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                          Transcriber’s Notes

  This e-text is based on ‘The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine,’
  from November, 1912. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation have
  been retained, but punctuation and typographical errors have been
  corrected. Passages in English dialect and in languages other than
  English have not been altered. Footnotes have been moved to the end
  of the corresponding article.

  Specific font styles have been marked by using the following special
  characters:

      italics:    _underscores_
      bold:       =equals signs=
      small caps: ~tildes~
      underlined: +plus signs+

  The caret symbol (^) denotes a following superscript character.

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                              THE CENTURY
                          ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY
                               MAGAZINE

                              VOL. LXXXV
                        NEW SERIES: VOL. LXIII
                    NOVEMBER, 1912, TO APRIL, 1913

                            [Illustration]

                       THE CENTURY CO., NEW YORK
                      HODDER & STOUGHTON, LONDON




              Copyright, 1912, 1913, by ~The Century Co.~


                          THE DE VINNE PRESS




  INDEX
  TO
  THE CENTURY MAGAZINE

  VOL. LXXXV      NEW SERIES: VOL. LXIII


                                                                    PAGE

  ~After-Dinner Stories.~

    Bearding Whistler in his Den; “Rules
      are Made to be Broken”; Serviceable
      French                              _Sylvester Menlo_          156

    A Reminiscence of Marion Crawford.    _Baddeley Boardman_        319

    Why he Could Not Go with his State;
      A Significant Saying of Henry
      Clay                                _Arthur G. Rowe_           478

    Mark Twain in an Emergency; The Narrow
    Escape of Bobby Sawyer                _John B. Quackenbos_       637

    Anecdotes of President Cleveland; A
      Fable for Office-seekers                                       800

    The Sultan of Moro on the
      _Charleston_                        _E. C. Rost_               958

    Remington on Tiger-Hunting            _S. Walter Jones_          959

  ~After-the-War Series, The Century’s~

    The Humor and Tragedy of the Greeley
      Campaign                            _Henry Watterson_           26
        Pictures from photographs and
          cartoons.

    The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

        I. The Causes of Impeachment      _Harrison Gray Otis_       187

       II. Emancipation and Impeachment   _John B. Henderson_        196
        Portraits, and drawing by Jay
          Hambidge.

      III. The President’s Defense        _Gaillard Hunt_            422

       IV. Anecdotes of Andrew Johnson    _Benjamin C. Truman_       435
        Pictures from photographs,
          portraits, etc.

    Our Alaska Bargain.

      Introduction                                                   581

      Alaska as a Territory of the
        United States                     _Alfred Holman_            582
        Pictures by Jay Hambidge, Nast,
          and Harry Fenn; photographs
          and map.

    Our Greatest Victory of Peace.

      Introduction                                                   702

      The Arbitration of the Alabama
        Claims                            _William Conant Church_    703
        With cartoons from “Punch,”
          drawings by W. Taber, J. O.
          Davidson, and photographs.

    The Southern View of Reconstruction.

      Introduction                                                   843

      The Aftermath of Reconstruction     _Clark Howell_             844
        Pictures from photographs.

    How We Redeemed Alabama               _Hilary A. Herbert_        854
        Pictures from photographs and
          cartoons.

      Ex-Senator Edmunds on
        Reconstruction and Impeachment                               863

  ~Americans from the European Point
    of View.~                             _Maurice Francis Egan_     686

  “~An Elite of Thoughtful Men~”          _Editorial_                632

  ~Annunciation, The.~ From the
    painting by                           _H. O. Tanner_              57

  ~Arch of Constantine Unveiled, The
    Mystery of the~                       _A. I. Frothingham_        449
      Pictures from photographs.

  ~Artists Series, American, the Century’s.~

    Mary Greene Blumenschein: Idleness                               162
      Printed in color.

    Henry Golden Dearth: The White Rose                              324
      Printed in color.

    John C. Johansen: Portrait of Mr. J. H. K----                    563
      Printed in color.

    William M. Chase: Portrait of Annie Traquair Lang                721
      Printed in color.

  ~Assassin, The~                         _Horace Hazeltine_         678
      Pictures by W. M. Berger.

  ~Balkan Peninsula, Skirting The~        _Robert Hichens_

     I. Picturesque Dalmatia                                         643
      Pictures by Jules Guérin, Joseph
        Pennell, and from photographs.

    II. In and Near Athens                                           884
      Pictures by Jules Guérin and
        from photographs.

  ~Bergson, Henri~                        _Alvan F. Sanborn_         172
      Portrait by Jacques Blanche.

  ~Big Job, the, The End of~              _Farnham Bishop_           271
      Pictures from photographs, map,
        and diagram.

  ~Browning, Robert, as Seen by his Son~  _William Lyon Phelps_      417

  ~Burnett, Frances Hodgson.~ See “T. Tembarom.”

  ~Canal Blunder, the, A Way Out of:
    Repeal the Exemption~                 _Editorial_                150

  ~Capitol at Washington, The.~
      Lithographs by                      _Joseph Pennell_           787

  ~Capture of New York, The~              _Paul B. Malone_           927

  ~Cartoons.~

    Ambidextrous                          _Neagle_                   157

    “When Immortal Meets Immortal”        _John T. McCutcheon_       158

    “Does Your Muvver Make You Wear
      Old Clothes?”                       _J. R. Shaver_             639

    “We are Seven”                        _J. R. Shaver_             801

    At an Exhibition of “Cubist”
      Pictures                            _Abel Faivre_              960

  ~Cartoons, American, of To-day~         _Frank Weitenkampf_        540
      With examples of work by noted
        cartoonists.

