The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 by Ambrose Bierce
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| Table of Contents | |
| Section | Page |
| Start of eBook | 1 |
| NEGLIGIBLE TALES | 1 |
| JUPITER DOKE, BRIGADIER-GENERAL | 6 |
| THE WIDOWER TURMORE | 12 |
| THE CITY OF THE GONE AWAY | 16 |
| THE MAJOR’S TALE | 20 |
| CURRIED COW | 25 |
| A REVOLT OF THE GODS | 30 |
| THE BAPTISM OF DOBSHO | 32 |
| THE RACE AT LEFT BOWER | 35 |
| 37 | |
| PERRY CHUMLY’S ECLIPSE | 39 |
| A PROVIDENTIAL INTIMATION | 41 |
| MR. SWIDDLER’S FLIP-FLAP | 45 |
| THE LITTLE STORY | 47 |
| THE PARENTICIDE CLUB | 49 |
| OIL OF DOG | 55 |
| AN IMPERFECT CONFLAGRATION | 58 |
| THE HYPNOTIST | 61 |
| THE FOURTH ESTATE | 64 |
| WHY I AM NOT EDITING “THE STINGER” | 67 |
| CORRUPTING THE PRESS | 69 |
| HOW ANOTHER MAN’S WAS SOUGHT AND PRICKED | 72 |
| THE OCEAN WAVE | 74 |
| THE CAPTAIN OF “THE CAMEL” | 76 |
| THE MAN OVERBOARD | 81 |
| I | 81 |
| II | 83 |
| A CARGO OF CAT | 88 |
| “ON WITH THE DANCE!” A REVIEW | 90 |
| I | 90 |
| II | 92 |
| III | 94 |
| IV | 97 |
| V | 98 |
| VI | 102 |
| VII | 103 |
| VIII | 108 |
| IX | 110 |
| X | 112 |
| XI | 115 |
| XII | 116 |
| EPIGRAMS | 119 |
NEGLIGIBLE TALES
A BOTTOMLESS GRAVE
My name is John Brenwalter. My father, a drunkard,had a patent for an invention, for making coffee-berriesout of clay; but he was an honest man and would nothimself engage in the manufacture. He was, therefore,only moderately wealthy, his royalties from his reallyvaluable invention bringing him hardly enough to payhis expenses of litigation with rogues guilty of infringement.So I lacked many advantages enjoyed by the childrenof unscrupulous and dishonorable parents, and had itnot been for a noble and devoted mother, who neglectedall my brothers and sisters and personally supervisedmy education, should have grown up in ignorance andbeen compelled to teach school. To be the favoritechild of a good woman is better than gold.
When I was nineteen years of age my father had themisfortune to die. He had always had perfecthealth, and his death, which occurred at the dinnertable without a moment’s warning, surprised noone more than himself. He had that very morningbeen notified that a patent had been granted him fora device to burst open safes by hydraulic pressure,without noise. The Commissioner of Patents hadpronounced it the most ingenious, effective and generallymeritorious invention that had ever been submittedto him, and my father had naturally looked forwardto an old age of prosperity and honor. His suddendeath was, therefore, a deep disappointment to him;but my mother, whose piety and resignation to thewill of Heaven were conspicuous virtues of her character,was apparently less affected. At the close ofthe meal, when my poor father’s body had beenremoved from the floor, she called us all into an adjoiningroom and addressed us as follows:
“My children, the uncommon occurrence that youhave just witnessed is one of the most disagreeableincidents in a good man’s life, and one in whichI take little pleasure, I assure you. I beg youto believe that I had no hand in bringing it about.Of course,” she added, after a pause, duringwhich her eyes were cast down in deep thought, “ofcourse it is better that he is dead.”
She uttered this with so evident a sense of its obviousnessas a self-evident truth that none of us had the courageto brave her surprise by asking an explanation.My mother’s air of surprise when any of us wentwrong in any way was very terrible to us. Oneday, when in a fit of peevish temper, I had takenthe liberty to cut off the baby’s ear, her simplewords, “John, you surprise me!” appearedto me so sharp a reproof that after a sleepless nightI went to her in tears, and throwing myself at herfeet, exclaimed: “Mother, forgive me forsurprising you.” So now we all—includingthe one-eared baby—felt that it would keepmatters smoother to accept without question the statementthat it was better, somehow, for our dear father tobe dead. My mother continued:
“I must tell you, my children, that in a caseof sudden and mysterious death the law requires theCoroner to come and cut the body into pieces and submitthem to a number of men who, having inspected them,pronounce the person dead. For this the Coronergets a large sum of money. I wish to avoid thatpainful formality in this instance; it is one whichnever had the approval of—of the remains.John”—here my mother turned her angelface to me-"you are an educated lad, and very discreet.You have now an opportunity to show your gratitudefor all the sacrifices that your education has entailedupon the rest of us. John, go and remove theCoroner.”
Inexpressibly delighted by this proof of my mother’sconfidence, and by the chance to distinguish myselfby an act that squared with my natural disposition,I knelt before her, carried her hand to my lips andbathed it with tears of sensibility. Before fiveo’clock that afternoon I had removed the Coroner.
I was immediately arrested and thrown into jail, whereI passed a most uncomfortable night, being unableto sleep because of the profanity of my fellow-prisoners,two clergymen, whose theological training had giventhem a fertility of impious ideas and a command ofblasphemous language altogether unparalleled.But along toward morning the jailer, who, sleepingin an adjoining room, had been equally disturbed, enteredthe cell and with a fearful oath warned the reverendgentlemen that if he heard any more swearing theirsacred calling would not prevent him from turningthem into the street. After that they moderatedtheir objectionable conversation, substituting anaccordion, and I slept the peaceful and refreshingsleep of youth and innocence.
The next morning I was taken before the Superior Judge,sitting as a committing magistrate, and put upon mypreliminary examination. I pleaded not guilty,adding that the man whom I had murdered was a notoriousDemocrat. (My good mother was a Republican, and fromearly childhood I had been carefully instructed byher in the principles of honest government and thenecessity of suppressing factional opposition.) TheJudge, elected by a Republican ballot-box with a slidingbottom, was visibly impressed by the cogency of myplea and offered me a cigarette.
“May it please your Honor,” began theDistrict Attorney, “I do not deem it necessaryto submit any evidence in this case. Under thelaw of the land you sit here as a committing magistrate.It is therefore your duty to commit. Testimonyand argument alike would imply a doubt that your Honormeans to perform your sworn duty. That is my case.”
My counsel, a brother of the deceased Coroner, roseand said: “May it please the Court, mylearned friend on the other side has so well and eloquentlystated the law governing in this case that it onlyremains for me to inquire to what extent it has beenalready complied with. It is true, your Honoris a committing magistrate, and as such it is yourduty to commit—what? That is a matterwhich the law has wisely and justly left to your owndiscretion, and wisely you have discharged alreadyevery obligation that the law imposes. Since Ihave known your Honor you have done nothing but commit.You have committed embracery, theft, arson, perjury,adultery, murder—every crime in the calendarand every excess known to the sensual and depraved,including my learned friend, the District Attorney.You have done your whole duty as a committing magistrate,and as there is no evidence against this worthy youngman, my client, I move that he be discharged.”
An impressive silence ensued. The Judge arose,put on the black cap and in a voice trembling withemotion sentenced me to life and liberty. Thenturning to my counsel he said, coldly but significantly:
“I will see you later.”
The next morning the lawyer who had so conscientiouslydefended me against a charge of murdering his ownbrother—with whom he had a quarrel aboutsome land—had disappeared and his fate isto this day unknown.
In the meantime my poor father’s body had beensecretly buried at midnight in the back yard of hislate residence, with his late boots on and the contentsof his late stomach unanalyzed. “He wasopposed to display,” said my dear mother, asshe finished tamping down the earth above him andassisted the children to litter the place with straw;“his instincts were all domestic and he loveda quiet life.”
My mother’s application for letters of administrationstated that she had good reason to believe that thedeceased was dead, for he had not come home to hismeals for several days; but the Judge of the CrowbaitCourt—as she ever afterward contemptuouslycalled it—decided that the proof of deathwas insufficient, and put the estate into the handsof the Public Administrator, who was his son-in-law.It was found that the liabilities were exactly balancedby the assets; there was left only the patent forthe device for bursting open safes without noise, byhydraulic pressure and this had passed into the ownershipof the Probate Judge and the Public Administrator—asmy dear mother preferred to spell it. Thus, withina few brief months a worthy and respectable familywas reduced from prosperity to crime; necessity compelledus to go to work.
In the selection of occupations we were governed bya variety of considerations, such as personal fitness,inclination, and so forth. My mother opened aselect private school for instruction in the art ofchanging the spots upon leopard-skin rugs; my eldestbrother, George Henry, who had a turn for music, becamea bugler in a neighboring asylum for deaf mutes; mysister, Mary Maria, took orders for Professor Pumpernickel’sEssence of Latchkeys for flavoring mineral springs,and I set up as an adjuster and gilder of crossbeamsfor gibbets. The other children, too young forlabor, continued to steal small articles exposed infront of shops, as they had been taught.
In our intervals of leisure we decoyed travelers intoour house and buried the bodies in a cellar.
In one part of this cellar we kept wines, liquorsand provisions. From the rapidity of their disappearancewe acquired the superstitious belief that the spiritsof the persons buried there came at dead of night andheld a festival. It was at least certain thatfrequently of a morning we would discover fragmentsof pickled meats, canned goods and such debris, litteringthe place, although it had been securely locked andbarred against human intrusion. It was proposedto remove the provisions and store them elsewhere,but our dear mother, always generous and hospitable,said it was better to endure the loss than risk exposure:if the ghosts were denied this trifling gratificationthey might set on foot an investigation, which wouldoverthrow our scheme of the division of labor, bydiverting the energies of the whole family into thesingle industry pursued by me—we mightall decorate the cross-beams of gibbets. We acceptedher decision with filial submission, due to our reverencefor her wordly wisdom and the purity of her character.
One night while we were all in the cellar—nonedared to enter it alone—engaged in bestowingupon the Mayor of an adjoining town the solemn officesof Christian burial, my mother and the younger children,holding a candle each, while George Henry and I laboredwith a spade and pick, my sister Mary Maria uttereda shriek and covered her eyes with her hands.We were all dreadfully startled and the Mayor’sobsequies were instantly suspended, while with palefaces and in trembling tones we begged her to saywhat had alarmed her. The younger children wereso agitated that they held their candles unsteadily,and the waving shadows of our figures danced withuncouth and grotesque movements on the walls and flungthemselves into the most uncanny attitudes. Theface of the dead man, now gleaming ghastly in thelight, and now extinguished by some floating shadow,appeared at each emergence to have taken on a newand more forbidding expression, a maligner menace.Frightened even more than ourselves by the girl’sscream, rats raced in multitudes about the place,squeaking shrilly, or starred the black opacity ofsome distant corner with steadfast eyes, mere pointsof green light, matching the faint phosphorescenceof decay that filled the half-dug grave and seemedthe visible manifestation of that faint odor of mortalitywhich tainted the unwholesome air. The childrennow sobbed and clung about the limbs of their elders,dropping their candles, and we were near being leftin total darkness, except for that sinister light,which slowly welled upward from the disturbed earthand overflowed the edges of the grave like a fountain.
Meanwhile my sister, crouching in the earth that hadbeen thrown out of the excavation, had removed herhands from her face and was staring with expandedeyes into an obscure space between two wine casks.
“There it is!—there it is!”she shrieked, pointing; “God in heaven! can’tyou see it?”
And there indeed it was!—a human figure,dimly discernible in the gloom—a figurethat wavered from side to side as if about to fall,clutching at the wine-casks for support, had steppedunsteadily forward and for one moment stood revealedin the light of our remaining candles; then it surgedheavily and fell prone upon the earth. In thatmoment we had all recognized the figure, the faceand bearing of our father—dead these tenmonths and buried by our own hands!—ourfather indubitably risen and ghastly drunk!
On the incidents of our precipitate flight from thathorrible place—on the extinction of allhuman sentiment in that tumultuous, mad scramble upthe damp and mouldy stairs—slipping, falling,pulling one another down and clambering over one another’sback—the lights extinguished, babes trampledbeneath the feet of their strong brothers and hurledbackward to death by a mother’s arm!—onall this I do not dare to dwell. My mother, myeldest brother and sister and I escaped; the othersremained below, to perish of their wounds, or of theirterror—some, perhaps, by flame. Forwithin an hour we four, hastily gathering togetherwhat money and jewels we had and what clothing we couldcarry, fired the dwelling and fled by its light intothe hills. We did not even pause to collect theinsurance, and my dear mother said on her death-bed,years afterward in a distant land, that this was theonly sin of omission that lay upon her conscience.Her confessor, a holy man, assured her that underthe circ*mstances Heaven would pardon the neglect.
About ten years after our removal from the scenesof my childhood I, then a prosperous forger, returnedin disguise to the spot with a view to obtaining,if possible, some treasure belonging to us, which hadbeen buried in the cellar. I may say that I wasunsuccessful: the discovery of many human bonesin the ruins had set the authorities digging for more.They had found the treasure and had kept it for theirhonesty. The house had not been rebuilt; thewhole suburb was, in fact, a desolation. So manyunearthly sights and sounds had been reported thereaboutthat nobody would live there. As there was noneto question nor molest, I resolved to gratify my filialpiety by gazing once more upon the face of my belovedfather, if indeed our eyes had deceived us and he wasstill in his grave. I remembered, too, that hehad always worn an enormous diamond ring, and neverhaving seen it nor heard of it since his death, Ihad reason to think he might have been buried in it.Procuring a spade, I soon located the grave in whathad been the backyard and began digging. WhenI had got down about four feet the whole bottom fellout of the grave and I was precipitated into a largedrain, falling through a long hole in its crumblingarch. There was no body, nor any vestige of one.
Unable to get out of the excavation, I crept throughthe drain, and having with some difficulty removeda mass of charred rubbish and blackened masonry thatchoked it, emerged into what had been that fatefulcellar.
All was clear. My father, whatever had causedhim to be “taken bad” at his meal (andI think my sainted mother could have thrown some lightupon that matter) had indubitably been buried alive.The grave having been accidentally dug above the forgottendrain, and down almost to the crown of its arch, andno coffin having been used, his struggles on revivinghad broken the rotten masonry and he had fallen through,escaping finally into the cellar. Feeling thathe was not welcome in his own house, yet having noother, he had lived in subterranean seclusion, a witnessto our thrift and a pensioner on our providence.It was he who had eaten our food; it was he who haddrunk our wine—he was no better than athief! In a moment of intoxication, and feeling,no doubt, that need of companionship which is theone sympathetic link between a drunken man and hisrace, he had left his place of concealment at a strangelyinopportune time, entailing the most deplorable consequencesupon those nearest and dearest to him—ablunder that had almost the dignity of crime.
JUPITER DOKE, BRIGADIER-GENERAL
From the Secretary of War to the Hon. Jupiter Doke,Hardpan Crossroads, Posey County, Illinois.
Washington, November 3, 1861.
Having faith in your patriotism and ability, the Presidenthas been pleased to appoint you a brigadier-generalof volunteers. Do you accept?
From the Hon. Jupiter Doke to the Secretary ofWar.
Hardpan, Illinois, November 9, 1861.
It is the proudest moment of my life. The officeis one which should be neither sought nor declined.In times that try men’s souls the patriot knowsno North, no South, no East, no West. His mottoshould be: “My country, my whole countryand nothing but my country.” I accept thegreat trust confided in me by a free and intelligentpeople, and with a firm reliance on the principlesof constitutional liberty, and invoking the guidanceof an all-wise Providence, Ruler of Nations, shalllabor so to discharge it as to leave no blot uponmy political escutcheon. Say to his Excellency,the successor of the immortal Washington in the Seatof Power, that the patronage of my office will bebestowed with an eye single to securing the greatestgood to the greatest number, the stability of republicaninstitutions and the triumph of the party in all elections;and to this I pledge my life, my fortune and my sacredhonor. I shall at once prepare an appropriateresponse to the speech of the chairman of the committeedeputed to inform me of my appointment, and I trustthe sentiments therein expressed will strike a sympatheticchord in the public heart, as well as command theExecutive approval.
From the Secretary of War to Major-General BlountWardorg, Commanding the Military Department of EasternKentucky.
Washington, November 14, 1861.
I have assigned to your department Brigadier-GeneralJupiter Doke, who will soon proceed to Distilleryville,on the Little Buttermilk River, and take command ofthe Illinois Brigade at that point, reporting to youby letter for orders. Is the route from Covingtonby way of Bluegrass, Opossum Corners and Horsecavestill infested with bushwhackers, as reported in yourlast dispatch? I have a plan for cleaning themout.
From Major-General Blount Wardorg to the Secretaryof War.
Louisville, Kentucky, November 20, 1861.
The name and services of Brigadier-General Doke areunfamiliar to me, but I shall be pleased to have theadvantage of his skill. The route from Covingtonto Distilleryville via Opossum Corners and HorsecaveI have been compelled to abandon to the enemy, whoseguerilla warfare made it possible to keep it openwithout detaching too many troops from the front.The brigade at Distilleryville is supplied by steamboatsup the Little Buttermilk.
From the Secretary of War to Brigadier-GeneralJupiter Doke, Hardpan, Illinois.
Washington, November 26, 1861.
I deeply regret that your commission had been forwardedby mail before the receipt of your letter of acceptance;so we must dispense with the formality of officialnotification to you by a committee. The Presidentis highly gratified by the noble and patriotic sentimentsof your letter, and directs that you proceed at onceto your command at Distilleryville, Kentucky, andthere report by letter to Major-General Wardorg atLouisville, for orders. It is important that thestrictest secrecy be observed regarding your movementsuntil you have passed Covington, as it is desiredto hold the enemy in front of Distilleryville untilyou are within three days of him. Then if yourapproach is known it will operate as a demonstrationagainst his right and cause him to strengthen it withhis left now at Memphis, Tennessee, which it is desirableto capture first. Go by way of Bluegrass, OpossumCorners and Horsecave. All officers are expectedto be in full uniform when en route to thefront.
From Brigadier-General Jupiter Doke to the Secretaryof War.
Covington, Kentucky, December 7, 1861.
I arrived yesterday at this point, and have givenmy proxy to Joel Briller, Esq., my wife’s cousin,and a staunch Republican, who will worthily representPosey County in field and forum. He points withpride to a stainless record in the halls of legislation,which have often echoed to his soul-stirring eloquenceon questions which lie at the very foundation of populargovernment. He has been called the Patrick Henryof Hardpan, where he has done yeoman’s service
in the cause of civil and religious liberty.Mr. Briller left for Distilleryville last evening,and the standard bearer of the Democratic host confrontingthat stronghold of freedom will find him a lion inhis path. I have been asked to remain here anddeliver some addresses to the people in a local contestinvolving issues of paramount importance. Thatduty being performed, I shall in person enter thearena of armed debate and move in the direction ofthe heaviest firing, burning my ships behind me.I forward by this mail to his Excellency the Presidenta request for the appointment of my son, Jabez LeonidasDoke, as postmaster at Hardpan. I would takeit, sir, as a great favor if you would give the applicationa strong oral indorsem*nt, as the appointment is inthe line of reform. Be kind enough to informme what are the emoluments of the office I hold inthe military arm, and if they are by salary or fees.Are there any perquisites? My mileage accountwill be transmitted monthly.From Brigadier-General Jupiter Doke to Major GeneralBlount Wardorg.
Distilleryville, Kentucky, January 12, 1862.
I arrived on the tented field yesterday by steamboat,the recent storms having inundated the landscape,covering, I understand, the greater part of a congressionaldistrict. I am pained to find that Joel Briller,Esq., a prominent citizen of Posey County, Illinois,and a far-seeing statesman who held my proxy, andwho a month ago should have been thundering at thegates of Disunion, has not been heard from, and hasdoubtless been sacrificed upon the altar of his country.In him the American people lose a bulwark of freedom.I would respectfully move that you designate a committeeto draw up resolutions of respect to his memory, andthat the office holders and men under your commandwear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days.I shall at once place myself at the head of affairshere, and am now ready to entertain any suggestionswhich you may make, looking to the better enforcementof the laws in this commonwealth. The militantDemocrats on the other side of the river appear tobe contemplating extreme measures. They have twolarge cannons facing this way, and yesterday morning,I am told, some of them came down to the water’sedge and remained in session for some time, makinginfamous allegations.
From the Diary of Brigadier-General Jupiter Doke,at Distilleryville, Kentucky.
January 12, 1862.—On my arrival yesterdayat the Henry Clay Hotel (named in honor of the latefar-seeing statesman) I was waited on by a delegationconsisting of the three colonels intrusted with thecommand of the regiments of my brigade. It wasan occasion that will be memorable in the politicalannals of America. Forwarded copies of the speechesto the Posey Maverick, to be spread upon therecord of the ages. The gentlemen composing thedelegation unanimously reaffirmed their devotion tothe principles of national unity and the Republicanparty. Was gratified to recognize in them menof political prominence and untarnished escutcheons.At the subsequent banquet, sentiments of lofty patriotismwere expressed. Wrote to Mr. Wardorg at Louisvillefor instructions.
January 13, 1862.—Leased a prominent residence(the former incumbent being absent in arms againsthis country) for the term of one year, and wrote atonce for Mrs. Brigadier-General Doke and the vitalissues—excepting Jabez Leonidas. Inthe camp of treason opposite here there are supposedto be three thousand misguided men laying the ax atthe root of the tree of liberty. They have a clearmajority, many of our men having returned withoutleave to their constituents. We could probablynot poll more than two thousand votes. Have advisedmy heads of regiments to make a canvass of those remaining,all bolters to be read out of the phalanx.
January 14, 1862.—Wrote to the President,asking for the contract to supply this command withfirearms and regalia through my brother-in-law, prominentlyidentified with the manufacturing interests of thecountry. Club of cannon soldiers arrived at Jayhawk,three miles back from here, on their way to join usin battle array. Marched my whole brigade toJayhawk to escort them into town, but their chairman,mistaking us for the opposing party, opened fire onthe head of the procession and by the extraordinarynoise of the cannon balls (I had no conception of it!)so frightened my horse that I was unseated withouta contest. The meeting adjourned in disorderand returning to camp I found that a deputation ofthe enemy had crossed the river in our absence andmade a division of the loaves and fishes. Wroteto the President, applying for the Gubernatorial Chairof the Territory of Idaho.
From Editorial Article in the Posey, Illinois,“Maverick,” January 20, 1862.
Brigadier-General Doke’s thrilling account,in another column, of the Battle of Distilleryvillewill make the heart of every loyal Illinoisian leapwith exultation. The brilliant exploit marks anera in military history, and as General Doke says,“lays broad and deep the foundations of Americanprowess in arms.” As none of the troopsengaged, except the gallant author-chieftain (a hostin himself) hails from Posey County, he justly consideredthat a list of the fallen would only occupy our valuablespace to the exclusion of more important matter, buthis account of the strategic ruse by which he apparentlyabandoned his camp and so inveigled a perfidious enemyinto it for the purpose of murdering the sick, theunfortunate countertempus at Jayhawk, the subsequentdash upon a trapped enemy flushed with a supposed success,driving their terrified legions across an impassableriver which precluded pursuit—all these“moving accidents by flood and field” arerelated with a pen of fire and have all the terribleinterest of romance.
Verily, truth is stranger than fiction and the penis mightier than the sword. When by the graphicpower of the art preservative of all arts we are broughtface to face with such glorious events as these, theMaverick’s enterprise in securing forits thousands of readers the services of so distinguisheda contributor as the Great Captain who made the historyas well as wrote it seems a matter of almost secondaryimportance. For President in 1864 (subject tothe decision of the Republican National Convention)Brigadier-General Jupiter Doke, of Illinois!
From Major-General Blount Wardorg to Brigadier-GeneralJupiter Doke.
LOUISVILLE, January 22, 1862.
Your letter apprising me of your arrival at Distilleryvillewas delayed in transmission, having only just beenreceived (open) through the courtesy of the Confederatedepartment commander under a flag of truce. Hebegs me to assure you that he would consider it anact of cruelty to trouble you, and I think it wouldbe. Maintain, however, a threatening attitude,but at the least pressure retire. Your positionis simply an outpost which it is not intended to hold.
From Major-General Blount Wardorg to the Secretaryof War.
LOUISVILLE, January 23, 1862.
I have certain information that the enemy has concentratedtwenty thousand troops of all arms on the Little Buttermilk.According to your assignment, General Doke is in commandof the small brigade of raw troops opposing them.It is no part of my plan to contest the enemy’sadvance at that point, but I cannot hold myself responsiblefor any reverses to the brigade mentioned, under itspresent commander. I think him a fool.
From the Secretary of War to Major-General BlountWardorg.
WASHINGTON, February 1, 1862.
The President has great faith in General Doke.If your estimate of him is correct, however, he wouldseem to be singularly well placed where he now is,as your plans appear to contemplate a considerablesacrifice for whatever advantages you expect to gain.
From Brigadier-General Jupiter Doke to Major-GeneralBlount Wardorg.
DISTILLERYVILLE, February 1, 1862.
To-morrow I shall remove my headquarters to Jayhawkin order to point the way whenever my brigade retiresfrom Distilleryville, as foreshadowed by your letterof the 22d ult. I have appointed a Committeeon Retreat, the minutes of whose first meeting I transmitto you. You will perceive that the committeehaving been duly organized by the election of a chairmanand secretary, a resolution (prepared by myself) wasadopted, to the effect that in case treason again raisesher hideous head on this side of the river every manof the brigade is to mount a mule, the processionto move promptly in the direction of Louisville andthe loyal North. In preparation for such an emergencyI have for some time been collecting mules from theresident Democracy, and have on hand 2300 in a fieldat Jayhawk. Eternal vigilance is the price ofliberty!
From Major-General Gibeon J. Buxter, C.S.A., tothe Confederate Secretary of War.
BUNG STATION, KENTUCKY, February 4, 1862.
On the night of the 2d inst., our entire force, consistingof 25,000 men and thirty-two field pieces, under commandof Major-General Simmons B. Flood, crossed by a fordto the north side of Little Buttermilk River at apoint three miles above Distilleryville and moved obliquelydown and away from the stream, to strike the Covingtonturnpike at Jayhawk; the object being, as you know,to capture Covington, destroy Cincinnati and occupythe Ohio Valley. For some months there had beenin our front only a small brigade of undisciplinedtroops, apparently without a commander, who were usefulto us, for by not disturbing them we could create animpression of our weakness. But the movement onJayhawk having isolated them, I was about to detachan Alabama regiment to bring them in, my divisionbeing the leading one, when an earth-shaking rumblewas felt and heard, and suddenly the head-of-columnwas struck by one of the terrible tornadoes for whichthis region is famous, and utterly annihilated.The tornado, I believe, passed along the entire lengthof the road back to the ford, dispersing or destroyingour entire army; but of this I cannot be sure, forI was lifted from the earth insensible and blown backto the south side of the river. Continuous firingall night on the north side and the reports of suchof our men as have recrossed at the ford convinceme that the Yankee brigade has exterminated the disabledsurvivors. Our loss has been uncommonly heavy.Of my own division of 15,000 infantry, the casualties—killed,wounded, captured, and missing—are 14,994.Of General Dolliver Billow’s division, 11,200strong, I can find but two officers and a nigg*r cook.Of the artillery, 800 men, none has reported on thisside of the river. General Flood is dead.I have assumed command of the expeditionary force,but owing to the heavy losses have deemed it advisableto contract my line of supplies as rapidly as possible.I shall push southward to-morrow morning early.The purposes of the campaign have been as yet but partlyaccomplished.
From Major-General Dolliver Billows, C.S.A., tothe Confederate Secretary of War.
BUHAC, KENTUCKY, February 5, 1862.
... But during the 2d they had, unknown to us,been reinforced by fifty thousand cavalry, and beingapprised of our movement by a spy, this vast bodywas drawn up in the darkness at Jayhawk, and as thehead of our column reached that point at about 11P.M., fell upon it with astonishing fury, destroyingthe division of General Buxter in an instant.General Baumschank’s brigade of artillery, whichwas in the rear, may have escaped—I didnot wait to see, but withdrew my division to the riverat a point several miles above the ford, and at daylightferried it across on two fence rails lashed togetherwith a suspender. Its losses, from an effectivestrength of 11,200, are 11,199. General Buxteris dead. I am changing my base to Mobile, Alabama.
From Brigadier-General Schneddeker Baumschank,C.S.A., to the Confederate Secretary of War.
IODINE, KENTUCKY, February 6, 1862.
... Yoost den somdings occur, I know nod votit vos—somdings mackneefcent, but it vasnod vor—und I finds meinselluf, afder leedleviles, in dis blace, midout a hors und mit no men undgoons. Sheneral Peelows is deadt, You will bleasebe so goot as to resign me—I vights nomore in a dam gontry vere I gets vipped und knows nodhow it vos done.
Resolutions of Congress, February 15, 1862.
Resolved, That the thanks of Congress are due,and hereby tendered, to Brigadier-General JupiterDoke and the gallant men under his command for theirunparalleled feat of attacking—themselvesonly 2000 strong—an army of 25,000 menand utterly overthrowing it, killing 5327, makingprisoners of 19,003, of whom more than half were wounded,taking 32 guns, 20,000 stand of small arms and, inshort, the enemy’s entire equipment.
Resolved, That for this unexampled victorythe President be requested to designate a day of thanksgivingand public celebration of religious rites in the variouschurches.
Resolved, That he be requested, in furthercommemoration of the great event, and in reward ofthe gallant spirits whose deeds have added such imperishablelustre to the American arms, to appoint, with the adviceand consent of the Senate, the following officer:
One major-general.
Statement of Mr. Hannibal Alcazar Peyton, of Jayhawk,Kentucky.
Dat wus a almighty dark night, sho’, and deseyere ole eyes aint wuf shuks, but I’s got ayear like a sque’l, an’ w’en I cotchde mummer o’ v’ices I knowed dat gangb’long on de far side o’ de ribber.So I jes’ runs in de house an’ wakes MarseDoke an’ tells him: “Skin outer disfo’ yo’ life!” An’ de Lo’dbress my soul! ef dat man didn’ go right frude winder in his shir’ tail an’ breakfor to cross de mule patch! An’ dem twenty-freehunerd mules dey jes’ t’nk it is de debblehese’f wid de brandin’ iron, an’dey bu’st outen dat patch like a yarthquake,an’ pile inter de upper ford road, an’flash down it five deep, an’ it full o’Con-fed’rates from en’ to en’!...
THE WIDOWER TURMORE
The circ*mstances under which Joram Turmore becamea widower have never been popularly understood.I know them, naturally, for I am Joram Turmore; andmy wife, the late Elizabeth Mary Turmore, is by nomeans ignorant of them; but although she doubtlessrelates them, yet they remain a secret, for not asoul has ever believed her.
When I married Elizabeth Mary Johnin she was verywealthy, otherwise I could hardly have afforded tomarry, for I had not a cent, and Heaven had not putinto my heart any intention to earn one. I heldthe Professorship of Cats in the University of Graymaulkin,and scholastic pursuits had unfitted me for the heatand burden of business or labor. Moreover, Icould not forget that I was a Turmore—amember of a family whose motto from the time of Williamof Normandy has been Laborare est errare.The only known infraction of the sacred family traditionoccurred when Sir Aldebaran Turmore de Peters-Turmore,an illustrious master burglar of the seventeenth century,personally assisted at a difficult operation undertakenby some of his workmen. That blot upon our escutcheoncannot be contemplated without the most poignant mortification.
My incumbency of the Chair of Cats in the GraymaulkinUniversity had not, of course, been marked by anyinstance of mean industry. There had never, atany one time, been more than two students of the NobleScience, and by merely repeating the manuscript lecturesof my predecessor, which I had found among his effects(he died at sea on his way to Malta) I could sufficientlysate their famine for knowledge without really earningeven the distinction which served in place of salary.
Naturally, under the straitened circ*mstances, I regardedElizabeth Mary as a kind of special Providence.She unwisely refused to share her fortune with me,but for that I cared nothing; for, although by thelaws of that country (as is well known) a wife hascontrol of her separate property during her life,it passes to the husband at her death; nor can shedispose of it otherwise by will. The mortalityamong wives is considerable, but not excessive.
Having married Elizabeth Mary and, as it were, ennobledher by making her a Turmore, I felt that the mannerof her death ought, in some sense, to match her socialdistinction. If I should remove her by any ofthe ordinary marital methods I should incur a justreproach, as one destitute of a proper family pride.Yet I could not hit upon a suitable plan.
In this emergency I decided to consult the Turmorearchives, a priceless collection of documents, comprisingthe records of the family from the time of its founderin the seventh century of our era. I knew thatamong these sacred muniments I should find detailedaccounts of all the principal murders committed bymy sainted ancestors for forty generations. Fromthat mass of papers I could hardly fail to derive themost valuable suggestions.
The collection contained also most interesting relics.There were patents of nobility granted to my forefathersfor daring and ingenious removals of pretenders tothrones, or occupants of them; stars, crosses andother decorations attesting services of the most secretand unmentionable character; miscellaneous gifts fromthe world’s greatest conspirators, representingan intrinsic money value beyond computation.There were robes, jewels, swords of honor, and everykind of “testimonials of esteem”; a king’sskull fashioned into a wine cup; the title deeds tovast estates, long alienated by confiscation, sale,or abandonment; an illuminated breviary that had belongedto Sir Aldebaran Turmore de Peters-Turmore of accursedmemory; embalmed ears of several of the family’smost renowned enemies; the small intestine of a certainunworthy Italian statesman inimical to Turmores, which,twisted into a jumping rope, had served the youthof six kindred generations—mementoes andsouvenirs precious beyond the appraisals of imagination,but by the sacred mandates of tradition and sentimentforever inalienable by sale or gift.
As the head of the family, I was custodian of allthese priceless heirlooms, and for their safe keepinghad constructed in the basem*nt of my dwelling a strong-roomof massive masonry, whose solid stone walls and singleiron door could defy alike the earthquake’s shock,the tireless assaults of Time, and Cupidity’sunholy hand.
To this thesaurus of the soul, redolent of sentimentand tenderness, and rich in suggestions of crime,I now repaired for hints upon assassination.To my unspeakable astonishment and grief I found itempty! Every shelf, every chest, every cofferhad been rifled. Of that unique and incomparablecollection not a vestige remained! Yet I provedthat until I had myself unlocked the massive metaldoor, not a bolt nor bar had been disturbed; the sealsupon the lock had been intact.
I passed the night in alternate lamentation and research,equally fruitless, the mystery was impenetrable toconjecture, the pain invincible to balm. Butnever once throughout that dreadful night did my firmspirit relinquish its high design against ElizabethMary, and daybreak found me more resolute than beforeto harvest the fruits of my marriage. My greatloss seemed but to bring me into nearer spiritualrelations with my dead ancestors, and to lay upon mea new and more inevitable obedience to the suasionthat spoke in every globule of my blood.
My plan of action was soon formed, and procuring astout cord I entered my wife’s bedroom findingher, as I expected, in a sound sleep. Beforeshe was awake, I had her bound fast, hand and foot.She was greatly surprised and pained, but heedlessof her remonstrances, delivered in a high key, I carriedher into the now rifled strong-room, which I had neversuffered her to enter, and of whose treasures I hadnot apprised her. Seating her, still bound, inan angle of the wall, I passed the next two days andnights in conveying bricks and mortar to the spot,and on the morning of the third day had her securelywalled in, from floor to ceiling. All this timeI gave no further heed to her pleas for mercy than(on her assurance of non-resistance, which I am boundto say she honorably observed) to grant her the freedomof her limbs. The space allowed her was aboutfour feet by six. As I inserted the last bricksof the top course, in contact with the ceiling ofthe strong-room, she bade me farewell with what Ideemed the composure of despair, and I rested frommy work, feeling that I had faithfully observed thetraditions of an ancient and illustrious family.My only bitter reflection, so far as my own conductwas concerned, came of the consciousness that in theperformance of my design I had labored; but this noliving soul would ever know.
After a night’s rest I went to the Judge ofthe Court of Successions and Inheritances and madea true and sworn relation of all that I had done—exceptthat I ascribed to a servant the manual labor of buildingthe wall. His honor appointed a court commissioner,who made a careful examination of the work, and uponhis report Elizabeth Mary Turmore was, at the endof a week, formally pronounced dead. By due processof law I was put into possession of her estate, andalthough this was not by hundreds of thousands ofdollars as valuable as my lost treasures, it raisedme from poverty to affluence and brought me the respectof the great and good.
Some six months after these events strange rumorsreached me that the ghost of my deceased wife hadbeen seen in several places about the country, butalways at a considerable distance from Graymaulkin.These rumors, which I was unable to trace to any authenticsource, differed widely in many particulars, but werealike in ascribing to the apparition a certain highdegree of apparent worldly prosperity combined withan audacity most uncommon in ghosts. Not onlywas the spirit attired in most costly raiment, butit walked at noonday, and even drove! I was inexpressiblyannoyed by these reports, and thinking there mightbe something more than superstition in the popularbelief that only the spirits of the unburied deadstill walk the earth, I took some workmen equippedwith picks and crowbars into the now long unenteredstrong-room, and ordered them to demolish the brickwall that I had built about the partner of my joys.I was resolved to give the body of Elizabeth Marysuch burial as I thought her immortal part might bewilling to accept as an equivalent to the privilegeof ranging at will among the haunts of the living.
In a few minutes we had broken down the wall and,thrusting a lamp through the breach, I looked in.Nothing! Not a bone, not a lock of hair, nota shred of clothing—the narrow space which,upon my affidavit, had been legally declared to holdall that was mortal of the late Mrs. Turmore was absolutelyempty! This amazing disclosure, coming upon amind already overwrought with too much of mystery andexcitement, was more than I could bear. I shriekedaloud and fell in a fit. For months afterwardI lay between life and death, fevered and delirious;nor did I recover until my physician had had the providenceto take a case of valuable jewels from my safe andleave the country.
The next summer I had occasion to visit my wine cellar,in one corner of which I had built the now long disusedstrong-room. In moving a cask of Madeira I struckit with considerable force against the partition wall,and was surprised to observe that it displaced twolarge square stones forming a part of the wall.
Applying my hands to these, I easily pushed them outentirely, and looking through saw that they had falleninto the niche in which I had immured my lamentedwife; facing the opening which their fall left, andat a distance of four feet, was the brickwork whichmy own hands had made for that unfortunate gentlewoman’srestraint. At this significant revelation I begana search of the wine cellar. Behind a row of casksI found four historically interesting but intrinsicallyvalueless objects:
First, the mildewed remains of a ducal robe of state(Florentine) of the eleventh century; second, an illuminatedvellum breviary with the name of Sir Aldebaran Turmorede Peters-Turmore inscribed in colors on the titlepage; third, a human skull fashioned into a drinkingcup and deeply stained with wine; fourth, the ironcross of a Knight Commander of the Imperial AustrianOrder of Assassins by Poison.
That was all—not an object having commercialvalue, no papers—nothing. But thiswas enough to clear up the mystery of the strong-room.My wife had early divined the existence and purposeof that apartment, and with the skill amounting togenius had effected an entrance by loosening the twostones in the wall.
Through that opening she had at several times abstractedthe entire collection, which doubtless she had succeededin converting into coin of the realm. When withan unconscious justice which deprives me of all satisfactionin the memory I decided to build her into the wall,by some malign fatality I selected that part of itin which were these movable stones, and doubtlessbefore I had fairly finished my bricklaying she hadremoved them and, slipping through into the wine cellar,replaced them as they were originally laid. Fromthe cellar she had easily escaped unobserved, to enjoyher infamous gains in distant parts. I have endeavoredto procure a warrant, but the Lord High Baron of theCourt of Indictment and Conviction reminds me thatshe is legally dead, and says my only course is togo before the Master in Cadavery and move for a writof disinterment and constructive revival. So itlooks as if I must suffer without redress this greatwrong at the hands of a woman devoid alike of principleand shame.
