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Transcribers Note: Title and Table of contents Added.

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THE IDLER MAGAZINE.

AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY.

MAY 1893




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CONTENTS

THE IDLER.
  AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS.
  BY BRETT HART.

THE MODERN BABYLON.
  BY CYNICUS.

MY FIRST BOOKS.
  "UNDERTONES" AND "IDYLLS AND LEGENDS OF
  INVERBURN."

BALDER'S BALL.
  BY P. VON SCHÖNTHAN.

LIONS IN THEIR DENS.
  V.--THE LORD LIEUTENANT AT DUBLIN CASTLE.
  BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.

THE FEAR OF IT.
  BY ROBERT BARR.

MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NILIHILIST.
  BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.

MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NILIHILIST.
  BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.

PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET.
  BY SCOTT RANKIN.

MY SERVANT JOHN.
  BY ARCHIBALD FORBES.

THE IDLER'S CLUB.
  THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT.



       *       *       *       *       *
[Illustration: "THE SIMPLE QUESTION I'VE GOT TO ASK YE IS _this_--DID
YOU SIGNAL TO ANYBODY FROM THE COACH WHEN WE PASSED GALLOPER'S?"]

       *       *       *       *       *




THE IDLER.

_AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS._

BY BRET HARTE.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. S. BOYD.

I.


We all held our breath as the coach rushed through the semi-darkness of
Galloper's Ridge. The vehicle itself was only a huge lumbering shadow;
its side-lights were carefully extinguished, and Yuba Bill had just
politely removed from the lips of an outside passenger even the cigar
with which he had been ostentatiously exhibiting his coolness. For it
had been rumoured that the Ramon Martinez gang of "road agents" were
"laying" for us on the second grade, and would time the passage of our
lights across Galloper's in order to intercept us in the "brush" beyond.
If we could cross the ridge without being seen, and so get through the
brush before they reached it, we were safe. If they followed, it would
only be a stern chase with the odds in our favour.

The huge vehicle swayed from side to side, rolled, dipped, and plunged,
but Bill kept the track, as if, in the whispered words of the
Expressman, he could "feel and smell" the road he could no longer see.
We knew that at times we hung perilously over the edge of slopes that
eventually dropped a thousand feet sheer to the tops of the sugar-pines
below, but we knew that Bill knew it also. The half visible heads of the
horses, drawn wedge-wise together by the tightened reins, appeared to
cleave the darkness like a ploughshare, held between his rigid hands.
Even the hoof-beats of the six horses had fallen into a vague,
monotonous, distant roll. Then the ridge was crossed, and we plunged
into the still blacker obscurity of the brush. Rather we no longer
seemed to move--it was only the phantom night that rushed by us. The
horses might have been submerged in some swift Lethean stream; nothing
but the top of the coach and the rigid bulk of Yuba Bill arose above
them. Yet even in that awful moment our speed was unslackened; it was as
if Bill cared no longer to _guide_ but only to drive, or as if the
direction of his huge machine was determined by other hands than his. An
incautious whisperer hazarded the paralysing suggestion of our "meeting
another team." To our great astonishment Bill overheard it; to our
greater astonishment he replied. "It 'ud be only a neck and neck race
which would get to h--ll first," he said quietly. But we were
relieved--for he had _spoken!_ Almost simultaneously the wider turnpike
began to glimmer faintly as a visible track before us; the wayside trees
fell out of line, opened up and dropped off one after another; we were
on the broader tableland, out of danger, and apparently unperceived and
unpursued.

[Illustration: "STRUCK A MATCH AND HELD IT FOR HER."]

Nevertheless in the conversation that broke out again with the
relighting of the lamps and the comments, congratulations and
reminiscences that were freely exchanged, Yuba Bill preserved a
dissatisfied and even resentful silence. The most generous praise of his
skill and courage awoke no response. "I reckon the old man waz just
spilin' for a fight, and is feelin' disappointed," said a passenger. But
those who knew that Bill had the true fighter's scorn for any purely
purposeless conflict were more or less concerned and watchful of him. He
would drive steadily for four or five minutes with thoughtfully knitted
brows, but eyes still keenly observant under his slouched hat, and then,
relaxing his strained attitude, would give way to a movement of
impatience. "You aint uneasy about anything, Bill, are you?" asked the
Expressman confidentially. Bill lifted his eyes with a slightly
contemptuous surprise. "Not about anything ter _come_. It's what _hez_
happened that I don't exackly sabe. I don't see no signs of Ramon's gang
ever havin' been out at all, and ef they were out I don't see why they
didn't go for us."

"The simple fact is that our _ruse_ was successful," said an outside
passenger. "They waited to see our lights on the ridge, and, not seeing
them, missed us until we had passed. That's my opinion."

"You aint puttin' any price on that opinion, air ye?" enquired Bill,
politely.

"No."

"'Cos thar's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I've
seen worse things in it."

"Come off! Bill," retorted the passenger, slightly nettled by the
tittering of his companions. "Then what did you put out the lights for?"

"Well," returned Bill, grimly, "it mout have been because I didn't keer
to hev you chaps blazin' away at the first bush you _thought_ you saw
move in your skeer, and bringin' down their fire on us."

The explanation, though unsatisfactory, was by no means an improbable
one, and we thought it better to accept it with a laugh. Bill, however,
resumed his abstracted manner.

"Who got in at the Summit?" he at last asked abruptly of the Expressman.

"Derrick and Simpson of Cold Spring, and one of the 'Excelsior' boys,"
responded the Expressman.

"And that Pike County girl from Dow's Flat, with her bundles. Don't
forget her," added the outside passenger, ironically.

"Does anybody here know her?" continued Bill, ignoring the irony.

"You'd better ask Judge Thompson; he was mighty attentive to her;
gettin' her a seat by the off window, and lookin' after her bundles and
things."

"Gettin' her a seat by the _window_?" repeated Bill.

"Yes, she wanted to see everything, and wasn't afraid of the shooting."

"Yes," broke in a third passenger, "and he was so d----d civil that when
she dropped her ring in the straw, he struck a match agin all your
rules, you know, and held it for her to find it. And it was just as we
were crossin' through the brush, too. I saw the hull thing through the
window, for I was hanging over the wheels with my gun ready for action.
And it wasn't no fault of Judge Thompson's if his d----d foolishness
hadn't shown us up, and got us a shot from the gang."

Bill gave a short grunt--but drove steadily on without further comment
or even turning his eyes to the speaker.

We were now not more than a mile from the station at the cross roads
where we were to change horses. The lights already glimmered in the
distance, and there was a faint suggestion of the coming dawn on the
summits of the ridge to the West. We had plunged into a belt of timber,
when suddenly a horseman emerged at a sharp canter from a trail that
seemed to be parallel with our own. We were all slightly startled; Yuba
Bill alone preserving his moody calm.

"Hullo!" he said.

The stranger wheeled to our side as Bill slackened his speed. He seemed
to be a "packer" or freight muleteer.

"Ye didn't get 'held up' on the Divide?" continued Bill, cheerfully.

"No," returned the packer, with a laugh; "_I_ don't carry treasure. But
I see you're all right, too. I saw you crossin' over Galloper's."

"_Saw_ us?" said Bill, sharply. "We had our lights out."

"Yes, but there was suthin' white--a handkerchief or woman's veil, I
reckon--hangin' from the window. It was only a movin' spot agin the
hillside, but ez I was lookin' out for ye I knew it was you by that.
Good night!"

He cantered away. We tried to look at each other's faces, and at Bill's
expression in the darkness, but he neither spoke nor stirred until he
threw down the reins when we stopped before the station. The passengers
quickly descended from the roof; the Expressman was about to follow, but
Bill plucked his sleeve.

"I'm goin' to take a look over this yer stage and these yer passengers
with ye, afore we start."

"Why, what's up?"

"Well," said Bill, slowly disengaging himself from one of his enormous
gloves, "when we waltzed down into the brush up there I saw a man, ez
plain ez I see you, rise up from it. I thought our time had come and the
band was goin' to play, when he sorter drew back, made a sign, and we
just scooted past him."

"Well?"

"Well," said Bill, "it means that this yer coach was _passed through
free_ to-night."

"You don't object to _that_--surely? I think we were deucedly lucky."

Bill slowly drew off his other glove. "I've been riskin' my everlastin'
life on this d----d line three times a week," he said with mock
humility, "and I'm allus thankful for small mercies. _But_," he added
grimly, "when it comes down to being passed free by some pal of a hoss
thief and thet called a speshal Providence, _I aint in it_! No, sir, I
aint in it!"




II.


It was with mixed emotions that the passengers heard that a delay of
fifteen minutes to tighten certain screw-bolts had been ordered by the
autocratic Bill. Some were anxious to get their breakfast at Sugar Pine,
but others were not averse to linger for the daylight that promised
greater safety on the road. The Expressman, knowing the real cause of
Bill's delay, was nevertheless at a loss to understand the object of it.
The passengers were all well known; any idea of complicity with the road
agents was wild and impossible, and, even if there was a confederate of
the gang among them, he would have been more likely to precipitate a
robbery than to check it. Again, the discovery of such a confederate--to
whom they clearly owed their safety--and his arrest would have been
quite against the Californian sense of justice, if not actually illegal.
It seemed evident that Bill's Quixotic sense of honour was leading him
astray.

[Illustration: "'THERE WAS SUTHIN' WHITE HANGIN' FROM THE WINDOW.'"]

The station consisted of a stable, a waggon shed, and a building
containing three rooms. The first was fitted up with "bunks" or sleeping
berths for the _employés_, the second was the kitchen, and the third and
larger apartment was dining-room or sitting-room, and was used as
general waiting-room for the passengers. It was not a refreshment
station, and there was no "bar." But a mysterious command from the
omnipotent Bill produced a demi-john of whiskey, with which he
hospitably treated the company. The seductive influence of the liquor
loosened the tongue of the gallant Judge Thompson. He admitted to having
struck a match to enable the fair Pike Countian to find her ring, which,
however, proved to have fallen in her lap. She was "a fine, healthy
young woman--a type of the Far West, sir; in fact, quite a prairie
blossom! yet simple and guileless as a child." She was on her way to
Marysville, he believed, "although she expected to meet friends--a
friend--in fact, later on." It was her first visit to a large town--in
fact, any civilised centre--since she crossed the plains three years
ago. Her girlish curiosity was quite touching, and her innocence
irresistible. In fact, in a country whose tendency was to produce
"frivolity and forwardness in young girls, he found her a most
interesting young person." She was even then out in the stable-yard
watching the horses being harnessed, "preferring to indulge a pardonable
healthy young curiosity than to listen to the empty compliments of the
younger passengers."

[Illustration: "SHE WAS WATCHING THE REPLACING OF LUGGAGE IN THE BOOT."]

The figure which Bill saw thus engaged, without being otherwise
distinguished, certainly seemed to justify the Judge's opinion. She
appeared to be a well-matured country girl, whose frank grey eyes and
large laughing mouth expressed a wholesome and abiding gratification in
her life and surroundings. She was watching the replacing of luggage in
the boot. A little feminine start, as one of her own parcels was thrown
somewhat roughly on the roof, gave Bill his opportunity. "Now there," he
growled to the helper, "ye aint carting stone! Look out, will yer! Some
of your things, miss?" he added, with gruff courtesy, turning to her.
"These yer trunks, for instance?"

She smiled a pleasant assent, and Bill, pushing aside the helper,
seized a large square trunk in his arms. But from excess of zeal, or
some other mischance, his foot slipped, and he came down heavily,
striking the corner of the trunk on the ground and loosening its hinges
and fastenings. It was a cheap, common-looking affair, but the accident
discovered in its yawning lid a quantity of white, lace-edged feminine
apparel of an apparently superior quality. The young lady uttered
another cry and came quickly forward, but Bill was profuse in his
apologies, himself girded the broken box with a strap, and declared his
intention of having the company "make it good" to her with a new one.
Then he casually accompanied her to the door of the waiting-room,
entered, made a place for her before the fire by simply lifting the
nearest and most youthful passenger by the coat-collar from the stool
that he was occupying, and, having installed the lady in it, displaced
another man who was standing before the chimney, and, drawing himself up
to his full six feet of height in front of her, glanced down upon his
fair passenger as he took his waybill from his pocket.

"Your name is down here as Miss Mullins?" he said.

She looked up, became suddenly aware that she and her questioner were
the centre of interest to the whole circle of passengers, and, with a
slight rise of colour, returned "Yes."

"Well, Miss Mullins, I've got a question or two to ask ye. I ask it
straight out afore this crowd. It's in my rights to take ye aside and
ask it--but that aint my style; I'm no detective. I needn't ask it at
all, but act as ef I knowed the answer, or I might leave it to be asked
by others. Ye needn't answer it ef ye don't like; ye've got a friend
over ther--Judge Thompson--who is a friend to ye, right or wrong, jest
as any other man here is--as though ye'd packed your own jury. Well, the
simple question I've got to ask ye is _this_--Did you signal to anybody
from the coach when we passed Galloper's an hour ago?"

We all thought that Bill's courage and audacity had reached its climax
here. To openly and publicly accuse a "lady" before a group of
chivalrous Californians, and that lady possessing the further
attractions of youth, good looks and innocence, was little short of
desperation. There was an evident movement of adhesion towards the fair
stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, but the very
boldness of the act held them in stupefied surprise. Judge Thompson,
with a bland propitiatory smile, began: "Really, Bill, I must protest on
behalf of this young lady--" when the fair accused, raising her eyes to
her accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered with the slight
but convincing hesitation of conscientious truthfulness:

"_I did._"

"Ahem!" interposed the Judge, hastily, "er--that is--er--you allowed
your handkerchief to flutter from the window. I noticed it myself,
casually--one might say even playfully--but without any particular
significance."

The girl, regarding her apologist with a singular mingling of pride and
impatience, returned briefly:

"I signalled."

"Who did you signal to?" asked Bill, gravely.

"The young gentleman I'm going to marry."

A start, followed by a slight titter from the younger passengers, was
instantly suppressed by a savage glance from Bill.

"What did you signal to him for?" he continued.

"To tell him I was here, and that it was all right," returned the young
girl, with a steadily rising pride and colour.

"Wot was all right?" demanded Bill.

"That I wasn't followed, and that he could meet me on the road beyond
Cass's Ridge Station." She hesitated a moment, and then, with a still
greater pride, in which a youthful defiance was still mingled, said:
"I've run away from home to marry him. And I mean to! No one can stop
me. Dad didn't like him just because he was poor, and dad's got money.
Dad wanted me to marry a man I hate, and got a lot of dresses and things
to bribe me."

"And you're taking them in your trunk to the other feller?" said Bill,
grimly.

"Yes, he's poor," returned the girl, defiantly.

"Then your father's name is Mullins?" asked Bill.

"It's not Mullins. I--I--took that name," she hesitated, with her first
exhibition of self-consciousness.

"Wot _is_ his name?"

"Eli Hemmings."

A smile of relief and significance went round the circle. The fame of
Eli or "Skinner" Hemmings, as a notorious miser and usurer, had passed
even beyond Galloper's Ridge.

"The step that you're taking, Miss Mullins, I need not tell you, is one
of great gravity," said Judge Thompson, with a certain paternal
seriousness of manner, in which, however, we were glad to detect a
glaring affectation, "and I trust that you and your affianced have fully
weighed it. Far be it from me to interfere with or question the natural
affections of two young people, but may I ask you what you know of
the--er--young gentleman for whom you are sacrificing so much, and,
perhaps, imperilling your whole future? For instance, have you known him
long?"

The slightly troubled air of trying to understand--not unlike the vague
wonderment of childhood--with which Miss Mullins had received the
beginning of this exordium, changed to a relieved smile of comprehension
as she said quickly, "Oh, yes, nearly a whole year."

"And," said the Judge, smiling, "has he a vocation--is he in business?"

"Oh, yes," she returned, "he's a collector."

"A collector?"

"Yes; he collects bills, you know, money," she went on, with childish
eagerness, "not for himself--_he_ never has any money, poor Charley--but
for his firm. It's dreadful hard work, too, keeps him out for days and
nights, over bad roads and baddest weather. Sometimes, when he's stole
over to the ranch just to see me, he's been so bad he could scarcely
keep his seat in the saddle, much less stand. And he's got to take
mighty big risks, too. Times the folks are cross with him and won't pay;
once they shot him in the arm, and he came to me, and I helped do it up
for him. But he don't mind. He's real brave, jest as brave as he's
good." There was such a wholesome ring of truth in this pretty praise
that we were touched in sympathy with the speaker.

"What firm does he collect for?" asked the Judge, gently.

"I don't know exactly--he won't tell me--but I think it's a Spanish
firm. You see"--she took us all into her confidence with a sweeping
smile of innocent yet half-mischievous artfulness--"I only know because
I peeped over a letter he once got from his firm, telling him he must
hustle up and be ready for the road the next day--but I think the name
was Martinez--yes, Ramon Martinez."

In the dead silence that ensued--a silence so profound that we could
hear the horses in the distant stable-yard rattling their harness--one
of the younger "Excelsior" boys burst into a hysteric laugh, but the
fierce eye of Yuba Bill was down upon him, and seemed to instantly
stiffen him into a silent, grinning mask. The young girl, however, took
no note of it; following out, with lover-like diffusiveness, the
reminiscences thus awakened, she went on:

[Illustration: "AND--THEN CAME THE RAIN!"]

"Yes, it's mighty hard work, but he says it's all for me, and as soon as
we're married he'll quit it. He might have quit it before, but he won't
take no money of me, nor what I told him I could get out of dad! That
aint his style. He's mighty proud--if he is poor--is Charley. Why thar's
all ma's money which she left me in the Savin's Bank that I wanted to
draw out--for I had the right--and give it to him, but he wouldn't hear
of it! Why, he wouldn't take one of the things I've got with me, if he
knew it. And so he goes on ridin' and ridin', here and there and
everywhere, and gettin' more and more played out and sad, and thin and
pale as a spirit, and always so uneasy about his business, and startin'
up at times when we're meetin' out in the South Woods or in the far
clearin', and sayin': 'I must be goin' now, Polly,' and yet always
tryin' to be chiffle and chipper afore me. Why he must have rid miles
and miles to have watched for me thar in the brush at the foot of
Galloper's to-night, jest to see if all was safe, and Lordy! I'd have
given him the signal and showed a light if I'd died for it the next
minit. There! That's what I know of Charley--that's what I'm running
away from home for--that's what I'm running to him for, and I
don't care who knows it! And I only wish I'd done it afore--and I
would--if--if--if--he'd only _asked me!_ There now!" She stopped,
panted, and choked. Then one of the sudden transitions of youthful
emotion overtook the eager, laughing face; it clouded up with the swift
change of childhood, a lightning quiver of expression broke over
it--and--then came the rain!

I think this simple act completed our utter demoralisation! We smiled
feebly at each other with that assumption of masculine superiority which
is miserably conscious of its own helplessness at such moments. We
looked out of the window, blew our noses, said: "Eh--what?" and "I say,"
vaguely to each other, and were greatly relieved and yet apparently
astonished when Yuba Bill, who had turned his back upon the fair
speaker, and was kicking the logs in the fireplace, suddenly swept down
upon us and bundled us all into the road, leaving Miss Mullins alone.
Then he walked aside with Judge Thompson for a few moments; returned to
us, autocratically demanded of the party a complete reticence towards
Miss Mullins on the subject matter under discussion, re-entered the
station, re-appeared with the young lady, suppressed a faint idiotic
cheer which broke from us at the spectacle of her innocent face once
more cleared and rosy, climbed the box, and in another moment we were
under way.

