captains
+hurried down to the strand and arranged the embarkation of their troops;
+while the sun, rising over the sea, shone upon them both in the same
+vessel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+
+The voyagers had for some time to battle with contrary winds, and when
+at length they came in sight of the coasts of Barbary the darkness of
+evening had closed so deeply over the sea that no pilot in the little
+squadron ventured to ride at anchor on the shallow shore. They cruised
+about on the calm waters, waiting for the morning; and the soldiers,
+full of laudable ambition for combat, stood impatiently in crowds on the
+deck, straining their longing eyes to see the theatre of their future
+deeds.
+
+Meanwhile the heavy firing of besiegers and besieged thundered
+unceasingly from the fortress of Goletta, and as the night darkened the
+scene with massy clouds, the flames of burning fragments became more
+visible, and the fiery course of the red bullets was perceptible as
+they crossed each other in their path, while their effects in fire and
+devastation were fearful to behold. It was evident that the Mussulmans
+had been attempting a sally, for a sharp fire of musketry burst forth
+suddenly amid the roaring of the cannon. The fight was approaching the
+trenches of the Christians, and on board the vessels none were agreed
+whether the besiegers were in danger or not. At length they saw that
+the Turks were driven back into the fortress; the Christian army
+pursued them, and a shout was heard from the Spanish camp as of one loud
+Victory! and the cry, Goletta was taken!
+
+How the troops on board the vessels--consisting of young and
+courage-tried men--burned with ardor and their hearts beat at the
+glorious spectacle, need not be detailed to those who carry a brave
+heart within their own bosoms, and to all others any description would
+be lost. Heimbert and Fadrique stood close to each other. "I do not
+know," said the latter, speaking to himself, "but I feel as if to-morrow
+I must plant my standard upon yonder height which is now lighted up with
+the red glow of the bullets and burning flames in Goletta." "That is
+just what I feel!" said Heimbert. The two angry captains then relapsed
+into silence and turned indignantly away.
+
+The longed-for morning at length dawned, the vessels approached the
+shore, and the landing of the troops began, while an officer was at once
+dispatched to the camp to announce the arrival of the reinforcements to
+the mighty general Alba. The soldiers were hastily ranged on the beach,
+they put themselves and their weapons in order, and were soon standing
+in battle array, ready for their great leader. Clouds of dust rose in
+the gray twilight, the returning officer announced the approach of the
+general, and as Alba signifies "morning" in the Castilian tongue, the
+Spaniards raised a shout of rejoicing at the coincidence, as at some
+favorable omen, for as the knightly train approached the first beams of
+the rising sun became visible.
+
+The grave and haggard form of the general was seen mounted on a tall
+Andalusian charger of the deepest black. Having galloped once up and
+down the lines, he stopped his powerful horse in the middle, and looking
+along the ranks with an air of grave satisfaction, he said, "You pass
+muster well. That is well. I like it to be so. It is plain to see that
+you are tried soldiers, in spite of your youth. We will first hold a
+review, and then I will lead you to something more agreeable."
+
+So saying, he dismounted, and walking toward the right wing he began to
+inspect one troop after another in the closest manner, with the captain
+of each company at his side, that he might receive from him accurate
+account upon the minutest particulars. Sometimes a cannon-ball from the
+fortress would whizz over the heads of the men; then Alba would stand
+still and cast a keen glance over the soldiers before him. But when he
+saw that not an eyelash moved, a smile of satisfaction passed over his
+severe pale face.
+
+When he had inspected both divisions he again mounted his horse and once
+more galloped into the middle. Then, stroking his long beard, he said,
+"You are in good order, soldiers, and therefore you shall take your
+part in this glorious day, which is just dawning for our whole Christian
+armada. We will attack Barbarossa, soldiers. Do you not already hear the
+drums and fifes in the camp? Do you see him advancing yonder to meet the
+emperor? That side of his position is assigned to you!"
+
+"Vivat Carolus Quintus!" resounded through the ranks. Alba beckoned
+the captains to him, and assigned to each his duty. He usually mingled
+German and Spanish troops together, in order to stimulate the courage of
+the combatants still higher by emulation. So it happened even now that
+Heimbert and Fadrique were commanded to storm the very same height,
+which, now gleaming with the morning light, they at once recognized
+as that which had shone out so fiercely and full of promise the night
+before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+
+Thrice had Fadrique and Heimbert almost forced their way to a rampart
+in the fortifications, and thrice had they been repulsed with their
+men into the valley below by the fierce opposition of the Turks. The
+Mussulmans shouted after the retreating foe, clashed their weapons with
+the triumph of victory, and with a scornful laugh asked whether they
+would not come up again to give heart and brain to the scimitar and
+their limbs to the falling beams of wood. The two captains, gnashing
+their teeth with fury, arranged their ranks anew; for after three vain
+assaults they had to move closer together to fill the places of the
+slain and the mortally wounded. Meanwhile a murmur ran through the
+Christian army that a witch was fighting among their foes and helping
+them to conquer.
+
+Duke Alba rode to the point of attack, and looked scrutinizingly at the
+breach they had made. "Not yet broken through the enemy here!" said
+he, shaking his head, "I am surprised. From two such youths, and such
+troops, I should have expected it." "Do you hear that? Do you hear
+that?" exclaimed the two captains, as they paced along their lines
+repeating the general's words. The soldiers shouted loudly, and demanded
+to be once more led against the enemy; even those who were mortally
+wounded shouted, with a last effort, "Forward, comrades!" The great Alba
+at once sprang like an arrow from his horse, wrested a partisan from
+the stiff hand of one of the slain, and standing in front of the two
+companies he cried, "I will take part in your glory. In the name of God
+and of the blessed Virgin, forward, my children!"
+
+And joyfully they rushed up the hill, every heart beating with
+confidence, while the war-cry was raised triumphantly; some even began
+already to shout "Victory! victory!" and the Mussulmans paused and
+wavered. Suddenly, like the vision of an avenging angel, a maiden,
+dressed in purple garments embroidered with gold appeared in the Turkish
+ranks, and those who were terrified before again shouted "Allah!"
+calling at the same time, "Zelinda, Zelinda!" The maiden, however, drew
+a small box from under her arm, and opening it she breathed into it
+and hurled it down among the Christian troops. And forth from the fatal
+chest there burst a whole fire of rockets, grenades, and other fearful
+messengers of death. The startled soldiers paused in their assault.
+"Forward!" cried Alba. "Forward!" cried the two captains; but a flaming
+arrow just then fastened on the duke's plumed hat and hissed and
+crackled round his head, so that the general fell fainting down the
+height. Then the German and Spanish infantry fled uncontrollably from
+the fearful ascent. Again the storm had been repulsed. The Mussulmans
+shouted, and like a fatal star Zelinda's beauty shone in the midst of
+the flying troops.
+
+When Alba opened his eyes, Heimbert was standing over him, with his
+mantle, arm, and face scorched with the fire, which he had not only just
+extinguished on his general's head, but by throwing himself over him he
+had saved him from a second body of flame rolled down the height in the
+same direction. The duke was thanking his youthful deliverer when some
+soldiers came up, looking for him, to apprise him that the Saracen power
+was beginning an attack on the opposite wing of the army. Without losing
+a word Alba threw himself on the first horse brought him and galloped
+away to the spot where the most threatening danger summoned him.
+
+Fadrique stood with his glowing eye fixed on the rampart, where the
+brilliant form of Zelinda might be seen, with a two-edged spear, ready
+to be hurled, uplifted by her snow-white arm, and raising her voice,
+now in encouraging tones to the Mussulmans in Arabic, and again speaking
+scornfully to the Christians in Spanish. At last Fadrique exclaimed,
+"Oh, foolish being! she thinks to daunt me, and yet she places herself
+before me, an alluring and irresistible war-prize!"
+
+And as if magic wings had sprung from his shoulders, he began to fly up
+the height with such rapidity that Alba's violent descent seemed but
+a lazy snail's pace. Before any one was aware, he was already on the
+height, and wresting spear and shield from the maiden, he had seized
+her in his arms and was attempting to bear her away, while Zelinda in
+anxious despair clung to the palisade with both her hands. Her cry for
+help was unavailing, partly because the Turks imagined that the magic
+power of the maiden was annihilated by the almost equally wondrous deed
+of the youth, and partly also because the faithful Heimbert, quickly
+perceiving his comrade's daring feat, had led both troops to a renewed
+attack, and now stood by his side on the height, fighting hand to hand
+with the defenders. This time the fury of the Mussulmans, weakened as
+they were by superstition and surprise, could avail nothing against
+the heroic advance of the Christian soldiers. The Spaniards and Germans
+speedily broke through the enemy, assisted by the watchful squadrons of
+their army. The Mohammedans fled with frightful howling, the battle with
+its stream of victory rolled ever on, and the banner of the holy German
+empire and that of the royal house of Castile waved victorious over the
+glorious battle-field before the walls of Tunis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+
+In the confusion of the conquering and the conquered, Zelinda had
+wrested herself from Fadrique's arms and had fled from him with such
+swiftness that, however much love and desire might have given wings to
+his pursuit, she was soon out of sight in a spot so well known to her.
+All the more vehement was the fury of the excited Spaniard against the
+infidel foe. Wherever a little host made a fresh stand to oppose
+the Christians, he would hasten forward with the troops, who ranged
+themselves round him, resistless as he was, as round a banner of
+victory, while Heimbert ever remained at his side like a faithful
+shield, guarding off many a danger to which the youth, intoxicated with
+rage and success, exposed himself without consideration. The following
+day they heard of Barbarossa's flight from the city, and the victorious
+troops advanced without resistance through the gates of Tunis.
+Fadrique's and Heimbert's companies were always together.
+
+Thick clouds of smoke began to curl through the streets; the soldiers
+were obliged to shake off the glowing and dusty flakes from their
+mantles and richly plumed helmets, where they often rested smouldering.
+"I trust the enemy in his despair has not set fire to some magazine full
+of powder!" exclaimed the thoughtful Heimbert; and Fadrique, allowing
+by a sign that he agreed with his surmise, hastened on to the spot from
+whence the smoke proceeded, the troops courageously pressing after him.
+
+The sudden turn of a street brought them in view of a magnificent
+palace, from the beautifully ornamented windows of which the flames
+were emerging, looking like torches of death in their fitful glow,
+and lighting up the splendid building in the hour of its ruin in the
+grandest manner, now illuminating this and now that part of the gigantic
+structure, and then again relapsing into a fearful darkness of smoke and
+vapor.
+
+And like some faultless statue, the ornament of the whole edifice, there
+stood Zelinda upon a high and giddy projection, while the tongues of
+flame wreathed around her from below, calling to her companions in the
+faith to help her in saving the wisdom of centuries which was preserved
+in this building. The projection on which she stood began to totter from
+the fervent heat raging beneath it, and a few stones gave way; Fadrique
+called with a voice full of anguish to the endangered lady, and scarcely
+had she withdrawn her foot from the spot, when the stone on which she
+had been standing broke away and came rattling down on the pavement.
+Zelinda disappeared within the burning palace, and Fadrique rushed up
+its marble staircase, Heimbert, his faithful companion, following him.
+
+Their hasty steps carried them through lofty resounding halls; the
+architecture over their heads was a maze of high arches, and one chamber
+led into another almost like a labyrinth. The walls displayed on all
+sides magnificent shelves, in which were to be seen stored rolls of
+parchment, papyrus, and palm-leaf, partly inscribed with the characters
+of long-vanished centuries, and which were now to perish themselves.
+For the flames were already crackling among them and stretching their
+serpent-like and fiery heads from one case of treasures to another;
+while some Spanish soldiers, barbarous in their fury, and hoping for
+plunder, and finding nothing but inscribed rolls within the gorgeous
+building, passed from disappointment to rage, and aided the flames; the
+more so as they regarded the inscriptions as the work of evil magicians.
+Fadrique flew as in a dream through the strange half-consumed halls,
+ever calling Zelinda! thinking and regarding nothing but her enchanting
+beauty. Long did Heimbert remain at his side, until at length they
+both reached a cedar staircase leading to an upper story; here Fadrique
+paused to listen, and exclaiming, "She is speaking up there! she is
+speaking loud! she needs my help!" he dashed up the already burning
+steps. Heimbert hesitated a moment; he saw the staircase already
+tottering, and he thought to give a warning cry to his companion; but
+at the same moment the light ornamental ascent gave way and burst into
+flames. He could just see Fadrique clinging above to a brass grating
+and swinging himself up to it, but all means of following him were
+destroyed. Quickly recollecting himself, Heimbert lost no time in idly
+gazing, but hastened through the adjacent halls in search of another
+flight of steps which would lead him to his vanished friend.
+
+Meanwhile Fadrique, following the enchanting voice, had reached a
+gallery in the midst of which, the floor having fallen in, there was
+a fearful abyss of flames, though the pillars on each side were still
+standing. Opposite to him the youth perceived the longed-for maiden,
+clinging with one hand to a pillar, while with the other she was
+threatening back some Spanish soldiers, who seemed ready at any moment
+to seize her, and her delicate foot was already hovering over the edge
+of the glowing ruins. For Fadrique to go to her was impossible; the
+breadth of the opening rendered even a desperate leap unavailing.
+Trembling lest his call might make the maiden precipitate herself into
+the abyss, either in terror or despairing anger, he only softly raised
+his voice and whispered as with a breath over the flaming gulf, "Oh,
+Zelinda, Zelinda! do not give way to such frightful thoughts! Your
+preserver is here!" The maiden turned her queenly head, and when
+Fadrique saw her calm and composed demeanor, he cried to the soldiers on
+the other side, with all the thunder of his warrior's voice, "Back, ye
+insolent plunderers! Whoever advances but one step to the lady shall
+feel the vengeance of my arm!" They started and seemed on the point of
+withdrawing, when one of their number said, "The knight cannot touch
+us, the gulf between us is too broad for that. And as for the lady's
+throwing herself down--it almost looks as if the young knight were
+her lover, and whoever has a lover is not likely to be so hasty about
+throwing herself down." All laughed at this and again advanced. Zelinda
+tottered at the edge of the abyss. But with the courage of a lion
+Fadrique had torn his target from his arm, and hurling it with his right
+hand he flung it at the soldiers with such a sure aim that the rash
+leader, struck on the head, fell senseless to the ground. The rest again
+stood still. "Away with you!" cried Fadrique authoritatively, "or my
+dagger shall strike the next as surely, and then I swear I will never
+rest till I have found out your whole gang and appeased my rage." The
+dagger gleamed in the youth's hand, but yet more fearfully gleamed the
+fury in his eyes, and the soldiers fled. Then Zelinda bowed gratefully
+to her preserver, took up a roll of palm-leaves which lay at her feet,
+and which must have previously slipped from her hand, and then vanished
+hastily through a side-door of the gallery. Henceforth Fadrique sought
+her in vain in the burning palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+
+The great Alba held a council with his chief officers in an open place
+in the middle of the conquered city, and, by means of interpreters, sent
+question after question to the Turkish prisoners as to the fate of the
+beautiful woman who had been seen animating them on the ramparts, and
+who was certainly the most exquisite enchantress that had ever visited
+the earth. Nothing very distinct was to be gained from the answers, for
+although the interrogated all knew of the the beautiful Zelinda as a
+noble lady versed in magic lore, and acknowledged by the whole people,
+they were utterly unable to state from whence she had come to Tunis
+and whither she had now fled. When at last they began to threaten the
+prisoners as obstinate, an old Dervish, hitherto unnoticed, pressed
+forward and said, with a gloomy smile, "Whoever has a desire to seek
+the lady may set out when he chooses; I will conceal nothing from him of
+what I know of her direction, and I know something. But I must first of
+all receive the promise that I shall not be compelled to accompany as
+guide. My lips otherwise will remain sealed forever, and you may do with
+me as you will."
+
+He looked like one who intended to keep his word, and Alba, pleased with
+the firmness of the man, which harmonized well with his own mind, gave
+him the desired assurance, and the Dervish began his relation. He
+was once, he said, wandering in the almost infinite desert of Sahara,
+impelled perhaps by rash curiosity, perhaps by higher motives; he had
+lost his way there, and had at last, wearied to death, reached one of
+those fertile islands of that sea of sand which are called oases.
+Then followed, sparkling with oriental vivacity, a description of the
+wonderful things seen there, now filling the hearts of his hearers
+with sweet longing, and then again making their hair stand on end with
+horror, though from the strange pronunciation of the speaker and the
+flowing rapidity of his words the half was scarcely understood. The end
+of all this at length was that Zelinda dwelt on that oasis, in the midst
+of the pathless sand-plains of the desert, surrounded by magic horrors;
+and also, as the Dervish knew for certain, that she had left about half
+an hour ago on her way thither. The almost contemptuous words with which
+he concluded his narration plainly showed that he desired nothing more
+earnestly than to seduce some Christians to undertake a journey which
+must terminate inevitably in their destruction. At the same time he
+added a solemn oath that everything was truly as he had stated it, and
+he did this in a firm and grave manner, as a man who knows that he
+is speaking the most indubitable truth. Surprised and thoughtful, the
+circle of officers held their council round him.
+
+Then Heimbert stepped forward with an air as if of request; he had
+just received a summons to leave the burning palace, where he had been
+seeking his friend, and had been appointed to the place of council
+because it was necessary to arrange the troops here in readiness for
+any possible rising in the conquered city. "What do you wish, my young
+hero?" said Alba, recognizing him as he appeared. "I know your smiling,
+blooming countenance well. You were but lately sheltering me like a
+protecting angel. I am so sure that you make no request but what is
+honorable and knightly that anything you may possibly desire is granted
+beforehand." "My great Duke," replied Heimbert, with cheeks glowing
+with pleasure, "if I may then venture to ask a favor, will you grant
+me permission to follow the beautiful Zelinda at once in the direction
+which this wonderful Dervish has pointed out?" The great general bowed
+in assent, and added, "So noble an adventure could not be consigned to a
+more noble knight!"
+
+"I do not know that!" said an angry voice from the throng. "But well do
+I know that to me above all others this adventure belongs, even were it
+assigned as a reward for the capture of Tunis. For who was the first on
+the height and within the city?" "That was Don Fadrique Mendez," said
+Heimbert, taking the speaker by the hand and leading him before the
+general. "If I now for his sake must forfeit my promised reward, I must
+patiently submit; for he has rendered better service than I have done to
+the emperor and the army."
+
+"Neither of you shall forfeit his reward," said the great Alba. "Each
+has permission from this moment to seek the maiden in whatever way it
+seems to him most advisable."
+
+And swift as lightning the two young captains quitted the circle of
+officers in opposite directions.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+
+A sea of sand, stretching out in the distant horizon, without one object
+to mark its extensive surface, white and desolate in its vastness--such
+is the scene which proclaims the fearful desert of Sahara to the eye of
+the wanderer who has lost himself in these frightful regions. In this
+also it resembles the sea, that it casts up waves, and often a misty
+vapor bangs over its surface. But there is not the soft play of waves
+which unite all the coasts of the earth; each wave as it rolls in
+bringing a message from the remotest and fairest island kingdoms, and
+again rolling back as it were with an answer, in a sort of love-flowing
+dance. No; there is here only the melancholy sporting of the hot wind
+with the faithless dust which ever falls back again into its joyless
+basin, and never reaches the rest of the solid land with its happy human
+dwellings. There is here none of the sweet cool sea-breeze in which
+kindly fairies seem carrying on their graceful sport, forming blooming
+gardens and pillared palaces--there is only a suffocating vapor,
+rebelliously given back to the glowing sun from the unfruitful sands.
+
+Hither the two youths arrived at the same time, and paused, gazing with
+dismay at the pathless chaos before them. Zelinda's track, which was not
+easily hidden or lost, had hitherto obliged them almost always to remain
+together, dissatisfied as Fadrique was at the circumstance, and angry as
+were the glances he cast at his unwelcome companion. Each had hoped to
+overtake Zelinda before she had reached the desert, feeling how almost
+impossible it would be to find her once she had entered it. That hope
+was now at an end; and although in answer to the inquiries they made in
+the Barbary villages on the frontier, they heard that a wanderer going
+southward in the desert and guiding his course by the stars would,
+according to tradition, arrive at length at a wonderfully fertile oasis,
+the abode of a divinely beautiful enchantress, yet everything appeared
+highly uncertain and dispiriting, and was rendered still more so by the
+avalanches of dust before the travellers' view.
+
+The youths looked sadly at the prospect before them, and their horses
+snorted and started back at the horrible plain, as though it were some
+insidious quicksand, and even the riders themselves were seized with
+doubt and dismay. Suddenly they sprung from their saddles, as at some
+word of command, unbridled their horses, loosened their girths, and
+turned them loose on the desert, that they might find their way back
+to some happier dwelling place. Then, taking some provision from their
+saddle-bags, they placed it on their shoulders, and casting aside their
+heavy riding boots they plunged like two courageous swimmers into the
+trackless waste.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+
+With no other guide than the sun by day, and by night the host of stars,
+the two captains soon lost sight of each other, and all the sooner, as
+Fadrique avoided intentionally the object of his aversion. Heimbert, on
+the other hand, had no thought but the attainment of his aim; and, full
+of joyful confidence in God's assistance, he pursued his course in a
+southerly direction.
+
+Many nights and many days had passed, when one evening, as the twilight
+was coming on, Heimbert was standing alone in the endless desert, unable
+to descry a single object all round on which his eye could rest. His
+light flask was empty, and the evening brought with it, instead or
+the hoped-for coolness, a suffocating whirlwind of sand, so that the
+exhausted wanderer was obliged to press his burning face to the burning
+soil in order to escape in some measure the fatal cloud. Now and then he
+heard something passing him, or rustling over him as with the sound of
+a sweeping mantle, and he would raise himself in anxious haste; but he
+only saw what he had already too often seen in the daytime--the wild
+beasts of the wilderness roaming at liberty through the desert
+waste. Sometimes it was an ugly camel, then it was a long-necked and
+disproportioned giraffe, and then again a long-legged ostrich hastening
+away with its wings outspread. They all appeared to scorn him, and he
+had already taken his resolve to open his eyes no more, and to give
+himself up to his fate, without allowing these horrible and strange
+creatures to disturb his mind in the hour of death.
+
+Presently it seemed to him as if he heard the hoofs and neighing of a
+horse, and suddenly something halted close beside him, and he thought he
+caught the sound of a man's voice. Half unwilling, he could not resist
+raising himself wearily, and he saw before him a rider in an Arab's
+dress mounted on a slender Arabian horse. Overcome with joy at finding
+himself within reach of human help, he exclaimed, "Welcome, oh, man,
+in this fearful solitude! If thou canst, succor me, thy fellow-man, who
+must otherwise perish with thirst!" Then remembering that the tones
+of his dear German mother tongue were not intelligible in this joyless
+region, he repeated the same words in the mixed dialect, generally
+called the Lingua Romana, universally used by heathens, Mohammedans, and
+Christians in those parts of the world where they have most intercourse
+with each other.
+
+The Arab still remained silent, and looked as if scornfully laughing at
+his strange discovery. At length he replied, in the same dialect, "I was
+also in Barbarossa's fight; and if, Sir Knight, our overthrow bitterly
+enraged me then, I find no small compensation for it in the fact of
+seeing one of the conquerors lying so pitifully before me." "Pitifully!"
+exclaimed Heimbert angrily, and his wounded sense of honor giving him
+back for a moment all his strength, he seized his sword and stood ready
+for an encounter. "Oho!" laughed the Arab, "does the Christian viper
+still hiss so strongly? Then it only behooves me to put spurs to my
+horse and leave thee to perish here, thou lost creeping worm!" "Ride
+to the devil, thou dog of a heathen!" retorted Heimbert; "rather than
+entreat a crumb of thee I will die here, unless the good God sends me
+manna in the wilderness."
+
+And the Arab spurred forward his swift steed and galloped away a couple
+of hundred paces, laughing with scorn. Then he paused, and looking round
+to Heimbert he trotted back and said, "Thou seemest too good, methinks,
+to perish here of hunger and thirst. Beware! my good sabre shall touch
+thee."
+
+Heimbert, who had again stretched himself hopelessly on the burning
+sand, was quickly roused to his feet by these words, and seized his
+sword; and sudden as was the spring with which the Arab's horse flew
+toward him, the stout German warrior stood ready to parry the blow,
+and the thrust which the Arab aimed at him in the Mohammedan manner he
+warded off with certainty and skill.
+
+Again and again the Arab sprung; similarly here and there, vainly hoping
+to give his antagonist a death-blow. At last, overcome by impatience, he
+approached so boldly that Heimbert, warding off the threatening
+weapon, had time to seize the Arab by the girdle and drag him from the
+fast-galloping horse. The violence of the movement threw Heimbert also
+on the ground, but he lay above his opponent, and holding close before
+his eyes a dagger, which he had dexterously drawn from his girdle, he
+exclaimed, "Wilt thou have mercy or death?" The Arab, trembling, cast
+down his eyes before the gleaming and murderous weapon, and said, "Show
+mercy to me, mighty warrior; I surrender to thee." Heimbert then ordered
+him to throw away the sabre he still held in his right hand. He did so,
+and both combatants rose, and again sunk down upon the sand, for the
+victor was far more weary than the vanquished.
+
+The Arab's good horse meanwhile had trotted toward them, according to
+the habit of those noble animals, who never forsake their fallen master.
+It now stood behind the two men, stretching out its long slender neck
+affectionately toward them. "Arab," said Heimbert with exhausted voice,
+"take from thy horse what provision thou hast with thee and place it
+before me." The vanquished man humbly did as he was commanded, now
+just as much submitting to the will of the conqueror as he had before
+exhibited his animosity in anger and revenge. After a few draughts
+of palm-wine from the skin, Heimbert looked at the youth under a new
+aspect; he then partook of some fruits, drank more of the palm-wine,
+and at length said, "You are going to ride still farther to-night, young
+man?" "Yes, indeed," replied the Arab sadly; "on a distant oasis there
+dwells my aged father and my blooming bride. Now--even if you set me at
+full liberty--I must perish in the heat of this barren desert, for want
+of sustenance, before I can reach my lovely home."
+
+"Is it, perhaps," asked Heimbert, "the oasis on which the mighty
+enchantress, Zelinda, dwells?"
+
+"Allah protect me!" cried the Arab, clasping his hands. "Zelinda's
+wondrous isle offers no hospitable shelter to any but magicians. It lies
+far away in the scorching south, while our friendly oasis is toward the
+cooler west."
+
+"I only asked in case we might be travelling companions," said
+Heimbert courteously. "If that cannot be, we must certainly divide the
+provisions; for I would not have so brave a warrior as you perish, with
+hunger and thirst."
+
+So saying, the young captain began to arrange the provisions in two
+portions, placing the larger on his left and the smaller at his
+right; he then desired the Arab to take the former, and added, to his
+astonished companion, "See, good sir, I have either not much farther
+to travel or I shall perish in the desert; I feel that it will be so.
+Besides, I cannot carry half so much on foot as you can on horse-back."
+
+"Knight! victorious knight!" cried the amazed Mussulman, "am I then to
+keep my horse?"
+
+"It were a sin and shame indeed," said Heimbert, smiling, "to separate
+such a faithful steed from such a skilful rider. Ride on, in God's name,
+and get safely to your people."
+
+He then helped him to mount, and the Arab was on the point of uttering a
+few words of gratitude, when he suddenly exclaimed, "The magic maiden!"
+and, swift as the wind, he flew over the dusty plain. Heimbert, however,
+turning round, saw close beside him in the now bright moonlight a
+shining figure, which he at once perceived to be Zelinda.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+
+The maiden looked fixedly at the young soldier, and seemed considering
+with what words to address him, while he, after his long search and now
+unexpected success, was equally at a loss. At last she said in Spanish,
+"Thou wonderful enigma, I have been witness of all that has passed
+between thee and the Arab; and these affairs confuse my head like a
+whirlwind. Speak, therefore, plainly, that I may know whether thou art a
+madman or an angel?"
+
+"I am neither, dear lady," replied Heimbert, with his wonted
+friendliness. "I am only a poor wanderer, who has just been putting into
+practice one of the commands of his Master, Jesus Christ."
+
+"Sit down," said Zelinda, "and tell me of thy Master; he must be himself
+unprecedented to have such a servant. The night is cool and still, and
+at my side thou hast no cause to fear the dangers of the desert."
+
+"Lady," replied Heimbert, smiling, "I am not of a fearful nature, and
+when I am speaking of my dear Saviour my mind is perfectly free from all
+alarm."
+
+Thus saying, they both sat down on the now cooled sand and began a
+wondrous conversation, while the full moon shone upon them from the
+deep-blue heavens above like a magic lamp.
+
+Heimbert's words, full of divine love, truth, and simplicity sank like
+soft sunbeams, gently and surely, into Zelinda's, heart, driving away
+the mysterious magic power which dwelt there, and wrestling for the
+dominion of the noble territory of her soul. When morning began to dawn
+she said, "Thou wouldst not be called an angel last evening, but thou
+art truly one. For what else are angels than messengers of the Most High
+God?" "In that sense," rejoined Heimbert, "I am well satisfied with the
+name, for I certainly hope that I am the bearer of my Master's message.
+Yes, if he bestows on me further grace and strength, it may even be
+that you also may become my companion in the pious work." "It is not
+impossible," said Zelinda thoughtfully. "Thou must, however, come with
+me to my island, and there thou shalt be regaled as is befitting such
+an ambassador, far better than here on the desolate sand, with the
+miserable palm-wine that thou hast so laboriously obtained."
+
+"Pardon me," replied Heimbert; "it is difficult to me to refuse the
+request of a lady, but on this occasion it cannot be otherwise. In
+your island many glorious things have been conjured together by your
+forbidden art, and many lovely forms which the good God has created have
+been transformed. These might dazzle my senses, and at last delude them.
+If you will, therefore, hear the best and purest things which I can
+relate to you, you must rather come out to me on this desert sand. The
+palm-wine and the dates of the Arab will suffice for me for many a day
+to come." "You would do better to come with me," said Zelinda, shaking
+her head with somewhat of a scornful smile. "You were certainly neither
+born nor brought up to be a hermit, and there is nothing on my oasis so
+destructive as you imagine. What is there more than shrubs and flowers
+and beasts gathered together from different quarters of the world,
+perhaps a little strangely interwoven; each, that is to say, partaking
+of the nature of the other, in a similar manner to that which you must
+have seen in our Arabian carving! A moving flower, a bird growing on a
+branch, a fountain gleaming with fiery sparks, a singing twig--these are
+truly no hateful things!" "He must avoid temptation who does not wish
+to be overcome by it," said Heimbert very gravely; "I am for the desert.
+Will it please you to come out to visit me again?" Zelinda looked down
+somewhat displeased. Then suddenly bending her head still lower she
+replied, "Yes; toward evening I shall be here again." And, turning away,
+she at once disappeared in the rising whirlwind of the desert.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+
+With the evening twilight the lovely lady returned and spent the night
+in converse with the pious youth, leaving him in the morning with her
+mind more humble, pure, and devout; and thus matters went on for many
+days. "Thy palm-wine and thy dates must be coming to an end," said
+Zelinda one evening as she presented the youth with a flask of rich wine
+and some costly fruits. He, however, gently put aside the gift and said,
+"Noble lady, I would accept your gift gladly, but I fear some of your
+magic arts may perhaps cleave to it. Or could you assure me to the
+contrary by Him whom you are now beginning to know?" Zelinda cast
+down her eyes in silent confusion and took her presents back. On the
+following evening, however, she brought similar gifts, and, smiling
+confidently, gave the desired assurance. Heimbert then partook of them
+without hesitation, and from henceforth the disciple carefully provided
+for the sustenance of her teacher in the wilderness.
+
+And so, as the blessed knowledge of the truth sank more and more deeply
+into Zelinda's soul, so that she was often sitting till dawn before the
+youth, with cheeks glowing and hair dishevelled, her eyes gleaming with
+delight and her hands folded, unable to withdraw herself from his words,
+he, on his part, endeavored to make her sensible at all times that it
+was only Fadrique's love for her which had urged him, his friend, into
+this fatal desert, and that it was this same love that had thus become
+the means for the attainment of her highest spiritual good. She still
+well remembered the handsome and terrible captain who had stormed the
+height that he might clasp her in his arms; and she related to her
+friend how the same hero had afterward saved her in the burning library.
+Heimbert too had many pleasant things to tell of Fadrique--of his high
+knightly courage, of his grave and noble manners, and of his love to
+Zelinda, which in the night after the battle of Tunis was no longer
+concealed within his passionate breast, but was betrayed to the young
+German in a thousand unconscious expressions between sleeping and
+waking. Divine truth and the image of her loving hero both at once
+sank deep within Zelinda's heart, and struck root there with tender
+but indestructible power. Heimbert's presence and the almost adoring
+admiration with which his pupil regarded him did not disturb these
+feelings, for from the first moment his appearance had something in it
+so pure and heavenly that no thoughts of earthly love intruded. When
+Heimbert was alone he would often smile happily within himself, saying
+in his own beloved German tongue, "It is indeed delightful that I am now
+able consciously to do the same service for Fadrique as he did for me,
+unconsciously, with his angelic sister." And then he would sing some
+German song of Clara's grace and beauty, the sound of which rang with
+strange sweetness through the desert, while it happily beguiled his
+solitary hours.