THE CITY OF THE GONE AWAY
I was born of poor because honest parents, and untilI was twenty-three years old never knew the possibilitiesof happiness latent in another person’s coin.At that time Providence threw me into a deep sleepand revealed to me in a dream the folly of labor.“Behold,” said a vision of a holy hermit,“the poverty and squalor of your lot and listento the teachings of nature. You rise in the morningfrom your pallet of straw and go forth to your dailylabor in the fields. The flowers nod their headsin friendly salutation as you pass. The lark greetsyou with a burst of song. The early sun shedshis temperate beams upon you, and from the dewy grassyou inhale an atmosphere cool and grateful to yourlungs. All nature seems to salute you with thejoy of a generous servant welcoming a faithful master.You are in harmony with her gentlest mood and yoursoul sings within you. You begin your daily taskat the plow, hopeful that the noonday will fulfillthe promise of the morn, maturing the charms of thelandscape and confirming its benediction upon yourspirit. You follow the plow until fatigue invokesrepose, and seating yourself upon the earth at theend of your furrow you expect to enjoy in fulnessthe delights of which you did but taste.
“Alas! the sun has climbed into a brazen skyand his beams are become a torrent. The flowershave closed their petals, confining their perfumeand denying their colors to the eye. Coolnessno longer exhales from the grass: the dew hasvanished and the dry surface of the fields repeatsthe fierce heat of the sky. No longer the birdsof heaven salute you with melody, but the jay harshlyupbraids you from the edge of the copse. Unhappyman! all the gentle and healing ministrations of natureare denied you in punishment of your sin. Youhave broken the First Commandment of the Natural Decalogue:you have labored!”
Awakening from my dream, I collected my few belongings,bade adieu to my erring parents and departed out ofthat land, pausing at the grave of my grandfather,who had been a priest, to take an oath that never again,Heaven helping me, would I earn an honest penny.
How long I traveled I know not, but I came at lastto a great city by the sea, where I set up as a physician.The name of that place I do not now remember, forsuch were my activity and renown in my new professionthat the Aldermen, moved by pressure of public opinion,altered it, and thenceforth the place was known asthe City of the Gone Away. It is needless tosay that I had no knowledge of medicine, but by securingthe service of an eminent forger I obtained a diplomapurporting to have been granted by the Royal Quackeryof Charlatanic Empiricism at Hoodos, which, framedin immortelles and suspended by a bit of crepeto a willow in front of my office, attracted the ailingin great numbers. In connection with my dispensaryI conducted one of the largest undertaking establishmentsever known, and as soon as my means permitted, purchaseda wide tract of land and made it into a cemetery.I owned also some very profitable marble works onone side of the gateway to the cemetery, and on theother an extensive flower garden. My Mourner’sEmporium was patronized by the beauty, fashion andsorrow of the city. In short, I was in a veryprosperous way of business, and within a year was ableto send for my parents and establish my old fathervery comfortably as a receiver of stolen goods—anact which I confess was saved from the reproach offilial gratitude only by my exaction of all the profits.
But the vicissitudes of fortune are avoidable onlyby practice of the sternest indigence: humanforesight cannot provide against the envy of the godsand the tireless machinations of Fate. The wideningcircle of prosperity grows weaker as it spreads untilthe antagonistic forces which it has pushed back aremade powerful by compression to resist and finallyoverwhelm. So great grew the renown of my skillin medicine that patients were brought to me fromall the four quarters of the globe. Burdensomeinvalids whose tardiness in dying was a perpetual griefto their friends; wealthy testators whose legateeswere desirous to come by their own; superfluous childrenof penitent parents and dependent parents of frugalchildren; wives of husbands ambitious to remarry andhusbands of wives without standing in the courts ofdivorce—these and all conceivable classesof the surplus population were conducted to my dispensaryin the City of the Gone Away. They came in incalculablemultitudes.
Government agents brought me caravans of orphans,paupers, lunatics and all who had become a publiccharge. My skill in curing orphanism and pauperismwas particularly acknowledged by a grateful parliament.
Naturally, all this promoted the public prosperity,for although I got the greater part of the money thatstrangers expended in the city, the rest went intothe channels of trade, and I was myself a liberalinvestor, purchaser and employer, and a patron of thearts and sciences. The City of the Gone Awaygrew so rapidly that in a few years it had inclosedmy cemetery, despite its own constant growth.In that fact lay the lion that rent me.
The Aldermen declared my cemetery a public evil anddecided to take it from me, remove the bodies to anotherplace and make a park of it. I was to be paidfor it and could easily bribe the appraisers to fixa high price, but for a reason which will appear thedecision gave me little joy. It was in vain thatI protested against the sacrilege of disturbing theholy dead, although this was a powerful appeal, forin that land the dead are held in religious veneration.Temples are built in their honor and a separate priesthoodmaintained at the public expense, whose only dutyis performance of memorial services of the most solemnand touching kind. On four days in the year thereis a Festival of the Good, as it is called, when allthe people lay by their work or business and, headedby the priests, march in procession through the cemeteries,adorning the graves and praying in the temples.However bad a man’s life may be, it is believedthat when dead he enters into a state of eternal andinexpressible happiness. To signify a doubt ofthis is an offense punishable by death. To denyburial to the dead, or to exhume a buried body, exceptunder sanction of law by special dispensation and withsolemn ceremony, is a crime having no stated penaltybecause no one has ever had the hardihood to commitit.
All these considerations were in my favor, yet sowell assured were the people and their civic officersthat my cemetery was injurious to the public healththat it was condemned and appraised, and with terrorin my heart I received three times its value and beganto settle up my affairs with all speed.
A week later was the day appointed for the formalinauguration of the ceremony of removing the bodies.The day was fine and the entire population of thecity and surrounding country was present at the imposingreligious rites. These were directed by the mortuarypriesthood in full canonicals. There was propitiatorysacrifice in the Temples of the Once, followed bya processional pageant of great splendor, ending atthe cemetery. The Great Mayor in his robe of stateled the procession. He was armed with a goldenspade and followed by one hundred male and femalesingers, clad all in white and chanting the Hymn tothe Gone Away. Behind these came the minor priesthoodof the temples, all the civic authorities, habitedin their official apparel, each carrying a livingpig as an offering to the gods of the dead. Ofthe many divisions of the line, the last was formedby the populace, with uncovered heads, sifting dustinto their hair in token of humility. In frontof the mortuary chapel in the midst of the necropolis,the Supreme Priest stood in gorgeous vestments, supportedon each hand by a line of bishops and other high dignitariesof his prelacy, all frowning with the utmost austerity.As the Great Mayor paused in the Presence, the minorclergy, the civic authorities, the choir and populaceclosed in and encompassed the spot. The GreatMayor, laying his golden spade at the feet of theSupreme Priest, knelt in silence.
“Why comest thou here, presumptuous mortal?”said the Supreme Priest in clear, deliberate tones.“Is it thy unhallowed purpose with this implementto uncover the mysteries of death and break the reposeof the Good?”
The Great Mayor, still kneeling, drew from his robea document with portentous seals: “Behold,O ineffable, thy servant, having warrant of his people,entreateth at thy holy hands the custody of the Good,to the end and purpose that they lie in fitter earth,by consecration duly prepared against their coming.”
With that he placed in the sacerdotal hands the orderof the Council of Aldermen decreeing the removal.Merely touching the parchment, the Supreme Priestpassed it to the Head Necropolitan at his side, andraising his hands relaxed the severity of his countenanceand exclaimed: “The gods comply.”
Down the line of prelates on either side, his gesture,look and words were successively repeated. TheGreat Mayor rose to his feet, the choir began a solemnchant and, opportunely, a funeral car drawn by tenwhite horses with black plumes rolled in at the gateand made its way through the parting crowd to thegrave selected for the occasion—that ofa high official whom I had treated for chronic incumbency.The Great Mayor touched the grave with his goldenspade (which he then presented to the Supreme Priest)and two stalwart diggers with iron ones set vigorouslyto work.
At that moment I was observed to leave the cemeteryand the country; for a report of the rest of the proceedingsI am indebted to my sainted father, who related itin a letter to me, written in jail the night beforehe had the irreparable misfortune to take the kinkout of a rope.
As the workmen proceeded with their excavation, fourbishops stationed themselves at the corners of thegrave and in the profound silence of the multitude,broken otherwise only by the harsh grinding sound ofspades, repeated continuously, one after another, thesolemn invocations and responses from the Ritual ofthe Disturbed, imploring the blessed brother to forgive.But the blessed brother was not there. Full fathomtwo they mined for him in vain, then gave it up.The priests were visibly disconcerted, the populacewas aghast, for that grave was indubitably vacant.
After a brief consultation with the Supreme Priest,the Great Mayor ordered the workmen to open anothergrave. The ritual was omitted this time untilthe coffin should be uncovered. There was no coffin,no body.
The cemetery was now a scene of the wildest confusionand dismay. The people shouted and ran hitherand thither, gesticulating, clamoring, all talkingat once, none listening. Some ran for spades,fire-shovels, hoes, sticks, anything. Some broughtcarpenters’ adzes, even chisels from the marbleworks, and with these inadequate aids set to work uponthe first graves they came to. Others fell uponthe mounds with their bare hands, scraping away the
earth as eagerly as dogs digging for marmots.Before nightfall the surface of the greater part ofthe cemetery had been upturned; every grave had beenexplored to the bottom and thousands of men were tearingaway at the interspaces with as furious a frenzy asexhaustion would permit. As night came on torcheswere lighted, and in the sinister glare these franticmortals, looking like a legion of fiends performingsome unholy rite, pursued their disappointing workuntil they had devastated the entire area. Butnot a body did they find—not even a coffin.The explanation is exceedingly simple. An importantpart of my income had been derived from the sale ofcadavres to medical colleges, which never beforehad been so well supplied, and which, in added recognitionof my services to science, had all bestowed upon mediplomas, degrees and fellowships without number.But their demand for cadavres was unequal tomy supply: by even the most prodigal extravagancesthey could not consume the one-half of the productsof my skill as a physician. As to the rest, Ihad owned and operated the most extensive and thoroughlyappointed soapworks in all the country. The excellenceof my “Toilet hom*oline” was attested bycertificates from scores of the saintliest theologians,and I had one in autograph from Badelina Fatti themost famous living soaprano.
THE MAJOR’S TALE
In the days of the Civil War practical joking hadnot, I think, fallen into that disrepute which characterizesit now. That, doubtless, was owing to our extremeyouth—men were much younger than now, andevermore your very young man has a boisterous spirit,running easily to horse-play. You cannot thinkhow young the men were in the early sixties!Why, the average age of the entire Federal Army wasnot more than twenty-five; I doubt if it was morethan twenty-three, but not having the statistics onthat point (if there are any) I want to be moderate:we will say twenty-five. It is true a man of twenty-fivewas in that heroic time a good deal more of a manthan one of that age is now; you could see that bylooking at him. His face had nothing of thatunripeness so conspicuous in his successor. Inever see a young fellow now without observing howdisagreeably young he really is; but during the warwe did not think of a man’s age at all unlesshe happened to be pretty well along in life.In that case one could not help it, for the unlovelinessof age assailed the human countenance then much earlierthan now; the result, I suppose, of hard service—perhaps,to some extent, of hard drink, for, bless my soul!we did shed the blood of the grape and the grain abundantlyduring the war. I remember thinking General Grant,who could not have been more than forty, a pretty wellpreserved old chap, considering his habits. Asto men of middle age—say from fifty tosixty—why, they all looked fit to personatethe Last of the Hittites, or the Madagascarene Methuselah,in a museum. Depend upon it, my friends, menof that time were greatly younger than men are to-day,but looked much older. The change is quite remarkable.
I said that practical joking had not then gone outof fashion. It had not, at least, in the army;though possibly in the more serious life of the civilianit had no place except in the form of tarring andfeathering an occasional “copperhead.”You all know, I suppose, what a “copperhead”was, so I will go directly at my story without introductoryremark, as is my way.
It was a few days before the battle of Nashville.The enemy had driven us up out of northern Georgiaand Alabama. At Nashville we had turned at bayand fortified, while old Pap Thomas, our commander,hurried down reinforcements and supplies from Louisville.Meantime Hood, the Confederate commander, had partlyinvested us and lay close enough to have tossed shellsinto the heart of the town. As a rule he abstained—hewas afraid of killing the families of his own soldiers,I suppose, a great many of whom had lived there.I sometimes wondered what were the feelings of thosefellows, gazing over our heads at their own dwellings,where their wives and children or their aged parentswere perhaps suffering for the necessaries of life,and certainly (so their reasoning would run) coweringunder the tyranny and power of the barbarous Yankees.
To begin, then, at the beginning, I was serving atthat time on the staff of a division commander whosename I shall not disclose, for I am relating facts,and the person upon whom they bear hardest may havesurviving relatives who would not care to have himtraced. Our headquarters were in a large dwellingwhich stood just behind our line of works. Thishad been hastily abandoned by the civilian occupants,who had left everything pretty much as it was—hadno place to store it, probably, and trusted that Heavenwould preserve it from Federal cupidity and Confederateartillery. With regard to the latter we were assolicitous as they.
Rummaging about in some of the chambers and closetsone evening, some of us found an abundant supply oflady-gear—gowns, shawls, bonnets, hats,petticoats and the Lord knows what; I could not atthat time have named the half of it. The sightof all this pretty plunder inspired one of us withwhat he was pleased to call an “idea,”which, when submitted to the other scamps and scapegracesof the staff, met with instant and enthusiastic approval.We proceeded at once to act upon it for the undoingof one of our comrades.
Our selected victim was an aide, Lieutenant Haberton,so to call him. He was a good soldier—asgallant a chap as ever wore spurs; but he had an intolerableweakness: he was a lady-killer, and like mostof his class, even in those days, eager that all shouldknow it. He never tired of relating his amatoryexploits, and I need not say how dismal that kindof narrative is to all but the narrator. It wouldbe dismal even if sprightly and vivacious, for allmen are rivals in woman’s favor, and to relateyour successes to another man is to rouse in him a
dumb resentment, tempered by disbelief. You willnot convince him that you tell the tale for his entertainment;he will hear nothing in it but an expression of yourown vanity. Moreover, as most men, whether rakesor not, are willing to be thought rakes, he is verylikely to resent a stupid and unjust inference whichhe suspects you to have drawn from his reticence inthe matter of his own adventures—namely,that he has had none. If, on the other hand,he has had no scruple in the matter and his reticenceis due to lack of opportunity to talk, or of nimblenessin taking advantage of it, why, then he will be surlybecause you “have the floor” when he wantsit himself. There are, in short, no circ*mstancesunder which a man, even from the best of motives, orno motive at all, can relate his feats of love withoutdistinctly lowering himself in the esteem of his maleauditor; and herein lies a just punishment for suchas kiss and tell. In my younger days I was myselfnot entirely out of favor with the ladies, and havea memory stored with much concerning them which doubtlessI might put into acceptable narrative had I not undertakenanother tale, and if it were not my practice to relateone thing at a time, going straight away to the end,without digression.Lieutenant Haberton was, it must be confessed, a singularlyhandsome man with engaging manners. He was, Isuppose, judging from the imperfect view-point ofmy sex, what women call “fascinating.”Now, the qualities which make a man attractive toladies entail a double disadvantage. First, theyare of a sort readily discerned by other men, and bynone more readily than by those who lack them.Their possessor, being feared by all these, is habituallyslandered by them in self-defense. To all theladies in whose welfare they deem themselves entitledto a voice and interest they hint at the vices andgeneral unworth of the “ladies’ man”in no uncertain terms, and to their wives relate withoutshame the most monstrous falsehoods about him.Nor are they restrained by the consideration thathe is their friend; the qualities which have engagedtheir own admiration make it necessary to warn awaythose to whom the allurement would be a peril.So the man of charming personality, while loved byall the ladies who know him well, yet not too well,must endure with such fortitude as he may the consciousnessthat those others who know him only “by reputation”consider him a shameless reprobate, a vicious andunworthy man—a type and example of moraldepravity. To name the second disadvantage entailedby his charms: he commonly is.
In order to get forward with our busy story (and inmy judgment a story once begun should not suffer impedition)it is necessary to explain that a young fellow attachedto our headquarters as an orderly was notably effeminatein face and figure. He was not more than seventeenand had a perfectly smooth face and large lustrouseyes, which must have been the envy of many a beautifulwoman in those days. And how beautiful the womenof those days were! and how gracious! Those ofthe South showed in their demeanor toward us Yankeessomething of hauteur, but, for my part, I foundit less insupportable than the studious indifferencewith which one’s attentions are received bythe ladies of this new generation, whom I certainlythink destitute of sentiment and sensibility.
This young orderly, whose name was Arman, we persuaded—bywhat arguments I am not bound to say—toclothe himself in female attire and personate a lady.When we had him arrayed to our satisfaction—anda charming girl he looked—he was conductedto a sofa in the office of the adjutant-general.That officer was in the secret, as indeed were allexcepting Haberton and the general; within the awfuldignity hedging the latter lay possibilities of disapprovalwhich we were unwilling to confront.
When all was ready I went to Haberton and said:“Lieutenant, there is a young woman in the adjutant-general’soffice. She is the daughter of the insurgentgentleman who owns this house, and has, I think, calledto see about its present occupancy. We none ofus know just how to talk to her, but we think perhapsyou would say about the right thing—at leastyou will say things in the right way. Would youmind coming down?”
The lieutenant would not mind; he made a hasty toiletand joined me. As we were going along a passagetoward the Presence we encountered a formidable obstacle—thegeneral.
“I say, Broadwood,” he said, addressingme in the familiar manner which meant that he wasin excellent humor, “there’s a lady inLawson’s office. Looks like a devilishfine girl—came on some errand of mercy orjustice, no doubt. Have the goodness to conducther to my quarters. I won’t saddle youyoungsters with all the business of this division,”he added facetiously.
This was awkward; something had to be done.
“General,” I said, “I did not thinkthe lady’s business of sufficient importanceto bother you with it. She is one of the SanitaryCommission’s nurses, and merely wants to seeabout some supplies for the smallpox hospital whereshe is on duty. I’ll send her in at once.”
“You need not mind,” said the general,moving on; “I dare say Lawson will attend tothe matter.”
Ah, the gallant general! how little I thought, asI looked after his retreating figure and laughed atthe success of my ruse, that within the week he wouldbe “dead on the field of honor!” Nor washe the only one of our little military household abovewhom gloomed the shadow of the death angel, and whomight almost have heard “the beating of his wings.”On that bleak December morning a few days later, whenfrom an hour before dawn until ten o’clock wesat on horseback on those icy hills, waiting for GeneralSmith to open the battle miles away to the right,there were eight of us. At the close of the fightingthere were three. There is now one. Bearwith him yet a little while, oh, thrifty generation;he is but one of the horrors of war strayed from hisera into yours. He is only the harmless skeletonat your feast and peace-dance, responding to yourlaughter and your footing it featly, with rattlingfingers and bobbing skull—albeit upon suitableoccasion, with a partner of his choosing, he mightdo his little dance with the best of you.
As we entered the adjutant-general’s officewe observed that the entire staff was there.The adjutant-general himself was exceedingly busy athis desk. The commissary of subsistence playedcards with the surgeon in a bay window. The restwere in several parts of the room, reading or conversingin low tones. On a sofa in a half lighted nookof the room, at some distance from any of the groups,sat the “lady,” closely veiled, her eyesmodestly fixed upon her toes.
“Madam,” I said, advancing with Haberton,“this officer will be pleased to serve you ifit is in his power. I trust that it is.”
With a bow I retired to the farther corner of theroom and took part in a conversation going on there,though I had not the faintest notion what it was about,and my remarks had no relevancy to anything under theheavens. A close observer would have noticed thatwe were all intently watching Haberton and only “makingbelieve” to do anything else.
He was worth watching, too; the fellow was simplyan edition de luxe of “Turveydrop onDeportment.” As the “lady” slowlyunfolded her tale of grievances against our lawlesssoldiery and mentioned certain instances of wantondisregard of property rights—among them,as to the imminent peril of bursting our sides wepartly overheard, the looting of her own wardrobe—thelook of sympathetic agony in Haberton’s handsomeface was the very flower and fruit of histrionic art.His deferential and assenting nods at her severalstatements were so exquisitely performed that onecould not help regretting their unsubstantial natureand the impossibility of preserving them under glassfor instruction and delight of posterity. Andall the time the wretch was drawing his chair nearerand nearer. Once or twice he looked about to seeif we were observing, but we were in appearance blanklyoblivious to all but one another and our several diversions.The low hum of our conversation, the gentle tap-tapof the cards as they fell in play and the furious scratchingof the adjutant-general’s pen as he turned offcountless pages of words without sense were the onlysounds heard. No—there was another:at long intervals the distant boom of a heavy gun,followed by the approaching rush of the shot.The enemy was amusing himself.
On these occasions the lady was perhaps not the onlymember of that company who was startled, but she wasstartled more than the others, sometimes rising fromthe sofa and standing with clasped hands, the authenticportrait of terror and irresolution. It was nomore than natural that Haberton should at these timesreseat her with infinite tenderness, assuring herof her safety and regretting her peril in the samebreath. It was perhaps right that he should finallypossess himself of her gloved hand and a seat besideher on the sofa; but it certainly was highly improperfor him to be in the very act of possessing himselfof both hands when—boom, whiz,BANG!
We all sprang to our feet. A shell had crashedinto the house and exploded in the room above us.Bushels of plaster fell among us. That modestand murmurous young lady sprang erect.
“Jumping Jee-rusalem!” she cried.
Haberton, who had also risen, stood as one petrified—asa statue of himself erected on the site of his assassination.He neither spoke, nor moved, nor once took his eyesoff the face of Orderly Arman, who was now flinginghis girl-gear right and left, exposing his charms inthe most shameless way; while out upon the night andaway over the lighted camps into the black spacesbetween the hostile lines rolled the billows of ourinexhaustible laughter! Ah, what a merry lifeit was in the old heroic days when men had not forgottenhow to laugh!
Haberton slowly came to himself. He looked aboutthe room less blankly; then by degrees fashioned hisvisage into the sickliest grin that ever libeled allsmiling. He shook his head and looked knowing.
“You can’t fool me!” he said.
CURRIED COW
My Aunt Patience, who tilled a small farm in the stateof Michigan, had a favorite cow. This creaturewas not a good cow, nor a profitable one, for insteadof devoting a part of her leisure to secretion of milkand production of veal she concentrated all her facultieson the study of kicking. She would kick all dayand get up in the middle of the night to kick.She would kick at anything—hens, pigs, posts,loose stones, birds in the air and fish leaping outof the water; to this impartial and catholic-mindedbeef, all were equal—all similarly undeserving.Like old Timotheus, who “raised a mortal tothe skies,” was my Aunt Patience’s cow;though, in the words of a later poet than Dryden, shedid it “more harder and more frequently.”It was pleasing to see her open a passage for herselfthrough a populous barnyard. She would flashout, right and left, first with one hind-leg and thenwith the other, and would sometimes, under favoringconditions, have a considerable number of domesticanimals in the air at once.
Her kicks, too, were as admirable in quality as inexhaustiblein quantity. They were incomparably superiorto those of the untutored kine that had not made theart a life study—mere amateurs that kicked“by ear,” as they say in music. Isaw her once standing in the road, professedly fastasleep, and mechanically munching her cud with a sortof Sunday morning lassitude, as one munches one’scud in a dream. Snouting about at her side, blissfullyunconscious of impending danger and wrapped up inthoughts of his sweetheart, was a gigantic black hog—ahog of about the size and general appearance of a yearlingrhinoceros. Suddenly, while I looked—withouta visible movement on the part of the cow—withnever a perceptible tremor of her frame, nor a lapsein the placid regularity of her chewing—thathog had gone away from there—had utterlytaken his leave. But away toward the pale horizona minute black speck was traversing the empyrean withthe speed of a meteor, and in a moment had disappeared,without audible report, beyond the distant hills.It may have been that hog.
Currying cows is not, I think, a common practice,even in Michigan; but as this one had never neededmilking, of course she had to be subjected to someequivalent form of persecution; and irritating herskin with a currycomb was thought as disagreeablean attention as a thoughtful affection could devise.At least she thought it so; though I suspect her mistressreally meant it for the good creature’s temporaladvantage. Anyhow my aunt always made it a conditionto the employment of a farm-servant that he shouldcurry the cow every morning; but after just enoughtrials to convince himself that it was not a suddenspasm, nor a mere local disturbance, the man wouldalways give notice of an intention to quit, by poundingthe beast half-dead with some foreign body and thenlimping home to his couch. I don’t knowhow many men the creature removed from my aunt’semploy in this way, but judging from the number oflame persons in that part of the country, I shouldsay a good many; though some of the lameness may havebeen taken at second-hand from the original sufferersby their descendants, and some may have come by contagion.
I think my aunt’s was a faulty system of agriculture.It is true her farm labor cost her nothing, for thelaborers all left her service before any salary hadaccrued; but as the cow’s fame spread abroadthrough the several States and Territories, it becameincreasingly difficult to obtain hands; and, afterall, the favorite was imperfectly curried. Itwas currently remarked that the cow had kicked thefarm to pieces—a rude metaphor, implyingthat the land was not properly cultivated, nor thebuildings and fences kept in adequate repair.
It was useless to remonstrate with my aunt: shewould concede everything, amending nothing. Herlate husband had attempted to reform the abuse inthis manner, and had had the argument all his own wayuntil he had remonstrated himself into an early grave;and the funeral was delayed all day, until a freshundertaker could be procured, the one originally engagedhaving confidingly undertaken to curry the cow at therequest of the widow.
Since that time my Aunt Patience had not been in thematrimonial market; the love of that cow had usurpedin her heart the place of a more natural and profitableaffection. But when she saw her seeds unsown,her harvests ungarnered, her fences overtopped withrank brambles and her meadows gorgeous with the toweringCanada thistle she thought it best to take a partner.
When it transpired that my Aunt Patience intendedwedlock there was intense popular excitement.Every adult single male became at once a marryingman. The criminal statistics of Badger countyshow that in that single year more marriages occurredthan in any decade before or since. But noneof them was my aunt’s. Men married theircooks, their laundresses, their deceased wives’mothers, their enemies’ sisters—marriedwhomsoever would wed; and any man who, by fair meansor courtship, could not obtain a wife went beforea justice of the peace and made an affidavit thathe had some wives in Indiana. Such was the fearof being married alive by my Aunt Patience.
Now, where my aunt’s affection was concernedshe was, as the reader will have already surmised,a rather determined woman; and the extraordinary marryingepidemic having left but one eligible male in all thatcounty, she had set her heart upon that one eligiblemale; then she went and carted him to her home.He turned out to be a long Methodist parson, namedHuggins.
Aside from his unconscionable length, the Rev. BerosusHuggins was not so bad a fellow, and was nobody’sfool. He was, I suppose, the most ill-favoredmortal, however, in the whole northern half of America—thin,angular, cadaverous of visage and solemn out of allreason. He commonly wore a low-crowned black hat,set so far down upon his head as partly to eclipsehis eyes and wholly obscure the ample glory of hisears. The only other visible article of his attire(except a brace of wrinkled cowskin boots, by whichthe word “polish” would have been consideredthe meaningless fragment of a lost language) was atight-fitting black frock-coat, preternaturally longin the waist, the skirts of which fell about his heels,sopping up the dew. This he always wore snuglybuttoned from the throat downward. In this attirehe cut a tolerably spectral figure. His aspectwas so conspicuously unnatural and inhuman that wheneverhe went into a cornfield, the predatory crows wouldtemporarily forsake their business to settle upon himin swarms, fighting for the best seats upon his person,by way of testifying their contempt for the weak inventionsof the husbandman.
The day after the wedding my Aunt Patience summonedthe Rev. Berosus to the council chamber, and utteredher mind to the following intent:
“Now, Huggy, dear, I’ll tell you whatthere is to do about the place. First, you mustrepair all the fences, clearing out the weeds andrepressing the brambles with a strong hand. Thenyou will have to exterminate the Canadian thistles,mend the wagon, rig up a plow or two, and get thingsinto ship-shape generally. This will keep youout of mischief for the better part of two years;of course you will have to give up preaching, forthe present. As soon as you have—O!I forgot poor Phoebe. She”——
“Mrs. Huggins,” interrupted her solemnspouse, “I shall hope to be the means, underProvidence, of effecting all needful reforms in thehusbandry of this farm. But the sister you mention(I trust she is not of the world’s people)—haveI the pleasure of knowing her? The name, indeed,sounds familiar, but”——
“Not know Phoebe!” cried my aunt, withunfeigned astonishment; “I thought everybodyin Badger knew Phoebe. Why, you will have to scratchher legs, every blessed morning of your natural life!”
“I assure you, madam,” rejoined the Rev.Berosus, with dignity, “it would yield me ahallowed pleasure to minister to the spiritual needsof sister Phoebe, to the extent of my feeble and unworthyability; but, really, I fear the merely secular ministrationof which you speak must be entrusted to abler and,I would respectfully suggest, female hands.”
“Whyyy, youuu ooold, foooool!” repliedmy aunt, spreading her eyes with unbounded amazement,“Phoebe is a cow!”
“In that case,” said the husband, withunruffled composure, “it will, of course, devolveupon me to see that her carnal welfare is properlyattended to; and I shall be happy to bestow upon herlegs such time as I may, without sin, snatch frommy strife with Satan and the Canadian thistles.”
With that the Rev. Mr. Huggins crowded his hat uponhis shoulders, pronounced a brief benediction uponhis bride, and betook himself to the barn-yard.
Now, it is necessary to explain that he had knownfrom the first who Phoebe was, and was familiar, fromhearsay, with all her sinful traits. Moreover,he had already done himself the honor of making hera visit, remaining in the vicinity of her person,just out of range, for more than an hour and permittingher to survey him at her leisure from every pointof the compass. In short, he and Phoebe had mutuallyreconnoitered and prepared for action.
Amongst the articles of comfort and luxury which wentto make up the good parson’s dot, andwhich his wife had already caused to be conveyed tohis new home, was a patent cast-iron pump, about sevenfeet high. This had been deposited near the barn-yard,preparatory to being set up on the planks above thebarn-yard well. Mr. Huggins now sought out thisinvention and conveying it to its destination put itinto position, screwing it firmly to the planks.He next divested himself of his long gaberdine andhis hat, buttoning the former loosely about the pump,which it almost concealed, and hanging the latter uponthe summit of the structure. The handle of thepump, when depressed, curved outwardly between thecoat-skirts, singularly like a tail, but with thisinconspicuous exception, any unprejudiced observerwould have pronounced the thing Mr. Huggins, lookinguncommonly well.
The preliminaries completed, the good man carefullyclosed the gate of the barnyard, knowing that as soonas Phoebe, who was campaigning in the kitchen garden,should note the precaution she would come and jumpin to frustrate it, which eventually she did.Her master, meanwhile, had laid himself, coatlessand hatless, along the outside of the close boardfence, where he put in the time pleasantly, catchinghis death of cold and peering through a knot-hole.
At first, and for some time, the animal pretendednot to see the figure on the platform. Indeedshe had turned her back upon it directly she arrived,affecting a light sleep. Finding that this stratagemdid not achieve the success that she had expected,she abandoned it and stood for several minutes irresolute,munching her cud in a half-hearted way, but obviouslythinking very hard. Then she began nosing alongthe ground as if wholly absorbed in a search for somethingthat she had lost, tacking about hither and thither,but all the time drawing nearer to the object of her
wicked intention. Arrived within speaking distance,she stood for a little while confronting the fraudfulfigure, then put out her nose toward it, as if tobe caressed, trying to create the impression thatfondling and dalliance were more to her than wealth,power and the plaudits of the populace—thatshe had been accustomed to them all her sweet younglife and could not get on without them. Thenshe approached a little nearer, as if to shake hands,all the while maintaining the most amiable expressionof countenance and executing all manner of seductivenods and winks and smiles. Suddenly she wheeledabout and with the rapidity of lightning dealt outa terrible kick—a kick of inconceivableforce and fury, comparable to nothing in nature buta stroke of paralysis out of a clear sky!The effect was magical! Cows kick, not backwardbut sidewise. The impact which was intended toproject the counterfeit theologian into the middleof the succeeding conference week reacted upon theanimal herself, and it and the pain together set herspinning like a top. Such was the velocity ofher revolution that she looked like a dim, circularcow, surrounded by a continuous ring like that ofthe planet Saturn—the white tuft at theextremity of her sweeping tail! Presently, asthe sustaining centrifugal force lessened and failed,she began to sway and wabble from side to side, andfinally, toppling over on her side, rolled convulsivelyon her back and lay motionless with all her feet inthe air, honestly believing that the world had somehowgot atop of her and she was supporting it at a greatsacrifice of personal comfort. Then she fainted.
How long she lay unconscious she knew not, but atlast she unclosed her eyes, and catching sight ofthe open door of her stall, “more sweet thanall the landscape smiling near,” she struggledup, stood wavering upon three legs, rubbed her eyes,and was visibly bewildered as to the points of thecompass. Observing the iron clergyman standingfast by its faith, she threw it a look of grievedreproach and hobbled heart-broken into her humblehabitation, a subjugated cow.
For several weeks Phoebe’s right hind leg wasswollen to a monstrous growth, but by a season ofjudicious nursing she was “brought round allright,” as her sympathetic and puzzled mistressphrased it, or “made whole,” as the reticentman of God preferred to say. She was now as tractableand inoffensive “in her daily walk and conversation”(Huggins) as a little child. Her new master usedto take her ailing leg trustfully into his lap, andfor that matter, might have taken it into his mouthif he had so desired. Her entire character appearedto be radically changed—so altered thatone day my Aunt Patience, who, fondly as she lovedher, had never before so much as ventured to touchthe hem of her garment, as it were, went confidentlyup to her to soothe her with a pan of turnips.Gad! how thinly she spread out that good old lady uponthe face of an adjacent stone wall! You couldnot have done it so evenly with a trowel.
A REVOLT OF THE GODS
My father was a deodorizer of dead dogs, my motherkept the only shop for the sale of cats’-meatin my native city. They did not live happily;the difference in social rank was a chasm which couldnot be bridged by the vows of marriage. It wasindeed an ill-assorted and most unlucky alliance;and as might have been foreseen it ended in disaster.One morning after the customary squabbles at breakfast,my father rose from the table, quivering and palewith wrath, and proceeding to the parsonage thrashedthe clergyman who had performed the marriage ceremony.The act was generally condemned and public feelingran so high against the offender that people wouldpermit dead dogs to lie on their property until thefragrance was deafening rather than employ him; andthe municipal authorities suffered one bloated oldmastiff to utter itself from a public square in soclamorous an exhalation that passing strangers supposedthemselves to be in the vicinity of a saw-mill.My father was indeed unpopular. During thesedark days the family’s sole dependence was onmy mother’s emporium for cats’-meat.
The business was profitable. In that city, whichwas the oldest in the world, the cat was an objectof veneration. Its worship was the religion ofthe country. The multiplication and addition ofcats were a perpetual instruction in arithmetic.Naturally, any inattention to the wants of a cat waspunished with great severity in this world and thenext; so my good mother numbered her patrons by thehundred. Still, with an unproductive husbandand seventeen children she had some difficulty inmaking both ends cats’-meat; and at last thenecessity of increasing the discrepancy between thecost price and the selling price of her carnal waresdrove her to an expedient which proved eminently disastrous:she conceived the unlucky notion of retaliating byrefusing to sell cats’-meat until the boycottwas taken off her husband.
On the day when she put this resolution into practicethe shop was thronged with excited customers, andothers extended in turbulent and restless masses upfour streets, out of sight. Inside there was nothingbut cursing, crowding, shouting and menace. Intimidationwas freely resorted to—several of my youngerbrothers and sisters being threatened with cuttingup for the cats—but my mother was as firmas a rock, and the day was a black one for Sardasa,the ancient and sacred city that was the scene ofthese events. The lock-out was vigorously maintained,and seven hundred and fifty thousand cats went to bedhungry!
The next morning the city was found to have been placardedduring the night with a proclamation of the FederatedUnion of Old Maids. This ancient and powerfulorder averred through its Supreme Executive Head thatthe boycotting of my father and the retaliatory lock-outof my mother were seriously imperiling the interestsof religion. The proclamation went on to statethat if arbitration were not adopted by noon thatday all the old maids of the federation would strike—andstrike they did.
The next act of this unhappy drama was an insurrectionof cats. These sacred animals, seeing themselvesdoomed to starvation, held a mass-meeting and marchedin procession through the streets, swearing and spittinglike fiends. This revolt of the gods producedsuch consternation that many pious persons died offright and all business was suspended to bury themand pass terrifying resolutions.
Matters were now about as bad as it seemed possiblefor them to be. Meetings among representativesof the hostile interests were held, but no understandingwas arrived at that would hold. Every agreementwas broken as soon as made, and each element of thediscord was frantically appealing to the people.A new horror was in store.
It will be remembered that my father was a deodorizerof dead dogs, but was unable to practice his usefuland humble profession because no one would employhim. The dead dogs in consequence reeked rascally.Then they struck! From every vacant lot and publicdumping ground, from every hedge and ditch and gutterand cistern, every crystal rill and the clabberedwaters of all the canals and estuaries—fromall the places, in short, which from time immemorialhave been preempted by dead dogs and consecrated tothe uses of them and their heirs and successors forever—theytrooped innumerous, a ghastly crew! Their processionwas a mile in length. Midway of the town it metthe procession of cats in full song. The catsinstantly exalted their backs and magnified their tails;the dead dogs uncovered their teeth as in life, anderected such of their bristles as still adhered tothe skin.
The carnage that ensued was too awful for relation!The light of the sun was obscured by flying fur, andthe battle was waged in the darkness, blindly andregardless. The swearing of the cats was audiblemiles away, while the fragrance of the dead dogs desolatedseven provinces.
How the battle might have resulted it is impossibleto say, but when it was at its fiercest the FederatedUnion of Old Maids came running down a side streetand sprang into the thickest of the fray. A momentlater my mother herself bore down upon the warringhosts, brandishing a cleaver, and laid about her withgreat freedom and impartiality. My father joinedthe fight, the municipal authorities engaged, and thegeneral public, converging on the battle-field fromall points of the compass, consumed itself in thecenter as it pressed in from the circumference.Last of all, the dead held a meeting in the cemeteryand resolving on a general strike, began to destroyvaults, tombs, monuments, headstones, willows, angelsand young sheep in marble—everything theycould lay their hands on. By nightfall the livingand the dead were alike exterminated, and where theancient and sacred city of Sardasa had stood nothingremained but an excavation filled with dead bodiesand building materials, shreds of cat and blue patchesof decayed dog. The place is now a vast pool ofstagnant water in the center of a desert.
The stirring events of those few days constitutedmy industrial education, and so well have I improvedmy advantages that I am now Chief of Misrule to theDukes of Disorder, an organization numbering thirteenmillion American workingmen.
THE BAPTISM OF DOBSHO
It was a wicked thing to do, certainly. I haveoften regretted it since, and if the opportunity ofdoing so again were presented I should hesitate along time before embracing it. But I was youngthen, and cherished a species of humor which I havesince abjured. Still, when I remember the characterof the people who were burlesquing and bringing intodisrepute the letter and spirit of our holy religionI feel a certain satisfaction in having contributedone feeble effort toward making them ridiculous.In consideration of the little good I may have donein that way, I beg the reader to judge my concedederror as leniently as possible. This is the story.
Some years ago the town of Harding, in Illinois, experienced“a revival of religion,” as the peoplecalled it. It would have been more accurate andless profane to term it a revival of Rampageanism,for the craze originated in, and was disseminatedby, the sect which I will call the Rampagean communion;and most of the leaping and howling was done in thatinterest. Amongst those who yielded to the influencewas my friend Thomas Dobsho. Tom had been a prettybad sinner in a small way, but he went into this newthing heart and soul. At one of the meetings hemade a public confession of more sins than he everwas, or ever could have been guilty of; stopping justshort of statutory crimes, and even hinting, significantly,that he could tell a good deal more if he were pressed.He wanted to join the absurd communion the very eveningof his conversion. He wanted to join two or threecommunions. In fact, he was so carried away withhis zeal that some of the brethren gave me a hintto take him home; he and I occupied adjoining apartmentsin the Elephant Hotel.