"Then she don't know what her lover is yet?" asked the Expressman,
eagerly.

"No."

"Are _you_ certain it's one of the gang?"

"Can't say _for sure_. It mout be a young chap from Yolo who bucked agin
the tiger [1] at Sacramento, got regularly cleaned out and busted, and
joined the gang for a flier. They say thar was a new hand in that job
over at Keeley's--and a mighty game one, too--and ez there was some
buckshot onloaded that trip, he might hev got his share, and that would
tally with what the girl said about his arm. See! Ef that's the man,
I've heered he was the son of some big preacher in the States, and a
college sharp to boot, who ran wild in 'Frisco, and played himself for
all he was worth. They're the wust kind to kick when they once get a
foot over the traces. For stiddy, comf'ble kempany," added Bill
reflectively, "give _me_ the son of a man that was _hanged!_"

"But what are you going to do about this?"

"That depends upon the feller who comes to meet her."

"But you aint going to try to take him? That would be playing it pretty
low down on them both."

"Keep your hair on, Jimmy! The Judge and me are only going to rastle
with the sperrit of that gay young galoot, when he drops down for his
girl--and exhort him pow'ful! Ef he allows he's convicted of sin and
will find the Lord, we'll marry him and the gal offhand at the next
station, and the Judge will officiate himself for nothin'. We're goin'
to have this yer elopement done on the square--and our waybill
clean--you bet!"

"But you don't suppose he'll trust himself in your hands?"

"Polly will signal to him that it's all square."

"Ah!" said the Expressman. Nevertheless in those few moments the men
seemed to have exchanged dispositions. The Expressman looked doubtfully,
critically, and even cynically before him. Bill's face had relaxed, and
something like a bland smile beamed across it, as he drove confidently
and unhesitatingly forward.

Day, meantime, although full blown and radiant on the mountain summits
around us, was yet nebulous and uncertain in the valleys into which we
were plunging. Lights still glimmered in the cabins and few ranch
buildings which began to indicate the thicker settlements. And the
shadows were heaviest in a little copse, where a note from Judge
Thompson in the coach was handed up to Yuba Bill, who at once slowly
began to draw up his horses. The coach stopped finally near the junction
of a small cross road. At the same moment Miss Mullins slipped down from
the vehicle, and, with a parting wave of her hand to the Judge who had
assisted her from the steps, tripped down the cross road, and
disappeared in its semi-obscurity. To our surprise the stage waited,
Bill holding the reins listlessly in his hands. Five minutes passed--an
eternity of expectation, and--as there was that in Yuba Bill's face
which forbade idle questioning--an aching void of silence also! This was
at last broken by a strange voice from the road:

"Go on--we'll follow."

[Illustration: "A PARTING WAVE OF HER HAND."]

The coach started forward. Presently we heard the sound of other wheels
behind us. We all craned our necks backward to get a view of the
unknown, but by the growing light we could only see that we were
followed at a distance by a buggy with two figures in it. Evidently
Polly Mullins and her lover! We hoped that they would pass us. But the
vehicle, although drawn by a fast horse, preserved its distance always,
and it was plain that its driver had no desire to satisfy our curiosity.
The Expressman had recourse to Bill.

"Is it the man you thought of?" he asked, eagerly.

"I reckon," said Bill, briefly.

"But," continued the Expressman, returning to his former scepticism,
"what's to keep them both from levanting together now?"

Bill jerked his hand towards the boot with a grim smile.

"Their baggage."

"Oh!" said the Expressman.

"Yes," continued Bill. "We'll hang on to that gal's little frills and
fixin's until this yer job's settled, and the ceremony's over, jest as
ef we waz her own father. And, what's more, young man," he added,
suddenly turning to the Expressman, "_you'll_ express them trunks of
hers _through to Sacramento_ with your kempany's labels, and hand her
the receipts and cheques for them, so she _can get 'em there_. That'll
keep _him_ outer temptation and the reach o' the gang, until they get
away among white men and civilisation again. When your hoary-headed ole
grandfather--or, to speak plainer, that partikler old whiskey-soaker
known as Yuba Bill, wot sits on this box," he continued, with a
diabolical wink at the Expressman--"waltzes in to pervide for a young
couple jest startin' in life, thar's nothin' mean about his style, you
bet. He fills the bill every time! Speshul Providences take a back seat
when he's around."

When the station hotel and straggling settlement of Sugar Pine, now
distinct and clear in the growing light, at last rose within rifleshot
on the plateau, the buggy suddenly darted swiftly by us--so swiftly that
the faces of the two occupants were barely distinguishable as they
passed--and, keeping the lead by a dozen lengths, reached the door of
the hotel. The young girl and her companion leaped down and vanished
within as we drew up. They had evidently determined to elude our
curiosity, and were successful.

But the material appetites of the passengers, sharpened by the keen
mountain air, were more potent than their curiosity, and, as the
breakfast-bell rang out at the moment the stage stopped, a majority of
them rushed into the dining-room and scrambled for places without giving
much heed to the vanished couple or to the Judge and Yuba Bill, who had
disappeared also. The through coach to Marysville and Sacramento was
likewise waiting, for Sugar Pine was the limit of Bill's ministration,
and the coach which we had just left went no further. In the course of
twenty minutes, however, there was a slight and somewhat ceremonious
bustling in the hall and on the verandah, and Yuba Bill and the Judge
re-appeared. The latter was leading, with some elaboration of manner and
detail, the shapely figure of Miss Mullins, and Yuba Bill was
accompanying her companion to the buggy. We all rushed to the windows to
get a good view of the mysterious stranger and probable ex-brigand whose
life was now linked with our fair fellow-passenger. I am afraid,
however, that we all participated in a certain impression of
disappointment and doubt. Handsome and even cultivated-looking, he
assuredly was--young and vigorous in appearance. But there was a certain
half-shamed, half-defiant suggestion in his expression, yet coupled with
a watchful lurking uneasiness which was not pleasant and hardly becoming
in a bridegroom--and the possessor of such a bride. But the frank,
joyous, innocent face of Polly Mullins, resplendent with a simple, happy
confidence, melted our hearts again, and condoned the fellow's
shortcomings. We waved our hands; I think we would have given three
rousing cheers as they drove away if the omnipotent eye of Yuba Bill had
not been upon us. It was well, for the next moment we were summoned to
the presence of that soft-hearted autocrat.

We found him alone with the Judge in a private sitting-room, standing
before a table on which there was a decanter and glasses. As we filed
expectantly into the room and the door closed behind us, he cast a
glance of hesitating tolerance over the group.

"Gentlemen," he said slowly, "you was all present at the beginnin' of a
little game this mornin', and the Judge thar thinks that you oughter be
let in at the finish. _I_ don't see that it's any of _your_ d----d
business--so to speak--but ez the Judge here allows you're all in the
secret, I've called you in to take a partin' drink to the health of Mr.
and Mrs. Charley Byng--ez is now comf'ably off on their bridal tower.
What _you_ know or what _you_ suspects of the young galoot that's
married the gal aint worth shucks to anybody, and I wouldn't give it to
a yaller pup to play with, but the Judge thinks you ought all to promise
right here that you'll keep it dark. That's his opinion. Ez far as my
opinion goes, gen'lmen," continued Bill, with greater blandness and
apparent cordiality, "I wanter simply remark, in a keerless, offhand
gin'ral way, that ef I ketch any God-forsaken, lop-eared, chuckle-headed
blatherin' idjet airin' _his_ opinion----"

"One moment, Bill," interposed Judge Thompson with a grave smile--"let
me explain. You understand, gentlemen," he said, turning to us, "the
singular, and I may say affecting, situation which our good-hearted
friend here has done so much to bring to what we hope will be a happy
termination. I want to give here, as my professional opinion, that there
is nothing in his request which, in your capacity as good citizens and
law-abiding men, you may not grant. I want to tell you, also, that you
are condoning no offence against the statutes; that there is not a
particle of legal evidence before us of the criminal antecedents of Mr.
Charles Byng, except that which has been told you by the innocent lips
of his betrothed, which the law of the land has now sealed for ever in
the mouth of his wife, and that our own actual experience of his acts
have been in the main exculpatory of any previous irregularity--if not
incompatible with it. Briefly, no judge would charge, no jury convict,
on such evidence. When I add that the young girl is of legal age, that
there is no evidence of any previous undue influence, but rather of the
reverse, on the part of the bridegroom, and that I was content, as a
magistrate, to perform the ceremony, I think you will be satisfied to
give your promise, for the sake of the bride, and drink a happy life to
them both."

[Illustration: THE JUDGE AND MISS MULLINS.]

I need not say that we did this cheerfully, and even extorted from Bill
a grunt of satisfaction. The majority of the company, however, who were
going with the through coach to Sacramento, then took their leave, and,
as we accompanied them to the verandah, we could see that Miss Polly
Mullins's trunks were already transferred to the other vehicle under the
protecting seals and labels of the all-potent Express Company. Then the
whip cracked, the coach rolled away, and the last traces of the
adventurous young couple disappeared in the hanging red dust of its
wheels.

But Yuba Bill's grim satisfaction at the happy issue of the episode
seemed to suffer no abatement. He even exceeded his usual deliberately
regulated potations, and, standing comfortably with his back to the
centre of the now deserted bar-room, was more than usually loquacious
with the Expressman. "You see," he said, in bland reminiscence, "when
your old Uncle Bill takes hold of a job like this, he puts it straight
through without changin' hosses. Yet thar was a moment, young feller,
when I thought I was stompt! It was when we'd made up our mind to make
that chap tell the gal fust all what he was! Ef she'd rared or kicked in
the traces, or hung back only ez much ez that, we'd hev given him jest
five minits' law to get up and get and leave her, and we'd hev toted
that gal and her fixin's back to her dad again! But she jest gave a
little scream and start, and then went off inter hysterics, right on his
buzzum, laughing and cryin' and sayin' that nothin' should part 'em.
Gosh! if I didn't think _he_ woz more cut up than she about it--a minit
it looked as ef _he_ didn't allow to marry her arter all, but that
passed, and they was married hard and fast--you bet! I reckon he's had
enough of stayin' out o' nights to last him, and ef the valley
settlements hevn't got hold of a very shining member, at least the
foothills hev got shut of one more of the Ramon Martinez gang."

"What's that about the Ramon Martinez gang?" said a quiet potential
voice.

Bill turned quickly. It was the voice of the Divisional Superintendent
of the Express Company--a man of eccentric determination of character,
and one of the few whom the autocratic Bill recognised as an equal--who
had just entered the bar-room. His dusty pongee cloak and soft hat
indicated that he had that morning arrived on a round of inspection.

"Don't care if I do, Bill," he continued, in response to Bill's
invitatory gesture, walking to the bar. "It's a little raw out on the
road. Well, what were you saying about Ramon Martinez gang? You haven't
come across one of 'em, have you?"

"No," said Bill, with a slight blinking of his eye, as he ostentatiously
lifted his glass to the light.

"And you _won't_," added the Superintendent, leisurely sipping his
liquor. "For the fact is, the gang is about played out. Not from want of
a job now and then, but from the difficulty of disposing of the results
of their work. Since the new instructions to the agents to identify and
trace all dust and bullion offered to them went into force, you see,
they can't get rid of their swag. All the gang are spotted at the
offices, and it costs too much for them to pay a fence or a middleman of
any standing. Why, all that flaky river gold they took from the
Excelsior Company can be identified as easy as if it was stamped with
the company's mark. They can't melt it down themselves; they can't get
others to do it for them; they can't ship it to the Mint or Assay
Offices in Marysville and 'Frisco, for they won't take it without our
certificate and seals, and _we_ don't take any undeclared freight
_within_ the lines that we've drawn around their beat, except from
people and agents known. Why, _you_ know that well enough, Jim," he
said, suddenly appealing to the Expressman, "don't you?"

Possibly the suddenness of the appeal caused the Expressman to swallow
his liquor the wrong way, for he was overtaken with a fit of coughing,
and stammered hastily as he laid down his glass, "Yes--of
course--certainly."

"No, sir," resumed the Superintendent cheerfully, "they're pretty well
played out. And the best proof of it is that they've lately been robbing
ordinary passengers' trunks. There was a freight waggon 'held up' near
Dow's Flat the other day, and a lot of baggage gone through. I had to go
down there to look into it. Darned if they hadn't lifted a lot o'
woman's wedding things from that rich couple who got married the other
day out at Marysville. Looks as if they were playing it rather low down,
don't it? Coming down to hard pan and the bed rock--eh?"

The Expressman's face was turned anxiously towards Bill, who, after a
hurried gulp of his remaining liquor, still stood staring at the window.
Then he slowly drew on one of his large gloves. "Ye didn't," he said,
with a slow, drawling, but perfectly distinct, articulation, "happen to
know old 'Skinner' Hemmings when you were over there?"

"Yes."

"And his daughter?"

"He hasn't got any."

"A sort o' mild, innocent, guileless child of nature?" persisted Bill,
with a yellow face, a deadly calm and Satanic deliberation.

"No. I tell you he _hasn't_ any daughter. Old man Hemmings is a
confirmed old bachelor. He's too mean to support more than one."

"And you didn't happen to know any o' that gang, did ye?" continued
Bill, with infinite protraction.

"Yes. Knew 'em all. There was French Pete, Cherokee Bob, Kanaka Joe,
One-eyed Stillson, Softy Brown, Spanish Jack, and two or three
Greasers."

"And ye didn't know a man by the name of Charley Byng?"

[Illustration: "'YE DIDN'T KNOW A MAN BY THE NAME OF CHARLEY BYNG?'"]

"No," returned the Superintendent, with a slight suggestion of weariness
and a distraught glance towards the door.

"A dark, stylish chap, with shifty black eyes and a curled up
merstache?" continued Bill, with dry, colourless persistence.

"No. Look here, Bill, I'm in a little bit of a hurry--but I suppose you
must have your little joke before we part. Now, what _is_ your little
game?"

"Wot you mean?" demanded Bill, with sudden brusqueness.

"Mean? Well, old man, you know as well as I do. You're giving me the
very description of Ramon Martinez himself, ha! ha! No--Bill! you didn't
play me this time. You're mighty spry and clever, but you didn't catch
on just then."

He nodded and moved away with a light laugh. Bill turned a stony face to
the Expressman. Suddenly a gleam of mirth came into his gloomy eyes. He
bent over the young man, and said in a hoarse, chuckling whisper:

"But I got even after all!"

"How?"

"He's tied up to that lying little she-devil, hard and fast!"

[Illustration: IDLERS]




THE MODERN BABYLON.

BY CYNICUS.

[Illustration: THE MODERN PHAETON]

    The day is done for honest thriving
    Through Speculation's reckless driving.

[Illustration: THE SCAPEGOAT]

[Illustration: LAW & JUSTICE]

    Your distance Madam, for you see
    You dare not, unless I agree

[Illustration: SAMSON AGONISTES]

[Illustration: MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN.]




MY FIRST BOOKS.

"UNDERTONES" AND "IDYLS AND LEGENDS OF INVERBURN."

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE HUTCHINSON.

(PHOTOGRAPHS BY MESSRS. FRADELLE AND YOUNG.)


My first serious effort in Literature was what I may call a
double-barrelled one; in other words, I was seriously engaged upon Two
Books at the same time, and it was by the merest accident that they did
not appear simultaneously. As it was, only a few months divided one from
the other, and they are always, in my own mind, inseparable, or Siamese,
twins. The book of poems called _Undertones_ was the one; the book of
poems called _Idyls and Legends of Inverburn_ was the other. They were
published nearly thirty years ago, when I was still a boy, and as they
happened to bring me into connection, more or less intimately, with some
of the leading spirits of the age, a few notes concerning them may be of
interest.

[Illustration: MR. BUCHANAN'S HOUSE.]

A word, first, as to my literary beginnings. I can scarcely remember the
time when the idea of winning fame as an author had not occurred to me,
and so I determined very early to adopt the literary profession, a
determination which I unfortunately carried out, to my own life-long
discomfort, and the annoyance of a large portion of the reading public.
When a boy in Glasgow, I made the acquaintance of David Gray, who was
fired with a similar ambition to fly incontinently to London--

    The terrible City whose neglect is Death,
    Whose smile is Fame!

and to take it by storm. It seemed so easy! "Westminster Abbey," wrote
my friend to a correspondent; "if I live, I shall be buried there--so
help me God!" "I mean, after Tennyson's death," I myself wrote to Philip
Hamerton, "to be Poet-laureate!" From these samples of our callow
speech, the modesty of our ambition may be inferred. Well, it all
happened just as we planned, only otherwise! Through some blunder of
arrangement we two started for London on the same day, but from
different railway stations, and, until some weeks afterwards, one knew
nothing of the other's exodus. I arrived at King's Cross Railway Station
with the conventional half-crown in my pocket; literally and absolutely,
half-a-crown; I wandered about the Great City till I was weary, fell in
with a Thief and Good Samaritan who sheltered me, starved and struggled
with abundant happiness, and finally found myself located at 66,
Stamford Street, Waterloo Bridge, in a top room, for which I paid, when
I had the money, seven shillings a week. Here I lived royally, with Duke
Humphrey, for many a day; and hither, one sad morning, I brought my poor
friend Gray, whom I had discovered languishing somewhere in the Borough,
and who was already death-struck through "sleeping out" one night in
Hyde Park.[2] "Westminster Abbey--if I live, I shall be buried there!"
Poor country singing-bird, the great Dismal Cage of the Dead was not for
_him_, thank God! He lies under the open Heaven, close to the little
river which he immortalised in song. After a brief sojourn in the "dear
old ghastly bankrupt garret at No. 66," he fluttered home to die.

To that old garret, in these days, came living men of letters who were
of large and important interest to us poor cheepers from the North:
Richard Monckton Milnes, Laurence Oliphant, Sydney Dobell, among others,
who took a kindly interest in my dying comrade. But afterwards, when I
was left to fight the battle alone, the place was solitary. Ever
reserved and independent, not to say "dour" and opinionated, I made no
friends, and cared for none. I had found a little work on the newspapers
and magazines, just enough to keep body and soul alive, and while
occupied with this I was busy on the literary Twins to which I referred
at the opening of this paper. What did my isolation matter, when I had
all the gods of Greece for company, to say nothing of the fays and
trolls of Scottish Fairyland? Pallas and Aphrodite haunted that old
garret; out on Waterloo Bridge, night after night, I saw Selene and all
her nymphs; and when my heart sank low, the Fairies of Scotland sang me
lullabies! It was a happy time. Sometimes, for a fortnight together, I
never had a dinner--save, perhaps, on Sunday, when a good-natured Hebe
would bring me covertly a slice from the landlord's joint. My favourite
place of refreshment was the Caledonian Coffee House in Covent Garden.
Here, for a few coppers, I could feast on coffee and muffins--muffins
saturated with butter, and worthy of the gods! Then, issuing forth,
full-fed, glowing, oleaginous, I would light my pipe, and wander out
into the lighted streets.