+
+Once when Zelinda came in the evening twilight, gracefully bearing on
+her beautiful head a basket of provisions for Heimbert, he smiled at her
+and shook his head, saying, "It is inconceivable to me, sweet maiden,
+why you ever give yourself the trouble of coming to me out here in the
+desert. You can indeed no longer find pleasure in magic arts, since the
+spirit of truth and love dwells within you. If you would only transform
+the oasis into the natural form in which the good God created it, I
+would go there with you, and we should have far more time for holy
+converse." "Sir," replied Zelinda, "you speak truly. I too have thought
+for some days of doing so and the matter would have been already set on
+foot, but a strange visitor fetters my power. The Dervish whom you saw
+in Tunis is with me, and as in former times we have practised many magic
+tricks with each other, he would like again to play the old game. He
+perceives the change in me, and on that account urges me all the more
+vehemently and dangerously."
+
+"He must either be driven away or converted," said Heimbert, girding on
+his shoulder-belt more firmly, and taking up his shield from the ground.
+"Have the goodness, dear maiden," he continued, "to lead me to your
+enchanted isle."
+
+"You avoided it so before," said the astonished Zelinda, "and it is
+still unchanged in its fantastic form."
+
+"Formerly it would have been only inconsiderate curiosity to have
+ventured there," replied Heimbert. "You came too out here to me, and
+that was better for us both. But now the old enemy might lay snares for
+the ruin of all that the Lord has been working in you, and so it is a
+knightly duty to go. In God's name, then, to the work!"
+
+And they hastened forward together, through the ever-increasing darkness
+of the plain, on their way to the blooming island.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+
+A charming breeze began to cool the heated brows of the travellers, and
+the twinkling starlight revealed in the distance a grove, waving to and
+fro with the gentle motion of the air. Heimbert cast his eyes to the
+ground and said, "Go before me, sweet maiden, and guide my path to
+the spot where I shall find this threatening Dervish. I do not wish
+unnecessarily to see anything of these ensnaring enchantments."
+
+Zelinda did as he desired, and the relation of the two was for a
+moment changed; the maiden had become the guide, and Heimbert, full of
+confidence, allowed himself to be led upon the unknown path. Branches
+were even now touching his cheeks, half caressingly and playfully;
+wonderful birds, growing out of bushes, sang joyful songs; over the
+velvet turf, upon which Heimbert ever kept his eyes fixed, there glided
+gleaming serpents of green and gold, with little golden crowns, and
+brilliant stones glittered on the mossy carpet. When the serpents
+touched the jewels, they gave forth a silvery sound. But Heimbert let
+the serpents creep and the gems sparkle, without troubling himself about
+them, intent alone on following the footsteps of his guide.
+
+"We are there!" said she with suppressed voice; and looking up he saw a
+shining grotto of shells, within which he perceived a man asleep clad in
+golden scale-armor of the old Numidian fashion. "Is that also a phantom,
+there yonder in the golden scales?" inquired Heimbert, smiling; but
+Zelinda looked very grave and replied, "Oh, no! that is the Dervish
+himself, and his having put on this coat-of-mail, which has been
+rendered invulnerable by dragon's blood, is a proof that by his magic
+he has become aware of our intention." "What does that signify?" said
+Heimbert; "he would have to know it at last." And he began at once to
+call out, with a cheerful voice, "Wake up, old sir, wake up! Here is an
+acquaintance of yours, who has matters upon which he must speak to you."
+
+And as the Dervish opened his large rolling eyes, everything in the
+magic grove began to move, the water began to dance, and the branches to
+intertwine in wild emulation, and at the same time the precious stones
+and the shells and corals emitted strange and confusing melodies.
+
+"Roll and turn, thunder and play as you like!" exclaimed Heimbert,
+looking fixedly at the maze around him; "you shall not divert me from
+my own good path, and Almighty God has given me a good far-sounding
+soldier's voice which can make itself heard above all this tumult." Then
+turning to the Dervish he said, "It appears, old man, that you already
+know everything which has passed between Zelinda and me. In case,
+however, that it is not so, I will tell you briefly that she is already
+as good as a Christian, and that she is the betrothed of a noble Spanish
+knight. Place nothing in the way of her good intention; I advise you
+for your own sake. But still better for your own sake would it be if you
+would become a Christian yourself. Discuss the matter with me, and first
+bid all this mad devilish show to cease, for our religion, dear sir,
+speaks of far too tender and divine things to be talked of with violence
+or with the loud voice necessary on the field of war."
+
+But the Dervish, burning with hatred to the Christians, had not waited
+to hear the knight's last words when he rushed at him with his drawn
+scimitar. Heimbert merely parried his thrust, saying, "Take care of
+yourself, sir! I have heard something of your weapons being charmed, but
+that will avail but little before my sword. It has been consecrated in
+holy places."
+
+The Dervish sprang wildly back before the sword, but equally wildly did
+he spring to the other side of his adversary, who only with difficulty
+caught the terrible cuts of his weapon upon his shield. Like a
+gold-scaled dragon the Mohammedan swung himself round his antagonist
+with an agility which, with his long flowing white beard, was ghostly
+and horrible to witness. Heimbert was prepared to meet him on all sides,
+ever keeping a watchful eye for some opening in the scales made by the
+violence of his movements. At last it happened as he desired; between
+the arm and breast on the left side the dark garments of the Dervish
+became visible, and quick as lightning the German made a deadly thrust.
+The old man exclaimed aloud, "Allah! Allah!" and fell forward, fearful
+even in his fall, a senseless corpse.
+
+"I pity him!" sighed Heimbert, leaning on his sword and looking down on
+his fallen foe. "He has fought nobly, and even in death he called
+upon his Allah, whom he looked upon as the true God. He must not lack
+honorable burial." He then dug a grave with the broad scimitar of his
+adversary, laid the corpse within it, covered it over with turf,
+and knelt on the spot in silent heartfelt prayer for the soul of the
+departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+
+Heimbert rose from his pious duty, and his first glance fell on Zelinda,
+who stood smiling by his side, and his second upon the wholly changed
+scene around. The rocky cavern and grotto had disappeared, the distorted
+forms of trees and beasts, half terrible and half charming as they were,
+had vanished also; a gentle grassy hill sloped down on every side of the
+point where he stood, toward the sandy waste; springs gushed out
+here and there in refreshing beauty; date-trees bent over the little
+paths--everything, indeed, in the now opening day was full of sweet and
+simple peace.
+
+"Thank God!" said Heimbert, turning to his companion, "you can now
+surely feel how infinitely more lovely, grand, and beautiful is
+everything as our dear Father has created it than it can be when
+transformed by the highest human art. The Heavenly Gardener has indeed
+permitted us, his beloved children, in his abundant mercy, to help
+forward his gracious works, that we may thus become happier and better;
+but we must take care that we change nothing to suit our own rash wilful
+fancies; else it is as if we were expelling ourselves a second time from
+Paradise." "It shall not happen again," said Zelinda humbly. "But may
+you in this solitary region, where we are not likely to meet with any
+priest of our faith, may you not bestow on me, as one born anew, the
+blessing of Holy Baptism?"
+
+Heimbert, after some consideration, replied, "I hope I may do so. And if
+I am wrong, God will pardon me. It is surely done in the desire to bring
+to him so worthy a soul as soon as possible."
+
+So they walked together, silently praying and full of smiling happiness,
+down to one of the pleasant springs of the oasis, and just as they
+reached the edge and prepared themselves for the holy work the sun rose
+before them as if to confirm and strengthen their purpose, and the
+two beaming countenances looked at each other with joy and confidence.
+Heimbert had not thought of the Christian name he should bestow on his
+disciple, but as he scooped up the water, and the desert lay around him
+so solemn in the rosy glow of morning, he remembered the pious hermit
+Antony in his Egyptian solitude, and he baptized the lovely convert,
+Antonia.
+
+They spent the day in holy conversation, and Antonia showed her friend
+a little cave, in which she had concealed all sorts of store for her
+sustenance when she first dwelt on the oasis. "For," said she, "the good
+God is my witness that I came hither only that I might, in solitude,
+become better acquainted with him and his created works, without knowing
+at that time in the least of any magic expedients. Subsequently the
+Dervish came, tempting me, and the horrors of the desert joined in a
+fearful league with his terrible power, and then by degrees followed all
+that alluring spirits showed me either in dreams or awake."
+
+Heimbert had no scruple to take with him for the journey any of the wine
+and fruits that were still fit for use, and Antonia assured him that by
+the direct way, well known to her, they would reach the fruitful shore
+of this waterless ocean in a few days. So with the approach of evening
+coolness they set out on their journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+
+The travellers had almost traversed the pathless plain when one day they
+saw a figure wandering in the distance, for in the desolate Sahara every
+object is visible to the very horizon if the whirlwind of dust does
+not conceal it from view. The wanderer seemed doubtful of his course,
+sometimes taking this, sometimes that direction, and Antonia's eastern
+falcon eye could discern that it was no Arab, but a man in knightly
+garb.
+
+"Oh, dear sister," exclaimed Heimbert, full of anxious joy, "then it
+is our poor Fadrique, who is in search of thee. For pity's sake, let
+as hasten before he loses us, and perhaps at last his own life also,
+in this immeasurable waste." They strained every effort to reach the
+distant object, but it was now midday and the sun shone burningly upon
+them, Antonia could not long endure this rapid progress; added to which
+the fearful whirlwind soon arose, and the figure that had been scarcely
+visible before faded from their eyes, like some phantom of the mist in
+autumn.
+
+With the rising moon they began anew to hasten forward, calling loudly
+upon the unfortunate wanderer, and fluttering white handkerchiefs tied
+to their walking-staffs, as signal flags, but it was all in vain. The
+object that had disappeared remained lost to view. Only a few giraffes
+sprang shyly past them, and the ostriches quickened their speed.
+
+At length, as morning dawned, Antonia paused and said, "Thou canst
+not leave me, brother, in this solitude, and I cannot go a single step
+farther. God will protect the noble Fadrique. How could a father forsake
+such a model of knightly excellence?" "The disciple shames the teacher,"
+replied Heimbert, his sad face brightening into a smile. "We have done
+our part, and we may confidently hope that God will come to the aid of
+our failing powers and do what is necessary." As he spoke he spread his
+mantle on the sand, that Antonia might rest more comfortably. Suddenly
+looking up, he exclaimed, "Oh, God! yonder lies a man, completely buried
+in the sand. Oh, that he may not be already dead!"
+
+He immediately began to sprinkle wine, from the flask he carried, on the
+brow of the fainting traveller, and to chafe his temples with it. The
+man at last slowly opened his eyes and said, "I had hoped the morning
+dew would not again have fallen on me, but that unknown and unlamented I
+might have perished here in the desert, as must be the case in the end."
+So saying he closed his eyes again, like one intoxicated with sleep,
+but Heimbert continued his restoratives unwearyingly, and at length the
+refreshed wanderer half raised himself from the sand with an exclamation
+of astonishment.
+
+He looked from Heimbert to his companion, and from her again at
+Heimbert, and suddenly exclaimed, gnashing his teeth, "Ha, was it to be
+thus! I was not even to be allowed to die in the dull happiness of quiet
+solitude! I was to be first doomed to see my rival's success and my
+sister's shame!" At the same time he sprang to his feet with a violent
+effort and rushed forward upon Heimbert with drawn sword. But Heimbert
+moved neither sword nor arm, and merely said, in a gentle voice,
+"Wearied out, as you now are, I cannot possibly fight with you; besides,
+I must first place this lady in security." Antonia, who had at first
+gazed with much emotion at the angry knight, now stepped suddenly
+between the two men and cried out, "Oh, Fadrique, neither misery nor
+anger can utterly disfigure you. But what has my noble brother done to
+you?" "Brother?" said Fadrique, with astonishment. "Or godfather, or
+confessor," interrupted Heimbert, "as you will. Only do not call her
+Zelinda, for her name is now Antonia; she is a Christian, and waits
+to be your bride." Fadrique stood fixed with surprise, but Heimbert's
+true-hearted words and Antonia's lovely blushes soon revealed the happy
+enigma to him. He sank down before the longed-for form with a sense
+of exquisite delight, and in the midst of the inhospitable desert
+the flowers of love and gratitude and confidence sent their sweetness
+heavenward.
+
+The excitement of this happy surprise at last gave way to bodily
+fatigue. Antonia, like some drooping blossom, stretched her fair form on
+the again burning sand, and slumbered under the protection of her lover
+and her chosen brother. "Sleep also," said Heimbert softly to Fadrique;
+"you must have wandered about wildly and wearily, for exhaustion is
+pressing down your eyelids with leaden weight. I am quite fresh, and I
+will watch meanwhile." "Ah, Heimbert," sighed the noble Castilian,
+"my sister is thine, thou messenger from Heaven; that is an understood
+thing. But now for our affair of honor!" "Certainly," said Heimbert,
+very gravely, "as soon as we are again in Spain, you must give me
+satisfaction for that over-hasty expression. Till then, however, I beg
+you not to mention it. An unfinished quarrel is no good subject for
+conversation."
+
+Fadrique laid himself sadly down to rest, overcome by long-resisted
+sleep, and Heimbert knelt down with a glad heart, thanking the good God
+for having given him success, and for blessing, him with a future full
+of joyful assurance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+
+The next day the three travellers reached the edge of the desert, and
+refreshed themselves for a week in an adjacent village, which, with
+its shady trees and green pastures, seemed like a little paradise in
+contrast to the joyless Sahara. Fadrique's condition especially made
+this rest necessary. He had never left the desert during the whole time,
+gaining his subsistence by fighting with wandering Arabs, and often
+almost exhausted by the utter want of all food and drink. At length he
+had become so thoroughly confused that the stars could no longer guide
+him, and he had been driven about, sadly and objectless, like the dust
+clouds of the desert.
+
+Even now, at times, when he would fall asleep after the midday meal, and
+Antonia and Heimbert would watch his slumbers like two smiling angels,
+he would suddenly start up and gaze round him with a terrified air,
+and then it was not till he had refreshed himself by looking at the two
+friendly faces that he would sink back again into quiet repose. When
+questioned on the matter, after he was fully awake, he told them that in
+his wanderings nothing had been more terrible to him than the deluding
+dreams which had transported him, sometimes to his own home, sometimes
+to the merry camp of his comrades, and sometimes into Zelinda's
+presence, and then leaving him doubly helpless and miserable in the
+horrible solitude as the delusion vanished. It was on this account
+that even now waking was fearful to him, and even in sleep a vague
+consciousness of his past sufferings would often disturb him. "You
+cannot imagine it," he added. "To be suddenly transported from
+well-known scenes into the boundless desert! And instead of the
+longed-for enchanting face of my beloved, to see an ugly camel's head
+stretched over me inquisitively with its long neck, starting back as I
+rose with still more ugly timidity!"
+
+This, with all other painful consequences of his past miseries, soon
+wholly vanished, from Fadrique's mind, and they cheerfully set out on
+their journey to Tunis. The consciousness, indeed, of his injustice to
+Heimbert and its unavoidable results often lay like a cloud upon the
+noble Spaniard's brow, but it also softened the natural proud severity
+of his nature, and Antonia could cling the more tenderly and closely to
+him with her loving heart.
+
+Tunis, which had been before so amazed at Zelinda's magic power and
+enthusiastic hostility against the Christians, now witnessed Antonia's
+solemn baptism in a newly-consecrated edifice, and soon after the three
+companions took ship with a favorable wind for Malaga.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+
+Beside the fountain where she had parted from Heimbert, Dona Clara was
+sitting one evening in deep thought. The guitar on her knees gave
+forth a few solitary chords, dreamily drawn from it, as it were, by her
+delicate hands, and at length forming themselves into a melody, while
+the following words dropped softly from her partly opened lips:
+
+
+                  "Far away, 'fore Tunis ramparts,
+                     Where the Christian army lies,
+                   Paynim host are fiercely fighting
+                     With Spanish troops and Spain's allies.
+                   Who from bloodstained lilies there,
+                   And death's roses pale and fair--
+                     Who has borne the conquerer's prize?
+
+                  "Ask Duke Alba, ask Duke Alba,
+                     Which two knights their fame have proved,
+                   One was my own valiant brother,
+                     The other was my heart's beloved.
+                     And I thought that I should crown them,
+                   Doubly bright with glory's prize,
+                     And a widow's veil is falling
+                   Doubly o'er my weeping eyes,
+                     For the brave knights ne'er again
+                     Will be found mid living men."
+
+
+The music paused, and soft dew-drops fell from her heavenly eyes.
+Heimbert, who was concealed under the neighboring orange-trees, felt
+sympathetic tears rolling down his cheeks, and Fadrique, who had led
+him and Antonia there, could no longer delay the joy of meeting, but
+stepping forward with his two companions he presented himself before his
+sister, like some angelic messenger.
+
+Such moments of extreme and sudden delight, the heavenly blessings long
+expected and rarely vouchsafed, are better imagined by each after his
+own fashion, and it is doing but an ill service to recount all that
+this one did and that one said. Picture it therefore to yourself, dear
+reader, after your own fancy, as you are certainly far better able to
+do, if the two loving pairs in my story have become dear to you and you
+have grown intimate with them. If that, however, be not the case, what
+is the use of wasting unnecessary words? For the benefit of those who
+with heart-felt pleasure could have lingered over this meeting of the
+sister with her brother and her lover, I will proceed with increased
+confidence. Although Heimbert, casting a significant look at Fadrique,
+was on the point of retiring as soon as Antonia had been placed under
+Dona Clara's protection, the noble Spaniard would not permit him. He
+detained his companion-in-arms with courteous and brotherly requests
+that he would remain till the evening repast, at which some relatives
+of the Mendez family joined the party, and in their presence Fadrique
+declared the brave Heimbert of Waldhausen to be Dona Clara's fiance,
+sealing the betrothal with the most solemn words, so that it might
+remain indissoluble, whatever might afterward occur which should seem
+inimical to their union. The witnesses were somewhat astonished at
+these strange precautionary measures, but at Fadrique's desire they
+unhesitatingly gave their word that all should be carried out as he
+wished, and they did this the more unhesitatingly as the Duke of Alba,
+who had just been in Malaga on some trivial business, had filled the
+whole city with the praises of the two young captains.
+
+As the richest wine was now passing round the table in the tall crystal
+goblets, Fadrique stepped behind Heimbert's chair and whispered to
+him, "If it please you, Senor--the moon is just risen and is shining as
+bright as day--I am ready to give you satisfaction." Heimbert nodded
+in assent, and the two youths quitted the hall, followed by the sweet
+salutations of the unsuspecting ladies.
+
+As they passed through the beautiful garden, Fadrique said, with a
+sigh, "We could have wandered here so happily together, but for my
+over-rashness!" "Yes, indeed," said Heimbert, "but so it is, and it
+cannot be otherwise, if we would continue to look upon each other as a
+soldier and a nobleman." "True!" replied Fadrique, and they hastened to
+reach a distant part of the garden, where the sound of their clashing
+swords could not reach the gay hall of betrothal they had left.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+
+Secret and inclosed, with blooming shrubs planted around, with not a
+sound to be heard of the merry company, nor of the animated streets of
+the city, with the full moon shining overhead and brightening the solemn
+circle with its clear brilliancy--such was the spot. The two captains
+unsheathed their gleaming swords and stood opposite each other, ready
+for the encounter. But before they began the combat a nobler feeling
+drew them to each other's arms; they lowered their weapons and embraced
+in the most fraternal manner. They then tore themselves away and the
+fearful contest began.
+
+They were now no longer brothers-in-arms, no longer friends, no longer
+brothers-in-law, who directed their sharp steels against each other.
+With the most resolute boldness, but with the coolest collectedness,
+each fell upon his adversary, guarding his own breast at the same time.
+After a few hot and dangerous passes the combatants were obliged to
+rest, and during the pause they regarded each other with increased love,
+each rejoicing to find his comrade so valiant and so honorable. And then
+the fatal strife began anew.
+
+With his left hand Heimbert dashed aside Fadrique's sword, which had
+been aimed at him with a thrust in tierce, sideward, but the keen edge
+had penetrated his leathern glove, and the red blood gushed out. "Hold!"
+cried Fadrique, and they searched for the wound, but soon perceiving
+that it was of no importance, and binding it up, they both began the
+combat with undiminished vigor.
+
+It was not long before Heimbert's blade pierced Fadrique's right
+shoulder, and the German, feeling that he had wounded his opponent, now
+on his side called out to halt. At first Fadrique would not acknowledge
+to the injury, but soon the blood began to trickle down, and he was
+obliged to accept his friend's careful assistance. Still this wound also
+appeared insignificant, the noble Spaniard still felt power to wield his
+sword, and again the deadly contest was renewed with knightly ardor.
+
+Presently the garden-gate clanked, and the sound of a horse's step was
+heard advancing through the shrubbery. Both combatants paused in their
+stern work and turned toward the unwelcome disturber. The next moment
+through the slender pines a horseman was visible whose dress and bearing
+proclaimed him a warrior and Fadrique, as master of the house, at once
+addressed him. "Senor," said he, "why you come here, intruding into a
+strange garden, we will inquire at another time. For the present I
+will only request you to leave us free from further interruption by
+immediately retiring, and to favor me with your name." "Retire I will
+not," replied the stranger, "but my name I will gladly tell you. I
+am the Duke of Alba." And as he spoke, by a movement of his charger a
+bright moonbeam fell upon his pale thin face, the dwelling-place of all
+that was grand and worthy and terrible. The two captains bowed low and
+dropped their weapons.
+
+"I ought to know you," continued Alba, looking at them with his
+sparkling eyes. "Yes, truly, I know you well, you are the two young
+heroes at the battle of Tunis. God be praised that two such brave
+warriors, whom I had given up for lost, are still alive; but tell me,
+what is this affair of honor that has turned your good swords against
+each other? For I hope you will not hesitate to declare to me the cause
+of your knightly contest."
+
+They complied with the great duke's behest. Both the noble youths
+related the whole circumstances, from the evening previous to their
+embarkation up to the present moment, while Alba remained between them,
+in silent thought, almost motionless, like some equestrian statue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+
+The Captains had already long finished their story, and the duke still
+remained silent and motionless, in deep reflection. At last he began to
+speak, and addressed them as follows:
+
+"May God and his holy word help me, my young knights, when I say that I
+consider, after my best and most conscientious belief, that this affair
+of yours is now honorably at an end. Twice have you met each other in
+contest on account of those irritating words which escaped the lips of
+Don Fadrique Mendez and if indeed the slight wounds you have hitherto
+received are not sufficient compensation for the angry expression, there
+is still your common fight before Tunis, and the rescue in the desert
+afforded by Sir Heimbert of Waldhausen to Don Fadrique Mendez, after he
+had gained his bride for him. From all this, I consider that the Knight
+of Waldhausen is entitled to pardon any offence of an adversary to whom
+he has shown himself so well inclined. Old Roman history tells us of two
+captains of the great Julius Caesar who settled a dispute and cemented
+a hearty friendship with each other when engaged in the same bold fight,
+delivering each other in the midst of a Gallic army. I affirm, however,
+that you two have done more for each other: and therefore I declare your
+affair of honor to be settled, and at an end. Sheathe your swords, and
+embrace each other in my presence."
+
+Obedient to the command of their general, the young knights for the
+present sheathed their weapons; but anxious lest the slightest possible
+shadow should fall on their honor they yet delayed the reconciling
+embrace.
+
+The great Alba looked at them with somewhat of an indignant air, and
+said, "Do you then suppose, young knights, that I could wish to save
+the lives of two heroes at the expense of their honor? I would rather at
+once have struck you dead, both of you at once. But I see plainly that
+with such obstinate minds one must have recourse to other measures."
+
+And, dismounting from his horse, he fastened it to a tree, and then
+stepped forward between the two captains with a drawn sword in his
+right hand, crying out, "Whoever will deny in any wise that the quarrel
+between Sir Heimbert of Waldhausen and Don Fadrique Mendez is honorably
+and gloriously settled must settle the matter at the peril of his life
+with the Duke of Alba; and should the present knights have any objection
+to raise to this, let them declare it. I stand here as champion for my
+own conviction."
+
+The youths bowed submissively before the great umpire, and fell into
+each other's arms. The duke, however, embraced them both with hearty
+affection, which appeared all the more charming and refreshing as it
+rarely burst forth from this stern character. Then he led the reconciled
+friends back to their betrothed, and when these, after the first joyful
+surprise was over at the presence of the honored general, started back
+at seeing drops of blood on the garments of the youths, the duke said,
+smiling, "Oh, ye brides elect of soldiers, you must not shrink from such
+jewels of honor. Your lovers could bring you no fairer wedding gift."
+
+The great Alba was not not be deprived of the pleasure of enacting the
+office of father to the two happy brides, and the festival of their
+union was fixed for the following day. From that time forth they lived
+in undisturbed and joyful concord; and though the Knight Heimbert was
+recalled soon afterward with his lovely consort to the bosom of his
+German Fatherland, he and Fadrique kept up the link between them by
+letters and messages; and even in after times the descendants of the
+lord of Waldhausen boasted of their connection with the noble house of
+Mendez, while the latter have ever sacredly preserved the tradition of
+the brave and magnanimous Heimbert.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Two Captains, by Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
+
+*** 

data/train/2827.txt

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+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sandra Laythorpe
+
+
+
+
+
+ASLAUGA'S KNIGHT
+
+By Fredrich de la Motte-Fouque
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Many years ago there lived in the island of Fuhnen a noble knight,
+called Froda, the friend of the Skalds, who was so named because he not
+only offered free hospitality in his fair castle to every renowned and
+noble bard, but likewise strove with all his might to discover those
+ancient songs, and tales, and legends which, in Runic writings or
+elsewhere, were still to be found; he had even made some voyages to
+Iceland in search of them, and had fought many a hard battle with the
+pirates of those seas--for he was also a right valiant knight, and he
+followed his great ancestors not only in their love of song, but also
+in their bold deeds of arms. Although he was still scarcely beyond
+the prime of youth, yet all the other nobles in the island willingly
+submitted themselves to him, whether in council or in war; nay, his
+renown had even been carried ere now over the sea to the neighbouring
+land of Germany.
+
+One bright autumn evening this honour-loving knight sat before his
+castle, as he was often wont to do, that he might look far and wide over
+land and sea, and that he might invite any travellers who were passing
+by, as was his custom, to share in his noble hospitality.
+
+But on this day he saw little of all that he was accustomed to look
+upon; for on his knees there lay an ancient book with skilfully and
+richly painted characters, which a learned Icelander had just sent to
+him across the sea: it was the history of Aslauga, the fair daughter of
+Sigurd, who at first, concealing her high birth, kept goats among the
+simple peasants of the land, clothed in mean attire; then, in the golden
+veil of her flowing hair, won the love of King Ragnar Lodbrog; and at
+last shone brightly on the Danish throne as his glorious queen, till the
+day of her death.
+
+To the Knight Froda it seemed as though the gracious Lady Aslauga rose
+in life and birth before him, so that his calm and steadfast heart,
+true indeed to ladies' service, but never yet devoted to one particular
+female image, burst forth in a clear flame of love for the fair daughter
+of Sigurd. "What matters it," thought he to himself, "that it is more
+than a hundred years since she disappeared from earth? She sees so
+clearly into this heart of mine--and what more can a knight desire?
+wherefore she shall henceforth be my honoured love, and shall inspire
+me in battle and in song." And therewith he sang a lay on his new love,
+which ran in the following manner:
+
+
+        "They ride over hill and dale apace
+         To seek for their love the fairest face--
+         They search through city and forest-glade
+         To find for their love the gentlest maid--
+         They climb wherever a path may lead
+         To seek the wisest dame for their meed.
+         Ride on, ye knights: but ye never may see
+         What the light of song has shown to me:
+         Loveliest, gentlest, and wisest of all,
+         Bold be the deeds that her name shall recall;
+         What though she ne'er bless my earthly sight?
+         Yet death shall reveal her countenance bright.
+         Fair world, good night!  Good day, sweet love!
+         Who seeks here in faith shall find above."
+
+
+"Such purpose may come to good," said a hollow voice near the knight;
+and when he looked round, he saw the form of a poor peasant woman, so
+closely wrapped in a grey mantle that he could not discern any part of
+her countenance. She looked over his shoulder on the book, and said,
+with a deep sigh, "I know that story well; and it fares no better with
+me than with the princess of whom it tells." Froda looked at her with
+astonishment. "Yes, yes," pursued she, with strange becks and nods; "I
+am the descendant of the mighty Rolf, to whom the fairest castles and
+forests and fields of this island once belonged; your castle and your
+domains, Froda, amongst others, were his. We are now cast down to
+poverty; and because I am not so fair as Aslauga there is no hope that
+my possessions will be restored to me; and therefore I am fain to veil
+my poor face from every eye." It seemed that she shed warm tears beneath
+her mantle. At this Froda was greatly moved, and begged her, for
+God's sake, to let him know how he could help her, for that he was a
+descendant of the famous northern heroes of the olden time; and perhaps
+yet something more than they--namely, a good Christian. "I almost
+think," murmured she from beneath her covering, "that you are that very
+Froda whom men call the Good, and the friend of the Skalds, and of whose
+generosity and mildness such wonderful stories are told. If it be so,
+there may be help for me. You need only give up to me the half of your
+fields and meadows, and I should be in a condition to live in some
+measure such a life as befits the descendant of the mighty Rolf." Then
+Froda looked thoughtfully on the ground; partly because she had asked
+for so very much; partly, also, because he was considering whether she
+could really be descended from the powerful Rolf. But the veiled form
+said, after a pause, "I must have been mistaken, and you are not indeed
+that renowned, gentle-hearted Froda: for how could he have doubted so
+long about such a trifle? But I will try the utmost means. See now! for
+the sake of the fair Aslauga, of whom you have both read and sang--for
+the sake of the honoured daughter of Sigurd, grant my request!" Then
+Froda started up eagerly, and cried, "Let it be as you have said!" and
+gave her his knightly hand to confirm his words. But he could not grasp
+the hand of the peasant-woman, although her dark form remained close
+before him. A secret shudder began to run through his limbs, whilst
+suddenly a light seemed to shine forth from the apparition--a golden
+light--in which she became wholly wrapped; so that he felt as though
+Aslauga stood before him in the flowing veil of her golden hair, and
+smiling graciously on him. Transported and dazzled, he sank on his
+knees. When he rose up once more he only saw a cloudy mist of autumn
+spreading over the meadow, fringed at its edges with lingering evening
+lights, and then vanishing far over the waves. The knight scarcely knew
+what had happened to him. He returned to his chamber buried in thought,
+and sometimes feeling sure that he had beheld Aslauga, sometimes, again,
+that some goblin had risen before him with deceitful tricks, mocking in
+spiteful wise the service which he had vowed to his dead mistress.
+But henceforth, wherever he roved, over valley or forest or heath, or
+whether he sailed upon the waves of the sea, the like appearances met
+him. Once he found a lute lying in a wood, and drove a wolf away from
+it, and when sounds burst from the lute without its being touched a fair
+child rose up from it, as of old Aslauga herself had done. At another
+time he would see goats clambering among the highest cliffs by the
+sea-shore, and it was a golden form who tended them. Then, again, a
+bright queen, resplendent in a dazzling bark, would seem to glide past
+him, and salute him graciously,--and if he strove to approach any of
+those he found nothing but cloud, and mist, and vapour. Of all this many
+a lay might be sung. But so much he learnt from them all--that the fair
+Lady Aslauga accepted his service, and that he was now indeed and in
+truth become her knight.
+
+Meanwhile the winter had come and gone. In northern lands this season
+never fails to bring to those who understand and love it many an image
+full of beauty and meaning, with which a child of man might well be
+satisfied, so far as earthly happiness can satisfy, through all his time
+on earth. But when the spring came glancing forth with its opening buds
+and flowing waters there came also bright and sunny tidings from the
+land of Germany to Fuhnen.
+
+There stood on the rich banks of the Maine, where it pours its waters
+through the fertile land of Franconia, a castle of almost royal
+magnificence, whose orphan-mistress was a relation of the German
+emperor. She was named Hildegardis; and was acknowledged far and wide
+as the fairest of maidens. Therefore her imperial uncle wished that she
+should wed none but the bravest knight who could anywhere be met with.
+Accordingly he followed the example of many a noble lord in such a case,
+and proclaimed a tournament, at which the chief prize should be the hand
+of the peerless Hildegardis, unless the victor already bore in his heart
+a lady wedded or betrothed to him; for the lists were not to be closed
+to any brave warrior of equal birth, that the contest of strength and
+courage might be so much the richer in competitors.
+
+Now the renowned Froda had tidings of this from his German
+brethren-in-arms; and he prepared himself to appear at the festival.
+Before all things, he forged for himself a splendid suit of armour; as,
+indeed, he was the most excellent armourer of the north, far-famed as
+it is for skill in that art. He worked the helmet out of pure gold, and
+formed it so that it seemed to be covered with bright flowing locks,
+which called to mind Aslauga's tresses. He also fashioned, on the
+breastplate of his armour, overlaid with silver, a golden image in half
+relief, which represented Aslauga in her veil of flowing locks, that he
+might make known, even at the beginning of the tournament--"This knight,
+bearing the image of a lady upon his breast, fights not for the hand
+of the beautiful Hildegardis, but only for the joy of battle and for
+knightly fame." Then he took out of his stables a beautiful Danish
+steed, embarked it carefully on board a vessel, and sailed prosperously
+to the opposite shore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+
+In one of those fair beech-woods which abound in the fertile land of
+Germany he fell in with a young and courteous knight of delicate form,
+who asked the noble northman to share the meal which he had invitingly
+spread out upon the greensward, under the shade of the pleasantest
+boughs. Whilst the two knights sat peacefully together at their repast
+they felt drawn towards each other and rejoiced when on rising from it,
+they observed that they were about to follow the same road. They had not
+come to this good understanding by means of many words; for the young
+knight Edwald was of a silent nature, and would sit for hours with a
+quiet smile upon his lips without opening them to speak. But even in
+that quiet smile there lay a gentle, winning grace; and when from time
+to time a few simple words of deep meaning sprang to his lips they
+seemed like a gift deserving of thanks. It was the same with the little
+songs which he sang ever and anon: they were ended almost as soon as
+begun; but in each short couplet there dwelt a deep and winning spirit,
+whether it called forth a kindly sigh or a peaceful smile. It seemed
+to the noble Froda as if a younger brother rode beside him, or even a
+tender, blooming son. They travelled thus many days together; and it
+appeared as if their path were marked out for them in inseparable union;
+and much as they rejoiced at this, yet they looked sadly at each other
+whenever they set out afresh, or where cross-roads met, on finding that
+neither took a different direction: nay, it seemed at times as if a tear
+gathered in Edwald's downcast eye.