Tom’s fervor, as it happened, came near defeatingits own purpose; instead of taking him at once intothe fold without reference or “character,”which was their usual way, the brethren rememberedagainst him his awful confessions and put him on probation.But after a few weeks, during which he conducted himselflike a decent lunatic, it was decided to baptise himalong with a dozen other pretty hard cases who hadbeen converted more recently. This sacrilegiousceremony I persuaded myself it was my duty to prevent,though I think now I erred as to the means adopted.It was to take place on a Sunday, and on the precedingSaturday I called on the head revivalist, the Rev.Mr. Swin, and craved an interview.
“I come,” said I, with simulated reluctanceand embarrassment, “in behalf of my friend,Brother Dobsho, to make a very delicate and unusualrequest. You are, I think, going to baptise himto-morrow, and I trust it will be to him the beginningof a new and better life. But I don’t knowif you are aware that his family are all Plungers,and that he is himself tainted with the wicked heresyof that sect. So it is. He is, as one mightsay in secular metaphor, ‘on the fence’between their grievous error and the pure faith ofyour church. It would be most melancholy if heshould get down on the wrong side. Although Iconfess with shame I have not myself embraced thetruth, I hope I am not too blind to see where it lies.”
“The calamity that you apprehend,” saidthe reverend lout, after solemn reflection, “wouldindeed seriously affect our friend’s interestand endanger his soul. I had not expected BrotherDobsho so soon to give up the good fight.”
“I think sir,” I replied reflectively,“there is no fear of that if the matter is skilfullymanaged. He is heartily with you—mightI venture to say with us—on everypoint but one. He favors immersion! He hasbeen so vile a sinner that he foolishly fears themore simple rite of your church will not make himwet enough. Would you believe it? his uninstructedscruples on the point are so gross and materialisticthat he actually suggested soaping himself as a preparatoryceremony! I believe, however, if instead of sprinklingmy friend, you would pour a generous basinful of wateron his head—but now that I think of it inyour enlightening presence I see that such a proceedingis quite out of the question. I fear we mustlet matters take the usual course, trusting to ourlater efforts to prevent the backsliding which mayresult.”
The parson rose and paced the floor a moment, thensuggested that he’d better see Brother Dobsho,and labor to remove his error. I told him I thoughtnot; I was sure it would not be best. Argumentwould only confirm him in his prejudices. Soit was settled that the subject should not be broachedin that quarter. It would have been bad for meif it had been.
When I reflect now upon the guile of that conversation,the falsehood of my representations and the wickednessof my motive I am almost ashamed to proceed with mynarrative. Had the minister been other than anarrant humbug, I hope I should never have sufferedmyself to make him the dupe of a scheme so sacrilegiousin itself, and prosecuted with so sinful a disregardof honor.
The memorable Sabbath dawned bright and beautiful.About nine o’clock the cracked old bell, riggedup on struts before the “meeting-house,”began to clamor its call to service, and nearly thewhole population of Harding took its way to the performance.I had taken the precaution to set my watch fifteenminutes fast. Tom was nervously preparing himselffor the ordeal. He fidgeted himself into his best
suit an hour before the time, carried his hat aboutthe room in the most aimless and demented way andconsulted his watch a hundred times. I was toaccompany him to church, and I spent the time fussingabout the room, doing the most extraordinary thingsin the most exasperating manner—in short,keeping up Tom’s feverish excitement by everywicked device I could think of. Within a halfhour of the real time for service I suddenly yelledout—“O, I say, Tom; pardon me, but that head ofyours is just frightful! Please do letme brush it up a bit!”
Seizing him by the shoulders I thrust him into a chairwith his face to the wall, laid hold of his comb andbrush, got behind him and went to work. He wastrembling like a child, and knew no more what I wasdoing than if he had been brained. Now, Tom’shead was a curiosity. His hair, which was remarkablythick, was like wire. Being cut rather short itstood out all over his scalp like the spines on a porcupine.It had been a favorite complaint of Tom’s thathe never could do anything to that head. I foundno difficulty—I did something to it, thoughI blush to think what it was. I did somethingwhich I feared he might discover if he looked in themirror, so I carelessly pulled out my watch, sprungit open, gave a start and shouted—
“By Jove! Thomas—pardon theoath—but we’re late. Your watchis all wrong; look at mine! Here’s yourhat, old fellow; come along. There’s nota moment to lose!”
Clapping his hat on his head, I pulled him out ofthe house, with actual violence. In five minutesmore we were in the meeting-house with ever so muchtime to spare.
The services that day, I am told, were specially interestingand impressive, but I had a good deal else on my mind—waspreoccupied, absent, inattentive. They mighthave varied from the usual profane exhibition in anyrespect and to any extent, and I should not have observedit. The first thing I clearly perceived was arank of “converts” kneeling before the“altar,” Tom at the left of the line.Then the Rev. Mr. Swin approached him, thoughtfullydipping his fingers into a small earthern bowl ofwater as if he had just finished dining. I wasmuch affected: I could see nothing distinctlyfor my tears. My handkerchief was at my face—mostof it inside. I was observed to sob spasmodically,and I am abashed to think how many sincere personsmistakenly followed my example.
With some solemn words, the purport of which I didnot quite make out, except that they sounded likeswearing, the minister stood before Thomas, gave mea glance of intelligence and then with an innocentexpression of face, the recollection of which to thisday fills me with remorse, spilled, as if by accident,the entire contents of the bowl on the head of mypoor friend—that head into the hair of whichI had sifted a prodigal profusion of Seidlitz-powders!
I confess it, the effect was magical—anyonewho was present would tell you that. Tom’spow simmered—it seethed—it foamedyeastily, and slavered like a mad dog! It steamedand hissed, with angry spurts and flashes! Ina second it had grown bigger than a small snowbank,and whiter. It surged, and boiled, and walloped,and overflowed, and sputtered—sent offfeathery flakes like down from a shot swan! Thefroth poured creaming over his face, and got into hiseyes. It was the most sinful shampooing of theseason!
I cannot relate the commotion this produced, nor wouldI if I could. As to Tom, he sprang to his feetand staggered out of the house, groping his way betweenthe pews, sputtering strangled profanity and gaspinglike a stranded fish. The other candidates forbaptism rose also, shaking their pates as if to say,“No you don’t, my hearty,” and leftthe house in a body. Amidst unbroken silence theminister reascended the pulpit with the empty bowlin his hand, and was first to speak:
“Brethren and sisters,” said he with calm,deliberate evenness of tone, “I have held forthin this tabernacle for many more years than I havegot fingers and toes, and during that time I have knownnot guile, nor anger, nor any uncharitableness.As to Henry Barber, who put up this job on me, I judgehim not lest I be judged. Let him take thatand sin no more!”—and he flung theearthern bowl with so true an aim that it was shatteredagainst my skull. The rebuke was not undeserved,I confess, and I trust I have profited by it.
THE RACE AT LEFT BOWER
“It’s all very well fer you Britishersto go assin’ about the country tryin’to strike the trail o’ the mines you’vesalted down yer loose carpital in,” said ColonelJackhigh, setting his empty glass on the counter andwiping his lips with his coat sleeve; “but w’enit comes to hoss racin’, w’y I’vegot a cayuse ken lay over all the thurrerbreds yerlittle mantel-ornyment of a island ever panned out—betyer britches I have! Talk about yer Durby winners—w’ythis pisen little beast o’ mine’ll takethe bit in her teeth and show ’em the way tothe horizon like she was takin’ her mornin’stroll and they was tryin’ to keep an eye onher to see she didn’t do herself an injury—that’sw’at she would! And she haint never runa race with anything spryer’n an Injun in allher life; she’s a green amatoor, she is!”
“Oh, very well,” said the Englishman witha quiet smile; “it is easy enough to settlethe matter. My animal is in tolerably good condition,and if yours is in town we can have the race to-morrowfor any stake you like, up to a hundred dollars.
“That’s jest the figger,” said thecolonel; “dot it down, barkeep. But it’slike slarterin’ the innocents,” he added,half-remorsefully, as he turned to leave; “it’sbettin’ on a dead sure thing—that’swhat it is! If my cayuse knew wa’t I wasabout she’d go and break a laig to make therace a fair one.”
So it was arranged that the race was to come off atthree o’clock the next day, on the mesa,some distance from town. As soon as the newsgot abroad, the whole population of Left Bower andvicinity knocked off work and assembled in the variousbars to discuss it. The Englishman and his horsewere general favorites, and aside from the unpopularityof the colonel, nobody had ever seen his “cayuse.”Still the element of patriotism came in, making thebetting very nearly even.
A race-course was marked off on the mesa andat the appointed hour every one was there except thecolonel. It was arranged that each man shouldride his own horse, and the Englishman, who had acquiredsomething of the free-and-easy bearing that distinguishesthe “mining sharp,” was already atop ofhis magnificent animal, with one leg thrown carelesslyacross the pommel of his Mexican saddle, as he puffedhis cigar with calm confidence in the result of therace. He was conscious, too, that he possessedthe secret sympathy of all, even of those who hadfelt it their duty to bet against him. The judge,watch in hand, was growing impatient, when the colonelappeared about a half-mile away, and bore down uponthe crowd. Everyone was eager to inspect his mount;and such a mount as it proved to be was never beforeseen, even in Left Bower!
You have seen “perfect skeletons” of horsesoften enough, no doubt, but this animal was not evena perfect skeleton; there were bones missing hereand there which you would not have believed the beastcould have spared. “Little” the colonelhad called her! She was not an inch less thaneighteen hands high, and long out of all reasonableproportion. She was so hollow in the back thatshe seemed to have been bent in a machine. Shehad neither tail nor mane, and her neck, as long asa man, stuck straight up into the air, supportinga head without ears. Her eyes had an expressionin them of downright insanity, and the muscles of herface were afflicted with periodical convulsions thatdrew back the corners of the mouth and wrinkled theupper lip so as to produce a ghastly grin every twoor three seconds. In color she was “claybank,”with great blotches of white, as if she had been peltedwith small bags of flour. The crookedness ofher legs was beyond all comparison, and as to hergait it was that of a blind camel walking diagonallyacross innumerable deep ditches. Altogether shelooked like the crude result of Nature’s firstexperiment in equifaction.
As this libel on all horses shambled up to the startingpost there was a general shout; the sympathies ofthe crowd changed in the twinkling of an eye!Everyone wanted to bet on her, and the Englishman himselfwas only restrained from doing so by a sense of honor.It was growing late, however, and the judge insistedon starting them. They got off very well together,and seeing the mare was unconscionably slow the Englishmansoon pulled his animal in and permitted the ugly thing
to pass him, so as to enjoy a back view of her.That sealed his fate. The course had been markedoff in a circle of two miles in circumference and sometwenty feet wide, the limits plainly defined by littlefurrows. Before the animals had gone a half mileboth had been permitted to settle down into a comfortablewalk, in which they continued three-fourths of theway round the ring. Then the Englishman thoughtit time to whip up and canter in.But he didn’t. As he came up alongsidethe “Lightning Express,” as the crowdhad begun to call her, that creature turned her headdiagonally backward and let fall a smile. Theencroaching beast stopped as if he had been shot!His rider plied whip, and forced him again forwardupon the track of the equine hag, but with the sameresult.
The Englishman was now alarmed; he struggled manfullywith rein and whip and shout, amidst the tremendouscheering and inextinguishable laughter of the crowd,to force his animal past, now on this side, now onthat, but it would not do. Prompted by the fiendin the concavity of her back, the unthinkable quadrupeddropped her grins right and left with such seasonableaccuracy that again and again the competing beast wasstruck “all of a heap” just at the momentof seeming success. And, finally, when by a tremendousspurt his rider endeavored to thrust him by, withinhalf a dozen lengths of the winning post, the incarnatenightmare turned squarely about and fixed upon hima portentous stare—delivering at the sametime a grimace of such prodigious ghastliness thatthe poor thoroughbred, with an almost human screamof terror, wheeled about, and tore away to the rearwith the speed of the wind, leaving the colonel aneasy winner in twenty minutes and ten seconds.
THE FAILURE OF HOPE & WANDEL
From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel,of New Orleans, December 2, 1877.
I will not bore you, my dear fellow, with a narrativeof my journey from New Orleans to this polar region.It is cold in Chicago, believe me, and the Southronwho comes here, as I did, without a relay of nosesand ears will have reason to regret his mistaken economyin arranging his outfit.
To business. Lake Michigan is frozen stiff.Fancy, O child of a torrid clime, a sheet of anybody’sice, three hundred miles long, forty broad, and sixfeet thick! It sounds like a lie, Pikey dear,but your partner in the firm of Hope & Wandel, WholesaleBoots and Shoes, New Orleans, is never known to fib.My plan is to collar that ice. Wind up the presentbusiness and send on the money at once. I’llput up a warehouse as big as the Capitol at Washington,store it full and ship to your orders as the Southernmarket may require. I can send it in planks forskating floors, in statuettes for the mantel, in shavingsfor juleps, or in solution for ice cream and generalpurposes. It is a big thing!
I inclose a thin slip as a sample. Did you eversee such charming ice?
From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. JabezHope, in Chicago, December 24, 1877.
Your letter was so abominably defaced by blottingand blurring that it was entirely illegible.It must have come all the way by water. By theaid of chemicals and photography, however, I have madeit out. But you forgot to inclose the sampleof ice.
I have sold off everything (at an alarming sacrifice,I am sorry to say) and inclose draft for net amount.Shall begin to spar for orders at once. I trusteverything to you—but, I say, has anybodytried to grow ice in this vicinity? Thereis Lake Ponchartrain, you know.
From Mr. Jabez Hope, in Chicago, to Mr. Pike Wandel,of New Orleans, February 27, 1878.
Wannie dear, it would do you good to see our new warehousefor the ice. Though made of boards, and run uprather hastily, it is as pretty as a picture, andcost a deal of money, though I pay no ground rent.It is about as big as the Capitol at Washington.Do you think it ought to have a steeple? I haveit nearly filled—fifty men cutting and storing,day and night—awful cold work! Bythe way, the ice, which when I wrote you last wasten feet thick, is now thinner. But don’tyou worry; there is plenty.
Our warehouse is eight or ten miles out of town, soI am not much bothered by visitors, which is a relief.Such a giggling, snigg*ring lot you never saw!
It seems almost too absurdly incredible, Wannie, butdo you know I believe this ice of ours gains in coldnessas the warm weather comes on! I do, indeed, andyou may mention the fact in the advertisem*nts.
From Mr. Pike Wandel, of New Orleans, to Mr. JabezHope, in Chicago, March 7, 1878.
All goes well. I get hundreds of orders.We shall do a roaring trade as “The New Orleansand Chicago Semperfrigid Ice Company.” Butyou have not told me whether the ice is fresh or salt.If it is fresh it won’t do for cooking, andif it is salt it will spoil the mint juleps.
Is it as cold in the middle as the outside cuts are?
From Mr. Jebez Hope, from Chicago, to Mr. PikeWandel, of New Orleans, April 3, 1878.
Navigation on the Lakes is now open, and ships arethick as ducks. I’m afloat, en routefor Buffalo, with the assets of the New Orleans andChicago Semperfrigid Ice Company in my vest pocket.We are busted out, my poor Pikey—we areto fortune and to fame unknown. Arrange a meetingof the creditors and don’t attend.
Last night a schooner from Milwaukee was smashed intomatch-wood on an enormous mass of floating ice—thefirst berg ever seen in these waters. It is describedby the survivors as being about as big as the Capitalat Washington. One-half of that iceberg belongsto you, Pikey.
The melancholy fact is, I built our warehouse on anunfavorable site, about a mile out from the shore(on the ice, you understand), and when the thaw came—Omy God, Wannie, it was the saddest thing you ever sawin all your life! You will be so glad toknow I was not in it at the time.
What a ridiculous question you ask me. My poorpartner, you don’t seem to know very much aboutthe ice business.
PERRY CHUMLY’S ECLIPSE
The spectroscope is a singularly beautiful and delicateinstrument, consisting, essentially, of a prism ofglass, which, decomposing the light of any heavenlybody to which the instrument is directed, presentsa spectrum, or long bar of color. Crossing thisare narrow, dark and bright lines produced by thegases of metals in combustion, whereby the celestialorb’s light is generated. From these darkand bright lines, therefore, we ascertain all thatis worth knowing about the composition of the sunand stars.
Now Ben had made some striking discoveries in spectroscopicanalysis at his private garden observatory, and hadalso an instrument of superior power and capacity,invented, or at least much improved, by himself; andthis instrument it was that he and I were arrangingfor an examination of the comet then flaming in theheavens. William sat by apparently uninterested.Finally we had our arrangements for an observationcompleted, and Ben said: “Now turn her on.”
“That reminds me,” said William, “ofa little story about Perry Chumly, who—”
“For the sake of science, William,” Iinterrupted, laying a hand on his arm, “I mustbeg you not to relate it. The comet will in afew minutes be behind the roof of yonder lodging house.We really have no time for the story.”
“No,” said Ben, “time presses; and,anyhow, I’ve heard it before.”
“This Perry Chumly,” resumed William,“believed himself a born astronomer, and alwayskept a bit of smoked glass. He was particularlygreat on solar eclipses. I have known him to situp all night looking out for one.”
Ben had now got the spectroscope trained skyward tosuit him, and in order to exclude all irrelevant lighthad let down the window-blind on the tube of it.The spectrum of the comet came out beautifully—along bar of color crossed with a lovely ruling ofthin dark and bright lines, the sight of which elicitedfrom us an exclamation of satisfaction.
“One day,” continued William from hisseat at another window, “some one told PerryChumly there would be an eclipse of the sun that afternoonat three o’clock. Now Perry had recentlyread a story about some men who in exploring a deepcanon in the mountains had looked up from the bottomand seen the stars shining at midday. It occurredto him that this knowledge might be so utilized asto give him a fine view of the eclipse, and enablehim at the same time to see what the stars would appearto think about it.”
“This,” said Ben, pointing to oneof the dark lines in the cometic spectrum, “thisis produced by the vapor of carbon in the nucleus ofthe heavenly visitant. You will observe that itdiffers but slightly from the lines that come of volatilizediron. Examined with this magnifying glass”—adjustingthat instrument to his eye—“it willprobably show—by Jove!” he ejacul*ted,after a nearer view, “it isn’t carbonat all. It is MEAT!”
“Of course,” proceeded William, “ofcourse Perry Chumly did not have any canon, so whatdid the fellow do but let himself down with his armsand legs to the bottom of an old well, about thirtyfeet deep! And, with the cold water up to hismiddle, and the frogs, pollywogs and aquatic lizardsquarreling for the cosy corners of his pockets, therehe stood, waiting for the sun to appear in the fieldof his ‘instrument’ and be eclipsed.”
“Ben, you are joking,” I remarked withsome asperity; “you are taking liberties withscience, Benjamin. It can’t be meat,you know.”
“I tell you it is though,” washis excited reply; “it is just meat,I tell you! And this other line, which at firstI took for sodium, is bone—bone,sir, or I’m an asteroid! I never saw thelike; that comet must be densely peopled with butchersand horse-knackers!”
“When Perry Chumly had waited a long time,”William went on to say, “looking up and expectingevery minute to see the sun, it began to get intohis mind, somehow, that the bright, circular openingabove his head—the mouth of the well—wasthe sun, and that the black disk of the moon was allthat was needed to complete the expected phenomenon.The notion soon took complete obsession of his brain,so that he forgot where he was and imagined himselfstanding on the surface of the earth.”
I was now scrutinizing the cometic spectrum very closely,being particularly attracted by a thin, faint line,which I thought Ben had overlooked.
“Oh, that is nothing,” he explained; “that’sa mere local fault arising from conditions peculiarto the medium through which the light is transmitted—theatmosphere of this neighborhood. It is whisky.This other line, though, shows the faintest imaginabletrace of soap; and these uncertain, wavering onesare caused by some effluvium not in the comet itself,but in the region beyond it. I am compelled topronounce it tobacco smoke. I will now tilt theinstrument so as to get the spectrum of the celestialwanderer’s tail. Ah! there we have it.Splendid!”
“Now this old well,” said William, “wasnear a road, along which was traveling a big and particularlyhideous nigg*r.”
“See here, Thomas,” exclaimed Ben, removingthe magnifying glass from his eye and looking me earnestlyin the face, “if I were to tell you that thecoma of this eccentric heavenly body is reallyhair, as its name implies, would you believe it?”
“No, Ben, I certainly should not.”
“Well, I won’t argue the matter; thereare the lines—they speak for themselves.But now that I look again, you are not entirely wrong:there is a considerable admixture of jute, moss, andI think tallow. It certainly is most remarkable!Sir Isaac Newton—”
“That big nigg*r,” drawled William, “feltthirsty, and seeing the mouth of the well thoughtthere was perhaps a bucket in it. So he venturedto creep forward on his hands and knees and look inover the edge.”
Suddenly our spectrum vanished, and a very singularone of a quite different appearance presented itselfin the same place. It was a dim spectrum, crossedby a single broad bar of pale yellow.
“Ah!” said Ben, “our waif of theupper deep is obscured by a cloud; let us see whatthe misty veil is made of.”
He took a look at the spectrum with his magnifyingglass, started back, and muttered: “Brownlinen, by thunder!”
“You can imagine the rapture of Perry Chumly,”pursued the indefatigable William, “when hesaw, as he supposed, the moon’s black disk encroachingupon the body of the luminary that had so long rivetedhis gaze. But when that obscuring satellite hadthrust herself so far forward that the eclipse becamealmost annular, and he saw her staring down upon adarkened world with glittering white eyes and a doublerow of flashing teeth, it is perhaps not surprisingthat he vented a scream of terror, fainted and collapsedamong his frogs! As for the big nigg*r, almostequally terrified by this shriek from the abyss, heexecuted a precipitate movement which only the breakingof his neck prevented from being a double back-somersault,and lay dead in the weeds with his tongue out andhis face the color of a cometic spectrum. We laidthem in the same grave, poor fellows, and on manya still summer evening afterward I strayed to thelonely little church-yard to listen to the smotheredrequiem chanted by the frogs that we had neglectedto remove from the pockets of the lamented astronomer.
“And, now,” added William, taking hisheels from the window, “as you can not immediatelyresume your spectroscopic observations on that red-hairedchamber-maid in the dormer-window, who pulled downthe blind when I made a mouth at her, I move thatwe adjourn.”
A PROVIDENTIAL INTIMATION
Mr. Algernon Jarvis, of San Francisco, got up cross.The world of Mr. Jarvis had gone wrong with him overnight,as one’s world is likely to do when one sitsup till morning with jovial friends, to watch it, andhe was prone to resentment. No sooner, therefore,had he got himself into a neat, fashionable suit ofclothing than he selected his morning walking-stickand sallied out upon the town with a vague generaldetermination to attack something. His first victimwould naturally have been his breakfast; but singularlyenough, he fell upon this with so feeble an energythat he was himself beaten—to the grievedastonishment of the worthy rotisseur, who hadto record his hitherto puissant patron’s maidendefeat. Three or four cups of cafe noirwere the only captives that graced Mr. Jarvis’gastric chariot-wheels that morning.
He lit a long cigar and sauntered moodily down thestreet, so occupied with schemes of universal retaliationthat his feet had it all their own way; in consequenceof which, their owner soon found himself in the billiard-roomof the Occidental Hotel. Nobody was there, butMr. Jarvis was a privileged person; so, going to themarker’s desk, he took out a little box of ivoryballs, spilled them carelessly over a table and languidlyassailed them with a long stick.
Presently, by the merest chance, he executed a marvelousstroke. Waiting till the astonished balls hadresumed their composure, he gathered them up, replacingthem in their former position. He tried the strokeagain, and, naturally, did not make it. Againhe placed the balls, and again he badly failed.With a vexed and humilated air he once more put theindocile globes into position, leaned over the tableand was upon the point of striking, when there soundeda solemn voice from behind:
“Bet you two bits you don’t make it!”
Mr. Jarvis erected himself; he turned about and lookedat the speaker, whom he found to be a stranger—onethat most persons would prefer should remain a stranger.Mr. Jarvis made no reply. In the first place,he was a man of aristocratic taste, to whom a wagerof “two bits” was simply vulgar.Secondly, the man who had proffered it evidently hadnot the money. Still it is annoying to have one’sskill questioned by one’s social inferiors,particularly when one has doubts of it oneself, andis otherwise ill-tempered. So Mr. Jarvis stoodhis cue against the table, laid off his fashionablemorning-coat, resumed his stick, spread his fine figureupon the table with his back to the ceiling and tookdeliberate aim.
At this point Mr. Jarvis drops out of this history,and is seen no more forever. Persons of the classto which he adds lustre are sacred from the pen ofthe humorist; they are ridiculous but not amusing.So now we will dismiss this uninteresting young aristocrat,retaining merely his outer shell, the fashionablemorning-coat, which Mr. Stenner, the gentleman, whohad offered the wager, has quietly thrown across hisarm and is conveying away for his own advantage.
An hour later Mr. Stenner sat in his humble lodgingsat North Beach, with the pilfered garment upon hisknees. He had already taken the opinion of aneminent pawnbroker on its value, and it only remainedto search the pockets. Mr. Stenner’s notionsconcerning gentlemen’s coats were not so clearas they might have been. Broadly stated, theywere that these garments abounded in secret pocketscrowded with a wealth of bank notes interspersed withgold coins. He was therefore disappointed whenhis careful quest was rewarded with only a delicatelyperfumed handkerchief, upon which he could not hopeto obtain a loan of more than ten cents; a pair ofgloves too small for use and a bit of paper that wasnot a cheque. A second look at this, however,inspired hope. It was about the size of a flounder,ruled in wide lines, and bore in conspicuous charactersthe words, “Western Union Telegraph Company.”Immediately below this interesting legend was muchother printed matter, the purport of which was thatthe company did not hold itself responsible for theverbal accuracy of “the following message,”and did not consider itself either morally or legallybound to forward or deliver it, nor, in short, torender any kind of service for the money paid by thesender.
Unfamiliar with telegraphy, Mr. Stenner naturallysupposed that a message subject to these hard conditionsmust be one of not only grave importance, but questionablecharacter. So he determined to decipher it atthat time and place. In the course of the dayhe succeeded in so doing. It ran as follows,omitting the date and the names of persons and places,which were, of course, quite illegible:
“Buy Sally Meeker!”
Had the full force of this remarkable adjuration burstupon Mr. Stenner all at once it might have carriedhim away, which would not have been so bad a thingfor San Francisco; but as the meaning had to percolateslowly through a dense dyke of ignorance, it producedno other immediate effect than the exclamation, “Well,I’ll be bust!”
In the mouths of some persons this form of expressionmeans a great deal. On the Stenner tongue itsignified the hopeless nature of the Stenner mentalconfusion.
It must be confessed—by persons outsidea certain limited and sordid circle—thatthe message lacks amplification and elaboration; inits terse, bald diction there is a ghastly suggestionof traffic in human flesh, for which in Californiathere is no market since the abolition of slaveryand the importation of thoroughbred beeves. Ifwoman suffrage had been established all would havebeen clear; Mr. Stenner would at once have understoodthe kind of purchase advised; for in political transactionshe had very often changed hands himself. But itwas all a muddle, and resolving to dismiss the matterfrom his thoughts, he went to bed thinking of nothingelse; for many hours his excited imagination woulddo nothing but purchase slightly damaged Sally Meekersby the bale, and retail them to itself at an enormousprofit.
Next day, it flashed upon his memory who Sally Meekerwas—a racing mare! At this entirelyobvious solution of the problem he was overcome withamazement at his own sagacity. Rushing into thestreet he purchased, not Sally Meeker, but a sportingpaper—and in it found the notice of a racewhich was to come off the following week; and, sureenough, there it was:
“Budd Doble enters g.g. Clipper; Bob Scottyenters b.g. Lightnin’; Staley Tupper enterss.s. Upandust; Sim Salper enters b.m. SallyMeeker.”
It was clear now; the sender of the dispatch was “inthe know.” Sally Meeker was to win, andher owner, who did not know it, had offered her forsale. At that supreme moment Mr. Stenner wouldwillingly have been a rich man! In fact he resolvedto be. He at once betook him to Vallejo, wherehe had lived until invited away by some influentialcitizens of the place. There he immediately soughtout an industrious friend who had an amiable weaknessfor draw poker, and in whom Mr. Stenner regularlyencouraged that passion by going up against him everypayday and despoiling him of his hard earnings.He did so this time, to the sum of one hundred dollars.
No sooner had he raked in his last pool and refusedhis friend’s appeal for a trifling loan wherewithto pay for breakfast than he bought a check on theBank of California, enclosed it in a letter containingmerely the words “Bi Saly Meker,” and dispatchedit by mail to the only clergyman in San Franciscowhose name he knew. Mr. Stenner had a vague notionthat all kinds of business requiring strict honestyand fidelity might be profitably intrusted to theclergy; otherwise what was the use of religion?I hope I shall not be accused of disrespect to thecloth in thus bluntly setting forth Mr. Stenner’sestimate of the parsons, inasmuch as I do not shareit.
This business off his mind, Mr. Stenner unbent ina week’s revelry; at the end of which he workedhis passage down to San Francisco to secure his winningson the race, and take charge of his peerless mare.It will be observed that his notions concerning raceswere somewhat confused; his experience of them hadhitherto been confined to that branch of the businessrequiring, not technical knowledge but manual dexterity.In short, he had done no more than pick the pocketsof the spectators. Arrived at San Francisco hewas hastening to the dwelling of his clerical agent,when he met an acquaintance, to whom he put the triumphantquestion, “How about Sally Meeker?”
“Sally Meeker? Sally Meeker?” wasthe reply. “Oh, you mean the hoss?Why she’s gone up the flume. Broke herneck the first heat. But ole Sim Salper is nevera-goin’ to fret hisself to a shadder about it.He struck it pizen in the mine she was named a’terand the stock’s gone up from nothin’ outo’ sight. You couldn’t tech that stockwith a ten-foot pole!”
Which was a blow to Mr. Stenner. He saw his error;the message in the coat had evidently been sent toa broker, and referred to the stock of the “SallyMeeker” mine. And he, Stenner, was a ruinedman!
Suddenly a great, monstrous, misbegotten and unmentionableoath rolled from Mr. Stenner’s tongue like acannon shot hurled along an uneven floor! Mightit not be that the Rev. Mr. Boltright had also misunderstoodthe message, and had bought, not the mare, but thestock? The thought was electrical: Mr. Stennerran—he flew! He tarried not at wallsand the smaller sort of houses, but went through orover them! In five minutes he stood before thegood clergyman—and in one more had asked,in a hoarse whisper, if he had bought any “SallyMeeker.”
“My good friend,” was the bland reply—“myfellow traveler to the bar of God, it would bettercomport with your spiritual needs to inquire whatyou should do to be saved. But since you ask me,I will confess that having received what I am compelledto regard as a Providential intimation, accompaniedwith the secular means of obedience, I did put upa small margin and purchase largely of the stock youmention. The venture, I am constrained to state,was not wholly unprofitable.”
Unprofitable? The good man had made a squaretwenty-five thousand dollars on that small margin!To conclude—he has it yet.
MR. SWIDDLER’S FLIP-FLAP
Jerome Bowles (said the gentleman called Swiddler)was to be hanged on Friday, the ninth of November,at five o’clock in the afternoon. Thiswas to occur at the town of Flatbroke, where he wasthen in prison. Jerome was my friend, and naturallyI differed with the jury that had convicted him asto the degree of guilt implied by the conceded factthat he had shot an Indian without direct provocation.Ever since his trial I had been endeavoring to influencethe Governor of the State to grant a pardon; but publicsentiment was against me, a fact which I attributedpartly to the innate pigheadness of the people, andpartly to the recent establishment of churches andschools which had corrupted the primitive notionsof a frontier community. But I labored hard andunremittingly by all manner of direct and indirectmeans during the whole period in which Jerome layunder sentence of death; and on the very morning ofthe day set for the execution, the Governor sent forme, and saying “he did not purpose being worriedby my importunities all winter,” handed me thedocument which he had so often refused.
Armed with the precious paper, I flew to the telegraphoffice to send a dispatch to the Sheriff at Flatbroke.I found the operator locking the door of the officeand putting up the shutters. I pleaded in vain;he said he was going to see the hanging, and reallyhad no time to send my message. I must explainthat Flatbroke was fifteen miles away; I was thenat Swan Creek, the State capital.
The operator being inexorable, I ran to the railroadstation to see how soon there would be a train forFlatbroke. The station man, with cool and politemalice, informed me that all the employees of the roadhad been given a holiday to see Jerome Bowles hanged,and had already gone by an early train; that therewould be no other train till the next day.
I was now furious, but the station man quietly turnedme out, locking the gates. Dashing to the nearestlivery stable, I ordered a horse. Why prolongthe record of my disappointment? Not a horse couldI get in that town; all had been engaged weeks beforeto take people to the hanging. So everybody said,at least, though I now know there was a rascally conspiracyto defeat the ends of mercy, for the story of the pardonhad got abroad.
It was now ten o’clock. I had only sevenhours in which to do my fifteen miles afoot; but Iwas an excellent walker and thoroughly angry; therewas no doubt of my ability to make the distance, withan hour to spare. The railway offered the bestchance; it ran straight as a string across a level,treeless prairie, whereas the highway made a wide detourby way of another town.
I took to the track like a Modoc on the war path.Before I had gone a half-mile I was overtaken by “ThatJim Peasley,” as he was called in Swan Creek,an incurable practical joker, loved and shunned byall who knew him. He asked me as he came up ifI were “going to the show.” Thinkingit was best to dissemble, I told him I was, but saidnothing of my intention to stop the performance; Ithought it would be a lesson to That Jim to let himwalk fifteen miles for nothing, for it was clear thathe was going, too. Still, I wished he would goon ahead or drop behind. But he could not verywell do the former, and would not do the latter; sowe trudged on together. It was a cloudy day andvery sultry for that time of the year. The railwaystretched away before us, between its double row oftelegraph poles, in rigid sameness, terminating ina point at the horizon. On either hand the dishearteningmonotony of the prairie was unbroken.
I thought little of these things, however, for mymental exaltation was proof against the depressinginfluence of the scene. I was about to save thelife of my friend—to restore a crack shotto society. Indeed I scarcely thought of ThatJim, whose heels were grinding the hard gravel closebehind me, except when he saw fit occasionally to propoundthe sententious, and I thought derisive, query, “Tired?”Of course I was, but I would have died rather thanconfess it.
We had gone in this way, about half the distance,probably, in much less than half the seven hours,and I was getting my second wind, when That Jim againbroke the silence.
“Used to bounce in a circus, didn’t you?”
This was quite true! in a season of pecuniary depressionI had once put my legs into my stomach—hadturned my athletic accomplishments to financial advantage.It was not a pleasant topic, and I said nothing.That Jim persisted.
“Wouldn’t like to do a feller a somersaultnow, eh?”
The mocking tongue of this jeer was intolerable; thefellow evidently considered me “done up,”so taking a short run I clapped my hands to my thighsand executed as pretty a flip-flap as ever was madewithout a springboard! At the moment I came erectwith my head still spinning, I felt That Jim crowdpast me, giving me a twirl that almost sent me offthe track. A moment later he had dashed aheadat a tremendous pace, laughing derisively over hisshoulder as if he had done a remarkably clever thingto gain the lead.
I was on the heels of him in less than ten minutes,though I must confess the fellow could walk amazingly.In half an hour I had run past him, and at the endof the hour, such was my slashing gait, he was a mereblack dot in my rear, and appeared to be sitting onone of the rails, thoroughly used up.
Relieved of Mr. Peasley, I naturally began thinkingof my poor friend in the Flatbroke jail, and it occurredto me that something might happen to hasten the execution.I knew the feeling of the country against him, andthat many would be there from a distance who wouldnaturally wish to get home before nightfall.Nor could I help admitting to myself that five o’clockwas an unreasonably late hour for a hanging. Torturedwith these fears, I unconsciously increased my pacewith every step, until it was almost a run. Istripped off my coat and flung it away, opened mycollar, and unbuttoned my waistcoat. And at last,puffing and steaming like a locomotive engine, I burstinto a thin crowd of idlers on the outskirts of thetown, and flourished the pardon crazily above my head,yelling, “Cut him down!—cut him down!”
Then, as every one stared in blank amazement and nobodysaid anything, I found time to look about me, marvelingat the oddly familiar appearance of the town.As I looked, the houses, streets, and everything seemedto undergo a sudden and mysterious transposition withreference to the points of the compass, as if swinginground on a pivot; and like one awakened from a dreamI found myself among accustomed scenes. To beplain about it, I was back again in Swan Creek, asright as a trivet!
It was all the work of That Jim Peasley. Thedesigning rascal had provoked me to throw a confusingsomersault, then bumped against me, turning me halfround, and started on the back track, thereby incitingme to hook it in the same direction. The cloudyday, the two lines of telegraph poles, one on eachside of the track, the entire sameness of the landscapeto the right and left—these had all conspiredto prevent my observing that I had put about.
When the excursion train returned from Flatbroke thatevening the passengers were told a little story atmy expense. It was just what they needed to cheerthem up a bit after what they had seen; for that flip-flapof mine had broken the neck of Jerome Bowles sevenmiles away!
THE LITTLE STORY
DRAMATIS PERSONAE—A Supernumerary Editor.A Probationary Contributor.
SCENE—“The Expounder” Office.
PROBATIONARY CONTRIBUTOR—Editor in?
SUPERNUMERARY EDITOR—Dead.
P.C.—The gods favor me. (Produces rollof manuscript.) Here is a little story, whichI will read to you.
S.E.—O, O!
P.C.—(Reads.) “It was thelast night of the year—a naughty, noxious,offensive night. In the principal street of SanFrancisco”—
S.E.—Confound San Francisco!
P.C.—It had to be somewhere. (Reads.)
“In the principal street of San Francisco stooda small female orphan, marking time like a volunteer.Her little bare feet imprinted cold kisses on thepaving-stones as she put them down and drew them upalternately. The chilling rain was having a goodtime with her scalp, and toyed soppily with her hair—herown hair. The night-wind shrewdly searched hertattered garments, as if it had suspected her of smuggling.She saw crowds of determined-looking persons grimlyruining themselves in toys and confectionery for thedear ones at home, and she wished she was in a positionto ruin a little—just a little. Then,as the happy throng sped by her with loads of thingsto make the children sick, she leaned against an ironlamp-post in front of a bake-shop and turned on thewicked envy. She thought, poor thing, she wouldlike to be a cake—for this little girlwas very hungry indeed. Then she tried again,and thought she would like to be a tart with smashedfruit inside; then she would be warmed over everyday and nobody would eat her. For the child wascold as well as hungry. Finally, she tried quitehard, and thought she could be very well content asan oven; for then she would be kept always hot, andbakers would put all manner of good things into herwith a long shovel.”
S.E.—I’ve read that somewhere.
P.C.—Very likely. This little storyhas never been rejected by any paper to which I haveoffered it. It gets better, too, every time Iwrite it. When it first appeared in Veracitythe editor said it cost him a hundred subscribers.Just mark the improvement! (Reads.)
“The hours glided by—except a fewthat froze to the pavement—until midnight.The streets were now deserted, and the almanac havingpredicted a new moon about this time, the lamps hadbeen conscientiously extinguished. Suddenly agreat globe of sound fell from an adjacent church-tower,and exploded on the night with a deep metallic boom.Then all the clocks and bells began ringing-in theNew Year—pounding and banging and yellingand finishing off all the nervous invalids left overfrom the preceding Sunday. The little orphan startedfrom her dream, leaving a small patch of skin on thefrosted lamp-post, clasped her thin blue hands andlooked upward, ‘with mad disquietude,’”—
S.E.—In The Monitor it was “withcovetous eyes.”
P.C.—I know it; hadn’t read Byronthen. Clever dog, Byron. (Reads.)
“Presently a cranberry tart dropped at her feet,apparently from the clouds.”
S.E.—How about those angels?
P.C.—The editor of Good Will cut’em out. He said San Francisco was no placefor them; and I don’t believe——
S.E.—There, there! Never mind.Go on with the little story.