[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE HALL.]

Criticisms for the _Athenæum_, then edited by Hepworth Dixon, brought me
ten-and-sixpence a column. I used to go to the old office in Wellington
Street and have my contributions measured off on the current number
with a foot-rule, by good old John Francis, the publisher. I wrote,
too, for the _Literary Gazette_, where the pay was less
princely--seven-and-sixpence a column, I think, but with all extracts
deducted! The _Gazette_ was then edited by John Morley, who came to the
office daily with a big dog. "I well remember the time when you, a boy,
came to me, a boy, in Catherine Street," wrote honest John to me years
afterwards. But the neighbourhood of Covent Garden had greater wonders!
Two or three times a week, walking, black bag in hand, from Charing
Cross Station to the office of _All the Year Round_ in Wellington
Street, came the good, the only Dickens! From that good Genie the poor
straggler from Fairyland got solid help and sympathy. Few can realise
now what Dickens was then to London. His humour filled its literature
like broad sunlight; the Gospel of Plum-pudding warmed every poor devil
in Bohemia.

At this time, I was (save the mark!) terribly in earnest, with a dogged
determination to bow down to no graven literary Idol, but to judge men
of all ranks on their personal merits. I never had much reverence for
Gods of any sort; if the Superior Persons could not win me by love, I
remained heretical. So it was a long time before I came close to any
living souls, and all that time I was working away at my poems. Then, a
little later, I used to go o' Sundays to the open house of Westland
Marston, which was then a great haunt of literary Bohemians. Here I
first met Dinah Muloch, the author of _John Halifax_, who took a great
fancy to me, used to carry me off to her little nest on Hampstead Heath,
and lend me all her books. At Hampstead, too, I foregathered with Sydney
Dobell, a strangely beautiful soul, with (what seemed to me then) very
effeminate manners. Dobell's mouth was ever full of very pretty
Latinity, for the most part Virgilian. He was fond of quoting, as an
example of perfect expression, sound conveying absolute sense of the
thing described, the doggrel lines--

    "Down the stairs the young missises ran
    To have a look at Miss Kate's young man!"

The sibilants in the first line, he thought, admirably suggested the
idea of the young ladies slipping along the banisters and peeping into
the hall!

But I had other friends, more helpful to me in preparing my first
twin-offering to the Muses: the faces under the gas, the painted women
on the Bridge (how many a night have I walked up and down by their
sides, and talked to them for hours together), the actors in the
theatres, the ragged groups at the stage doors, London to me, then, was
still Fairyland! Even in the Haymarket, with its babbles of Nymph and
Satyr, there was wonderful life from midnight to dawn--deep sympathy
with which told me that I was a born Pagan, and could never be really
comfortable in any modern Temple of the Proprieties. On other points
connected with that old life on the borders of Bohemia, I need not
touch; it has all been so well done already by Murger, in the _Vie de
Bohème_, and it will not bear translation into contemporary English.
There were cakes and ale, pipes and beer, and ginger was hot in the
mouth too! _Et ego fui in Bohemiâ_! There were inky fellows and bouncing
girls, _then_; _now_ there are only fine ladies, and respectable,
God-fearing men of letters.

[Illustration: THE DINING ROOM.]

It was while the Twins were fashioning, that I went down in summer time
to live at Chertsey on the Thames, chiefly in order to be near to one I
had long admired, Thomas Love Peacock, the friend of Shelley and the
author of _Headling Hall_--"Greekey Peekey," as they called him, on
account of his prodigious knowledge of things and books Hellenic. I soon
grew to love the dear old man, and sat at his feet, like an obedient
pupil, in his green old-fashioned garden at Lower Halliford. To him I
first read some of my _Undertones_, getting many a rap over the knuckles
for my sacrilegious tampering with Divine Myths. What mercy could _I_
expect from one who had never forgiven "Johnny" Keats for his frightful
perversion of the sacred mystery of Endymion and Selene? and who was
horrified at the base "modernism" of Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound?" But
to think of it! He had known Shelley, and all the rest of the demigods,
and his speech was golden with memories of them all! Dear old Pagan,
wonderful in his death as in his life. When, shortly before he died, his
house caught fire, and the mild curate of the parish begged him to
withdraw from the library of books he loved so well, he flatly refused
to listen, and cried roundly, in a line of vehement blank verse, "By the
immortal gods, I will not stir!" [3]

Under such auspices, and with all the ardour of youth to help, my Book,
or Books, progressed. Meantime, I was breaking out into poetry in the
magazines, and writing "criticism" by the yard. At last the time came
when I remembered another friend with whom I had corresponded, and whose
advice I thought I might now ask with some confidence. This was George
Henry Lewes, to whom, when I was a boy in Glasgow, I had sent a bundle
of manuscript, with the blunt question, "Am I, or am I not, a Poet?" To
my delight he had replied to me with a qualified affirmative, saying
that in the productions he had "discerned a real faculty, and _perhaps_
a future poet. I say perhaps," he added, "because I do not know your
age, and because there are so many poetical blossoms which never come to
fruit." He had, furthermore, advised me "to write as much as I felt
impelled to write, but to publish nothing"--at any rate, for a couple of
years. Three years had passed, and I had neither published
anything--that is to say, in book form--nor had I had any further
communication with my kind correspondent. To Lewes, then, I wrote,
reminding him of our correspondence, telling him that I _had_ waited,
not two years, but three, and that I now felt inclined to face the
public. I soon received an answer, the result of which was that I went,
on Lewes's invitation, to the Priory, North Bank, Regent's Park, and met
my friend and his partner, better known as "George Eliot."

But, as the novelists say, I am anticipating. Sick to death, David Gray
had returned to the cottage of his father, the hand-loom weaver, at
Kirkintilloch, and there had peacefully passed away, leaving as his
legacy to the world the volume of beautiful poems published under the
auspices of Lord Houghton. I knew of his death the hour he died; awaking
in my bed, I was certain of my loss, and spoke of it (long before the
formal news reached me) to a temporary companion. This by the way; but
what is more to the purpose is that my first grief for a beloved comrade
had expressed itself in the words which were to form the "proem" of my
first book--

                    Poet gentle hearted,
                    Are you then departed,
    And have you ceased to dream the dream we loved of old so well?
                    Has the deeply-cherish'd
                    Aspiration perished,
    And are you happy, David, in that heaven where you dwell?
                    Have you found the secret
                    We, so wildly, sought for,
    And is your soul enswath'd at last in the singing robes you fought for?

[Illustration: THE DRAWING ROOM.]

Full of my dead friend, I spoke of him to Lewes and George Eliot,
telling them the piteous story of his life and death. Both were deeply
touched, and Lewes cried, "Tell that story to the public"; which I did,
immediately afterwards, in the _Cornhill Magazine_. By this time I had
my Twins ready, and had discovered a publisher for one of them,
_Undertones_. The other, _Idyls and Legends of Inverburn_, was a
ruggeder bantling, containing almost the first _blank verse_ poems ever
written in Scottish dialect. I selected one of the poems, "Willie
Baird," and showed it to Lewes. He expressed himself delighted, and
asked for more. I then showed him the "Two Babes." "Better and better!"
he wrote; "publish a volume of such poems and your position is assured."
More than this, he at once found me a publisher, Mr. George Smith, of
Messrs. Smith and Elder, who offered me a good round sum (such it seemed
to me then) for the copyright. Eventually, however, after "Willie Baird"
had been published in the _Cornhill_, I withdrew the manuscript from
Messrs. Smith and Elder, and transferred it to Mr. Alexander Strahan,
who offered me both more liberal terms and more enthusiastic
appreciation.

It was just after the appearance of my story of David Gray in the
_Cornhill_ that I first met, at the Priory, North Bank, with Robert
Browning. It was an odd and representative gathering of men, only one
lady being present, the hostess, George Eliot. I was never much of a
hero-worshipper; but I had long been a sympathetic Browningite, and I
well remember George Eliot taking me aside after my first _tête-à-tête_
with the poet, and saying, "Well, what do you think of him? Does he come
up to your ideal?" He _didn't_ quite, I must confess, but I afterwards
learned to know him well and to understand him better. He was delighted
with my statement that one of Gray's wild ideas was to rush over to
Florence and "throw himself on the sympathy of Robert Browning."

Phantoms of these first books of mine, how they begin to rise around me!
Faces of friends and counsellors that have flown for ever; the sibylline
Marian Evans with her long, weird, dreamy face; Lewes, with his big brow
and keen thoughtful eyes; Browning, pale and spruce, his eye like a
skipper's cocked-up at the weather; Peacock, with his round, mellifluous
speech of the old Greeks; David Gray, great-eyed and beautiful, like
Shelley's ghost; Lord Houghton, with his warm worldly smile and
easy-fitting enthusiasm. Where are they all now? Where are the roses of
last summer, the snows of yester year? I passed by the Priory to-day,
and it looked like a great lonely Tomb. In those days, the house where I
live now was not built; all up here Hampstead-ways was grass and fields.
It was over these fields that Herbert Spencer and George Eliot used to
walk on their way to Hampstead Heath. The Sibyl has gone, but the great
Philosopher still remains, to brighten the sunshine. It was not my luck
to know him _then_--would it had been!--but he is my friend and
neighbour in these latter days, and, thanks to him, I still get glimpses
of the manners of the old gods.

[Illustration: THE STUDY.]

With the publication of my two first books, I was fairly launched, I may
say, on the stormy waters of literature. When the _Athenæum_ told its
readers that "this was _poetry_, and of a noble kind," and when Lewes
vowed in the _Fortnightly Review_ that even if I "never wrote another
line, my place among the pastoral poets would be undisputed," I suppose
I felt happy enough--far more happy than any praise could make me now.
Poor little pigmy in a cockle-boat, I thought Creation was ringing with
my name! I think I must have seemed rather conceited and "bounceable,"
for I have a vivid remembrance of a _Fortnightly_ dinner at the Star and
Garter, Richmond, when Anthony Trollope, angry with me for expressing a
doubt about the poetical greatness of Horace, wanted to fling a decanter
at my head! It was about this time that an omniscient publisher, after
an interview with me, exclaimed (the circumstance is historical), "I
don't like that young man; he talked to me as if he was God Almighty, or
_Lord Byron!_" But in sober truth, I never had the sort of conceit with
which men credited me; I merely lacked gullibility, and saw, at the
first glance, the whole unmistakable humbug and insincerity of the
Literary Life. I think still that, as a rule, the profession of letters
narrows the sympathy and warps the intelligence. When I saw the
importance which a great man or woman could attach to a piece of
perfunctory criticism, when I saw the care with which this Eminent
Person "humoured his reputation," and the anxiety with which that
Eminent Person concealed his true character, I found my young illusions
very rapidly fading. On one occasion, when George Eliot was very much
pestered by an unknown lady, an insignificant individual, who had thrust
herself somewhat pertinaciously upon her, she turned to me and asked,
with a smile, for my opinion? I gave it, rudely enough, to the effect
that it was good for "distinguished people" to be reminded occasionally
of how very small consequence they really were, in the mighty life of
the World!

From that time until the present I have pursued the vocation into which
fatal Fortune, during boyhood, incontinently thrust me, and have
subsisted, ill sometimes, well sometimes, by a busy pen. I may,
therefore, with a certain experience, if with little authority, imitate
those who have preceded me in giving reminiscences of their first
literary beginnings, and offer a few words of advice to my younger
brethren--to those persons, I mean, who are entering the profession of
Literature. To begin with, I entirely agree with Mr. Grant Allen in his
recent avowal that Literature is the poorest and least satisfactory of
all professions; I will go even further, and affirm that it is one of
the least ennobling. With a fairly extensive knowledge of the writers of
my own period, I can honestly say that I have scarcely met one
individual who has not deteriorated morally by the pursuit of literary
Fame. For complete literary success among contemporaries, it is
imperative that a man should either have no real opinions, or be able to
conceal such as he possesses, that he should have one eye on the market
and the other on the public journals, that he should humbug himself into
the delusion that book-writing is the highest work in the Universe, and
that he should regulate his likes and dislikes by one law, that of
expediency. If his nature is in arms against anything that is rotten in
Society or in Literature itself, he must be silent. Above all, he must
lay this solemn truth to heart, that when the World speaks well of him
the World will demand the _price_ of praise, and that price will
possibly be his living Soul. He may tinker, he may trim, he may succeed,
he may be buried in Westminster Abbey, he may hear before he dies all
the people saying, "How good and great he is! how perfect is his art!
how gloriously he embodies the Tendencies of his Time!"[4] but he will
know all the same that the price has been paid, and that his living Soul
has gone, to furnish that whitewashed Sepulchre, a Blameless Reputation.

[Illustration: MR ROBERT BUCHANAN AND HIS FAVOURITE DOG.]

For one other thing, also, the Neophyte in Literature had better be
prepared. He will never be able to subsist by creative writing unless it
so happens that the form of expression he chooses is popular in form
(fiction, for example), and even in that case, the work he does, if he
is to live by it, must be in harmony with the social and artistic
_status quo_. Revolt of any kind is always disagreeable. Three-fourths
of the success of Lord Tennyson (to take an example) was due to the fact
that this fine poet regarded Life and all its phenomena from the
standpoint of the English public school, that he ethically and
artistically embodied the sentiments of our excellent middle-class
education. His great American contemporary, Whitman, in some respects
the most commanding spirit of this generation, gained only a few
disciples, and was entirely misunderstood and neglected by contemporary
criticism. Another prosperous writer, to whom I have already alluded,
George Eliot, enjoyed enormous popularity in her lifetime, while the
most strenuous and passionate novelist of her period, Charles Reade, was
entirely distanced by her in the immediate race for Fame. In Literature,
as in all things, manners and costume are most important; the hall-mark
of contemporary success is perfect Respectability. It is not respectable
to be too candid on any subject, religious, moral, or political. It is
very respectable to say, or imply, that this country is the best of all
possible countries, that War is a noble institution, that the Protestant
Religion is grandly liberal, and that social evils are only diversified
forms of social good. Above all, to be respectable, one must have
"beautiful ideas." "Beautiful ideas" are the very best stock-in-trade a
young writer can begin with. They are indispensable to every complete
literary outfit. Without them, the short cut to Parnassus will never be
discovered, even though one starts from Rugby.




_BALDER'S BALL._


BY P. VON SCHÖNTHAN.

ILLUSTRATED BY J. GÜLICH.


Balder had begged me to give him a bed for the night. He was going to a
ball that evening, and had business early the following morning in
Berlin. He lived in such an out-of-the-way suburb that it would be quite
impossible for him to go home to sleep. I was only too delighted to be
of service to him. Although I could not offer him a bed, it would be
easy to improvise a shakedown on which he could have a few hours' rest.
I set to work at once, and did the best I could for him, using a bundle
of rags for the pillows, and my old dressing-gown for the mattress. When
Balder saw it, he declared that nothing could be more to his taste.

[Illustration: "WALKED INTO MY ROOM."]

It was long past midnight, when I was awakened from a refreshing sleep
by somebody fumbling with a key at the lock of my door. Several bungling
attempts were made before the key was fitted into the lock successfully.
At last, Balder walked into my room. He presented rather a comical
appearance, with his crush-hat on one side of his head like the leaning
tower of Pisa, and a short overcoat, with his long tail-coat peeping
beneath. His face was flushed, partly with excitement, and he appeared
possessed of a burning desire to relate his adventures to somebody. I
had been looking at him with one eye; the other, nearest him, I kept
tight shut, and did not move, for I had no desire to enter into
conversation with him. But my friend was not so easily shaken in his
purpose; he came close to my bedside, stepping on my boot-jack, so that
it fell over with a terrible noise, and held the lighted candle within a
few inches of my nose. It was impossible for even the most shameless
shammer of sleep to hold out any longer. I opened my eyes, and said in
the sleepiest tone I could assume:

"Enjoyed yourself?"

[Illustration: "ON THE SIDE OF MY BED."]

"Famously, my dear fellow," answered Balder, seating himself on the side
of my bed, although I forestalled his intention, and left hardly an inch
for him to sit on. Then he entered into a long and not very lucid
rigmarole on souls which are destined to come together. The story was
rendered all the more difficult to understand from the fact that I kept
falling asleep, and dreaming between his rhapsodies; but I gathered that
Balder had met with a young Spanish lady at the mask ball, who
apparently possessed the soul which he was fated to meet, and that she
was the only person on earth who could make him happy. He had spent the
whole evening with her, and she had promised to meet him at the next
ball. At his request she had lifted her veil for one instant, revealing
a face of Madonna-like beauty. It was a simple story, but when a man's
brain is fired with love he lingers over it. The words grace, Southern
colouring, eyes like a gazelle, etc., must have been repeated very
often, for I dreamed later on that I was repeating them to myself.

I bore it all patiently, for hospitality is a sacred duty, and, besides,
the state which Balder's mind was in demanded and deserved
consideration.

As he went on with his story, he raised his voice, perhaps to rouse my
flagging attention. Suddenly, somebody coughed in the next room. It was
not a natural cough, but an artificial one, evidently intended by my
landlady to serve as a gentle reminder that at two o'clock in the
morning all respectable people should be in bed and quiet. My room was
only separated from the apartment in which my landlady and her daughter
slept by a door, which was hidden on either side by a high wardrobe,
through which, in spite of this precaution, voices could be heard very
distinctly. I informed Balder of this fact, but, unfortunately, he
utterly refused to take my advice and go quietly to bed. He said he
could not sleep, and, unhappily, catching sight of my coffee-machine, he
added that he would like some coffee.

"Sleep if you can," he said; "I can manage it all for myself." He then
removed his coat, dressed himself in the dressing-gown which acted as
his mattress, and started to get some water from the kitchen, knocking
things down on the way, and opening and shutting all the wrong doors. I
became resigned, and made up my mind not to waste my breath on any fresh
warnings. Somebody else coughed. It was Fräulein Lieschen this time, my
landlady's daughter. At any other time, Balder himself would have shown
more consideration.

[Illustration: "STARTED TO GET SOME WATER."]

Most extraordinary noises proceeded from the water-tap in the kitchen.
At last the kitchen door banged, and Balder re-appeared again. I
expressed my regret that I had no methylated spirit, but he said it did
not matter, and catching hold of a bottle of my expensive brandy, poured
a lot into the lamp. Then he sat gazing into the blue flame without
blinking.

Crash! went the glass globe, and the boiling water poured all over the
table and put out the fire. I sprang out of my bed. "Good gracious!" I
exclaimed, "the whole thing will explode." He said nothing, but began
to pick up the hot pieces of glass patiently. The coughing in the next
room became louder than ever.

"For heaven's sake!" I went on, "try to be quiet if you can. The people
in the next room want to go to sleep. _Don't_ you hear them coughing?"

"Well! I never heard of such impudence! That coughing has disturbed me
for some time. Anybody would think you'd got into an almshouse for old
women--Where is the sugar?"

"Up there, in the cigar-box. But don't knock that rapier down."

Balder climbed up on a cane chair. It gave way. Klirr! The rapier fell
on the floor, and Balder with it.

"Confound you, do take care. Didn't I warn you?" An energetic knocking
at the door of communication interrupted me.

"Herr Reif, I must really beg you to be quiet," called my landlady's
daughter, not by any means in her sweetest tones. "We've been kept awake
for the last hour."