+
+It happened on a time, that at their hostelry they met an arrogant,
+overbearing knight, of gigantic stature and powerful frame, whose
+speech and carriage proved him to be not of German but foreign birth. He
+appeared to come from the land of Bohemia. He cast a contemptuous
+smile on Froda, who, as usual, had opened the ancient book of Aslauga's
+history, and was attentively reading in it. "You must be a ghostly
+knight?" he said, inquiringly; and it appeared as if a whole train of
+unseemly jests were ready to follow. But Froda answered so firmly and
+seriously with a negative that the Bohemian stopped short suddenly;
+as when the beasts, after venturing to mock their king, the lion, are
+subdued to quietness by one glance of his eye. But not so easily was
+the Bohemian knight subdued; rather the more did he begin to mock young
+Edwald for his delicate form and for his silence--all which he bore for
+some time with great patience; but when at last the stranger used an
+unbecoming phrase, he arose, girded on his sword, and bowing gracefully,
+he said, "I thank you, Sir Knight, that you have given me this
+opportunity of proving that I am neither a slothful nor unpractised
+knight; for only thus can your behaviour be excused, which otherwise
+must be deemed most unmannerly. Are you ready?"
+
+With these words he moved towards the door; the Bohemian knight
+followed, smiling scornfully; while Froda was full of care for his young
+and slender companion, although his honour was so dear to him that he
+could in no way interpose.
+
+But it soon appeared how needless were the northman's fears. With equal
+vigour and address did Edwald assault his gigantic adversary, so that to
+look upon, it was almost like one of those combats between a knight and
+some monster of the forest, of which ancient legends tell. The issue,
+too, was not unlike. While the Bohemian was collecting himself for a
+decisive stroke Edwald rushed in upon him, and, with the force of a
+wrestler, cast him to the ground. But he spared his conquered foe,
+helped him courteously to rise, and then turned to mount his own steed.
+Soon after he and Froda left the hostelry, and once more their journey
+led them on the same path as before.
+
+"From henceforth this gives me pleasure," said Froda, pointing with
+satisfaction to their common road. "I must own to you, Edchen"--he had
+accustomed himself, in loving confidence, to call his young friend
+by that childlike name--"I must own to you that hitherto, when I have
+thought that you might perhaps be journeying with me to the tournament
+held in honour of the fair Hildegardis, a heaviness came over my heart.
+Your noble knightly spirit I well knew, but I feared lest the strength
+of your slender limbs might not be equal to it. Now I have learned to
+know you as a warrior who may long seek his match; and God be praised if
+we still hold on in the same path, and welcome our earliest meeting in
+the lists!"
+
+But Edwald looked at him sorrowfully, and said, "What can my skill
+and strength avail if they be tried against you, and for the greatest
+earthly prize, which one of us alone can win? Alas! I have long
+foreboded with a heavy heart the sad truth, that you also are journeying
+to the tournament of the fair Hildegardis."
+
+"Edchen," answered Froda, with a smile, "my gentle, loving youth, see
+you not that I already wear on my breastplate the image of a liege lady?
+I strive but for renown in arms, and not for your fair Hildegardis!"
+
+"MY fair Hildegardis!" answered Edwald, with a sigh. "That she is not,
+nor ever will be--or should she, ah! Froda, it would pierce your heart.
+I know well the northland faith is deep-rooted as your rocks, and hard
+to dissolve as their summits of snow; but let no man think that he can
+look unscathed into the eyes of Hildegardis. Has not she, the haughty,
+the too haughty maiden, so bewitched my tranquil, lowly mind, that I
+forget the gulf which lies between us, and still pursue her; and would
+rather perish than renounce the daring hope to win that eagle spirit for
+my own?"
+
+"I will help you to it, Edchen," answered Froda, smiling still. "Would
+that I knew how this all-conquering lady looks! She must resemble the
+Valkyrien of our heathen forefathers, since so many mighty warriors are
+overcome by her."
+
+Edwald solemnly drew forth a picture from beneath his breastplate, and
+held it before him. Fixed, and as if enchanted, Froda gazed upon it,
+with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes; the smile passed away from his
+countenance, as the sunlight fades away from the meadows before the
+coming darkness of the storm.
+
+"See you not now, my noble comrade," whispered Edwald, "that for one of
+us two, or perhaps for both, the joy of life is gone?"
+
+"Not yet," replied Froda, with a powerful effort; "but hide your magic
+picture, and let us rest beneath this shade. You must be somewhat spent
+with your late encounter, and a strange weariness oppresses me with
+leaden weight." They dismounted from their steeds, and stretched
+themselves upon the ground.
+
+The noble Froda had no thought of sleep; but he wished to be undisturbed
+whilst he wrestled strongly with himself, and strove, if it might be, to
+drive from his mind that image of fearful beauty. It seemed as if this
+new influence had already become a part of his very life, and at last
+a restless dreamy sleep did indeed overshadow the exhausted warrior. He
+fancied himself engaged in combat with many knights, whilst Hildegardis
+looked on smiling from a richly-adorned balcony; and just as he thought
+he had gained the victory the bleeding Edwald lay groaning beneath his
+horse's feet. Then again it seemed as if Hildegardis stood by his side
+in a church, and they were about to receive the marriage-blessing. He
+knew well that this was not right, and the "yes," which he was to utter,
+he pressed back with resolute effort into his heart, and forthwith
+his eyes were moistened with burning tears. From yet stranger and more
+bewildering visions the voice of Edwald at last awoke him. He raised
+himself up, and heard his young companion saying courteously, as he
+looked towards a neighbouring thicket, "Only return, noble maiden; I
+will surely help you if I can; and I had no wish to scare you away, but
+that the slumbers of my brother in arms might not be disturbed by you."
+A golden gleam shone through the branches as it vanished.
+
+"For heaven's sake, my faithful comrade," cried Froda, "to whom are you
+speaking, and who has been here by me?"
+
+"I cannot myself rightly understand," said Edwald. "Hardly had you
+dropped asleep when a figure came forth from the forest, closely wrapped
+in a dark mantle. At first I took her for a peasant. She seated herself
+at your head; and though I could see nothing of her countenance, I could
+well observe that she was sorely troubled, and even shedding tears. I
+made signs to her to depart, lest she should disturb your sleep; and
+would have offered her a piece of gold, supposing that poverty must
+be the cause of her deep distress. But my hand seemed powerless, and
+a shudder passed through me, as if I had entertained such a purpose
+towards a queen. Immediately glittering locks of gold waved here and
+there between the folds of her close-wrapped mantle, and the thicket
+began almost to shine in the light which they shed. 'Poor youth,' said
+she then, 'you love truly, and can well understand how a lofty woman's
+heart burns in keenest sorrow when a noble knight, who vowed himself to
+be her own, withdraws his heart, and, like a weak bondman, is led away
+to meaner hopes.' Hereupon she arose, and, sighing, disappeared in
+yonder thicket. It almost seemed to me, Froda, as though she uttered
+your name."
+
+"Yes, it was me she named," answered Froda; "and not in vain she named
+me. Aslauga, thy knight comes, and enters the lists, and all for thee
+and thy reward alone! At the same time, my Edchen, we will win for you
+your haughty bride." With this he sprang upon his steed, full of the
+proud joy of former times; and when the magic of Hildegardis' beauty,
+dazzling and bewildering, would rise up before him, he said, smiling,
+"Aslauga!" and the sun of his inner life shone forth again cloudless and
+serene.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+
+From a balcony of her castle on the Maine Hildegardis was wont to
+refresh herself in the cool of the evening by gazing on the rich
+landscape below, but gazing more eagerly on the glitter of arms,
+which often came in sight from many a distant road; for knights were
+approaching singly, or with a train of followers, all eager to prove
+their courage and their strength in striving for the high prize of the
+tournament. She was in truth a proud and high-minded maiden--perhaps
+more so than became even her dazzling beauty and her princely rank. As
+she now gazed with a proud smile on the glittering roads a damsel of her
+train began the following lay:--
+
+
+        "The joyous song of birds in spring
+              Upon the wing
+         Doth echo far through wood and dell,
+              And freely tell
+         Their treasures sweet of love and mirth,
+         Too gladsome for this lowly earth.
+
+        "The gentle breath of flowers in May,
+              O'er meadows gay,
+         Doth fill the pure and balmy air
+              With perfume rare;
+         Still floating round each slender form,
+         Though scorched by sun, or torn by storm.
+
+        "But every high and glorious aim,
+              And the pure flame
+         That deep abiding in my heart
+              Can ne'er depart,
+         Too lofty for my falt'ring tongue,
+         Must die with me, unknown, unsung."
+
+
+"Wherefore do you sing that song, and at this moment?" said Hildegardis,
+striving to appear scornful and proud, though a deep and secret sadness
+was plainly enough seen to overshadow her countenance. "It came into my
+head unawares," replied the damsel, "as I looked upon the road by which
+the gentle Edwald with his pleasant lays first approached us; for it was
+from him I learnt it. But seems it not to you, my gracious lady, and to
+you too, my companions, as if Edwald himself were again riding that way
+towards the castle?" "Dreamer!" said Hildegardis, scornfully--and yet
+could not for some space withdraw her eyes from the knight, till at
+length, with an effort, she turned them on Froda, who rode beside him,
+saying: "Yes, truly, that knight is Edwald; but what can you find
+to notice in the meek-spirited, silent boy? Here, fix your eyes, my
+maidens, on this majestic figure, if you would behold a knight indeed."
+She was silent. A voice within her, as though of prophecy, said, "Now
+the victor of the tournament rides into the courtyard;" and she, who
+had never feared the presence of any human being, now felt humbled, and
+almost painfully awed, when she beheld the northern knight.
+
+At the evening meal the two newly-arrived knights were placed opposite
+to the royal Hildegardis. As Froda, after the northern fashion, remained
+in full armour, the golden image of Aslauga gleamed from his silver
+breast-plate full before the eyes of the haughty lady. She smiled
+scornfully, as if conscious that it depended on her will to drive that
+image from the breast and from the heart of the stranger-knight.
+Then suddenly a clear golden light passed through the hall, so that
+Hildegardis said, "O, the keen lightning!" and covered her eyes with
+both her hands. But Froda looked into the dazzling radiance with a
+joyful gaze of welcome. At this Hildegardis feared him yet more, though
+at the same time she thought, "This loftiest and most mysterious of men
+must be born for me alone." Yet could she not forbear, almost against
+her will, to look from time to time in friendly tenderness on the poor
+Edwald, who sat there silent, and with a sweet smile seemed to pity and
+to mock his own suffering and his own vain hopes.
+
+When the two knights were alone in their sleeping-chamber Edwald looked
+for a long time in silence into the dewy, balmy night. Then he sang to
+his lute:
+
+
+        "A hero wise and brave,
+           A lowly, tender youth,
+         Are wandering through the land
+           In steadfast love and truth.
+
+        "The hero, by his deeds,
+           Both bliss and fame had won,
+         And still, with heartfelt joy,
+           The faithful child looked on."
+
+
+But Froda took the lute from his hands, and said, "No, Edchen, I will
+teach you another song; listen--!
+
+
+      "'There's a gleam in the hall, and like morning's light
+        Hath shone upon all her presence bright.
+        Suitors watch as she passes by--
+        She may gladden their hearts by one glance of her eye:
+        But coldly she gazeth upon the throng,
+        And they that have sought her may seek her long.
+        She turns her away from the richly clad knight,
+        She heeds not the words of the learned wight;
+        The prince is before her in all his pride,
+        But other the visions around her that glide.
+        Then tell me, in all the wide world's space,
+        Who may e'er win that lady's grace?
+        In sorrowful love there sits apart
+        The gentle squire who hath her heart;
+        They all are deceived by fancies vain,
+        And he knows it not who the prize shall gain.'"
+
+
+Edwald thrilled. "As God wills," said he, softly to himself. "But I
+cannot understand how such a thing could be." "As God wills," repeated
+Froda. The two friends embraced each other, and soon after fell into a
+peaceful slumber.
+
+Some days afterwards Froda sat in a secluded bower of the castle garden,
+and was reading in the ancient book of his lovely mistress Aslauga. It
+happened at that very time that Hildegardis passed by. She stood still,
+and said, thoughtfully, "Strange union that you are of knight and sage,
+how comes it that you bring forth so little out of the deep treasures of
+your knowledge? And yet I think you must have many a choice history at
+your command, even such as that which now lies open before you; for I
+see rich and bright pictures of knights and ladies painted amongst the
+letters."
+
+"It is, indeed, the most surpassing and enchanting history in all the
+world," said Froda; "but you have neither patience nor thoughtfulness to
+listen to our wonderful legends of the north."
+
+"Why think you so?" answered Hildegardis, with that pride which she
+rejoiced to display towards Froda, when she could find courage to do so;
+and, placing herself on a stone seat opposite, she commanded him at once
+to read something to her out of that fair book.
+
+Froda began, and in the very effort which he made to change the old
+heroic speech of Iceland into the German tongue, his heart and mind were
+stirred more fervently and solemnly. As he looked up from time to time,
+he beheld the countenance of Hildegardis beaming in ever-growing beauty
+with joy, wonder, and interest; and the thought passed through his mind
+whether this could indeed be his destined bride, to whom Aslauga herself
+was guiding him.
+
+Then suddenly the characters became strangely confused; it seemed as
+if the pictures began to move, so that he was obliged to stop. While he
+fixed his eyes with a strong effort upon the book, endeavouring to drive
+away this strange confusion, he heard a well-known sweetly solemn voice,
+which said, "Leave a little space for me, fair lady. The history which
+that knight is reading to you relates to me; and I hear it gladly."
+
+Before the eyes of Froda, as he raised them from his book, sat Aslauga
+in all the glory of her flowing golden locks beside Hildegardis, on
+the seat. With tears of affright in her eyes, the maiden sank back and
+fainted. Solemnly, yet graciously, Aslauga warned her knight with a
+motion of her fair right hand, and vanished.
+
+"What have I done to you?" said Hildegardis when recovered from her
+swoon by his care, "what have I done to you, evil-minded knight, that
+you call up your northern spectres before me, and well-nigh destroy me
+through terror of your magic arts?" "Lady," answered Froda, "may God help
+me, as I have not called hither the wondrous lady who but now appeared
+to us. But now her will is known to me, and I commend you to God's
+keeping."
+
+With that he walked thoughtfully out of the bower. Hildegardis fled in
+terror from the gloomy shade, and, rushing out on the opposite side,
+reached a fair open grass-plot, where Edwald, in the soft glow of
+twilight, was gathering flowers, and, meeting her with a courteous
+smile, offered her a nosegay of narcissus and <DW29>s.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+
+At length the day fixed for the tournament arrived, and a distinguished
+noble, appointed by the German emperor, arranged all things in the most
+magnificent and sumptuous guise for the solemn festival. The field of
+combat opened wide, and fair, and level, thickly strewn with the finest
+sand, so that, both man and horse might find sure footing; and, like a
+pure field of snow, it shone forth from the midst of the flowery plain.
+Rich hangings of silk from Arabia, curiously embroidered with Indian
+gold, adorned with their various colours the lists enclosing the space,
+and hung from the lofty galleries which had been erected for the ladies
+and the nobles who were to behold the combat. At the upper end, under a
+canopy of majestic arches richly wrought in gold, was the place of the
+Lady Hildegardis. Green wreaths and garlands waved gracefully between
+the glittering pillars in the soft breezes of July. And with impatient
+eyes the multitude, who crowded beyond the lists, gazed upwards,
+expecting the appearance of the fairest maiden of Germany, and were
+only at times drawn to another part by the stately approach of the
+combatants. Oh, how many a bright suit of armour, many a silken
+richly-embroidered mantle, how many a lofty waving plume was here to be
+seen! The splendid troop of knights moved within the lists, greeting and
+conversing with each other, as a bed of flowers stirred by a breath
+of wind; but the flower-stems had grown to lofty trees, the yellow and
+white flower-leaves had changed to gold and silver, and the dew-drops to
+pearls and diamonds. For whatever was most fair and costly, most varied
+and full of meaning, had these noble knights collected in honour of
+this day. Many an eye was turned on Froda, who, without scarf, plume,
+or mantle, with his shining silver breastplate, on which appeared the
+golden image of Aslauga, and with his well-wrought helmet of golden
+locks, shone, in the midst of the crowd, like polished brass. Others,
+again, there were, who took pleasure in looking at the young Edwald; his
+whole armour was covered by a mantle of white silk, embroidered in azure
+and silver, as his whole helmet was concealed by a waving plume of white
+feathers. He was arrayed with almost feminine elegance, and yet the
+conscious power with which he controlled his fiery, snow-white steed
+made known the victorious strength and manliness of the warlike
+stripling.
+
+In strange contrast appeared the tall and almost gigantic figure of
+a knight clothed in a mantle of black glossy bearskin, bordered with
+costly fur, but without any ornament of shining metal. His very helmet
+was covered with dark bearskin, and, instead of plumes, a mass of
+blood-red horsehair hung like a flowing mane profusely on every side.
+Well did Froda and Edwald remember that dark knight, for he was the
+uncourteous guest of the hostelry. He also seemed to remark the two
+knights, for he turned his unruly steed suddenly round, forced his
+way through the crowd of warriors, and, after he had spoken over the
+enclosure to a hideous bronze-<DW52> woman, sprang with a wild leap
+across the lists, and, with the speed of an arrow, vanished out of
+sight. The old woman looked after him with a friendly nod. The assembled
+people laughed as at a strange masquing device; but Edwald and Froda
+had their own almost shuddering thoughts concerning it, which, however,
+neither imparted to the other.
+
+The kettle-drums rolled, the trumpets sounded, and led by the aged duke,
+Hildegardis advanced, richly apparelled, but more dazzling through the
+brightness of her own beauty. She stepped forward beneath the arches of
+the golden bower, and bowed to the assembly. The knights bent low, and
+the feeling rushed into many a heart, "There is no man on earth who can
+deserve a bride so queenly." When Froda bowed his head, it seemed to him
+as if the golden radiance of Aslauga'a tresses floated before his sight;
+and his spirit rose in joy and pride that his lady held him worthy to be
+so often reminded of her.
+
+And now the tournament began. At first the knights strove with blunted
+swords and battle-axes; then they ran their course with lances man to
+man; but at last they divided into two equal parties, and a general
+assault began, in which every one was allowed to use at his own
+will either sword or lance. Froda and Edwald equally surpassed their
+antagonists, as (measuring each his own strength and that of his friend)
+they had foreseen. And now it must be decided by a single combat with
+lances to whom the highest prize of victory should belong. Before this
+trial began, they rode slowly together into the middle of the course,
+and consulted where each should take his place. "Keep you your
+guiding-star still before your sight," said Froda, with a smile; "the
+like gracious help will not be wanting to me." Edwald looked round
+astonished for the lady of whom his friend seemed to speak, but Froda
+went on, "I have done wrong in hiding aught from you, but after the
+tournament you shall know all. Now lay aside all needless thoughts of
+wonder, dear Edchen, and sit firm in your saddle, for I warn you that
+I shall run this course with all my might. Not my honour alone is at
+stake, but the far higher honour of my lady."
+
+"So also do I purpose to demean myself," said Edwald, with a friendly
+smile. They shook each other by the hand, and rode to their places.
+
+Amidst the sound of trumpets they met again, running their course with
+lightning speed; the lances shivered with a crash, the horses staggered,
+the knights, firm in their saddles, pulled them up, and rode back to
+their places. But as they prepared for another course, Edwald's white
+steed snorted in wild affright, and Froda's powerful chestnut reared up
+foaming.
+
+It was plain that the two noble animals shrunk from a second hard
+encounter, but their riders held them fast with spur and bit, and,
+firm and obedient, they again dashed forward at the second call of
+the trumpet. Edwald, who by one deep, ardent gaze on the beauty of his
+mistress had stamped it afresh on his soul, cried aloud at the moment
+of encounter, "Hildegardis!" and so mightily did his lance strike
+his valiant adversary, that Froda sank backwards on his steed, with
+difficulty keeping his seat in his saddle, or holding firm in his
+stirrups, whilst Edwald flew by unshaken, lowered his spear to salute
+Hildegardis as he passed her bower, and then, amidst the loud applause
+of the multitude, rushed to his place, ready for the third course. And,
+ah! Hildegardis herself, overcome by surprise, had greeted him with a
+blush and a look of kindness; it seemed to him as if the overwhelming
+joy of victory were already gained. But it was not so, for the valiant
+Froda, burning with noble shame, had again tamed his affrighted
+steed, and, chastising him sharply with the spur for his share in
+this mischance, said in a low voice, "Beautiful and beloved lady, show
+thyself to me--the honour of thy name is at stake." To every other eye
+it seemed as if a golden rosy-tinted summer's cloud was passing over the
+deep-blue sky, but Froda beheld the heavenly countenance of his lady,
+felt the waving of her golden tresses, and cried, "Aslauga!" The two
+rushed together, and Edwald was hurled from his saddle far upon the
+dusty plain.
+
+Froda remained for a time motionless, according to the laws of chivalry,
+as though waiting to see whether any one would dispute his victory,
+and appearing on his mailed steed like some lofty statue of brass. All
+around stood the multitude in silent wonderment. When at length they
+burst forth into shouts of triumph, he beckoned earnestly with his hand,
+and all were again silent. He then sprang lightly from his saddle, and
+hastened to the spot where the fallen Edwald was striving to rise. He
+pressed him closely to his breast, led his snow-white steed towards
+him, and would not be denied holding the stirrups of the youth whilst
+he mounted. Then he bestrode his own steed, and rode by Edwald's side
+towards the golden bower of Hildegardis, where, with lowered spear and
+open vizor, he thus spoke: "Fairest of all living ladies, I bring you
+here Edwald, your knightly bridegroom, before whose lance and sword all
+the knights of this tournament have fallen away, I only excepted, who
+can make no claim to the choicest prize of victory, since I, as the
+image on my breastplate may show, already serve another mistress."
+
+The duke was even now advancing towards the two warriors, to lead them
+into the golden bower, but Hildegardis restrained him with a look of
+displeasure, saying immediately, while her cheeks glowed with anger,
+"Then you seem, Sir Froda, the Danish knight, to serve your lady ill;
+for even now you openly styled me the fairest of living ladies."
+
+"That did I," answered Froda, bending courteously, "because my fair
+mistress belongs to the dead."
+
+A slight shudder passed at these words through the assembly, and through
+the heart of Hildegardis; but soon the anger of the maiden blazed forth
+again, and the more because the most wonderful and excellent knight she
+knew had scorned her for the sake of a dead mistress.
+
+"I make known to all," she said, with solemn earnestness, "that
+according to the just decree of my imperial uncle, this hand can never
+belong to a vanquished knight, however noble and honourable he may
+otherwise have proved himself. As the conqueror of this tournament,
+therefore, is bound to another service, this combat concerns me not; and
+I depart hence as I came, a free and unbetrothed maiden."
+
+The duke seemed about to reply, but she turned haughtily away, and left
+the bower. Suddenly a gust of wind shook the green wreaths and garlands,
+and they fell untwined and rustling behind her. In this the people,
+displeased with the pride of Hildegardis, thought they beheld an omen of
+punishment, and with jeering words noticed it as they departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+
+The two knights had returned to their apartments in deep silence. When
+they arrived there, Edwald caused himself to be disarmed, and laid every
+piece of his fair shining armour together with a kind of tender care,
+almost as if he were burying the corpse of a beloved friend. Then he
+beckoned to his squires to leave the chamber, took his lute on his arm,
+and sang the following song to its notes:--
+
+
+        "Bury them, bury them out of sight,
+           For hope and fame are fled;
+         And peaceful resting and quiet night
+           Are all now left for the dead."
+
+
+"You will stir up my anger against your lute," said Froda. "You had
+accustomed it to more joyful songs than this. It is too good for a
+passing-bell, and you too good to toll it. I tell you yet, my young
+hero, all will end gloriously."
+
+Edwald looked a while with wonder in his face, and he answered kindly:
+"Beloved Froda, if it displeases you, I will surely sing no more." But
+at the same time he struck a few sad chords, which sounded infinitely
+sweet and tender. Then the northern knight, much moved, clasped him in
+his arms, and said: "Dear Edchen, sing and say and do whatever pleases
+you; it shall ever rejoice me. But you may well believe me, for I speak
+not this without a spirit of presage--your sorrow shall change, whether
+to death or life I know not, but great and overpowering joy awaits you."
+Edwald rose firmly and cheerfully from his seat, seized his companion's
+arm with a strong grasp, and walked forth with him through the blooming
+alleys of the garden into the balmy air.
+
+At that very hour an aged woman, muffled in many a covering, was led
+secretly to the apartment of the Lady Hildegardis. The appearance of the
+dark-complexioned stranger was mysterious, and she had gathered round
+her for some time, by many feats of jugglery, a part of the multitude
+returning home from the tournament, but had dispersed them at last in
+wild affright. Before this happened, the tire-woman of Hildegardis had
+hastened to her mistress, to entertain her with an account of the
+rare and pleasant feats of the bronze-<DW52> woman. The maidens in
+attendance, seeing their lady deeply moved, and wishing to banish
+her melancholy, bade the tire-woman bring the old stranger hither.
+Hildegardis forbade it not, hoping that she should thus divert the
+attention of her maidens, while she gave herself up more deeply and
+earnestly to the varying imaginations which flitted through her mind.
+
+The messenger found the place already deserted; and the strange old
+woman alone in the midst, laughing immoderately. When questioned by her,
+she did not deny that she had all at once taken the form of a monstrous
+owl, announcing to the spectators in a screeching voice that she was the
+Devil--and that every one upon this rushed screaming home.
+
+The tire-woman trembled at the fearful jest, but durst not return to
+ask again the pleasure of Hildegardis, whose discontented mood she had
+already remarked. She gave strict charge to the old woman, with many a
+threat and promise, to demean herself discreetly in the castle: after
+which she brought her in by the most secret way, that none of those whom
+she had terrified might see her enter.
+
+The aged crone now stood before Hildegardis, and winked to her, in the
+midst of her low and humble salutation, in a strangely familiar
+manner, as though there were some secret between them. The lady felt an
+involuntary shudder, and could not withdraw her gaze from the features
+of that hideous countenance, hateful as it was to her. The curiosity
+which had led the rest to desire a sight of the strange woman was by no
+means gratified, for she performed none but the most common tricks of
+jugglery, and related only well-known tales, so that the tire-woman felt
+wearied and indifferent and, ashamed of having brought the stranger, she
+stole away unnoticed. Several other maidens followed her example, and,
+as these withdrew, the old crone twisted her mouth into a smile,
+and repeated the same hideous confidential wink towards the lady.
+Hildegardis could not understand what attracted her in the jests and
+tales of the bronze-<DW52> woman; but so it was, that in her whole
+life she had never bestowed such attention on the words of any one.
+Still the old woman went on and on, and already the night looked
+dark without the windows, but the attendants who still remained with
+Hildegardis had sunk into a deep sleep, and had lighted none of the wax
+tapers in the apartment.
+
+Then, in the dusky gloom, the dark old crone rose from the low seat on
+which she had been sitting, as if she now felt herself well at ease,
+advanced towards Hildegardis, who sat as if spell-bound with terror,
+placed herself beside her on the purple couch, and embracing her in her
+long dry arms with a hateful caress, whispered a few words in her ear.
+It seemed to the lady as if she uttered the names of Froda and Edwald,
+and from them came the sound of a flute, which, clear and silvery as
+were its tones, seemed to lull her into a trance. She could indeed
+move her limbs, but only to follow those sounds, which, like a silver
+network, floated round the hideous form of the old woman. She moved from
+the chamber, and Hildegardis followed her through all her slumbering
+maidens, still singing softly as she went, "Ye maidens, ye maidens, I
+wander by night."
+
+Without the castle, accompanied by squire and groom, stood the gigantic
+Bohemian warrior; he laid on the shoulders of the crone a bag of gold so
+heavy that she sank half whimpering, half laughing, on the ground; then
+lifted the entranced Hildegardis on his steed, and galloped with her
+silently into the ever-deepening gloom of night.
+
+"All ye noble lords and knights, who yesterday contended gallantly for
+the prize of victory and the hand of the peerless Hildegardis, arise,
+arise! saddle your steeds, and to the rescue! The peerless Hildegardis
+is carried away!"
+
+Thus proclaimed many a herald through castle and town in the bright red
+dawn of the following day; and on all sides rose the dust from the tread
+of knights and noble squires along those roads by which so lately,
+in the evening twilight, Hildegardis in proud repose had gazed on her
+approaching suitors.
+
+Two of them, well known to us, remained inseparably together, but they
+knew as little as the others whether they had taken the right direction,
+for how and when the adored lady could have disappeared from her
+apartments was still to the whole castle a fearful and mysterious
+secret.
+
+Edwald and Froda rode as long as the sun moved over their heads,
+unwearied as he; and now, when he sank in the waves of the river, they
+thought to win the race from him, and still spurred on their jaded
+steeds. But the noble animals staggered and panted, and the knights were
+constrained to grant them some little refreshment in a grassy meadow.
+Secure of bringing them back at their first call, their masters removed
+both bit and curb, that they might be refreshed with the green pasture,
+and with the deep blue waters of the Maine, while they themselves
+reposed under the shade of a neighbouring thicket of alders. And deep
+in the cool, dark shade, there shone, as it were, a mild but clear
+sparkling light, and checked the speech of Froda, who at that moment
+was beginning to tell his friend the tale of his knightly service to
+his sovereign lady, which had been delayed hitherto, first by Edwald's
+sadness, and then by the haste of their journey. Ah, well did Froda know
+that lovely golden light! "Let us follow it, Edchen," said he in a low
+tone, "and leave the horses a while to their pasture." Edwald in silence
+followed his companion's advice. A secret voice, half sweet, half
+fearful, seemed to tell him that here was the path, the only right path
+to Hildegardis. Once only he said in astonishment, "Never before have I
+seen the evening glow shine on the leaves so brightly." Froda shook his
+head with a smile, and they pursued in silence their unknown track.
+
+When they came forth on the other side of the alder-thicket upon the
+bank of the Maine, which almost wound round it, Edwald saw well that
+another glow than that of evening was shining on them, for dark clouds
+of night already covered the heavens, and the guiding light stood fixed
+on the shore of the river. It lit up the waves, so that they could see
+a high woody island in the midst of the stream, and a boat on the hither
+side of the shore fast bound to a stake. But on approaching, the knights
+saw much more; a troop of horsemen of strange and foreign appearance
+were all asleep, and in the midst of them, slumbering on cushions, a
+female form in white garments.
+
+"Hildegardis!" murmured Edwald to himself, with a smile, and at the
+same time he drew his sword in readiness for the combat as soon as the
+robbers should awake, and beckoned to Froda to raise the sleeping lady,
+and convey her to a place of safety. But at this moment something like
+an owl passed whizzing over the dark squadron, and they all started up
+with clattering arms and hideous outcries. A wild unequal combat arose
+in the darkness of night, for that beaming light had disappeared.
+Freda and Edwald were driven asunder, and only at a distance heard each
+other's mighty war-cry. Hildegardis, startled from her magic sleep,
+uncertain whether she were waking or dreaming, fled bewildered and
+weeping bitterly into the deep shades of the alder-thicket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+
+Froda felt his arm grow weary, and the warm blood was flowing from two
+wounds in his shoulder; he wished so to lie down in death that he might
+rise up with honour from his bloody grave to the exalted lady whom he
+served. He cast his shield behind him, grasped his sword-hilt with both
+hands, and rushed wildly, with a loud war-cry, upon the affrighted foe.
+Instantly he heard some voices cry, "It is the rage of the northern
+heroes which has come upon him." And the whole troop were scattered in
+dismay, while the exhausted knight remained wounded and alone in the
+darkness.
+
+Then the golden hair of Aslauga gleamed once more in the alder-shade;
+and Froda said, leaning, through weariness, on his sword, "I think not
+that I am wounded to death; but whenever that time shall come, O beloved
+lady, wilt thou not indeed appear to me in all thy loveliness and
+brightness?" A soft "Yes" breathed against his cheek, and the golden
+light vanished.
+
+But now Hildegardis came forth from the thicket, half fainting with
+terror, and said feebly, "Within is the fair and frightful spectre of
+the north--without is the battle. Oh, merciful heaven! whither shall I
+go?"