P.C.—(Reads.) “As she stoopedto take up the tart a veal sandwich came whizzingdown, and cuffed one of her ears. Next a wheatenloaf made her dodge nimbly, and then a broad ham fellflat-footed at her toes. A sack of flour burstin the middle of the street; a side of bacon impaleditself on an iron hitching-post. Pretty soon achain of sausages fell in a circle around her, flatteningout as if a road-roller had passed over them.Then there was a lull—nothing came downbut dried fish, cold puddings and flannel under-clothing;but presently her wishes began to take effect again,and a quarter of beef descended with terrific momentumupon the top of the little orphan’s head.”
S.E.—How did the editor of The ReasonableVirtues like that quarter of beef?
P.C.—Oh, he swallowed it like a littleman, and stuck in a few dressed pigs of his own.I’ve left them out, because I don’t wantoutsiders altering the Little Story. (Reads.)
“One would have thought that ought to suffice;but not so. Bedding, shoes, firkins of butter,mighty cheeses, ropes of onions, quantities of loosejam, kegs of oysters, titanic fowls, crates of crockeryand glassware, assorted house-keeping things, cookingranges, and tons of coal poured down in broad cataractsfrom a bounteous heaven, piling themselves above thatinfant to a depth of twenty feet. The weatherwas more than two hours in clearing up; and as lateas half-past three a ponderous hogshead of sugar struckat the corner of Clay and Kearney Streets, with animpact that shook the peninsula like an earthquakeand stopped every clock in town.
“At daybreak the good merchants arrived uponthe scene with shovels and wheelbarrows, and beforethe sun of the new year was an hour old, they hadprovided for all of these provisions—hadstowed them away in their cellars, and nicely arrangedthem on their shelves, ready for sale to the deservingpoor.”
S.E.—And the little girl—whatbecame of her?
P.C.—You musn’t get ahead of theLittle Story. (Reads.)
“When they had got down to the wicked littleorphan who had not been content with her lot someone brought a broom, and she was carefully swept andsmoothed out. Then they lifted her tenderly, andcarried her to the coroner. That functionarywas standing in the door of his office, and with adeprecatory wave of his hand, he said to the man whowas bearing her:
“’There, go away, my good fellow; therewas a man here three times yesterday trying to sellme just such a map.’”
THE PARENTICIDE CLUB
MY FAVORITE MURDER
Having murdered my mother under circ*mstances of singularatrocity, I was arrested and put upon my trial, whichlasted seven years. In charging the jury, thejudge of the Court of Acquittal remarked that it wasone of the most ghastly crimes that he had ever beencalled upon to explain away.
At this, my attorney rose and said:
“May it please your Honor, crimes are ghastlyor agreeable only by comparison. If you werefamiliar with the details of my client’s previousmurder of his uncle you would discern in his lateroffense (if offense it may be called) something inthe nature of tender forbearance and filial considerationfor the feelings of the victim. The appallingferocity of the former assassination was indeed inconsistentwith any hypothesis but that of guilt; and had itnot been for the fact that the honorable judge beforewhom he was tried was the president of a life insurancecompany that took risks on hanging, and in which myclient held a policy, it is hard to see how he coulddecently have been acquitted. If your Honor wouldlike to hear about it for instruction and guidanceof your Honor’s mind, this unfortunate man, myclient, will consent to give himself the pain of relatingit under oath.”
The district attorney said: “Your Honor,I object. Such a statement would be in the natureof evidence, and the testimony in this case is closed.The prisoner’s statement should have been introducedthree years ago, in the spring of 1881.”
“In a statutory sense,” said the judge,“you are right, and in the Court of Objectionsand Technicalities you would get a ruling in your favor.But not in a Court of Acquittal. The objectionis overruled.”
“I except,” said the district attorney.
“You cannot do that,” the judge said.“I must remind you that in order to take anexception you must first get this case transferredfor a time to the Court of Exceptions on a formalmotion duly supported by affidavits. A motionto that effect by your predecessor in office was deniedby me during the first year of this trial. Mr.Clerk, swear the prisoner.”
The customary oath having been administered, I madethe following statement, which impressed the judgewith so strong a sense of the comparative trivialityof the offense for which I was on trial that he madeno further search for mitigating circ*mstances, butsimply instructed the jury to acquit, and I left thecourt, without a stain upon my reputation:
“I was born in 1856 in Kalamakee, Mich., ofhonest and reputable parents, one of whom Heaven hasmercifully spared to comfort me in my later years.In 1867 the family came to California and settled nearnigg*r Head, where my father opened a road agency andprospered beyond the dreams of avarice. He wasa reticent, saturnine man then, though his increasingyears have now somewhat relaxed the austerity of hisdisposition, and I believe that nothing but his memoryof the sad event for which I am now on trial preventshim from manifesting a genuine hilarity.
“Four years after we had set up the road agencyan itinerant preacher came along, and having no otherway to pay for the night’s lodging that we gavehim, favored us with an exhortation of such power that,praise God, we were all converted to religion.My father at once sent for his brother, the Hon. WilliamRidley of Stockton, and on his arrival turned overthe agency to him, charging him nothing for the franchisenor plant—the latter consisting of a Winchesterrifle, a sawed-off shotgun, and an assortment of masksmade out of flour sacks. The family then movedto Ghost Rock and opened a dance house. It wascalled ‘The Saints’ Rest Hurdy-Gurdy,’and the proceedings each night began with prayer.It was there that my now sainted mother, by her gracein the dance, acquired the sobriquet of ‘TheBucking Walrus.’
“In the fall of ’75 I had occasion tovisit Coyote, on the road to Mahala, and took thestage at Ghost Rock. There were four other passengers.About three miles beyond nigg*r Head, persons whomI identified as my Uncle William and his two sonsheld up the stage. Finding nothing in the expressbox, they went through the passengers. I acteda most honorable part in the affair, placing myselfin line with the others, holding up my hands and permittingmyself to be deprived of forty dollars and a goldwatch. From my behavior no one could have suspectedthat I knew the gentlemen who gave the entertainment.A few days later, when I went to nigg*r Head and askedfor the return of my money and watch my uncle andcousins swore they knew nothing of the matter, andthey affected a belief that my father and I had donethe job ourselves in dishonest violation of commercialgood faith. Uncle William even threatened toretaliate by starting an opposition dance house atGhost Rock. As ‘The Saints’ Rest’had become rather unpopular, I saw that this wouldassuredly ruin it and prove a paying enterprise, soI told my uncle that I was willing to overlook thepast if he would take me into the scheme and keepthe partnership a secret from my father. Thisfair offer he rejected, and I then perceived that itwould be better and more satisfactory if he were dead.
“My plans to that end were soon perfected, andcommunicating them to my dear parents I had the gratificationof receiving their approval. My father said hewas proud of me, and my mother promised that althoughher religion forbade her to assist in taking humanlife I should have the advantage of her prayers formy success. As a preliminary measure lookingto my security in case of detection I made an applicationfor membership in that powerful order, the Knightsof Murder, and in due course was received as a memberof the Ghost Rock commandery. On the day thatmy probation ended I was for the first time permittedto inspect the records of the order and learn whobelonged to it—all the rites of initiationhaving been conducted in masks. Fancy my delightwhen, in looking over the roll of membership; I foundthe third name to be that of my uncle, who indeedwas junior vice-chancellor of the order! Herewas an opportunity exceeding my wildest dreams—tomurder I could add insubordination and treachery.It was what my good mother would have called ‘aspecial Providence.’
“At about this time something occurred whichcaused my cup of joy, already full, to overflow onall sides, a circular cataract of bliss. Threemen, strangers in that locality, were arrested forthe stage robbery in which I had lost my money andwatch. They were brought to trial and, despitemy efforts to clear them and fasten the guilt uponthree of the most respectable and worthy citizens ofGhost Rock, convicted on the clearest proof.The murder would now be as wanton and reasonless asI could wish.
“One morning I shouldered my Winchester rifle,and going over to my uncle’s house, near nigg*rHead, asked my Aunt Mary, his wife, if he were athome, adding that I had come to kill him. My auntreplied with her peculiar smile that so many gentlemancalled on that errand and were afterward carried awaywithout having performed it that I must excuse herfor doubting my good faith in the matter. Shesaid I did not look as if I would kill anybody, so,as a proof of good faith I leveled my rifle and woundeda Chinaman who happened to be passing the house.She said she knew whole families that could do a thingof that kind, but Bill Ridley was a horse of anothercolor. She said, however, that I would find himover on the other side of the creek in the sheep lot;and she added that she hoped the best man would win.
“My Aunt Mary was one of the most fair-mindedwomen that I have ever met.
“I found my uncle down on his knees engagedin skinning a sheep. Seeing that he had neithergun nor pistol handy I had not the heart to shoothim, so I approached him, greeted him pleasantly andstruck him a powerful blow on the head with the buttof my rifle. I have a very good delivery andUncle William lay down on his side, then rolled overon his back, spread out his fingers and shivered.Before he could recover the use of his limbs I seizedthe knife that he had been using and cut his hamstrings.You know, doubtless, that when you sever the tendoAchillis the patient has no further use of hisleg; it is just the same as if he had no leg.Well, I parted them both, and when he revived he wasat my service. As soon as he comprehended thesituation, he said:
“’Samuel, you have got the drop on meand can afford to be generous. I have only onething to ask of you, and that is that you carry meto the house and finish me in the bosom of my family.’
“I told him I thought that a pretty reasonablerequest and I would do so if he would let me put himinto a wheat sack; he would be easier to carry thatway and if we were seen by the neighbors en routeit would cause less remark. He agreed to that,and going to the barn I got a sack. This, however,did not fit him; it was too short and much wider thanhe; so I bent his legs, forced his knees up againsthis breast and got him into it that way, tying thesack above his head. He was a heavy man and Ihad all that I could do to get him on my back, butI staggered along for some distance until I came toa swing that some of the children had suspended tothe branch of an oak. Here I laid him down andsat upon him to rest, and the sight of the rope gaveme a happy inspiration. In twenty minutes myuncle, still in the sack, swung free to the sportof the wind.
“I had taken down the rope, tied one end tightlyabout the mouth of the bag, thrown the other acrossthe limb and hauled him up about five feet from theground. Fastening the other end of the rope alsoabout the mouth of the sack, I had the satisfactionto see my uncle converted into a large, fine pendulum.I must add that he was not himself entirely awareof the nature of the change that he had undergone inhis relation to the exterior world, though in justiceto a good man’s memory I ought to say that Ido not think he would in any case have wasted muchof my time in vain remonstrance.
“Uncle William had a ram that was famous inall that region as a fighter. It was in a stateof chronic constitutional indignation. Some deepdisappointment in early life had soured its dispositionand it had declared war upon the whole world.To say that it would butt anything accessible is butfaintly to express the nature and scope of its militaryactivity: the universe was its antagonist; itsmethods that of a projectile. It fought likethe angels and devils, in mid-air, cleaving the atmospherelike a bird, describing a parabolic curve and descendingupon its victim at just the exact angle of incidenceto make the most of its velocity and weight.Its momentum, calculated in foot-tons, was somethingincredible. It had been seen to destroy a fouryear old bull by a single impact upon that animal’sgnarly forehead. No stone wall had ever beenknown to resist its downward swoop; there were no treestough enough to stay it; it would splinter them intomatchwood and defile their leafy honors in the dust.This irascible and implacable brute—thisincarnate thunderbolt—this monster of theupper deep, I had seen reposing in the shade of anadjacent tree, dreaming dreams of conquest and glory.It was with a view to summoning it forth to the fieldof honor that I suspended its master in the mannerdescribed.
“Having completed my preparations, I impartedto the avuncular pendulum a gentle oscillation, andretiring to cover behind a contiguous rock, liftedup my voice in a long rasping cry whose diminishingfinal note was drowned in a noise like that of a swearingcat, which emanated from the sack. Instantlythat formidable sheep was upon its feet and had takenin the military situation at a glance. In a fewmoments it had approached, stamping, to within fiftyyards of the swinging foeman, who, now retreatingand anon advancing, seemed to invite the fray.Suddenly I saw the beast’s head drop earthwardas if depressed by the weight of its enormous horns;then a dim, white, wavy streak of sheep prolonged itselffrom that spot in a generally horizontal directionto within about four yards of a point immediatelybeneath the enemy. There it struck sharply upward,and before it had faded from my gaze at the place whenceit had set out I heard a horrid thump and a piercingscream, and my poor uncle shot forward, with a slackrope higher than the limb to which he was attached.
Here the rope tautened with a jerk, arresting his flight,and back he swung in a breathless curve to the otherend of his arc. The ram had fallen, a heap ofindistinguishable legs, wool and horns, but pullingitself together and dodging as its antagonist sweptdownward it retired at random, alternately shakingits head and stamping its fore-feet. When ithad backed about the same distance as that from whichit had delivered the assault it paused again, bowedits head as if in prayer for victory and again shotforward, dimly visible as before—a prolongingwhite streak with monstrous undulations, ending witha sharp ascension. Its course this time was ata right angle to its former one, and its impatienceso great that it struck the enemy before he had nearlyreached the lowest point of his arc. In consequencehe went flying round and round in a horizontal circlewhose radius was about equal to half the length ofthe rope, which I forgot to say was nearly twentyfeet long. His shrieks, crescendo in approachand diminuendo in recession, made the rapidityof his revolution more obvious to the ear than tothe eye. He had evidently not yet been struckin a vital spot. His posture in the sack andthe distance from the ground at which he hung compelledthe ram to operate upon his lower extremities and theend of his back. Like a plant that has struckits root into some poisonous mineral, my poor unclewas dying slowly upward.“After delivering its second blow the ram hadnot again retired. The fever of battle burnedhot in its heart; its brain was intoxicated with thewine of strife. Like a pugilist who in his rageforgets his skill and fights ineffectively at half-arm’slength, the angry beast endeavored to reach its fleetingfoe by awkward vertical leaps as he passed overhead,sometimes, indeed, succeeding in striking him feebly,but more frequently overthrown by its own misguidedeagerness. But as the impetus was exhausted andthe man’s circles narrowed in scope and diminishedin speed, bringing him nearer to the ground, thesetactics produced better results, eliciting a superiorquality of screams, which I greatly enjoyed.
“Suddenly, as if the bugles had sung truce,the ram suspended hostilities and walked away, thoughtfullywrinkling and smoothing its great aquiline nose, andoccasionally cropping a bunch of grass and slowlymunching it. It seemed to have tired of war’salarms and resolved to beat the sword into a plowshareand cultivate the arts of peace. Steadily itheld its course away from the field of fame until ithad gained a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile.There it stopped and stood with its rear to the foe,chewing its cud and apparently half asleep. Iobserved, however, an occasional slight turn of itshead, as if its apathy were more affected than real.
“Meantime Uncle William’s shrieks hadabated with his motion, and nothing was heard fromhim but long, low moans, and at long intervals myname, uttered in pleading tones exceedingly gratefulto my ear. Evidently the man had not the faintestnotion of what was being done to him, and was inexpressiblyterrified. When Death comes cloaked in mysteryhe is terrible indeed. Little by little my uncle’soscillations diminished, and finally he hung motionless.I went to him and was about to give him the coupde grace, when I heard and felt a succession ofsmart shocks which shook the ground like a series oflight earthquakes, and turning in the direction ofthe ram, saw a long cloud of dust approaching me withinconceivable rapidity and alarming effect! Ata distance of some thirty yards away it stopped short,and from the near end of it rose into the air whatI at first thought a great white bird. Its ascentwas so smooth and easy and regular that I could notrealize its extraordinary celerity, and was lost inadmiration of its grace. To this day the impressionremains that it was a slow, deliberate movement, theram—for it was that animal—beingupborne by some power other than its own impetus,and supported through the successive stages of itsflight with infinite tenderness and care. My eyesfollowed its progress through the air with unspeakablepleasure, all the greater by contrast with my formerterror of its approach by land. Onward and upwardthe noble animal sailed, its head bent down almostbetween its knees, its fore-feet thrown back, itshinder legs trailing to rear like the legs of a soaringheron.
“At a height of forty or fifty feet, as fondrecollection presents it to view, it attained itszenith and appeared to remain an instant stationary;then, tilting suddenly forward without altering therelative position of its parts, it shot downward ona steeper and steeper course with augmenting velocity,passed immediately above me with a noise like therush of a cannon shot and struck my poor uncle almostsquarely on the top of the head! So frightfulwas the impact that not only the man’s neckwas broken, but the rope too; and the body of the deceased,forced against the earth, was crushed to pulp beneaththe awful front of that meteoric sheep! The concussionstopped all the clocks between Lone Hand and DutchDan’s, and Professor Davidson, a distinguishedauthority in matters seismic, who happened to be inthe vicinity, promptly explained that the vibrationswere from north to southwest.
“Altogether, I cannot help thinking that inpoint of artistic atrocity my murder of Uncle Williamhas seldom been excelled.”
OIL OF DOG
My name is Boffer Bings. I was born of honestparents in one of the humbler walks of life, my fatherbeing a manufacturer of dog-oil and my mother havinga small studio in the shadow of the village church,where she disposed of unwelcome babes. In myboyhood I was trained to habits of industry; I notonly assisted my father in procuring dogs for hisvats, but was frequently employed by my mother to carryaway the debris of her work in the studio. Inperformance of this duty I sometimes had need of allmy natural intelligence for all the law officers ofthe vicinity were opposed to my mother’s business.They were not elected on an opposition ticket, andthe matter had never been made a political issue;it just happened so. My father’s businessof making dog-oil was, naturally, less unpopular,though the owners of missing dogs sometimes regardedhim with suspicion, which was reflected, to some extent,upon me. My father had, as silent partners, allthe physicians of the town, who seldom wrote a prescriptionwhich did not contain what they were pleased to designateas Ol. can. It is really the most valuablemedicine ever discovered. But most persons areunwilling to make personal sacrifices for the afflicted,and it was evident that many of the fattest dogs intown had been forbidden to play with me—afact which pained my young sensibilities, and at onetime came near driving me to become a pirate.
Looking back upon those days, I cannot but regret,at times, that by indirectly bringing my beloved parentsto their death I was the author of misfortunes profoundlyaffecting my future.
One evening while passing my father’s oil factorywith the body of a foundling from my mother’sstudio I saw a constable who seemed to be closelywatching my movements. Young as I was, I had learnedthat a constable’s acts, of whatever apparentcharacter, are prompted by the most reprehensiblemotives, and I avoided him by dodging into the oileryby a side door which happened to stand ajar. Ilocked it at once and was alone with my dead.My father had retired for the night. The onlylight in the place came from the furnace, which gloweda deep, rich crimson under one of the vats, castingruddy reflections on the walls. Within the cauldronthe oil still rolled in indolent ebullition, occasionallypushing to the surface a piece of dog. Seatingmyself to wait for the constable to go away, I heldthe naked body of the foundling in my lap and tenderlystroked its short, silken hair. Ah, how beautifulit was! Even at that early age I was passionatelyfond of children, and as I looked upon this cherubI could almost find it in my heart to wish that thesmall, red wound upon its breast—the workof my dear mother—had not been mortal.
It had been my custom to throw the babes into theriver which nature had thoughtfully provided for thepurpose, but that night I did not dare to leave theoilery for fear of the constable. “Afterall,” I said to myself, “it cannot greatlymatter if I put it into this cauldron. My fatherwill never know the bones from those of a puppy, andthe few deaths which may result from administeringanother kind of oil for the incomparable ol. can.are not important in a population which increasesso rapidly.” In short, I took the firststep in crime and brought myself untold sorrow bycasting the babe into the cauldron.
The next day, somewhat to my surprise, my father,rubbing his hands with satisfaction, informed me andmy mother that he had obtained the finest qualityof oil that was ever seen; that the physicians to whomhe had shown samples had so pronounced it. Headded that he had no knowledge as to how the resultwas obtained; the dogs had been treated in all respectsas usual, and were of an ordinary breed. I deemedit my duty to explain—which I did, thoughpalsied would have been my tongue if I could haveforeseen the consequences. Bewailing their previousignorance of the advantages of combining their industries,my parents at once took measures to repair the error.My mother removed her studio to a wing of the factorybuilding and my duties in connection with the businessceased; I was no longer required to dispose of thebodies of the small superfluous, and there was noneed of alluring dogs to their doom, for my fatherdiscarded them altogether, though they still had anhonorable place in the name of the oil. So suddenlythrown into idleness, I might naturally have beenexpected to become vicious and dissolute, but I didnot. The holy influence of my dear mother wasever about me to protect me from the temptations whichbeset youth, and my father was a deacon in a church.Alas, that through my fault these estimable personsshould have come to so bad an end!
Finding a double profit in her business, my mothernow devoted herself to it with a new assiduity.She removed not only superfluous and unwelcome babesto order, but went out into the highways and byways,gathering in children of a larger growth, and evensuch adults as she could entice to the oilery.My father, too, enamored of the superior quality ofoil produced, purveyed for his vats with diligenceand zeal. The conversion of their neighbors intodog-oil became, in short, the one passion of theirlives—an absorbing and overwhelming greedtook possession of their souls and served them inplace of a hope in Heaven—by which, also,they were inspired.
So enterprising had they now become that a publicmeeting was held and resolutions passed severely censuringthem. It was intimated by the chairman that anyfurther raids upon the population would be met in aspirit of hostility. My poor parents left themeeting broken-hearted, desperate and, I believe,not altogether sane. Anyhow, I deemed it prudentnot to enter the oilery with them that night, but sleptoutside in a stable.
At about midnight some mysterious impulse caused meto rise and peer through a window into the furnace-room,where I knew my father now slept. The fires wereburning as brightly as if the following day’sharvest had been expected to be abundant. Oneof the large cauldrons was slowly “walloping”with a mysterious appearance of self-restraint, asif it bided its time to put forth its full energy.My father was not in bed; he had risen in his nightclothesand was preparing a noose in a strong cord. Fromthe looks which he cast at the door of my mother’sbedroom I knew too well the purpose that he had inmind. Speechless and motionless with terror,I could do nothing in prevention or warning.Suddenly the door of my mother’s apartment wasopened, noiselessly, and the two confronted each other,both apparently surprised. The lady, also, wasin her night clothes, and she held in her right handthe tool of her trade, a long, narrow-bladed dagger.
She, too, had been unable to deny herself the lastprofit which the unfriendly action of the citizensand my absence had left her. For one instantthey looked into each other’s blazing eyes andthen sprang together with indescribable fury.Round and round the room they struggled, the man cursing,the woman shrieking, both fighting like demons—sheto strike him with the dagger, he to strangle her withhis great bare hands. I know not how long I hadthe unhappiness to observe this disagreeable instanceof domestic infelicity, but at last, after a morethan usually vigorous struggle, the combatants suddenlymoved apart.
My father’s breast and my mother’s weaponshowed evidences of contact. For another instantthey glared at each other in the most unamiable way;then my poor, wounded father, feeling the hand of deathupon him, leaped forward, unmindful of resistance,grasped my dear mother in his arms, dragged her tothe side of the boiling cauldron, collected all hisfailing energies, and sprang in with her! In amoment, both had disappeared and were adding theiroil to that of the committee of citizens who had calledthe day before with an invitation to the public meeting.
Convinced that these unhappy events closed to me everyavenue to an honorable career in that town, I removedto the famous city of Otumwee, where these memoirsare written with a heart full of remorse for a heedlessact entailing so dismal a commercial disaster.
AN IMPERFECT CONFLAGRATION
Early one June morning in 1872 I murdered my father—anact which made a deep impression on me at the time.This was before my marriage, while I was living withmy parents in Wisconsin. My father and I werein the library of our home, dividing the proceedsof a burglary which we had committed that night.These consisted of household goods mostly, and thetask of equitable division was difficult. We goton very well with the napkins, towels and such things,and the silverware was parted pretty nearly equally,but you can see for yourself that when you try to dividea single music-box by two without a remainder you willhave trouble. It was that music-box which broughtdisaster and disgrace upon our family. If wehad left it my poor father might now be alive.
It was a most exquisite and beautiful piece of workmanship—inlaidwith costly woods and carven very curiously.It would not only play a great variety of tunes, butwould whistle like a quail, bark like a dog, crowevery morning at daylight whether it was wound up ornot, and break the Ten Commandments. It was thislast mentioned accomplishment that won my father’sheart and caused him to commit the only dishonorableact of his life, though possibly he would have committedmore if he had been spared: he tried to concealthat music-box from me, and declared upon his honorthat he had not taken it, though I knew very well that,so far as he was concerned, the burglary had beenundertaken chiefly for the purpose of obtaining it.
My father had the music-box hidden under his cloak;we had worn cloaks by way of disguise. He hadsolemnly assured me that he did not take it.I knew that he did, and knew something of which hewas evidently ignorant; namely, that the box wouldcrow at daylight and betray him if I could prolongthe division of profits till that time. All occurredas I wished: as the gaslight began to pale inthe library and the shape of the windows was seendimly behind the curtains, a long co*ck-a-doodle-doocame from beneath the old gentleman’s cloak,followed by a few bars of an aria from Tannhauser,ending with a loud click. A small hand-axe, whichwe had used to break into the unlucky house, lay betweenus on the table; I picked it up. The old manseeing that further concealment was useless took thebox from under his cloak and set it on the table.“Cut it in two if you prefer that plan,”said he; “I tried to save it from destruction.”
He was a passionate lover of music and could himselfplay the concertina with expression and feeling.
I said: “I do not question the purity ofyour motive: it would be presumptuous in me tosit in judgment on my father. But business isbusiness, and with this axe I am going to effect adissolution of our partnership unless you will consentin all future burglaries to wear a bell-punch.”
“No,” he said, after some reflection,“no, I could not do that; it would look likea confession of dishonesty. People would say thatyou distrusted me.”
I could not help admiring his spirit and sensitiveness;for a moment I was proud of him and disposed to overlookhis fault, but a glance at the richly jeweled music-boxdecided me, and, as I said, I removed the old manfrom this vale of tears. Having done so, I wasa trifle uneasy. Not only was he my father—theauthor of my being—but the body would becertainly discovered. It was now broad daylightand my mother was likely to enter the library at anymoment. Under the circ*mstances, I thought itexpedient to remove her also, which I did. ThenI paid off all the servants and discharged them.
That afternoon I went to the chief of police, toldhim what I had done and asked his advice. Itwould be very painful to me if the facts became publiclyknown. My conduct would be generally condemned;the newspapers would bring it up against me if everI should run for office. The chief saw the forceof these considerations; he was himself an assassinof wide experience. After consulting with thepresiding judge of the Court of Variable Jurisdictionhe advised me to conceal the bodies in one of thebookcases, get a heavy insurance on the house and burnit down. This I proceeded to do.
In the library was a book-case which my father hadrecently purchased of some cranky inventor and hadnot filled. It was in shape and size somethinglike the old-fashioned “wardrobes” whichone sees in bed-rooms without closets, but openedall the way down, like a woman’s night-dress.It had glass doors. I had recently laid out myparents and they were now rigid enough to stand erect;so I stood them in this book-case, from which I hadremoved the shelves. I locked them in and tackedsome curtains over the glass doors. The inspectorfrom the insurance office passed a half-dozen timesbefore the case without suspicion.
That night, after getting my policy, I set fire tothe house and started through the woods to town, twomiles away, where I managed to be found about thetime the excitement was at its height. With criesof apprehension for the fate of my parents, I joinedthe rush and arrived at the fire some two hours afterI had kindled it. The whole town was there asI dashed up. The house was entirely consumed,but in one end of the level bed of glowing embers,bolt upright and uninjured, was that book-case!The curtains had burned away, exposing the glass-doors,through which the fierce, red light illuminated theinterior. There stood my dear father “inhis habit as he lived,” and at his side thepartner of his joys and sorrows. Not a hair ofthem was singed, their clothing was intact. Ontheir heads and throats the injuries which in theaccomplishment of my designs I had been compelled toinflict were conspicuous. As in the presenceof a miracle, the people were silent; awe and terrorhad stilled every tongue. I was myself greatlyaffected.
Some three years later, when the events herein relatedhad nearly faded from my memory, I went to New Yorkto assist in passing some counterfeit United Statesbonds. Carelessly looking into a furniture storeone day, I saw the exact counterpart of that bookcase.“I bought it for a trifle from a reformed inventor,”the dealer explained. “He said it was fireproof,the pores of the wood being filled with alum underhydraulic pressure and the glass made of asbestos.I don’t suppose it is really fireproof—youcan have it at the price of an ordinary book-case.”
“No,” I said, “if you cannot warrantit fireproof I won’t take it”—andI bade him good morning.
I would not have had it at any price: it revivedmemories that were exceedingly disagreeable.
THE HYPNOTIST
By those of my friends who happen to know that I sometimesamuse myself with hypnotism, mind reading and kindredphenomena, I am frequently asked if I have a clearconception of the nature of whatever principle underliesthem. To this question I always reply that I neitherhave nor desire to have. I am no investigatorwith an ear at the key-hole of Nature’s workshop,trying with vulgar curiosity to steal the secrets ofher trade. The interests of science are as littleto me as mine seem to have been to science.
Doubtless the phenomena in question are simple enough,and in no way transcend our powers of comprehensionif only we could find the clew; but for my part Iprefer not to find it, for I am of a singularly romanticdisposition, deriving more gratification from mysterythan from knowledge. It was commonly remarkedof me when I was a child that my big blue eyes appearedto have been made rather to look into than look outof—such was their dreamful beauty, and inmy frequent periods of abstraction, their indifferenceto what was going on. In those peculiaritiesthey resembled, I venture to think, the soul whichlies behind them, always more intent upon some lovelyconception which it has created in its own image thanconcerned about the laws of nature and the materialframe of things. All this, irrelevant and egotisticas it may seem, is related by way of accounting forthe meagreness of the light that I am able to throwupon a subject that has engaged so much of my attention,and concerning which there is so keen and general acuriosity. With my powers and opportunities, anotherperson might doubtless have an explanation for muchof what I present simply as narrative.
My first knowledge that I possessed unusual powerscame to me in my fourteenth year, when at school.Happening one day to have forgotten to bring my noon-dayluncheon, I gazed longingly at that of a small girlwho was preparing to eat hers. Looking up, hereyes met mine and she seemed unable to withdraw them.After a moment of hesitancy she came forward in anabsent kind of way and without a word surrendered herlittle basket with its tempting contents and walkedaway. Inexpressibly pleased, I relieved my hungerand destroyed the basket. After that I had notthe trouble to bring a luncheon for myself: thatlittle girl was my daily purveyor; and not infrequentlyin satisfying my simple need from her frugal storeI combined pleasure and profit by constraining herattendance at the feast and making misleading profferof the viands, which eventually I consumed to thelast fragment. The girl was always persuadedthat she had eaten all herself; and later in the dayher tearful complaints of hunger surprised the teacher,entertained the pupils, earned for her the sobriquetof Greedy-Gut and filled me with a peace past understanding.
A disagreeable feature of this otherwise satisfactorycondition of things was the necessary secrecy:the transfer of the luncheon, for example, had tobe made at some distance from the madding crowd, ina wood; and I blush to think of the many other unworthysubterfuges entailed by the situation. As I was(and am) naturally of a frank and open disposition,these became more and more irksome, and but for thereluctance of my parents to renounce the obvious advantagesof the new regime I would gladly have revertedto the old. The plan that I finally adopted tofree myself from the consequences of my own powersexcited a wide and keen interest at the time, and thatpart of it which consisted in the death of the girlwas severely condemned, but it is hardly pertinentto the scope of this narrative.
For some years afterward I had little opportunityto practice hypnotism; such small essays as I madeat it were commonly barren of other recognition thansolitary confinement on a bread-and-water diet; sometimes,indeed, they elicited nothing better than the cat-o’-nine-tails.It was when I was about to leave the scene of thesesmall disappointments that my one really importantfeat was performed.
I had been called into the warden’s office andgiven a suit of civilian’s clothing, a triflingsum of money and a great deal of advice, which I ambound to confess was of a much better quality thanthe clothing. As I was passing out of the gateinto the light of freedom I suddenly turned and lookingthe warden gravely in the eye, soon had him in control.
“You are an ostrich,” I said.
At the post-mortem examination the stomach was foundto contain a great quantity of indigestible articlesmostly of wood or metal. Stuck fast in the oesophagusand constituting, according to the Coroner’sjury, the immediate cause of death, one door-knob.
I was by nature a good and affectionate son, but asI took my way into the great world from which I hadbeen so long secluded I could not help rememberingthat all my misfortunes had flowed like a stream fromthe nigg*rd economy of my parents in the matter ofschool luncheons; and I knew of no reason to thinkthey had reformed.
On the road between Succotash Hill and South Asphyxiais a little open field which once contained a shantyknown as Pete Gilstrap’s Place, where that gentlemanused to murder travelers for a living. The deathof Mr. Gilstrap and the diversion of nearly all thetravel to another road occurred so nearly at the sametime that no one has ever been able to say which wascause and which effect. Anyhow, the field wasnow a desolation and the Place had long been burned.It was while going afoot to South Asphyxia, the homeof my childhood, that I found both my parents on theirway to the Hill. They had hitched their team andwere eating luncheon under an oak tree in the centerof the field. The sight of the luncheon calledup painful memories of my school days and roused thesleeping lion in my breast. Approaching the guiltycouple, who at once recognized me, I ventured to suggestthat I share their hospitality.
“Of this cheer, my son,” said the authorof my being, with characteristic pomposity, whichage had not withered, “there is sufficient forbut two. I am not, I hope, insensible to the hunger-lightin your eyes, but—”
My father has never completed that sentence; whathe mistook for hunger-light was simply the earnestgaze of the hypnotist. In a few seconds he wasat my service. A few more sufficed for the lady,and the dictates of a just resentment could be carriedinto effect. “My former father,”I said, “I presume that it is known to you thatyou and this lady are no longer what you were?”
“I have observed a certain subtle change,”was the rather dubious reply of the old gentleman;“it is perhaps attributable to age.”
“It is more than that,” I explained; “itgoes to character—to species. Youand the lady here are, in truth, two broncos—wildstallions both, and unfriendly.”
“Why, John,” exclaimed my dear mother,“you don’t mean to say that I am—”
“Madam,” I replied, solemnly, fixing myeyes again upon hers, “you are.”
Scarcely had the words fallen from my lips when shedropped upon her hands and knees, and backing up tothe old man squealed like a demon and delivered avicious kick upon his shin! An instant later hewas himself down on all-fours, headed away from herand flinging his feet at her simultaneously and successively.With equal earnestness but inferior agility, becauseof her hampering body-gear, she plied her own.Their flying legs crossed and mingled in the mostbewildering way; their feet sometimes meeting squarelyin midair, their bodies thrust forward, falling flatupon the ground and for a moment helpless. Onrecovering themselves they would resume the combat,uttering their frenzy in the nameless sounds of thefurious brutes which they believed themselves to be—thewhole region rang with their clamor! Round andround they wheeled, the blows of their feet falling“like lightnings from the mountain cloud.”They plunged and reared backward upon their knees,struck savagely at each other with awkward descendingblows of both fists at once, and dropped again upontheir hands as if unable to maintain the upright positionof the body. Grass and pebbles were torn fromthe soil by hands and feet; clothing, hair, faces inexpressiblydefiled with dust and blood. Wild, inarticulatescreams of rage attested the delivery of the blows;groans, grunts and gasps their receipt. Nothingmore truly military was ever seen at Gettysburg orWaterloo: the valor of my dear parents in thehour of danger can never cease to be to me a sourceof pride and gratification. At the end of it alltwo battered, tattered, bloody and fragmentary vestigesof mortality attested the solemn fact that the authorof the strife was an orphan.
Arrested for provoking a breach of the peace, I was,and have ever since been, tried in the Court of Technicalitiesand Continuances whence, after fifteen years of proceedings,my attorney is moving heaven and earth to get thecase taken to the Court of Remandment for New Trials.
Such are a few of my principal experiments in themysterious force or agency known as hypnotic suggestion.Whether or not it could be employed by a bad man foran unworthy purpose I am unable to say.
THE FOURTH ESTATE
MR. MASTHEAD, JOURNALIST
While I was in Kansas I purchased a weekly newspaper—theClaybank Thundergust of Reform. This paperhad never paid its expenses; it had ruined four consecutivepublishers; but my brother-in-law, Mr. Jefferson Scandril,of Weedhaven, was going to run for the Legislature,and I naturally desired his defeat; so it became necessaryto have an organ in Claybank to assist in his politicalextinction. When the establishment came intomy hands, the editor was a fellow who had “opinions,”and him I at once discharged with an admonition.I had some difficulty in procuring a successor; everyman in the county applied for the place. I couldnot appoint one without having to fight a majorityof the others, and was eventually compelled to writeto a friend at Warm Springs, in the adjoining Stateof Missouri, to send me an editor from abroad whoseinstalment at the helm of manifest destiny could haveno local significance.
The man he sent me was a frowsy, seedy fellow, namedMasthead—not larger, apparently, than aboy of sixteen years, though it was difficult to sayfrom the outside how much of him was editor and howmuch cast-off clothing; for in the matter of apparelhe had acted upon his favorite professional maxim,and “sunk the individual;” his attire—eminentlyeclectic, and in a sense international—quiteovercame him at all points. However, as my friendhad assured me he was “a graduate of one ofthe largest institutions in his native State,”I took him in and bought a pen for him. My instructionsto him were brief and simple.
“Mr. Masthead,” said I, “it is thepolicy of the Thundergust first, last, andall the time, in this world and the next, to resentthe intrusion of Mr. Jefferson Scandril into politics.”
The first thing the little rascal did was to writea withering leader denouncing Mr. Scandril as a “demagogue,the degradation of whose political opinions was onlyequaled by the disgustfulness of the family connectionsof which those opinions were the spawn!”
I hastened to point out to Mr. Masthead that it hadnever been the policy of the Thundergust toattack the family relations of an offensive candidate,although this was not strictly true.
“I am very sorry,” he replied, runninghis head up out of his clothes till it towered asmuch as six inches above the table at which he sat;“no offense, I hope.”
“Oh, none in the world,” said I, as carelesslyas I could manage it; “only I don’t thinkit a legitimate—that is, an effective, methodof attack.”
“Mr. Johnson,” said he—I waspassing as Johnson at that time, I remember—“Mr.Johnson, I think it is an effective method.Personally I might perhaps prefer another line ofargument in this particular case, and personally perhapsyou might; but in our profession personal considerationsmust be blown to the winds of the horizon; we mustsink the individual. In opposing the electionof your relative, sir, you have set the seal of yourheavy displeasure upon the sin of nepotism, and forthis I respect you; nepotism must be got under!But in the display of Roman virtues, sir, we mustgo the whole hog. When in the interest of publicmorality”—Mr. Masthead was now gesticulatingearnestly with the sleeves of his coat—“Virginiusstabbed his daughter, was he influenced by personalconsiderations? When Curtius leaped into the yawninggulf, did he not sink the individual?”
I admitted that he did, but feeling in a contentiousmood, prolonged the discussion by leisurely loadingand capping a revolver; but, prescient of my argument,Mr. Masthead avoided refutation by hastily adjourningthe debate. I sent him a note that evening, filling-ina few of the details of the policy that I had beforesketched in outline. Amongst other things I submittedthat it would be better for us to exalt Mr. Scandril’sopponent than to degrade himself. To this Mr.Masthead reluctantly assented—“sinkingthe individual,” he reproachfully explained,“in the dependent employee—the powerlessbondsman!” The next issue of the Thundergustcontained, under the heading, “InvigoratingZephyrs,” the following editorial article:
“Last week we declared our unalterable oppositionto the candidacy of Mr. Jefferson Scandril, and gavereasons for the faith that is in us. For thefirst time in its history this paper made a clear,thoughtful, and adequate avowal and exposition ofeternal principle! Abandoning for the presentthe stand we then took, let us trace the antecedentsof Mr. Scandril’s opponent up to their source.It has been urged against Mr. Broskin that he spentsome years of his life in the lunatic asylum at WarmSprings, in the adjoining commonwealth of Missouri.This cuckoo cry—raised though it is bydogs of political darkness—we shall notstoop to controvert, for it is accidentally true; butnext week we shall show, as by the stroke of an enchanter’swand, that this great statesman’s detractorswould probably not derive any benefits from a residencein the same institution, their mental aberration beingrottenly incurable!”