"That's nothing to us," said Balder from the floor, where he was groping
for the rapier that had rolled under the wardrobe.

"Do be quiet! That is my landlady's daughter, a very respectable girl--"

"Well, is nobody respectable except her? What do you pay rent for?" His
face grew red with rage, and, placing his mouth close to the door, he
called out, "What do you want with Reif? He's in bed. I only wanted to
reach down the sugar, and the old rapier fell on my head--a thing that
might happen to anybody! Just lie down quietly and go to sleep. Such a
fuss about nothing! Are we in a hospital?"

[Illustration: "IT GAVE WAY!"]

"Do be quiet, Balder!" I begged, and my pleading at least had the effect
of silencing whatever else was on his tongue. He thought no more of the
sugar, but sat at the table and drank his self-brewed coffee without it.
When he had finished it he lighted a cigarette, at which he puffed away
till the room was full of smoke. As I lay and looked at him, I fell into
that peaceful state in which dreaming and reality are so much mixed that
it is hard to distinguish between them. And then Balder disappeared in
clouds of smoke, and I heard and saw no more. I was awakened again by a
light being held near my face. Balder was standing at my bedside with
the candle in his hand. "Ah! I'm glad you've been asleep again!" he
said, as I half-opened my eyes and looked at him. "I want to make a poem
to my Spaniard. Have you got a rhyming dictionary anywhere about?"

"There, on the lowest shelf of the bookcase, but _do_ be quiet."

He got the book without knocking anything down; refilled his coffee-cup,
and leant back in his chair, and murmured--

    "Where shall I meet thee?
      On the Guadelquiver?
    "On the Sequara? On the
      fair Zucar?
    "Or any other far-off
      Spanish river....."

Sleep again overpowered me, and I knew nothing till I was awakened by a
noisy discussion taking place close to me. Balder stood with his face to
the door, engaged in a hot dispute with my neighbours.

"The devil himself couldn't collect his thoughts with that coughing
going on," he was saying as I woke up.

"I was coughing to make you quiet, that endless murmuring made me so
nervous!" cried Fräulein Lieschen, her voice trembling with annoyance.

[Illustration: "I'M GLAD YOU'VE BEEN ASLEEP."]

"I'm writing a poem, I tell you, and when one is composing a poem one
must murmur. If you can't sleep through it, you can't be healthy. You
must have eaten too much supper, or something. You can congratulate
yourself that you've got such a lodger as Reif. Do you understand me? If
you had me I'd teach you----"

Again and again, in as persuasive a voice as I could assume, I begged
the orator at the wardrobe to put an end to the speech he was delivering
on his views of a landlady's duties towards her tenants. At length my
patience gave way, and, sitting up in bed, I commanded him in a voice of
authority to give, over his poetry and recitation, and to blow out the
light and get into bed. Balder at length seemed to realise that he was
trespassing on my hospitality, and that a certain amount of respect was
due to my wishes as his host. He became silent; put his manuscript
carefully into my dressing-gown pocket; cast one last fiery glance at
the door, and retired to bed.

I do not know if he saw the daughter of sunny Spain, with her
gazelle-like eyes in his dreams, but I do know that he snored as if he
were dreaming of a saw-mill.

About three hours later, the winter daylight struggled into the room.
Balder got up and dressed himself as quietly as a mouse. He seemed as
though he was trying to make up for the disturbance he had made in the
night, or, rather, in the morning. He excused himself most politely for
waking me up, but said that he felt that he could not leave without
saying good-bye, and thanking me for my kind hospitality. Then he left
the room, closing the door softly behind him. At the same moment, I
heard the door of my landlady's room open. Half a minute's dead silence
followed, and then Balder fell back into my room like one stunned.

[Illustration: "IN A HOT DISPUTE."]

"Who is that girl that came out of the next room?" he asked
breathlessly.

"Fräulein Lieschen, of course, the daughter of my landlady, to whom you
were kind enough to deliver a lecture in the middle of the night----"

"She is my Spanish girl!" he gasped, grinding his teeth, and shaking his
head disconsolately. He took a long time to recover himself. He sat down
again on the side of my bed, as he had done on his return from the
ball. But in what a different mood! He made me swear to him that I would
never reveal his name to Fräulein Lieschen, but that I would excuse him
without giving any clue to his identity, for the disturbance he had
caused in the night. This duty I willingly undertook.

Fräulein Lieschen, who was a good-natured girl, looked at the matter
from the comical side, and readily accepted my unknown friend's apology;
and whenever we met on the stairs after that, she would say jokingly,
"Please remember me to your funny friend!"

[Illustration: "REMEMBER ME TO YOUR FUNNY FRIEND!"]




"LIONS IN THEIR DENS."

V.--THE LORD LIEUTENANT AT DUBLIN CASTLE.

BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.

(_PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAFAYETTE, OF DUBLIN, AND BYRNE, OF
RICHMOND._)

[Illustration: THE HON. MRS ARTHUR HENNIKER.]


The Lord Lieutenant's sister, Mrs. Arthur Henniker, who is helping him
to do the honours of the Castle, and whom I had known in London, Mr.
Fulke Greville, and I, were wandering round the curious old-fashioned
buildings and courtyards that constitute the domain of Dublin Castle one
bright breezy day in early spring. A military band was playing opposite
the principal entrance, whilst the guard was being mounted in precisely
the same manner as at the guard mounting at St. James's. The scene was
brilliant and inspiriting in the extreme. As we passed through an
archway we came somewhat suddenly upon the massive Round Tower, from the
top of which floated the Union Jack, and which dates back to a period
not later than that of King John. Close to the Round Tower, which bears
so curious a resemblance to the still more magnificent tower of the same
name at Windsor, is the Chapel Royal. Here we found the guardian, a
quaint, and garrulous and most obliging old person, waiting to show us
over the handsome, albeit somewhat gloomy, building. Very exact and
particular was our _cicerone_ in pointing out to us the old fourteenth
century painted windows, the special pews reserved for His Excellency,
and the ladies and gentlemen of the court; the coats of arms belonging
to the various Governors of Ireland, extending over a period of many
hundreds of years--all these, I say, he carefully pointed out, drawing
especial attention to one over which, at the moment, a thin ray of
golden sunlight was falling, and which, he informed me, was the coat of
arms of the Earl of Rochester--poor Rochester, the gay, the witty, the
wicked, and the repentant. On quitting the chapel we began to ascend,
under the auspices of another guide, a tremendously steep staircase,
which is cut inside the fifteen-feet stone wall which leads to the
chamber in the Round Tower wherein the Ulster King-at-Arms preserves the
ancient records of the Castle. On our pilgrimage up this weary flight of
stairs the guide drew our attention to a gloomy little dungeon, cut out
of the thickness of the wall, in which there is but little light, and
wherein the musty smell of ages is plainly discernible. "This,"
whispered Mr. Greville in my ear, "reminds me of Mark Twain's 'Innocents
Abroad.'" After a glance at the record chamber, which was crammed with
documents, we passed, with a sense of relief, into the bright sunny air
and the large courtyard, round which are built the handsome lofty
stables in which the Castle horses--of which there are an immense
number--are kept, and which stables, Colonel Forster, the Master of the
Horse, told me, are upwards of two hundred years old.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE.]

[Illustration: CASTLE YARD. BAND PLAYING.]

"And now, Mr. Blathwayt," said Mrs. Henniker, as we passed the two
sentries on guard at the entrance to the great hall, and proceeded up a
staircase lined with rifles and through long sunlit corridors, "you must
come with me to my own special sanctum, and rest yourself, after the
object lessons in history which we have been giving you this morning."
Here, in a lofty, white-panelled room, with long windows looking down
upon the private gardens of the Castle in which His Excellency and
Captain Streatfield, one of the A.D.C.'s, were walking up and down, Mrs.
Henniker and I sat talking of the past almost more than we did of the
actual present. For, though my hostess is quite a young woman, yet as a
daughter of the celebrated Richard Monckton Milnes, the first Lord
Houghton, she cannot fail to have the most delightful reminiscences of
the many celebrities with whom her father was so fond of filling his
house.

[Illustration: GRAND STAIRCASE, DUBLIN CASTLE.]

"But," said she, "proud as I am of my father, I am quite as proud of my
grandfather, Richard Pemberton Milnes, for he was only twenty-two years
of age when he refused the choice of a seat in the Cabinet, either as
Chancellor of the Exchequer or Secretary at War. My grandmother, Mrs.
Pemberton Milnes, in her diary for 1809, says that one morning, while we
were at breakfast, a king's messenger drove up in a post-chaise and four
with a despatch from Mr. Perceval, offering my husband the choice of a
seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Milnes immediately said, 'Oh, no, I will not
accept either; with my temperament I should be dead in a year.' And
nothing could induce him to do so either," continued Mrs. Henniker, "nor
could he be induced to accept the Peerage which was offered him by Lord
Palmerston in 1856."

"But your father was not so rigid in his views as your grandfather, was
he, Mrs. Henniker?" said I.

[Illustration: HIS EXCELLENCY LORD HOUGHTON IN HIS STUDY.]

"No," she replied, "certainly he was not, although I don't think that he
quitted the House of Commons, which he always loved, without a pang of
real regret. Amongst the many kind congratulations he received--for no
man ever had more friends--was a very pretty one from his old friend,
Mrs. Proctor, in which she said:

    "'He enters from the common air
    Into that temple dim;
    He learns among those ermined Peers
    The diplomatic hymn.
    His Peers? Alas! when will they learn
    To grow up Peers to him?'"

"You must have met many interesting people at your father's house?" I
observed, during the course of our conversation.

[Illustration: THE HON. MRS. HENNIKER IN HER BOUDOIR.]

"Why, yes," replied she, with an amused smile, "don't you know the
ridiculous story that Mr. Wemyss Reid, in his charming biography of my
father, tells, and which, indeed, I believe was first told by Sir Henry
Taylor, in his autobiography? I will tell it you. You know my father was
acquainted with everybody, and his greatest pleasure in life was to
introduce the notoriety of the moment to the leading members of English
Society. On the particular occasion on which this story was told, it is
alleged that somebody asked whether a certain murderer--it was
Courvoisier, I think, the valet who killed his master--had been hanged
that morning, and my aunt immediately answered, 'I hope so, or Richard
will have him to his breakfast party next Thursday.' But this story, Mr.
Blathwayt, is really absolutely without foundation. I have here,"
continued Mrs. Henniker, "a very interesting book of autographs, which I
have kept for as far back as I can remember, and in which everybody who
came to our house had to write their names," and as she spoke she placed
in my hands a large volume, on every page of which was a photograph and
an autograph. There was Lecky, the historian; and Trench, the late
Archbishop of Dublin; Sir Richard Burton, the traveller; and Owen
Meredith, the poet. There was a portrait of Swinburne when quite a young
man, together with his autograph. "I have known Mr. Swinburne all my
life," remarked Mrs. Henniker. "I used to play croquet with him when I
was quite a little girl, and laugh at him because he used to get in such
a passion when I won the game." There was John Bright's signature, there
was that of Philippe d'Orléans and General Chanzy, and last, but not
least, there was that of Charles Dickens.

[Illustration: THE DRAWING ROOM, DUBLIN CASTLE.]

"My father," explained Mrs. Henniker, "was a very old friend of Dickens,
and, curiously enough, his grandmother was a housekeeper at Crewe Hall,
where my mother was born, and I have often heard her say that the
greatest treat that could be given her and her brother and sister was an
afternoon in the housekeeper's room at Crewe, for Mrs. Dickens was a
splendid story-teller, and used to love to gather the children round her
and tell them fairy stories. And so it was only natural that my mother
should feel a special interest in Charles Dickens, when she came to know
him in after life. I believe that the very last time that he ever dined
out was at my father's house, when a dinner was specially arranged to
enable the Prince of Wales and the King of the Belgians to make his
acquaintance. Even at that time, poor man, he was suffering so much from
rheumatic gout that he had to remain in the dining room until the guests
had assembled, so that he was introduced to the Prince at the dinner
table. I might mention that Dean Stanley wrote to my father, asking him
to be one of those who should place before him the proposal that Charles
Dickens should be buried in the Abbey."

[Illustration: THRONE ROOM, DUBLIN CASTLE.]

Amongst the many interesting letters and papers that Mrs. Henniker
showed me was one from Mr. Gladstone to herself congratulating her on
her first novel "Sir George," for Mrs. Henniker, notwithstanding the
rather unfortunate fact that she has many social duties to attend to,
which must necessarily hinder her in what would otherwise be a brilliant
literary career, is a remarkably fine writer of a certain class of
fiction, and notably of what may be termed the Society novel. But almost
better than her novels, of which she has produced some two or three
within the last few years, are her short stories, of which she published
one, a singularly able study of lower middle-class life, in an early
number of the "Speaker," and which many of the readers of that journal
will remember under the title of a "Bank Holiday." With reference to
"Sir George," Mr. Gladstone, who is a very old friend of her family,
wrote: "My dear Mrs. Henniker,--It is, I admit, with fear and trembling
that I commonly open a novel which is presented to me." He then goes on
to speak in strong terms of eulogy of the book which she had sent to
him. The letter was not without a special interest as giving one a
glimpse into the mind of the G.O.M. on what must be one of the most
arduous duties of his hardworking life. Referring to the publication of
her most recent novel, "Foiled," which is a depiction of Society life as
it actually is, and not, as is so frequently the case, of the writer's
imagination as to what Society is or should be, I asked Mrs. Henniker if
she wrote her stories from life.

[Illustration: THE PICTURE GALLERY.]

"Well," she replied, "of course there is a general idea in my stories
which is taken from the life I see around me, but, as a rule, I draw
from my own imagination. I am a very quick writer, and I wrote 'Sir
George' in one summer holiday. Mr. T. P. O'Connor wanted me to write a
novel to start the new edition of his Sunday paper with, but,
unfortunately, I had none ready. I find myself that, for character
sketching, next to studying people from life, the best thing is to
carefully go through the writings of such people as Alfred de Musset,
whose little _caprices_ are so delicate. I think that the best Society
novelists at present, who write with a real knowledge of the people they
are describing, are W. E. Norris, Julian Sturgis, and Rhoda Broughton."
We continued in conversation for some time longer, until the time came
for afternoon tea, when Mrs. Henniker suggested that we should join the
rest of the party in the drawing room.

Here we found a number of the A.D.C.'s engaged in merry conversation;
most of them are quite young men, immensely popular in the Dublin
Society and on the hunting field, where even in that great sporting
country they are usually to be found well in the first flight. We sat
talking for a few minutes, when the door suddenly opened, and a tall,
singularly handsome, well-groomed young man, in morning dress, entered
the room. Upon his appearance, Mrs. Henniker and her sister, Lady
Fitzgerald, and the remaining ladies and gentlemen present, rose to
their feet, for this was His Excellency the Viceroy of Ireland. It will
interest my American readers to learn that, not only do Mrs. Henniker
and Lady Fitzgerald always rise upon their brother's entrance into the
room, but it is further their custom, as it is the bounden duty of every
lady, to curtsey to him profoundly on leaving the luncheon or dinner
table. His Excellency at once joined in our conversation. We were
discussing parodies at the moment, and somebody had stated--indeed I
think it was myself--that a certain parody which had been quoted, and
over which we had been laughing very heartily, was by the well-known
Cambridge lyrist, C. C. Calverley.

[Illustration: LADY FITZGERALD.]

"No," said Lord Houghton, "it is not by Calverley, it is by----. But,"
said he, "the funniest thing I ever heard was this," and he repeated,
with immense humour, and with wonderful vivacity, a set of lines which
threw us all into fits of laughter. I regret I am unable to recall them.
The conversation drifting to memories of some of his father's celebrated
friends, His Excellency told me a delightful story of Carlyle. It
appeared that the grim old Chelsea hermit had once, when a child, saved
in a teacup three bright halfpence. But a poor old Shetland beggar with
a bad arm came to the door one day. Carlyle gave him all his treasure at
once. In after life, in referring to the incident, he used to say: "The
feeling of happiness was most intense; I would give £100 now to have
that feeling for one moment back again."

Mrs. Henniker and the Lord Lieutenant and myself drifted into quiet
conversation, whilst the general talk buzzed around us. She had told me
that her brother had written a prize poem at Harrow, and that his recent
publications, "Stray Verses," had all been done in a year.

"His verses are curiously unlike those of my father," she said. "He is
very catholic in his tastes; my father's were more poems of
reflection--they were full of the sentiment of his day. He was much
influenced by Mathew Arnold and his school. My brother's are much more
lyrical.

[Illustration: ST. PATRICK'S HALL.]

"It is a curious thing," continued Mrs. Henniker, "that one or two of my
father's poems, which were thought least of at the time, have really
become the most popular and the best known. There is a story concerning
one of them which he often used to tell. He was visiting some friends
here in Ireland, and the beat of the horses' feet upon the road as he
drove to the house seemed to hammer out in his head certain rhythmical
ideas which quickly formed themselves into rhyme. As soon as he got to
the house he went to his room and wrote the words straight out. It was
the well-known song beginning--

  "'I wandered by the brookside,'

And having the refrain--

  "'But the beating of my own heart
    Was all the sound I heard.'

"When he came down to dinner he showed these verses to his friends. They
all declared that they were unworthy of him, and advised him to throw
them into the fire. However, he did not take their advice; the moment
they were published, they caught the ear of the public, they were set to
music, and they were to be heard wherever one went. Indeed, a friend of
his who was sailing down a river in the Southern States of North
America, about a year afterwards, heard the slaves, as they hoed in the
plantations, keeping time by singing a parody of the lines which had by
then become universally familiar. And one day, in later years, my father
was walking in London with a friend; they were passing the end of a
street when they heard a man singing--he stopped and listened, and then
rushed after the man. He came back a few moments afterwards, bearing a
roughly printed paper in his hands."

[Illustration: RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, FIRST LORD HOUGHTON.]

"'I knew it was my song that he was singing,' he said, and he was
perfectly right. He was much delighted.

"'It's a curious fact,' observed the Lord Lieutenant to me, 'and one
which Wemyss Reid specially notes in his biography, that my father
produced the greater part of his poetry between 1830 and 1840, just when
he was going most into Society.'"

"And you've gone in a good deal for writing verses yourself, following
in your father's footsteps, have you not, Mrs. Henniker?" said I. "Oh,"
she replied, "I began writing verses very early in my life, and the most
amusing part of it is that, though I was a perfect little imp, I began
with writing hymns. In fact," said she, as she showed me a letter which
her father had written to a friend when she was seven years of age, "my
father had to check my early attempts in that direction." I read with
some amusement what Lord Houghton had written about his little daughter,
and I transcribe his words the more readily that they appear to me to
give a glimpse into the mind of the poet and of his ideas on the origin
and making of poetry. He writes:

[Illustration: GROUP OF A.D.C.'S.]

"The second little girl has developed into a verse writer of a very
curious ability. She began theologically and wrote hymns, which I soon
checked on observing that she put together words and sentences out of
the sacred verse she knew, and set her to write about things she saw and
observed. What she now produces is very like the verse of William Blake,
and containing many images that she could never have read of. She
cannot write, but she dictates them to her elder sister, who is
astonished at the phenomenon. We, of course, do not let her see that it
is anything surprising, and the chances are that it goes off as she gets
older and knows more. The lyrical faculty in many nations seems to
belong to a childish condition of mind, and to disappear with experience
and knowledge."