+
+Then Froda approached to sooth the affrighted one, to speak some words
+of comfort to her, and to inquire after Edwald; but wild shouts and the
+rattling of armour announced the return of the Bohemian warriors. With
+haste Froda led the maiden to the boat, pushed off from the shore,
+and rowed her with the last effort of his failing strength towards
+the island which he had observed in the midst of the stream. But the
+pursuers had already kindled torches, and waved them sparkling here and
+there. By this light they soon discovered the boat; they saw that the
+dreaded Danish knight was bleeding, and gained fresh courage for their
+pursuit. Hardly had Froda pushed the boat to the shore of the island,
+before he perceived a Bohemian on the other side in another skiff, and
+soon afterwards the greater number of the enemy embarked to row towards
+the island. "To the wood, fair maiden," he whispered, as soon as he
+had landed Hildegardis on the shore; "there conceal yourself, whilst
+I endeavour to prevent the landing of the robbers." But Hildegardis,
+clinging to his arm, whispered again, "Do I not see that you are pale
+and bleeding? and would you have me expire with terror in the dark and
+lonely clefts of this rock? Ah! and if your northern gold-haired spectre
+were to appear again and seat herself beside me! Think you that I do not
+see her there now, shining through the thicket!"
+
+"She shines!" echoed Froda, and new strength and hope ran through
+every vein. He climbed the hill, following the gracious gleam; and
+Hildegardis, though trembling at the sight, went readily with her
+companion, saying only from time to time, in a low voice "Ah, Sir
+Knight!--my noble wondrous knight--leave me not here alone; that would
+be my death." The knight, soothing her courteously, stepped ever onwards
+through the darkness of dell and forest, for already he heard the sound
+of the Bohemians landing on the shore of the island. Suddenly he stood
+before a cave thick-covered with underwood, and the gleam disappeared.
+"Here, then," he whispered, endeavouring to hold the branches asunder.
+For a moment she paused, and said, "If you should but let the branches
+close again behind me, and I were to remain alone with spectres in this
+cave! But, Froda, you will surely follow me--a trembling, hunted child
+as I am? Will you not?" Without more misgivings she passed through the
+branches; and the knight, who would willingly have remained without as a
+guard, followed her. Earnestly he listened through the stillness of
+the night, whilst Hildegardis hardly dared to draw her breath. Then was
+heard the tramp of an armed man, coming ever nearer and nearer, and
+now close to the entrance of the cave. In vain did Froda strive to
+free himself from the trembling maiden. Already the branches before the
+entrance were cracking and breaking, and Froda sighed deeply. "Must I,
+then, fall like a lurking fugitive, entangled in a woman's garments? It
+is a base death to die. But can I cast this half-fainting creature away
+from me on the dark, hard earth, perhaps into some deep abyss? Come,
+then, what will, thou, Lady Aslauga, knowest that I die an honourable
+death!"
+
+"Froda! Hildegardis!" breathed a gentle, well-known voice at the
+entrance, and recognising Edwald, Froda bore the lady towards him into
+the starlight, saying, "She will die of terror in our sight in this
+deep cavern. Is the foe near at hand?" "Most of them lie lifeless on the
+shore, or swim bleeding through the waves," said Edwald. "Set your mind
+at rest, and repose yourself. Are you wounded, beloved Froda?" He gave
+this short account to his astonished companions--how, in the darkness,
+he had mixed with the Bohemians and pressed into the skiff, and that it
+had been easy to him on landing to disperse the robbers entirely, who
+supposed that they were attacked by one of their own crew, and thought
+themselves bewitched. "They began at last to fall on one another"--so
+he ended his history; "and we have only now to wait for the morning
+to conduct the lady home, for those who are wandering about of that
+owl-squadron will doubtless hide themselves from the eye of day." While
+speaking, he had skilfully and carefully arranged a couch of twigs and
+moss for Hildegardis, and when the wearied one, after uttering some
+gentle words of gratitude, had sunk into a slumber, he began, as well
+as the darkness would allow, to bind up the wounds of his friend. During
+this anxious task, while the dark boughs of the trees murmured over
+their heads, and the rippling of the stream was heard from afar, Froda,
+in a low voice, made known to his brother-in-arms to the service of what
+lady he was bound. Edwald listened with deep attention, but at last he
+said tenderly, "Trust me, the noble Princess Aslauga will not resent it,
+if you pledge yourself to this earthly beauty in faithful love. Ah!
+even now doubtless you are sinning in the dreams of Hildegardis,
+richly-gifted and happy knight! I will not stand in your way with
+my vain wishes; I see now clearly that she can never, never love me.
+Therefore I will this very day hasten to the war which so many valiant
+knights of Germany are waging in the heathen land of Prussia, and the
+black cross, which distinguishes them for warriors of the Church, I will
+lay as the best balm on my throbbing heart. Take, then, dear Froda, that
+fair hand which you have won in battle, and live henceforth a life of
+surpassing happiness and joy."
+
+"Edwald," said Froda, gravely, "this is the first time that I ever heard
+one word from your lips which a true knight could not fulfil. Do as
+it pleases you towards the fair and haughty Hildegardis, but Aslauga
+remains my mistress ever, and no other do I desire in life or death."
+The youth was startled by these stern words, and made no reply. Both,
+without saying more to each other, watched through the night in solemn
+thought.
+
+The next morning, when the rising sun shone brightly over the flowery
+plains around the Castle of Hildegardis, the watchman on the tower blew
+a joyful blast from his horn, for his keen eye had distinguished far in
+the distance his fair lady, who was riding from the forest between her
+two deliverers; and from castle, town, and hamlet, came forth many a
+rejoicing train to assure themselves with their own eyes of the happy
+news.
+
+Hildegardis turned to Edwald with eyes sparkling through tears, and
+said, "Were it not for you, young knight, they might have sought long
+and vainly before they found the lost maiden or the noble Froda, who
+would now be lying in that dark cavern a bleeding and lifeless corpse."
+Edwald bowed lowly in reply, but persevered in his wonted silence.
+It even seemed as though an unusual grief restrained the smile which
+erewhile answered so readily, in childlike sweetness, to every friendly
+word.
+
+The noble guardian of Hildegardis had, in the overflowing joy of his
+heart, prepared a sumptuous banquet, and invited all the knights
+and ladies present to attend it. Whilst Froda and Edwald, in all the
+brightness of their glory, were ascending the steps in the train of
+their rescued lady, Edwald said to his friend, "Noble, steadfast knight,
+you can never love me more!" And as Froda looked in astonishment, he
+continued--"Thus it is when children presume to counsel heroes, however
+well they may mean it. Now have I offended grievously against you,
+and yet more against the noble Lady Aslauga." "Because you would have
+plucked every flower of your own garden to gladden me with them?" said
+Froda. "No; you are my gentle brother-in-arms now, as heretofore, dear
+Edchen, and are perhaps become yet dearer to me."
+
+Then Edwald smiled again in silent contentment, like a flower after the
+morning showers of May.
+
+The eyes of Hildegardis glanced mildly and kindly on him, and she
+often conversed graciously with him, while, on the other hand, since
+yesterday, a reverential awe seemed to separate her from Froda. But
+Edwald also was much altered. However he welcomed with modest joy the
+favour of his lady, it yet seemed as if some barrier were between them
+which forbade him to entertain the most distant hope of successful love.
+
+It chanced that a noble count, from the court of the Emperor, was
+announced, who being bound on an important embassy, had wished to
+pay his respects to the Lady Hildegardis by the way. She received him
+gladly, and as soon as the first salutations were over, he said, looking
+at her and at Edwald, "I know not if my good fortune may not have
+brought me hither to a very joyful festivity. That would be right
+welcome news to the Emperor my master." Hildegardis and Edwald were
+lovely to look upon in their blushes and confusion, but the count,
+perceiving at once that he had been too hasty, inclined himself
+respectfully towards the young knight, and said, "Pardon me, noble Duke
+Edwald, my too great forwardness, but I know the wish of my sovereign,
+and the hope to find it already fulfilled prompted my tongue to speak."
+All eyes were fixed inquiringly on the young hero, who answered, in
+graceful confusion, "It is true; the Emperor, when I was last in his
+camp, through his undeserved favour, raised me to the rank of a duke.
+It was my good fortune, that in an encounter, some of the enemy's horse,
+who had dared to assault the sacred person of the Emperor, dispersed
+and fled on my approach." The count then, at the request of Hildegardis,
+related every circumstance of the heroic deed; and it appeared that
+Edwald had not only rescued the Emperor from the most imminent peril,
+but also, with the cool and daring skill of a general, had gained the
+victory which decided the event of the war.
+
+Surprise at first sealed the lips of all; and even before their
+congratulations could begin, Hildegardis had turned towards Edwald, and
+said in a low voice, which yet, in that silence, was clearly heard by
+all, "The noble count has made known the wish of my imperial uncle,
+and I conceal it no longer, my own heart's wish is the same--I am Duke
+Edwald's bride." And with that she extended to him her fair right hand,
+and all present waited only till he should take it, before they burst
+into a shout of congratulation. But Edwald forbore to do so; he only
+sunk on one knee before his lady, saying, "God forbid that the lofty
+Hildegardis should ever recall a word spoken solemnly to noble knights
+and dames. 'To no vanquished knight,' you said, 'might the hand of
+the Emperor's niece belong'--and behold there Froda, the noble Danish
+knight, my conqueror." Hildegardis, with a slight blush, turned hastily
+away, hiding her eyes, and as Edwald arose, it seemed as though there
+were a tear upon his cheek.
+
+In his clanging armour Froda advanced to the middle of the hall,
+exclaiming, "I declare my late victory over Duke Edwald to have been
+the chance of fortune, and I challenge the noble knight to meet me again
+to-morrow in the lists."
+
+At the same time he threw his iron gauntlet ringing on the pavement.
+
+But Edwald moved not to take it up. On the contrary, a glow of lofty
+anger was on his cheeks, and his eyes sparkled with indignation, so
+that his friend would hardly have recognised him; and after a silence he
+spoke--
+
+"Noble Sir Froda, if I have ever offended you, we are now even. How
+durst you, a warrior gloriously wounded by two sword-strokes, challenge
+a man unhurt into the lists to-morrow, if you did not despise him?"
+
+"Forgive me, Duke Edwald," answered Froda, somewhat abashed, but with
+cheerfulness, "I have spoken too boldly. Not till I am completely cured
+do I call you to the field."
+
+Then Edwald took up the gauntlet joyfully. He knelt once more before
+Hildegardis, who, turning away her face, gave him her fair hand to kiss,
+and walked, with his arm in that of his noble Danish friend, out of the
+hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+
+While Froda's wounds were healing Edwald would sometimes wander, when
+the shades of evening fell dark and silent around, on the flowery
+terraces beneath the windows of Hildegardis, and sing pleasant little
+songs; amongst others the following:--
+
+
+        "Heal fast, heal fast, ye hero-wounds;
+           O knight, be quickly strong;
+             Beloved strife
+             For fame and life,
+           O tarry not too long!"
+
+
+But that one which the maidens of the castle loved best to learn from
+him was this, and it was perhaps the longest song that Edwald had ever
+sung in his whole life:--
+
+
+       "Would I on earth were lying,
+          By noble hero slain;
+        So that love's gentle sighing
+          Breathed me to life again!
+
+       "Would I an emperor were,
+          Of wealth and power!
+        Would I were gathering twigs
+          In woodland bower!
+
+       "Would that in lone seclusion
+          I lived a hermit's life!
+        Would, amid wild confusion,
+          I led the battle-strife!
+
+       "O would the lot were mine,
+          In bower or field,
+        To which my lady fair
+          Her smile would yield!"
+
+
+At this time it happened that a man who held himself to be very
+wise, and who filled the office of secretary to the aged guardian of
+Hildegardis, came to the two knightly friends to propose a scheme to
+them. His proposal, in few words, was this, that as Froda could gain no
+advantage from his victory, he might in the approaching combat suffer
+himself to be thrown from his steed, and thus secure the lady for his
+comrade, at the same time fulfilling the wish of the Emperor, which
+might turn to his advantage hereafter in many ways.
+
+At this the two friends at first laughed heartily; but then Froda
+advanced gravely towards the secretary, and said, "Thou trifler,
+doubtless the old duke would drive thee from his service did he know
+of thy folly, and teach thee to talk of the Emperor. Good-night, worthy
+sir, and trust me that when Edwald and I meet each other, it will be
+with all our heart and strength."
+
+The secretary hastened out of the room with all speed, and was seen next
+morning to look unusually pale.
+
+
+Soon after this Froda recovered from his wounds; the course was again
+prepared as before, but crowded by a still greater number of spectators;
+and in the freshness of a dewy morning the two knights advanced solemnly
+together to the combat.
+
+"Beloved Edwald," said Froda, in a low voice, as they went, "take good
+heed to yourself, for neither this time can the victory be yours--on
+that rose- cloud appears Aslauga."
+
+"It may be so," answered Edwald, with a quiet smile; "but under the
+arches of that golden bower shines Hildegardis, and this time she has
+not been waited for."
+
+The knights took their places--the trumpets sounded, the course began,
+and Froda's prophecy seemed to be near its fulfilment, for Edwald
+staggered under the stroke of his lance, so that he let go the bridle,
+seized the mane with both hands, and thus hardly recovered his seat,
+whilst his high-mettled snow-white steed bore him wildly around the
+lists without control. Hildegardis also seemed to shrink at this sight,
+but the youth at length reined-in his steed, and the second course was
+run.
+
+Froda shot like lightning along the plain, and it seemed as if the
+success of the young duke were now hopeless; but in the shock of their
+meeting, the bold Danish steed reared, starting aside as if in fear;
+the rider staggered, his stroke passed harmless by, and both steed and
+knight fell clanging to the ground before the steadfast spear of Edwald,
+and lay motionless upon the field.
+
+Edwald did now as Froda had done before. In knightly wise he stood still
+a while upon the spot, as if waiting to see whether any other adversary
+were there to dispute his victory; then he sprang from his steed, and
+flew to the assistance of his fallen friend.
+
+He strove with all his might to release him from the weight of his
+horse, and presently Froda came to himself, rose on his feet, and
+raised up his charger also. Then he lifted up his vizor, and greeted his
+conqueror with a friendly smile, though his countenance was pale.
+The victor bowed humbly, almost timidly, and said, "You, my knight,
+overthrown--and by me! I understand it not."
+
+"It was her own will," answered Froda, smiling. "Come now to your gentle
+bride."
+
+The multitude around shouted aloud, each lady and knight bowed low, when
+the aged duke pointed out to them the lovely pair, and at his bidding,
+the betrothed, with soft blushes, embraced each other beneath the green
+garlands of the golden bower.
+
+That very day were they solemnly united in the chapel of the castle, for
+so had Froda earnestly desired. A journey into a far-distant land, he
+said, lay before him, and much he wished to celebrate the marriage of
+his friend before his departure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+
+The torches were burning clear in the vaulted halls of the castle,
+Hildegardis had just left the arm of her lover to begin a stately dance
+of ceremony with the aged duke, when Edwald beckoned to his companion,
+and they went forth together into the moonlit gardens of the castle.
+
+"Ah, Froda, my noble, lofty hero," exclaimed Edwald, after a silence,
+"were you as happy as I am! But your eyes rest gravely and thoughtfully
+on the ground, or kindle almost impatiently heavenwards. It would
+be dreadful, indeed, had the secret wish of your heart been to win
+Hildegardis--and I, foolish boy, so strangely favoured, had stood in
+your way."
+
+"Be at rest, Edchen," answered, the Danish hero, with a smile. "On
+the word of a knight, my thoughts and yearnings concern not your fair
+Hildegardis. Far brighter than ever does Aslauga's radiant image shine
+into my heart: but now hear what I am going to relate to you.
+
+"At the very moment when we met together in the course--oh, had I words
+to express it to you!--I was enwrapped, encircled, dazzled, by Aslauga's
+golden tresses, which were waving all around me. Even my noble steed
+must have beheld the apparition, for I felt him start and rear under
+me. I saw you no more--the world no more--I saw only the angel-face of
+Aslauga close before me, smiling, blooming like a flower in a sea of
+sunshine which floated round her. My senses failed me. Not till you
+raised me from beneath my horse did my consciousness return, and then I
+knew, with exceeding joy, that her own gracious pleasure had struck me
+down. But I felt a strange weariness, far greater than my fall alone
+could have caused, and I felt assured at the same time that my lady was
+about to send me on a far-distant mission. I hastened to repose myself
+in my chamber, and a deep sleep immediately fell upon me. Then came
+Aslauga in a dream to me, more royally adorned than ever; she placed
+herself at the head of my couch, and said, 'Haste to array thyself
+in all the splendour of thy silver armour, for thou art not the
+wedding-guest alone, thou art also the--'
+
+"And before she could speak the word my dream had melted away, and I
+felt a longing desire to fulfil her gracious command, and rejoiced in my
+heart. But in the midst of the festival I seemed to myself more lonely
+than in all my life before, and I cannot cease to ponder what that
+unspoken word of my lady could be intended to announce."
+
+"You are of a far loftier spirit than I am, Froda," said Edwald, after
+a silence, "and I cannot soar with you into the sphere of your joys. But
+tell me, has it never awakened a deep pang within you that you serve a
+lady so withdrawn from you--alas! a lady who is almost ever invisible?"
+
+"No, Edwald, not so," answered Froda, his eyes sparkling with happiness.
+"For well I know that she scorns not my service; she has even deigned
+sometimes to appear to me. Oh, I am in truth a happy knight and
+minstrel!"
+
+"And yet your silence to-day--your troubled yearnings?"
+
+"Not troubled, dear Edchen; only so heartfelt, so fervent in the depth
+of my heart--and so strangely mysterious to myself withal. But this,
+with all belonging to me, springs alike from the words and commands of
+Aslauga. How, then, can it be otherwise than something good and fair,
+and tending to a high and noble aim?"
+
+A squire, who had hastened after them, announced that the knightly
+bridegroom was expected for the torch-dance, and as they returned,
+Edwald entreated his friend to take his place in the solemn dance next
+to him and Hildegardis. Froda inclined his head in token of friendly
+assent.
+
+
+The horns and hautboys had already sounded their solemn invitation;
+Edwald hastened to give his hand to his fair bride; and while he
+advanced with her to the midst of the stately hall, Froda offered his
+hand for the torch-dance to a noble lady who stood the nearest to him,
+without farther observing her, and took with her the next place to the
+wedded pair.
+
+But how was it when a light began to beam from his companion, before
+which the torch in his left hand lost all its brightness? Hardly dared
+he, in sweet and trembling hope, to raise his eyes to the lady; and when
+at last he ventured, all his boldest wishes and longings were fulfilled.
+Adorned with a radiant bridal crown of emeralds, Aslauga moved in solemn
+loveliness beside him, and beamed on him from amid the sunny light of
+her golden hair, blessing him with her heavenly countenance. The amazed
+spectators could not withdraw their eyes from the mysterious pair--the
+knight in his light silver mail, with the torch raised on high in his
+hand, earnest and joyful, moving with a measured step, as if engaged in
+a ceremony of deep and mysterious meaning. His lady beside him, rather
+floating than dancing, beaming light from her golden hair, so that you
+would have thought the day was shining into the night; and when a look
+could reach through all the surrounding splendour to her face, rejoicing
+heart and sense with the unspeakably sweet smile of her eyes and lips.
+
+Near the end of the dance she inclined towards Froda, and whispered to
+him with an air of tender confidence, and with the last sound of the
+horns and hautboys she had disappeared.
+
+The most curious spectator dared not question Froda about his partner.
+Hildegardis did not seem to have been conscious of her presence, but
+shortly before the end of the festival Edwald approached his friend, and
+asked in a whisper, "Was it?"
+
+"Yes, dear youth," answered Froda; "your marriage-dance has been
+honoured by the presence of the most exalted beauty which has been ever
+beheld in any land. Ah! and if I rightly understood her meaning, you
+will never more see me stand sighing and gazing upon the ground. But
+hardly dare I hope it. Now good-night, dear Edchen, good-night. As soon
+as I may I will tell you all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+
+The light and joyous dreams of morning still played round Edwald's head
+when it seemed as though a clear light encompassed him. He remembered
+Aslauga, but it was Froda, the golden locks of whose helmet shone now
+with no less sunny brightness than the flowing hair of his lady. "Ah!"
+thought Edwald in his dream, "how beautiful has my brother-in-arms
+become!" And Froda said to him, "I will sing something to you, Edchen;
+but softly, softly, so that it may not awaken Hildegardis. Listen to me.
+
+
+      "'She glided in, bright as the day,
+        There where her knight in slumber lay;
+        And in her lily hand was seen
+        A band that seemed of the moonlight sheen.
+        "We are one," she sang, as about his hair
+        She twined it, and over her tresses fair.
+        Beneath them the world lay dark and drear:
+        But he felt the touch of her hand so dear,
+        Uplifting him far above mortals' sight,
+        While around him were shed her locks of light,
+        Till a garden fair lay about him spread--
+        And this was Paradise, angels said.'"
+
+
+"Never in your life did you sing so sweetly," said the dreaming Edwald.
+
+"That may well be, Edchen," said Froda, with a smile, and vanished.
+
+But Edwald dreamed on and on, and many other visions passed before him,
+all of a pleasing kind, although he could not recall them when, in the
+full light of morning, he unclosed his eyes with a smile. Froda alone,
+and his mysterious song, stood clear in his memory. He now knew full
+well that his friend was dead; but the thought gave him no pain, for he
+felt sure that the pure spirit of that minstrel-warrior could only find
+its proper joy in the gardens of Paradise, and in blissful solace with
+the lofty spirits of the ancient times. He glided softly from the side
+of the sleeping Hildegardis to the chamber of the departed. He lay upon
+his bed of rest, almost as beautiful as he had appeared in the dream,
+and his golden helmet was entwined with a wondrously-shining lock of
+hair. Then Edwald made a fair and shady grave in consecrated ground,
+summoned the chaplain of the castle, and with his assistance laid his
+beloved Froda therein.
+
+He came back just as Hildegardis awoke; she beheld, with wonder and
+humility, his mien of chastened joy, and asked him whither he had been
+so early, to which he replied, with a smile, "I have just buried the
+corpse of my dearly-loved Froda, who, this very night, has passed away
+to his golden-haired mistress." Then he related the whole history of
+Aslauga's Knight, and lived on in subdued, unruffled happiness, though
+for some time he was even more silent and thoughtful than before. He
+was often found sitting on the grave of his friend, and singing the
+following song to his lute:--
+
+
+       "Listening to celestial lays,
+        Bending thy unclouded gaze
+        On the pure and living light,
+        Thou art blest, Aslauga'a Knight!
+
+       "Send us from thy bower on high
+        Many an angel-melody,
+        Many a vision soft and bright,
+        Aslauga's dear and faithful Knight!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Aslauga's Knight, by Fredrich de la Motte-Fouque
+
+*** 

data/train/2830.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,1621 @@
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1911 Methuen & Co. (third) edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@pglaf.org.  Proofing by Margaret and David Price.
+
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD
+
+
+BY
+SAKI
+(H. H. MUNRO)
+
+THIRD EDITION
+
+METHUEN & CO. LTD.
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+LONDON
+
+_First Published_ . . . _September 1904_
+
+_Second Edition_ . . . _July 1905_
+
+_Third Edition_ . . . _1911_
+
+_These sketches originally appeared in the_ "_Westminster Gazette_," _to
+the courtesy of the Proprietor of which the author is indebted for
+permission to republish them_.
+
+Contents:
+
+Reginald
+
+Reginald on Christmas Presents
+
+Reginald on the Academy
+
+Reginald at the Theatre
+
+Reginald's Peace Poem
+
+Reginald's Choir Treat
+
+Reginald on Worries
+
+Reginald on House-Parties
+
+Reginald at the Carlton
+
+Reginald on Besetting Sins
+
+Reginald's Drama
+
+Reginald on Tariffs
+
+Reginald's Christmas Revel
+
+Reginald's Rubaiyat
+
+The Innocence of Reginald
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD
+
+
+I did it--I who should have known better.  I persuaded Reginald to go to
+the McKillops' garden-party against his will.
+
+We all make mistakes occasionally.
+
+"They know you're here, and they'll think it so funny if you don't go.
+And I want particularly to be in with Mrs. McKillop just now."
+
+"I know, you want one of her smoke Persian kittens as a prospective wife
+for Wumples--or a husband, is it?"  (Reginald has a magnificent scorn for
+details, other than sartorial.)  "And I am expected to undergo social
+martyrdom to suit the connubial exigencies"--
+
+"Reginald!  It's nothing of the kind, only I'm sure Mrs. McKillop Would
+be pleased if I brought you.  Young men of your brilliant attractions are
+rather at a premium at her garden-parties."
+
+"Should be at a premium in heaven," remarked Reginald complacently.
+
+"There will be very few of you there, if that is what you mean.  But
+seriously, there won't be any great strain upon your powers of endurance;
+I promise you that you shan't have to play croquet, or talk to the
+Archdeacon's wife, or do anything that is likely to bring on physical
+prostration.  You can just wear your sweetest clothes and moderately
+amiable expression, and eat chocolate-creams with the appetite of a
+_blase_ parrot.  Nothing more is demanded of you."
+
+Reginald shut his eyes.  "There will be the exhaustingly up-to-date young
+women who will ask me if I have seen _San Toy_; a less progressive grade
+who will yearn to hear about the Diamond Jubilee--the historic event, not
+the horse.  With a little encouragement, they will inquire if I saw the
+Allies march into Paris.  Why are women so fond of raking up the past?
+They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for
+a suit long after you've ceased to wear it."
+
+"I'll order lunch for one o'clock; that will give you two and a half
+hours to dress in."
+
+Reginald puckered his brow into a tortured frown, and I knew that my
+point was gained.  He was debating what tie would go with which
+waistcoat.
+
+Even then I had my misgivings.
+
+* * * * *
+
+During the drive to the McKillops' Reginald was possessed with a great
+peace, which was not wholly to be accounted for by the fact that he had
+inveigled his feet into shoes a size too small for them.  I misgave more
+than ever, and having once launched Reginald on to the McKillops' lawn, I
+established him near a seductive dish of _marrons glaces_, and as far
+from the Archdeacon's wife as possible; as I drifted away to a diplomatic
+distance I heard with painful distinctness the eldest Mawkby girl asking
+him if he had seen _San Toy_.
+
+It must have been ten minutes later, not more, and I had been having
+_quite_ an enjoyable chat with my hostess, and had promised to lend her
+_The Eternal City_ and my recipe for rabbit mayonnaise, and was just
+about to offer a kind home for her third Persian kitten, when I
+perceived, out of the corner of my eye, that Reginald was not where I had
+left him, and that the _marrons glaces_ were untasted.  At the same
+moment I became aware that old Colonel Mendoza was essaying to tell his
+classic story of how he introduced golf into India, and that Reginald was
+in dangerous proximity.  There are occasions when Reginald is caviare to
+the Colonel.
+
+"When I was at Poona in '76"--
+
+"My dear Colonel," purred Reginald, "fancy admitting such a thing!  Such
+a give-away for one's age!  I wouldn't admit being on this planet in
+'76."  (Reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to
+being more than twenty-two.)
+
+The Colonel went to the colour of a fig that has attained great ripeness,
+and Reginald, ignoring my efforts to intercept him, glided away to
+another part of the lawn.  I found him a few minutes later happily
+engaged in teaching the youngest Rampage boy the approved theory of
+mixing absinthe, within full earshot of his mother.  Mrs. Rampage
+occupies a prominent place in local Temperance movements.
+
+As soon as I had broken up this unpromising _tete-a-tete_ and settled
+Reginald where he could watch the croquet players losing their tempers, I
+wandered off to find my hostess and renew the kitten negotiations at the
+point where they had been interrupted.  I did not succeed in running her
+down at once, and eventually it was Mrs. McKillop who sought me out, and
+her conversation was not of kittens.
+
+"Your cousin is discussing _Zaza_ with the Archdeacon's wife; at least,
+he is discussing, she is ordering her carriage."
+
+She spoke in the dry, staccato tone of one who repeats a French exercise,
+and I knew that as far as Millie McKillop was concerned, Wumples was
+devoted to a lifelong celibacy.
+
+"If you don't mind," I said hurriedly, "I think we'd like our carriage
+ordered too," and I made a forced march in the direction of the croquet-
+ground.
+
+I found everyone talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and the
+war in South Africa, except Reginald, who was reclining in a comfortable
+chair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after
+it had desolated entire villages.  The Archdeacon's wife was buttoning up
+her gloves with a concentrated deliberation that was fearful to behold.  I
+shall have to treble my subscription to her Cheerful Sunday Evenings Fund
+before I dare set foot in her house again.
+
+At that particular moment the croquet players finished their game, which
+had been going on without a symptom of finality during the whole
+afternoon.  Why, I ask, should it have stopped precisely when a counter-
+attraction was so necessary?  Everyone seemed to drift towards the area
+of disturbance, of which the chairs of the Archdeacon's wife and Reginald
+formed the storm-centre.  Conversation flagged, and there settled upon
+the company that expectant hush that precedes the dawn--when your
+neighbours don't happen to keep poultry.
+
+"What did the Caspian Sea?" asked Reginald, with appalling suddenness.
+
+There were symptoms of a stampede.  The Archdeacon's wife looked at me.
+Kipling or someone has described somewhere the look a foundered camel
+gives when the caravan moves on and leaves it to its fate.  The
+peptonised reproach in the good lady's eyes brought the passage vividly
+to my mind.
+
+I played my last card.
+
+"Reginald, it's getting late, and a sea-mist is coming on."  I knew that
+the elaborate curl over his right eyebrow was not guaranteed to survive a
+sea-mist.
+
+* * * * *
+
+"Never, never again, will I take you to a garden-party.  Never . . . You
+behaved abominably . . . What did the Caspian see?"
+
+A shade of genuine regret for misused opportunities passed over
+Reginald's face.
+
+"After all," he said, "I believe an apricot tie would have gone better
+with the lilac waistcoat."
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD ON CHRISTMAS PRESENTS
+
+
+I wish it to be distinctly understood (said Reginald) that I don't want a
+"George, Prince of Wales" Prayer-book as a Christmas present.  The fact
+cannot be too widely known.
+
+There ought (he continued) to be technical education classes on the
+science of present-giving.  No one seems to have the faintest notion of
+what anyone else wants, and the prevalent ideas on the subject are not
+creditable to a civilised community.
+
+There is, for instance, the female relative in the country who "knows a
+tie is always useful," and sends you some spotted horror that you could
+only wear in secret or in Tottenham Court Road.  It _might_ have been
+useful had she kept it to tie up currant bushes with, when it would have
+served the double purpose of supporting the branches and frightening away
+the birds--for it is an admitted fact that the ordinary tomtit of
+commerce has a sounder aesthetic taste than the average female relative
+in the country.
+
+Then there are aunts.  They are always a difficult class to deal with in
+the matter of presents.  The trouble is that one never catches them
+really young enough.  By the time one has educated them to an
+appreciation of the fact that one does not wear red woollen mittens in
+the West End, they die, or quarrel with the family, or do something
+equally inconsiderate.  That is why the supply of trained aunts is always
+so precarious.
+
+There is my Aunt Agatha, _par exemple_, who sent me a pair of gloves last
+Christmas, and even got so far as to choose a kind that was being worn
+and had the correct number of buttons.  But--_they were nines_!  I sent
+them to a boy whom I hated intimately: he didn't wear them, of course,
+but he could have--that was where the bitterness of death came in.  It
+was nearly as consoling as sending white flowers to his funeral.  Of
+course I wrote and told my aunt that they were the one thing that had
+been wanting to make existence blossom like a rose; I am afraid she
+thought me frivolous--she comes from the North, where they live in the
+fear of Heaven and the Earl of Durham.  (Reginald affects an exhaustive
+knowledge of things political, which furnishes an excellent excuse for
+not discussing them.)  Aunts with a dash of foreign extraction in them
+are the most satisfactory in the way of understanding these things; but
+if you can't choose your aunt, it is wisest in the long-run to choose the
+present and send her the bill.
+
+Even friends of one's own set, who might be expected to know better, have
+curious delusions on the subject.  I am _not_ collecting copies of the
+cheaper editions of Omar Khayyam.  I gave the last four that I received
+to the lift-boy, and I like to think of him reading them, with
+FitzGerald's notes, to his aged mother.  Lift-boys always have aged
+mothers; shows such nice feeling on their part, I think.
+
+Personally, I can't see where the difficulty in choosing suitable
+presents lies.  No boy who had brought himself up properly could fail to
+appreciate one of those decorative bottles of liqueurs that are so
+reverently staged in Morel's window--and it wouldn't in the least matter
+if one did get duplicates.  And there would always be the supreme moment
+of dreadful uncertainty whether it was _creme de menthe_ or
+Chartreuse--like the expectant thrill on seeing your partner's hand
+turned up at bridge.  People may say what they like about the decay of
+Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can
+never really die.
+
+And then, of course, there are liqueur glasses, and crystallised fruits,
+and tapestry curtains, and heaps of other necessaries of life that make
+really sensible presents--not to speak of luxuries, such as having one's
+bills paid, or getting something quite sweet in the way of jewellery.
+Unlike the alleged Good Woman of the Bible, I'm not above rubies.  When
+found, by the way, she must have been rather a problem at Christmas-time;
+nothing short of a blank cheque would have fitted the situation.  Perhaps
+it's as well that she's died out.
+
+The great charm about me (concluded Reginald) is that I am so easily
+pleased.  But I draw the line at a "Prince of Wales" Prayer-book.
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD ON THE ACADEMY
+
+
+"One goes to the Academy in self-defence," said Reginald.  "It is the one
+topic one has in common with the Country Cousins."