I thought this rather strong and not quite to thepoint; but Masthead said it was a fact that our candidate,who was very little known in Claybank, had “serveda term” in the Warm Springs asylum, and the issuemust be boldly met—that evasion and denialwere but forms of prostration beneath the iron wheelsof Truth! As he said this he seemed to inflateand expand so as almost to fill his clothes, and the
fire of his eye somehow burned into me an impression—sinceeffaced—that a just cause is not imperiledby a trifling concession to fact. So, leavingthe matter quite in my editor’s hands I wentaway to keep some important engagements, the paragraphhaving involved me in several duels with the friendsof Mr. Broskin. I thought it rather hard thatI should have to defend my new editor’s policyagainst the supporters of my own candidate, particularlyas I was clearly in the right and they knew nothingwhatever about the matter in dispute, not one of themhaving ever before so much as heard of the now famousWarm Springs asylum. But I would not shirk eventhe humblest journalistic duty; I fought these fellowsand acquitted myself as became a man of letters anda politician. The hurts I got were some timehealing, and in the interval every prominent memberof my party who came to Claybank to speak to the peopleregarded it as a simple duty to call first at my house,make a tender inquiry as to the progress of my recoveryand leave a challenge. My physician forbade meto read a line of anything; the consequence was thatMasthead had it all his own way with the paper.In looking over the old files now, I find that hedevoted his entire talent and all the space of thepaper, including what had been the advertising columns,to confessing that our candidate had been an inmateof a lunatic asylum, and contemptuously asking theopposing party what they were going to do about it.All this time Mr. Broskin made no sign; but when thechallenges became intolerable I indignantly instructedMr. Masthead to whip round to the other side and supportmy brother-in-law. Masthead “sank the individual,”and duly announced, with his accustomed frankness,our change of policy. Then Mr. Broskin came downto Claybank—to thank me! He was afine, respectable-looking gentleman, and impressedme very favorably. But Masthead was in when hecalled, and the effect upon him was different.He shrank into a mere heap of old clothes, turned white,and chattered his teeth. Noting this extraordinarybehavior, I at once sought an explanation.
“Mr. Broskin,” said I, with a meaningglance at the trembling editor, “from certainindications I am led to fear that owing to some mistakewe may have been doing you an injustice. MayI ask you if you were really ever in the Lunatic asylumat Warm Springs, Missouri?”
“For three years,” he replied, quietly,“I was the physician in charge of that institution.Your son”—turning to Masthead, whowas flying all sorts of colors—“was,if I mistake not, one of my patients. I learnthat a few weeks ago a friend of yours, named Norton,secured the young man’s release upon your promiseto take care of him yourself in future. I hopethat home associations have improved the poor fellow.It’s very sad!”
It was indeed. Norton was the name of the manto whom I had written for an editor, and who had sentme one! Norton was ever an obliging fellow.
WHY I AM NOT EDITING “THE STINGER”
J. Munniglut, Proprietor, to Peter Pitchin,Editor.
“STINGER” OFFICE, Monday, 9 A.M.
A man has called to ask “who wrote that articleabout Mr. Muskler.” I told him to findout, and he says that is what he means to do.He has consented to amuse himself with the exchangeswhile I ask you. I don’t approve the article.
Peter Pitchin, Editor, to J. Munniglut, Proprietor.
13 LOFER STREET, Monday, 10 A.M.
Do you happen to remember how Dacier translates Difficileest proprie communia dicere? I’ve madea note of it somewhere, but can’t find it.If you remember please leave a memorandum of it onyour table, and I’ll get it when I come downthis afternoon.
P.S.—Tell the man to go away; we can’tbe bothered about that fellow
Muskler.
J. Munniglut, Proprietor, to Peter Pitchin,Editor.
“STINGER” OFFICE, Monday, 11:30 A.M.
I can’t be impolite to a stranger, you know;I must tell him somebody wrote it. Hehas finished the exchanges, and is drumming on thefloor with the end of his stick; I fear the peoplein the shop below won’t like it. Besides,the foreman says it disturbs the compositors in thenext room. Suppose you come down.
Peter Pitchin, Editor, to J. Munniglut, Proprietor.
13 LOFER STREET, Monday, 1 P.M.
I have found the note I made of that translation,but it is in French and I can’t make it out.Try the man with the dictionary and the “Booksof Dates.” They ought to last him till it’stime to close the office. I shall be down earlyto-morrow morning.
P.S.—How big is he? Suggest a civilsuit for libel.
J. Munniglut, Proprietor, to Peter Pitchin,Editor.
“STINGER” OFFICE, Monday, 3 P.M.
He looks larger than he was when he came in.I’ve offered him the dictionary; he says hehas read it before. He is sitting on my table.Come at once!
Peter Pitchin, Editor, to J. Munniglut, Proprietor.
13 LOFER STREET, Monday, 5 P.M.
I don’t think I shall. I am doing an articlefor this week on “The Present Aspect of thePolitical Horizon.” Expect me veryearly to-morrow. You had better turn the manout and shut up the office.
Henry Inxling, Bookkeeper, to Peter Pitchin, Editor.
“STINGER” OFFICE, Tuesday, 8 A.M.
Mr. Munniglut has not arrived, but his friend, thelarge gentleman who was with him all day yesterday,is here again. He seems very desirous of seeingyou, and says he will wait. Perhaps he is yourcousin. I thought I would tell you he was here,so that you might hasten down.
Ought I to allow dogs in the office? The gentlemanhas a bull-dog.
Peter Pitchin, Editor, to Henry Inxling, Bookkeeper.
13 LOFER STREET, Tuesday, 9.30 A.M.
Certainly not; dogs have fleas. The manis an impostor. Oblige me by turning him out.I shall come down this afternoon—early.
P.S.—Don’t listen to the rascal’sentreaties; out with him!
Henry Inxling, Bookkeeper, to Peter Pitchin, Editor.
“STINGER” OFFICE, Tuesday, 12 M.
The gentleman carries a revolver. Would you mindcoming down and reasoning with him? I have awife and five children depending on me, and when Ilose my temper I am likely to go too far. I wouldprefer that you should turn him out.
Peter Pitchin, Editor, to Henry Inxling, Bookkeeper.
13 LOFER STREET, Tuesday, 2 P.M.
Do you suppose I can leave my private correspondenceto preserve you from the intrusion and importunitiesof beggars? Put the scoundrel out at once—neckand heels! I know him; he’s Muskler—don’tyou remember? Muskler, the coward, who assaultedan old man; you’ll find the whole circ*mstancesrelated in last Saturday’s issue. Out withhim—the unmanly sneak!
Henry Inxling, Bookkeeper, to Peter Pitchin, Editor.
“STINGER” OFFICE, Tuesday Evening.
I have told him to go, and he laughed. So didthe bull-dog. But he is going. He is nowmaking a bed for the pup in one corner of your room,with some rugs and old newspapers, and appears to beabout to go to dinner. I have given him youraddress. The foreman wants some copy to go onwith. I beg you will come at once if I am to beleft alone with that dog.
Peter Pitchin, Editor, to Henry Inxling, Bookkeeper.
40 DUNTIONER’S ALLEY, Wednesday, 10 A.M.
I should have come down to the office last evening,but you see I have been moving. My landlady wastoo filthy dirty for anything! I stood it aslong as I could; then I left. I’m comingdirectly I get your answer to this; but I want toknow, first, if my blotter has been changed and myink-well refilled. This house is a good way out,but the boy can take the car at the corner of Cobbleand Slush streets.
O!—about that man? Of courseyou have not seen him since.
William Quoin, Foreman, to Peter Pitchin, Editor.
“STINGER” OFFICE, Wednesday, 12 M.
I’ve got your note to Inxling; he ain’tcome down this morning. I haven’t a lineof copy on the hooks; the boys are all throwing indead ads. There’s a man and a dog in theproprietor’s office; I don’t believe theyought to be there, all alone, but they were here allMonday and yesterday, and may be connected with thebusiness management of the paper; so I don’tlike to order them out. Perhaps you will comedown and speak to them. We shall have to go awayif you don’t send copy.
Peter Pitchin, Editor, to William Quoin, Foreman.
40 DUNTIONER’S ALLEY, Wednesday, 3 P.M.
Your note astonishes me. The man you describeis a notorious thief. Get the compositors alltogether, and make a rush at him. Don’ttry to keep him, but hustle him out of town, and I’llbe down as soon as I can get a button sewn on my collar.
P.S.—Give it him good!—don’tmention my address and he can’t complain tome how you treat him. Bust his bugle!
J. Munniglut, Proprietor, to Peter Pitchin,Editor.
“STINGER” OFFICE, Friday, 2 P.M.
Business has detained me from the office until now,and what do I find? Not a soul about the place,no copy, not a stickful of live matter on the galleys!There can be no paper this week. What you haveall done with yourselves I am sure I don’t know;one would suppose there had been smallpox about theplace. You will please come down and explain thisHegira at once—at once, if you please!
P.S.—That troublesome Muskler—youmay remember he dropped in on Monday to inquire aboutsomething or other—has taken a sort of shopexactly opposite here, and seems, at this distance,to be doing something to a shotgun. I presumehe is a gunsmith. So we are precious well ridof him.
Peter Pitchin, Editor to J. Munniglut, Proprietor.
PIER NO. 3, Friday Evening.
Just a line or two to say I am suddenly called awayto bury my sick mother. When that is off my mindI’ll write you what I know about the Hegira,the Flight into Egypt, the Retreat of the Ten Thousand,and whatever else you would like to learn. Thereis nothing mean about me! I don’t thinkthere has been any wilful desertion. You may engagean editor for, say, fifty years, with the privilegeof keeping him regularly, if, at the end of that time,I should break my neck hastening back.
P.S.—I hope that poor fellow Muskier willmake a fair profit in the gunsmithing line. Jumphim for an ad!
CORRUPTING THE PRESS
When Joel Bird was up for Governor of Missouri, SamHenly was editing the Berrywood Bugle; andno sooner was the nomination made by the State Conventionthan he came out hot against the party. He wasan able writer, was Sam, and the lies he inventedabout our candidate were shocking! That, however,we endured very well, but presently Sam turned squarelyabout and began telling the truth. This wasa little too much; the County Committee held a hastymeeting, and decided that it must be stopped; so I,Henry Barber, was sent for to make arrangements tothat end. I knew something of Sam: had purchasedhim several times, and I estimated his present valueat about one thousand dollars. This seemed tothe committee a reasonable figure, and on my mentioningit to Sam he said “he thought that about thefair thing; it should never be said that the Buglewas a hard paper to deal with.” There was,however, some delay in raising the money; the candidates
for the local offices had not disposed of their autumnhogs yet, and were in financial straits. Someof them contributed a pig each, one gave twenty bushelsof corn, another a flock of chickens; and the manwho aspired to the distinction of County Judge paidhis assessment with a wagon. These things hadto be converted into cash at a ruinous sacrifice, andin the meantime Sam kept pouring an incessant streamof hot shot into our political camp. NothingI could say would make him stay his hand; he invariablyreplied that it was no bargain until he had the money.The committeemen were furious; it required all myeloquence to prevent their declaring the contractnull and void; but at last a new, clean one thousand-dollarnote was passed over to me, which in hot haste I transferredto Sam at his residence.That evening there was a meeting of the committee:all seemed in high spirits again, except Hooker ofJayhawk. This old wretch sat back and shook hishead during the entire session, and just before adjournmentsaid, as he took his hat to go, that p’r’aps’twasorl right and on the squar’; maybe thar war’n’tany shenannigan, but he war dubersome—yes,he war dubersome. The old curmudgeon repeatedthis until I was exasperated beyond restraint.
“Mr. Hooker,” said I, “I’veknown Sam Henly ever since he was so high,and there isn’t an honester man in old Missouri.Sam Henly’s word is as good as his note!What’s more, if any gentleman thinks he wouldenjoy a first-class funeral, and if he will supplythe sable accessories, I’ll supply the corpse.And he can take it home with him from this meeting.”
At this point Mr. Hooker was troubled with leaving.
Having got this business off my conscience I sleptlate next day. When I stepped into the streetI saw at once that something was “up.”There were knots of people gathered at the corners,some reading eagerly that morning’s issue ofthe Bugle, some gesticulating, and others stalkingmoodily about muttering curses, not loud but deep.Suddenly I heard an excited clamor—a confusedroar of many lungs, and the trampling of innumerablefeet. In this babel of noises I could distinguishthe words “Kill him!” “Wa’mhis hide!” and so forth; and, looking up thestreet, I saw what seemed to be the whole male populationracing down it. I am very excitable, and, thoughI did not know whose hide was to be warmed, nor whyanyone was to be killed, I shot off in front of thehowling masses, shouting “Kill him!” and“Warm his hide!” as loudly as the loudest,all the time looking out for the victim. Downthe street we flew like a storm; then I turned a corner,thinking the scoundrel must have gone up thatstreet; then bolted through a public square; over abridge; under an arch; finally back into the main street;yelling like a panther, and resolved to slaughterthe first human being I should overtake. Thecrowd followed my lead, turning as I turned, shriekingas I shrieked, and—all at once it cameto me that I was the man whose hide was tobe warmed!
It is needless to dwell upon the sensation this discoverygave me; happily I was within a few yards of the committee-rooms,and into these I dashed, closing and bolting the doorsbehind me, and mounting the stairs like a flash.The committee was in solemn session, sitting in anice, even row on the front benches, each man withhis elbows on his knees, and his chin resting in thepalms of his hands—thinking. At eachman’s feet lay a neglected copy of the Bugle.Every member fixed his eyes on me, but no one stirred,none uttered a sound. There was something awfulin this preternatural silence, made more impressiveby the hoarse murmur of the crowd outside, breakingdown the door. I could endure it no longer, butstrode forward and snatched up the paper lying atthe feet of the chairman. At the head of the editorialcolumns, in letters half an inch long, were the followingamazing head-lines:
“Dastardly Outrage! Corruption Rampantin Our Midst! The Vampires Foiled! HenryBarber at his Old Game! The Rat Gnaws a File!The Democratic Hordes Attempt to Ride Roughshod Overa Free People! Base Endeavor to Bribe the Editorof this Paper with a Twenty-Dollar Note!The Money Given to the Orphan Asylum.”
I read no farther, but stood stockstill in the centerof the floor, and fell into a reverie. Twentydollars! Somehow it seemed a mere trifle.Nine hundred and eighty dollars! I did not knowthere was so much money in the world. Twenty—no,eighty—one thousand dollars! Therewere big, black figures floating all over the floor.Incessant cataracts of them poured down the walls,stopped, and shied off as I looked at them, and beganto go it again when I lowered my eyes. Occasionallythe figures 20 would take shape somewhere about thefloor, and then the figures 980 would slide up andoverlay them. Then, like the lean kine of Pharaoh’sdream, they would all march away and devour the fatnaughts of the number 1,000. And dancing likegnats in the air were myriads of little caduceus-like,phantoms, thus—$$$$$. I could not atall make it out, but began to comprehend my positiondirectly Old Hooker, without moving from his seat,began to drown the noise of countless feet on the stairsby elevating his thin falsetto:
“P’r’aps, Mr. Cheerman, it’sorl on the squar’. We know Mr. Henly can’ttell a lie; but I’m powerful dubersome that thar’sa balyance dyue this yer committee from the gent whohez the flo’—if he ain’t donegone laid it yout fo’ sable ac—ac—fo’fyirst-class funerals.”
I felt at that moment as if I should like to playthe leading character in a first-class funeral myself.I felt that every man in my position ought to havea nice, comfortable coffin, with a silver door-plate,a foot-warmer, and bay-windows for his ears.How do you suppose you would have felt?
My leap from the window of that committee room, myspeed in streaking it for the adjacent forest, myself-denial in ever afterward resisting the impulseto return to Berrywood and look after my politicaland material interests there—these I havealways considered things to be justly proud of, andI hope I am proud of them.
“THE BUBBLE REPUTATION”
HOW ANOTHER MAN’S WAS SOUGHT AND PRICKED
It was a stormy night in the autumn of 1930.The hour was about eleven. San Francisco layin darkness, for the laborers at the gas works hadstruck and destroyed the company’s property becausea newspaper to which a cousin of the manager was asubscriber had censured the course of a potato merchantrelated by marriage to a member of the Knights ofLeisure. Electric lights had not at that periodbeen reinvented. The sky was filled with greatmasses of black cloud which, driven rapidly acrossthe star-fields by winds unfelt on the earth and momentarilyaltering their fantastic forms, seemed instinct witha life and activity of their own and endowed withawful powers of evil, to the exercise of which theymight at any time set their malignant will.
An observer standing, at this time, at the cornerof Paradise avenue and Great White Throne walk inSorrel Hill cemetery would have seen a human figuremoving among the graves toward the Superintendent’sresidence. Dimly and fitfully visible in theintervals of thinner gloom, this figure had a mostuncanny and disquieting aspect. A long black cloakshrouded it from neck to heel. Upon its head wasa slouch hat, pulled down across the forehead andalmost concealing the face, which was further hiddenby a half-mask, only the beard being occasionally visibleas the head was lifted partly above the collar of thecloak. The man wore upon his feet jack-bootswhose wide, funnel-shaped legs had settled down inmany a fold and crease about his ankles, as could beseen whenever accident parted the bottom of the cloak.His arms were concealed, but sometimes he stretchedout the right to steady himself by a headstone ashe crept stealthily but blindly over the uneven ground.At such times a close scrutiny of the hand would havedisclosed in the palm the hilt of a poniard, the bladeof which lay along the wrist, hidden in the sleeve.In short, the man’s garb, his movements, thehour—everything proclaimed him a reporter.
But what did he there?
On the morning of that day the editor of the DailyMalefactor had touched the button of a bell numbered216 and in response to the summons Mr. Longbo Spittleworth,reporter, had been shot into the room out of an inclinedtube.
“I understand,” said the editor, “thatyou are 216—am I right?”
“That,” said the reporter, catching hisbreath and adjusting his clothing, both somewhat disorderedby the celerity of his flight through the tube,—“thatis my number.”
“Information has reached us,” continuedthe editor, “that the Superintendent of theSorrel Hill cemetery—one Inhumio, whosevery name suggests inhumanity—is guiltyof the grossest outrages in the administration ofthe great trust confided to his hands by the sovereignpeople.”
“The cemetery is private property,” faintlysuggested 216.
“It is alleged,” continued the great man,disdaining to notice the interruption, “thatin violation of popular rights he refuses to permithis accounts to be inspected by representatives ofthe press.”
“Under the law, you know, he is responsibleto the directors of the cemetery company,” thereporter ventured to interject.
“They say,” pursued the editor, heedless,“that the inmates are in many cases badly lodgedand insufficiently clad, and that in consequence theyare usually cold. It is asserted that they arenever fed—except to the worms. Statementshave been made to the effect that males and femalesare permitted to occupy the same quarters, to the incalculabledetriment of public morality. Many clandestinevillainies are alleged of this fiend in human shape,and it is desirable that his underground methods beunearthed in the Malefactor. If he resistswe will drag his family skeleton from the privacyof his domestic closet. There is money in itfor the paper, fame for you—are you ambitious,216?”
“I am—bitious.”
“Go, then,” cried the editor, rising andwaving his hand imperiously—“go and’seek the bubble reputation’.”
“The bubble shall be sought,” the youngman replied, and leaping into a man-hole in the floor,disappeared. A moment later the editor, who afterdismissing his subordinate, had stood motionless, asif lost in thought, sprang suddenly to the man-holeand shouted down it: “Hello, 216?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” came up a faint and farreply.
“About that ’bubble reputation’—youunderstand, I suppose, that the reputation which youare to seek is that of the other man.”
In the execution of his duty, in the hope of his employer’sapproval, in the costume of his profession, Mr. LongboSpittleworth, otherwise known as 216, has alreadyoccupied a place in the mind’s eye of the intelligentreader. Alas for poor Mr. Inhumio!
A few days after these events that fearless, independentand enterprising guardian and guide of the public,the San Francisco Daily Malefactor, containeda whole-page article whose headlines are here presentedwith some necessary typographical mitigation:
“Hell Upon Earth! Corruption Rampant inthe Management of the Sorrel
Hill Cemetery. The Sacred City of the Dead inthe Leprous Clutches of a
Demon in Human Form. Fiendish Atrocities Committedin ‘God’s Acre.’ The
Holy Dead Thrown around Loose. Fragments of Mothers.Segregation of a
Beautiful Young Lady Who in Life Was the Light ofa Happy Household. A
Superintendent Who Is an Ex-Convict. How He MurderedHis Neighbor to
Start the Cemetery. He Buries His Own Dead Elsewhere.Extraordinary
Insolence to a Representative of the Public Press.Little Eliza’s Last
Words: ‘Mamma, Feed Me to the Pigs.’A Moonshiner Who Runs an Illicit
Bone-Button Factory in One Corner of the Grounds.Buried Head Downward.
Mutilation—a Pile of Late Lamented Nosesand Sainted Ears. No
Separation of the Sexes; Petitions for Chaperons Unheeded.‘Veal’ as
Supplied to the Superintendent’s Employees.A Miscreant’s Record from
His Birth. Disgusting Subserviency of Our Contemporariesand Strong
Indications of Collusion. Nameless Abnormalities.’Doubled Up Like a
Nut-Cracker.’ ‘Wasn’t PlantedWhite.’ Horribly Significant Reduction in
the Price of Lard. The Question of the Hour:Whom Do You Fry Your
Doughnuts In?”
THE OCEAN WAVE
A SHIPWRECKOLLECTION
As I left the house she said I was a cruel old thing,and not a bit nice, and she hoped I never, never wouldcome back. So I shipped as mate on the Mudlark,bound from London to wherever the captain might thinkit expedient to sail. It had not been thoughtadvisable to hamper Captain Abersouth with orders,for when he could not have his own way, it had beenobserved, he would contrive in some ingenious way tomake the voyage unprofitable. The owners of theMudlark had grown wise in their generation,and now let him do pretty much as he pleased, carryingsuch cargoes as he fancied to ports where the nicestwomen were. On the voyage of which I write hehad taken no cargo at all; he said it would only makethe Mudlark heavy and slow. To hear thismariner talk one would have supposed he did not knowvery much about commerce.
We had a few passengers—not nearly so manyas we had laid in basins and stewards for; for beforecoming off to the ship most of those who had boughttickets would inquire whither she was bound, and whennot informed would go back to their hotels and senda bandit on board to remove their baggage. Butthere were enough left to be rather troublesome.They cultivated the rolling gait peculiar to sailorswhen drunk, and the upper deck was hardly wide enoughfor them to go from the forecastle to the binnacleto set their watches by the ship’s compass.They were always petitioning Captain Abersouth to letthe big anchor go, just to hear it plunge in the water,threatening in case of refusal to write to the newspapers.A favorite amusem*nt with them was to sit in the leeof the bulwarks, relating their experiences in formervoyages—voyages distinguished in every instanceby two remarkable features, the frequency of unprecedentedhurricanes and the entire immunity of the narratorfrom seasickness. It was very interesting tosee them sitting in a row telling these things, eachman with a basin between his legs.
One day there arose a great storm. The sea walkedover the ship as if it had never seen a ship beforeand meant to enjoy it all it could. The Mudlarklabored very much—far more, indeed, thanthe crew did; for these innocents had discovered inpossession of one of their number a pair of leather-seatedtrousers, and would do nothing but sit and play cardsfor them; in a month from leaving port each sailorhad owned them a dozen times. They were so wornby being pushed over to the winner that there waslittle but the seat remaining, and that immortal partthe captain finally kicked overboard—notmaliciously, nor in an unfriendly spirit, but becausehe had a habit of kicking the seats of trousers.
The storm increased in violence until it succeededin so straining the Mudlark that she took inwater like a teetotaler; then it appeared to get reliefdirectly. This may be said in justice to a stormat sea: when it has broken off your masts, pulledout your rudder, carried away your boats and madea nice hole in some inaccessible part of your hullit will often go away in search of a fresh ship, leavingyou to take such measures for your comfort as youmay think fit. In our case the captain thoughtfit to sit on the taffrail reading a three-volume novel.
Seeing he had got about half way through the secondvolume, at which point the lovers would naturallybe involved in the most hopeless and heart-rendingdifficulties, I thought he would be in a particularlycheerful humor, so I approached him and informed himthe ship was going down.
“Well,” said he, closing the book, butkeeping his forefinger between the pages to mark hisplace, “she never would be good for much aftersuch a shaking-up as this. But, I say—Iwish you would just send the bo’sn for’dthere to break up that prayer-meeting. The Mudlarkisn’t a seamen’s chapel, I suppose.”
“But,” I replied, impatiently, “can’tsomething be done to lighten the ship?”
“Well,” he drawled, reflectively, “seeingshe hasn’t any masts left to cut away, nor anycargo to—stay, you might throw over someof the heaviest of the passengers if you think itwould do any good.”
It was a happy thought—the intuition ofgenius. Walking rapidly forward to the foc’sle,which, being highest out of water, was crowded withpassengers, I seized a stout old gentleman by the napeof the neck, pushed him up to the rail, and chuckedhim over. He did not touch the water: hefell on the apex of a cone of sharks which sprang upfrom the sea to meet him, their noses gathered toa point, their tails just clearing the surface.I think it unlikely that the old gentleman knew whatdisposition had been made of him. Next, I hurledover a woman and flung a fat baby to the wild winds.The former was sharked out of sight, the same as theold man; the latter divided amongst the gulls.
I am relating these things exactly as they occurred.It would be very easy to make a fine story out ofall this material—to tell how that, whileI was engaged in lightening the ship, I was touchedby the self-sacrificing spirit of a beautiful youngwoman, who, to save the life of her lover, pushedher aged mother forward to where I was operating,imploring me to take the old lady, but spare, O, spareher dear Henry. I might go on to set forth howthat I not only did take the old lady, as requested,but immediately seized dear Henry, and sent him flyingas far as I could to leeward, having first broken hisback across the rail and pulled a double-fistful ofhis curly hair out. I might proceed to statethat, feeling appeased, I then stole the long boatand taking the beautiful maiden pulled away from the
ill-fated ship to the church of St. Massaker, Fiji,where we were united by a knot which I afterward untiedwith my teeth by eating her. But, in truth, nothingof all this occurred, and I can not afford to be thefirst writer to tell a lie just to interest the reader.What really did occur is this: as I stood onthe quarter-deck, heaving over the passengers, oneafter another, Captain Abersouth, having finishedhis novel, walked aft and quietly hove me over.The sensations of a drowning man have been so oftenrelated that I shall only briefly explain that memoryat once displayed her treasures: all the scenesof my eventful life crowded, though without confusionor fighting, into my mind. I saw my whole careerspread out before me, like a map of Central Africasince the discovery of the gorilla. There werethe cradle in which I had lain, as a child, stupefiedwith soothing syrups; the perambulator, seated inwhich and propelled from behind, I overthrew the schoolmaster,and in which my infantile spine received its curvature;the nursery-maid, surrendering her lips alternatelyto me and the gardener; the old home of my youth,with the ivy and the mortgage on it; my eldest brother,who by will succeeded to the family debts; my sister,who ran away with the Count von Pretzel, coachman toa most respectable New York family; my mother, standingin the attitude of a saint, pressing with both handsher prayer-book against the patent palpitators fromMadame Fahertini’s; my venerable father, sittingin his chimney corner, his silvered head bowed uponhis breast, his withered hands crossed patiently inhis lap, waiting with Christian resignation for death,and drunk as a lord—all this, and much more,came before my mind’s eye, and there was nocharge for admission to the show. Then therewas a ringing sound in my ears, my senses swam betterthan I could, and as I sank down, down, through fathomlessdepths, the amber light falling through the waterabove my head failed and darkened into blackness.Suddenly my feet struck something firm—itwas the bottom. Thank heaven, I was saved!
THE CAPTAIN OF “THE CAMEL”
This ship was named the Camel. In someways she was an extraordinary vessel. She measuredsix hundred tons; but when she had taken in enoughballast to keep her from upsetting like a shot duck,and was provisioned for a three months’ voyage,it was necessary to be mighty fastidious in the choiceof freight and passengers. For illustration, asshe was about to leave port a boat came alongsidewith two passengers, a man and his wife. Theyhad booked the day before, but had remained ashoreto get one more decent meal before committing themselvesto the “briny cheap,” as the man calledthe ship’s fare. The woman came aboard,and the man was preparing to follow, when the captainleaned over the side and saw him.
“Well,” said the captain, “whatdo you want?”
“What do I want?” said the man,laying hold of the ladder. “I’m a-goingto embark in this here ship—that’swhat I want.”
“Not with all that fat on you,” roaredthe captain. “You don’t weigh anounce less than eighteen stone, and I’ve gotto have in my anchor yet. You wouldn’thave me leave the anchor, I suppose?”
The man said he did not care about the anchor—hewas just as God had made him (he looked as if hiscook had had something to do with it) and, sink orswim, he purposed embarking in that ship. A gooddeal of wrangling ensued, but one of the sailors finallythrew the man a cork life-preserver, and the captainsaid that would lighten him and he might come abroad.
This was Captain Abersouth, formerly of the Mudlark—asgood a seaman as ever sat on the taffrail readinga three volume novel. Nothing could equal thisman’s passion for literature. For everyvoyage he laid in so many bales of novels that therewas no stowage for the cargo. There were novelsin the hold, and novels between-decks, and novels inthe saloon, and in the passengers’ beds.
The Camel had been designed and built by herowner, an architect in the City, and she looked aboutas much like a ship as Noah’s Ark did.She had bay windows and a veranda; a cornice and doorsat the water-line. These doors had knockers andservant’s bells. There had been a futileattempt at an area. The passenger saloon was onthe upper deck, and had a tile roof. To thishumplike structure the ship owed her name. Herdesigner had erected several churches—thatof St. Ignotus is still used as a brewery in HotbathMeadows—and, possessed of the ecclesiasticidea, had given the Camel a transept; but, findingthis impeded her passage through the water, he hadit removed. This weakened the vessel amidships.The mainmast was something like a steeple. Ithad a weatherco*ck. From this spire the eye commandedone of the finest views in England.
Such was the Camel when I joined her in 1864for a voyage of discovery to the South Pole.The expedition was under the “auspices”of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Fair Play.At a meeting of this excellent association, it hadbeen “resolved” that the partiality ofscience for the North Pole was an invidious distinctionbetween two objects equally meritorious; that Naturehad marked her disapproval of it in the case of SirJohn Franklin and many of his imitators; that it servedthem very well right; that this enterprise shouldbe undertaken as a protest against the spirit of unduebias; and, finally, that no part of the responsibilityor expense should devolve upon the society in itscorporate character, but any individual member mightcontribute to the fund if he were fool enough.It is only common justice to say that none of themwas. The Camel merely parted her cableone day while I happened to be on board—driftedout of the harbor southward, followed by the execrationsof all who knew her, and could not get back. Intwo months she had crossed the equator, and the heatbegan to grow insupportable.
Suddenly we were becalmed. There had been a finebreeze up to three o’clock in the afternoonand the ship had made as much as two knots an hourwhen without a word of warning the sails began to bellythe wrong way, owing to the impetus that the shiphad acquired; and then, as this expired, they hungas limp and lifeless as the skirts of a clawhammercoat. The Camel not only stood stock stillbut moved a little backward toward England. OldBen the boatswain said that he’d never knowedbut one deader calm, and that, he explained, was whenPreacher Jack, the reformed sailor, had got excitedin a sermon in a seaman’s chapel and shoutedthat the Archangel Michael would chuck the Dragon intothe brig and give him a taste of the rope’s-end,damn his eyes!
We lay in this woful state for the better part ofa year, when, growing impatient, the crew deputedme to look up the captain and see if something couldnot be done about it. I found him in a remotecobwebby corner between-decks, with a book in hishand. On one side of him, the cords newly cut,were three bales of “Ouida”; on the othera mountain of Miss M.E. Braddon towered abovehis head. He had finished “Ouida”and was tackling Miss Braddon. He was greatlychanged.
“Captain Abersouth,” said I, rising ontiptoe so as to overlook the lower slopes of Mrs.Braddon, “will you be good enough to tell mehow long this thing is going on?”
“Can’t say, I’m sure,” hereplied without pulling his eyes off the page.“They’ll probably make up about the middleof the book. In the meantime old Pondronummuswill foul his top-hamper and take out his papers forLooney Haven, and young Monshure de Boojower will comein for a million. Then if the proud and fairAngelica doesn’t luff and come into his wakeafter pizening that sea lawyer, Thundermuzzle, I don’tknow nothing about the deeps and shallers of the humanheart.”
I could not take so hopeful a view of the situation,and went on deck, feeling very much discouraged.I had no sooner got my head out than I observed thatthe ship was moving at a high rate of speed!
We had on board a bullock and a Dutchman. Thebullock was chained by the neck to the foremast, butthe Dutchman was allowed a good deal of liberty, beingshut up at night only. There was bad blood betweenthe two—a feud of long standing, havingits origin in the Dutchman’s appetite for milkand the bullock’s sense of personal dignity;the particular cause of offense it would be tediousto relate. Taking advantage of his enemy’safternoon siesta, the Dutchman had now managedto sneak by him, and had gone out on the bowsprit tofish. When the animal waked and saw the othercreature enjoying himself he straddled his chain,leveled his horns, got his hind feet against the mastand laid a course for the offender. The chainwas strong, the mast firm, and the ship, as Byronsays, “walked the water like a thing of course.”
After that we kept the Dutchman right where he was,night and day, the old Camel making betterspeed than she had ever done in the most favorablegale. We held due south.
We had now been a long time without sufficient food,particularly meat. We could spare neither thebullock nor the Dutchman; and the ship’s carpenter,that traditional first aid to the famished, was a merebag of bones. The fish would neither bite norbe bitten. Most of the running-tackle of theship had been used for macaroni soup; all the leatherwork, our shoes included, had been devoured in omelettes;with oakum and tar we had made fairly supportablesalad. After a brief experimental career as tripethe sails had departed this life forever. Onlytwo courses remained from which to choose; we couldeat one another, as is the etiquette of the sea, orpartake of Captain Abersouth’s novels.Dreadful alternative!—but a choice.And it is seldom, I think, that starving sailormenare offered a shipload of the best popular authorsready-roasted by the critics.
We ate that fiction. The works that the captainhad thrown aside lasted six months, for most of themwere by the best-selling authors and were pretty tough.After they were gone—of course some hadto be given to the bullock and the Dutchman—westood by the captain, taking the other books fromhis hands as he finished them. Sometimes, whenwe were apparently at our last gasp, he would skipa whole page of moralizing, or a bit of description;and always, as soon as he clearly foresaw the denouement—whichhe generally did at about the middle of the secondvolume—the work was handed over to us withouta word of repining.
The effect of this diet was not unpleasant but remarkable.Physically, it sustained us; mentally, it exaltedus; morally, it made us but a trifle worse than wewere. We talked as no human beings ever talkedbefore. Our wit was polished but without point.As in a stage broadsword combat, every cut has itsparry, so in our conversation every remark suggestedthe reply, and this necessitated a certain rejoinder.The sequence once interrupted, the whole was bosh;when the thread was broken the beads were seen tobe waxen and hollow.
We made love to one another, and plotted darkly inthe deepest obscurity of the hold. Each set ofconspirators had its proper listener at the hatch.These, leaning too far over would bump their headstogether and fight. Occasionally there was confusionamongst them: two or more would assert a rightto overhear the same plot. I remember at one timethe cook, the carpenter, the second assistant-surgeon,and an able seaman contended with handspikes for thehonor of betraying my confidence. Once therewere three masked murderers of the second watch bendingat the same instant over the sleeping form of a cabin-boy,who had been heard to mutter, a week previously, thathe had “Gold! gold!” the accumulationof eighty—yes, eighty—years’piracy on the high seas, while sitting as M.P. forthe borough of Zaccheus-cum-Down, and attending churchregularly. I saw the captain of the foretop surroundedby suitors for his hand, while he was himself fingeringthe edge of a packing-case, and singing an amorousditty to a lady-love shaving at a mirror.
Our diction consisted, in about equal parts, of classicalallusion, quotation from the stable, simper from thescullery, cant from the clubs, and the technical slangof heraldry. We boasted much of ancestry, andadmired the whiteness of our hands whenever the skinwas visible through a fault in the grease and tar.Next to love, the vegetable kingdom, murder, arson,adultery and ritual, we talked most of art. Thewooden figure-head of the Camel, representinga Guinea nigg*r detecting a bad smell, and the monochromepicture of two back-broken dolphins on the stern,acquired a new importance. The Dutchman had destroyedthe nose of the one by kicking his toes against it,and the other was nearly obliterated by the slopsof the cook; but each had its daily pilgrimage, andeach constantly developed occult beauties of designand subtle excellences of execution. On the wholewe were greatly altered; and if the supply of contemporaryfiction had been equal to the demand, the Camel,I fear, would not have been strong enough to containthe moral and aesthetic forces fired by the macerationof the brains of authors in the gastric juices ofsailors.
Having now got the ship’s literature off hismind into ours, the captain went on deck for the firsttime since leaving port. We were still steeringthe same course, and, taking his first observationof the sun, the captain discovered that we were inlatitude 83 deg. south. The heat was insufferable;the air was like the breath of a furnace within a furnace.The sea steamed like a boiling cauldron, and in thevapor our bodies were temptingly parboiled—ourultimate meal was preparing. Warped by the sun,the ship held both ends high out of the water; thedeck of the forecastle was an inclined plane, on whichthe bullock labored at a disadvantage; but the bowspritwas now vertical and the Dutchman’s tenure precarious.A thermometer hung against the mainmast, and we groupedourselves about it as the captain went up to examinethe register.
“One hundred and ninety degrees Fahrenheit!”he muttered in evident astonishment. “Impossible!”Turning sharply about, he ran his eyes over us, andinquired in a peremptory tone, “who’s beenin command while I was runnin’ my eye over thatbook?”
“Well, captain,” I replied, as respectfullyas I knew how, “the fourth day out I had theunhappiness to be drawn into a dispute about a gameof cards with your first and second officers.In the absence of those excellent seamen, sir, I thoughtit my duty to assume control of the ship.”
“Killed ’em, hey?”
“Sir, they committed suicide by questioningthe efficacy of four kings and an ace.”
“Well, you lubber, what have you to say in defenseof this extraordinary weather?”
“Sir, it is no fault of mine. We are far—veryfar south, and it is now the middle of July.The weather is uncomfortable, I admit; but consideringthe latitude and season, it is not, I protest, unseasonable.”
“Latitude and season!” he shrieked, lividwith rage—“latitude and season!Why, you junk-rigged, flat-bottomed, meadow lugger,don’t you know any better than that? Didn’tyer little baby brother ever tell ye that southernlatitudes is colder than northern, and that July isthe middle o’ winter here? Go below, youson of a scullion, or I’ll break your bones!”
“Oh! very well,” I replied; “I’mnot going to stay on deck and listen to such low languageas that, I warn you. Have it your own way.”
The words had no sooner left my lips, than a piercingcold wind caused me to cast my eye upon the thermometer.In the new regime of science the mercury was descendingrapidly; but in a moment the instrument was obscuredby a blinding fall of snow. Towering icebergsrose from the water on every side, hanging their jaggedmasses hundreds of feet above the masthead, and shuttingus completely in. The ship twisted and writhed;her decks bulged upward, and every timber groaned andcracked like the report of a pistol. The Camelwas frozen fast. The jerk of her sudden stoppingsnapped the bullock’s chain, and sent both thatanimal and the Dutchman over the bows, to accomplishtheir warfare on the ice.
Elbowing my way forward to go below, as I had threatened,I saw the crew tumble to the deck on either hand liketen-pins. They were frozen stiff. Passingthe captain, I asked him sneeringly how he liked theweather under the new regime. He replied witha vacant stare. The chill had penetrated to thebrain, and affected his mind. He murmured:
“In this delightful spot, happy in the world’sesteem, and surrounded by all that makes existencedear, they passed the remainder of their lives.The End.”
His jaw dropped. The captain of the Camelwas dead.