[Illustration: DEBUTANTES ARRIVING.]

The conversation drifted into a discussion on the present system of
interviewing, and Mrs. Henniker told me, with much amusement, of a
reporter of the _St. Louis Republic_ who called upon her father when he
visited America, who, indeed, would not be denied, but forced his way
into Lord Houghton's bedroom, where he found him actually in bed, and
who, in relating what had passed between them, expressed his pleasure at
having seen "a real live lord," and recorded his opinion that he was
"as easy and plain as an old shoe!"

[Illustration: ASCENDING THE STAIRCASE.]

Lord Houghton must have been a welcome guest in a country where humour
and the capacity for after-dinner speeches are so warmly appreciated as
in America. No more brilliant after-dinner speaker ever existed than
Richard Monckton Milnes, and the capacity for public speech, which was
such a characteristic of the first Lord Houghton, exists no less
gracefully in his poetic and now Vice-Regal son; but it was, perhaps, as
a humorist that the father specially excelled, and in glancing through
the many letters and papers which his daughter showed me I soon
discovered this. Writing to his wife many years ago, he said: "Have you
heard the last argument in favour of the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill?
It is unanswerable--if you marry two sisters, you've only one
mother-in-law." And again, on another occasion, in writing to his
sister, he quaintly remarks: "I left Alfred Tennyson in our rooms at the
hotel; he is strictly _incognito_, and known by everybody except T., who
asked him if he was a Southerner, assuming that he was an American."

[Illustration: "WAITING."]

[Illustration: "TO BE PRESENTED."]

We sat talking long, revolving many memories, until the shades of
evening darkened down upon the beautiful room, and broke up the party. I
joined the A.D.C.'s in their own special sanctum. There are nine on the
Staff, of whom two are always on duty. Their names are as
follows:--Capt. H. Streatfield, Capt. A. B. Ridley, Capt. M. O. Little,
Capt. C. W. M. Fielden, Capt. Hon. H. F. White, Lieut. F. Douglas-Pennant,
Lieut. A. P. M. Burke, Lieut. S. J. Meyrick, Lieut. C. P. Foley, and the
Hon. C. B. Fulke-Greville. From what they told me I judged that the life
at the Castle must be singularly pleasant and interesting. Capt.
Streatfield, who is a very _doyen_ among A.D.C.'s, has in that capacity
led a life full of interest and variety, for he told me that for some
years he was A.D.C. to the Governor-General of Canada, and that later on
in life he accompanied the late Duke of Clarence as his A.D.C. in India.

The evening drifted on until it was time to dress for dinner, and we
assembled, a large party of men and women, many of whom were in
uniform, and some of whom displayed the pale Vice-Regal blue of the
household facings in the long drawing room next to that room in which we
had had afternoon tea. As His Excellency appeared, preceded by the State
Steward, Capt. the Hon. H. White, and followed by Lord Charlemont, the
Comptroller, we all passed through the rooms to St. Patrick's Hall,
while the band played some well-known tunes. Capt. Streatfield had
cleverly sketched for me in the afternoon the curious device formed by
the tables, which was originally designed by Lord Charlemont himself,
the whole giving the exact effect of a St. Andrew's Cross. Two huge
spreading palms, placed in the hollows of the cross, overshadowed the
Vice-Regal party, which, together with the beautiful music, the grouped
banners upon the lofty walls, and the subdued lights, and the excellent
dinner, all went towards the making of a very delightful evening indeed.

[Illustration: THE ORDEAL.]

A little later on that night--and dinner upon this occasion was
specially early--His Excellency held a "Drawing room." The scene upon
this occasion was particularly brilliant; the long perspectives, the
subdued lighting of the rooms, and the artistic grouping of rare exotics
and most exquisite plants and flowers constituting a _tout ensemble_,
the beauty of which will never fade from my memory. The ceremony itself
was a singularly stately and graceful one. His Excellency, clad in Court
dress, stood in the middle of the throne room, surrounded by the great
officers of State in their robes of office. The _aides-de-camp_ stood in
a semicircle between the doorway and the dais. The first ladies to be
presented were His Excellency's own sisters. It was specially
interesting to notice the entry of the _débutantes_, many of whom were
very beautiful, and almost all of whom were very graceful. Each young
girl carried her train, properly arranged, upon her left arm during her
progress through the corridor, drawing-room, and ante-room, until she
passed the barrier and reached the entrance to the presence chamber;
there a slight touch from the first A.D.C. in waiting released it from
her arm, and two ushers, who were standing opposite, spread it carefully
upon the floor. I noticed that the A.D.C. was careful not to let the
ladies follow one another too quickly, which was evidently a trial to
some of them. At the right moment he would take the card which each lady
bore in her hand, pass it on to the semicircle of _aides_ who stood
within the room, who in their turn passed it on to the Chamberlain, who
stood at the Lord Lieutenant's right hand. He having received it, then
read it aloud, and presented her to the Viceroy. The Viceroy took her by
the right hand, which was always ungloved, kissed her lightly on the
cheek, whilst the lady curtsied low to him; then, gracefully backing,
she retired, always with her face to the dais, from the Vice-Regal
presence. The gentlemen attending the drawing room were not, of course,
presented. They simply passed through the throne room, several at a
time, bowing two or three times to the Viceroy, and so joined their
party waiting for them in the long gallery.

At the end of the "Drawing room," the Lord Lieutenant and the ladies and
gentlemen of the household, and some of the State officials, formed a
procession, and marched with no little grace and stateliness round the
magnificent hall of St. Patrick, whilst the strains of the National
Anthem re-echoed down the long corridors and out into the star-lit windy
night.

[Illustration: CREWE HALL.]




THE FEAR OF IT.

BY ROBERT BARR.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. S. BOYD.


The sea was done with him. He had struggled manfully for his life, but
exhaustion came at last, and, realising the futility of further
fighting, he gave up the battle. The tallest wave, the king of that
roaring tumultuous procession racing from the wreck to the shore, took
him in its relentless grasp, held him towering for a moment against the
sky, whirled his heels in the air, dashed him senseless on the sand,
and, finally, rolled him over and over, a helpless bundle, high up upon
the sandy beach.

Human life seems of little account when we think of the trifles that
make towards the extinction or the extension of it. If the wave that
bore Stanford had been a little less tall, he would have been drawn back
into the sea by one that followed. If, as a helpless bundle, he had been
turned over one time more or one less, his mouth would have pressed into
the sand, and he would have died. As it was, he lay on his back with
arms outstretched on either side, and a handful of dissolving sand in
one clinched fist. Succeeding waves sometimes touched him, but he lay
there unmolested by the sea with his white face turned to the sky.

Oblivion has no calendar. A moment or an eternity are the same to it.
When consciousness slowly returned, he neither knew nor cared how time
had fled. He was not quite sure that he was alive, but weakness rather
than fear kept him from opening his eyes to find out whether the world
they would look upon was the world they had last gazed at. His interest,
however, was speedily stimulated by the sound of the English tongue. He
was still too much dazed to wonder at it, and to remember that he was
cast away on some unknown island in the Southern Seas. But the purport
of the words startled him.

"Let us be thankful. He is undoubtedly dead." This was said in a tone of
infinite satisfaction.

There seemed to be a murmur of pleasure at the announcement from those
who were with the speaker. Stanford slowly opened his eyes, wondering
what these savages were who rejoiced in the death of an inoffensive
stranger cast upon their shores. He saw a group standing around him, but
his attention speedily became concentrated on one face. The owner of it,
he judged, was not more than nineteen years of age, and the face--at
least so it seemed to Stanford at the time--was the most beautiful he
had ever beheld. There was an expression of sweet gladness upon it until
her eyes met his, then the joy faded from the face, and a look of dismay
took its place. The girl seemed to catch her breath in fear, and tears
filled her eyes.

[Illustration: "HE IS UNDOUBTEDLY DEAD."]

"Oh," she cried, "he is going to live." She covered her face with her
hands, and sobbed.

Stanford closed his eyes wearily. "I am evidently insane," he said to
himself. Then, losing faith in the reality of things, he lost
consciousness as well, and when his senses came to him again he found
himself lying on a bed in a clean but scantily furnished room. Through
an open window came the roar of the sea, and the thunderous boom of the
falling waves brought to his mind the experiences through which he had
passed. The wreck and the struggle with the waves he knew to be real,
but the episode on the beach he now believed to have been but a vision
resulting from his condition.

[Illustration: "A PLACID-FACED NURSE STOOD BY HIS BED."]

A door opened noiselessly, and, before he knew of anyone's entrance, a
placid-faced nurse stood by his bed and asked him how he was.

"I don't know. I am at least alive."

The nurse sighed, and cast down her eyes. Her lips moved, but she said
nothing. Stanford looked at her curiously. A fear crept over him that
perhaps he was hopelessly crippled for life, and that death was
considered preferable to a maimed existence. He felt wearied, though not
in pain, but he knew that sometimes the more desperate the hurt, the
less the victim feels it at first.

"Are--are any of my--my bones broken, do you know?" he asked.

"No. You are bruised, but not badly hurt. You will soon recover."

"Ah!" said Stanford, with a sigh of relief. "By the way," he added, with
sudden interest, "who was that girl who stood near me as I lay on the
beach?"

"There were several."

"No, there was but one. I mean the girl with the beautiful eyes and a
halo of hair like a glorified golden crown on her head."

"We speak not of our women in words like those," said the nurse,
severely; "you mean Ruth, perhaps, whose hair is plentiful and yellow."

Stanford smiled. "Words matter little," he said.

"We must be temperate in speech," replied the nurse.

"We may be temperate without being teetotal. Plentiful and yellow,
indeed! I have had a bad dream concerning those who found me. I thought
that they--but it does not matter. She at least is not a myth. Do you
happen to know if any others were saved?"

"I am thankful to be able to say that every one was drowned."

Stanford started up with horror in his eyes. The demure nurse, with
sympathetic tones, bade him not excite himself. He sank back on his
pillow.

"Leave the room," he cried feebly. "Leave me--leave me." He turned his
face toward the wall, while the woman left silently as she had entered.

[Illustration: "HE NOTICED THAT THE DOOR HAD NO FASTENING."]

When she was gone Stanford slid from the bed, intending to make his way
to the door and fasten it. He feared that these savages, who wished him
dead, would take measures to kill him when they saw that he was going to
recover. As he leaned against the bed, he noticed that the door had no
fastening. There was a rude latch, but neither lock nor bolt. The
furniture of the room was of the most meagre description, clumsily made.
He staggered to the open window, and looked out. The remnants of the
disastrous gale blew in upon him and gave him new life, as it had
formerly threatened him with death. He saw that he was in a village of
small houses, each cottage standing in its own plot of ground. It was
apparently a village of one street, and over the roofs of the houses
opposite he saw in the distance the white waves of the sea. What
astonished him most was a church with its tapering spire at the end of
the street--a wooden church such as he had seen in remote American
settlements. The street was deserted, and there were no signs of life in
the houses.

"I must have fallen in upon some colony of lunatics," he said to
himself. "I wonder to what country these people belong--either to
England or the United States, I imagine--yet in all my travels I never
heard of such a colony."

There was no mirror in the room, and it was impossible for him to know
how he looked. His clothes were dry and powdered with salt. He arranged
them as well as he could, and slipped out of the house unnoticed. When
he reached the outskirts of the village he saw that the inhabitants,
both men and women, were working in the fields some distance away.
Coming towards the village was a girl with a water-can in either hand.
She was singing as blithely as a lark until she saw Stanford, whereupon
she paused both in her walk and in her song. Stanford, never a backward
man, advanced, and was about to greet her when she forestalled him by
saying:

"I am grieved, indeed, to see that you have recovered."

The young man's speech was frozen on his lip, and a frown settled on his
brow. Seeing that he was annoyed, though why she could not guess, Ruth
hastened to amend matters by adding:

"Believe me, what I say is true. I am indeed sorry."

"Sorry that I live?"

"Most heartily am I."

"It is hard to credit such a statement from one so--from you."

"Do not say so. Miriam has already charged me with being glad that you
were not drowned. It would pain me deeply if you also believed as she
does."

The girl looked at him with swimming eyes, and the young man knew not
what to answer. Finally he said:

"There is some horrible mistake. I cannot make it out. Perhaps our
words, though apparently the same, have a different meaning. Sit down,
Ruth, I want to ask you some questions."

Ruth cast a timorous glance towards the workers, and murmured something
about not having much time to spare, but she placed the water-cans on
the ground and sank down on the grass. Stanford throwing himself on the
sward at her feet, but, seeing that she shrank back, he drew himself
further from her, resting where he might gaze upon her face.

Ruth's eyes were downcast, which was necessary, for she occupied herself
in pulling blade after blade of grass, sometimes weaving them together.
Stanford had said he wished to question her, but he apparently forgot
his intention, for he seemed wholly satisfied with merely looking at
her. After the silence had lasted for some time, she lifted her eyes for
one brief moment, and then asked the first question herself.

"From what land do you come?"

"From England."

"Ah! that also is an island, is it not?"

He laughed at the "also," and remembered that he had some questions to
ask.

[Illustration: "SHE LIFTED HER EYES FOR ONE BRIEF MOMENT."]

"Yes, it is an island--also. The sea dashes wrecks on all four sides of
it, but there is no village on its shores so heathenish that if a man is
cast upon the beach the inhabitants do not rejoice because he has
escaped death."

Ruth looked at him with amazement in her eyes.

"Is there, then, no religion in England?"

"Religion? England is the most religious country on the face of the
earth. There are more cathedrals, more churches, more places of worship
in England than in any other State that I know of. We send missionaries
to all heathenish lands. The Government, itself, supports the Church."

"I fear, then, I mistook your meaning. I thought from what you said that
the people of England feared death, and did not welcome it or rejoice
when one of their number died."

"They do fear death, and they do not rejoice when it comes. Far from it.
From the peer to the beggar, everyone fights death as long as he can;
the oldest cling to life as eagerly as the youngest. Not a man but will
spend his last gold piece to ward off the inevitable even for an hour."

"Gold piece--what is that?"

Stanford plunged his hand into his pocket.

"Ah!" he said, "there are some coins left. Here is a gold piece."

The girl took it, and looked at it with keen interest.

"Isn't it pretty?" she said, holding the yellow coin on her pink palm,
and glancing up at him.

"That is the general opinion. To accumulate coins like that, men will
lie, and cheat, and steal--yes, and work. Although they will give their
last sovereign to prolong their lives, yet will they risk life itself to
accumulate gold. Every business in England is formed merely for the
gathering together of bits of metal like that in your hand; huge
companies of men are formed so that it may be piled up in greater
quantities. The man who has most gold has most power, and is generally
the most respected; the company which makes most money is the one people
are most anxious to belong to."

Ruth listened to him with wonder and dismay in her eyes. As he talked
she shuddered, and allowed the yellow coin to slip from her hand to the
ground.

"No wonder such a people fears death."

"Do you not fear death?"

"How can we, when we believe in heaven?"

"But would you not be sorry if someone died whom you loved?"

"How could we be so selfish? Would you be sorry if your brother, or
someone you loved, became possessed of whatever you value in England--a
large quantity of this gold, for instance?"

"Certainly not. But then you see--well, it isn't exactly the same thing.
If one you care for dies you are separated from him, and----"

"But only for a short time, and that gives but another reason for
welcoming death. It seems impossible that Christian people should fear
to enter Heaven. Now I begin to understand why our forefathers left
England, and why our teachers will never tell us anything about the
people there. I wonder why missionaries are not sent to England to teach
them the truth, and try to civilise the people?"

"That would, indeed, be coals to Newcastle. But here comes one of the
workers."

"It is my father," cried the girl, rising. "I fear I have been
loitering. I never did such a thing before."

The man who approached was stern of countenance.

"Ruth," he said, "the workers are athirst."

The girl, without reply, picked up her pails and departed.

"I have been receiving," said the young man, colouring slightly, "some
instruction regarding your belief. I had been puzzled by several remarks
I heard, and wished to make inquiries regarding them."

"It is more fitting," said the man, coldly, "that you should receive
instruction from me or from some of the elders than from one of the
youngest in the community. When you are so far recovered as to be able
to listen to an exposition of our views, I hope to be able to put forth
such arguments as will convince you that they are the true views. If it
should so happen that my arguments are not convincing, then I must
request that you will hold no communication with our younger members.
They must not be contaminated by the heresies of the outside world."

[Illustration: "RUTH AT THE WELL."]

Stanford looked at Ruth standing beside the village well.

"Sir," he said, "you underrate the argumentative powers of the younger
members. There is a text bearing upon the subject which I need not
recall to you. I am already convinced."

[Illustration: POLITICAL EXILES EN ROUTE FOR SIBERIA]




MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NIHILIST.

BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. ST. M. FITZ-GERALD.


INTRODUCTION.

BY MRS. MONA CAIRD.


In giving to the world her exciting and terrible story, "Mademoiselle
Sophie" has also conveyed incidentally some idea of her remarkable
character. As I had the privilege of hearing from her own lips all that
she relates in this series of papers, I can supplement her unintentional
self-portraiture by recording the impression that she made upon me at
our first meeting.

I had always taken a strong interest in the political movements of
Russia and in the Slavonic races whose character and temperament have
something more or less mysterious to the Western mind. The Russian novel
presents rather than explains this mystery. It is perhaps to the Tartar
blood that we must attribute the incomprehensible element. Between the
East and the West, there is, psychologically speaking, a great gulf
fixed.

There are times when the reader of Russian fiction begins to wonder
whether he or the author is not a little off his mental balance, so
fantastic, so inconsequent, yet so insanely logical (so to put it) are
the beings with whom he finds himself surrounded--beings, however,
evidently and bewilderingly human, so that though they may appear
scarcely in their right minds (as we should judge our compatriots), they
can never be mistaken for mere figures of sawdust and plaster such as
people extensive realms of Western fiction. It is the reality of the
characters, coupled with their eccentric demeanour (the most humdrum
Slav appears wildly original to the inexperienced Anglo-Saxon), that
stirs anxiety.

Would "Mademoiselle Sophie" be like one of these erratic creations, or
would she resemble the heroines of Russian political history whose
marvellous courage and endurance excite the wonder of all who can even
dimly realise what it must be to live from moment to moment in imminent
peril of life and limb, and in ceaseless anxiety as to the fate of
relatives and friends? Of all the trials that "Mademoiselle Sophie" went
through, this last, she told me, was the worst. The absolute silence,
the absolute ignorance in which she had to pass her days, seemed to have
broken her wonderful spirit more than any other hardship.

It is not every day in the Nineteenth century that one comes in contact
with a human being who has had to submit to the "ordeal by fire" in this
literal mediæval fashion; who has endured perils, insults, physical
privations and torments, coupled with intense and ceaseless anxiety for
years; and this in extreme youth before the troubles and difficulties of
life have more gradually and gently taught the lessons of endurance and
silent courage that probably have to be learnt by all who are destined
to develop and gather force as they go, and not to dwindle and weaken,
as seems to be the lot of those less fortunate in circumstance or less
well-equipped at birth for the struggles that in one form or another
present themselves in every career.