+
+"It is almost a religious observance with them," said the Other.  "A kind
+of artistic Mecca, and when the good ones die they go"--
+
+"To the Chantrey Bequest.  The mystery is _what_ they find to talk about
+in the country."
+
+"There are two subjects of conversation in the country: Servants, and Can
+fowls be made to pay?  The first, I believe, is compulsory, the second
+optional."
+
+"As a function," resumed Reginald, "the Academy is a failure."
+
+"You think it would be tolerable without the pictures?"
+
+"The pictures are all right, in their way; after all, one can always
+_look_ at them if one is bored with one's surroundings, or wants to avoid
+an imminent acquaintance."
+
+"Even that doesn't always save one.  There is the inevitable female whom
+you met once in Devonshire, or the Matoppo Hills, or somewhere, who
+charges up to you with the remark that it's funny how one always meets
+people one knows at the Academy.  Personally, I _don't_ think it funny."
+
+"I suffered in that way just now," said Reginald plaintively, "from a
+woman whose word I had to take that she had met me last summer in
+Brittany."
+
+"I hope you were not too brutal?"
+
+"I merely told her with engaging simplicity that the art of life was the
+avoidance of the unattainable."
+
+"Did she try and work it out on the back of her catalogue?"
+
+"Not there and then.  She murmured something about being 'so clever.'
+Fancy coming to the Academy to be clever!"
+
+"To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is dining nowhere in the
+evening."
+
+"Which reminds me that I can't remember whether I accepted an invitation
+from you to dine at Kettner's to-night."
+
+"On the other hand, I can remember with startling distinctness not having
+asked you to."
+
+"So much certainty is unbecoming in the young; so we'll consider that
+settled.  What were you talking about?  Oh, pictures.  Personally, I
+rather like them; they are so refreshingly real and probable, they take
+one away from the unrealities of life."
+
+"One likes to escape from oneself occasionally."
+
+"That is the disadvantage of a portrait; as a rule, one's bitterest
+friends can find nothing more to ask than the faithful unlikeness that
+goes down to posterity as oneself.  I hate posterity--it's so fond of
+having the last word.  Of course, as regards portraits, there are
+exceptions."
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to heaven prematurely."
+
+"With the necessary care and impatience, you may avoid that catastrophe."
+
+"If you're going to be rude," said Reginald, "I shall dine with you to-
+morrow night as well.  The chief vice of the Academy," he continued, "is
+its nomenclature.  Why, for instance, should an obvious trout-stream with
+a palpable rabbit sitting in the foreground be called 'an evening dream
+of unbeclouded peace,' or something of that sort?"
+
+"You think," said the Other, "that a name should economise description
+rather than stimulate imagination?"
+
+"Properly chosen, it should do both.  There is my lady kitten at home,
+for instance; I've called it Derry."
+
+"Suggests nothing to my imagination but protracted sieges and religious
+animosities.  Of course, I don't know your kitten"--
+
+"Oh, you're silly.  It's a sweet name, and it answers to it--when it
+wants to.  Then, if there are any unseemly noises in the night, they can
+be explained succinctly: Derry and Toms."
+
+"You might almost charge for the advertisement.  But as applied to
+pictures, don't you think your system would be too subtle, say, for the
+Country Cousins?"
+
+"Every reformation must have its victims.  You can't expect the fatted
+calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return.
+Another darling weakness of the Academy is that none of its luminaries
+must 'arrive' in a hurry.  You can see them coming for years, like a
+Balkan trouble or a street improvement, and by the time they have painted
+a thousand or so square yards of canvas, their work begins to be
+recognised."
+
+"Someone who Must Not be Contradicted said that a man must be a success
+by the time he's thirty, or never."
+
+"To have reached thirty," said Reginald, "is to have failed in life."
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD AT THE THEATRE
+
+
+"After all," said the Duchess vaguely, "there are certain things you
+can't get away from.  Right and wrong, good conduct and moral rectitude,
+have certain well-defined limits."
+
+"So, for the matter of that," replied Reginald, "has the Russian Empire.
+The trouble is that the limits are not always in the same place."
+
+Reginald and the Duchess regarded each other with mutual distrust,
+tempered by a scientific interest.  Reginald considered that the Duchess
+had much to learn; in particular, not to hurry out of the Carlton as
+though afraid of losing one's last 'bus.  A woman, he said, who is
+careless of disappearances is capable of leaving town before Goodwood,
+and dying at the wrong moment of an unfashionable disease.
+
+The Duchess thought that Reginald did not exceed the ethical standard
+which circumstances demanded.
+
+"Of course," she resumed combatively, "it's the prevailing fashion to
+believe in perpetual change and mutability, and all that sort of thing,
+and to say we are all merely an improved form of primeval ape--of course
+you subscribe to that doctrine?"
+
+"I think it decidedly premature; in most people I know the process is far
+from complete."
+
+"And equally of course you are quite irreligious?"
+
+"Oh, by no means.  The fashion just now is a Roman Catholic frame of mind
+with an Agnostic conscience: you get the mediaeval picturesqueness of the
+one with the modern conveniences of the other."
+
+The Duchess suppressed a sniff.  She was one of those people who regard
+the Church of England with patronising affection, as if it were something
+that had grown up in their kitchen garden.
+
+"But there are other things," she continued, "which I suppose are to a
+certain extent sacred even to you.  Patriotism, for instance, and Empire,
+and Imperial responsibility, and blood-is-thicker-than-water, and all
+that sort of thing."
+
+Reginald waited for a couple of minutes before replying, while the Lord
+of Rimini temporarily monopolised the acoustic possibilities of the
+theatre.
+
+"That is the worst of a tragedy," he observed, "one can't always hear
+oneself talk.  Of course I accept the Imperial idea and the
+responsibility.  After all, I would just as soon think in Continents as
+anywhere else.  And some day, when the season is over and we have the
+time, you shall explain to me the exact blood-brotherhood and all that
+sort of thing that exists between a French Canadian and a mild Hindoo and
+a Yorkshireman, for instance."
+
+"Oh, well, 'dominion over palm and pine,' you know," quoted the Duchess
+hopefully; "of course we mustn't forget that we're all part of the great
+Anglo-Saxon Empire."
+
+"Which for its part is rapidly becoming a suburb of Jerusalem.  A very
+pleasant suburb, I admit, and quite a charming Jerusalem.  But still a
+suburb."
+
+"Really, to be told one's living in a suburb when one is conscious of
+spreading the benefits of civilisation all over the world!  Philanthropy--I
+suppose you will say _that_ is a comfortable delusion; and yet even you
+must admit that whenever want or misery or starvation is known to exist,
+however distant or difficult of access, we instantly organise relief on
+the most generous scale, and distribute it, if need be, to the uttermost
+ends of the earth."
+
+The Duchess paused, with a sense of ultimate triumph.  She had made the
+same observation at a drawing-room meeting, and it had been extremely
+well received.
+
+"I wonder," said Reginald, "if you have ever walked down the Embankment
+on a winter night?"
+
+"Gracious, no, child!  Why do you ask?"
+
+"I didn't; I only wondered.  And even your philanthropy, practised in a
+world where everything is based on competition, must have a debit as well
+as a credit account.  The young ravens cry for food."
+
+"And are fed."
+
+"Exactly.  Which presupposes that something else is fed upon."
+
+"Oh, you're simply exasperating.  You've been reading Nietzsche till you
+haven't got any sense of moral proportion left.  May I ask if you are
+governed by _any_ laws of conduct whatever?"
+
+"There are certain fixed rules that one observes for one's own comfort.
+For instance, never be flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-bearded
+stranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking-rooms on the
+Continent.  It always turns out to be the King of Sweden."
+
+"The restraint must be dreadfully irksome to you.  When I was younger,
+boys of your age used to be nice and innocent."
+
+"Now we are only nice.  One must specialise in these days.  Which reminds
+me of the man I read of in some sacred book who was given a choice of
+what he most desired.  And because he didn't ask for titles and honours
+and dignities, but only for immense wealth, these other things came to
+him also."
+
+"I am sure you didn't read about him in any sacred book."
+
+"Yes; I fancy you will find him in Debrett."
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD'S PEACE POEM
+
+
+"I'm writing a poem on Peace," said Reginald, emerging from a sweeping
+operation through a tin of mixed biscuits, in whose depths a macaroon or
+two might yet be lurking.
+
+"Something of the kind seems to have been attempted already," said the
+Other.
+
+"Oh, I know; but I may never have the chance again.  Besides, I've got a
+new fountain pen.  I don't pretend to have gone on any very original
+lines; in writing about Peace the thing is to say what everybody else is
+saying, only to say it better.  It begins with the usual ornithological
+emotion--
+
+   'When the widgeon westward winging
+   Heard the folk Vereeniginging,
+   Heard the shouting and the singing'"--
+
+"Vereeniginging is good, but why widgeon?"
+
+"Why not?  Anything that winged westward would naturally begin with a
+_w_."
+
+"Need it wing westward?"
+
+"The bird must go somewhere.  You wouldn't have it hang around and look
+foolish.  Then I've brought in something about the heedless hartebeest
+galloping over the deserted veldt."
+
+"Of course you know it's practically extinct in those regions?"
+
+"I can't help _that_, it gallops so nicely.  I make it have all sorts of
+unexpected yearnings--
+
+   'Mother, may I go and maffick,
+   Tear around and hinder traffic?'
+
+Of course you'll say there would be no traffic worth bothering about on
+the bare and sun-scorched veldt, but there's no other word that rhymes
+with maffick."
+
+"Seraphic?"
+
+Reginald considered.  "It might do, but I've got a lot about angels later
+on.  You must have angels in a Peace poem; I know dreadfully little about
+their habits."
+
+"They can do unexpected things, like the hartebeest."
+
+"Of course.  Then I turn on London, the City of Dreadful Nocturnes,
+resonant with hymns of joy and thanksgiving--
+
+   'And the sleeper, eye unlidding,
+   Heard a voice for ever bidding
+   Much farewell to Dolly Gray;
+   Turning weary on his truckle-
+   Bed he heard the honey-suckle
+   Lauded in apiarian lay.'
+
+Longfellow at his best wrote nothing like that."
+
+"I agree with you."
+
+"I wish you wouldn't.  I've a sweet temper, but I can't stand being
+agreed with.  And I'm so worried about the aasvogel."
+
+Reginald stared dismally at the biscuit-tin, which now presented an
+unattractive array of rejected cracknels.
+
+"I believe," he murmured, "if I could find a woman with an unsatisfied
+craving for cracknels, I should marry her."
+
+"What is the tragedy of the aasvogel?" asked the Other sympathetically.
+
+"Oh, simply that there's no rhyme for it.  I thought about it all the
+time I was dressing--it's dreadfully bad for one to think whilst one's
+dressing--and all lunch-time, and I'm still hung up over it.  I feel like
+those unfortunate automobilists who achieve an unenviable motoriety by
+coming to a hopeless stop with their cars in the most crowded
+thoroughfares.  I'm afraid I shall have to drop the aasvogel, and it did
+give such lovely local colour to the thing."
+
+"Still you've got the heedless hartebeest."
+
+"And quite a decorative bit of moral admonition--when you've worried the
+meaning out--
+
+   'Cease, War, thy bubbling madness that the wine shares,
+   And bid thy legions turn their swords to mine shares.'
+
+Mine shares seems to fit the case better than ploughshares.  There's lots
+more about the blessings of Peace, shall I go on reading it?"
+
+"If I must make a choice, I think I would rather they went on with the
+war."
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD'S CHOIR TREAT
+
+
+"Never," wrote Reginald to his most darling friend, "be a pioneer.  It's
+the Early Christian that gets the fattest lion."
+
+Reginald, in his way, was a pioneer.
+
+None of the rest of his family had anything approaching Titian hair or a
+sense of humour, and they used primroses as a table decoration.
+
+It follows that they never understood Reginald, who came down late to
+breakfast, and nibbled toast, and said disrespectful things about the
+universe.  The family ate porridge, and believed in everything, even the
+weather forecast.
+
+Therefore the family was relieved when the vicar's daughter undertook the
+reformation of Reginald.  Her name was Amabel; it was the vicar's one
+extravagance.  Amabel was accounted a beauty and intellectually gifted;
+she never played tennis, and was reputed to have read Maeterlinck's _Life
+of the Bee_.  If you abstain from tennis _and_ read Maeterlinck in a
+small country village, you are of necessity intellectual.  Also she had
+been twice to Fecamp to pick up a good French accent from the Americans
+staying there; consequently she had a knowledge of the world which might
+be considered useful in dealings with a worldling.
+
+Hence the congratulations in the family when Amabel undertook the
+reformation of its wayward member.
+
+Amabel commenced operations by asking her unsuspecting pupil to tea in
+the vicarage garden; she believed in the healthy influence of natural
+surroundings, never having been in Sicily, where things are different.
+
+And like every woman who has ever preached repentance to unregenerate
+youth, she dwelt on the sin of an empty life, which always seems so much
+more scandalous in the country, where people rise early to see if a new
+strawberry has happened during the night.
+
+Reginald recalled the lilies of the field, "which simply sat and looked
+beautiful, and defied competition."
+
+"But that is not an example for us to follow," gasped Amabel.
+
+"Unfortunately, we can't afford to.  You don't know what a world of
+trouble I take in trying to rival the lilies in their artistic
+simplicity."
+
+"You are really indecently vain of your appearance.  A good life is
+infinitely preferable to good looks."
+
+"You agree with me that the two are incompatible.  I always say beauty is
+only sin deep."
+
+Amabel began to realise that the battle is not always to the
+strong-minded.  With the immemorial resource of her sex, she abandoned
+the frontal attack, and laid stress on her unassisted labours in parish
+work, her mental loneliness, her discouragements--and at the right moment
+she produced strawberries and cream.  Reginald was obviously affected by
+the latter, and when his preceptress suggested that he might begin the
+strenuous life by helping her to supervise the annual outing of the
+bucolic infants who composed the local choir, his eyes shone with the
+dangerous enthusiasm of a convert.
+
+Reginald entered on the strenuous life alone, as far as Amabel was
+concerned.  The most virtuous women are not proof against damp grass, and
+Amabel kept her bed with a cold.  Reginald called it a dispensation; it
+had been the dream of his life to stage-manage a choir outing.  With
+strategic insight, he led his shy, bullet-headed charges to the nearest
+woodland stream and allowed them to bathe; then he seated himself on
+their discarded garments and discoursed on their immediate future, which,
+he decreed, was to embrace a Bacchanalian procession through the village.
+Forethought had provided the occasion with a supply of tin whistles, but
+the introduction of a he-goat from a neighbouring orchard was a brilliant
+afterthought.  Properly, Reginald explained, there should have been an
+outfit of panther skins; as it was, those who had spotted handkerchiefs
+were allowed to wear them, which they did with thankfulness.  Reginald
+recognised the impossibility, in the time at his disposal, of teaching
+his shivering neophytes a chant in honour of Bacchus, so he started them
+off with a more familiar, if less appropriate, temperance hymn.  After
+all, he said, it is the spirit of the thing that counts.  Following the
+etiquette of dramatic authors on first nights, he remained discreetly in
+the background while the procession, with extreme diffidence and the
+goat, wound its way lugubriously towards the village.  The singing had
+died down long before the main street was reached, but the miserable
+wailing of pipes brought the inhabitants to their doors.  Reginald said
+he had seen something like it in pictures; the villagers had seen nothing
+like it in their lives, and remarked as much freely.
+
+Reginald's family never forgave him.  They had no sense of humour.
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD ON WORRIES
+
+
+I have (said Reginald) an aunt who worries.  She's not really an aunt--a
+sort of amateur one, and they aren't really worries.  She is a social
+success, and has no domestic tragedies worth speaking of, so she adopts
+any decorative sorrows that are going, myself included.  In that way
+she's the antithesis, or whatever you call it, to those sweet,
+uncomplaining women one knows who have seen trouble, and worn blinkers
+ever since.  Of course, one just loves them for it, but I must confess
+they make me uncomfy; they remind one so of a duck that goes flapping
+about with forced cheerfulness long after its head's been cut off.  Ducks
+have _no_ repose.  Now, my aunt has a shade of hair that suits her, and a
+cook who quarrels with the other servants, which is always a hopeful
+sign, and a conscience that's absentee for about eleven months of the
+year, and only turns up at Lent to annoy her husband's people, who are
+considerably Lower than the angels, so to speak: with all these natural
+advantages--she says her particular tint of bronze is a natural
+advantage, and there can be no two opinions as to the advantage--of
+course she has to send out for her afflictions, like those restaurants
+where they haven't got a licence.  The system has this advantage, that
+you can fit your unhappinesses in with your other engagements, whereas
+real worries have a way of arriving at meal-times, and when you're
+dressing, or other solemn moments.  I knew a canary once that had been
+trying for months and years to hatch out a family, and everyone looked
+upon it as a blameless infatuation, like the sale of Delagoa Bay, which
+would be an annual loss to the Press agencies if it ever came to pass;
+and one day the bird really did bring it off, in the middle of family
+prayers.  I say the middle, but it was also the end: you can't go on
+being thankful for daily bread when you are wondering what on earth very
+new canaries expect to be fed on.
+
+At present she's rather in a Balkan state of mind about the treatment of
+the Jews in Roumania.  Personally, I think the Jews have estimable
+qualities; they're so kind to their poor--and to our rich.  I daresay in
+Roumania the cost of living beyond one's income isn't so great.  Over
+here the trouble is that so many people who have money to throw about
+seem to have such vague ideas where to throw it.  That fund, for
+instance, to relieve the victims of sudden disasters--what is a sudden
+disaster?  There's Marion Mulciber, who _would_ think she could play
+bridge, just as she would think she could ride down a hill on a bicycle;
+on that occasion she went to a hospital, now she's gone into a
+Sisterhood--lost all she had, you know, and gave the rest to Heaven.
+Still, you can't call it a sudden calamity; _that_ occurred when poor
+dear Marion was born.  The doctors said at the time that she couldn't
+live more than a fortnight, and she's been trying ever since to see if
+she could.  Women are so opinionated.
+
+And then there's the Education Question--not that I can see that there's
+anything to worry about in that direction.  To my mind, education is an
+absurdly over-rated affair.  At least, one never took it very seriously
+at school, where everything was done to bring it prominently under one's
+notice.  Anything that is worth knowing one practically teaches oneself,
+and the rest obtrudes itself sooner or later.  The reason one's elders
+know so comparatively little is because they have to unlearn so much that
+they acquired by way of education before we were born.  Of course I'm a
+believer in Nature-study; as I said to Lady Beauwhistle, if you want a
+lesson in elaborate artificiality, just watch the studied unconcern of a
+Persian cat entering a crowded salon, and then go and practise it for a
+fortnight.  The Beauwhistles weren't born in the Purple, you know, but
+they're getting there on the instalment system--so much down, and the
+rest when you feel like it.  They have kind hearts, and they never forget
+birthdays.  I forget what he was, something in the City, where the
+patriotism comes from; and she--oh, well, her frocks are built in Paris,
+but she wears them with a strong English accent.  So public-spirited of
+her.  I think she must have been very strictly brought up, she's so
+desperately anxious to do the wrong thing correctly.  Not that it really
+matters nowadays, as I told her: I know some perfectly virtuous people
+who are received everywhere.
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD ON HOUSE-PARTIES
+
+
+The drawback is, one never really _knows_ one's hosts and hostesses.  One
+gets to know their fox-terriers and their chrysanthemums, and whether the
+story about the go-cart can be turned loose in the drawing-room, or must
+be told privately to each member of the party, for fear of shocking
+public opinion; but one's host and hostess are a sort of human hinterland
+that one never has the time to explore.
+
+There was a fellow I stayed with once in Warwickshire who farmed his own
+land, but was otherwise quite steady.  Should never have suspected him of
+having a soul, yet not very long afterwards he eloped with a lion-tamer's
+widow and set up as a golf-instructor somewhere on the Persian Gulf;
+dreadfully immoral, of course, because he was only an indifferent player,
+but still, it showed imagination.  His wife was really to be pitied,
+because he had been the only person in the house who understood how to
+manage the cook's temper, and now she has to put "D.V." on her dinner
+invitations.  Still, that's better than a domestic scandal; a woman who
+leaves her cook never wholly recovers her position in Society.
+
+I suppose the same thing holds good with the hosts; they seldom have more
+than a superficial acquaintance with their guests, and so often just when
+they do get to know you a bit better, they leave off knowing you
+altogether.  There was _rather_ a breath of winter in the air when I left
+those Dorsetshire people.  You see, they had asked me down to shoot, and
+I'm not particularly immense at that sort of thing.  There's such a
+deadly sameness about partridges; when you've missed one, you've missed
+the lot--at least, that's been my experience.  And they tried to rag me
+in the smoking-room about not being able to hit a bird at five yards, a
+sort of bovine ragging that suggested cows buzzing round a gadfly and
+thinking they were teasing it.  So I got up the next morning at early
+dawn--I know it was dawn, because there were lark-noises in the sky, and
+the grass looked as if it had been left out all night--and hunted up the
+most conspicuous thing in the bird line that I could find, and measured
+the distance, as nearly as it would let me, and shot away all I knew.
+They said afterwards that it was a tame bird; that's simply _silly_,
+because it was awfully wild at the first few shots.  Afterwards it
+quieted down a bit, and when its legs had stopped waving farewells to the
+landscape I got a gardener-boy to drag it into the hall, where everybody
+must see it on their way to the breakfast-room.  I breakfasted upstairs
+myself.  I gathered afterwards that the meal was tinged with a very
+unchristian spirit.  I suppose it's unlucky to bring peacock's feathers
+into a house; anyway, there was a blue-pencilly look in my hostess's eye
+when I took my departure.
+
+Some hostesses, of course, will forgive anything, even unto pavonicide
+(is there such a word?), as long as one is nice-looking and sufficiently
+unusual to counterbalance some of the others; and there _are_ others--the
+girl, for instance, who reads Meredith, and appears at meals with
+unnatural punctuality in a frock that's made at home and repented at
+leisure.  She eventually finds her way to India and gets married, and
+comes home to admire the Royal Academy, and to imagine that an
+indifferent prawn curry is for ever an effective substitute for all that
+we have been taught to believe is luncheon.  It's then that she is really
+dangerous; but at her worst she is never quite so bad as the woman who
+fires _Exchange and Mart_ questions at you without the least provocation.
+Imagine the other day, just when I was doing my best to understand half
+the things I was saying, being asked by one of those seekers after
+country home truths how many fowls she could keep in a run ten feet by
+six, or whatever it was!  I told her whole crowds, as long as she kept
+the door shut, and the idea didn't seem to have struck her before; at
+least, she brooded over it for the rest of dinner.
+
+Of course, as I say, one never really _knows_ one's ground, and one may
+make mistakes occasionally.  But then one's mistakes sometimes turn out
+assets in the long-run: if we had never bungled away our American
+colonies we might never have had the boy from the States to teach us how
+to wear our hair and cut our clothes, and we must get our ideas from
+somewhere, I suppose.  Even the Hooligan was probably invented in China
+centuries before we thought of him.  England must wake up, as the Duke of
+Devonshire said the other day; wasn't it?  Oh, well, it was someone else.
+Not that I ever indulge in despair about the Future; there always have
+been men who have gone about despairing of the Future, and when the
+Future arrives it says nice, superior things about their having acted
+according to their lights.  It is dreadful to think that other people's
+grandchildren may one day rise up and call one amiable.
+
+There are moments when one sympathises with Herod.
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD AT THE CARLTON
+
+
+"A most variable climate," said the Duchess; "and how unfortunate that we
+should have had that very cold weather at a time when coal was so dear!
+So distressing for the poor."
+
+"Someone has observed that Providence is always on the side of the big
+dividends," remarked Reginald.
+
+The Duchess ate an anchovy in a shocked manner; she was sufficiently old-
+fashioned to dislike irreverence towards dividends.
+
+Reginald had left the selection of a feeding-ground to her womanly
+intuition, but he chose the wine himself, knowing that womanly intuition
+stops short at claret.  A woman will cheerfully choose husbands for her
+less attractive friends, or take sides in a political controversy without
+the least knowledge of the issues involved--but no woman ever cheerfully
+chose a claret.
+
+"Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me," said Reginald:
+"they remind me of one's childhood that one goes through, wondering what
+the next course is going to be like--and during the rest of the menu one
+wishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres.  Don't you love watching
+the different ways people have of entering a restaurant?  There is the
+woman who races in as though her whole scheme of life were held together
+by a one-pin despotism which might abdicate its functions at any moment;
+it's really a relief to see her reach her chair in safety.  Then there
+are the people who troop in with an-unpleasant-duty-to-perform air, as if
+they were angels of Death entering a plague city.  You see that type of
+Briton very much in hotels abroad.  And nowadays there are always the
+Johannesbourgeois, who bring a Cape-to-Cairo atmosphere with them--what
+may be called the Rand Manner, I suppose."
+
+"Talking about hotels abroad," said the Duchess, "I am preparing notes
+for a lecture at the Club on the educational effects of modern travel,
+dealing chiefly with the moral side of the question.  I was talking to
+Lady Beauwhistle's aunt the other day--she's just come back from Paris,
+you know.  Such a sweet woman"--
+
+"And so silly.  In these days of the over-education of women she's quite
+refreshing.  They say some people went through the siege of Paris without
+knowing that France and Germany were at war; but the Beauwhistle aunt is
+credited with having passed the whole winter in Paris under the
+impression that the Humberts were a kind of bicycle . . . Isn't there a
+bishop or somebody who believes we shall meet all the animals we have
+known on earth in another world?  How frightfully embarrassing to meet a
+whole shoal of whitebait you had last known at Prince's!  I'm sure in my
+nervousness I should talk of nothing but lemons.  Still, I daresay they
+would be quite as offended if one hadn't eaten them.  I know if I were
+served up at a cannibal feast I should be dreadfully annoyed if anyone
+found fault with me for not being tender enough, or having been kept too
+long."
+
+"My idea about the lecture," resumed the Duchess hurriedly, "is to
+inquire whether promiscuous Continental travel doesn't tend to weaken the
+moral fibre of the social conscience.  There are people one knows, quite
+nice people when they are in England, who are so _different_ when they
+are anywhere the other side of the Channel."
+
+"The people with what I call Tauchnitz morals," observed Reginald.  "On
+the whole, I think they get the best of two very desirable worlds.  And,
+after all, they charge so much for excess luggage on some of those
+foreign lines that it's really an economy to leave one's reputation
+behind one occasionally."
+
+"A scandal, my dear Reginald, is as much to be avoided at Monaco or any
+of those places as at Exeter, let us say."
+
+"Scandal, my dear Irene--I may call you Irene, mayn't I?"
+
+"I don't know that you have known me long enough for that."
+
+"I've known you longer than your god-parents had when they took the
+liberty of calling you that name.  Scandal is merely the compassionate
+allowance which the gay make to the humdrum.  Think how many blameless
+lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people.  Tell
+me, who is the woman with the old lace at the table on our left?  Oh,
+_that_ doesn't matter; it's quite the thing nowadays to stare at people
+as if they were yearlings at Tattersall's."
+
+"Mrs. Spelvexit?  Quite a charming woman; separated from her husband"--
+
+"Incompatibility of income?"
+
+"Oh, nothing of that sort.  By miles of frozen ocean, I was going to say.
+He explores ice-floes and studies the movements of herrings, and has
+written a most interesting book on the home-life of the Esquimaux; but
+naturally he has very little home-life of his own."
+
+"A husband who comes home with the Gulf Stream _would_ be rather a tied-
+up asset."
+
+"His wife is exceedingly sensible about it.  She collects postage-stamps.
+Such a resource.  Those people with her are the Whimples, very old
+acquaintances of mine; they're always having trouble, poor things."
+
+"Trouble is not one of those fancies you can take up and drop at any
+moment; it's like a grouse-moor or the opium-habit--once you start it
+you've got to keep it up."
+
+"Their eldest son was such a disappointment to them; they wanted him to
+be a linguist, and spent no end of money on having him taught to
+speak--oh, dozens of languages!--and then he became a Trappist monk.  And
+the youngest, who was intended for the American marriage market, has
+developed political tendencies, and writes pamphlets about the housing of
+the poor.  Of course it's a most important question, and I devote a good
+deal of time to it myself in the mornings; but, as Laura Whimple says,
+it's as well to have an establishment of one's own before agitating about
+other people's.  She feels it very keenly, but she always maintains a
+cheerful appetite, which I think is so unselfish of her."
+
+"There are different ways of taking disappointment.  There was a girl I
+knew who nursed a wealthy uncle through a long illness, borne by her with
+Christian fortitude, and then he died and left his money to a swine-fever
+hospital.  She found she'd about cleared stock in fortitude by that time,
+and now she gives drawing-room recitations.  That's what I call being
+vindictive."
+
+"Life is full of its disappointments," observed the Duchess, "and I
+suppose the art of being happy is to disguise them as illusions.  But
+that, my dear Reginald, becomes more difficult as one grows older."
+
+"I think it's more generally practised than you imagine.  The young have
+aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what
+never happened.  It's only the middle-aged who are really conscious of
+their limitations--that is why one should be so patient with them.  But
+one never is."
+
+"After all," said the Duchess, "the disillusions of life may depend on
+our way of assessing it.  In the minds of those who come after us we may
+be remembered for qualities and successes which we quite left out of the
+reckoning."
+
+"It's not always safe to depend on the commemorative tendencies of those
+who come after us.  There may have been disillusionments in the lives of
+the mediaeval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if
+they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays
+chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets.  And now, if you can
+tear yourself away from the salted almonds, we'll go and have coffee
+under the palms that are so necessary for our discomfort."
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD ON BESETTING SINS: THE WOMAN WHO TOLD THE TRUTH
+
+
+There was once (said Reginald) a woman who told the truth.  Not all at
+once, of course, but the habit grew upon her gradually, like lichen on an
+apparently healthy tree.  She had no children--otherwise it might have
+been different.  It began with little things, for no particular reason
+except that her life was a rather empty one, and it is so easy to slip
+into the habit of telling the truth in little matters.  And then it
+became difficult to draw the line at more important things, until at last
+she took to telling the truth about her age; she said she was forty-two
+and five months--by that time, you see, she was veracious even to months.
+It may have been pleasing to the angels, but her elder sister was not
+gratified.  On the Woman's birthday, instead of the opera-tickets which
+she had hoped for, her sister gave her a view of Jerusalem from the Mount
+of Olives, which is not quite the same thing.  The revenge of an elder
+sister may be long in coming, but, like a South-Eastern express, it
+arrives in its own good time.
+
+The friends of the Woman tried to dissuade her from over-indulgence in
+the practice, but she said she was wedded to the truth; whereupon it was
+remarked that it was scarcely logical to be so much together in public.
+(No really provident woman lunches regularly with her husband if she
+wishes to burst upon him as a revelation at dinner.  He must have time to
+forget; an afternoon is not enough.)  And after a while her friends began
+to thin out in patches.  Her passion for the truth was not compatible
+with a large visiting-list.  For instance, she told Miriam Klopstock
+_exactly_ how she looked at the Ilexes' ball.  Certainly Miriam had asked
+for her candid opinion, but the Woman prayed in church every Sunday for
+peace in our time, and it was not consistent.
+
+It was unfortunate, everyone agreed, that she had no family; with a child
+or two in the house, there is an unconscious check upon too free an
+indulgence in the truth.  Children are given us to discourage our better
+emotions.  That is why the stage, with all its efforts, can never be as
+artificial as life; even in an Ibsen drama one must reveal to the
+audience things that one would suppress before the children or servants.
+
+Fate may have ordained the truth-telling from the commencement and should
+justly bear some of the blame; but in having no children the Woman was
+guilty, at least, of contributory negligence.
+
+Little by little she felt she was becoming a slave to what had once been
+merely an idle propensity; and one day she knew.  Every woman tells
+ninety per cent. of the truth to her dressmaker; the other ten per cent.
+is the irreducible minimum of deception beyond which no self-respecting
+client trespasses.  Madame Draga's establishment was a meeting-ground for
+naked truths and over-dressed fictions, and it was here, the Woman felt,
+that she might make a final effort to recall the artless mendacity of
+past days.  Madame herself was in an inspiring mood, with the air of a
+sphinx who knew all things and preferred to forget most of them.  As a
+War Minister she might have been celebrated, but she was content to be
+merely rich.
+
+"If I take it in here, and--Miss Howard, one moment, if you please--and
+there, and round like this--so--I really think you will find it quite
+easy."
+
+The Woman hesitated; it seemed to require such a small effort to simply
+acquiesce in Madame's views.  But habit had become too strong.  "I'm
+afraid," she faltered, "it's just the least little bit in the world too"--
+
+And by that least little bit she measured the deeps and eternities of her
+thraldom to fact.  Madame was not best pleased at being contradicted on a
+professional matter, and when Madame lost her temper you usually found it
+afterwards in the bill.
+
+And at last the dreadful thing came, as the Woman had foreseen all along
+that it must; it was one of those paltry little truths with which she
+harried her waking hours.  On a raw Wednesday morning, in a few
+ill-chosen words, she told the cook that she drank.  She remembered the
+scene afterwards as vividly as though it had been painted in her mind by
+Abbey.  The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went.
+
+Miriam Klopstock came to lunch the next day.  Women and elephants never
+forget an injury.
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD'S DRAMA
+
+
+Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who has
+rather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact.
+
+"One of these days," he said, "I shall write a really great drama.  No
+one will understand the drift of it, but everyone will go back to their
+homes with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with their lives and
+surroundings.  Then they will put up new wall-papers and forget."
+
+"But how about those that have oak panelling all over the house?" said
+the Other.