THE MAN OVERBOARD
I
The good ship Nupple-duck was drifting rapidlyupon a sunken coral reef, which seemed to extend areasonless number of leagues to the right and leftwithout a break, and I was reading Macaulay’s“Naseby Fight” to the man at the wheel.Everything was, in fact, going on as nicely as heartcould wish, when Captain Abersouth, standing on thecompanion-stair, poked his head above deck and askedwhere we were. Pausing in my reading, I informedhim that we had got as far as the disastrous repulseof Prince Rupert’s cavalry, adding that if hewould have the goodness to hold his jaw we shouldbe making it awkward for the wounded in about threeminutes, and he might bear a hand at the pockets ofthe slain. Just then the ship struck heavily,and went down!
Calling another ship, I stepped aboard, and gave directionsto be taken to No. 900 Tottenham Court Road, whereI had an aunt; then, walking aft to the man at thewheel, asked him if he would like to hear me read“Naseby Fight.” He thought he would:he would like to hear that, and then I might passon to something else—Kinglake’s “CrimeanWar,” the proceedings at the trial of WarrenHastings, or some such trifle, just to wile away thetime till eight bells.
All this time heavy clouds had been gathering alongthe horizon directly in front of the ship, and a deputationof passengers now came to the man at the wheel todemand that she be put about, or she would run intothem, which the spokesman explained would be unusual.I thought at the time that it certainly was not theregular thing to do, but, as I was myself only a passenger,did not deem it expedient to take a part in the heateddiscussion that ensued; and, after all, it did notseem likely that the weather in those clouds wouldbe much worse than that in Tottenham Court Road, whereI had an aunt.
It was finally decided to refer the matter to arbitration,and after many names had been submitted and rejectedby both sides, it was agreed that the captain of theship should act as arbitrator if his consent couldbe obtained, and I was delegated to conduct the negotiationsto that end. With considerable difficulty, Ipersuaded him to accept the responsibility.
He was a feeble-minded sort of fellow named Troutbeck,who was always in a funk lest he should make enemies;never reflecting that most men would a little ratherbe his enemies than not. He had once been theship’s cook, but had cooked so poisonously illthat he had been forcibly transferred from galleyto quarter-deck by the dyspeptic survivors of hisculinary career.
The little captain went aft with me to listen to argumentsof the dissatisfied passengers and the obstinate steersman,as to whether we should take our chances in the clouds,or tail off and run for the opposite horizon; buton approaching the wheel, we found both helmsman andpassengers in a condition of profound astonishment,rolling their eyes about towards every point of thecompass, and shaking their heads in hopeless perplexity.It was rather remarkable, certainly: the bankof cloud which had worried the landsmen was now directlyastern, and the ship was cutting along lively in herown wake, toward the point from which she had come,and straight away from Tottenham Court Road!Everybody declared it was a miracle; the chaplain waspiped up for prayers, and the man at the wheel wasas truly penitent as if he had been detected robbingan empty poor-box.
The explanation was simple enough, and dawned uponme the moment I saw how matters stood. Duringthe dispute between the helmsman and the deputation,the former had renounced his wheel to gesticulate,and I, thinking no harm, had amused myself, duringa rather tedious debate, by revolving the thing thisway and that, and had unconsciously put the ship about.By a coincidence not unusual in low latitudes, thewind had effected a corresponding transposition atthe same time, and was now bowling us as merrily backtoward the place where I had embarked, as it had previouslywafted us in the direction of Tottenham Court Road,where I had an aunt. I must here so far anticipate,as to explain that some years later these variousincidents—particularly the reading of “NasebyFight”—led to the adoption, in ourmercantile marine, of a rule which I believe is stillextant, to the effect that one must not speak to theman at the wheel unless the man at the wheel speaksfirst.
II
It is only by inadvertence that I have omitted theinformation that the vessel in which I was now a pervadinginfluence was the Bonnyclabber (Troutbeck,master), of Malvern Heights.
The Bonnyclabber’s reactionary coursehad now brought her to the spot at which I had takenpassage. Passengers and crew, fatigued by theirsomewhat awkward attempts to manifest their gratitudefor our miraculous deliverance from the cloud-bank,were snoring peacefully in unconsidered attitudesabout the deck, when the lookout man, perched on thesupreme extremity of the mainmast, consuming a coldsausage, began an apparently preconcerted series ofextraordinary and unimaginable noises. He coughed,sneezed, and barked simultaneously—bleatedin one breath, and cackled in the next—sputteringlyshrieked, and chatteringly squealed, with a bass ofsuffocated roars. There were desolutory vocalexplosions, tapering off in long wails, half smotheredin unintelligible small-talk. He whistled, wheezed,and trumpeted; began to sharp, thought better of itand flatted; neighed like a horse, and then thunderedlike a drum! Through it all he continued makingincomprehensible signals with one hand while clutchinghis throat with the other. Presently he gave itup, and silently descended to the deck.
By this time we were all attention; and no soonerhad he set foot amongst us, than he was assailed witha tempest of questions which, had they been visible,would have resembled a flight of pigeons. He madeno reply—not even by a look, but passedthrough our enclosing mass with a grim, defiant step,a face deathly white, and a set of the jaw as of onerepressing an ambitious dinner, or ignoring a venomoustoothache. For the poor man was choking!
Passing down the companion-way, the patient soughtthe surgeon’s cabin, with the ship’s companyat his heels. The surgeon was fast asleep, thelark-like performance at the masthead having been inaudiblein that lower region. While some of us were holdinga whisky-bottle to the medical nose, in order to apprisethe medical intelligence of the demand upon it, thepatient seated himself in statuesque silence.By this time his pallor, which was but the mark ofa determined mind, had given place to a fervent crimson,which visibly deepened into a pronounced purple, andwas ultimately superseded by a clouded blue, shot throughwith opalescent gleams, and smitten with variablestreaks of black. The face was swollen and shapeless,the neck puffy. The eyes protruded like pegsof a hat-stand.
Pretty soon the doctor was got awake, and after makinga careful examination of his patient, remarking thatit was a lovely case of stopupagus oesophagi,took a tool and set to work, producing with no difficultya cold sausage of the size, figure, and general bearingof a somewhat self-important banana. The operationhad been performed amid breathless silence, but themoment it was concluded the patient, whose neck andhead had visibly collapsed, sprang to his feet andshouted:
“Man overboard!”
That is what he had been trying to say.
There was a confused rush to the upper deck, and everybodyflung something over the ship’s side—alife-belt, a chicken-coop, a coil of rope, a spar,an old sail, a pocket handkerchief, an iron crowbar—anymovable article which it was thought might be usefulto a drowning man who had followed the vessel duringthe hour that had elapsed since the initial alarmat the mast-head. In a few moments the ship waspretty nearly dismantled of everything that couldbe easily renounced, and some excitable passengerhaving cut away the boats there was nothing more thatwe could do, though the chaplain explained that ifthe ill-fated gentleman in the wet did not turn upafter a while it was his intention to stand at thestern and read the burial service of the Church ofEngland.
Presently it occurred to some ingenious person toinquire who had gone overboard, and all hands beingmustered and the roll called, to our great chagrinevery man answered to his name, passengers and all!Captain Troutbeck, however, held that in a matter ofso great importance a simple roll-call was insufficient,and with an assertion of authority that was encouraginginsisted that every person on board be separatelysworn. The result was the same; nobody was missingand the captain, begging pardon for having doubtedour veracity, retired to his cabin to avoid furtherresponsibility, but expressed a hope that for the purposeof having everything properly recorded in the log-bookwe would apprise him of any further action that wemight think it advisable to take. I smiled asI remembered that in the interest of the unknown gentlemanwhose peril we had overestimated I had flung the log-bookover the ship’s side.
Soon afterward I felt suddenly inspired with one ofthose great ideas that come to most men only onceor twice in a lifetime, and to the ordinary storyteller never. Hastily reconvening the ship’scompany I mounted the capstan and thus addressed them:
“Shipmates, there has been a mistake. Inthe fervor of an ill-considered compassion we havemade pretty free with certain movable property of aneminent firm of shipowners of Malvern Heights.For this we shall undoubtedly be called to accountif we are ever so fortunate as to drop anchor in TottenhamCourt Road, where I have an aunt. It would addstrength to our defence if we could show to the satisfactionof a jury of our peers that in heeding the sacredpromptings of humanity we had acted with some smalldegree of common sense. If, for example, we couldmake it appear that there really was a man overboard,who might have been comforted and sustained by thematerial consolation that we so lavishly dispensedin the form of buoyant articles belonging to others,the British heart would find in that fact a mitigatingcirc*mstance pleading eloquently in our favor.Gentlemen and ship’s officers, I venture topropose that we do now throw a man overboard.”
The effect was electrical: the motion was carriedby acclamation and there was a unanimous rush forthe now wretched mariner whose false alarm at themasthead was the cause of our embarrassment, but onsecond thoughts it was decided to substitute CaptainTroutbeck, as less generally useful and more undeviatinglyin error. The sailor had made one mistake ofconsiderable magnitude, but the captain’s entireexistence was a mistake altogether. He was fetchedup from his cabin and chucked over.
At 900 Tottenham Road Court lived an aunt of mine—agood old lady who had brought me up by hand and taughtme many wholesome lessons in morality, which in mylater life have proved of extreme value. Foremostamong these I may mention her solemn and oft-repeatedinjunction never to tell a lie without a definiteand specific reason for doing so. Many years’experience in the violation of this principle enablesme to speak with authority as to its general soundness.I have, therefore, much pleasure in making a slightcorrection in the preceding chapter of this tolerablytrue history. It was there affirmed that I threwthe Bonnyclabber’s log-book into thesea. The statement is entirely false, and I candiscover no reason for having made it that will fora moment weigh against those I now have for the preservationof that log-book.
The progress of the story has developed new necessities,and I now find it convenient to quote from that bookpassages which it could not have contained if castinto the sea at the time stated; for if thrown uponthe resources of my imagination I might find the temptationto exaggerate too strong to be resisted.
It is needless to worry the reader with those entriesin the book referring to events already related.Our record will begin on the day of the captain’sconsignment to the deep, after which era I made theentries myself.
“June 22nd.—Not much doing in theway of gales, but heavy swells left over from someprevious blow. Latitude and longitude not notablydifferent from last observation. Ship laboringa trifle, owing to lack of top-hamper, everythingof that kind having been cut away in consequence ofCaptain Troutbeck having accidently fallen overboardwhile fishing from the bowsprit. Also threw overcargo and everything that we could spare. Missour sails rather, but if they save our dear captain,we shall be content. Weather flagrant.
“23d.—Nothing from Captain Troutbeck.Dead calm—also dead whale. The passengershaving become preposterous in various ways, Mr. Martin,the chief officer, had three of the ringleaders tiedup and rope’s-ended. He thought it advisablealso to flog an equal number of the crew, by way ofbeing impartial. Weather ludicrous.
“24th.—Captain still prefers to stopaway, and does not telegraph. The ’captainof the foretop’—there isn’tany foretop now—was put in irons to-dayby Mr. Martin for eating cold sausage while on look-out.Mr. Martin has flogged the steward, who had neglectedto holy-stone the binnacle and paint the dead-lights.The steward is a good fellow all the same. Weatheriniquitous.
“25th.—Can’t think whateverhas become of Captain Troutbeck. He must be gettinghungry by this time; for although he has his fishing-tacklewith him, he has no bait. Mr. Martin inspectedthe entries in this book to-day. He is a mostexcellent and humane officer. Weather inexcusable.
“26th.—All hope of hearing from theCaptain has been abandoned. We have sacrificedeverything to save him; but now, if we could procurethe loan of a mast and some sails, we should proceedon our voyage. Mr. Martin has knocked the coxswainoverboard for sneezing. He is an experiencedseaman, a capable officer, and a Christian gentleman—damnhis eyes! Weather tormenting.
“27th.—Another inspection of thisbook by Mr. Martin. Farewell, vain world!Break it gently to my aunt in Tottenham Court Road.”
In the concluding sentences of this record, as itnow lies before me, the handwriting is not very legible:they were penned under circ*mstances singularly unfavorable.Mr. Martin stood behind me with his eyes fixed onthe page; and in order to secure a better view, hadtwisted the machinery of the engine he called his handinto the hair of my head, depressing that globe tosuch an extent that my nose was flattened againstthe surface of the table, and I had no small difficultyin discerning the lines through my eyebrows. Iwas not accustomed to writing in that position:it had not been taught in the only school that I everattended. I therefore felt justified in bringingthe record to a somewhat abrupt close, and immediatelywent on deck with Mr. Martin, he preceding me up thecompanion-stairs on foot, I following, not on horseback,but on my own, the connection between us being maintainedwithout important alteration.
Arriving on deck, I thought it advisable, in the interestof peace and quietness, to pursue him in the samemanner to the side of the ship, where I parted fromhim forever with many expressions of regret, whichmight have been heard at a considerable distance.
Of the subsequent fate of the Bonnyclabber,I can only say that the log-book from which I havequoted was found some years later in the stomach ofa whale, along with some shreds of clothing, a fewbuttons and several decayed life-belts. It containedonly one new entry, in a straggling handwriting, asif it had been penned in the dark:
“july2th foundered svivors rescude by wale wetherstuffy no nues from capting trowtbeck Sammle martincheef Ofcer.”
Let us now take a retrospective glance at the situation.The ship Nupple-duck, (Abersouth, master) had,it will be remembered, gone down with all on boardexcept me. I had escaped on the ship Bonnyclabber(Troutbeck) which I had quitted owing to a misunderstandingwith the chief officer, and was now unattached.That is how matters stood when, rising on an unusuallyhigh wave, and casting my eye in the direction ofTottenham Court Road—that is, backward along
the course pursued by the Bonnyclabber andtoward the spot at which the Nupple-duck hadbeen swallowed up—I saw a quantity of whatappeared to be wreckage. It turned out to besome of the stuff that we had thrown overboard undera misapprehension. The several articles had beencompiled and, so to speak, carefully edited.They were, in fact, lashed together, forming a raft.On a stool in the center of it—not, apparentlynavigating it, but rather with the subdued and dignifiedbearing of a passenger, sat Captain Abersouth, ofthe Nupple-duck, reading a novel.Our meeting was not cordial. He remembered meas a man of literary taste superior to his own andharbored resentment, and although he made no oppositionto my taking passage with him I could see that hisacquiescence was due rather to his muscular inferioritythan to the circ*mstance that I was damp and takingcold. Merely acknowledging his presence witha nod as I climbed abroad, I seated myself and inquiredif he would care to hear the concluding stanzas of“Naseby Fight.”
“No,” he replied, looking up from hisnovel, “no, Claude Reginald Gump, writer ofsea stories, I’ve done with you. When yousank the Nupple-duck some days ago you probablythought that you had made an end of me. Thatwas clever of you, but I came to the surface and followedthe other ship—the one on which you escaped.It was I that the sailor saw from the masthead.I saw him see me. It was for me that all thatstuff was hove overboard. Good—I madeit into this raft. It was, I think, the nextday that I passed the floating body of a man whom Irecognized as, my old friend Billy Troutbeck—heused to be a cook on a man-o’-war. It givesme pleasure to be the means of saving your life, butI eschew you. The moment that we reach port ourpaths part. You remember that in the very firstsentence of this story you began to drive my ship,the Nupple-duck, on to a reef of coral.”
I was compelled to confess that this was true, andhe continued his inhospitable reproaches:
“Before you had written half a column you senther to the bottom, with me and the crew. Butyou—you escaped.”
“That is true,” I replied; “I cannotdeny that the facts are correctly stated.”
“And in a story before that, you took me andmy mates of the ship Camel into the heart ofthe South Polar Sea and left us frozen dead in theice, like flies in amber. But you did not leaveyourself there—you escaped.”
“Really, Captain,” I said, “yourmemory is singularly accurate, considering the manyhardships that you have had to undergo; many a manwould have gone mad.”
“And a long time before that,” CaptainAbersouth resumed, after a pause, more, apparently,to con his memory than to enjoy my good opinion ofit, “you lost me at sea—look here;I didn’t read anything but George Eliot at thattime, but I’m told that you lost me atsea in the Mudlark. Have I been misinformed?”
I could not say he had been misinformed.
“You yourself escaped on that occasion, I think.”
It was true. Being usually the hero of my ownstories, I commonly do manage to live through one,in order to figure to advantage in the next.It is from artistic necessity: no reader wouldtake much interest in a hero who was dead before thebeginning of the tale. I endeavored to explainthis to Captain Abersouth. He shook his head.
“No,” said he, “it’s cowardly,that’s the way I look at it.”
Suddenly an effulgent idea began to dawn upon me,and I let it have its way until my mind was perfectlyluminous. Then I rose from my seat, and frowningdown into the upturned face of my accuser, spoke insevere and rasping accents thus:
“Captain Abersouth, in the various perils youand I have encountered together in the classical literatureof the period, if I have always escaped and you havealways perished; if I lost you at sea in the Mudlark,froze you into the ice at the South Pole in the Cameland drowned you in the Nupple-duck, pray begood enough to tell me whom I have the honor to address.”
It was a blow to the poor man: no one was everso disconcerted. Flinging aside his novel, heput up his hands and began to scratch his head andthink. It was beautiful to see him think, butit seemed to distress him and pointing significantlyover the side of the raft I suggested as delicatelyas possible that it was time to act. He rose tohis feet and fixing upon me a look of reproach whichI shall remember as long as I can, cast himself intothe deep. As to me—I escaped.
A CARGO OF CAT
On the 16th day of June, 1874, the ship Mary Janesailed from Malta, heavily laden with cat. Thiscargo gave us a good deal of trouble. It wasnot in bales, but had been dumped into the hold loose.Captain Doble, who had once commanded a ship thatcarried coals, said he had found that plan the best.When the hold was full of cat the hatch was batteneddown and we felt good. Unfortunately the mate,thinking the cats would be thirsty, introduced a hoseinto one of the hatches and pumped in a considerablequantity of water, and the cats of the lower levelswere all drowned.
You have seen a dead cat in a pond: you rememberits circumference at the waist. Water multipliesthe magnitude of a dead cat by ten. On the firstday out, it was observed that the ship was much strained.She was three feet wider than usual and as much asten feet shorter. The convexity of her deck wasvisibly augmented fore and aft, but she turned upat both ends. Her rudder was clean out of waterand she would answer the helm only when running directlyagainst a strong breeze: the rudder, when pervertedto one side, would rub against the wind and slew heraround; and then she wouldn’t steer any more.Owing to the curvature of the keel, the masts came
together at the top, and a sailor who had gone upthe foremast got bewildered, came down the mizzenmast,looked out over the stern at the receding shores ofMalta and shouted: “Land, ho!” Theship’s fastenings were all giving way; the wateron each side was lashed into foam by the tempest offlying bolts that she shed at every pulsation of thecargo. She was quietly wrecking herself withoutassistance from wind or wave, by the sheer internalenergy of feline expansion.I went to the skipper about it. He was in hisfavorite position, sitting on the deck, supportinghis back against the binnacle, making a V of his legs,and smoking.
“Captain Doble,” I said, respectfullytouching my hat, which was really not worthy of respect,“this floating palace is afflicted with curvatureof the spine and is likewise greatly swollen.”
Without raising his eyes he courteously acknowledgedmy presence by knocking the ashes from his pipe.
“Permit me, Captain,” I said, with simpledignity, “to repeat that this ship is much swollen.”
“If that is true,” said the gallant mariner,reaching for his tobacco pouch, “I think itwould be as well to swab her down with liniment.There’s a bottle of it in my cabin. Bettersuggest it to the mate.”
“But, Captain, there is no time for empiricaltreatment; some of the planks at the water line havestarted.”
The skipper rose and looked out over the stern, towardthe land; he fixed his eyes on the foaming wake; hegazed into the water to starboard and to port.Then he said:
“My friend, the whole darned thing has started.”
Sadly and silently I turned from that obdurate manand walked forward. Suddenly “there wasa burst of thunder sound!” The hatch that hadheld down the cargo was flung whirling into spaceand sailed in the air like a blown leaf. Pushingupward through the hatchway was a smooth, square columnof cat. Grandly and impressively it grew—slowly,serenely, majestically it rose toward the welkin,the relaxing keel parting the mastheads to give ita fair chance. I have stood at Naples and seenVesuvius painting the town red—from Cataniahave marked afar, upon the flanks of AEtna, the lava’sawful pursuit of the astonished rooster and the despairingpig. The fiery flow from Kilauea’s crater,thrusting itself into the forests and licking theentire country clean, is as familiar to me as my mother-tongue.I have seen glaciers, a thousand years old and quitebald, heading for a valley full of tourists at therate of an inch a month. I have seen a saturatedsolution of mining camp going down a mountain river,to make a sociable call on the valley farmers.I have stood behind a tree on the battle-field andseen a compact square mile of armed men moving withirresistible momentum to the rear. Whenever anythinggrand in magnitude or motion is billed to appear Icommonly manage to beat my way into the show, and inreporting it I am a man of unscrupulous veracity;but I have seldom observed anything like that solidgray column of Maltese cat!
It is unnecessary to explain, I suppose, that eachindividual grimalkin in the outfit, with that readinessof resource which distinguishes the species, had grappledwith tooth and nail as many others as it could hookon to. This preserved the formation. It madethe column so stiff that when the ship rolled (andthe Mary Jane was a devil to roll) it swayedfrom side to side like a mast, and the Mate said ifit grew much taller he would have to order it cutaway or it would capsize us.
Some of the sailors went to work at the pumps, butthese discharged nothing but fur. Captain Dobleraised his eyes from his toes and shouted: “Letgo the anchor!” but being assured that nobodywas touching it, apologized and resumed his revery.The chaplain said if there were no objections he wouldlike to offer up a prayer, and a gambler from Chicago,producing a pack of cards, proposed to throw roundfor the first jack. The parson’s plan wasadopted, and as he uttered the final “amen,”the cats struck up a hymn.
All the living ones were now above deck, and everymother’s son of them sang. Each had a prettyfair voice, but no ear. Nearly all their notesin the upper register were more or less cracked anddisobedient. The remarkable thing about the voiceswas their range. In that crowd were cats of seventeenoctaves, and the average could not have been less thantwelve.
Number of cats, as per invoice..... 127,000Estimated number dead swellers..... 6,000-------Total songsters................ 121,000Average number octaves per cat..... 12-------Total octaves................ 1,452,000
It was a great concert. It lasted three daysand nights, or, counting each night as seven days,twenty-four days altogether, and we could not go belowfor provisions. At the end of that time the cookcame for’d shaking up some beans in a hat, andholding a large knife.
“Shipmates,” said he, “we have doneall that mortals can do. Let us now draw lots.”
We were blindfolded in turn, and drew, but just asthe cook was forcing the fatal black bean upon thefattest man, the concert closed with a suddennessthat waked the man on the lookout. A moment laterevery grimalkin relaxed his hold on his neighbors,the column lost its cohesion and, with 121,000 dull,sickening thuds that beat as one, the whole businessfell to the deck. Then with a wild farewell wailthat feline host sprang spitting into the sea andstruck out southward for the African shore!
The southern extension of Italy, as every schoolboyknows, resembles in shape an enormous boot. Wehad drifted within sight of it. The cats in thefabric had spied it, and their alert imaginations wereinstantly affected with a lively sense of the size,weight and probable momentum of its flung bootjack.
“ON WITH THE DANCE!” A REVIEW
I
THE PRUDE IN LETTERS AND LIFE
It is deserving of remark and censure that Americanliterature is become shockingly moral. Thereis not a doubt of it; our writers, if accused, wouldmake explicit confession that morality is their onlyfault—morality in the strict and specificsense. Far be it from me to disparage and belittlethis decent tendency to ignore the largest side ofhuman nature, and liveliest element of literary interest.It has an eminence of its own; if it is not greatart, it is at least great folly—a superiorsort of folly to which none of the masters of lettershas ever attained. Not Shakspeare, nor Cervantes,nor Goethe, nor Moliere, nor—no, not evenRabelais—ever achieved that shining pinnacleof propriety to which the latter-day American has aspired,by turning his back upon nature’s broad andfruitful levels and his eyes upon the passionate altitudeswhere, throned upon congenial ice, Miss Nancy sitsto censure letters, putting the Muses into petticoatsand affixing a fig-leaf upon Truth. Ours arean age and country of expurgated editions, emasculatedart, and social customs that look over the top of afan.
Lo! prude-eyed Primdimity,mother of Gush,
Sex-conscious, invoking thedifficult blush;
At vices that plague us andsins that beset
Sternly directing her privatelorgnette,
Whose lenses, self-searchinginstinctive for sin,
Make image without of thefancies within.
Itself, if examined, wouldshow us, alas!
A tiny transparency (French)on each glass.
Now, prudery in letters, if it would but have thegoodness not to coexist with prudery in life, mightbe suffered with easy fortitude, inasmuch as one needsnot read what one does not like; and between the licenseof the dear old bucks above mentioned, and the severitiesof Miss Nancy Howells, and Miss Nancy James, Jr.,of t’other school, there is latitude for gratificationof individual taste. But it occurs that a literaturerather accurately reflects all the virtues and othervices of its period and country, and its tendenciesare but the matchings of thought with action.Hence, we may reasonably expect to find—andindubitably shall find—certain well-markedcorrespondences between the literary faults whichit pleases our writers to commit and the social crimeswhich it pleases the Adversary to see their readerscommit. Within the current lustrum the pruderywhich had already, for some seasons, been achievinga vinegar-visaged and corkscrew-curled certain agein letters, has invaded the ball-room, and is infestingit in quantity. Supportable, because evitable,in letters, it is here, for the contrary reason, insufferable;for one must dance and enjoy one’s self whetherone like it or not. Pleasure, I take it, is aduty not to be shirked at the command of disinclination.Youth, following the bent of inherited instinct, andloyally conforming himself to the centuries, must
shake a leg in the dance, and Age, from emulation andhabit, and for denial of rheumatic incapacity, mustoccasionally twist his heel though he twist it offin the performance. Dance we must, and dance weshall; that is settled; the question of magnitude is,Shall we caper jocundly with the good grace of aneasy conscience, or submit to shuffle half-heartedlywith a sense of shame, wincing under the slow strokeof our own rebuking eye? To this momentous questionlet us now intelligently address our minds, sacredlypledged, as becomes lovers of truth, to its determinationin the manner most agreeable to our desires; and if,in pursuance of this laudable design, we have the unhappinessto bother the bunions decorating the all-pervadingfeet of the good people whose deprecations are voicedin The Dance of Death and the clamatory literatureof which that blessed volume was the honored parent,upon their own corns be it; they should not have obtrudedthese eminenceswhenyouth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hourswith flying feet.
What, therefore, whence, and likewise why, is dancing?From what flower of nature, fertilized by what pollenof circ*mstance or necessity, is it the fruit?Let us go to the root of the matter.
II
THE BEATING OF THE BLOOD
Nature takes a childish delight in tireless repetition.The days repeat themselves, the tides ebb and flow,the tree sways forth and back. This world isintent upon recurrences. Not the pendulum of aclock is more persistent of iteration than are allexisting things; periodicity is the ultimate law andlargest explanation of the universe—to doit over again the one insatiable ambition of all thatis. Everything vibrates; through vibration alonedo the senses discern it. We are not providedwith means of cognizance of what is absolutely at rest;impressions come in waves. Recurrence, recurrence,and again recurrence—that is the sole phenomenon.With what fealty we submit us to the law which compelsthe rhythm and regularity to our movement—thatmakes us divide up passing time into brief equal intervals,marking them off by some method of physical notation,so that our senses may apprehend them! In allwe do we unconsciously mark time like a clock, theleader of an orchestra with his baton onlymore perfectly than the smith with his hammer, or thewoman with her needle, because his hand is better assistedby his ear, less embarrassed with impedimenta.The pedestrian impelling his legs and the idler twiddlinghis thumbs are endeavoring, each in his unconsciousway, to beat time to some inaudible music; and thegraceless lout, sitting cross-legged in a horse-car,manages the affair with his toe.
The more intently we labor, the more intensely dowe become absorbed in labor’s dumb song, untilwith body and mind engaged in the ecstacy of repetition,we resent an interruption of our work as we do a falsenote in music, and are mightily enamored of ourselvesafterward for the power of application which was simplyinability to desist. In this rhythm of toil isto be found the charm of industry. Toil has initself no spell to conjure with, but its recurrencesof molecular action, cerebral and muscular, are asdelightful as rhyme.
Such of our pleasures as require movements equallyrhythmic with those entailed by labor are almost equallyagreeable, with the added advantage of being useless.Dancing, which is not only rhythmic movement, pureand simple, undebased with any element of utility,but is capable of performance under conditions positivelybaneful, is for these reasons the most engaging ofthem all; and if it were but one-half as wicked asthe prudes have endeavored by method of naughty suggestionto make it would lack of absolute bliss nothing butthe other half.
This ever active and unabatable something within uswhich compels us always to be marking time we maycall, for want of a better name, the instinct of rhythm.It is the aesthetic principle of our nature.Translated into words it has given us poetry; intosound, music; into motion, dancing. Perhaps evenpainting may be referred to it, space being the correlativeof time, and color the correlative of tone. Weare fond of arranging our minute intervals of timeinto groups. We find certain of these groupshighly agreeable, while others are no end unpleasant.In the former there is a singular regularity to beobserved, which led hard-headed old Leibnitz to thetheory that our delight in music arises from an inherentaffection for mathematics. Yet musicians havehitherto obtained but indifferent recognition for featsof calculation, nor have the singing and playing ofrenowned mathematicians been unanimously commendedby good judges.
Music so intensifies and excites the instinct of rhythmthat a strong volition is required to repress itsphysical expression. The universality of thisis well illustrated by the legend, found in some shapein many countries and languages, of the boy with thefiddle who compels king, cook, peasant, clown, andall that kind of people, to follow him through theland; and in the myth of the Pied Piper of Hamelinwe discern abundant reason to think the instinct ofrhythm an attribute of rats. Soldiers march somuch livelier with music than without that it hasbeen found a tolerably good substitute for the hopeof plunder. When the foot-falls are audible, ason the deck of a steamer, walking has an added pleasure,and even the pirate, with gentle consideration forthe universal instinct, suffers his vanquished foemanto walk the plank.
Dancing is simply marking time with the body, as anaccompaniment to music, though the same—withoutthe music—is done with only the head andforefinger in a New England meeting-house at psalmtime. (The peculiar dance named in honor of St. Vitusis executed with or without music, at the option ofthe musician.) But the body is a clumsy piece of machinery,requiring some attention and observation to keep itaccurately in time to the fiddling. The smallestdiversion of the thought, the briefest relaxing ofthe mind, is fatal to the performance. ’Tisas easy to fix attention on a sonnet of Shakspearewhile working at whist as gloat upon your partnerwhile waltzing. It can not be intelligently,appreciatively, and adequately accomplished—credeexpertum.
On the subject of poetry, Emerson says: “Metrebegins with pulse-beat, and the length of lines insongs and poems is determined by the inhalation andexhalation of the lungs,” and this really goesnear to the root of the matter; albeit we might derivetherefrom the unsupported inference that a poet “fatand scant of breath” would write in lines ofa foot each, while the more able-bodied bard, withthe capacious lungs of a pearl-diver, would deliverhimself all across his page, with “the spaciousvolubility of a drumming decasyllabon.”
While the heart, working with alternate contractionand dilatation, sends the blood intermittently throughthe brain, and the outer world apprises us of itsexistence only by successive impulses, it must resultthat our sense of things will be rhythmic. Thebrain being alternately stimulated and relaxed wemust think—as we feel—in waves,apprehending nothing continuously, and incapable ofa consciousness that is not divisible into units ofperception of which we make mental record and physicalsign. That is why we dance. That is why wecan, may, must, will, and shall dance, and the gatesof Philistia shall not prevail against us.
La valse legere, la valse legere,
The free, the bright, the debonair,
That stirs the strong, and fires the fair
With joy like wine of vintage rare—
That lends the swiftly circling pair
A short surcease of killing care,
With music in the dreaming air,
With elegance and grace to spare.
Vive! vive la valse, la valse legere!
—GeorgeJessop.
III
THERE ARE CORNS IN EGYPT
Our civilization—wise child!—knowsits father in the superior civilization whose colossalvestiges are found along the Nile. To those,then, who see in the dance a civilizing art, it cannot be wholly unprofitable to glance at this politeaccomplishment as it existed among the ancient Egyptians,and was by them transmitted—with variousmodifications, but preserving its essentials of identity—toother nations and other times. And here we havefirst to note that, as in all the nations of antiquity,the dance in Egypt was principally a religious ceremony;the pious old boys that builded the pyramids executedtheir jigs as an act of worship. Diodorus Siculusinforms us that Osiris, in his proselyting travelsamong the peoples surrounding Egypt—forOsiris was what we would call a circuit preacher—wasaccompanied by dancers male and dancers female.From the sculptures on some of the oldest tombs ofThebes it is seen that the dances there depicted didnot greatly differ from those in present favor inthe same region; although it seems a fair inferencefrom the higher culture and refinement of the elderperiod that they were distinguished by graces correspondinglysuperior. That dances having the character ofreligious rites were not always free from an elementthat we would term indelicacy, but which their performersand witnesses probably considered the commendable exuberanceof zeal and devotion, is manifest from the followingpassage of Herodotus, in which reference is made tothe festival of Bubastis:
Men and women come sailing all together,vast numbers in each boat, many of the women withcastanets, which they strike, while some of themen pipe during the whole period of the voyage; theremainder of the voyagers, male and female, singthe while, and make a clapping with their hands.When they arrive opposite to any town on the banksof the stream they approach the shore, and whilesome of the women continue to play and sing, otherscall aloud to the females of the place and loadthem with abuse, a certain number dancing and othersstanding up, uncovering themselves. Proceedingin this way all along the river course they reachBubastis, where they celebrate the feast with abundantsacrifice.
Of the mysteries of Isis and Osiris, in which dancingplayed an important part, the character of the ceremoniesis matter of dim conjecture; but from the hints thathave come down to us like significant shrugs and whispersfrom a discreet past, which could say a good dealmore if it had a mind to, I hasten to infer that theywere no better than they should have been.
Naturally the dances for amusem*nt of others wereregulated in movement and gesture to suit the tasteof patrons: for the refined, decency and moderation;for the wicked, a soupcon of the other kindof excellence. In the latter case the buffoon,an invariable adjunct, committed a thousand extravagances,and was a dear, delightful, naughty ancient Egyptianbuffoon. These dances were performed by both menand women; sometimes together, more frequently inseparate parties. The men seem to have confinedthemselves mostly to exercises requiring strength ofleg and arm. The figures on the tombs representmen in lively and vigorous postures, some in attitudepreliminary to leaping, others in the air. Thisfeature of agility would be a novelty in the orientaldances of to-day; the indolent male spectator beingsatisfied with a slow, voluptuous movement congenialto his disposition. When, on the contrary, theperformance of our prehistoric friends was governedand determined by ideas of grace, there were not infrequentlyfrom six to eight musical instruments, the harp, guitar,double-pipe, lyre, and tambourine of the period beingmost popular, and these commonly accompanied by a clappingof hands to mark the time.
As with the Greeks, dancers were had in at dinnerto make merry; for although the upper-class Egyptianwas forbidden to practice the art, either as an accomplishmentor for the satisfaction of his emotional nature, itwas not considered indecorous to hire professionalsto perform before him and his female and young.The she dancer usually habited herself in a loose,flowing robe, falling to the ankles and bound at thewaist, while about the hips was fastened a narrow,ornate girdle. This costume—in pointof opacity imperfectly superior to a gentle breeze—isnot always discernible in the sculptures; but it ischaritably believed that the pellucid garment, beingmerely painted over the figures, has been ravishedaway by the hand of Time—the wretch!
One of the dances was a succession of pleasing attitudes,the hands and arms rendering important assistance—thebody bending backward and forward and swaying laterally,the figurante sometimes half-kneeling, andin that position gracefully posturing, and again balancedon one foot, the arms and hands waving slowly in timeto the music. In another dance, the pirouetteand other figures dear to the bald-headed beaux ofthe modern play-house, were practiced in the familiarway. Four thousand years ago, the senses of theyoung ancient Egyptian—wild, heady lad!—werekicked into confusion by the dark-skinned belle ofthe ballet, while senility, with dimmed eyes, rubbedits dry hands in feverish approval at the self-samefeat. Dear, dear, but it was a bad world fourthousand years ago!
Sometimes they danced in pairs, men with men and womenwith women, indifferently, the latter arrangementseeming to us preferable by reason of the women’sconspicuously superior grace and almost equal agility;for it is in evidence on the tombs that tumblers andacrobats were commonly of the softer sex. Someof the attitudes were similar to those which drewfrom Socrates the ungallant remark that women werecapable of learning anything which you will that theyshould know. The figures in this pas de deuxappear frequently to have terminated in what children,with their customary coarseness of speech, are pleasedto call “wringing the dish-clout”—claspingthe hands, throwing the arms above the head and turningrapidly, each as on a pivot, without loosing the handsof the other, and resting again in position.
Sometimes, with no other music than the percussionof hands, a man would execute a pas seul, whichit is to be presumed he enjoyed. Again, witha riper and better sense of musical methods, the performeraccompanied himself, or, as in this case it usuallywas, herself, on the double-pipes, the guitar or thetambourine, while the familiar hand-clapping was doneby attendants. A step not unlike that of theabominable clog dance of the “variety”stage and “music hall” of the presentday consisted in striking the heel of first one footand then the other, the hands and arms being employedto diminish the monotony of the movement. Foramusem*nt and instruction of the vulgar, buffoons inherds of ten or more in fested the streets, hoppingand posing to the sound of a drum.
As illustrating the versatility of the dance, itswide capacities of adaptation to human emotional needs,I may mention here the procession of women to thetomb of a friend or relative Punishing the tambourineor dara booka drum, and bearing branches ofpalm or other symbolic vegetables, these sprightlymourners passed through the streets with songs anddances which, under the circ*mstances, can hardly havefailed eminently to gratify the person so fortunateas to have his memory honored by so delicate and appropriateobservance.
IV
A REEF IN THE GABARDINE
The early Jew danced ritually and socially. Someof his dances and the customs connected therewithwere of his own devising; others he picked up in Egypt,the latter, no doubt, being more firmly fixed in hismemory by the necessity of practicing them—albeitbehind the back of Moses—while he had themstill fresh in his mind; for he would naturally resortto every human and inhuman device to wile away thedragging decades consumed in tracing the labyrinthinesinuosities of his course in the wilderness.When a man has assurance that he will not be permittedto arrive at the point for which he set out, perceivingthat every step forward is a step wasted, he willpretty certainly use his feet to a better purposethan walking. Clearly, at a time when all thechosen people were Wandering Jews they would danceall they knew how. We know that they danced inworship of the Golden Calf, and that previously “Miriamthe prophetess, sister of Aaron, took a timbrel inher hand; and all the women went out after her withtimbrels and with dances.” And ever somany generations before, Laban complained to Jacobthat Jacob had stolen away instead of letting himsend him off with songs and mirth and music on thetabret and harp, a method of speeding the parting guestwhich would naturally include dancing, although thesame is not of explicit record.
The religious ceremonies of the Jews had not at alltimes the restraint and delicacy which it is to bewished the Lord had exacted, for we read of King Davidhimself dancing before the Ark in a condition so nearlynude as greatly to scandalize the daughter of Saul.By the way, this incident has been always a stockargument for the extinction and decent interment ofthe unhappy anti dancer. Conceding the necessityof his extinction, I am yet indisposed to attach muchweight to the Davidian precedent, for it does notappear that he was acting under divine command, directlyor indirectly imparted, and whenever he followed thehest of his own sweet will David had a notable knackat going wrong. Perhaps the best value of theincident consists in the evidence it supplies thatdancing was not forbidden—save possiblyby divine injunction—to the higher classesof Jews, for unless we are to suppose the dancingof David to have been the mere clumsy capering of aloutish mood (a theory which our respect for royalty,even when divested of its imposing externals, forbidsus to entertain) we are bound to assume previous instructionand practice in the art. We have, moreover, theRoman example of the daughter of Herodias, whose dancingbefore Herod was so admirably performed that she wassuitably rewarded with a testimonial of her step father’sesteem. To these examples many more might beadded, showing by cumulative evidence that among theancient people whose religion was good enough forus to adopt and improve, dancing was a polite andproper accomplishment, although not always decorouslyexecuted on seasonable occasion.