Russia is a nation that may almost be said to have preserved to this day
the conditions of the Middle Ages. It affords, therefore, to the curious
an opportunity for the study of the effect upon human character of these
conditions. Here are still retained, to all intents and purposes, the
thumbscrew and the rack; indeed, this is the case in a literal sense,
for "Mademoiselle Sophie" told me that it was certain that prisoners
were sometimes tortured in secret, after the good old-fashioned methods,
not exactly officially (since the matter was kept more or less dark),
but nevertheless by men in the employment of the Government who were
able to take advantage of the powers bestowed by their office to
practise despotism even to this extreme.

Many of the so-called Nihilists or Revolutionists (as "Mademoiselle
Sophie" insisted on styling the more moderate party to which she
belongs) seem to stand in the position of the early Protestants, when
they protested against the abuses of the Catholic Church while retaining
their reverence for the institution itself.

It is not against the Government, so much as against the illegal and
tyrannous cruelty practised by many of its officials, that a certain
section of the "Revolutionists" raise a remonstrance. It is astonishing
how conservative some of these terrible "Revolutionists" appear to be.
Many of them still look to the Tzar with a pathetic conviction that all
would be well, if only the cry of his distressed children could reach
his paternal ears. They ask so little; they would be thankful for such
small mercies; yet there is apparently slight hope that the Tzar will be
allowed to hear or would listen to the appeal of his much-enduring
people!

"Mademoiselle Sophie" had promised to take tea with me on a particular
afternoon, and to give me an account of her imprisonment. I had heard
the general outlines before, but was anxious to hear her tell the tale
in her own words. I may mention here that "Mademoiselle Sophie's"
acquaintance had been _sought_, and that the idea of writing her story
for publication in England did not emanate from her. Of her veracity
there is not the faintest question; moreover, there was, evidently, no
motive for deception.

Though I had heard that "Mademoiselle Sophie" had been a mere girl when
she was first sent to face the rigours of a Russian prison, I was
scarcely prepared to see anyone so young and fragile-looking as the lady
in black who entered the room, with a quiet, reserved manner, courteous
and dignified. I felt something like a thrill of dismay when I realised
that it was an extremely sensitive woman who had gone through the scenes
that she describes in these pages. She had been the more ill-prepared
for the hardships of prison-life from having passed her childhood amidst
every care and comfort.

[Illustration: MRS. MONA CAIRD.]

She was singularly reticent and self-possessed. In speaking, there was
no emotional emphasis, whatever she might be saying. The only comment on
her narrative that one could detect was an occasional touch of cold
scorn or irony. The more terrible the incident that she related, the
more quiet became her tones.

It seemed as if the flame of indignation had burnt itself out in the
years of suffering that she had passed through. The traces of those
years were in her face. Its very stillness and pallor seemed to tell
the tale of pain endured silently and in solitude for so long. It was
written, too, in the steadfast quality that expressed itself
in her whole bearing, and in the entire absence of any petty
self-consciousness. In spite of the awful nervous strain that she had
endured she had no little restless habits or movements of any kind.

One felt in her a vast reserve force and a dauntless courage. It was
courage of a kind that is almost terrible, for it accompanied a highly
organised and imaginative temperament, a nervous temperament, be it
observed, which implies _controlled_ and _ordered_, not _uncontrolled_
and _disordered_ nervous power. The half-hysterical persons who class
themselves among the possessors of this temperament are apt to overlook
that important distinction.

"Mademoiselle Sophie" gained none of her courage from insensitiveness.
Her whole life was dedicated to the cause of her country, and the
personal elements had been sacrificed to this object beyond herself: the
forlorn hope which has already claimed so many of the noblest and
bravest spirits in all the Tzar's dominions.

After "Mademoiselle Sophie" left that afternoon, I could not help
placing her in imagination beside the average woman that our own
civilisation has produced (not a fair comparison doubtless); and the
latter seemed painfully small in aim and motive, pitifully petty and
fussy and lacking in repose and dignity when compared with the calm
heroine of this Russian romance.

But human beings are the creations of their circumstances, and the
circumstances of a Western woman's life are not favourable to the
development of the grander qualities, though, indeed, they are often
harassing and bewildering, and cruel enough to demand heroism as great
even as that of "Mademoiselle Sophie." I think it would be salutary for
all of us--men as well as women of the West--to come more often within
the influence of such natures as this; natures that command the tribute
of admiration and the reverence that one must instantly yield to great
moral strength and nobility.




MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NIHILIST.

BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. ST. M. FITZ-GERALD.


I.

DEAR MESSIEURS,

You have asked me for a few reminiscences of the time when I took a more
or less active part in the Revolutionary Movement in Russia--a sort of
autobiographical sketch, to be published in English. As I never had the
good fortune to render any really important service to my country, I
have no right to draw public attention upon myself, and no wish to do
so. But my experiences, of which I have told you a good deal by word of
mouth, have been, save for sundry personal details, very like those of
thousands of other young Russians, who, unwilling and unable to accept
quietly the order of things that weighs so heavily upon their country,
have devoted all their strength and all their faculties to the great
struggle for freedom, which you of Western Europe call the Nihilistic
Movement. In your opinion, it is just because of its simplicity and its
likeness to many others, that the story of my life may possess some
value; and perhaps you are right. At any rate, since to interest if but
a small number of people in the lot of those who serve "the cause," will
be to serve the cause still further--and it is, for the rest, the cause
of common humanity and justice--I herewith put at your disposition such
of my souvenirs as I am at liberty to make public, at the same time
reminding you of your promise to preserve my incognito intact.

And now for my facts:

It was the year 188-. My brother had been arrested during the winter.
At the beginning of the spring I went to X----, to the house of my uncle
and aunt, to pass the summer, and to rest after the emotional strain I
had been under. At least, such was the explanation of my leaving St.
Petersburg which I gave to the police of that city, when I asked them
for a passport for the interior of the Empire. As a matter of fact, I
was anxious to see certain of my brother's friends at X----, with the
object of trying, with their assistance, to destroy the traces of his
last visit there--traces which, if discovered by the police, might be
extremely detrimental to Serge's interests. On my arrival in the
town--where, by the way, it was my habit to pass all my holidays--I
found the Nihilist community, many of whose members were old friends of
mine, in serious trouble. The police had just been making a terrible
raid among them. Many had been arrested. The others, under strict
surveillance, were daily expecting to be arrested in their turn.

[Illustration: "SERGE WAS ARRESTED."]

[Illustration: "TEACHING THEM TO READ AND WRITE."]

This circumstance, apart from the regret it caused me, had a
considerable influence upon my relations with the local revolutionary
organisation. The centre of this organisation was a group of young men
and women, who, besides the revolutionary agitation that they were
carrying on, were in correspondence with other groups of the same sort,
for the purpose of exchanging books, helping comrades to escape from
prison and fly the country, and so forth. X---- is a big town, chiefly
given up to manufactures; and at the time of which I speak there was
gathered around this central group a sort of duplex association,
composed, on the one hand, of well-educated young folks, and, on the
other, of working men. As a precautionary measure, the association as a
whole was split up into a number of small circles, or clubs, that met
separately, and knew nothing of one another. It was especially in these
smaller clubs that the members of the central group carried on their
propaganda, the aim of which was then, as it is to-day, to alter the
present method of government, to rid the country of the despotism that
bears so heavily upon it, and stops its development, and thus to make
possible at once an improvement in the condition of the labouring
classes, and a reconstruction of Russian society upon a more rational
and a more humane basis. With the working people, however, the
revolutionists were often forced to begin by teaching them to read and
write. Outside of all these clubs, there were in the town a good many
people who, while taking no direct part in the movement, sympathised
with it, and did what they could to aid and abet it by gifts of money,
and by providing refuge for such of the active members as were hiding
from the police. With these very useful friends the revolutionists kept
up more or less continuous relations.

The programme of the group at X---- needed for its accomplishment a
large force of devoted and trustworthy workers; and the arrests that had
been made just before my arrival had considerably thinned their ranks.
This circumstance, as I have said, changed the nature of my own
relations with the revolutionary organisation. Hitherto my visits to the
town had been short, only to spend my school holidays in fact. Very
young, moreover, I had never belonged to any of the clubs; and my
friendships with their members had been purely personal. Now, however, I
was older, and I had come to stop at X---- for several months. In the
face of the gaps the late arrests had made in the little army of
revolutionists, I felt that I must enlist. I offered my services, and
they were accepted.

Towards the middle of the summer, my uncle and aunt went to Moroznoië, a
little village near the town where their property lay. Leaving St.
Petersburg before the end of the University year, I, a student of
medicine, had been obliged to put off my examinations until the autumn.
These examinations, or rather, my necessity to work and prepare for
them, coupled with the presence of a fine public library at X----, gave
me the pretext I needed to stay behind during the family villegiatura.
After some opposition, and a good deal of talk about the superiority of
country air, my uncle and aunt consented--the more easily, perhaps,
because, after all, I was not to be alone; my Aunt Vera and two servants
were to remain in the town house. Besides, my uncle and his wife were
often coming back for a day or two at a time, and I promised to pass all
my Sundays with them. This arrangement suited me perfectly. My Aunt
Vera, my dead father's sister, was the sweetest and gentlest of women,
an invalid, with an infinite tenderness for Serge and myself, the
orphans of her favourite brother. The servants also, an old nurse and a
gardener, were entirely devoted to my family and to me. I was therefore
free, mistress of the house, of my time, of myself. Divided between my
studies, a few visits paid and received, and my weekly trip to
Moroznoië, my life flowed peacefully, monotonously enough--on the
surface.

[Illustration: "WE ARE BETRAYED!"]

Down deep, alas! it was not the same. Our revolutionary group was being
harried by the police, and their arrests and domiciliary visits were
conducted with so much skill and certainty, we were forced to believe
at last that we were betrayed by a traitor or a spy among our own
numbers. Strictly watched by the police, who kept us "moving on,"
avoided on that account by some of our friends, and knowing perfectly
well that a single false step might bring ruin not only upon ourselves,
but upon many others, we were obliged to be extremely cautious, and not
to meet too often. A few furtive interviews now and again for the
interchange of news, a few sparsely attended rendezvous for the purpose
of keeping the threads of our organisation together, were pretty nearly
all that we thought safe to permit ourselves. This mode of life--so
tranquil to outward appearance, but in reality so full of anxiety for
each and all; a life without a to-morrow, so that when we parted we did
not know whether we should ever meet again, and it became our habit to
say _Adieu_ instead of _Au revoir_--lasted for me about five months.
Melancholy enough, indeed, it had notwithstanding a charm of its own, a
charm that sprang partly, perhaps, from the consciousness of dangers
incurred for a noble object, and from the feeling of grave moral
responsibility that we all had. A few episodes of that time are deeply
fixed in my memory. A meeting we held one evening at twilight in a rich
park near the town, a park that belonged to a high personage at the
Imperial Court, whose son was one of us. There we met and whispered, and
the murmur of the leaves overhead and the deepening shadows of the
nightfall lent an intense colour of poetry to the situation. And then
another meeting, in the poor little lodging of a factory-operative--a
special meeting, called because our suspicions of treason within our own
ranks had centred now upon a certain individual, a student, a college
friend of my cousins, a constant visitor at our house. At this meeting a
plan was adopted to test our suspect, and prove whether or not he was
the guilty man. I, the next time he called, was to put him on a false
scent; I was to tell him that a reunion of Nihilists would be held at a
given place and a given time; and then we would await developments. I
was also to draw him out, if possible, and make him convict himself from
his own mouth. But this I could not do. I put him on the false scent;
but I couldn't draw him out. It is terrible to hold the life of a human
being between your hands, even though that human being be the basest of
cowards and traitors.

Well, at the time and place that I told him of, surely enough, the
police turned up, and naturally they found nobody there. But during the
two following nights twenty fresh arrests took place; and I was one of
those arrested. My cousins' friend, feeling himself discovered and
menaced, had made haste to deliver us into the hands of our enemies!

[Illustration: "I WAITED A MOMENT TO TAKE BREATH."]

That evening I had come home rather late, and had then sat and chatted
for a long while with aunt Vera, so that it was well towards midnight
before I started to go to bed. Half-way upstairs, I was stopped by a
noise; footsteps and stifled voices, mingled with the clang of spurs and
sabres. I waited a moment, to take breath, which had failed me
suddenly; then I went back downstairs. A violent pull at the bell, an
imperative pull, sounded at the garden gate; and in a moment was
followed by another at the door of the house. It woke the old nurse, and
brought my aunt Vera from her room. Having been a little forewarned by
me of the possibility of such a visit as this, she questioned me with a
frightened glance. I answered "Yes," by a sign of the head, and begged
her under my breath to delay "them" as long as possible before letting
"them" come in. The idea of being able to render me a service, perhaps
the last, gave her strength and courage; and while slowly, very slowly,
she moved towards the door, where the nocturnal visitors were getting
impatient and trying to force the lock, I went into the dining-room. A
moment later I heard her sweet trembling voice assuring Monsieur le
Colonel de Gendarmerie that there was no one in the house; all the
family were at Moroznoië; my uncle had been in town on Monday, but had
left again on Tuesday, and wouldn't return till the end of next week;
and there was no one here but herself, the speaker, and a young lady
visiting her. In this little respite, which I had arranged for myself
without too well knowing why, I remained inert in the room, lighted
feebly by a single candle, and tried to gather my thoughts together:
they were slow enough to respond to my efforts. My first notion was that
of flight, and, automatically, I opened a window. Close at hand, behind
some shrubbery, I perceived the glitter of a gendarme's uniform. There
would surely be others in the garden and in the courtyard; and for the
rest, fly--? How, and whither? I shut the window, and coming back to the
middle of the room, I caught a glimpse of myself in the chimney-glass. I
was very pale. Was I going to be a coward? This question, and that pale
face in the mirror, awoke in me other thoughts, brought back to my
memory other faces: that of my brother, who, a few months before, had
gone so bravely from his home, to which he would never return, to the
prison that he would perhaps never leave; those of friends lately
arrested; those of so many, many noble men and women. Was I going to be
a coward? So the examples set by these others turned my attention from
myself, calmed me, gave me strength. I could hear the voice of Colonel
P----, who, impatient of my aunt's parleying, briefly bade her hold her
tongue, and conduct him to the presence of her niece, Mademoiselle
Sophie. That voice, rude and gross, had the effect of changing the moral
depression which I had felt a moment ago into a sort of intense nervous
excitement; and at the moment when the Colonel, followed by his men,
appeared upon the threshold of the dining-room, honouring me with the
very least respectful of bows, I, instead of saluting him in return, met
him with a gaze as fixed and haughty as his own.

[Illustration: "MET HIM WITH A GAZE AS FIXED AND HAUGHTY AS HIS OWN."]

A minute later the Colonel was installed at the dinner-table, with the
whole household arraigned before him, and everybody forbidden to leave
the room. He asked my aunt Vera for the keys of the house, and the
search began. The gendarmes scattered themselves through all the rooms,
through the garden, the courtyard, the offices, and turned everything
upside down, emptying wardrobes and cupboards, unmaking the beds, moving
the articles of furniture to see that nothing was hidden behind them,
and trying the screws to discover if there were any secret drawers. In
my bedroom, which was of course the object of a very particular
attention, a spy dressed in civilian's costume got up on the tables and
chairs, and tapped on the walls. Another drew the ashes, still hot, from
the stove, and examined them by the light of a lamp, held by a big
gendarme. From time to time these men would come back to the
dining-room, bringing armfuls of books, and school papers belonging to
my cousins, which they would deposit upon the table before Colonel
P----. After looking them over, he would throw them aside with such
manifest ill humour, that I, who by this time had myself completely
under control, couldn't let the occasion pass to condole with him on the
sad nature of his trade. The whole search was a useless and odious
farce, for I knew that there was nothing in the house of the kind they
were looking for. Still I wasn't sorry to let them prolong it, for that
gave me more time to stay there at home, beside my aunt Vera, who,
smaller and feebler and paler than ever, turned her dear eyes, full of
fear and tenderness, upon my face, and kept stroking my hand with her
two trembling ones.

[Illustration: "A LAMP HELD BY A BIG GENDARME."]

The search was nearly over, when a gendarme came in from the stable with
a great parcel of books, done up in green cloth, which he laid before
the Colonel. Opened, the parcel proved to contain not books only, but
_forbidden_ books--books by Herbert Spencer, by Mr. Ruskin, by Monsieur
Renan! I was astonished at seeing them, and my first thought was that
they belonged to my brother, who might have forgotten them there in the
stable, or to my cousins, who, without being revolutionists, were
interested in forbidden literature just because it was forbidden. So
when the Colonel, having finished his inspection of them, asked me whom
they belonged to, I answered quietly, "To me." My aunt Vera, to whom I
had always promised never to bring "forbidden" things into the house,
looked at me sadly, reproachfully. Ah! my dear aunt, I lied in saying
they were mine; but in my situation a few forbidden books couldn't
matter much; whereas for the others, for my innocent cousins--who knows
what serious trouble they might have got them into?

The Colonel demanded, "Where do these books come from?"

"From the people who had them last."

"Their names?"

"What, Colonel! You, the chief of the secret police of X----, you don't
know!"

This answer kindled a light of anger in his little Chinese eyes. For my
part, I had spoken very slowly, looking steadily at him, and smiling as
if it were a jest; but it wasn't exactly a jest. While the Colonel had
been questioning me, I had reflected. It was impossible that my cousins
should have had books of this sort in their possession without speaking
to me about them; and it was most unlikely that they could have belonged
to Serge, who, always very careful, made it a strict rule never to bring
anything of a compromising nature to our uncle's house. But I had often
heard that the political police, to create evidence against people whom
they strongly suspected, but who were too prudent for their taste, and
also to make their arrests appear less arbitrary in the eyes of the
public, had a pleasant habit of bringing "forbidden" things with them to
the houses where they made their perquisitions, for the sake of
supplying what they might not be able to find. Was this what had
happened now? Had I been caught in such a trap?

That was what I asked the Colonel in the form of a little jest.

Did he understand? He answered with a piece of advice: that I should be
less gay. For the rest, he was in a hurry; he looked at his watch;
announced that all was over, and that I was under arrest; and called for
witnesses to sign the _procès-verbal_. Our gardener ran out to find
somebody. He came back with two people who had been attracted to our
house by the lights and the noise. One was a cabman, the other was Dr.
A----, a neighbour who had recently come to live at X----, and whom we
knew only by sight. These men stared at me with surprise and curiosity.
I scarcely saw them. The words "Under arrest" had completely upset my
Aunt Vera, who, till then so calm, was now crying bitterly, covering me
with kisses, and repeating, "My child! My child!" The old nurse also was
crying, sobbing, and muttering to herself. Just when I feel that I
myself am about to give way, and cry too--that which I am anxious, most
anxious, not to do--she, the old nurse, throws herself at the Colonel's
feet, and begs grace for me, telling him that I am too young, too frail,
to go to prison, that I have been coughing these many days, that I may
die there! This makes the Colonel smile. For me, I tell the old nurse to
get up. I scold her. Stupefied, trembling, she sinks to the floor in a
corner of the room, and weeps for me as the Russian peasants weep for
their dead, mingling with her sobs memories of our common past, praises
of my good qualities, and so forth. All this, uttered in a low
sing-song, is like a sort of funeral dirge.