+
+"They can always put down new stair-carpets," pursued Reginald, "and,
+anyhow, I'm not responsible for the audience having a happy ending.  The
+play would be quite sufficient strain on one's energies.  I should get a
+bishop to say it was immoral and beautiful--no dramatist has thought of
+that before, and everyone would come to condemn the bishop, and they
+would stay on out of sheer nervousness.  After all, it requires a great
+deal of moral courage to leave in a marked manner in the middle of the
+second act, when your carriage isn't ordered till twelve.  And it would
+commence with wolves worrying something on a lonely waste--you wouldn't
+see them, of course; but you would hear them snarling and scrunching, and
+I should arrange to have a wolfy fragrance suggested across the
+footlights.  It would look so well on the programmes, 'Wolves in the
+first act, by Jamrach.'  And old Lady Whortleberry, who never misses a
+first night, would scream.  She's always been nervous since she lost her
+first husband.  He died quite abruptly while watching a county cricket
+match; two and a half inches of rain had fallen for seven runs, and it
+was supposed that the excitement killed him.  Anyhow, it gave her quite a
+shock; it was the first husband she'd lost, you know, and now she always
+screams if anything thrilling happens too soon after dinner.  And after
+the audience had heard the Whortleberry scream the thing would be fairly
+launched."
+
+"And the plot?"
+
+"The plot," said Reginald, "would be one of those little everyday
+tragedies that one sees going on all round one.  In my mind's eye there
+is the case of the Mudge-Jervises, which in an unpretentious way has
+quite an Enoch Arden intensity underlying it.  They'd only been married
+some eighteen months or so, and circumstances had prevented their seeing
+much of each other.  With him there was always a foursome or something
+that had to be played and replayed in different parts of the country, and
+she went in for slumming quite as seriously as if it was a sport.  With
+her, I suppose, it was.  She belonged to the Guild of the Poor Dear
+Souls, and they hold the record for having nearly reformed a washerwoman.
+No one has ever really reformed a washerwoman, and that is why the
+competition is so keen.  You can rescue charwomen by fifties with a
+little tea and personal magnetism, but with washerwomen it's different;
+wages are too high.  This particular laundress, who came from Bermondsey
+or some such place, was really rather a hopeful venture, and they thought
+at last that she might be safely put in the window as a specimen of
+successful work.  So they had her paraded at a drawing-room "At Home" at
+Agatha Camelford's; it was sheer bad luck that some liqueur chocolates
+had been turned loose by mistake among the refreshments--really liqueur
+chocolates, with very little chocolate.  And of course the old soul found
+them out, and cornered the entire stock.  It was like finding a whelk-
+stall in a desert, as she afterwards partially expressed herself.  When
+the liqueurs began to take effect, she started to give them imitations of
+farmyard animals as they know them in Bermondsey.  She began with a
+dancing bear, and you know Agatha doesn't approve of dancing, except at
+Buckingham Palace under proper supervision.  And then she got up on the
+piano and gave them an organ monkey; I gather she went in for realism
+rather than a Maeterlinckian treatment of the subject.  Finally, she fell
+into the piano and said she was a parrot in a cage, and for an impromptu
+performance I believe she was very word-perfect; no one had heard
+anything like it, except Baroness Boobelstein who has attended sittings
+of the Austrian Reichsrath.  Agatha is trying the Rest-cure at Buxton."
+
+"But the tragedy?"
+
+"Oh, the Mudge-Jervises.  Well, they were getting along quite happily,
+and their married life was one continuous exchange of picture-postcards;
+and then one day they were thrown together on some neutral ground where
+foursomes and washerwomen overlapped, and discovered that they were
+hopelessly divided on the Fiscal Question.  They have thought it best to
+separate, and she is to have the custody of the Persian kittens for nine
+months in the year--they go back to him for the winter, when she is
+abroad.  There you have the material for a tragedy drawn straight from
+life--and the piece could be called 'The Price They Paid for Empire.'  And
+of course one would have to work in studies of the struggle of hereditary
+tendency against environment and all that sort of thing.  The woman's
+father could have been an Envoy to some of the smaller German Courts;
+that's where she'd get her passion for visiting the poor, in spite of the
+most careful upbringing.  _C'est le premier pa qui compte_, as the cuckoo
+said when it swallowed its foster-parent.  That, I think, is quite
+clever."
+
+"And the wolves?"
+
+"Oh, the wolves would be a sort of elusive undercurrent in the background
+that would never be satisfactorily explained.  After all, life teems with
+things that have no earthly reason.  And whenever the characters could
+think of nothing brilliant to say about marriage or the War Office, they
+could open a window and listen to the howling of the wolves.  But that
+would be very seldom."
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD ON TARIFFS
+
+
+I'm not going to discuss the Fiscal Question (said Reginald); I wish to
+be original.  At the same time, I think one suffers more than one
+realises from the system of free imports.  I should like, for instance, a
+really prohibitive duty put upon the partner who declares on a weak red
+suit and hopes for the best.  Even a free outlet for compressed verbiage
+doesn't balance matters.  And I think there should be a sort of bounty-
+fed export (is that the right expression?) of the people who impress on
+you that you ought to take life seriously.  There are only two classes
+that really can't help taking life seriously--schoolgirls of thirteen and
+Hohenzollerns; they might be exempt.  Albanians come under another
+heading; they take life whenever they get the opportunity.  The one
+Albanian that I was ever on speaking terms with was rather a decadent
+example.  He was a Christian and a grocer, and I don't fancy he had ever
+killed anybody.  I didn't like to question him on the subject--that
+showed my delicacy.  Mrs. Nicorax says I have no delicacy; she hasn't
+forgiven me about the mice.  You see, when I was staying down there, a
+mouse used to cake-walk about my room half the night, and none of their
+silly patent traps seemed to take its fancy as a bijou residence, so I
+determined to appeal to the better side of it--which with mice is the
+inside.  So I called it Percy, and put little delicacies down near its
+hole every night, and that kept it quiet while I read Max Nordau's
+_Degeneration_ and other reproving literature, and went to sleep.  And
+now she says there is a whole colony of mice in that room.
+
+That isn't where the indelicacy comes in.  She went out riding with me,
+which was entirely her own suggestion, and as we were coming home through
+some meadows she made a quite unnecessary attempt to see if her pony
+would jump a rather messy sort of brook that was there.  It wouldn't.  It
+went with her as far as the water's edge, and from that point Mrs.
+Nicorax went on alone.  Of course I had to fish her out from the bank,
+and my riding-breeches are not cut with a view to salmon-fishing--it's
+rather an art even to ride in them.  Her habit-skirt was one of those
+open questions that need not be adhered to in emergencies, and on this
+occasion it remained behind in some water-weeds.  She wanted me to fish
+about for that too, but I felt I had done enough Pharaoh's daughter
+business for an October afternoon, and I was beginning to want my tea.  So
+I bundled her up on to her pony, and gave her a lead towards home as fast
+as I cared to go.  What with the wet and the unusual responsibility, her
+abridged costume did not stand the pace particularly well, and she got
+quite querulous when I shouted back that I had no pins with me--and no
+string.  Some women expect so much from a fellow.  When we got into the
+drive she wanted to go up the back way to the stables, but the ponies
+_know_ they always get sugar at the front door, and I never attempt to
+hold a pulling pony; as for Mrs. Nicorax, it took her all she knew to
+keep a firm hand on her seceding garments, which, as her maid remarked
+afterwards, were more _tout_ than _ensemble_.  Of course nearly the whole
+house-party were out on the lawn watching the sunset--the only day this
+month that it's occurred to the sun to show itself, as Mrs. Nic.
+viciously observed--and I shall never forget the expression on her
+husband's face as we pulled up.  "My darling, this is too much!" was his
+first spoken comment; taking into consideration the state of her toilet,
+it was the most brilliant thing I had ever heard him say, and I went into
+the library to be alone and scream.  Mrs. Nicorax says I have no
+delicacy.
+
+Talking about tariffs, the lift-boy, who reads extensively between the
+landings, says it won't do to tax raw commodities.  What, exactly, is a
+raw commodity?  Mrs. Van Challaby says men are raw commodities till you
+marry them; after they've struck Mrs. Van C., I can fancy they pretty
+soon become a finished article.  Certainly she's had a good deal of
+experience to support her opinion.  She lost one husband in a railway
+accident, and mislaid another in the Divorce Court, and the current one
+has just got himself squeezed in a Beef Trust.  "What was he doing in a
+Beef Trust, anyway?" she asked tearfully, and I suggested that perhaps he
+had an unhappy home.  I only said it for the sake of making conversation;
+which it did.  Mrs. Van Challaby said things about me which in her calmer
+moments she would have hesitated to spell.  It's a pity people can't
+discuss fiscal matters without getting wild.  However, she wrote next day
+to ask if I could get her a Yorkshire terrier of the size and shade
+that's being worn now, and that's as near as a woman can be expected to
+get to owning herself in the wrong.  And she will tie a salmon-pink bow
+to its collar, and call it "Reggie," and take it with her everywhere--like
+poor Miriam Klopstock, who _would_ take her Chow with her to the
+bathroom, and while she was bathing it was playing at she-bears with her
+garments.  Miriam is always late for breakfast, and she wasn't really
+missed till the middle of lunch.
+
+However, I'm not going any further into the Fiscal Question.  Only I
+should like to be protected from the partner with a weak red tendency.
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD'S CHRISTMAS REVEL
+
+
+They say (said Reginald) that there's nothing sadder than victory except
+defeat.  If you've ever stayed with dull people during what is alleged to
+be the festive season, you can probably revise that saying.  I shall
+never forget putting in a Christmas at the Babwolds'.  Mrs. Babwold is
+some relation of my father's--a sort of to-be-left-till-called-for
+cousin--and that was considered sufficient reason for my having to accept
+her invitation at about the sixth time of asking; though why the sins of
+the father should be visited by the children--you won't find any
+notepaper in that drawer; that's where I keep old menus and first-night
+programmes.
+
+Mrs. Babwold wears a rather solemn personality, and has never been known
+to smile, even when saying disagreeable things to her friends or making
+out the Stores list.  She takes her pleasures sadly.  A state elephant at
+a Durbar gives one a very similar impression.  Her husband gardens in all
+weathers.  When a man goes out in the pouring rain to brush caterpillars
+off rose-trees, I generally imagine his life indoors leaves something to
+be desired; anyway, it must be very unsettling for the caterpillars.
+
+Of course there were other people there.  There was a Major Somebody who
+had shot things in Lapland, or somewhere of that sort; I forget what they
+were, but it wasn't for want of reminding.  We had them cold with every
+meal almost, and he was continually giving us details of what they
+measured from tip to tip, as though he thought we were going to make them
+warm under-things for the winter.  I used to listen to him with a rapt
+attention that I thought rather suited me, and then one day I quite
+modestly gave the dimensions of an okapi I had shot in the Lincolnshire
+fens.  The Major turned a beautiful Tyrian scarlet (I remember thinking
+at the time that I should like my bathroom hung in that colour), and I
+think that at that moment he almost found it in his heart to dislike me.
+Mrs. Babwold put on a first-aid-to-the-injured expression, and asked him
+why he didn't publish a book of his sporting reminiscences; it would be
+_so_ interesting.  She didn't remember till afterwards that he had given
+her two fat volumes on the subject, with his portrait and autograph as a
+frontispiece and an appendix on the habits of the Arctic mussel.
+
+It was in the evening that we cast aside the cares and distractions of
+the day and really lived.  Cards were thought to be too frivolous and
+empty a way of passing the time, so most of them played what they called
+a book game.  You went out into the hall--to get an inspiration, I
+suppose--then you came in again with a muffler tied round your neck and
+looked silly, and the others were supposed to guess that you were "Wee
+MacGreegor."  I held out against the inanity as long as I decently could,
+but at last, in a lapse of good-nature, I consented to masquerade as a
+book, only I warned them that it would take some time to carry out.  They
+waited for the best part of forty minutes, while I went and played
+wineglass skittles with the page-boy in the pantry; you play it with a
+champagne cork, you know, and the one who knocks down the most glasses
+without breaking them wins.  I won, with four unbroken out of seven; I
+think William suffered from over-anxiousness.  They were rather mad in
+the drawing-room at my not having come back, and they weren't a bit
+pacified when I told them afterwards that I was "At the end of the
+passage."
+
+"I never did like Kipling," was Mrs. Babwold's comment, when the
+situation dawned upon her.  "I couldn't see anything clever in
+_Earthworms out of Tuscany_--or is that by Darwin?"
+
+Of course these games are very educational, but, personally, I prefer
+bridge.
+
+On Christmas evening we were supposed to be specially festive in the Old
+English fashion.  The hall was horribly draughty, but it seemed to be the
+proper place to revel in, and it was decorated with Japanese fans and
+Chinese lanterns, which gave it a very Old English effect.  A young lady
+with a confidential voice favoured us with a long recitation about a
+little girl who died or did something equally hackneyed, and then the
+Major gave us a graphic account of a struggle he had with a wounded bear.
+I privately wished that the bears would win sometimes on these occasions;
+at least they wouldn't go vapouring about it afterwards.  Before we had
+time to recover our spirits, we were indulged with some thought-reading
+by a young man whom one knew instinctively had a good mother and an
+indifferent tailor--the sort of young man who talks unflaggingly through
+the thickest soup, and smooths his hair dubiously as though he thought it
+might hit back.  The thought-reading was rather a success; he announced
+that the hostess was thinking about poetry, and she admitted that her
+mind was dwelling on one of Austin's odes.  Which was near enough.  I
+fancy she had been really wondering whether a scrag-end of mutton and
+some cold plum-pudding would do for the kitchen dinner next day.  As a
+crowning dissipation, they all sat down to play progressive halma, with
+milk-chocolate for prizes.  I've been carefully brought up, and I don't
+like to play games of skill for milk-chocolate, so I invented a headache
+and retired from the scene.  I had been preceded a few minutes earlier by
+Miss Langshan-Smith, a rather formidable lady, who always got up at some
+uncomfortable hour in the morning, and gave you the impression that she
+had been in communication with most of the European Governments before
+breakfast.  There was a paper pinned on her door with a signed request
+that she might be called particularly early on the morrow.  Such an
+opportunity does not come twice in a lifetime.  I covered up everything
+except the signature with another notice, to the effect that before these
+words should meet the eye she would have ended a misspent life, was sorry
+for the trouble she was giving, and would like a military funeral.  A few
+minutes later I violently exploded an air-filled paper bag on the
+landing, and gave a stage moan that could have been heard in the cellars.
+Then I pursued my original intention and went to bed.  The noise those
+people made in forcing open the good lady's door was positively
+indecorous; she resisted gallantly, but I believe they searched her for
+bullets for about a quarter of an hour, as if she had been an historic
+battlefield.
+
+I hate travelling on Boxing Day, but one must occasionally do things that
+one dislikes.
+
+
+
+
+REGINALD'S RUBAIYAT
+
+
+The other day (confided Reginald), when I was killing time in the
+bathroom and making bad resolutions for the New Year, it occurred to me
+that I would like to be a poet.  The chief qualification, I understand,
+is that you must be born.  Well, I hunted up my birth certificate, and
+found that I was all right on that score, and then I got to work on a
+Hymn to the New Year, which struck me as having possibilities.  It
+suggested extremely unusual things to absolutely unlikely people, which I
+believe is the art of first-class catering in any department.  Quite the
+best verse in it went something like this--
+
+   "Have you heard the groan of a gravelled grouse,
+   Or the snarl of a snaffled snail
+   (Husband or mother, like me, or spouse),
+   Have you lain a-creep in the darkened house
+   Where the wounded wombats wail?"
+
+It was quite improbable that anyone had, you know, and that's where it
+stimulated the imagination and took people out of their narrow, humdrum
+selves.  No one has ever called me narrow or humdrum, but even I felt
+worked up now and then at the thought of that house with the stricken
+wombats in it.  It simply wasn't nice.  But the editors were unanimous in
+leaving it alone; they said the thing had been done before and done
+worse, and that the market for that sort of work was extremely limited.
+
+It was just on the top of that discouragement that the Duchess wanted me
+to write something in her album--something Persian, you know, and just a
+little bit decadent--and I thought a quatrain on an unwholesome egg would
+meet the requirements of the case.  So I started in with--
+
+   "Cackle, cackle, little hen,
+   How I wonder if and when
+   Once you laid the egg that I
+   Met, alas! too late.  Amen."
+
+The Duchess objected to the Amen, which I thought gave an air of
+forgiveness and _chose jugee_ to the whole thing; also she said it wasn't
+Persian enough, as though I were trying to sell her a kitten whose mother
+had married for love rather than pedigree.  So I recast it entirely, and
+the new version read--
+
+   "The hen that laid thee moons ago, who knows
+   In what Dead Yesterday her shades repose;
+   To some election turn thy waning span
+   And rain thy rottenness on fiscal foes."
+
+I thought there was enough suggestion of decay in that to satisfy a
+jackal, and to me there was something infinitely pathetic and appealing
+in the idea of the egg having a sort of St. Luke's summer of commercial
+usefulness.  But the Duchess begged me to leave out any political
+allusions; she's the president of a Women's Something or other, and she
+said it might be taken as an endorsement of deplorable methods.  I never
+can remember which Party Irene discourages with her support, but I shan't
+forget an occasion when I was staying at her place and she gave me a
+pamphlet to leave at the house of a doubtful voter, and some grapes and
+things for a woman who was suffering from a chill on the top of a patent
+medicine.  I thought it much cleverer to give the grapes to the former
+and the political literature to the sick woman, and the Duchess was quite
+absurdly annoyed about it afterwards.  It seems the leaflet was addressed
+"To those about to wobble"--I wasn't responsible for the silly title of
+the thing--and the woman never recovered; anyway, the voter was
+completely won over by the grapes and jellies, and I think that should
+have balanced matters.  The Duchess called it bribery, and said it might
+have compromised the candidate she was supporting; he was expected to
+subscribe to church funds and chapel funds, and football and cricket
+clubs and regattas, and bazaars and beanfeasts and bellringers, and
+poultry shows and ploughing matches, and reading-rooms and choir outings,
+and shooting trophies and testimonials, and anything of that sort; but
+bribery would not have been tolerated.
+
+I fancy I have perhaps more talent for electioneering than for poetry,
+and I was really getting extended over this quatrain business.  The egg
+began to be unmanageable, and the Duchess suggested something with a
+French literary ring about it.  I hunted back in my mind for the most
+familiar French classic that I could take liberties with, and after a
+little exercise of memory I turned out the following:--
+
+   "Hast thou the pen that once the gardener had?
+   I have it not; and know, these pears are bad.
+   Oh, larger than the horses of the Prince
+   Are those the general drives in Kaikobad."
+
+Even that didn't altogether satisfy Irene; I fancy the geography of it
+puzzled her.  She probably thought Kaikobad was an unfashionable German
+spa, where you'd meet matrimonial bargain-hunters and emergency Servian
+kings.  My temper was beginning to slip its moorings by that time.  I
+look rather nice when I lose my temper.  (I hoped you would say I lose it
+very often.  I mustn't monopolise the conversation.)
+
+"Of course, if you want something really Persian and passionate, with red
+wine and bulbuls in it," I went on to suggest; but she grabbed the book
+away from me.
+
+"Not for worlds.  Nothing with red wine or passion in it.  Dear Agatha
+gave me the album, and she would be mortified to the quick"--
+
+I said I didn't believe Agatha had a quick, and we got quite heated in
+arguing the matter.  Finally, the Duchess declared I shouldn't write
+anything nasty in her book, and I said I wouldn't write anything in her
+nasty book, so there wasn't a very wide point of difference between us.
+For the rest of the afternoon I pretended to be sulking, but I was really
+working back to that quatrain, like a fox-terrier that's buried a
+deferred lunch in a private flower-bed.  When I got an opportunity I
+hunted up Agatha's autograph, which had the front page all to itself,
+and, copying her prim handwriting as well as I could, I inserted above it
+the following Thibetan fragment:--
+
+   "With Thee, oh, my Beloved, to do a dak
+   (a dak I believe is a sort of uncomfortable post-journey)
+   On the pack-saddle of a grunting yak,
+   With never room for chilling chaperone,
+   'Twere better than a Panhard in the Park."
+
+That Agatha would get on to a yak in company with a lover even in the
+comparative seclusion of Thibet is unthinkable.  I very much doubt if
+she'd do it with her own husband in the privacy of the Simplon tunnel.
+But poetry, as I've remarked before, should always stimulate the
+imagination.
+
+By the way, when you asked me the other day to dine with you on the 14th,
+I said I was dining with the Duchess.  Well, I'm not.  I'm dining with
+you.
+
+
+
+
+THE INNOCENCE OF REGINALD
+
+
+Reginald slid a carnation of the newest shade into the buttonhole of his
+latest lounge coat, and surveyed the result with approval.  "I am just in
+the mood," he observed, "to have my portrait painted by someone with an
+unmistakable future.  So comforting to go down to posterity as 'Youth
+with a Pink Carnation' in catalogue--company with 'Child with Bunch of
+Primroses,' and all that crowd."
+
+"Youth," said the Other, "should suggest innocence."
+
+"But never act on the suggestion.  I don't believe the two ever really go
+together.  People talk vaguely about the innocence of a little child, but
+they take mighty good care not to let it out of their sight for twenty
+minutes.  The watched pot never boils over.  I knew a boy once who really
+was innocent; his parents were in Society, but they never gave him a
+moment's anxiety from his infancy.  He believed in company prospectuses,
+and in the purity of elections, and in women marrying for love, and even
+in a system for winning at roulette.  He never quite lost his faith in
+it, but he dropped more money than his employers could afford to lose.
+When last I heard of him, he was believing in his innocence; the jury
+weren't.  All the same, I really am innocent just now of something
+everyone accuses me of having done, and so far as I can see, their
+accusations will remain unfounded."
+
+"Rather an unexpected attitude for you."
+
+"I love people who do unexpected things.  Didn't you always adore the man
+who slew a lion in a pit on a snowy day?  But about this unfortunate
+innocence.  Well, quite long ago, when I'd been quarrelling with more
+people than usual, you among the number--it must have been in November, I
+never quarrel with you too near Christmas--I had an idea that I'd like to
+write a book.  It was to be a book of personal reminiscences, and was to
+leave out nothing."
+
+"Reginald!"
+
+"Exactly what the Duchess said when I mentioned it to her.  I was
+provoking and said nothing, and the next thing, of course, was that
+everyone heard that I'd written the book and got it in the press.  After
+that, I might have been a gold-fish in a glass bowl for all the privacy I
+got.  People attacked me about it in the most unexpected places, and
+implored or commanded me to leave out things that I'd forgotten had ever
+happened.  I sat behind Miriam Klopstock one night in the dress circle at
+His Majesty's, and she began at once about the incident of the Chow dog
+in the bathroom, which she insisted must be struck out.  We had to argue
+it in a disjointed fashion, because some of the people wanted to listen
+to the play, and Miriam takes nines in voices.  They had to stop her
+playing in the 'Macaws' Hockey Club because you could hear what she
+thought when her shins got mixed up in a scrimmage for half a mile on a
+still day.  They are called the Macaws because of their blue-and-yellow
+costumes, but I understand there was nothing yellow about Miriam's
+language.  I agreed to make one alteration, as I pretended I had got it a
+Spitz instead of a Chow, but beyond that I was firm.  She megaphoned back
+two minutes later, 'You promised you would never mention it; don't you
+ever keep a promise?'  When people had stopped glaring in our direction,
+I replied that I'd as soon think of keeping white mice.  I saw her
+tearing little bits out of her programme for a minute or two, and then
+she leaned back and snorted, 'You're not the boy I took you for,' as
+though she were an eagle arriving at Olympus with the wrong Ganymede.
+That was her last audible remark, but she went on tearing up her
+programme and scattering the pieces around her, till one of her
+neighbours asked with immense dignity whether she should send for a
+wastepaper basket.  I didn't stay for the last act."
+
+"Then there is Mrs.--oh, I never can remember her name; she lives in a
+street that the cabmen have never heard of, and is at home on Wednesdays.
+She frightened me horribly once at a private view by saying mysteriously,
+'I oughtn't to be here, you know; this is one of my days.'  I thought she
+meant that she was subject to periodical outbreaks and was expecting an
+attack at any moment.  So embarrassing if she had suddenly taken it into
+her head that she was Cesar Borgia or St. Elizabeth of Hungary.  That
+sort of thing would make one unpleasantly conspicuous even at a private
+view.  However, she merely meant to say that it was Wednesday, which at
+the moment was incontrovertible.  Well, she's on quite a different tack
+to the Klopstock.  She doesn't visit anywhere very extensively, and, of
+course, she's awfully keen for me to drag in an incident that occurred at
+one of the Beauwhistle garden-parties, when she says she accidentally hit
+the shins of a Serene Somebody or other with a croquet mallet and that he
+swore at her in German.  As a matter of fact, he went on discoursing on
+the Gordon-Bennett affair in French.  (I never can remember if it's a new
+submarine or a divorce.  Of course, how stupid of me!)  To be
+disagreeably exact, I fancy she missed him by about two
+inches--over-anxiousness, probably--but she likes to think she hit him.
+I've felt that way with a partridge which I always imagine keeps on
+flying strong, out of false pride, till it's the other side of the hedge.
+She said she could tell me everything she was wearing on the occasion.  I
+said I didn't want my book to read like a laundry list, but she explained
+that she didn't mean those sort of things."
+
+"And there's the Chilworth boy, who can be charming as long as he's
+content to be stupid and wear what he's told to; but he gets the idea now
+and then that he'd like to be epigrammatic, and the result is like
+watching a rook trying to build a nest in a gale.  Since he got wind of
+the book, he's been persecuting me to work in something of his about the
+Russians and the Yalu Peril, and is quite sulky because I won't do it."
+
+"Altogether, I think it would be rather a brilliant inspiration if you
+were to suggest a fortnight in Paris."
+
+
+
+***

data/train/2843.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,1448 @@
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROADSIDE SKETCHES
+
+
+By William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA Titmarsh)
+
+
+
+
+I. FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM
+
+II. GHENT--BRUGES:--
+
+Ghent (1840)
+
+Bruges
+
+III. WATERLOO
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROADSIDE SKETCHES
+
+
+
+
+I.--FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM
+
+
+. . . I quitted the "Rose Cottage Hotel" at Richmond, one of the
+comfortablest, quietest, cheapest, neatest little inns in England, and
+a thousand times preferable, in my opinion, to the "Star and Garter,"
+whither, if you go alone, a sneering waiter, with his hair curled,
+frightens you off the premises; and where, if you are bold enough to
+brave the sneering waiter, you have to pay ten shillings for a bottle
+of claret; and whence, if you look out of the window, you gaze on a view
+which is so rich that it seems to knock you down with its splendor--a
+view that has its hair curled like the swaggering waiter: I say, I
+quitted the "Rose Cottage Hotel" with deep regret, believing that I
+should see nothing so pleasant as its gardens, and its veal cutlets, and
+its dear little bowling-green, elsewhere. But the time comes when people
+must go out of town, and so I got on the top of the omnibus, and the
+carpet-bag was put inside.
+
+
+If I were a great prince and rode outside of coaches (as I should if I
+were a great prince), I would, whether I smoked or not, have a case of
+the best Havanas in my pocket--not for my own smoking, but to give them
+to the snobs on the coach, who smoke the vilest cheroots. They poison
+the air with the odor of their filthy weeds. A man at all easy in his
+circumstances would spare himself much annoyance by taking the above
+simple precaution.
+
+A gentleman sitting behind me tapped me on the back and asked for a
+light. He was a footman, or rather valet. He had no livery, but the
+three friends who accompanied him were tall men in pepper-and-salt
+undress jackets with a duke's coronet on their buttons.
+
+After tapping me on the back, and when he had finished his cheroot,
+the gentleman produced another wind-instrument, which he called a
+"kinopium," a sort of trumpet, on which he showed a great inclination
+to play. He began puffing out of the "kinopium" a most abominable
+air, which he said was the "Duke's March." It was played by particular
+request of one of the pepper-and-salt gentry.
+
+The noise was so abominable that even the coachman objected (although
+my friend's brother footmen were ravished with it), and said that it
+was not allowed to play toons on HIS 'bus. "Very well," said the valet,
+"WE'RE ONLY OF THE DUKE OF B----'S ESTABLISHMENT, THAT'S ALL." The
+coachman could not resist that appeal to his fashionable feelings. The
+valet was allowed to play his infernal kinopium, and the poor fellow
+(the coachman), who had lived in some private families, was quite
+anxious to conciliate the footmen "of the Duke of B.'s establishment,
+that's all," and told several stories of his having been groom in
+Captain Hoskins's family, NEPHEW OF GOVERNOR HOSKINS; which stories the
+footmen received with great contempt.
+
+The footmen were like the rest of the fashionable world in this
+respect. I felt for my part that I respected them. They were in daily
+communication with a duke! They were not the rose, but they had lived
+beside it. There is an odor in the English aristocracy which intoxicates
+plebeians. I am sure that any commoner in England, though he would die
+rather than confess it, would have a respect for those great big hulking
+Duke's footmen.
+
+The day before, her Grace the Duchess had passed us alone in a
+chariot-and-four with two outriders. What better mark of innate
+superiority could man want? Here was a slim lady who required four--six
+horses to herself, and four servants (kinopium was, no doubt, one of the
+number) to guard her.
+
+We were sixteen inside and out, and had consequently an eighth of a
+horse apiece.
+
+A duchess = 6, a commoner = 1/8; that is to say,
+
+1 duchess = 48 commoners.
+
+If I were a duchess of the present day, I would say to the duke my noble
+husband, "My dearest grace, I think, when I travel alone in my chariot
+from Hammersmith to London, I will not care for the outriders. In these
+days, when there is so much poverty and so much disaffection in the
+country, we should not eclabousser the canaille with the sight of our
+preposterous prosperity."
+
+But this is very likely only plebeian envy, and I dare say, if I were
+a lovely duchess of the realm, I would ride in a coach-and-six, with a
+coronet on the top of my bonnet and a robe of velvet and ermine even in
+the dog-days.
+
+Alas! these are the dog-days. Many dogs are abroad--snarling dogs,
+biting dogs, envious dogs, mad dogs; beware of exciting the fury of
+such with your flaming red velvet and dazzling ermine. It makes ragged
+Lazarus doubly hungry to see Dives feasting in cloth-of-gold; and so
+if I were a beauteous duchess . . . Silence, vain man! Can the Queen
+herself make you a duchess? Be content, then, nor gibe at thy betters of
+"the Duke of B----'s establishment-- that's all."
+
+
+ON BOARD THE "ANTWERPEN," OFF EVERYWHERE.
+
+We have bidden adieu to Billingsgate, we have passed the Thames Tunnel;
+it is one o'clock, and of course people are thinking of being hungry.
+What a merry place a steamer is on a calm sunny summer forenoon, and
+what an appetite every one seems to have! We are, I assure you, no less
+than 170 noblemen and gentlemen together, pacing up and down under the
+awning, or lolling on the sofas in the cabin, and hardly have we passed
+Greenwich when the feeding begins. The company was at the brandy and
+soda-water in an instant (there is a sort of legend that the beverage is
+a preservative against sea-sickness), and I admired the penetration of
+gentlemen who partook of the drink. In the first place, the steward WILL
+put so much brandy into the tumbler that it is fit to choke you; and,
+secondly, the soda-water, being kept as near as possible to the boiler
+of the engine, is of a fine wholesome heat when presented to the hot and
+thirsty traveller. Thus he is prevented from catching any sudden cold
+which might be dangerous to him.
+
+The forepart of the vessel is crowded to the full as much as the
+genteeler quarter. There are four carriages, each with piles of
+imperials and aristocratic gimcracks of travel, under the wheels of
+which those personages have to clamber who have a mind to look at the
+bowsprit, and perhaps to smoke a cigar at ease. The carriages overcome,
+you find yourself confronted by a huge penful of Durham oxen, lying
+on hay and surrounded by a barricade of oars. Fifteen of these horned
+monsters maintain an incessant mooing and bellowing. Beyond the cows
+come a heap of cotton-bags, beyond the cotton-bags more carriages, more
+pyramids of travelling trunks, and valets and couriers bustling and
+swearing round about them. And already, and in various corners and
+niches, lying on coils of rope, black tar-cloths, ragged cloaks, or hay,
+you see a score of those dubious fore-cabin passengers, who are never
+shaved, who always look unhappy, and appear getting ready to be sick.
+
+At one, dinner begins in the after-cabin--boiled salmon, boiled beef,
+boiled mutton, boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes, and parboiled wine for
+any gentlemen who like it, and two roast-ducks between seventy. After
+this, knobs of cheese are handed round on a plate, and there is a talk
+of a tart somewhere at some end of the table. All this I saw peeping
+through a sort of meat-safe which ventilates the top of the cabin, and
+very happy and hot did the people seem below.
+
+"How the deuce CAN people dine at such an hour?" say several genteel
+fellows who are watching the manoeuvres. "I can't touch a morsel before
+seven."
+
+But somehow at half-past three o'clock we had dropped a long way down
+the river. The air was delightfully fresh, the sky of a faultless
+cobalt, the river shining and flashing like quicksilver, and at this
+period steward runs against me bearing two great smoking dishes covered
+by two great glistening hemispheres of tin. "Fellow," says I, "what's
+that?"
+
+He lifted up the cover: it was ducks and green pease, by jingo!
+
+"What! haven't they done YET, the greedy creatures?" I asked. "Have the
+people been feeding for three hours?"