V
ENTER A TROUPE OF ANCIENTS, DANCING
The nearly oldest authentic human records now decipherableare the cuneiform inscriptions from the archives ofAssurbanipal, translated by the late George Smith,of the British Museum, and in them we find abundantreference to the dance, but must content ourselveswith a single one.
The kings of Arabiawho against my agreement,
sinned, whom in the midstof battle alive I had captured
in hand, to make that Bitrichiti Heavy burdens I
caused them to carry and Icaused them to take
building its brick work with dancing and
music with joy andshouting from the found
ation to its roof I built
A Mesopotamian king, who had the genius to conceivethe dazzling idea of communicating with the readersof this distant generation by taking impressions ofcarpet tacks on cubes of unbaked clay is surely entitledto a certain veneration, and when he associates dancingwith such commendable actions as making porters ofhis royal captives it is not becoming in us meanermortals to set up a contrary opinion. Indeednothing can be more certain than that the art of dancingwas not regarded by the ancients generally in thelight of a frivolous accomplishment, nor its practicea thing wherewith to shoo away a tedious hour.In their minds it evidently had a certain dignity andelevation, so much so that they associated it withtheir ideas (tolerably correct ones, on the whole)of art, harmony, beauty, truth and religion With them,dancing bore a relation to walking and the ordinarymovements of the limbs similar to that which poetrybears to prose, and as our own Emerson—himselfsomething of an ancient—defines poetryas the piety of the intellect, so Homer would doubtlesshave defined dancing as the devotion of the body ifhe had had the unspeakable advantage of a trainingin the Emerson school of epigram. Such a viewof it is natural to the unsophisticated pagan mind,and to all minds of clean, wholesome, and simple understanding.It is only the intellect that has been subjected tothe strain of overwrought religious enthusiasm ofthe more sombre sort that can discern a lurking devilin the dance, or anything but an exhilarating andaltogether delightful outward manifestation of aninner sense of harmony, joy and well being. Underthe stress of morbid feeling, or the overstrain ofreligious excitement, coarsely organized natures seeor create something gross and prurient in things intrinsicallysweet and pure, and it happens that when the dancehas fallen to their shaping and direction, as in religiousrites, then it has received its most objectionabledevelopment and perversion. But the grossnessof dances devised by the secular mind for purposesof aesthetic pleasure is all in the censorious critic,who deserves the same kind of rebuke administeredby Dr. Johnson to Boswell, who asked the Doctor ifhe considered a certain nude statue immodest.“No, sir, but your question is.”
It would be an unfortunate thing, indeed, if the “prurientprudes” of the meeting houses were permittedto make the laws by which society should be governed.The same unhappy psychological condition which makesthe dance an unclean thing in their jaundiced eyesrenders it impossible for them to enjoy art or literaturewhen the subject is natural, the treatment free andjoyous. The ingenuity that can discover an indelicateprovocative in the waltz will have no difficulty insnouting out all manner of uncleanliness in Shakspeare,Chaucer, Boccacio—nay, even in the NewTestament. It would detect an unpleasant suggestivenessin the Medicean Venus, and two in the Dancing Faun.To all such the ordinary functions of life are impure,the natural man and woman things to blush at, allthe economies of nature full of shocking improprieties.
In the Primitive Church dancing was a religious rite,no less than it was under the older dispensation amongthe Jews. On the eve of sacred festivals, theyoung people were accustomed to assemble, sometimesbefore the church door, sometimes in the choir or naveof the church, and dance and sing hymns in honor ofthe saint whose festival it was. Easter Sunday,especially, was so celebrated; and rituals of a comparativelymodern date contain the order in which it is appointedthat the dances are to be performed, and the wordsof the hymns to the music of which the youthful devoteesflung up their pious heels But I digress.
In Plato’s time the Greeks held that dancingawakened and preserved in the soul—as Ido not doubt that it does—the sentimentof harmony and proportion; and in accordance withthis idea Simonides, with a happy knack at epigram,defined dances as “poems in dumb show.”
In his Republic Plato classifies the Greciandances as domestic, designed for relaxation and amusem*nt,military, to promote strength and activity in battle;and religious, to accompany the sacred songs at piousfestivals. To the last class belongs the dancewhich Theseus is said to have instituted on his returnfrom Crete, after having abated the Minotaur nuisance.At the head of a noble band of youth, this publicspirited reformer of abuses himself executed his dance.Theseus as a dancing-master does not much fire theimagination, it is true, but the incident has itsvalue and purpose in this dissertation. Theseuscalled his dance Geranos, or the “Crane,”because its figures resembled those described by thatfowl aflight; and Plutarch fancied he discovered init a meaning which one does not so readily discoverin Plutarch’s explanation.
It is certain that, in the time of Anacreon[A], theGreeks loved the dance. That poet, with frequentrepetition, felicitates himself that age has not deprivedhim of his skill in it. In Ode LIII, he declaresthat in the dance he renews his youth
When I behold the festive train
Of dancing youth, I’m young again
And let me, while the wild and young
Trip the mazy dance along
Fling my heap of years away
And be as wild, as young as they
—Moore
[Footnote A: It may be noted here that the popularconception of this poet as a frivolous sensualistis unsustained by evidence and repudiated by all havingknowledge of the matter. Although love and winewere his constant themes, there is good ground forthe belief that he wrote of them with greater abandonthan he indulged in them—a not uncommonpractice of the poet-folk, by the way, and one to whichthose who sing of deeds of arms are perhaps especiallyaddicted. The great age which Anacreon attainedpoints to a temperate life; and he more than oncedenounces intoxication with as great zeal as a modernreformer who has eschewed the flagon for the trencher.According to Anacreon, drunkenness is “the viceof barbarians;” though, for the matter of that,it is difficult to say what achievable vice is not.In Ode LXII, he sings:
Fill me, boy, as deep a draught
As e’er was filled, as e’er was quaffed;
But let the water amply flow
To cool the grape’s intemperate glow.
* * * * *
For though the bowl’s the grave of sadness
Ne’er let it be the birth of madness
No! banish from our board to night
The revelries of rude delight
To Scythians leave these wild excesses
Ours be the joy that soothes and blesses!
And while the temperate bowl we wreathe
In concert let our voices breathe
Beguiling every hour along
With harmony of soul and song
Maximus of Tyre speaking of Polycrates the Tyrant(tyrant, be it remembered, meant only usurper, notoppressor) considered the happiness of that potentatesecure because he had a powerful navy and such a friendas Anacreon—the word navy naturally suggestingcold water, and cold water, Anacreon.]
And so in Ode LIX, which seems to be a vintage hymn.
When he whose verging years decline
As deep into the vale as mine
When he inhales the vintage cup
His feet new winged from earth spring up
And as he dances the fresh air
Plays whispering through his silvery hair
—Id
In Ode XLVII, he boasts that age has not impairedhis relish for, nor his power of indulgence in, thefeast and dance.
Tis true my fading years decline
Yet I can quaff the brimming wine
As deep as any stripling fair
Whose cheeks the flush of morning wear,
And if amidst the wanton crew
I’m called to wind the dance’s clew
Then shalt thou see this vigorous hand
Not faltering on the Bacchant’s wand
For though my fading years decay—
Though manhood’s prime hath passed away,
Like old Silenus sire divine
With blushes borrowed from the wine
I’ll wanton mid the dancing tram
And live my follies o’er again
—Id
Cornelius Nepos, I think, mentions among the admirablequalities of the great Epaminondas that he had anextraordinary talent for music and dancing. Epaminondasaccomplishing his jig must be accepted as a pleasingand instructive figure in the history of the dance.
Lucian says that a dancer must have some skill asan actor, and some acquaintance with mythology—thereason being that the dances at the festivals of thegods partook of the character of pantomime, and representedthe most picturesque events and passages in the popularreligion. Religious knowledge is happily no longerregarded as a necessary qualification for the dance,and, in point of fact no thing is commonly more foreignto the minds of those who excel in it.
It is related of Aristides the Just that he dancedat an entertainment given by Dionysius the Tyrant,and Plato, who was also a guest, probably confrontedhim in the set.
The “dance of the wine press,” describedby Longinus, was originally modest and proper, butseems to have become in the process of time—andprobably by the stealthy participation of disguisedprudes—a kind of can can.
In the high noon of human civilization—inthe time of Pericles at Athens—dancingseems to have been regarded as a civilizing and refiningamusem*nt in which the gravest dignitaries and mostrenowned worthies joined with indubitable alacrity,if problematic advantage. Socrates himself—atan advanced age, too—was persuaded by thevirtuous Aspasia to cut his caper with the rest ofthem.
Horace (Ode IX, Book I,) exhorts the youth not todespise the dance:
Necdulcis amores
Spernepuer, neque tu choreas.
Which may be freely translated thus:
Boy, in Love’s game don’tmiss a trick,
Nor be in the dance a walking stick.
In Ode IV, Book I, he says:
Jam Cytherea choros ducit, inminenteLuna
Junctaeque Nymphis Gratiae decentes
Alterno terram quatiunt pede, etc.
At moonrise, Venus and herjoyous band
Of Nymphs and Graces leg ito’er the land
In Ode XXXVI, Book I (supposed to have been writtenwhen Numida returned from the war in Spain, with Augustus,and referring to which an old commentator says “Wemay judge with how much tenderness Horace loved hisfriends, when he celebrates their return with sacrifices,songs, and dances”) Horace writes
Cressa ne careat pulchra diesnota
Neu promtae modus amphorae
Neu morem in Salium sit requiespedum etc.
Let not the day forego itsmark
Nor lack the wine jug’shonest bark
Like Salian priests we’lltoss our toes—
Choose partners for the dance—heregoes!
It has been hastily inferred that, in the time ofCicero, dancing was not held in good repute amongthe Romans, but I prefer to consider his ungraciousdictum (in De Ami citia, I think,) “Nemosobrius saltat”—no sober mandances—as merely the spiteful and enviousfling of a man who could not himself dance, and amdisposed to congratulate the golden youth of the EternalCity on the absence of the solemn consequential andegotistic orator from their festivals and merry makingswhence his shining talents would have been so manyseveral justifications for his forcible extrusion.No doubt his eminence procured him many invitationsto balls of the period, and some of these he probablyfelt constrained to accept, but it is highly unlikelythat he was often solicited to dance, he probablywiled away the tedious hours of inaction by instructingthe fibrous virgins and gouty bucks in the principlesof juris prudence. Cicero as a wall flower isan interesting object, and, turning to another branchof our subject, in this picturesque attitude we leavehim. Left talking.
VI
CAIRO REVISITED
Having glanced, briefly, and as through a glass darkly,at the dance as it existed in the earliest times ofwhich we have knowledge in the country whence, throughdevious and partly obliterated channels, we derivedmuch of our civilization, let us hastily survey someof its modern methods in the same region—supplyingthereby some small means of comparison to the readerwho may care to note the changes undergone and thefeatures preserved.
We find the most notable, if not the only, purelyEgyptian dancer of our time in the Alme orGhowazee. The former name is derived fromthe original calling of this class—thatof reciting poetry to the inmates of the harem, thelatter they acquired by dancing at the festivals ofthe Ghors, or Memlooks. Reasonably modest at first,the dancing of the Alme became, in the course of time,so conspicuously indelicate that great numbers ofthe softer sex persuaded themselves to its acquirementand practice, and a certain viceregal Prude once contractedthe powers of the whole Cairo contingent of Awaliminto the pent up Utica of the town of Esuch, somefive hundred miles removed from the viceregal dissentingeye. For a brief season the order was enforced,then the sprightly sinners danced out of bounds, andtheir successors can now be found by the foreign studentof Egyptian morals without the fatigue and expenseof a long journey up the Nile.
The professional dress of the Alme consists of a shortembroidered jacket, fitting closely to the arms andback, but frankly unreserved in front, long loosetrousers of silk sufficiently opaque somewhat to softenthe severity of the lower limbs, a Cashmere shawl boundabout the waist and a light turban of muslin embroideredwith gold. The long black hair, starred withsmall coins, falls abundantly over the shoulders.The eyelids are sabled with kohl, and such other paints,oils, varnishes and dyestuffs are used as the fairone—who is a trifle dark, by the way—mayhave proved for herself, or accepted on the superiorjudgment of her European sisters. Altogether,the girl’s outer and visible aspect is not unattractiveto the eye of the traveler, however faulty to theeye of the traveler’s wife. When about todance, the Alme puts on a lighter and more diaphanousdress, eschews her slippers, and with a slow and measuredstep advances to the centre of the room—herlithe figure undulating with a grace peculiarly serpentile.The music is that of a reed pipe or a tambourine—anumber of attendants assisting with castanets.Perhaps the “argument” of her dance willbe a love-passage with an imaginary young Arab.The coyness of a first meeting by chance her gradualwarming into passion their separation, followed byher tears and dejection the hope of meeting soon againand, finally, the intoxication of being held oncemore in his arms—all are delineated witha fidelity and detail surprising to whatever of judgmentthe masculine spectator may have the good fortuneto retain.
One of the prime favorites is the “wasp dance,”allied to the Tarantella. Although less pleasingin motive than that described, the wasp dance givesopportunity for movements of even superior significance—or,as one may say, suggestures. The girl stands ina pensive posture, her hands demurely clasped in front,her head poised a little on one side. Suddenlya wasp is heard to approach, and by her gestures isseen to have stung her on the breast. She thendarts hither and thither in pursuit of that audaciousinsect, assuming all manner of provoking attitudes,until, finally, the wasp having been caught and miserablyexterminated, the girl resumes her innocent smile andmodest pose.
VII
JAPAN WEAR AND BOMBAY DUCKS
Throughout Asia, dancing is marked by certain characteristicswhich do not greatly differ, save in degree, amongthe various peoples who practice it. With fewexceptions, it is confined to the superior sex, andthese ladies, I am sorry to confess, have not derivedas great moral advantage from the monopoly as an advocateof dancing would prefer to record.
Dancing—the rhythmical movement of thelimbs and body to music—is, as I have endeavoredto point out, instinctive, hardly a people, savageor refined, but has certain forms of it. When,from any cause, the men abstain from its executionit has commonly not the character of grace and agilityas its dominant feature, but is distinguished by soft,voluptuous movements, suggestive posturing, and allthe wiles by which the performer knows she can bestplease the other sex, the most forthright and effectivemeans to that commendable end being evocation of man’sbaser nature. The Japanese men are anti-dancersfrom necessity of costume, if nothing else, and theeffect is much the same as elsewhere under the sameconditions the women dance, the men gloat and thegods grieve.
There are two kinds of dances in Japan, the one notonly lewd, but—to speak with accurate adjustmentof word to fact—beastly, in the other graceis the dominating element, and decency as cold as asnow storm. Of the former class, the “ChonNookee” is the most popular. It is, however,less a dance than an exhibition, and its patrons arethe wicked, the dissolute and the European. Itis commonly given at some entertainment to which respectablewomen have not the condescension to be invited—suchas a dinner party of some wealthy gentleman’sgentlemen friends. The dinner-served on the floor—havingbeen impatiently tucked away, and the candies, cakes,hot saki and other necessary addenda of a Japanesedinner brought in, the “Chon Nookee” isdemanded, and with a modest demeanor, worn as becominglyas if it were their every day habit, the performersglide in, seating themselves coyly on the floor, intwo rows. Each dancing girl is appareled in suchcaptivating bravery as her purse can buy or her charmsexact. The folds of her varicolored gowns crossingher bosom makes combinations of rich, warm hues, whichit were folly not to admire and peril to admire toomuch. The faces of these girls are in many instancesexceedingly pretty, but with that natural—and,be it humbly submitted, not very creditable—tendencyof the sex to revision and correction of nature’shandiwork, they plaster them with pigments dear tothe sign painter and temper the red glory of theirlips with a bronze preparation which the flatteredbrass founder would no doubt deem kissable utterly.The music is made by beating a drum and twanging akind of guitar, the musician chanting the while toan exceedingly simple air words which, in deferenceto the possible prejudices of those readers who maybe on terms of familarity with the Japanese language,I have deemed it proper to omit—with anapology to the Prudes for the absence of an appendixin which they might be given without offense. (I hadit in mind to insert the music here, but am told bycredible authority that in Japan music is moral orimmoral without reference to the words that may besung with it. So I omit—with reluctance—thescore, as well as the words.)
The chanting having proceeded for a few minutes thegirls take up the song and enter spiritedly into thedance. One challenges another and at a certainstage of the lively song with the sharp cry "Hoi!"makes a motion with her hand. Failure on thepart of the other instantaneously and exactly to copythis gesture entails the forfeiture of a garment,which is at once frankly removed. Cold and mechanicalat the outset, the music grows spirited as the girlsgrow nude, and the dancers themselves become strangelyexcited as they warm to the work, taking, the while,generous potations of saki to assist their enthusiasm.
Let it not be supposed that in all this there is anythingof passion, it is with these women nothing more thatthe mere mental exaltation produced by music, exerciseand drink. With the spectators (I have heard)it fares somewhat otherwise.
When modesty’s last rag has been discarded,the girls as if suddenly abashed at their own audacity,fly like startled fawns from the room, leaving theirpatrons to make a settlement with conscience and arrangethe terms upon which that monitor will consent to theperformance of the rest of the dance. For thedance proper—or improper—is nowabout to begin. If the first part seemed somewhattropical, comparison with what follows will acquitit of that demerit. The combinations of the danceare infinitely varied, and so long as willing witnessesremain—which, in simple justice to manlyfortitude it should be added, is a good while—solong will the “Chon Nookee” present a newand unexpected phase, but it is thought expedientthat no more of them be presented here, and if thereader has done me the honor to have enough of it,we will pass to the consideration of another classof dances.
Of this class those most in favor are the Fan andUmbrella dances, performed, usually, by young girlstrained almost from infancy. The Japanese arepassionately fond of these beautiful exhibitions ofgrace, and no manner of festivity is satisfactorilycelebrated without them. The musicians, all girls,commonly six or eight in number, play on the guitar,a small ivory wand being used, instead of the fingers,to strike the strings. The dancer, a girl ofsome thirteen years, is elaborately habited as a page.Confined by the closely folded robe as by fetters,the feet and legs are not much used, the feet, indeed,never leaving the floor. Time is marked by undulationsof the body, waving the arms, and deft manipulationof the fan. The supple figure bends and swayslike a reed in the wind, advances and recedes, onemovement succeeding another by transitions singularlygraceful, the arms describing innumerable curves,and the fan so skilfully handled as to seem instinctwith a life and liberty of its own. Nothing morepure, more devoid of evil suggestion, can be imagined.It is a sad fact that the poor children trained tothe execution of this harmless and pleasing dance aredestined, in their riper years, to give their charmsand graces to the service of the devil in the ‘ChonNookee’. The umbrella dance is similarto the one just described, the main difference beingthe use of a small, gaily colored umbrella in placeof the fan.
Crossing from Japan to China, the Prude will finda condition of things which, for iron severity ofmorals, is perhaps unparalleled—no dancingwhatever, by either profligate or virtuous women.To whatever original cause we may attribute this peculiarity,it seems eternal, for the women of the upper classeshave an ineradicable habit of so mutilating theirfeet that even the polite and comparatively harmlessaccomplishment of walking is beyond their power, thoseof the lower orders have not sense enough to dance,and that men should dance alone is a proposition ofsuch free and forthright idiocy as to be but obscurelyconceivable to any understanding not having the giftof maniacal inspiration, or the normal advantage oforiginal incapacity. Altogether, we may rightlyconsider China the heaven appointed habitatof people who dislike the dance.
In Siam, what little is known of dancing is confinedto the people of Laos. The women are meek eyed,spiritless creatures, crushed under the heavy dominationof the stronger sex. Naturally, their music anddancing are of a plaintive, almost doleful character,not without a certain cloying sweetness, however.The dancing is as graceful as the pudgy little bodiesof the women are capable of achieving—alittle more pleasing than the capering of a butcher’sblock, but not quite so much so as that of a washtub. Its greatest merit is the steely rigor ofits decorum. The dancers, however, like ourselves,are a shade less appallingly proper off the floorthan on it.
In no part of the world, probably, is the conditionof women more consummately deplorable than in India,and, in consequence, nowhere than in the dances ofthat country is manifested a more simple unconsciousnessor frank disregard of decency. As by nature, andaccording to the light that is in him, the Hindu isindolent and licentious, so, in accurately matchingdegree, are the dancing girls innocent of morality,and uninfected with shame. It would be difficult,more keenly to insult a respectable Hindu woman thanto accuse her of having danced, while the man whoshould affect the society of the females justly socharged would incur the lasting detestation of hisrace. The dancing girls are of two orders of infamy—thosewho serve in the temples, and are hence called DevoDasi, slaves of the gods, and the Nautch girls, whodance in a secular sort for hire. Frequently amother will make a vow to dedicate her unborn babe,if it have the obedience to be a girl, to the serviceof some particular god, in this way, and by the daughtersborn to themselves, are the ranks of the Devo Dasirecruited. The sons of these miserable creaturesare taught to play upon musical instruments for theirmothers and sisters to dance by. As the ordinaryHindu woman is careless about the exposure of her charms,so these dancers take intelligent and mischievousadvantage of the social situation by immodestly concealingtheir own. The Devo Dasi actually go to the length
of wearing clothes! Each temple has a band ofeight or ten of these girls, who celebrate their saltatoryrites morning and evening. Advancing at the headof the religious procession, they move themselvesin an easy and graceful manner, with gradual transitionto a more sensuous and voluptuous motion, suitingtheir action to the religious frame of mind of thedevout until their well-rounded limbs and lithe figuresexpress a degree of piety consonant with the purposeof the particular occasion. They attend all publicceremonies and festivals, executing their audaciousdances impartially for gods and men.The Nautch girls are purchased in infancy, and ascarefully trained in their wordly way as the DevoDasi for the diviner function, being about equallydepraved. All the large cities contain full setsof these girls, with attendant musicians, ready forhire at festivals of any kind, and by leaving ordersparties are served at their residences with fidelityand dispatch. Commonly they dance two at a time,but frequently some wealthy gentleman will securethe services of a hundred or more to assist him throughthe day without resorting to questionable expedientsof time-killing. Their dances require strict attention,from the circ*mstance that their feet—likethose of the immortal equestrienne of Banbury Cross—arehung with small bells, which must be made to soundin concert with the notes of the musicians. Inattitude and gesture they are almost as bad as theirpious sisters of the temples. The endeavor isto express the passions of love, hope, jealousy, despair,etc, and they eke out this mimicry with chanted songsin every way worthy of the movements of which theyare the explanatory notes. These are the onlywomen in Hindustan whom it is thought worth while toteach to read and write. If they would but makeas noble use of their intellectual as they do of theirphysical education, they might perhaps produce booksas moral as The Dance of Death.
In Persia and Asia Minor, the dances and dancers arenearly alike. In both countries the Georgianand Circassian slaves who have been taught the artof pleasing, are bought by the wealthy for their amusem*ntand that of their wives and concubines. Someof the performances are pure in motive and modestin execution, but most of them are interesting otherwise.The beautiful young Circassian slave, clad in looserobes of diaphanous texture, takes position, castanetsin hand, on a square rug, and to the music of a kindof violin goes through the figures of her dance, herwhiteness giving her an added indelicacy which theEuropean spectator misses in the capering of her berrybrown sisters in sin of other climes.
The dance of the Georgian is more spirited. Herdress is a brief skirt reaching barely to the kneesand a low cut chemise. In her night black hairis wreathed a bright red scarf or string of pearls.The music, at first low and slow increases by degreesin rapidity and volume, then falls away almost tosilence, again swells and quickens and so alternates,the motions of the dancer’s willowy and obedientfigure accurately according now seeming to swim languidly,and anon her little feet having their will of her,and fluttering in midair like a couple of birds.She is an engaging creature, her ways are ways of pleasantness,but whether all her paths are peace depends somewhat,it is reasonable to conjecture, upon the circ*mspectionof her daily walk and conversation when relegatedto the custody of her master’s wives.
In some parts of Persia the dancing of boys appareledas women is held in high favor, but exactly what wholesomehuman sentiment it addresses I am not prepared tosay.
VIII
IN THE BOTTOM OF THE CRUCIBLE
From the rapid and imperfect review of certain characteristicoriental dances in the chapters immediately preceding—orrather from the studies some of whose minor resultsthose chapters embody—I make deduction ofa few significant facts, to which facts of contrarysignificance seem exceptional. In the first place,it is to be noted that in countries where woman isconspicuously degraded the dance is correspondinglydepraved. By “the dance,” I mean,of course, those characteristic and typical performanceswhich have permanent place in the social life of thepeople. Amongst all nations the dance exists incertain loose and unrecognized forms, which are theoutgrowth of the moment—creatures of caprice,posing and pranking their brief and inglorious season,to be superseded by some newer favorite, born of somenewer accident or fancy. A fair type of theseephemeral dances—the comets of the saltatorysystem—in so far as they can have a type,is the now familiar Can-Can of the Jardin Mabille—adance the captivating naughtiness of which has givenit wide currency in our generation, the successorsto whose aged rakes and broken bawds it will failto please and would probably make unhappy. Dancesof this character, neither national, universal, norenduring, have little value to the student of anythingbut anatomy and lingerie. By study of a thousand,the product of as many years, it might be possibleto trace the thread upon which such beads are strung—indeed,it is pretty obvious without research; but consideredsingly they have nothing of profit to the investigator,who will do well to contemplate without reflectionor perform without question, as the bent of his mindmay be observant or experimental.
Dancing, then, is indelicate where the women are depraved,and to this it must be added that the women are depravedwhere the men are indolent. We need not troubleourselves to consider too curiously as to cause andeffect. Whether in countries where man is toolazy to be manly, woman practices deferential adjustmentof her virtues to the loose exactions of his tolerance,or whether for ladies of indifferent modesty theirlords will not make exertion—these are questionsfor the ethnologer. It concerns our purpose onlyto note that the male who sits cross-legged on a rugand permits his female to do the dancing for both getsa quality distinctly inferior to that enjoyed by hismore energetic brother, willing himself to take aleg at the game. Doubtless the lazy fellow prefersthe loose gamboling of nude girls to the decent graceand moderation of a better art, but this, I submit,is an error of taste resulting from imperfect instruction.
And here we are confronted with the ever recurrentquestion. Is dancing immoral? The readerwho has done me the honor attentively to considerthe brief descriptions of certain dances, hereinbeforepresented will, it is believed, be now prepared toanswer that some sorts of dancing indubitably are—abright and shining example of the type being the exploitwherein women alone perform and men alone admire.But one of the arguments by which it is sought toprove dancing immoral in itself—namelythat it provokes evil passions—we are nowable to analyze with the necessary discrimination,assigning to it its just weight, and tracing its realbearing on the question. Dances like those described(with, I hope a certain delicacy and reticence) areundoubtedly disturbing to the spectator. Theyhave in that circ*mstance their raison d’etre.As to that, then, there can be no two opinions.But observe the male oriental voluptuary does not himselfdance. Why? Partly no doubt, because ofhis immortal indolence, but mainly, I venture to think,because he wishes to enjoy his reprehensible emotion,and this can not coexist with muscular activity Ifthe reader—through either immunity fromimproper emotion or unfamiliarity with muscular activity—entertainsa doubt of this, his family physician will be happyto remove it. Nothing is more certain than thatthe dancing girls of oriental countries themselvesfeel nothing of what they have the skill to simulate,and the ballet dancer of our own stage is icily unconcernedwhile kicking together the smouldering embers in theheart of the wigged and corseted old beau below her,and playing the duse’s delight with the disobedientimagination of the he Prude posted in the nooks andshadows thoughtfully provided for him. Stendahlfrankly informs us, “I have had much experiencewith the danseuses of the ——Theatre at Valence. I am convinced that theyare, for the most part, very chaste. It is becausetheir occupation is too fatiguing.”
The same author, by the way, says elsewhere
I would wish if I were legislator thatthey should adopt in France as in Germany the customof soirees dansantes. Four times a monththe young girls go with their mothers to a ball beginningat seven o’clock, ending at midnight and requiringfor all expense, a violin and some glasses of water.In an adjacent room, the mothers perhaps a littlejealous of the happy education of their daughters playat cards, in a third the fathers find the newspapersand talk politics. Between midnight and oneo’clock all the family are reunited and haveregained the paternal roof. The young girls learnto know the young men, the fatuity, and the indiscretionthat follows it, become quickly odious, in a wordthey learn how to choose a husband. Some younggirls have unfortunate love affairs, but the numberof deceived husbands and unhappy households (mauvaisesmenages) diminishes in immense proportion.
For an iron education in cold virtue there is no schoollike the position of sitting master to the wall flowersat a church sociable, but it is humbly conjecturedthat even the austere morality of a bald headed Prudemight receive an added iciness if he would but attendone of these simple dancing bouts disguised as a sweetyoung girl.
IX
COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENSE
Nearly all the great writers of antiquity and of themedieval period who have mentioned dancing at allhave done so in terms of unmistakable favor; of modernfamous authors, they only have condemned it from whosework, or from what is known of their personal character,we may justly infer an equal aversion to pretty mucheverything in the way of pleasure that a Christianneeds not die in order to enjoy English literature—Iuse the word in its noble sense, to exclude all mannerof preaching, whether clerical or lay—isfull of the dance; the sound of merry makers footingit featly to the music runs like an undertone throughall the variations of its theme and fills all itspauses.
In the “Miller’s Tale,” Chaucermentions dancing among the accomplishments of theparish clerk, along with blood letting and the drawingof legal documents:
A merry child he was so Godme save,
Wel coud he leten blood andclippe and shave,
And make a chartre of land,and a quitance,
In twenty maners could hetrip and dance,
After the scole of Oxenfordetho
And with his legges castento and fro[A]
[Footnote A: On this passage Tyrwhit makes thefollowing judicious comment: The school of Oxfordseems to have been in much the same estimation forits dancing as that of Stratford for its French—alludingof course to what is, said in the Prologue of the Frenchspoken by the Prioress:
And French she spoke full fayre and fetisly
After the scole of Stratford atte bowe
For French of Paris was to hire unknowe]
Milton, the greatest of the Puritans—intellectualancestry of the modern degenerate Prudes—hada wholesome love of the dance, and nowhere is hispen so joyous as in its description in the well knownpassage from “Comus” which, should itoccur to my memory while delivering a funeral oration,I am sure I could not forbear to quote, albeit this,our present argument, is but little furthered by itscontext
Meanwhile welcome joy andfeast
Midnight shout and revelry
Tipsy dance and jollity
Braid your locks with rosytwine
Dropping odors dropping wine
Rigor now is gone to bed
And advice with scrupuloushead
Strict age and sour severity
With their grave saws in slumberlie
We that are of purer fire
Imitate the starry quire
Who in their nightly watchingspheres
Lead in swift round the monthsand years
The sounds and seas with alltheir finny drove
And on the tawny sands andshelves
Trip the pert fairies andthe dapper elves
If Milton was not himself a good dancer—andas to that point my memory is unstored with instanceor authority—it will at least be concededthat he was an admirable reporter, with his heart inthe business. Somewhat to lessen the force ofthe objection that he puts the foregoing lines intoa not very respectable mouth, on a not altogether reputableoccasion, I append the following passage from the samepoem, supposed to be spoken by the good spirit whohad brought a lady and her two brothers through manyperils, restoring them to their parents:
Noble lord and lady bright
I have brought ye new delight
Here behold so goodly grown
Three fair branches of yourown
Heaven hath timely tried theiryouth
Their faith their patienceand their truth
And sent them here throughhard assays
With a crown of deathlesspraise
To triumph in victorious dance
O’er sensual folly andintemperance
The lines on dancing—lines which themselvesdance—in “L’Allegro,”are too familiar, I dare not permit myself the enjoymentof quotation.
Lord Herbert of Cherbury, one of the most finishedgentlemen of his time, otherwise laments in his autobiographythat he had never learned to dance because that accomplishment“doth fashion the body, and gives one a goodpresence and address in all companies since it disposeththe limbs to a kind of souplesse (as the Frenchcall it) and agility insomuch as they seem to havethe use of their legs, arms, and bodies more thanmany others who, standing stiff and stark in theirpostures, seem as if they were taken in their joints,or had not the perfect use of their members.”Altogether, a very grave objection to dancing in theopinion of those who discountenance it, and I takegreat credit for candor in presenting his lordship’sindictment.
In the following pertinent passage from Lemontey Ido not remember the opinion he quotes from Locke,but his own is sufficiently to the point:
The dance is for young women what thechase is for young men: a protecting schoolof wisdom—a preservative of the growingpassions. The celebrated Locke who made virtuethe sole end of education, expressly recommendsteaching children to dance as early as they are ableto learn. Dancing carries within itself an eminentlycooling quality and all over the world the tempestsof the heart await to break forth the repose ofthe limbs.
In “The Traveller,” Goldsmith says:
Alike all ages dames of ancientdays
Have led their children throughthe mirthful maze
And the gay grandsire skilledin gestic lore
Has frisked beneath the burdenof three score.
To the Prudes, in all soberness—Is it likely,considering the stubborn conservatism of age, thatthese dames, well seasoned in the habit, will leaveit off directly, or the impenitent old grandsire abateone jot or tittle of his friskiness in the near future?Is it a reasonable hope? Is the outlook fromthe watch towers of Philistia an encouraging one?
X
THEY ALL DANCE
Fountains dance down to theriver,
Rivers to theocean
Summer leaflets dance andquiver
To the breeze’smotion
Nothing in the world is single—
All things bya simple rule
Nods and steps and gracesmingle
As at dancingschool
See the shadows on the mountain
Pirouette with one another
See the leaf upon the fountain
Dances with its leaflet brother
See the moonlight on the earth
Flecking forest gleam and glance!
What are all these dancings worth
If I may not dance?
_—AfterShelley_
Dance? Why not? The dance is natural, itis innocent, wholesome, enjoyable. It has thesanction of religion, philosophy, science. Itis approved by the sacred writings of all ages andnations—of Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity,Islam, of Zoroaster and Confucius. Not an altar,from Jupiter to Jesus, around which the votaries havenot danced with religious zeal and indubitable profitto mind and body. Fire worshipers of Persia andPeru danced about the visible sign and manifestationto their deity. Dervishes dance in frenzy, andthe Shakers jump up and come down hard through excessof the Spirit. All the gods have danced withall the goddesses—round dances, too.The lively divinities created by the Greeks in theirown image danced divinely, as became them. OldThor stormed and thundered down the icy halls of theScandinavian mythology to the music of runic rhymes,and the souls of slain heroes in Valhalla take totheir toes in celebration of their valorous deeds donein the body upon the bodies of their enemies.Angels dance before the Great White Throne to harpsattuned by angel hands, and the Master of the Revels—whoarranges the music of the spheres—looksapprovingly on. Dancing is of divine institution.
The elves and fairies “dance delicate measures”in the light of the moon and stars. The trolldances his gruesome jig on lonely hills the gnomeexecutes his little pigeon wing in the obscure subterreneby the glimmer of a diamond. Nature’s untaughtchildren dance in wood and glade, stimulated of legby the sunshine with which they are soaken top full—thesame quickening emanation that inspires the growingtree and upheaves the hill. And, if I err not,there is sound Scripture for the belief that theseself same eminences have capacity to skip for joy.The peasant dances—a trifle clumsily—atharvest feast when the grain is garnered. Thestars in heaven dance visibly, the firefly dances inemulation of the stars. The sunshine dances onthe waters. The humming bird and the bee danceabout the flowers which dance to the breeze. Theinnocent lamb, type of the White Christ, dances onthe green, and the matronly cow perpetrates an occasionalstiff enormity when she fancies herself unobserved.All the sportive rollickings of all the animals, fromthe agile fawn to the unwieldly behemoth are dancestaught them by nature.
I am not here making an argument for dancing, I onlyassert its goodness, confessing its abuse. Wedo not argue the wholesomeness of sunshine and coldwater, we assert it, admitting that sunstroke is mischievousand that copious potations of freezing water will foundera superheated horse, and urge the hot blood to thehead of an imprudent man similarly prepared, killinghim, as is right. We do not build syllogismsto prove that grains and fruits of the earth are ofGod’s best bounty to man; we allow that badwhisky may—with difficulty—bedistilled from rye to spoil the toper’s nose,and that hydrocyanic acid can be got out of the bloomypeach. It were folly to prove that Science andInvention are our very good friends, yet the sapperwho has had the misfortune to be blown to rags bythe mine he was preparing for his enemy will not denythat gunpowder has aptitudes of mischief; and fromthe point of view of a nigg*r ordered upon the safety-valveof a racing steamboat, the vapor of water is a thingaccurst. Shall we condemn music because the lutemakes “lascivious pleasing?” Or poetrybecause some amorous bard tells in warm rhyme thestory of the passions, and Swinburne has had the goodnessto make vice offensive with his hymns in its praise?Or sculpture because from the guiltless marble maybe wrought a drunken Silenus or a lechering satyr?—paintingbecause the untamed fancies of a painter sometimesbreak tether and run riot on his canvas? Becausethe orator may provoke the wild passions of the mob,shall there be no more public speaking?—nofurther acting because the actor may be pleased tosaw the air, or the actress display her ultimate inchof leg? Shall we upset the pulpit because poordear Mr. Tilton had a prettier wife than poor, dearMr. Beecher? The bench had its Jeffrey, yet itis necessary that we have the deliveries of judgment
between ourselves and the litigious. The medicalprofession has nursed poisoners enough to have banedall the rats of christendom; but the resolute patientmust still have his prescription—if he diefor it. Shall we disband our armies because inthe hand of an ambitious madman a field-marshal’sbaton may brain a helpless State?—our naviesbecause in ships pirates have “sailed the seasover?” Let us not commit the vulgarity of condemningthe dance because of its possibilities of perversionby the vicious and the profligate. Let us notutter us in hot bosh and baking nonsense, but cleaveto reason and the sweet sense of things.Dancing never made a good girl bad, nor turned a wholesomeyoung man to evil ways. “Opportunity!”simpers the tedious virgin past the wall-flower ofher youth. “Opportunity!” cacklesthe blase beau who has outlasted his legs andgone deaconing in a church.
Opportunity, indeed! There is opportunity inchurch and school-room, in social intercourse.There is opportunity in libraries, art-galleries,picnics, street-cars, Bible-classes and at fairs andmatinees. Opportunity—rare, deliciousopportunity, not innocently to be ignored—inmoonlight rambles by still streams. Opportunity,such as it is, behind the old gentleman’s turnedback, and beneath the good mother’s spectaclednose. You shall sooner draw out leviathan witha hook, or bind Arcturus and his sons, than bafflethe upthrust of Opportunity’s many heads.Opportunity is a veritable Hydra, Argus and Briareusrolled into one. He has a hundred heads to planhis poachings, a hundred eyes to spy the land, a hundredhands to set his snares and springes. In thecountry where young girls are habitually unattendedin the street; where the function of chaperon is commonly,and, it should be added, intelligently performed bysome capable young male; where the young women receiveevening calls from young men concerning whose presencein the parlor mamma in the nursery and papa at the“office”—poor, overworked papa!—givethemselves precious little trouble,—thisprate of ball-room opportunity is singularly and engaginglyidiotic. The worthy people who hold such languagemay justly boast themselves superior to reason andimpregnable to light. The only effective replyto these creatures would be a cuffing, the well meantobjections of another class merit the refutation ofdistinct characterization. It is the old talkof devotees about sin, of topers concerning water,temperance men of gin, and albeit it is neither wisenor witty, it is becoming in us at whom they rail todeal mercifully with them. In some otherwiseestimable souls one of these harmless brain cracksmay be a right lovable trait of character.
Issues of a social import as great as a raid againstdancing have been raised ere now. Will the comingman smoke? Will the coming man drink wine?These tremendous and imperative problems only recentlyagitated some of the “thoughtful minds”in our midst. By degrees they lost their preeminence,they were seen to be in process of solution withoutsocial cataclysm, they have, in a manner been referredfor disposal to the coming man himself, that is tosay, they have been dropped, and are to-day as deadas Julius Caesar. The present hour has, in itsturn, produced its own awful problem: Will thecoming woman waltz?