[Illustration: "THROWS HERSELF AT THE COLONEL'S FEET."]

I hear it still at the moment when the Colonel shuts me into a cab, with
two gendarmes facing me, and another on the box beside the driver, to
whom the order is given, "The fortress!"

Sophie Wassilieff.

(_To be continued._)




PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET.

BY SCOTT RANKIN.

BRET HARTE.


"'When a man is interviewed he, consciously or unconsciously, prepares
himself for it and isn't at all natural. Suppose, for instance, you
found your man in a railway car, and entered casually into conversation
with him. Then you would probably get his real thoughts--the man as he
is. But, of course, when a man is asked questions, and sees the answers
taken down in shorthand, it is a very different thing.'"--Bret Harte.




MY SERVANT JOHN.

BY ARCHIBALD FORBES.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERIC VILLIERS.


Goa is a forlorn and decayed settlement on the west coast of Hindustan,
the last remaining relic of the once wide dominions of the Portuguese in
India. Its inhabitants are of the Roman Catholic faith, ever since in
the 16th century St. Francis Xavier, the colleague of Loyola in the
foundation of the Society of Jesus, baptised the Goanese in a mass. Its
once splendid capital is now a miasmatic wreck, its cathedrals and
churches are ruined and roofless, and only a few black nuns remain to
keep alight the sacred fire before a crumbling altar. Of all European
nations the Portuguese have intermingled most freely with the dusky
races over which they held dominion, with the curious result that the
offspring of the cross is darker in hue than the original coloured
population. To-day, the adult males of Goa, such of them as have any
enterprise, emigrate into less dull and dead regions of India, and are
found everywhere as cooks, ship-stewards, messengers, and in similar
menial capacities. They all call themselves Portuguese, and own
high-sounding Portuguese surnames. Domingo de Gonsalvez de Soto will
cook your curry, and Pedro de Guiterraz is content to act as dry nurse
to your wife's babies. The vice of those dusky noblemen is their
addiction to drink.

[Illustration: "JOHN."]

The better sort of these self-expatriated Goanese are eager to serve as
travelling servants, and when you have the luck to chance on a
reasonably sober fellow, no better servant can be found anywhere. Being
a Christian, he has no caste, and has no religious scruples preventing
him from wiping your razor after you have shaved, or from eating his
dinner after your shadow has happened to fall across the table. In
Bombay there is a regular club or society of these Goanese travelling
servants, and when the transient wayfarer lands in that city from the
Peninsular and Oriental mail boat, one of the first things he is advised
to do is to send round to the "Goa Club" and desire the secretary to
send him a travelling servant. The result is a lottery. The man arrives,
mostly a good-looking fellow, tall and slight, of very dark olive
complexion, with smooth glossy hair, large soft eyes, and well-cut
features. He produces a packet of chafed and dingy testimonials of
character from previous employers, all full of commendation, and not one
of which is worth the paper it is written on, because the good-natured
previous employer was too soft of heart to speak his mind on paper. If
by chance a stern and ruthless person has characterised Bartolomeo de
Braganza as drunken, lazy, and dishonest, Bartolomeo, who has learnt to
read English, promptly destroys the "chit," and the stern man's object
is thus frustrated. But you must take the Goa man as he comes, for it is
a law of the society that its members are offered in strict succession
as available, and that no picking and choosing is to be allowed. When
with the Prince of Wales during his tour in India, the man who fell to
me, good, steady, honest Francis, was simply a dusky jewel. My comrade,
Mr. Henty, the well-known author of so many boys' books, rather crowed
over me because Domingo, his man, seemed more spry and smart than did my
Francis. But Francis had often to attend on Henty as well as myself,
when Domingo the quick-witted was lying blind drunk at the back of the
tent, and once and again I have seen Henty carrying down on his back to
the departing train the unconscious servant on whom at the beginning he
had congratulated himself.

[Illustration: "THE OLD AMEER."]

In the summer of 1876, Shere Ali, the old Ameer of Afghanistan, took it
into his head to pick a quarrel with the Viceroy of British India. Lord
Lytton was always spoiling for a fight himself, and thus there was every
prospect of a lively little war. If war should occur, it was my duty to
be in the thick of it, and I reached Bombay well in time to see the
opening of the campaign. Knowing the ropes, within an hour of landing I
sent to the "Goa Club" for a servant, begging that, if possible, I might
have worthy Francis, who had fully satisfied me during the tour of the
Prince. Francis was not available, and there was sent me a tall,
prepossessing-looking young man, who presented himself as "John Assissis
de Compostella de Crucis," but was quite content to answer to the name
of "John."

John seemed a capable man, but was occasionally muzzy. After visiting
Simla, the headquarters of the Viceroy, I started for the frontier,
where the army was mustering. On the way down I spent a couple of days
at Umballa, to buy kit and saddlery. The train by which I was going to
travel up-country was due at Umballa about midnight. I instructed John
to have everything at the depôt in good time, and went to dine at the
mess of the Carbineers. In due time I reached the station, accompanied
by several officers of that fine regiment. The train was at the
platform; my belongings I found in a chaotic heap, crowned by John fast
asleep, who, when awakened, proved to be extremely drunk. I could not
dispense with the man; I had to cure him. There was but one chance of
doing this. I gave him then and there a severe beating. A fatigue party
of Carbineers pitched my kit into the baggage car, and threw John in
after it. Next day he was sore, but penitent. There was no need to send
him to Dwight, even if that establishment had been in the Punjaub
instead of in Illinois. John was redeemed without resorting to the
chloride of gold cure, and in his case at least, I was quite as
successful a practitioner as any Dr. Keeley could have been. John de
Compostella, &c., was a dead sober man during my subsequent experience
of him, at least till close on the time we parted.

[Illustration: "EXTREMELY DRUNK."]

And, once cured of fuddling, he turned out a most worthy and efficient
fellow. He lacked the dash of Andreas, but he was as true as steel. In
the attack on Ali Musjid, in the throat of the Khyber Pass, the native
groom, who was leading my horse behind me, became demoralised by the
rather heavy fire of big cannon balls from the fort, and skulked to the
rear with the horse. John had no call to come under fire, since the
groom was specially paid for doing so; but abusing the latter for a
coward in the expressive vernacular of India, he laid hold of the reins,
and was up right at my back just as the close musketry fighting began.
He took his chances through it manfully, had my pack pony up within half
an hour after the fighting was over, and before the darkness fell had
cooked a capital little dinner for myself and a comrade, whose
commissariat had gone astray. Next morning the fort was found evacuated.
I determined to ride back down the pass to the field telegraph post at
its mouth. The General wrote in my notebook a telegram announcing the
good news to the Commander-in-Chief; and poor Cavagnari, the political
officer, who was afterwards massacred at Cabul, wrote another message to
the same effect to the Viceroy. I expected to have to walk some distance
to our bivouac of the night; but lo! as I turned to go, there was John
with my horse, close up.

[Illustration: "JUST AS THE CLOSE MUSKETRY FIGHTING BEGAN."]

In one of the hill expeditions, the advanced section of the force I
accompanied had to penetrate a narrow and gloomy pass which was beset on
either side by swarms of Afghans, who slated us severely with their
long-range jezails. With this leading detachment there somehow was no
surgeon, and as men were going down and something had to be done, it
devolved upon me, as having some experience in this kind of work in
previous campaigns, to undertake a spell of amateur surgery. John
behaved magnificently as my assistant. With his light touch and long
lissom hands, the fellow seemed to have a natural instinct for
successful bandaging. I was glad that we could do no more than bandage,
and that we had no instruments, else I believe that John would not have
hesitated to undertake a capital operation. As for the Afghan bullets,
he did not shrink as they splashed on the stones around him; he did not
treat them with disdain; he simply ignored them. The soldiers swore that
he ought to have the war medal for the good and plucky work he was
doing; and a Major protested that if his full titles, which John always
gave in full when his name was asked, had not been so confoundedly long,
he would have asked the General to mention the Goa man in despatches.

[Illustration: "THERE WAS JOHN WITH MY HORSE."]

John liked war, but he was not fond of the rapid changes of temperature
up on the "roof of the world" in Afghanistan. During one twenty-four
hours at Jellalabad, we had one man killed by a sunstroke, and another
frozen to death on sentry duty in the night. On Christmas morning, when
I rose at sunrise, the thermometer was far below freezing point; the
water in the brass basin in my tent was frozen solid, and I was glad to
wrap myself in furs. At noon the thermometer was over a hundred in the
shade, and we were all so hot as to wish with Sydney Smith that we could
take off our flesh and sit in our bones. John was delighted when, as
there seemed no immediate prospect of further hostilities in
Afghanistan, I departed therefrom to pay a visit to King Thebaw, of
Burmah, who has since been disestablished. When in his capital of
Mandalay, there came to me a telegram from England informing me of the
massacre by the Zulus of a thousand British soldiers at Isandlwana, in
South Africa, and instructing me to hurry thither with all possible
speed. John had none of the Hindoo dislike to cross the "dark water,"
and he accompanied me to Aden, where we made connection with a potty
little steamer, which called into every paltry and fever-smelling
Portuguese port all along the east coast of Africa, and at length
dropped us at Durban, the seaport of the British colony of Natal, in
South Africa, and the base of the warlike operations against the Zulus.

[Illustration: "POOR CAVAGNARI."]

There are many Hindoos engaged on the Natal sugar plantations, and in
that particularly one-horse Colony, every native of India is known
indiscriminately by the term of "coolie." John, it is true, was a native
of India, but he was no "coolie"; he could read, write, and speak
English, and was altogether a superior person. I would not take him up
country to be bullied and demeaned as a "coolie," and I made for him an
arrangement with the proprietor of my hotel that during my absence John
should help to wait in his restaurant. During the Zulu campaign I was
abominably served by a lazy Africander and a lazier St. Helena boy. When
Ulundi was fought, and Cetewayo's kraal was burned, I was glad to return
to Durban, and take passage for India. John, I found, had during my
absence become one of the prominent inhabitants of Durban. He had now
the full charge of the hotel restaurant--he was the centurion of the
dinner-table, with men under him, to whom he said "do this," and they
did it. His skill in dishes new to Natal, especially in curries, had
crowded the restaurant, and the landlord had taken the opportunity of
raising his tariff. He came to me privily, and said frankly that John
was making his fortune for him, that he was willing to give him a share
in his business in a year's time if he would but stay, and meantime was
ready to pay him a stipend of twenty dollars a week. The wages at which
John served me, and I had been told I was paying him extravagantly, was
eleven dollars a month. I told the landlord that I should not think of
standing in the way of my man's prosperity, but would rather influence
him in favour of an opportunity so promising. Then I sent for John,
explained to him the hotel-keeper's proposal, and suggested that he
should take time to think the matter over. John wept. "I no stay here,
master, not if it was hundred rupees a day! I go with master; I no stop
in Durban!" Nothing would shake his resolve, and so John and I came to
England together.

[Illustration: "JOHN BEHAVED MAGNIFICENTLY."]

The only thing John did not like in England was that the street boys
insisted on regarding him as a Zulu, and treating him contumeliously
accordingly. His great delight was when I went on a round of visits to
country houses, and took him with me as valet. Then he was the hero of
the servants' hall. I will not say that he lied, but from anecdotes of
him that occasionally came to my ears, it would seem he created the
impression that he habitually waded in knee-deep gore, and that he was
in the habit of contemplating with equanimity battle-fields littered
with the slaughtered combatants. John was quite the small lion of the
hour. He had very graceful ways, and great skill in making tasteful
bouquets. These he would present to the ladies of the household when
they came downstairs of a morning, with a graceful salaam, and the
expression of a hope that they had slept well. The spectacle of John,
seen from the drawing-room windows of Chevening, Lord Stanhope's seat in
Kent, as he swaggered across the park to church one Sunday morning in
frock coat and silk hat, with a buxom cook on one arm and a tall and
lean lady's maid on the other, will never be effaced from the
recollection of those who witnessed it with shrieks of laughter.

[Illustration: "A BUXOM COOK ON ONE ARM AND LEAN LADY'S MAID ON THE
OTHER."]

In those days I lived in a flat, my modest establishment consisting of
an old female housekeeper and John. For the most part my two domestics
were good friends, but there were periods of estrangement during which
they were not on speaking terms; and then they sat on opposite sides of
the kitchen table, and communicated with each other exclusively by
written notes of an excessively formal character, passed across the
table. This stiffness of etiquette had its amusing side, but was
occasionally embarrassing, since neither was uniformly intelligible with
the pen. The result was that sometimes I got no dinner at all, and at
other times, when I was dining alone, the board groaned with the
profusion, and when I had company there would not be enough to go round;
these awkwardnesses arising from the absence of a good understanding
between my two domestics. I could not part with the old female servant,
and I began rather to tire of John, whose head had become considerably
swollen because of the notice which had been taken of him. It was all
very well to be in a position to gratify ladies who were giving dinner
parties, and who wrote me little notes asking for the loan for a few
hours of John, to make that wonderful prawn curry of which he had the
sole recipe. But John used to return from that culinary operation very
late, and with indications that his beverage during his exertions had
not been wholly confined to water. To my knowledge he had a wife in Goa,
yet I feared he had his flirtations here in London. Once I charged him
with inconstancy to the lady in Goa, but he repudiated the aspersion
with the quaint denial: "No, master, many ladies are loving me, but I
don't love no ladies!"

However, I had in view to spend a winter in the States, and resolved to
send John home. He wept copiously when I told him of this resolve, and
professed his anxiety to die in my service. But I remained firm, and
reminded him that he had not seen his wife in Goa for nearly three
years. That argument appeared to carry little weight with him; but he
tearfully submitted to the inevitable. I made him a good present, and
obtained for him from the Peninsular and Oriental people a free passage
to Bombay, and wages besides in the capacity of a saloon steward. I saw
him off from Southampton; at the moment of parting he emitted lugubrious
howls. He never fulfilled his promise of writing to me, and I gave up
the expectation of hearing of him any more.

Some two years later, I went to Australia by way of San Francisco and
New Zealand. At Auckland I found letters and newspapers awaiting me from
Sydney and Melbourne. Among the papers was a Melbourne illustrated
journal, on a page of which I found a full-length portrait of the
redoubtable John, his many-syllabled name given at full length, with a
memoir of his military experiences, affixed to which was a fac-simile of
the certificate of character which I had given him when we parted. It
was further stated that "Mr. Compostella de Crucis" was for the present
serving in the capacity of butler to a financial magnate in one of the
suburbs of Melbourne, but that it was his intention to purchase the
goodwill of a thriving restaurant named. Among the first to greet me on
the Melbourne jetty was John, radiant with delight, and eager to
accompany me throughout my projected lecture tour. I dissuaded him in
his own interest from doing so; and when I finally quitted the pleasant
city by the shore of Hobson's Bay, John was running with success the
"Maison Doré" in Burke Street. I fear, if she is alive, that his wife in
Goa is a "grass widow" to this day.

[Illustration: The Idler's Club Subject for Discussion The Artistic
Temperament.]

[Sidenote: Dr. Parker says It depends upon the health of the artist.]


Is the artistic temperament a blessing or a curse? We should first
decide what the artistic temperament means. Artistic is a large word. It
includes painting, acting, poetry, music, literature, preaching. Whether
the temperament is a blessing or a curse largely depends upon the health
of the artist. If De Quincey was an artist, the artistic temperament was
a curse. So also with Thomas Carlyle. So also with Charles Lamb. The
artistic temperament is creative, sympathetic, responsive; it sees
everything, feels everything, realises everything, on a scale of
exaggeration. It is in quest of ideals, and all ideals are more or less
in the clouds, and not seldom at the tip-top of the rainbow. Those who
undertake such long journeys are subject to disappointment and fatigue
by the way; if ever they do come to the end of their journey it is
probably in a temper of fretfulness and exasperation. A sudden knock at
the door may drive an artist into hysterics. He is always working at the
end of his tether. There is nothing more tantalising than an eternal
quest after the ideal; like the horizon, it recedes from the traveller;
like the mirage, it vanishes before the claims of hunger and thirst. On
the other hand, it has enjoyments all its own. The idealist is always
face to face with a great expectation. Perhaps to-night he may realise
it; certainly in the morning it will be much nearer; and as for the
third day, it will be realised in some great festival of delight. There
is, too, a subtle selfishness in this quest after the ideal--the Holy
Grail of the imagination. The artist keeps the secret from his brother
artists until he can startle them with some gracious surprise. He almost
pities them, as he thinks of the revelation that is about to dawn upon
unsuspecting and slumberous minds. Postponement of this surprise is a
torment to the mind which had planned its dazzling disclosure. The
greatest pain of all to the artistic temperament is that it lives in the
world of the Impossible and the Unattainable. That arm must be very
weary which for a lifetime has been stretched out towards the horizon.
Then think of the cross-lights, the mingled colours, the uncalculated
relations which enter into the composition of the dreamer's life, and
say whether that life is not more of a chaos than a cosmos. If the
artistic temperament came within the range of our own choice and will,
possibly we could do something with it; but inasmuch as it is ours by
heredity, and not by adoption, we must do the best we can with the
stubborn fatality.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Mrs. Lynn Linton thinks it depends upon ourselves.]

If to feel keenly be a nobler state than to drone with blunt edges
through that thicket of myrtle and nightshade we call life, then is the
artistic temperament a blessing. If the oyster be more enviable than the
nightingale, then is it a curse. It all depends on our angle, and the
colours we most prefer in the prism. He who has the artistic temperament
knows depths and heights such as Those Others cannot even imagine. The
feet that spring into the courts of heaven by a look or a word--by the
glory of the starry night or the radiance of the dawn--stray down into
the deepest abysses of hell, when Love has died or Nature forgets to
smile. To the artistic temperament there is but little of the mean of
things. The "Mezzo Cammin" is a line too narrow for their eager steps.
Proportion is the one quality in emotional geometry which is left out of
their lesson of life. Their grammar deals only with superlatives; and
the positive seems to them inelastic, dead and common-place. Imaginative
sympathy colours and transforms the whole picture of existence. By this
sympathy the artistic of temperament knows the secrets of souls, and
understands all where Those Others see nothing. And herein lies one
source of those waters of bitterness which so often flood his heart.
Feeling for and with his kind, as accurately as the mirror reflects the
object held before it, he finds none to share the pain, the joy, the
indignation he endures by this sympathy, which is reflection. He visits
the Grundyite, who says "Shocking," "Not nice," when human nature
writhes in its agony and cries aloud for that drop of water which he,
the virtuous conformist, refuses. He goes to the flat-footed and
broad-waisted; those who plod along the beaten highway, and turn neither
to the right hand nor to the left, neither to the hills nor the hollows.
But he speaks a foreign language, and they heed him not. The iron-bound
care nought. Does that cry of suffering raise the price of stocks or
lower that of grain? Tush! let it pass. To each back its own burden. So
he carries the piteous tale whereby his heart is aching for sympathy,
and Those Others give him stones for bread and a serpent for a fish.
Then he looks up to heaven, and asks if there be indeed a God to suffer
all this wrong; or if there be, How long, O Lord, how long! The artistic
temperament is not merely artistic perception, with which it is so often
confounded. You may be steeped to the lips in that temperament, and yet
not be able to arrange flowers with deftness, draw a volute, or strike a
true chord. And you may be able to do all these, and yet be dead in
heart and cold in brain--a mere curly-wigged poodle doing its clever
tricks with dexterity, and obedient to the hand that feeds it. The
artistic temperament is not this, but something far different. Would you
know what it is, and what it brings? It is the Key of Life, without
which no one can understand the mysteries nor hear the secret music; and
it plants a dagger in the flesh, with the handle outward. And at this
handle, the careless, the brutal, the malicious, and the dense
witted--all Those Others--lunge, pull, and twist by turns. But they do
not see the blood trickling from the wound; and they would neither care
nor yet desist if they did.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Rutland Barrington regards it as a mixed blessing.]