+
+"Law bless you, sir, it's the second dinner. Make haste, or you won't
+get a place." At which words a genteel party, with whom I had been
+conversing, instantly tumbled down the hatchway, and I find myself one
+of the second relay of seventy who are attacking the boiled salmon,
+boiled beef, boiled cabbage, &c. As for the ducks, I certainly had
+some pease, very fine yellow stiff pease, that ought to have been
+split before they were boiled; but, with regard to the ducks, I saw the
+animals gobbled up before my eyes by an old widow lady and her party
+just as I was shrieking to the steward to bring a knife and fork to
+carve them. The fellow! (I mean the widow lady's whiskered companion)--I
+saw him eat pease with the very knife with which he had dissected the
+duck!
+
+After dinner (as I need not tell the keen observer of human nature who
+peruses this) the human mind, if the body be in a decent state, expands
+into gayety and benevolence, and the intellect longs to measure itself
+in friendly converse with the divers intelligences around it. We ascend
+upon deck, and after eying each other for a brief space and with a
+friendly modest hesitation, we begin anon to converse about the weather
+and other profound and delightful themes of English discourse. We
+confide to each other our respective opinions of the ladies round about
+us. Look at that charming creature in a pink bonnet and a dress of the
+pattern of a Kilmarnock snuff-box: a stalwart Irish gentleman in a green
+coat and bushy red whiskers is whispering something very agreeable into
+her ear, as is the wont of gentlemen of his nation; for her dark eyes
+kindle, her red lips open and give an opportunity to a dozen beautiful
+pearly teeth to display themselves, and glance brightly in the sun;
+while round the teeth and the lips a number of lovely dimples make their
+appearance, and her whole countenance assumes a look of perfect health
+and happiness. See her companion in shot silk and a dove-colored
+parasol; in what a graceful Watteau-like attitude she reclines. The tall
+courier who has been bouncing about the deck in attendance upon these
+ladies (it is his first day of service, and he is eager to make a
+favorable impression on them and the lady's-maids too) has just brought
+them from the carriage a small paper of sweet cakes (nothing is prettier
+than to see a pretty woman eating sweet biscuits) and a bottle that
+evidently contains Malmsey madeira. How daintily they sip it; how happy
+they seem; how that lucky rogue of an Irishman prattles away! Yonder
+is a noble group indeed: an English gentleman and his family. Children,
+mother, grandmother, grown-up daughters, father, and domestics,
+twenty-two in all. They have a table to themselves on the deck, and the
+consumption of eatables among them is really endless. The nurses have
+been bustling to and fro, and bringing, first, slices of cake; then
+dinner; then tea with huge family jugs of milk; and the little people
+have been playing hide-and-seek round the deck, coquetting with the
+other children, and making friends of every soul on board. I love to
+see the kind eyes of women fondly watching them as they gambol about; a
+female face, be it ever so plain, when occupied in regarding children,
+becomes celestial almost, and a man can hardly fail to be good and happy
+while he is looking on at such sights. "Ah, sir!" says a great big man,
+whom you would not accuse of sentiment, "I have a couple of those little
+things at home;" and he stops and heaves a great big sigh and swallows
+down a half-tumbler of cold something and water. We know what the honest
+fellow means well enough. He is saying to himself, "God bless my girls
+and their mother!" but, being a Briton, is too manly to speak out in a
+more intelligible way. Perhaps it is as well for him to be quiet, and
+not chatter and gesticulate like those Frenchmen a few yards from him,
+who are chirping over a bottle of champagne.
+
+There is, as you may fancy, a number of such groups on the deck, and
+a pleasant occupation it is for a lonely man to watch them and build
+theories upon them, and examine those two personages seated cheek by
+jowl. One is an English youth, travelling for the first time, who has
+been hard at his Guidebook during the whole journey. He has a "Manuel du
+Voyageur" in his pocket: a very pretty, amusing little oblong work it is
+too, and might be very useful, if the foreign people in three languages,
+among whom you travel, would but give the answers set down in the book,
+or understand the questions you put to them out of it. The other honest
+gentleman in the fur cap, what can his occupation be? We know him at
+once for what he is. "Sir," says he, in a fine German accent, "I am a
+brofessor of languages, and will gif you lessons in Danish, Swedish,
+English, Bortuguese, Spanish and Bersian." Thus occupied in meditations,
+the rapid hours and the rapid steamer pass quickly on. The sun is
+sinking, and, as he drops, the ingenious luminary sets the Thames on
+fire: several worthy gentlemen, watch in hand, are eagerly examining the
+phenomena attending his disappearance,--rich clouds of purple and gold,
+that form the curtains of his bed,--little barks that pass black across
+his disc, his disc every instant dropping nearer and nearer into the
+water. "There he goes!" says one sagacious observer. "No, he doesn't,"
+cries another. Now he is gone, and the steward is already threading the
+deck, asking the passengers, right and left, if they will take a
+little supper. What a grand object is a sunset, and what a wonder is an
+appetite at sea! Lo! the horned moon shines pale over Margate, and the
+red beacon is gleaming from distant Ramsgate pier.
+
+*****
+
+A great rush is speedily made for the mattresses that lie in the boat at
+the ship's side; and as the night is delightfully calm, many fair ladies
+and worthy men determine to couch on deck for the night. The proceedings
+of the former, especially if they be young and pretty, the philosopher
+watches with indescribable emotion and interest. What a number of pretty
+coquetries do the ladies perform, and into what pretty attitudes do they
+take care to fall! All the little children have been gathered up by the
+nursery-maids, and are taken down to roost below. Balmy sleep seals
+the eyes of many tired wayfarers, as you see in the case of the Russian
+nobleman asleep among the portmanteaus; and Titmarsh, who has been
+walking the deck for some time with a great mattress on his shoulders,
+knowing full well that were he to relinquish it for an instant, some
+other person would seize on it, now stretches his bed upon the deck,
+wraps his cloak about his knees, draws his white cotton nightcap tight
+over his head and ears; and, as the smoke of his cigar rises calmly
+upwards to the deep sky and the cheerful twinkling stars, he feels
+himself exquisitely happy, and thinks of thee, my Juliana!
+
+*****
+
+Why people, because they are in a steamboat, should get up so deucedly
+early I cannot understand. Gentlemen have been walking over my legs ever
+since three o'clock this morning, and, no doubt, have been indulging
+in personalities (which I hate) regarding my appearance and manner of
+sleeping, lying, snoring. Let the wags laugh on; but a far pleasanter
+occupation is to sleep until breakfast-time, or near it.
+
+The tea, and ham and eggs, which, with a beefsteak or two, and three
+or four rounds of toast, form the component parts of the above-named
+elegant meal, are taken in the River Scheldt. Little neat, plump-looking
+churches and villages are rising here and there among tufts of trees and
+pastures that are wonderfully green. To the right, as the "Guide-book"
+says, is Walcheren; and on the left Cadsand, memorable for the English
+expedition of 1809, when Lord Chatham, Sir Walter Manny, and Henry Earl
+of Derby, at the head of the English, gained a great victory over the
+Flemish mercenaries in the pay of Philippe of Valois. The cloth-yard
+shafts of the English archers did great execution. Flushing was taken,
+and Lord Chatham returned to England, where he distinguished himself
+greatly in the debates on the American war, which he called the
+brightest jewel of the British crown. You see, my love, that, though an
+artist by profession, my education has by no means been neglected; and
+what, indeed, would be the pleasure of travel, unless these charming
+historical recollections were brought to bear upon it?
+
+
+ANTWERP.
+
+As many hundreds of thousands of English visit this city (I have met
+at least a hundred of them in this half-hour walking the streets,
+"Guide-book" in hand), and as the ubiquitous Murray has already depicted
+the place, there is no need to enter into a long description of it,
+its neatness, its beauty, and its stiff antique splendor. The tall
+pale houses have many of them crimped gables, that look like Queen
+Elizabeth's ruffs. There are as many people in the streets as in London
+at three o'clock in the morning; the market-women wear bonnets of
+a flower-pot shape, and have shining brazen milk-pots, which are
+delightful to the eyes of a painter. Along the quays of the lazy Scheldt
+are innumerable good-natured groups of beer-drinkers (small-beer is the
+most good-natured drink in the world); along the barriers outside of
+the town, and by the glistening canals, are more beer-shops and more
+beer-drinkers. The city is defended by the queerest fat military. The
+chief traffic is between the hotels and the railroad. The hotels give
+wonderful good dinners, and especially at the "Grand Laboureur" may be
+mentioned a peculiar tart, which is the best of all tarts that ever a
+man ate since he was ten years old. A moonlight walk is delightful. At
+ten o'clock the whole city is quiet; and so little changed does it seem
+to be, that you may walk back three hundred years into time, and fancy
+yourself a majestical Spaniard, or an oppressed and patriotic Dutchman
+at your leisure. You enter the inn, and the old Quentin Durward
+court-yard, on which the old towers look down. There is a sound of
+singing--singing at midnight. Is it Don Sombrero, who is singing an
+Andalusian seguidilla under the window of the Flemish burgomaster's
+daughter? Ah, no! it is a fat Englishman in a zephyr coat: he is
+drinking cold gin-and-water in the moonlight, and warbling softly--
+
+     "Nix my dolly, pals, fake away,
+     N-ix my dolly, pals, fake a--a--way."*
+
+
+     * In 1844.
+
+I wish the good people would knock off the top part of Antwerp Cathedral
+spire. Nothing can be more gracious and elegant than the lines of the
+first two compartments; but near the top there bulges out a little
+round, ugly, vulgar Dutch monstrosity (for which the architects have, no
+doubt, a name) which offends the eye cruelly. Take the Apollo, and set
+upon him a bob-wig and a little cocked hat; imagine "God Save the King"
+ending with a jig; fancy a polonaise, or procession of slim, stately,
+elegant court beauties, headed by a buffoon dancing a hornpipe. Marshal
+Gerard should have discharged a bombshell at that abomination, and have
+given the noble steeple a chance to be finished in the grand style of
+the early fifteenth century, in which it was begun.
+
+This style of criticism is base and mean, and quite contrary to the
+orders of the immortal Goethe, who was only for allowing the eye to
+recognize the beauties of a great work, but would have its defects
+passed over. It is an unhappy, luckless organization which will be
+perpetually fault-finding, and in the midst of a grand concert of music
+will persist only in hearing that unfortunate fiddle out of tune.
+
+Within--except where the rococo architects have introduced their
+ornaments (here is the fiddle out of tune again)--the cathedral is
+noble. A rich, tender sunshine is streaming in through the windows,
+and gilding the stately edifice with the purest light. The admirable
+stained-glass windows are not too brilliant in their colors. The
+organ is playing a rich, solemn music; some two hundred of people are
+listening to the service; and there is scarce one of the women kneeling
+on her chair, enveloped in her full majestic black drapery, that is
+not a fine study for a painter. These large black mantles of heavy silk
+brought over the heads of the women, and covering their persons, fall
+into such fine folds of drapery, that they cannot help being picturesque
+and noble. See, kneeling by the side of two of those fine devout-looking
+figures, is a lady in a little twiddling Parisian hat and feather, in
+a little lace mantelet, in a tight gown and a bustle. She is almost as
+monstrous as yonder figure of the Virgin, in a hoop, and with a huge
+crown and a ball and a sceptre; and a bambino dressed in a little hoop,
+and in a little crown, round which are clustered flowers and pots of
+orange-trees, and before which many of the faithful are at prayer.
+Gentle clouds of incense come wafting through the vast edifice; and in
+the lulls of the music you hear the faint chant of the priest, and the
+silver tinkle of the bell.
+
+Six Englishmen, with the commissionaires, and the "Murray's Guide-books"
+in their hands, are looking at the "Descent from the Cross." Of this
+picture the "Guide-book" gives you orders how to judge. If it is the end
+of religious painting to express the religious sentiment, a hundred of
+inferior pictures must rank before Rubens. Who was ever piously affected
+by any picture of the master? He can depict a livid thief writhing upon
+the cross, sometimes a blond Magdalen weeping below it; but it is a
+Magdalen a very short time indeed after her repentance: her yellow
+brocades and flaring satins are still those which she wore when she was
+of the world; her body has not yet lost the marks of the feasting and
+voluptuousness in which she used to indulge, according to the legend.
+Not one of the Rubens's pictures among all the scores that decorate
+chapels and churches here, has the least tendency to purify, to touch
+the affections, or to awaken the feelings of religious respect and
+wonder. The "Descent from the Cross" is vast, gloomy, and awful; but the
+awe inspired by it is, as I take it, altogether material. He might have
+painted a picture of any criminal broken on the wheel, and the sensation
+inspired by it would have been precisely similar. Nor in a religious
+picture do you want the savoir-faire of the master to be always
+protruding itself; it detracts from the feeling of reverence, just as
+the thumping of cushion and the spouting of tawdry oratory does from
+a sermon: meek religion disappears, shouldered out of the desk by
+the pompous, stalwart, big-chested, fresh-colored, bushy-whiskered
+pulpiteer. Rubens's piety has always struck us as of this sort. If he
+takes a pious subject, it is to show you in what a fine way he, Peter
+Paul Rubens, can treat it. He never seems to doubt but that he is doing
+it a great honor. His "Descent from the Cross," and its accompanying
+wings and cover, are a set of puns upon the word Christopher, of which
+the taste is more odious than that of the hooped-petticoated Virgin
+yonder, with her artificial flowers, and her rings and brooches. The
+people who made an offering of that hooped petticoat did their best, at
+any rate; they knew no better. There is humility in that simple, quaint
+present; trustfulness and kind intention. Looking about at other altars,
+you see (much to the horror of pious Protestants) all sorts of queer
+little emblems hanging up under little pyramids of penny candles that
+are sputtering and flaring there. Here you have a silver arm, or
+a little gold toe, or a wax leg, or a gilt eye, signifying and
+commemorating cures that have been performed by the supposed
+intercession of the saint over whose chapel they hang. Well, although
+they are abominable superstitions, yet these queer little offerings seem
+to me to be a great deal more pious than Rubens's big pictures; just as
+is the widow with her poor little mite compared to the swelling Pharisee
+who flings his purse of gold into the plate.
+
+A couple of days of Rubens and his church pictures makes one thoroughly
+and entirely sick of him. His very genius and splendor pails upon one,
+even taking the pictures as worldly pictures. One grows weary of being
+perpetually feasted with this rich, coarse, steaming food. Considering
+them as church pictures, I don't want to go to church to hear, however
+splendid, an organ play the "British Grenadiers."
+
+
+The Antwerpians have set up a clumsy bronze statue of their divinity
+in a square of the town; and those who have not enough of Rubens in the
+churches may study him, and indeed to much greater advantage, in a good,
+well-lighted museum. Here, there is one picture, a dying saint taking
+the communion, a large piece ten or eleven feet high, and painted in an
+incredibly short space of time, which is extremely curious indeed
+for the painter's study. The picture is scarcely more than an immense
+magnificent sketch; but it tells the secret of the artist's manner,
+which, in the midst of its dash and splendor, is curiously methodical.
+Where the shadows are warm the lights are cold, and vice versa; and the
+picture has been so rapidly painted, that the tints lie raw by the side
+of one another, the artist not having taken the trouble to blend them.
+
+There are two exquisite Vandykes (whatever Sir Joshua may say of them),
+and in which the very management of the gray tones which the President
+abuses forms the principal excellence and charm. Why, after all, are we
+not to have our opinion? Sir Joshua is not the Pope. The color of one
+of those Vandykes is as fine as FINE Paul Veronese, and the sentiment
+beautifully tender and graceful.
+
+I saw, too, an exhibition of the modern Belgian artists (1843), the
+remembrance of whose pictures after a month's absence has almost
+entirely vanished. Wappers's hand, as I thought, seemed to have grown
+old and feeble, Verboeckhoven's cattle-pieces are almost as good as
+Paul Potter's, and Keyser has dwindled down into namby-pamby prettiness,
+pitiful to see in the gallant young painter who astonished the Louvre
+artists ten years ago by a hand almost as dashing and ready as that of
+Rubens himself. There were besides many caricatures of the new German
+school, which are in themselves caricatures of the masters before
+Raphael.
+
+
+An instance of honesty may be mentioned here with applause. The
+writer lost a pocket-book containing a passport and a couple of modest
+ten-pound notes. The person who found the portfolio ingeniously put it
+into the box of the post-office, and it was faithfully restored to the
+owner; but somehow the two ten-pound notes were absent. It was, however,
+a great comfort to get the passport, and the pocket-book, which must be
+worth about ninepence.
+
+
+BRUSSELS.
+
+It was night when we arrived by the railroad from Antwerp at Brussels;
+the route is very pretty and interesting, and the flat countries
+through which the road passes in the highest state of peaceful, smiling
+cultivation. The fields by the roadside are enclosed by hedges as in
+England, the harvest was in part down, and an English country gentleman
+who was of our party pronounced the crops to be as fine as any he had
+ever seen. Of this matter a Cockney cannot judge accurately, but any man
+can see with what extraordinary neatness and care all these little plots
+of ground are tilled, and admire the richness and brilliancy of the
+vegetation. Outside of the moat of Antwerp, and at every village by
+which we passed, it was pleasant to see the happy congregations of
+well-clad people that basked in the evening sunshine, and soberly smoked
+their pipes and drank their Flemish beer. Men who love this drink must,
+as I fancy, have something essentially peaceful in their composition,
+and must be more easily satisfied than folks on our side of the water.
+The excitement of Flemish beer is, indeed, not great. I have tried both
+the white beer and the brown; they are both of the kind which schoolboys
+denominate "swipes," very sour and thin to the taste, but served, to be
+sure, in quaint Flemish jugs that do not seem to have changed their
+form since the days of Rubens, and must please the lovers of antiquarian
+knick-knacks. Numbers of comfortable-looking women and children sat
+beside the head of the family upon the tavern-benches, and it was
+amusing to see one little fellow of eight years old smoking, with much
+gravity, his father's cigar. How the worship of the sacred plant of
+tobacco has spread through all Europe! I am sure that the persons who
+cry out against the use of it are guilty of superstition and unreason,
+and that it would be a proper and easy task for scientific persons
+to write an encomium upon the weed. In solitude it is the pleasantest
+companion possible, and in company never de trop. To a student it
+suggests all sorts of agreeable thoughts, it refreshes the brain when
+weary, and every sedentary cigar-smoker will tell you how much good he
+has had from it, and how he has been able to return to his labor, after
+a quarter of an hour's mild interval of the delightful leaf of Havana.
+Drinking has gone from among us since smoking came in. It is a wicked
+error to say that smokers are drunkards; drink they do, but of gentle
+diluents mostly, for fierce stimulants of wine or strong liquors are
+abhorrent to the real lover of the Indian weed. Ah! my Juliana, join
+not in the vulgar cry that is raised against us. Cigars and cool drinks
+beget quiet conversations, good-humor, meditation; not hot blood such as
+mounts into the head of drinkers of apoplectic port or dangerous claret.
+Are we not more moral and reasonable than our forefathers? Indeed I
+think so somewhat; and many improvements of social life and converse
+must date with the introduction of the pipe.
+
+We were a dozen tobacco-consumers in the wagon of the train that brought
+us from Antwerp; nor did the women of the party (sensible women!) make a
+single objection to the fumigation. But enough of this; only let me add,
+in conclusion, that an excellent Israelitish gentleman, Mr. Hartog
+of Antwerp, supplies cigars for a penny apiece, such as are not to be
+procured in London for four times the sum.
+
+Through smiling corn-fields, then, and by little woods from which rose
+here and there the quaint peaked towers of some old-fashioned chateaux,
+our train went smoking along at thirty miles an hour. We caught a
+glimpse of Mechlin steeple, at first dark against the sunset, and
+afterwards bright as we came to the other side of it, and admired long
+glistening canals or moats that surrounded the queer old town, and were
+lighted up in that wonderful way which the sun only understands, and
+not even Mr. Turner, with all his vermilion and gamboge, can put down
+on canvas. The verdure was everywhere astonishing, and we fancied we saw
+many golden Cuyps as we passed by these quiet pastures.
+
+Steam-engines and their accompaniments, blazing forges, gaunt
+manufactories, with numberless windows and long black chimneys, of
+course take away from the romance of the place but, as we whirled into
+Brussels, even these engines had a fine appearance. Three or four of the
+snorting, galloping monsters had just finished their journey, and there
+was a quantity of flaming ashes lying under the brazen bellies of each
+that looked properly lurid and demoniacal. The men at the station came
+out with flaming torches--awful-looking fellows indeed! Presently the
+different baggage was handed out, and in the very worst vehicle I ever
+entered, and at the very slowest pace, we were borne to the "Hotel de
+Suede," from which house of entertainment this letter is written.
+
+We strolled into the town, but, though the night was excessively fine
+and it was not yet eleven o'clock, the streets of the little capital
+were deserted, and the handsome blazing cafes round about the theatres
+contained no inmates. Ah, what a pretty sight is the Parisian Boulevard
+on a night like this! how many pleasant hours has one passed in watching
+the lights, and the hum, and the stir, and the laughter of those happy,
+idle people! There was none of this gayety here; nor was there a person
+to be found, except a skulking commissioner or two (whose real name
+in French is that of a fish that is eaten with fennel-sauce), and who
+offered to conduct us to certain curiosities in the town. What must we
+English not have done, that in every town in Europe we are to be fixed
+upon by scoundrels of this sort; and what a pretty reflection it is on
+our country that such rascals find the means of living on us!
+
+
+Early the next morning we walked through a number of streets in the
+place, and saw certain sights. The Park is very pretty, and all the
+buildings round about it have an air of neatness--almost of stateliness.
+The houses are tall, the streets spacious, and the roads extremely
+clean. In the Park is a little theatre, a cafe somewhat ruinous, a
+little palace for the king of this little kingdom, some smart public
+buildings (with S. P. Q. B. emblazoned on them, at which pompous
+inscription one cannot help laughing), and other rows of houses somewhat
+resembling a little Rue de Rivoli. Whether from my own natural greatness
+and magnanimity, or from that handsome share of national conceit that
+every Englishman possesses, my impressions of this city are certainly
+anything but respectful. It has an absurd kind of Lilliput look with it.
+There are soldiers, just as in Paris, better dressed, and doing a vast
+deal of drumming and bustle; and yet, somehow, far from being frightened
+at them, I feel inclined to laugh in their faces. There are little
+Ministers, who work at their little bureaux; and to read the journals,
+how fierce they are! A great thundering Times could hardly talk more
+big. One reads about the rascally Ministers, the miserable Opposition,
+the designs of tyrants, the eyes of Europe, &c., just as one would
+in real journals. The Moniteur of Ghent belabors the Independent of
+Brussels; the Independent falls foul of the Lynx; and really it is
+difficult not to suppose sometimes that these worthy people are in
+earnest. And yet how happy were they sua si bona norint! Think what a
+comfort it would be to belong to a little state like this; not to abuse
+their privilege, but philosophically to use it. If I were a Belgian,
+I would not care one single fig about politics. I would not read
+thundering leading-articles. I would not have an opinion. What's the use
+of an opinion here? Happy fellows! do not the French, the English, and
+the Prussians, spare them the trouble of thinking, and make all their
+opinions for them? Think of living in a country free, easy, respectable,
+wealthy, and with the nuisance of talking politics removed from out of
+it. All this might the Belgians have, and a part do they enjoy, but not
+the best part; no, these people will be brawling and by the ears, and
+parties run as high here as at Stoke Pogis or little Pedlington.
+
+These sentiments were elicited by the reading of a paper at the cafe in
+the Park, where we sat under the trees for a while and sipped our cool
+lemonade. Numbers of statues decorate the place, the very worst I
+ever saw. These Cupids must have been erected in the time of the Dutch
+dynasty, as I judge from the immense posterior developments. Indeed the
+arts of the country are very low. The statues here, and the lions before
+the Prince of Orange's palace, would disgrace almost the figurehead of a
+ship.
+
+Of course we paid our visit to this little lion of Brussels (the
+Prince's palace, I mean). The architecture of the building is admirably
+simple and firm; and you remark about it, and all other works here, a
+high finish in doors, wood-works, paintings, &c., that one does not see
+in France, where the buildings are often rather sketched than completed,
+and the artist seems to neglect the limbs, as it were, and extremities
+of his figures.
+
+The finish of this little place is exquisite. We went through some dozen
+of state-rooms, paddling along over the slippery floors of inlaid woods
+in great slippers, without which we must have come to the ground. How
+did his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange manage when he lived here,
+and her Imperial Highness the Princess, and their excellencies the
+chamberlains and the footmen? They must have been on their tails many
+times a day, that's certain, and must have cut queer figures.
+
+The ball-room is beautiful--all marble, and yet with a comfortable,
+cheerful look; the other apartments are not less agreeable, and the
+people looked with intense satisfaction at some great lapis-lazuli
+tables, which the guide informed us were worth four millions, more or
+less; adding with a very knowing look, that they were un peu plus cher
+que l'or. This speech has a tremendous effect on visitors, and when we
+met some of our steamboat companions in the Park or elsewhere--in so
+small a place as this one falls in with them a dozen times a day--"Have
+you seen the tables?" was the general question. Prodigious tables are
+they, indeed! Fancy a table, my dear--a table four feet wide--a table
+with legs. Ye heavens! the mind can hardly picture to itself anything so
+beautiful and so tremendous!
+
+There are some good pictures in the palace, too, but not so
+extraordinarily good as the guide-books and the guide would have us
+to think. The latter, like most men of his class, is an ignoramus,
+who showed us an Andrea del Sarto (copy or original), and called it a
+Correggio, and made other blunders of a like nature. As is the case in
+England, you are hurried through the rooms without being allowed time
+to look at the pictures, and, consequently, to pronounce a satisfactory
+judgment on them.
+
+In the Museum more time was granted me, and I spent some hours with
+pleasure there. It is an absurd little gallery, absurdly imitating the
+Louvre, with just such compartments and pillars as you see in the noble
+Paris gallery; only here the pillars and capitals are stucco and
+white in place of marble and gold, and plaster-of-paris busts of great
+Belgians are placed between the pillars. An artist of the country
+has made a picture containing them, and you will be ashamed of your
+ignorance when you hear many of their names. Old Tilly of Magdeburg
+figures in one corner; Rubens, the endless Rubens, stands in the
+midst. What a noble countenance it is, and what a manly, swaggering
+consciousness of power!
+
+The picture to see here is a portrait, by the great Peter Paul, of one
+of the governesses of the Netherlands. It is just the finest portrait
+that ever was seen. Only a half-length, but such a majesty, such a
+force, such a splendor, such a simplicity about it! The woman is in a
+stiff black dress, with a ruff and a few pearls; a yellow curtain is
+behind her--the simplest arrangement that can be conceived; but this
+great man knew how to rise to his occasion; and no better proof can
+be shown of what a fine gentleman he was than this his homage to the
+vice-Queen. A common bungler would have painted her in her best clothes,
+with crown and sceptre, just as our Queen has been painted by--but
+comparisons are odious. Here stands this majestic woman in her every-day
+working-dress of black satin, LOOKING YOUR HAT OFF, as it were. Another
+portrait of the same personage hangs elsewhere in the gallery, and it is
+curious to observe the difference between the two, and see how a man of
+genius paints a portrait, and how a common limner executes it.
+
+Many more pictures are there here by Rubens, or rather from Rubens's
+manufactory,--odious and vulgar most of them are; fat Magdalens, coarse
+Saints, vulgar Virgins, with the scene-painter's tricks far too evident
+upon the canvas. By the side of one of the most astonishing color-pieces
+in the world, the "Worshipping of the Magi," is a famous picture of Paul
+Veronese that cannot be too much admired. As Rubens sought in the first
+picture to dazzle and astonish by gorgeous variety, Paul in his seems
+to wish to get his effect by simplicity, and has produced the most noble
+harmony that can be conceived. Many more works are there that merit
+notice,--a singularly clever, brilliant, and odious Jordaens, for
+example; some curious costume-pieces; one or two works by the Belgian
+Raphael, who was a very Belgian Raphael, indeed; and a long gallery
+of pictures of the very oldest school, that, doubtless, afford much
+pleasure to the amateurs of ancient art. I confess that I am inclined
+to believe in very little that existed before the time of Raphael.
+There is, for instance, the Prince of Orange's picture by Perugino, very
+pretty indeed, up to a certain point, but all the heads are repeated,
+all the drawing is bad and affected; and this very badness and
+affectation, is what the so-called Catholic school is always anxious to
+imitate. Nothing can be more juvenile or paltry than the works of the
+native Belgians here exhibited. Tin crowns are suspended over many
+of them, showing that the pictures are prize compositions: and pretty
+things, indeed, they are! Have you ever read an Oxford prize-poem! Well,
+these pictures are worse even than the Oxford poems--an awful assertion
+to make.
+
+In the matter of eating, dear sir, which is the next subject of the fine
+arts, a subject that, after many hours' walking, attracts a gentleman
+very much, let me attempt to recall the transactions of this very day at
+the table-d'-hote. 1, green pea-soup; 2, boiled salmon; 3, mussels; 4,
+crimped skate; 5, roast-meat; 6, patties; 7, melons; 8, carp, stewed
+with mushrooms and onions; 9, roast-turkey; 10, cauliflower and butter;
+11, fillets of venison piques, with asafoetida sauce; 12, stewed
+calf's-ear; 13, roast-veal; 14, roast-lamb; 15, stewed cherries;
+16, rice-pudding; 17, Gruyere cheese, and about twenty-four cakes of
+different kinds. Except 5, 13, and 14, I give you my word I ate of all
+written down here, with three rolls of bread and a score of potatoes.
+What is the meaning of it? How is the stomach of man to be brought to
+desire and to receive all this quantity? Do not gastronomists complain
+of heaviness in London after eating a couple of mutton-chops? Do not
+respectable gentlemen fall asleep in their arm-chairs? Are they fit for
+mental labor? Far from it. But look at the difference here: after dinner
+here one is as light as a gossamer. One walks with pleasure, reads with
+pleasure, writes with pleasure--nay, there is the supper-bell going at
+ten o'clock, and plenty of eaters, too. Let lord mayors and aldermen
+look to it, this fact of the extraordinary increase of appetite in
+Belgium, and, instead of steaming to Blackwall, come a little further to
+Antwerp.
+
+Of ancient architectures in the place, there is a fine old Port de
+Halle, which has a tall, gloomy, bastille look; a most magnificent
+town-hall, that has been sketched a thousand of times, and opposite
+it, a building that I think would be the very model for a Conservative
+club-house in London. Oh! how charming it would be to be a great
+painter, and give the character of the building, and the numberless
+groups round about it. The booths lighted up by the sun, the
+market-women in their gowns of brilliant hue, each group having a
+character and telling its little story, the troops of men lolling in all
+sorts of admirable attitudes of ease round the great lamp. Half a dozen
+light-blue dragoons are lounging about, and peeping over the artist as
+the drawing is made, and the sky is more bright and blue than one sees
+it in a hundred years in London.
+
+The priests of the country are a remarkably well-fed and respectable
+race, without that scowling, hang-dog look which one has remarked
+among reverend gentlemen in the neighboring country of France. Their
+reverences wear buckles to their shoes, light-blue neck-cloths, and
+huge three-cornered hats in good condition. To-day, strolling by the
+cathedral, I heard the tinkling of a bell in the street, and beheld
+certain persons, male and female, suddenly plump down on their knees
+before a little procession that was passing. Two men in black held a
+tawdry red canopy, a priest walked beneath it holding the sacrament
+covered with a cloth, and before him marched a couple of little
+altar-boys in short white surplices, such as you see in Rubens, and
+holding lacquered lamps. A small train of street-boys followed the
+procession, cap in hand, and the clergyman finally entered a hospital
+for old women, near the church, the canopy and the lamp-bearers
+remaining without.
+
+It was a touching scene, and as I stayed to watch it, I could not but
+think of the poor old soul who was dying within, listening to the last
+words of prayer, led by the hand of the priest to the brink of the black
+fathomless grave. How bright the sun was shining without all the time,
+and how happy and careless every thing around us looked!
+
+
+The Duke d'Arenberg has a picture-gallery worthy of his princely house.
+It does not contain great pieces, but tit-bits of pictures, such as suit
+an aristocratic epicure. For such persons a great huge canvas is too
+much, it is like sitting down alone to a roasted ox; and they do wisely,
+I think, to patronize small, high-flavored, delicate morceaux, such as
+the Duke has here.
+
+Among them may be mentioned, with special praise, a magnificent small
+Rembrandt, a Paul Potter of exceeding minuteness and beauty, an Ostade,
+which reminds one of Wilkie's early performances, and a Dusart quite
+as good as Ostade. There is a Berghem, much more unaffected than that
+artist's works generally are; and, what is more, precious in the eyes of
+many ladies as an object of art, there is, in one of the grand saloons,
+some needlework done by the Duke's own grandmother, which is looked at
+with awe by those admitted to see the palace.
+
+The chief curiosity, if not the chief ornament of a very elegant
+library, filled with vases and bronzes, is a marble head, supposed to
+be the original head of the Laocoon. It is, unquestionably a finer head
+than that which at present figures upon the shoulders of the famous
+statue. The expression of woe is more manly and intense; in the group as
+we know it, the head of the principal figure has always seemed to me to
+be a grimace of grief, as are the two accompanying young gentlemen
+with their pretty attitudes, and their little silly, open-mouthed
+despondency. It has always had upon me the effect of a trick, that
+statue, and not of a piece of true art. It would look well in the vista
+of a garden; it is not august enough for a temple, with all its jerks
+and twirls, and polite convulsions. But who knows what susceptibilities
+such a confession may offend? Let us say no more about the Laocoon, nor
+its head, nor its tail. The Duke was offered its weight in gold, they
+say, for this head, and refused. It would be a shame to speak ill of
+such a treasure, but I have my opinion of the man who made the offer.