As a question of mere fact the answer is patent:She will. Dancing will be good for her; she willlike it; so she is going to waltz. But the questionmay rather be put—to borrow phraseologycurrent among her critics: Had she oughter?—froma moral point of view, now. From a moral point,then, let us seek from analogy some light on the questionof what, from its actual, practical bearings, maybe dignified by the name Conundrum.
Ought a man not to smoke?—from a moralpoint of view. The economical view-point, theview-point of convenience, and all the rest of them,are not now in question; the simple question is:Is it immoral to smoke? And again—stillfrom the moral point of view: Is it immoral todrink wine? Is it immoral to play at cards?—tovisit theaters? (In Boston you go to some
harmless“Museum,”
Where folks who like plays may religiouslysee ’em.)
Finally, then—and always from the sameelevated view-point: Is it immoral to waltz?
The suggestions here started will not be further pursuedin this place. It is quite pertinent now to notethat we do smoke because we like it; and do drinkwine because we like it; and do waltz because we likeit, and have the added consciousness that it is aduty. I am sorry for a fellow-creature—male—whoknows not the comfort of a cigar; sorry and concernedfor him who is innocent of the knowledge of good andevil that lurk respectively in Chambertin and cheap“claret.” Nor is my compassion altogetherfree from a sense of superiority to the object ofit—superiority untainted, howbeit, by truculence.I perceive that life has been bestowed upon him forpurposes inscrutable to me, though dimly hinting itsown justification as a warning or awful example.So, too, of the men and women—“beingserect, and walking upon two [uneducated] legs”—whoseunsophisticated toes have never, inspired by the rosy,threaded the labyrinth of the mazy ere courting thekindly offices of the balmy. It is only humanto grieve for them, poor things!
But if their throbbing bunions, encased in clumsyhigh-lows, be obtruded to trip us in our dance, shallwe not stamp on them? Yea, verily, while we havea heel to crunch with and a leg to grind it home.
XI
LUST, QUOTH’A!
You have danced? Ah, good. You have waltzed?Better. You have felt the hot blood hound throughyour veins, as your beautiful partner, compliant tothe lightest pressure of your finger-tips, her breathresponsive, matched her every motion with yours?Best of all—for you have served in thetemple—you are of the priesthood of manhood.You cannot misunderstand, you will not deliver falseoracle.
Do you remember your first waltz with the lovely womanwhom you had longed like a man but feared like a boyto touch—even so much as the hem of hergarment? Can you recall the time, place and circ*mstance?Has not the very first bar of the music that whirledyou away been singing itself in your memory ever since?Do you recall the face you then looked into, the eyesthat seemed deeper than a mountain tarn, the figurethat you clasped, the beating of the heart, the warmbreath that mingled with your own? Can you faintly,as in a dream—blase old dancer thatyou are—invoke a reminiscence of the deliriumthat stormed your soul, expelling the dull demon inpossession? Was it lust, as the Prudes aver—thepoor dear Prudes, with the feel of the cold wall familiarto the leathery backs of them?
It was the gratification—the decent, honorable,legal gratification—of the passion forrhythm; the unconditional surrender to the supremelaw of periodicity, under conditions of exact observanceby all external things. The notes of the musicrepeat and supplement each other; the lights burnwith answering flame at sequent distances; the walls,the windows, doors, mouldings, frescoes, iterate theirlines, their levels, and panels, interminable of combinationand similarity; the inlaid floor matches its angles,multiplies its figures, does over again at this pointwhat it did at that; the groups of dancers deploy incouples, aggregate in groups, and again deploy, evokingendless resemblances. And all this rhythm andrecurrence, borne in upon the brain—itselfrhythmic—through intermittent senses, isconverted into motion, and the mind, yielding utterlyto its environment, knows the happiness of faith,the ecstasy of compliance, the rapture of congruity.And this the dull dunces—the eyeless, earless,brainless and bloodless callosites of cavil—arepleased to call lust!
O ye, who teach the ingenuous youthof nations
The Boston Dip, the German and the Glide,
I pray you guard them upon all occasions
From contact of the palpitating side;
Requiring that their virtuous gyrations
Shall interpose a space a furlong wide
Between the partners, lest their thoughts growlewd—
So shall we satisfy the exacting Prude.
—IsrafelBrown.
XII
OUR GRANDMOTHERS’ LEGS
It is depressing to realize how little most of usknow of the dancing of our ancestors. I wouldgive value to behold the execution of a coranto andinspect the steps of a cinque-pace, having assurancethat the performances assuming these names were veritablyidentical with their memorable originals. Wepossess the means of verifying somewhat as to thenature of the minuet; but after what fashion did ourrevered grandfather do his rigadoon and his gavot?What manner of thing was that pirouet in the deftexecution of which he felt an honest exultation?And what were the steps of his contra (or country)and Cossack dances? What tune was that—“TheDevil amongst the Fiddlers”—for whichhe clamored, to inspire his feats of leg?
In our fathers’ time we read:
I wore my blue coat and brass buttons,very high in the neck, short in the waist and sleeves,nankeen trousers and white silk stockings, and awhite waistcoat. I performed all the steps accuratelyand with great agility.
Which, it appears, gained the attention of the company.And it well might, for the year was 1830, and themode of performing the cotillion of the period wasundergoing the metamorphosis of which the perfectdevelopment has been familiar to ourselves. Inits next stage the male celebrant is represented tous as “hopping about with a face expressiveof intense solemnity, dancing as if a quadrille”—markthe newer word—“were not a thingto be laughed at, but a severe trial to the feelings.”There is a smack of ancient history about this, too;it lurks in the word “hopping.” Inthe perfected development of this dance as known toourselves, no stress of caricature would describe themovement as a hopping. But our grandfather notonly hopped, he did more. He sprang from thefloor and quivered. In midair he crossed his feettwice and even three times, before alighting.And our budding grandmother beheld, and experiencedflutterings of the bosom at his manly achievements.Some memory of these feats survived in the performancesof the male ballet-dancers—a breed nowhappily extinct. A fine old lady—shelives, aged eighty-two—showed me once theexercise of “setting to your partner,”performed in her youth; and truly it was right marvelous.She literally bounced hither and thither, effectinga twisting in and out of the feet, a patting and aflickering of the toes incredibly intricate.For the celebration of these rites her partner wouldarray himself in morocco pumps with cunningly contrivedbuckles of silver, silk stockings, salmon-coloredsilk breeches tied with abundance of riband, exuberantfrills, or “chitterlings,” which puffedout at the neck and bosom not unlike the wattles ofa he-turkey; and under his arms—as thefowl roasted might have carried its gizzard—ourgrandfather pressed the flattened simulacrum of a co*ckedhat. At this interval of time charity requiresus to drop over the lady’s own costume a veilthat, tried by our canons of propriety, it sadly needed.She was young and thoughtless, the good grandmother;she was conscious of the possession of charms andconcealed them not.
To the setting of these costumes, manners and practices,there was imported from Germany a dance called Waltz,which as I conceive, was the first of our “round”dances. It was welcomed by most persons who coulddance, and by some superior souls who could not.Among the latter, the late Lord Byron—whoseparticipation in the dance was barred by an unhappyphysical disability—addressed the new-comerin characteristic verse. Some of the lines inthis ingenious nobleman’s apostrophe are notaltogether intelligible, when applied to any dancethat we know by the name of waltz. For example:
Pleased round the chalky floor, how wellthey trip,
One hand[A] reposing on the royal hip,
The other to the shoulder no less royal
Ascending with affection truly loyal.
[Footnote A: I.e. one of the lady’shands.]
These lines imply an attitude unknown to contemporarywaltzers, but the description involves no poetic license.Our dear grandmothers (giddy, giddy girls!) did theirwaltz that way. Let me quote:
The lady takes the gentleman round theneck with one arm, resting against his shoulder.During the motion, the dancers are continually changingtheir relative situations: now the gentleman bringshis arm about the lady’s neck, and the ladytakes him round the waist.
At another point, the lady may “lean gentlyon his shoulder,” their arms (as it appears)“entwining.” This description is byan eyewitness, whose observation is taken, not atthe rather debauched court of the Prince Regent, butat the simple republican assemblies of New York.The observer is the gentle Irving, writing in 1807.Occasional noteworthy experiences they must have had—thosemodest, blooming grandmothers—for, it isto be borne in mind, tipsiness was rather usual withdancing gentlemen in the fine old days of Port andMadeira; and the blithe, white-armed grandmothersthemselves did sip their punch, to a man. However,we may forbear criticism. We, at least, owe nothingbut reverent gratitude to a generation from whichwe derive life, waltzing and the memory of Madeira.Even when read, as it needs should be read, in thelight of that prose description of the dance to whichit was addressed, Lord Byron’s welcome to thewaltz will be recognized as one more illustrationof a set of hoary and moss-grown truths.
As parlor-soldiers, gracedwith fancy-scars,
Rehearse their bravery inimagined wars;
As paupers, gathered in congenialflocks,
Babble of banks, insurances,and stocks;
As each if oft’nesteloquent of what
He hates or covets, but possessesnot;
As cowards talk of pluck;misers of waste;
Scoundrels of honor; countryclowns of taste;
Ladies of logic; devoteesof sin;
Topers of water; temperancemen of gin—
my lord Byron sang of waltzing. Let us forgiveand—remembering his poor foot—pityhim. Yet the opinions of famous persons possessan interest that is akin, in the minds of many plainfolk, to weight. Let us, then, incline an earto another: “Laura was fond of waltzing,as every brisk and innocent young girl should be,”wrote he than who none has written more nobly in ourtime—he who “could appreciate goodwomen and describe them; and draw them more trulythan any novelist in the language, except Miss Austen.”The same sentiment with reference to dancing appearsin many places in his immortal pages. In hisyounger days as attache of legation in Germany,Mr. Thackeray became a practiced waltzer. As acensor he thus possesses over Lord Byron whatever advantagemay accrue from knowledge of the subject whereof hewrote.
We are happily not called upon to institute a comparisonof character between the two distinguished moralists,though the same, drawn masterly, might not be devoidof entertainment and instruction. But two orthree other points of distinction should be kept inmind as having sensible relation to the question ofcompetency to bear witness. Byron wrote of thewomen of a corrupted court; Thackeray of the womenof that society indicated by the phrase “Personswhom one meets”—and meets now.Byron wrote of an obsolete dance, described by Irvingin terms of decided strength; Thackeray wrote of ourown waltz. In turning off his brilliant and wittyverses it is unlikely that any care as to their truthfulnessdisturbed the glassy copiousness of the Byronic utterance;this child of nature did never consider too curiouslyof justice, moderation and such inventions of theschools. The key-note of all the other wroteis given by his faithful pen when it avers that itnever “signed the page that registered a lie.”Byron was a “gentleman of wit and pleasure abouttown”; Thackeray the father of daughters.However, all this is perhaps little to the purpose.We owe no trifling debt to Lord Byron for his sparklingand spirited lines, and by no good dancer would theybe “willingly let die.” Poetry, music,dancing—they are one art. The musesare sisters, yet they do not quarrel. Of a truth,even as was Laura, so every brisk and innocent younggirl should be. And it is safe to predict thatshe will be. If she would enjoy the advantageof belonging to Our Set she must be.
As a rule, the ideas of the folk who cherish a prejudiceagainst dancing are crude rather than unclean—theoutcome much more of ignorance than salacity.Of course there are exceptions. In my great workon The Prude all will be attended to with due discriminationin apportionment of censure. At present the spiritof the dance makes merry with my pen, for from yonder“stately pleasure-dome” (decreed by oneKubla Khan, formerly of The Big Bonanza Mining Company)the strains of the Blue Danube float out uponthe night. Avaunt, miscreants! lest we chase yewith flying feet and do our little dance upon yourunwholesome carcasses. Already the toes of ourpartners begin to twiddle beneath their petticoats.Come, then, Stoopid—can’t you move?No!—they change it to a galop—andeke the good old Sturm. Firm and steady, now,fair partner mine, whiles we run that gobemouchedown and trample him miserably. There: lightand softly again—the servants will removethe remains.
And hark! that witching strain once more:
[Illustration: Music tablature]
EPIGRAMS
If every hypocrite in the United States were to breakhis leg to-day the country could be successfully invadedto-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.
To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same asthe Spirit of Evil, and to pictures of the latterit appends a tail to represent the note of interrogation.
“Immoral” is the judgment of the stalledox on the gamboling lamb.
In forgiving an injury be somewhat ceremonious, lestyour magnanimity be construed as indifference.
* * * * *
True, man does not know woman. But neither doeswoman.
Age is provident because the less future we have themore we fear it.
Reason is fallible and virtue vincible; the windsvary and the needle forsakes the pole, but stupiditynever errs and never intermits. Since it hasbeen found that the axis of the earth wabbles, stupidityis indispensable as a standard of constancy.
In order that the list of able women may be memorizedfor use at meetings of the oppressed sex, Heaven hasconsiderately made it brief.
Firmness is my persistency; obstinacy is yours.
A little heap of dust,
A little streak of rust,
A stone without a name—
Lo! hero, sword and fame.
Our vocabulary is defective; we give the same nameto woman’s lack of temptation and man’slack of opportunity.
“You scoundrel, you have wronged me,”hissed the philosopher. “May you live forever!”
The man who thinks that a garnet can be made a rubyby setting it in brass is writing “dialect”for publication.
“Who art thou, stranger, and what dost thouseek?”
“I am Generosity, and I seek a person namedGratitude.”
“Then thou dost not deserve to find her.”
“True. I will go about my business andthink of her no more. But who art thou, to beso wise?”
“I am Gratitude—farewell forever.”
There was never a genius who was not thought a fooluntil he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool thenonly.
The boundaries that Napoleon drew have been effaced;the kingdoms that he set up have disappeared.But all the armies and statecraft of Europe cannotunsay what you have said.
Strive not for singularity in dress;
Fools have the more and men of sense theless.
To look original is not worth while,
But be in mind a little out of style.
A conqueror arose from the dead. “Yesterday,”he said, “I ruled half the world.”“Please show me the half that you ruled,”said an angel, pointing out a wisp of glowing vaporfloating in space. “That is the world.”
“Who art thou, shivering in thy furs?”
“My name is Avarice. What is thine?”
“Unselfishness.”
“Where is thy clothing, placid one?”
“Thou art wearing it.”
To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is aserious matter. To laugh at it is to confessthat you do not understand.
If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries,be not too much greater than they.
To have something that he will not desire, nor knowthat he has—such is the hope of him whoseeks the admiration of posterity. The characterof his work does not matter; he is a humorist.
Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished bysuperior tact.
To fatten pigs, confine and feed them; to fatten rogues,cultivate a generous disposition.
Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal.The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man isto provoke him to let out his beast.
When two irreconcilable propositions are presentedfor assent the safest way is to thank Heaven thatwe are not as the unreasoning brutes, and believeboth.
Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it ismore frequently presented by those from whom we donot expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.
A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine:it makes you dance, but you can’t let go.
Meeting Merit on a street-crossing, Success stoodstill. Merit stepped off into the mud and wentround him, bowing his apologies, which Success hadthe grace to accept.
“I think,” says the philosopherdivine,
“Therefore I am.” Sir,here’s a surer sign:
We know we live, for with our every breath
We feel the fear and imminence of death.
The first man you meet is a fool. If you do notthink so ask him and he will prove it.
He who would rather inflict injustice than sufferit will always have his choice, for no injustice canbe done to him.
There are as many conceptions of a perfect happinesshereafter as there are minds that have marred theirhappiness here.
We yearn to be, not what we are, but what we are not.If we were immortal we should not crave immortality.
A rabbit’s foot may bring good luck to you,but it brought none to the rabbit.
Before praising the wisdom of the man who knows howto hold his tongue, ascertain if he knows how to holdhis pen.
The most charming view in the world is obtained byintrospection.
Love is unlike chess, in that the pieces are movedsecretly and the player sees most of the game.But the looker-on has one incomparable advantage:he is not the stake.
It is not for nothing that tigers choose to hide inthe jungle, for commerce and trade are carried on,mostly, in the open.
We say that we love, not whom we will, but whom wemust. Our judgment need not, therefore, go toconfession.
Of two kinds of temporary insanity, one ends in suicide,the other in marriage.
If you give alms from compassion, why require thebeneficiary to be “a deserving object”?No other adversity is so sharp as destitution of merit.
Bereavement is the name that selfishness gives toa particular privation.
O proud philanthropist, your hope is vain
To get by giving what you lost by gain.
With every gift you do but swell the cloud
Of witnesses against you, swift and loud—
Accomplices who turn and swear you split
Your life: half robber and half hypocrite.
You’re least unsafe when most intactyou hold
Your curst allotment of dishonest gold.
The highest and rarest form of contentment is approvalof the success of another.
If Inclination challenge, stand and fight—
From Opportunity the wise take flight.
What a woman most admires in a man is distinctionamong men. What a man most admires in a womanis devotion to himself.
Those who most loudly invite God’s attentionto themselves when in peril of death are those whoshould most fervently wish to escape his observation.
When you have made a catalogue of your friend’sfaults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate,so that he may know yours.
How fascinating is Antiquity!—in what agolden haze the ancients lived their lives! We,too, are ancients. Of our enchanting time Posterity’sgreat poets will sing immortal songs, and its archaeologistswill reverently uncover the foundations of our palacesand temples. Meantime we swap jack-knives.
Observe, my son, with how austere a virtue the manwithout a cent puts aside the temptation to manipulatethe market or acquire a monopoly.
For study of the good and the bad in woman two womenare a needless expense.
“There’s no free will,”says the philosopher;
“To hang is most unjust.”
“There is no free will,” assentsthe officer;
“We hang because wemust.”
Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead.That is why we know so much about the Hereafter andso little about the Heretofore.
Remembering that it was a woman who lost the world,we should accept the act of cackling geese in savingRome as partial reparation.
There are two classes of women who may do as theyplease; those who are rich and those who are poor.The former can count on assent, the latter on inattention.
When into the house of the heart Curiosity is admittedas the guest of Love she turns her host out of doors.
Happiness has not to all the same name: to Youthshe is known as the Future; Age knows her as the Dream.
“Who art thou, there in the mire?”
“Intuition. I leaped all the way from wherethou standest in fear on the brink of the bog.”
“A great feat, madam; accept the admirationof Reason, sometimes known as Dry-foot.”
In eradicating an evil, it makes a difference whetherit is uprooted or rooted up. The difference isin the reformer.
The Audible Sisterhood rightly affirms the equalityof the sexes: no man is so base but some womanis base enough to love him.
Having no eyes in the back of the head, we see ourselveson the verge of the outlook. Only he who hasaccomplished the notable feat of turning about knowshimself the central figure in the universe.
Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not affordto be without it.
If women did the writing of the world, instead ofthe talking, men would be regarded as the superiorsex in beauty, grace and goodness.
Love is a delightful day’s journey. Atthe farther end kiss your companion and say farewell.
Let him who would wish to duplicate his every experienceprate of the value of life.
The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregardsthem cheats. It is not permitted to you to wishto add another’s advantages or possessions toyour own; you are permitted only to wish to be another.
The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart; tothe male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is theloveliest thing in nature.
Thought and emotion dwell apart. When the heartgoes into the head there is no dissension; only aneviction.
If you want to read a perfect book there is only oneway: write it.
“Where goest thou, Ignorance?”
“To fortify the mind of a maiden against a peril.”
“I am going thy way. My name is Knowledge.”
“Scoundrel! Thou art the peril.”
A prude is one who blushes modestly at the indelicacyof her thoughts and virtuously flies from the temptationof her desires.
The man who is always taking you by the hand is thesame who if you were hungry would take you by thecafe.
When a certain sovereign wanted war he threw out adiplomatic intimation; when ready, a diplomat.
If public opinion were determined by a throw of thedice, it would in the long run be half the time right.
The gambling known as business looks with austeredisfavor upon the business known as gambling.
A virtuous widow is the most loyal of mortals; sheis faithful to that which is neither pleased nor profitedby her fidelity.
Of one who was “foolish” the creatorsof our language said that he was “fond.”That we have not definitely reversed the meanings ofthe words should be set down to the credit of ourcourtesy.
Rioting gains its end by the power of numbers.To a believer in the wisdom and goodness of majoritiesit is not permitted to denounce a successful mob.
Artistically set to grace
The wall of a dissecting-place,
A human pericardium
Was fastened with a bit of gum,
While, simply underrunning it,
The one word, “Charity,” waswrit
To show the student band that hovered
About it what it once had covered.
Virtue is not necessary to a good reputation, buta good reputation is helpful to virtue.
When lost in a forest go always down hill. Whenlost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.
We submit to the majority because we have to.But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjectiona posture of respect.
Pascal says that an inch added to the length of Cleopatra’snose would have changed the fortunes of the world.But having said this, he has said nothing, for allthe forces of nature and all the power of dynastiescould not have added an inch to the length of Cleopatra’snose.
Our luxuries are always masquerading as necessaries.Woman is the only necessary having the boldness andaddress to compel recognition as a luxury.
“I am the seat of the affections,” saidthe heart.
“Thank you,” said the judgment, “yousave my face.”
“Who art thou that weepest?”
“Man.”
“Nay, thou art Egotism. I am the Schemeof the Universe. Study me and learn that nothingmatters.”
“Then how does it matter that I weep?”
A slight is less easily forgiven than an injury, becauseit implies something of contempt, indifference, anoverlooking of our importance; whereas an injury presupposessome degree of consideration. “The black-guards!”said a traveler whom Sicilian brigands had releasedwithout ransom; “did they think me a person ofno consequence?”
The people’s plaudits are unheard in hell.
Generosity to a fallen foe is a virtue that takesno chances.
If there was a world before this we must all havedied impenitent.
We are what we laugh at. The stupid person isa poor joke, the clever, a good one.
If every man who resents being called a rogue resentedbeing one this would be a world of wrath.
Force and charm are important elements of character,but it counts for little to be stronger than honeyand sweeter than a lion.
Grief and discomfiture are coals thatcool:
Why keep them glowing with thy sighs,poor fool?
A popular author is one who writes what the peoplethink. Genius invites them to think somethingelse.
Asked to describe the Deity, a donkey would representhim with long ears and a tail. Man’s conceptionis higher and truer: he thinks of him as somewhatresembling a man.
Christians and camels receive their burdens kneeling.
The sky is a concave mirror in which Man sees hisown distorted image and seeks to propitiate it.
Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days maybe long in the land, but do not hope that the lifeinsurance companies will offer thee special rates.
Persons who are horrified by what they believe tobe Darwin’s theory of the descent of Man fromthe Ape may find comfort in the hope of his return.
A strong mind is more easily impressed than a weak:you shall not so readily convince a fool that youare a philosopher as a philosopher that you are afool.
A cheap and easy cynicism rails at everything.The master of the art accomplishes the formidabletask of discrimination.
When publicly censured our first instinct is to makeeverybody a codefendant.
O lady fine, fear not to lead
To Hymen’sshrine a clown:
Love cannot level up, indeed,
But he can leveldown.
Men are polygamous by nature and monogamous for opportunity.It is a faithful man who is willing to be watchedby a half-dozen wives.
The virtues chose Modesty to be their queen.
“I did not know that I was a virtue,”she said. “Why did you not choose Innocence?”
“Because of her ignorance,” they replied.“She knows nothing but that she is a virtue.”
It is a wise “man’s man” who knowswhat it is that he despises in a “ladies’man.”
If the vices of women worshiped their creators menwould boast of the adoration they inspire.
The only distinction that democracies reward is ahigh degree of conformity.
Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbagecarts on their way to the dumps.
A woman died who had passed her life in affirmingthe superiority of her sex.
“At last,” she said, “I shall haverest and honors.”
“Enter,” said Saint Peter; “thoushalt wash the faces of the dear little cherubim.”
To woman a general truth has neither value nor interestunless she can make a particular application of it.And we say that women are not practical!
The ignorant know not the depth of their ignorance,but the learned know the shallowness of their learning.
He who relates his success in charming woman’sheart may be assured of his failure to charm man’sear.
What poignant memories the shadows bring;
What songs of triumph in the dawning ring!
By night a coward and by day a king.
When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circ*mspection;thine own is open at thy feet.
As the physiognomist takes his own face as the highesttype and standard, so the critic’s theoriesare imposed by his own limitations.
“Heaven lies about us in our infancy,”and our neighbors take up the tale as we mature.
“My laws,” she said, “areof myself a part:
I read them by examining my heart.”
“True,” he replied; “likethose to Moses known,
Thine also are engraven upon stone.”
Love is a distracted attention: from contemplationof one’s self one turns to consider one’sdream.
“Halt!—who goes there?”
“Death.”
“Advance, Death, and give the countersign.”
“How needless! I care not to enter thycamp to-night. Thou shalt enter mine.”
“What! I a deserter?”
“Nay, a great soldier. Thou shalt overcomeall the enemies of mankind.”
“Who are they?”
“Life and the Fear of Death.”
The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closingthe hand and says they signify character. Thephilosopher reads character by what the hand mostloves to close upon.
Ah, woe is his, with length of livingcursed,
Who, nearing second childhood, had nofirst.
Behind, no glimmer, and before no ray—
A night at either end of his dark day.
A noble enthusiasm in praise of Woman is not incompatiblewith a spirited zeal in defamation of women.
The money-getter who pleads his love of work has alame defense, for love of work at money-getting isa lower taste than love of money.
He who thinks that praise of mediocrity atones fordisparagement of genius is like one who should pleadrobbery in excuse of theft.
The most disagreeable form of masculine hypocrisyis that which finds expression in pretended remorsefor impossible gallantries.
Any one can say that which is new; any one that whichis true. For that which is both new and truewe must go duly accredited to the gods and await theirpleasure.
The test of truth is Reason, not Faith; for to thecourt of Reason must be submitted even the claimsof Faith.
“Whither goest thou?” said the angel.
“I know not.”
“And whence hast thou come?”
“I know not.”
“But who art thou?”
“I know not.”
“Then thou art Man. See that thou turnnot back, but pass on to the place whence thou hastcome.”
If Expediency and Righteousness are not father andson they are the most harmonious brothers that everwere seen.
Train the head, and the heart will take care of itself;a rascal is one who knows not how to think.
Do you to others as you would
That others do to you;
But see that you no service good
Would have from others that they could
Not rightly do.
Taunts are allowable in the case of an obstinate husband:balky horses may best be made to go by having theirears bitten.
Adam probably regarded Eve as the woman of his choice,and exacted a certain gratitude for the distinctionof his preference.
A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him youmust begin with a dead ape and work downward througha million graves. He is like the lower end ofa suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to theright or the left, but remove your hand and he fallsinto line with the other links.
He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caughtyoung, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise,harden with age.
These are the prerogatives of genius: To knowwithout having learned; to draw just conclusions fromunknown premises; to discern the soul of things.
Although one love a dozen times, yet will the latestlove seem the first. He who says he has lovedtwice has not loved once.
Men who expect universal peace through invention ofdestructive weapons of war are no wiser than one who,noting the improvement of agricultural implements,should prophesy an end to the tilling of the soil.
To parents only, death brings an inconsolable sorrow.When the young die and the old live, nature’smachinery is working with the friction that we namegrief.
Empty wine-bottles have a bad opinion of women.
Civilization is the child of human ignorance and conceit.If Man knew his insignificance in the scheme of thingshe would not think it worth while to rise from barbarityto enlightenment. But it is only through enlightenmentthat he can know.
Along the road of life are many pleasure resorts,but think not that by tarrying in them you will takemore days to the journey. The day of your arrivalis already recorded.
The most offensive egotist is he that fears to say“I” and “me.” “Itwill probably rain”—that is dogmatic.“I think it will rain”—thatis natural and modest. Montaigne is the mostdelightful of essayists because so great is his humilitythat he does not think it important that we see notMontaigne. He so forgets himself that he employsno artifice to make us forget him.
On fair foundations Theocrats unwise
Rear superstructures that offend the skies.
“Behold,” they cry, “thispile so fair and tall!
Come dwell within it and be happy all.”
But they alone inhabit it, and find,
Poor fools, ’tis but a prison forthe mind.
If thou wilt not laugh at a rich man’s wit thouart an anarchist, and if thou take not his word thoushalt take nothing that he hath. Make haste,therefore, to be civil to thy betters, and so prosper,for prosperity is the foundation of the state.
Death is not the end; there remains the litigationover the estate.
When God makes a beautiful woman, the devil opensa new register.
When Eve first saw her reflection in a pool, she soughtAdam and accused him of infidelity.
“Why dost thou weep?”
“For the death of my wife. Alas! Ishall
never again see her!”
“Thy wife will never again see thee, yet
she does not weep.”
What theology is to religion and jurisprudence tojustice, etiquette is to civility.
“Who art thou that despite the piercing coldand thy robe’s raggedness seemest to enjoy thyself?”
“Naught else is enjoyable—I am Contentment.”
“Ha! thine must be a magic shirt. Off withit! I shiver in my fine attire.”
“I have no shirt. Pass on, Success.”
Ignorance when inevitable is excusable. It maybe harmless, even beneficial; but it is charming onlyto the unwise. To affect a spurious ignoranceis to disclose a genuine.
Because you will not take by theft what you can haveby cheating, think not yours is the only consciencein the world. Even he who permits you to cheathis neighbor will shrink from permitting you to cheathimself.
“God keep thee, stranger; what is thy name?”
“Wisdom. And thine?”
“Knowledge. How does it happen that wemeet?”
“This is an intersection of our paths.”
“Will it ever be decreed that we travel alwaysthe same road?”
“We were well named if we knew.”
Nothing is more logical than persecution. Religioustolerance is a kind of infidelity.
Convictions are variable; to be always consistentis to be sometimes dishonest.
The philosopher’s profoundest conviction isthat which he is most reluctant to express, lest hemislead.
When exchange of identities is possible, be careful;you may choose a person who is willing.
The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying toconvince himself.
In the Parliament of Otumwee the Chancellor of theExchequer proposed a tax on fools.
“The right honorable and generous gentleman,”said a member, “forgets that we already haveit in the poll tax.”
“Whose dead body is that?”
“Credulity’s.”
“By whom was he slain?”
“Credulity.”
“Ah, suicide.”
“No, surfeit. He dined at the table ofScience, and swallowed all that was set before him.”
Don’t board with the devil if you wish to befat.
Pray do not despise your delinquent debtor; his defaultis no proof of poverty.
Courage is the acceptance of the gambler’s chance:a brave man bets against the game of the gods.
“Who art thou?”
“A philanthropist. And thou?”
“A pauper.”
“Away! you have nothing to relieve my need.”
Youth looks forward, for nothing is behind; Age backward,for nothing is before.
Think not, O man, the world has any need
That thou canst truly serve by word ordeed.
Serve thou thy better self, nor care toknow
How God makes righteousness and rosesgrow.
In spiritual matters material aids are not to be despised:by the use of an organ and a painted window an artisticemotion can be made to seem a religious ecstasy.
The poor man’s price of admittance to the favorof the rich is his self-respect. It assures hima seat in the gallery.
One may know oneself ugly, but there is no mirrorfor the understanding.
If the righteous thought death what they think theythink it they would search less diligently for divineordinances against suicide.
Weep not for cruelty to rogues in jail:
Injustice can the just alone assail.
Deny compassion to the wretch who swerved,
Till all who, fainting, walked arightare served.
The artless woman may be known by her costume:her gown is trimmed with feathers of the white blackbird.
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusionis called a philosopher.
Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills hisbucket, and then sets up as a fountain.
The present is the frontier between the desert ofthe past and the garden of the future. It isredrawn every moment.
The virtue that is not automatic requires more attentionthan it is worth.
At sunset our shadows reach the stars, yet we areno greater at death than at the noon of life.
Experience is a revelation in the light of which werenounce the errors of youth for those of age.
From childhood to youth is eternity; from youth tomanhood, a season. Age comes in a night and isincredible.
Avoid the disputatious. When you greet an acquaintancewith “How are you?” and he replies:“On the contrary, how are you?”pass on.
If all thought were audible none would be deemed discreditable.We know, indeed, that bad thoughts are universal,but that is not the same thing as catching them atbeing so.
“All the souls in this place have been happyever since you blundered into it,” said Satan,ejecting Hope. “You make trouble whereveryou go.”
Our severest retorts are unanswerable because nobodyis present to answer them.
The angels have good dreams and bad, and we are thedreams. When an angel wakes one of us dies.
The man of “honor” pays hisbet
By saving on his lawful debt.
When he to Nature pays his dust
(Not for he would, but for he must)
Men say, “He settled that, ’tistrue,
But, faith, it long was overdue.”
Do not permit a woman to ask forgiveness, for thatis only the first step. The second is justificationof herself by accusation of you.
If we knew nothing was behind us we should discernour true relation to the universe.
Youth has the sun and the stars by which to determinehis position on the sea of life; Age must sail bydead reckoning and knows not whither he is bound.
Happiness is lost by criticising it; sorrow by acceptingit.
As Nature can not make us altogether wretched sheresorts to the trick of contrast by making us sometimesalmost happy.
When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil thatis to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles forthe good that he has had.
When God saw how faulty was man He tried again andmade woman. As to why He then stopped there aretwo opinions. One of them is woman’s.
She hated him because he discovered that her larkwas a crow. He hated her because she unlockedthe cage of his beast.
“Who art thou?”
“Friendship.”
“I am Love; let us travel together.”
“Yes—for a day’s journey; thenthou arrivest at thy grave.”
“And thou?”
“I go as far as the grave of Advantage.”
Look far enough ahead and always thou shalt see thedomes and spires of the City of Contentment.
You would say of that old man: “He is baldand bent.” No; in the presence of Deathhe uncovers and bows.
If you saw Love pictured as clad in furs you wouldsmile. Yet every year has its winter.
You can not disprove the Great Pyramid by showingthe impossibility of putting the stones in place.
Men were singing the praises of Justice.
“Not so loud,” said an angel; “ifyou wake her she will put you all to death.”
Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinksit wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.
Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly;by shadow only we perceive that all visible objectsare not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolishevil!
One whose falsehoods no longer deceive has forfeitedthe right to speak truth.
Wisdom is a special knowledge in excess of all thatis known.
To live is to believe. The most credulous ofmortals is he who is persuaded of his incredulity.
In him who has never wronged another, revenge is avirtue.
That you can not serve God and Mammon is a poor excusefor not serving God.
A fool’s tongue is not so noisy but the wisecan hear his ear commanding them to silence.
If the Valley of Peace could be reached only by thepath of love, it would be sparsely inhabited.
To the eye of failure success is an accident witha presumption of crime.
Wearing his eyes in his heart, the optimist fallsover his own feet, and calls it Progress.
You can calculate your distance from Hell by the numberof wayside roses. They are thickest at the hitherend of the route.
The world was made a sphere in order that men shouldnot push one another off, but the landowner smileswhen he thinks of the sea.
Let not the night on thy resentment fall:
Strike when the wrong is fresh, or notat all.
The lion ceases if his first leap fail—
’Tis only dogs that nose a coolingtrail.
Having given out all the virtues that He had made,God made another.
“Give us that also,” said His children.
“Nay,” He replied, “if I give youthat you will slay one another till none is left.You shall have only its name, which is Justice.”
“That is a good name,” they said; “wewill give it to a virtue of our own creation.”
So they gave it to Revenge.
The sea-bird speeding from the realm ofnight
Dashes to death against the beacon-light.
Learn from its evil fate, ambitious soul,
The ministry of light is guide, not goal.
While you have a future do not live too much in contemplationof your past: unless you are content to walkbackward the mirror is a poor guide.
“O dreadful Death, why veilest thou thy face?”
“To spare me thine impetuous embrace.”
He who knows himself great accepts the truth in reverentsilence, but he who only believes himself great hasembraced a noisy faith.
Life is a little plot of light. We enter, claspa hand or two, and go our several ways back into thedarkness. The mystery is infinitely patheticand picturesque.
Cheerfulness is the religion of the little. Thelow hills are a-smirk with flowers and greenery; thedominating peaks, austere and desolate, holding aprophecy of doom.
It is not to our credit that women like best the menwho are not as other men, nor to theirs that theyare not particular as to the nature of the difference.
In the journey of life when thy shadow falls to thewestward stop until it falls to the eastward.Thou art then at thy destination.
Seek not for happiness—’tisknown
To hope and memory alone;
At dawn—how bright the noonwill be!
At eve—how fair it glowed,ah, me!
Brain was given to test the heart’s credibilityas a witness, yet the philosopher’s lady isalmost as fine as the clown’s wench.
“Who art thou, so sorrowful?”
“Ingratitude. It saddens me to look uponthe devastations of Benevolence.”
“Then veil thine eyes, for I am Benevolence.”
“Wretch! thou art my father and my mother.”
Death is the only prosperity that we neither desirefor ourselves nor resent in others.
To the small part of ignorance that we can arrangeand classify we give the name Knowledge.
“I wish to enter,” said the soul of thevoluptuary.
“I am told that all the beautiful women arehere.”
“Enter,” said Satan, and the soul of thevoluptuary passed in.
“They make the place what it is,” addedSatan, as the gates clanged.
Woman would be more charming if one could fall intoher arms without falling into her hands.
Think not to atone for wealth by apology: youmust make restitution to the accuser.
Study good women and ignore the rest,
or he best knows the sex who knows the best.
Before undergoing a surgical operation arrange yourtemporal affairs.
You may live.
Intolerance is natural and logical, for in every dissentingopinion lies an assumption of superior wisdom.
“Who art thou?” said Saint Peter at theGate.
“I am known as Memory.”
“What presumption!—go back to Hell.And who, perspiring friend, art thou?”
“My name is Satan. I am lookingfor——”
“Take your penal apparatus and be off.”
And Satan, laying hold of Memory, said: “Comealong, you scoundrel! you make happiness whereveryou are not.”
Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figuresand manners. In transplanting brains to an aliensoil God leaves a little of the original earth clingingto the roots.
The heels of Detection are sore from the toes of Remorse.
Twice we see Paradise. In youth we name it Life;in age, Youth.
There are but ten Commandments, true,
But that’s no hardship, friend,to you;
The sins whereof no line is writ
You’re not commanded to commit.
Fear of the darkness is more than an inherited superstition—itis at night, mostly, that the king thinks.
“Who art thou?” said Mercy.
“Revenge, the father of Justice.”
“Thou wearest thy son’s clothing.”
“One must be clad.”
“Farewell—I go to attend thy son.”
“Thou wilt find him hiding in yonder jungle.”
Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
Men talk of selecting a wife; horses, of selectingan owner.
You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wrongedyou, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she isgrowing older every minute. You are avenged fourteenhundred and forty times a day.
A sweetheart is a bottle of wine; a wife is a wine-bottle.
He gets on best with women who best knows how to geton without them.
“Who am I?” asked an awakened soul.
“That is the only knowledge that is denied toyou here,” answered a smiling angel; “thisis Heaven.”
Woman’s courage is ignorance of danger; man’sis hope of escape.
When God had finished this terrestrialframe
And all things else, with or without aname,
The Nothing that remained within His hand
Said: “Make me into somethingfine and grand,
Thine angels to amuse and entertain.”
God heard and made it into human brain.
If you wish to slay your enemy make haste, O makehaste, for already
Nature’s knife is at his throat and yours.
To most persons a sense of obligation is insupportable;beware upon whom you inflict it.
Bear me, good oceans, to someisle
Where I may neverfear
The snake alurk in woman’ssmile,
The tiger in hertear.
Yet bear not with me her,O deeps,
Who never smiles and neverweeps.
Life and Death threw dice for a child.
“I win!” cried Life.
“True,” said Death, “but you needa nimbler tongue to proclaim your luck. The stakeis already dead of age.”
How blind is he who, powerless to discern
The glories that about his pathway burn,
Walks unaware the avenues of Dream,
Nor sees the domes of Paradise agleam!
O Golden Age, to him more nobly planned
Thy light lies ever upon sea and land.
From sordid scenes he lifts his eyes atwill,
And sees a Grecian god on every hill!
In childhood we expect, in youth demand, in manhoodhope, and in age beseech.
A violet softly sighed,
A hollyhock shouted above.
In the heart of the violet, pride;
In the heart of the hollyhock,love.
If women knew themselves the fact that men do notknow them would flatter them less and content themmore.
The angel with a flaming sword slept at his post,and Eve slipped back into the Garden. “ThankHeaven! I am again in Paradise,” said Adam.