The artistic temperament is a most decidedly "mixed" blessing, and the
more artistic the more mixed! This is strongly demonstrated to me
personally in the person of a _friend_ of my school days who has become
in later years an _acquaintance_ only; a falling away, due entirely to
the abnormal development of his artistic temperament, which will not
allow him to see any good in anything or anybody that does not come up
to his ideal, the artistic temperament in _his_ case taking the form of
a kind of mental yellow jaundice! Of course, I consider that I myself
possess this temperament, and am willing to admit that the natural
friction caused by the meeting with a less highly developed temperament
(?) than his own may have led to the feeling of mental and artistic
superiority which has convinced _one_ of us that association with the
_other_ is undesirable! I fancy that the two classes most strongly
influenced by this temperament are the painters and the actors, who
display characteristics of remarkable resemblance, as, for instance, all
painters (I use the word "painters" because "artists" is applied equally
to both classes) are fully alive to the beauties of Nature in all her
varied moods, but, when those beauties are depicted on the canvasses of
_others_, are somewhat prone to discover a comprehension of those
beauties inferior to their own! So, too, with actors, the majority of
whom possess the feeling, though they may not always express it, that,
although Mr. Garrick Siddons's efforts were distinctly _good_, there
_are_ people, not a hundred miles off, who _might_ have shone to more
advantage in the part! There is no doubt that the artistic temperament
magnifies all the pleasures of one's life by the infusion of a keener
zest for enjoyment, the natural outcome of such temperament, but the
reverse of the medal is equally well cut, and the misfortunes and
disappointments of life are the more keenly felt in consequence of the
possession of this temperament! Whether the balance is equally
maintained or not is a question only to be answered by the individual,
but I incline to the belief that life is smoother to the phlegmatic than
the artistic temperament!--though I should not believe it would be
possible to find any person possessing the latter who would be willing
to renounce it, in spite of its disadvantages, so I must perforce
conclude it to be a blessing! _Q.E.D._

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Miss Helen Mathers looks upon it as a curse.]

If the artistic temperament will enable a man to be rendered profoundly
happy by one of those trifles that Nature strews each day in our
path--say a salmon-pink sunset seen through the lacing of tall black
boles of leafless trees, or a flower, happed upon unexpectedly, that
reads you a half-forgotten lesson in "country art"--that same man will
be reduced to abject misery and real suffering by a dirty tablecloth, a
vulgar, uncongenial companion, or even the presence of a bright blue
gown in a chamber subdued to utmost harmonies in gold and yellow. The
curse with him follows all too swiftly on the blessing of enjoyment--and
lasts longer. And in matters of love, the artistic temperament is a
doubtful blessing. The shape of a man's nose will turn a woman's eyes
away from the goodness of his character, and a badly-fitting coat so
outrage her beauty-loving propensities, that she is provoked into
mistaking her mind's approval for real heart affection, and she chooses
the artistic man, only to find, probably, that, like the O'Flaherty, one
cannot comfortably worship a lily, without a considerable amount of
mutton chops as well--and in the end she may sigh for the tasteless man
who yet had the taste to love her.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: We worship the "beautiful" too much.]

I think most of us carry this tendency to worship the beautiful too far,
and our scorn for the physically unsatisfactory is one of our cruellest
and most glaring latter-day faults. It is true we are equally cordially
hard on ourselves, and hate our vile bodies, when their aches and pains
intrude themselves between us and our soul's delight--for it is from the
Pagan, not the Christian, point of view that most lovers of beauty
regard life. And if a man's taste require costly gratification of it,
say by pictures, by marbles, by the thousand and one sumptuous trifles
that go to make the modern house beautiful, then that man is not
possessed of true taste, and he will be poorer in his palace than if he
dwelt ragged in Nature's lap, with all her riches, and those of his own
mind, at his disposal. For the true artistic sense impels one to work
always--and always to better and not worsen, what it touches. The
artistic sense that lazes, and lets other people work to gratify it, is
a bastard one, more, it is immoral, and neither bestows, nor receives,
grace. It cannot be fashioned, it may not be bought, this strange sense
of the inward beauty of things; nor a man's wife, nor his own soul, nor
his beautiful house shall teach it him, and he will never be one with
the Universe, with God, understanding all indeed, but not by written
word or speech, but by what was born in him. And though he may suffer
through it too, though to the ugly, the deaf, and the afflicted, such a
gift may seem bestowed in cruellest irony, still when all is said and
done I can think of no better summary of the whole than that given by
Philip Sydney's immortal lines on love. You all know them--

  "He who for love hath undergone
  The worst that can befall
  Is happier thousandfold than he
  Who ne'er hath loved at all ...
  For in his soul a grace hath reigned
  That nothing else could bring."

[Sidenote: Alfred C. Calmour is doubtful.]

The artistic temperament is both a blessing and a curse. It is a
blessing when it lifts a man's soul out of the slough of vulgar
commonplace, and turns his thoughts to the contemplation of noble
things, while at the same time it enables him to give something to the
world which it would not willingly lose, and for which he can obtain
adequate remuneration. But it (the artistic temperament) is a curse when
it tempts a man from that honest employment which provides him with
bread and butter, and leaves him a defeated, disappointed, and
heartbroken wretch, unable to return to that humble course of life which
had happily supplied his daily wants.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Mrs. Panton considers it a fantastic demon.]

Personally speaking, I consider the possession of the artistic
temperament a distinct curse to those unfortunate folk who have to live
with the owner of this fantastic demon; while if the possessor knows how
to deal with his old Man of the Sea he has a most powerful engine at his
command: for once let the world at large know that the "artistic
temperament" has entered into him, his strangest freaks become more than
put-up-able with, and the brighter he is in company, and the more
irritable and offensive he is at home, the more law is given him, and
the less work, and, may I add, decency, is expected of him, until he
appears to agree with his compeers or followers, and begins to be as
eccentric as he likes. Commencing with long hair touching his shoulders,
and with an absence of the use of Someone's soap, he passes on through
mystic moonlight glances to a still more artistic appreciation of the
charms of Nature at her simplest, until Mrs. Grundy looks askance, and
duchesses and other leaders of Society squabble over him, and try one
against the other for the honour and pleasure of his society. So far,
then, the artistic temperament is for its possessor a fine thing, for it
cannot put up with indifferent fare and lodging: it can only prove its
existence by the manner in which it annexes all that is richest, most
beautiful, and, to use a byegone slang word, most Precious. For it is
reserved the luxurious Chesterfield or Divan, heaped with rainbow-like
cushions, and placed in the most becoming light, until the quick,
unhappy day dawns when another "artistic temperament" comes to the fore,
and the first retires perforce, if not a better, certainly a sadder,
man, for all that has been happening unto him. Now comes the time when
one sees the slow-witted creature sinking gradually into the mere
haunter of the Gaiety bar: when the sacred lamp burns brightly, and
causes him to recollect, sadly indeed, the days that are no more. Or we
find the man who has learned his bitter lesson, and recognising that
_he_ still exists--albeit the beast is dead--turns to the work he was
meant to do, and does that nobly, though the mad and beautiful days of
his youth have done, and all that caused life to be lovely has faded
slowly into the _ewigkeit_.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: But that, if true, it must often be a delight.]

If the "artistic temperament" is true and not a sham, to the owner at
least it must often be a sheer delight, for the elf or "troll" which
goes by this name takes such possession of the owner that under his
guidance he sees "What man may never see, the star that travels far."
"The light" that the poet declares shone on sea or shore, shines for him
always, if for no one else: he walks with Beatrice in Paradise, not in
the "other place;" and his delight in the mere rapture of existence is
such that he hardly cares to speak for joy, and for the certainty that
not one living creature on earth would understand him if he did. For
even if he recognised another elf or troll, peeping out of the eyes of a
friend, it would not be his own familiar spirit, and, in consequence, he
would not understand the other, because no two of these fantastic
creatures ever speak entirely alike. But if we mention those who have to
exist with the owner of this fantastic Will-o'-the-wisp--for he is as
often absent as present--this makes the whole thing a matter of
speculation. I feel as if I could not do justice to the idea, for I,
too, have lived once on a time with these others; and I would rather not
repeat the experiment.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Joseph Hatton declares it to be the choicest gift of all.]

_Punch's_ illustration of Lord Beaconsfield's announcement that he was
"on the side of the angels" casts somewhat of a shadow over the
sentiment; yet I feel constrained to quote it, as representing my own
feelings in regard to the question whether the artistic temperament is a
curse or a blessing. Shakespeare had it; Dickens had it; and Thackeray
confessed that he would have been glad to black Shakespeare's boots. One
may well be convinced that it is a blessing by the penalties which
Heaven exacts from its possessors. It means the capacity to enjoy and
appreciate the beautiful; with the great poets and novelists it means
the power to express the beautiful and describe it "in thoughts that
breathe and words that burn." On the other hand, it means experiencing a
keener sense of pain than those are capable of who do not possess tender
susceptibilities. But in the spirit of "better fifty years of Europe
than a cycle of Cathy" the miseries that belong to the poetic
temperament are better than the pleasures that go with its opposite. To
feel the full glory of the sun, the joy of the Western wind, to hear the
aphonous whisperings of the flowers, to be fancifully cognisant of "the
music of the spheres"; better this with only a garret for your
environment, than to be a wealthy Peter Bell in a palace, or a lord of
many acres who sees nothing beyond its intrinsic value in a Turner, and
finds Shelley poor stuff and Tennyson only a rhymster. It is the
artistic temperament that lives up to the glories of Nature, and
understands the parables; and you need not be a writing poet to have it.
There is many a poet who never wrote a line, many a romancist who never
contributed to a magazine. The ploughboy whistling behind his team, the
gardener lovingly pruning his vines, the angler sitting in the shade of
summer trees, even the playgoer craning his neck over the gallery and
failing to catch the last words of Hamlet on the stage, may be blessed
with something of "the divine afflatus," to be born utterly without
which is to require at the Maker's hands a compensation. Thus He gives
in a lower form the trick of money-making, the rank of birthright, the
cheap distinction of a high place in society; with poverty He joins the
peace of humble content, a solid faith in the bliss of a future state,
and the rough enjoyment of perfect health. But the poetic temperament is
the choicest gift of all; it may have occasional glimpses of the
bottomless pit, but it can make its own heaven, and paint its own
rainbow upon "the storms of life."

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Angelina wants to concentrate genius.]

The artistic temperament implies genius--and "there's the rub," for we
others don't understand genius. The Almighty bestowed the blessing; we
have superadded the curse of an ignorant reception. The Genius is the
child of his century. _We_ persist in relegating him to his family. He
asks for materials and room to create. We answer him, "Go to--thou art
idle. Put money in thy purse." We bind him with cords of
conventionality, and deliver him into the hands of the Philistines. We
declare him to be a rational animal who could pay his bills if he
chose--and we County Court him if he does not. We build and maintain
stately edifices for the accommodation of paupers, criminals, and
idiots; but for the Genius there is not even the smallest parish
allowance made to his relatives to pay for a keeper. How _can_ he expand
under present conditions? "_Es bildet ein Talent sich in der stille_,"
says Goethe, and I think you will admit that there is precious little of
"_der stille_" to be found either in ordinary domestic life, or that
refuge of the desperate, a garret in Bloomsbury. Picture to yourself
Orpheus executing frenzied violin _obbligati_ to the family baby
(teething)--or Apollo hastily descending the slopes of Olympus to argue
with a tax collector, or irate landlady! Alas! few survive this sort of
thing. What I would propose is a Grand National Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Genius--including a National Asylum for its
reception and maintenance. Geniuses would be fed and clothed, and have
their hair cut by the State, who would adopt and cherish them during
life, and bequeath them to posterity at death. In this blissful retreat
they would be preserved from the chilling influences of the outer world,
liberally supplied with foolscap, musical instruments, and padded cells,
and protected from all that had hitherto oppressed them--including cats,
organ-grinders, creditors, and matrimony. Worshippers of the opposite
sex would be allowed to express their appreciation sensibly, by
contributions to the box at the door. Just think of the enormous
advantage which would be gained by thus concentrating our Genius as we
do our other illuminating forces; the saving of brain power by avoiding
outside friction. Why there need be absolutely _no_ waste! Genius could
be "laid on," at a fixed rate, and "lions" supplied by annual
subscription.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Florence Marryat believes it to be a blessing.]

Surely--without a manner of doubt--a Blessing--the greatest blessing
ever bestowed by Heaven on Man--the best panacea for the troubles of
this life--the magic wand that, for the time being, opens the door of a
Paradise of our own creation. And in order to procure this enjoyment, it
is not necessary that the artist should be successful. Disappointment
may be the issue of his attempt, but the attempt itself--the knowledge
that he _can_ attempt--is so delightful. The work may never reach the
artistic ideal--it seldom does--but no artist believes in failure,
whilst the child of his brain is germinating. It looks so promising--it
grows so fast--the ideas which are to render it immortal press so
quickly one upon the other, that he has hardly time to grasp
them--whilst his breast heaves and his eye sparkles, and his whole frame
quivers with the sense of power to conceive and to bring to the birth.
No fear enters his mind then that his offspring will prove to be
stunted, deformed, or weakly. It is his own--no man has begot it before
him--and he can take no interest in anything else, until it is
completed. Is this not true of the Painter, as he stands with his
charcoal in hand thinking out his picture for next year's Academy?--of
the Composer, seated before his piano and running his fingers with
apparent want of design over the keys?--of the Author, as he walks to
and fro and plans the details of his new plot?--of the Poet, as he gazes
up into the skies and hears the rhythm of his lines in the "music of the
stars?" True, that the finely-organised and sensitive temperament of the
Artist suffers keenly when jarred by the discord of the world--that it
amounts almost to a curse to be interrupted when in the throes of a new
conception (just thought of and hardly grasped) by someone who has no
more notion of what he is undergoing than a deal table would have, and
pulls him back roughly from his Paradise to the sordid details of Life,
putting all his airy fancies to flight, perhaps, by the process. But
neither this materialistic world, nor all the fools that inhabit it, can
ever really rob the Artist of the joy--in which "no stranger
intermeddleth"--of the Realm of fancy which is his own domain, inherited
by right of his genius. Though he may pass through Life unappreciated
and unsuccessful, let him still thank God for the Divine power which has
been given him--the power to create! It will tide him over the loss of
things, which other men cut their throats for--it will stand him in
stead of wife and child--in stead of friends and companionship.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: And that the true artist is never alone.]

Is the true Artist ever alone? Do not the creatures of his brain walk
beside him wherever he may go? Do they not lie down with him and rise up
with him, and even when he is old and grey, his heart still keeps fresh,
from association with the Young and Beautiful, with the blossoms of
Womanhood and of Spring, that have bloomed upon his canvas--with the
notes of the birds and the sounds of falling water that his fingers have
conjured to life upon his instrument--with the fair maidens and noble
youths that he has accompanied through so many trials and conducted to
such a blissful termination in his pages. And beyond all this--beyond
the joy of conception and the pride of fruition--there is an added
blessing on the artistic temperament. Surely the minds which are always
striving after the ideally Perfect must be, in a measure, refined and
purified by the height of the summit they try to reach. "We needs must
love the highest, when we see it." It is a Blessing to have the desire
to reach the highest, even though we fail, and our natures are raised by
the mere contemplation of it. So that the Artist may well forget the
rebuffs and cold douches which he receives from those who cannot
sympathise with him, and thank Heaven that he can walk out of their
world into his own.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Zangwill draweth a distinction.]

There are two aspects of the artistic temperament--the active or
creative side, and the passive or receptive side. It is impossible to
possess the power of creation without possessing also the power of
appreciation; but it is quite possible to be very susceptible to
artistic influences while dowered with little or no faculty of
origination. On the one hand is the artist--poet, musician, or
painter--on the other, the artistic person to whom the artist appeals.
Between the two, in some arts, stands the artistic interpreter--the
actor who embodies the aëry conceptions of the poet, the violinist or
pianist who makes audible the inspirations of the musician. But in so
far as this artistic interpreter rises to greatness in his field, in so
far he will be found soaring above the middle ground, away from the
artistic person, and into the realm of the artist or creator. Joachim
and De Reszke, Paderewski and Irving, put something of themselves into
their work; apart from the fact that they could all do (in some cases
have done) creative work on their own account. So that when the
interpreter is worth considering at all, he may be considered in the
creative category. Limiting ourselves then to these two main varieties
of the artistic temperament, the active and the passive, I should say
that the latter is an unmixed blessing, and the former a mixed curse.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: He speaketh of ye curse.]

What, indeed, can be more delightful than to possess good æsthetic
faculties--to be able to enjoy books, music, pictures, plays! This
artistic sensibility is the one undoubted advantage of man over other
animals, the extra octave in the gamut of life. Most enviable of mankind
is the appreciative person, without a scrap of originality, who has
every temptation to enjoy, and none to create. He is the idle heir to
treasures greater than India's mines can yield; the bee who sucks at
every flower, and is not even asked to make honey. For him poets sing,
and painters paint, and composers write. "_O fortunatos nimium_," who
not seldom yearn for the fatal gift of genius! For _this_ artistic
temperament is a curse--a curse that lights on the noblest and best of
mankind! From the day of Prometheus to the days of his English laureate
it has been a curse

  "To vary from the kindly race of men,"

and the eagles have not ceased to peck at the liver of men's
benefactors. All great and high art is purchased by suffering--it is not
the mechanical product of dexterous craftsmanship. This is one part of
the meaning of that mysterious _Master Builder_ of Ibsen's. "Then I saw
plainly why God had taken my little children from me. It was that I
should have nothing else to attach myself to. No such thing as love and
happiness, you understand. I was to be only a master builder--nothing
else." And the tense strings that give the highest and sweetest notes
are most in danger of being overstrung.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: And its compensations.]

But there are compensations. The creative artist is higher in the scale
of existence than the man, as the man is higher than the beatified
oyster for whose condition, as Aristotle pointed out, few would be
tempted to barter the misery of human existence. The animal
has consciousness, man self-consciousness, and the artist
over-consciousness. Over-consciousness may be a curse, but, like the
primitive curse--labour--there are many who would welcome it!

       *       *       *       *       *


FOOTNOTES:

[1] _i.e._, Gambled at Faro.

[2] See the writer's _Life of David Gray_.

[3] I have given a detailed account of Peacock in my "Look Round
Literature."

[4] O those "Tendencies of one's Time"! O those dismal Phantoms,
conjured up by the blatant Book-taster and the Indolent Reviewer! How
many a poor Soul, that would fain have been honest, have they bewildered
into the Slough of Despond and the Bog of Beautiful Ideas!--R.B.

       *       *       *       *       *






End of Project Gutenberg's The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893, by Various