+
+In the matter of sculpture almost all the Brussels churches are
+decorated with the most laborious wooden pulpits, which may be worth
+their weight in gold, too, for what I know, including his reverence
+preaching inside. At St. Gudule the preacher mounts into no less a place
+than the garden of Eden, being supported by Adam and Eve, by Sin and
+Death, and numberless other animals; he walks up to his desk by a
+rustic railing of flowers, fruits, and vegetables, with wooden peacocks,
+paroquets, monkeys biting apples, and many more of the birds and
+beasts of the field. In another church the clergyman speaks from out a
+hermitage; in a third from a carved palm-tree, which supports a set of
+oak clouds that form the canopy of the pulpit, and are, indeed, not much
+heavier in appearance than so many huge sponges. A priest, however tall
+or stout, must be lost in the midst of all these queer gimcracks; in
+order to be consistent, they ought to dress him up, too, in some odd
+fantastical suit. I can fancy the Cure of Meudon preaching out of such a
+place, or the Rev. Sydney Smith, or that famous clergyman of the time of
+the League, who brought all Paris to laugh and listen to him.
+
+
+But let us not be too supercilious and ready to sneer. It is only bad
+taste. It may have been very true devotion which erected these strange
+edifices.
+
+
+
+
+II.--GHENT--BRUGES.
+
+
+GHENT. (1840.)
+
+
+The Beguine College or Village is one of the most extraordinary sights
+that all Europe can show. On the confines of the town of Ghent you come
+upon an old-fashioned brick gate, that seems as if it were one of the
+city barriers; but, on passing it, one of the prettiest sights possible
+meets the eye: At the porter's lodge you see an old lady, in black and
+a white hood, occupied over her book; before you is a red church with a
+tall roof and fantastical Dutch pinnacles, and all around it rows upon
+rows of small houses, the queerest, neatest, nicest that ever were seen
+(a doll's house is hardly smaller or prettier). Right and left, on each
+side of little alleys, these little mansions rise; they have a courtlet
+before them, in which some green plants or hollyhocks are growing;
+and to each house is a gate, that has mostly a picture or queer-carved
+ornament upon or about it, and bears the name, not of the Beguine who
+inhabits it, but of the saint to whom she may have devoted it--the house
+of St. Stephen, the house of St. Donatus, the English or Angel Convent,
+and so on. Old ladies in black are pacing in the quiet alleys here and
+there, and drop the stranger a curtsy as he passes them and takes off
+his hat. Never were such patterns of neatness seen as these old ladies
+and their houses. I peeped into one or two of the chambers, of which the
+windows were open to the pleasant evening sun, and saw beds scrupulously
+plain, a quaint old chair or two, and little pictures of favorite saints
+decorating the spotless white walls. The old ladies kept up a quick,
+cheerful clatter, as they paused to gossip at the gates of their little
+domiciles; and with a great deal of artifice, and lurking behind walls,
+and looking at the church as if I intended to design that, I managed to
+get a sketch of a couple of them.
+
+
+But what white paper can render the whiteness of their linen; what black
+ink can do justice to the lustre of their gowns and shoes? Both of the
+ladies had a neat ankle and a tight stocking; and I fancy that heaven
+is quite as well served in this costume as in the dress of a scowling,
+stockingless friar, whom I had seen passing just before. The look and
+dress of the man made me shudder. His great red feet were bound up in
+a shoe open at the toes, a kind of compromise for a sandal. I had just
+seen him and his brethren at the Dominican Church, where a mass of music
+was sung, and orange-trees, flags, and banners decked the aisle of the
+church.
+
+One begins to grow sick of these churches, and the hideous exhibitions
+of bodily agonies that are depicted on the sides of all the chapels.
+Into one wherein we went this morning was what they called a Calvary: a
+horrible, ghastly image of a Christ in a tomb, the figure of the natural
+size, and of the livid color of death; gaping red wounds on the body and
+round the brows: the whole piece enough to turn one sick, and fit only
+to brutalize the beholder of it. The Virgin is commonly represented with
+a dozen swords stuck in her heart; bleeding throats of headless John
+Baptists are perpetually thrust before your eyes. At the Cathedral
+gate was a papier-mache church-ornament shop--most of the carvings and
+reliefs of the same dismal character: one, for instance, represented
+a heart with a great gash in it, and a double row of large blood-drops
+dribbling from it; nails and a knife were thrust into the heart; round
+the whole was a crown of thorns. Such things are dreadful to think of.
+The same gloomy spirit which made a religion of them, and worked upon
+the people by the grossest of all means, terror, distracted the natural
+feelings of man to maintain its power--shut gentle women into
+lonely, pitiless convents--frightened poor peasants with tales
+of torment--taught that the end and labor of life was silence,
+wretchedness, and the scourge--murdered those by fagot and prison
+who thought otherwise. How has the blind and furious bigotry of man
+perverted that which God gave us as our greatest boon, and bid us hate
+where God bade us love! Thank heaven that monk has gone out of sight! It
+is pleasant to look at the smiling, cheerful old Beguine, and think no
+more of yonder livid face.
+
+One of the many convents in this little religious city seems to be the
+specimen-house, which is shown to strangers, for all the guides conduct
+you thither, and I saw in a book kept for the purpose the names of
+innumerable Smiths and Joneses registered.
+
+A very kind, sweet-voiced, smiling nun (I wonder, do they always choose
+the most agreeable and best-humored sister of the house to show it to
+strangers?) came tripping down the steps and across the flags of the
+little garden-court, and welcomed us with much courtesy into the neat
+little old-fashioned, red-bricked, gable-ended, shining-windowed Convent
+of the Angels. First she showed us a whitewashed parlor, decorated with
+a grim picture or two and some crucifixes and other religious emblems,
+where, upon stiff old chairs, the sisters sit and work. Three or four of
+them were still there, pattering over their laces and bobbins; but the
+chief part of the sisterhood were engaged in an apartment hard by, from
+which issued a certain odor which I must say resembled onions: it was in
+fact the kitchen of the establishment.
+
+Every Beguine cooks her own little dinner in her own little pipkin; and
+there was half a score of them, sure enough, busy over their pots and
+crockery, cooking a repast which, when ready, was carried off to a
+neighboring room, the refectory, where, at a ledge-table which is drawn
+out from under her own particular cupboard, each nun sits down and
+eats her meal in silence. More religious emblems ornamented the carved
+cupboard-doors, and within, everything was as neat as neat could be:
+shining pewter-ewers and glasses, snug baskets of eggs and pats of
+butter, and little bowls with about a farthing's-worth of green tea in
+them--for some great day of fete, doubtless. The old ladies sat round
+as we examined these things, each eating soberly at her ledge and never
+looking round. There was a bell ringing in the chapel hard by. "Hark!"
+said our guide, "that is one of the sisters dying. Will you come up and
+see the cells?"
+
+The cells, it need not be said, are the snuggest little nests in the
+world, with serge-curtained beds and snowy linen, and saints and martyrs
+pinned against the wall. "We may sit up till twelve o'clock, if we
+like," said the nun; "but we have no fire and candle, and so what's the
+use of sitting up? When we have said our prayers we are glad enough to
+go to sleep."
+
+I forget, although the good soul told us, how many times in the day,
+in public and in private, these devotions are made, but fancy that the
+morning service in the chapel takes place at too early an hour for most
+easy travellers. We did not fail to attend in the evening, when likewise
+is a general muster of the seven hundred, minus the absent and sick, and
+the sight is not a little curious and striking to a stranger.
+
+The chapel is a very big whitewashed place of worship, supported by half
+a dozen columns on either side, over each of which stands the statue
+of an Apostle, with his emblem of martyrdom. Nobody was as yet at the
+distant altar, which was too far off to see very distinctly; but I could
+perceive two statues over it, one of which (St. Laurence, no doubt) was
+leaning upon a huge gilt gridiron that the sun lighted up in a blaze--a
+painful but not a romantic instrument of death. A couple of old ladies
+in white hoods were tugging and swaying about at two bell-ropes that
+came down into the middle of the church, and at least five hundred
+others in white veils were seated all round about us in mute
+contemplation until the service began, looking very solemn, and white,
+and ghastly, like an army of tombstones by moonlight.
+
+The service commenced as the clock finished striking seven: the organ
+pealed out, a very cracked and old one, and presently some weak old
+voice from the choir overhead quavered out a canticle; which done,
+a thin old voice of a priest at the altar far off (and which had now
+become quite gloomy in the sunset) chanted feebly another part of the
+service; then the nuns warbled once more overhead; and it was curious to
+hear, in the intervals of the most lugubrious chants, how the organ went
+off with some extremely cheerful military or profane air. At one time
+was a march, at another a quick tune; which ceasing, the old nuns began
+again, and so sung until the service was ended.
+
+In the midst of it one of the white-veiled sisters approached us with a
+very mysterious air, and put down her white veil close to our ears and
+whispered. Were we doing anything wrong, I wondered? Were they come to
+that part of the service where heretics and infidels ought to quit the
+church? What have you to ask, O sacred, white-veiled maid?
+
+All she said was, "Deux centiemes pour les suisses," which sum was paid;
+and presently the old ladies, rising from their chairs one by one, came
+in face of the altar, where they knelt down and said a short prayer;
+then, rising, unpinned their veils, and folded them up all exactly in
+the same folds and fashion, and laid them square like napkins on their
+heads, and tucked up their long black outer dresses, and trudged off to
+their convents.
+
+The novices wear black veils, under one of which I saw a young, sad,
+handsome face; it was the only thing in the establishment that was
+the least romantic or gloomy: and, for the sake of any reader of a
+sentimental turn, let us hope that the poor soul has been crossed in
+love, and that over some soul-stirring tragedy that black curtain has
+fallen.
+
+Ghent has, I believe, been called a vulgar Venice. It contains dirty
+canals and old houses that must satisfy the most eager antiquary, though
+the buildings are not quite in so good preservation as others that may
+be seen in the Netherlands. The commercial bustle of the place seems
+considerable, and it contains more beer-shops than any city I ever saw.
+
+These beer-shops seem the only amusement of the inhabitants, until,
+at least, the theatre shall be built, of which the elevation is now
+complete, a very handsome and extensive pile. There are beer-shops in
+the cellars of the houses, which are frequented, it is to be presumed,
+by the lower sort; there are beer-shops at the barriers, where the
+citizens and their families repair; and beer-shops in the town, glaring
+with gas, with long gauze blinds, however, to hide what I hear is a
+rather questionable reputation.
+
+Our inn, the "Hotel of the Post," a spacious and comfortable residence,
+is on a little place planted round with trees, and that seems to be the
+Palais Royal of the town. Three clubs, which look from without to
+be very comfortable, ornament this square with their gas-lamps. Here
+stands, too, the theatre that is to be; there is a cafe, and on evenings
+a military band plays the very worst music I ever remember to have
+heard. I went out to-night to take a quiet walk upon this place, and the
+horrid brazen discord of these trumpeters set me half mad.
+
+I went to the cafe for refuge, passing on the way a subterraneous
+beer-shop, where men and women were drinking to the sweet music of a
+cracked barrel-organ. They take in a couple of French papers at this
+cafe, and the same number of Belgian journals. You may imagine how well
+the latter are informed, when you hear that the battle of Boulogne,
+fought by the immortal Louis Napoleon, was not known here until some
+gentlemen out of Norfolk brought the news from London, and until it had
+travelled to Paris, and from Paris to Brussels. For a whole hour I could
+not get a newspaper at the cafe. The horrible brass band in the meantime
+had quitted the place, and now, to amuse the Ghent citizens, a couple of
+little boys came to the cafe and set up a small concert: one played ill
+on the guitar, but sang, very sweetly, plaintive French ballads; the
+other was the comic singer; he carried about with him a queer, long,
+damp-looking, mouldy white hat, with no brim. "Ecoutez," said the waiter
+to me, "il va faire l'Anglais; c'est tres drole!" The little rogue
+mounted his immense brimless hat, and, thrusting his thumbs into the
+armholes of his waistcoat, began to faire l'Anglais, with a song in
+which swearing was the principal joke. We all laughed at this, and
+indeed the little rascal seemed to have a good deal of humor.
+
+How they hate us, these foreigners, in Belgium as much as in France!
+What lies they tell of us; how gladly they would see us humiliated!
+Honest folks at home over their port-wine say, "Ay, ay, and very good
+reason they have too. National vanity, sir, wounded--we have beaten them
+so often." My dear sir, there is not a greater error in the world
+than this. They hate you because you are stupid, hard to please,
+and intolerably insolent and air-giving. I walked with an Englishman
+yesterday, who asked the way to a street of which he pronounced the name
+very badly to a little Flemish boy: the Flemish boy did not answer; and
+there was my Englishman quite in a rage, shrieking in the child's ear
+as if he must answer. He seemed to think that it was the duty of "the
+snob," as he called him, to obey the gentleman. This is why we are
+hated--for pride. In our free country a tradesman, a lackey, or a
+waiter will submit to almost any given insult from a gentleman: in these
+benighted lands one man is as good as another; and pray God it may soon
+be so with us! Of all European people, which is the nation that has the
+most haughtiness, the strongest prejudices, the greatest reserve, the
+greatest dulness? I say an Englishman of the genteel classes. An honest
+groom jokes and hobs-and-nobs and makes his way with the kitchen-maids,
+for there is good social nature in the man; his master dare not unbend.
+Look at him, how he scowls at you on your entering an inn-room; think
+how you scowl yourself to meet his scowl. To-day, as we were walking and
+staring about the place, a worthy old gentleman in a carriage, seeing a
+pair of strangers, took off his hat and bowed very gravely with his
+old powdered head out of the window: I am sorry to say that our first
+impulse was to burst out laughing--it seemed so supremely ridiculous
+that a stranger should notice and welcome another.
+
+As for the notion that foreigners hate us because we have beaten them
+so often, my dear sir, this is the greatest error in the world:
+well-educated Frenchmen DO NOT BELIEVE THAT WE HAVE BEATEN THEM. A man
+was once ready to call me out in Paris because I said that we had beaten
+the French in Spain; and here before me is a French paper, with a
+London correspondent discoursing about Louis Buonaparte and his jackass
+expedition to Boulogne. "He was received at Eglintoun, it is true," says
+the correspondent, "but what do you think was the reason? Because the
+English nobility were anxious to revenge upon his person (with some
+coups de lance) the checks which the 'grand homme' his uncle had
+inflicted on us in Spain."
+
+This opinion is so general among the French, that they would laugh at
+you with scornful incredulity if you ventured to assert any other. Foy's
+history of the Spanish War does not, unluckily, go far enough. I have
+read a French history which hardly mentions the war in Spain, and calls
+the battle of Salamanca a French victory. You know how the other day,
+and in the teeth of all evidence, the French swore to their victory of
+Toulouse: and so it is with the rest; and you may set it down as pretty
+certain, 1st, That only a few people know the real state of things in
+France, as to the matter in dispute between us; 2nd, That those who do,
+keep the truth to themselves, and so it is as if it had never been.
+
+These Belgians have caught up, and quite naturally, the French tone.
+We are perfide Albion with them still. Here is the Ghent paper, which
+declares that it is beyond a doubt that Louis Napoleon was sent by the
+English and Lord Palmerston; and though it states in another part of
+the journal (from English authority) that the Prince had never seen Lord
+Palmerston, yet the lie will remain uppermost--the people and the editor
+will believe it to the end of time. . . . See to what a digression
+yonder little fellow in the tall hat has given rise! Let us make his
+picture, and have done with him.
+
+
+I could not understand, in my walks about this place, which is certainly
+picturesque enough, and contains extraordinary charms in the shape of
+old gables, quaint spires, and broad shining canals--I could not at
+first comprehend why, for all this, the town was especially disagreeable
+to me, and have only just hit on the reason why. Sweetest Juliana, you
+will never guess it: it is simply this, that I have not seen a single
+decent-looking woman in the whole place; they look all ugly, with coarse
+mouths, vulgar figures, mean mercantile faces; and so the traveller
+walking among them finds the pleasure of his walk excessively damped,
+and the impressions made upon him disagreeable.
+
+In the Academy there are no pictures of merit; but sometimes a
+second-rate picture is as pleasing as the best, and one may pass an hour
+here very pleasantly. There is a room appropriated to Belgian artists,
+of which I never saw the like: they are, like all the rest of the things
+in this country, miserable imitations of the French school--great nude
+Venuses, and Junos a la David, with the drawing left out.
+
+
+BRUGES.
+
+The change from vulgar Ghent, with its ugly women and coarse bustle,
+to this quiet, old, half-deserted, cleanly Bruges, was very pleasant. I
+have seen old men at Versailles, with shabby coats and pigtails, sunning
+themselves on the benches in the walls; they had seen better days, to be
+sure, but they were gentlemen still: and so we found, this morning, old
+dowager Bruges basking in the pleasant August sun, and looking if not
+prosperous, at least cheerful and well-bred. It is the quaintest and
+prettiest of all the quaint and pretty towns I have seen. A painter
+might spend months here, and wander from church to church, and admire
+old towers and pinnacles, tall gables, bright canals, and pretty little
+patches of green garden and moss-grown wall, that reflect in the clear
+quiet water. Before the inn-window is a garden, from which in the early
+morning issues a most wonderful odor of stocks and wallflowers; next
+comes a road with trees of admirable green; numbers of little children
+are playing in this road (the place is so clean that they may roll in it
+all day without soiling their pinafores), and on the other side of the
+trees are little old-fashioned, dumpy, whitewashed, red-tiled houses. A
+poorer landscape to draw never was known, nor a pleasanter to see--the
+children especially, who are inordinately fat and rosy. Let it be
+remembered, too, that here we are out of the country of ugly women: the
+expression of the face is almost uniformly gentle and pleasing, and the
+figures of the women, wrapped in long black monk-like cloaks and hoods,
+very picturesque. No wonder there are so many children: the "Guide-book"
+(omniscient Mr. Murray!) says there are fifteen thousand paupers in the
+town, and we know how such multiply. How the deuce do their children
+look so fat and rosy? By eating dirt-pies, I suppose. I saw a couple
+making a very nice savory one, and another employed in gravely sticking
+strips of stick betwixt the pebbles at the house-door, and so making for
+herself a stately garden. The men and women don't seem to have much more
+to do. There are a couple of tall chimneys at either suburb of the town,
+where no doubt manufactories are at work, but within the walls everybody
+seems decently idle.
+
+We have been, of course, abroad to visit the lions. The tower in the
+Grand Place is very fine, and the bricks of which it is built do not
+yield a whit in color to the best stone. The great building round this
+tower is very like the pictures of the Ducal Palace at Venice; and there
+is a long market area, with columns down the middle, from which hung
+shreds of rather lean-looking meat, that would do wonders under the
+hands of Cattermole or Haghe. In the tower there is a chime of bells
+that keep ringing perpetually. They not only play tunes of themselves,
+and every quarter of an hour, but an individual performs selections from
+popular operas on them at certain periods of the morning, afternoon, and
+evening. I have heard to-day "Suoni la Tromba," "Son Vergin Vezzosa,"
+from the "Puritani," and other airs, and very badly they were played
+too; for such a great monster as a tower-bell cannot be expected to
+imitate Madame Grisi or even Signor Lablache. Other churches indulge in
+the same amusement, so that one may come here and live in melody all day
+or night, like the young woman in Moore's "Lalla Rookh."
+
+In the matter of art, the chief attractions of Bruges are the pictures
+of Hemling, that are to be seen in the churches, the hospital, and the
+picture-gallery of the place. There are no more pictures of Rubens to
+be seen, and, indeed, in the course of a fortnight, one has had quite
+enough of the great man and his magnificent, swaggering canvases. What
+a difference is here with simple Hemling and the extraordinary creations
+of his pencil! The hospital is particularly rich in them; and the legend
+there is that the painter, who had served Charles the Bold in his war
+against the Swiss, and his last battle and defeat, wandered back wounded
+and penniless to Bruges, and here found cure and shelter.
+
+This hospital is a noble and curious sight. The great hall is almost
+as it was in the twelfth century; it is spanned by Saxon arches, and
+lighted by a multiplicity of Gothic windows of all sizes; it is very
+lofty, clean, and perfectly well ventilated; a screen runs across the
+middle of the room, to divide the male from the female patients, and we
+were taken to examine each ward, where the poor people seemed happier
+than possibly they would have been in health and starvation without it.
+Great yellow blankets were on the iron beds, the linen was scrupulously
+clean, glittering pewter-jugs and goblets stood by the side of each
+patient, and they were provided with godly books (to judge from
+the binding), in which several were reading at leisure. Honest old
+comfortable nuns, in queer dresses of blue, black, white, and flannel,
+were bustling through the room, attending to the wants of the sick. I
+saw about a dozen of these kind women's faces: one was young--all were
+healthy and cheerful. One came with bare blue arms and a great pile of
+linen from an outhouse--such a grange as Cedric the Saxon might have
+given to a guest for the night. A couple were in a laboratory, a tall,
+bright, clean room, 500 years old at least. "We saw you were not
+very religious," said one of the old ladies, with a red, wrinkled,
+good-humored face, "by your behavior yesterday in chapel." And yet
+we did not laugh and talk as we used at college, but were profoundly
+affected by the scene that we saw there. It was a fete-day: a mass of
+Mozart was sung in the evening--not well sung, and yet so exquisitely
+tender and melodious, that it brought tears into our eyes. There were
+not above twenty people in the church: all, save three or four, were
+women in long black cloaks. I took them for nuns at first. They were,
+however, the common people of the town, very poor indeed, doubtless,
+for the priest's box that was brought round was not added to by most of
+them, and their contributions were but two-cent pieces,--five of these
+go to a penny; but we know the value of such, and can tell the exact
+worth of a poor woman's mite! The box-bearer did not seem at first
+willing to accept our donation--we were strangers and heretics; however,
+I held out my hand, and he came perforce as it were. Indeed it had only
+a franc in it: but que voulez-vous? I had been drinking a bottle of
+Rhine wine that day, and how was I to afford more? The Rhine wine is
+dear in this country, and costs four francs a bottle.
+
+Well, the service proceeded. Twenty poor women, two Englishmen, four
+ragged beggars, cowering on the steps; and there was the priest at the
+altar, in a great robe of gold and damask, two little boys in white
+surplices serving him, holding his robe as he rose and bowed, and the
+money-gatherer swinging his censer, and filling the little chapel with
+smoke. The music pealed with wonderful sweetness; you could see the prim
+white heads of the nuns in their gallery. The evening light streamed
+down upon old statues of saints and carved brown stalls, and lighted up
+the head of the golden-haired Magdalen in a picture of the entombment
+of Christ. Over the gallery, and, as it were, a kind protectress to the
+poor below, stood the statue of the Virgin.
+
+
+
+
+III.--WATERLOO.
+
+
+It is, my dear, the happy privilege of your sex in England to quit the
+dinner-table after the wine-bottles have once or twice gone round it,
+and you are thereby saved (though, to be sure, I can't tell what the
+ladies do up stairs)--you are saved two or three hours' excessive
+dulness, which the men are obliged to go through.
+
+I ask any gentleman who reads this--the letters to my Juliana being
+written with an eye to publication--to remember especially how many
+times, how many hundred times, how many thousand times, in his hearing,
+the battle of Waterloo has been discussed after dinner, and to call to
+mind how cruelly he has been bored by the discussion. "Ah, it was lucky
+for us that the Prussians came up!" says one little gentleman, looking
+particularly wise and ominous. "Hang the Prussians!" (or, perhaps,
+something stronger "the Prussians!") says a stout old major on half-pay.
+"We beat the French without them, sir, as beaten them we always have!
+We were thundering down the hill of Belle Alliance, sir, at the backs
+of them, and the French were crying 'Sauve qui peut' long before the
+Prussians ever touched them!" And so the battle opens, and for many
+mortal hours, amid rounds of claret, rages over and over again.
+
+I thought to myself considering the above things, what a fine thing it
+will be in after-days to say that I have been to Brussels and never seen
+the field of Waterloo; indeed, that I am such a philosopher as not to
+care a fig about the battle--nay, to regret, rather, that when Napoleon
+came back, the British Government had not spared their men and left him
+alone.
+
+But this pitch of philosophy was unattainable. This morning, after
+having seen the Park, the fashionable boulevard, the pictures, the
+cafes--having sipped, I say, the sweets of every flower that grows in
+this paradise of Brussels, quite weary of the place, we mounted on a
+Namur diligence, and jingled off at four miles an hour for Waterloo.
+
+The road is very neat and agreeable: the Forest of Soignies here and
+there interposes pleasantly, to give your vehicle a shade; the country,
+as usual, is vastly fertile and well cultivated. A farmer and the
+conducteur were my companions in the imperial, and could I have
+understood their conversation, my dear, you should have had certainly a
+report of it. The jargon which they talked was, indeed, most queer and
+puzzling--French, I believe, strangely hashed up and pronounced, for
+here and there one could catch a few words of it. Now and anon, however,
+they condescended to speak in the purest French they could muster; and,
+indeed, nothing is more curious than to hear the French of the country.
+You can't understand why all the people insist upon speaking it so
+badly. I asked the conductor if he had been at the battle; he burst out
+laughing like a philosopher, as he was, and said "Pas si bete." I asked
+the farmer whether his contributions were lighter now than in King
+William's time, and lighter than those in the time of the Emperor? He
+vowed that in war-time he had not more to pay than in time of peace (and
+this strange fact is vouched for by every person of every nation),
+and being asked wherefore the King of Holland had been ousted from
+his throne, replied at once, "Parceque c'etoit un voleur:" for which
+accusation I believe there is some show of reason, his Majesty having
+laid hands on much Belgian property before the lamented outbreak which
+cost him his crown. A vast deal of laughing and roaring passed between
+these two worldly people and the postilion, whom they called "baron,"
+and I thought no doubt that this talk was one of the many jokes that my
+companions were in the habit of making. But not so: the postilion was an
+actual baron, the bearer of an ancient name, the descendant of gallant
+gentlemen. Good heavens! what would Mrs. Trollope say to see his
+lordship here? His father the old baron had dissipated the family
+fortune, and here was this young nobleman, at about five-and-forty,
+compelled to bestride a clattering Flemish stallion, and bump over dusty
+pavements at the rate of five miles an hour. But see the beauty of high
+blood: with what a calm grace the man of family accommodates himself to
+fortune. Far from being cast down, his lordship met his fate like a man:
+he swore and laughed the whole of the journey, and as we changed horses,
+condescended to partake of half a pint of Louvain beer, to which the
+farmer treated him--indeed the worthy rustic treated me to a glass too.
+
+Much delight and instruction have I had in the course of the journey
+from my guide, philosopher, and friend, the author of "Murray's
+Handbook." He has gathered together, indeed, a store of information,
+and must, to make his single volume, have gutted many hundreds of
+guide-books. How the Continental ciceroni must hate him, whoever he is!
+Every English party I saw had this infallible red book in their hands,
+and gained a vast deal of historical and general information from it.
+Thus I heard, in confidence, many remarkable anecdotes of Charles V.,
+the Duke of Alva, Count Egmont, all of which I had before perceived,
+with much satisfaction, not only in the "Handbook," but even in other
+works.
+
+The Laureate is among the English poets evidently the great favorite of
+our guide: the choice does honor to his head and heart. A man must have
+a very strong bent for poetry, indeed, who carries Southey's works in
+his portmanteau, and quotes them in proper time and occasion. Of course
+at Waterloo a spirit like our guide's cannot fail to be deeply moved,
+and to turn to his favorite poet for sympathy. Hark how the laureated
+bard sings about the tombstones at Waterloo:--
+
+         "That temple to our hearts was hallow'd now,
+            For many a wounded Briton there was laid,
+          With such for help as time might then allow,
+            From the fresh carnage of the field conveyed.
+          And they whom human succor could not save,
+            Here, in its precincts, found a hasty grave.
+          And here, on marble tablets, set on high,
+            In English lines by foreign workmen traced,
+          The names familiar to an English eye,
+            Their brethren here the fit memorial placed;
+          Whose unadorned inscriptions briefly tell
+            THEIR GALLANT COMRADES' rank, and where they fell.
+          The stateliest monument of human pride,
+            Enriched with all magnificence of art,
+          To honor chieftains who in victory died,
+            Would wake no stronger feeling in the heart
+          Than these plain tablets by the soldier's hand
+            Raised to his comrades in a foreign land."
+
+There are lines for you! wonderful for justice, rich in thought and
+novel ideas. The passage concerning their gallant comrades' rank should
+be specially remarked. There indeed they lie, sure enough: the Honorable
+Colonel This of the Guards, Captain That of the Hussars, Major So-and-So
+of the Dragoons, brave men and good, who did their duty by their country
+on that day, and died in the performance of it.
+
+Amen. But I confess fairly, that in looking at these tablets, I felt
+very much disappointed at not seeing the names of the MEN as well as the
+officers. Are they to be counted for nought? A few more inches of marble
+to each monument would have given space for all the names of the men;
+and the men of that day were the winners of the battle. We have a right
+to be as grateful individually to any given private as to any given
+officer; their duties were very much the same. Why should the country
+reserve its gratitude for the genteel occupiers of the army-list,
+and forget the gallant fellows whose humble names were written in the
+regimental books? In reading of the Wellington wars, and the conduct
+of the men engaged in them, I don't know whether to respect them or
+to wonder at them most. They have death, wounds, and poverty in
+contemplation; in possession, poverty, hard labor, hard fare, and
+small thanks. If they do wrong, they are handed over to the inevitable
+provost-marshal; if they are heroes, heroes they may be, but they
+remain privates still, handling the old brown-bess, starving on the old
+twopence a day. They grow gray in battle and victory, and after thirty
+years of bloody service, a young gentleman of fifteen, fresh from a
+preparatory school, who can scarcely read, and came but yesterday with a
+pinafore in to papa's dessert--such a young gentleman, I say, arrives
+in a spick-and-span red coat, and calmly takes the command over our
+veteran, who obeys him as if God and nature had ordained that so
+throughout time it should be.
+
+That privates should obey, and that they should be smartly punished if
+they disobey, this one can understand very well. But to say obey for
+ever and ever--to say that Private John Styles is, by some physical
+disproportion, hopelessly inferior to Cornet Snooks--to say that Snooks
+shall have honors, epaulets, and a marble tablet if he dies, and that
+Styles shall fight his fight, and have his twopence a day, and when
+shot down shall be shovelled into a hole with other Styleses, and so
+forgotten; and to think that we had in the course of the last war
+some 400,000 of these Styleses, and some 10,000, say, of the Snooks
+sort--Styles being by nature exactly as honest, clever, and brave as
+Snooks--and to think that the 400,000 should bear this, is the wonder!
+
+Suppose Snooks makes a speech. "Look at these Frenchmen, British
+soldiers," says he, "and remember who they are. Two-and-twenty years
+since they hurled their King from his throne and murdered him" (groans).
+"They flung out of their country their ancient and famous nobility--they
+published the audacious doctrine of equality--they made a cadet
+of artillery, a beggarly lawyer's son, into an Emperor, and took
+ignoramuses from the ranks--drummers and privates, by Jove!--of whom
+they made kings, generals, and marshals! Is this to be borne?" (Cries of
+"No! no!") "Upon them, my boys! down with these godless revolutionists,
+and rally round the British lion!"
+
+So saying, Ensign Snooks (whose flag, which he can't carry, is held by
+a huge grizzly color-sergeant,) draws a little sword, and pipes out a
+feeble huzza. The men of his company, roaring curses at the Frenchmen,
+prepare to receive and repel a thundering charge of French cuirassiers.
+The men fight, and Snooks is knighted because the men fought so well.
+
+But live or die, win or lose, what do THEY get? English glory is too
+genteel to meddle with those humble fellows. She does not condescend to
+ask the names of the poor devils whom she kills in her service. Why was
+not every private man's name written upon the stones in Waterloo Church
+as well as every officer's? Five hundred pounds to the stone-cutters
+would have served to carve the whole catalogue, and paid the poor
+compliment of recognition to men who died in doing their duty. If the
+officers deserved a stone, the men did. But come, let us away and drop a
+tear over the Marquis of Anglesea's leg!
+
+As for Waterloo, has it not been talked of enough after dinner? Here are
+some oats that were plucked before Hougoumont, where grow not only
+oats, but flourishing crops of grape-shot, bayonets, and legion-of-honor
+crosses, in amazing profusion.
+
+Well, though I made a vow not to talk about Waterloo either here or
+after dinner, there is one little secret admission that one must make
+after seeing it. Let an Englishman go and see that field, and he NEVER
+FORGETS IT. The sight is an event in his life; and, though it has been
+seen by millions of peaceable GENTS--grocers from Bond Street, meek
+attorneys from Chancery Lane, and timid tailors from Piccadilly--I will
+wager that there is not one of them but feels a glow as he looks at the
+place, and remembers that he, too, is an Englishman.
+
+It is a wrong, egotistical, savage, unchristian feeling, and that's
+the truth of it. A man of peace has no right to be dazzled by that
+red-coated glory, and to intoxicate his vanity with those remembrances
+of carnage and triumph. The same sentence which tells us that on earth
+there ought to be peace and good-will amongst men, tells us to whom
+GLORY belongs.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Travels and Roadside Sketches, by 
+William Makepeace Thackeray
+
+***