  ~Cervantes Looked, How~                                            256

  ~Children’s, The, Uncensored
    Reading~                              _Editorial_                312

  ~Christmas, Emmy Jane’s~                _Julia B. Tenney_          319

  ~Christmas Fête, A, in California~      _Louise Herrick Wall_      210
      Pictures by W. T. Benda.

  ~Christmas Tree, The, on Clinch~        _Lucy Furman_              163
  Pictures by F. R. Gruger.

  ~Church Unity, The Increasing Hope of~  _Editorial_                631

  ~Cleveland, Grover, and his Cabinet
    at Work~                              _Hilary A. Herbert_        740
      Picture from photograph.

  ~Cole’s (Timothy) Engravings of Masterpieces in American Galleries.~

    Woman with the Lamp. By Jean Francois Millet                       2

    Lady Mildmay. By Hoppner                                         225

    The Countess Leccari. By Vandyke                                 515

    Young Woman with a Guitar. By Vermeer                            804

  ~Cole’s (Timothy) Engravings of Masterpieces in French Galleries.~

    Marie Leczinska. By Vanloo                                       405

  ~Dante’s Divine Comedy.~ Red chalk
    drawings.                             _Violet Oakley_            239

  ~Democratic Achilles’ Heel, The~        _Editorial_                470

  ~Divorce in War and Wedlock, On~        _Gilbert K. Chesterton_    634

  ~Doctor to the Saints.~                 _Amanda Mathews_           816
      Pictures by W. M. Berger.

  ~Etchings, Eight~                       _Frank Brangwyn_           441

  ~European Politics, a Bird’s-Eye
    View of~                              _André Tardieu_            821

  ~Exhortation.~ Music by                 _Will Marion Cook_          58

  ~Fairy Wife, The~                       _Maurice Hewlett_          500
      Frontispiece in color by Arthur
        Rackham.

  ~Feminist, The, of France~              _Ethel Dean Rockwell_      116
      Pictures from photographs.

  ~Financing a Campaign, The New Way of~  _Editorial_                152

  ~Fraternities in Women’s Colleges.~

    The Fraternity Idea among College
      Women                               _Edith Rickert_             97
      Pictures by J. Norman Lynd, and
        from photographs.

    Exclusiveness among College Women     _Edith Rickert_            227

    Comments on Miss Rickert’s Articles
      by the Presidents and Deans of
      Various Colleges for Women                                     326

  ~Frying-Pan and the Fire, The~          _Edith Barnard Delano_     873
      Pictures by Paul J. Meylan.

  ~Furness, Horace Howard~. See “Shakspere.”

  ~Giving Away the Nation’s Property.~    _Editorial_                315

  ~Glimpses of the Old South~.
      Pictures by Vernon Howe Bailey.                                839

  ~Hare, The~                             _Richard Dehan_            602
      Picture by Henry Raleigh.

  ~Health, National, and Medical
    Freedom~                              _B. O. Flower_  }          512
                                          _Irving Fisher_ }

  ~Hobby, On Breaking in a~               _Elsie Hill_               635

  ~“Holy Calm,” The Wooing of~            _Marion Hamilton Carter_   218
      Picture by Fletcher C. Ransom.

  ~Holy War, American and Turk in~        _William T. Ellis_         456
      Pictures from photographs.

  ~Hungry Sheep, The~                     _William Lyon Phelps_      114

  ~Impressions of New York.~              _Pierre Loti_         609, 758
      Portrait from an unpublished
        photograph.

  ~Jefferson, Joseph, The Human Side of~  _Mary Shaw_                379
      Head-piece by Joseph Clement Coll,
        and photograph.

  ~Jerusalem, Lords Spiritual in~         _Thomas E. Green_          289
      Pictures from photographs.

  ~Justice in New York.~                  _Editorial_                473

  ~Knowingest Child, The Most~            _Lucy Furman_              763
      Picture by F. R. Gruger.

  ~Labor-Unions, The Peril of the~        _Editorial_                792

  ~Ladybrook Water, The Sound of~         _John Trevena_             905
      Pictures by Norman Price.

  ~Lincoln.~

    Lincoln Could Return, If              _Editorial_                153

    Lincoln’s Pledge. With facsimile                                 554

    Lincoln as a Boy Knew Him             _John Langdon Kaine_       555

    Lincoln’s Assassination, A New
      Story of                            _Jesse W. Weik_            559

  ~Long Sam “Takes Out.”~                 _Ellis Parker Butler_      571
      Pictures by May Wilson Preston.

  ~Loti, Pierre~.  See “Impressions.”

  ~Magic Casements, On~                   _Vida D. Scudder_          316

  ~Man, A, and his Dog~                   _Hugh Johnson_             732
      Pictures by E. M. Ashe.

  ~Manship, Paul, Sculpture by~                                      869
      With editorial note.

  ~McGinnis, the Mystery of~              _Charles D. Stewart_       723
      Pictures by Reginald Birch.

  ~National Honor on the
    Bargain-Counter.~                     _Editorial_                952

  ~Negro Having a Fair Chance? Is the~    _Booker T. Washington_      46

  ~Newsboy, The New York~                 _Jacob A. Riis_            247
      Pictures by J. R. Shaver.

  ~New Year Resolutions, on Checkmating~  _Leonard Hatch_            474

  ~Noël, Little, The Miracle of~          _Virginia Yeaman Remnitz_  181
    Pictures by W. T. Benda and Joseph
      Clement Coll.

  ~Noteworthy Stories of the Last Generation~.

    Lady or the Tiger, The                _Frank R. Stockton_        534
      Portrait, and new drawings by
        Oliver Herford.

    Monte Flat Pastoral, A                _Bret Harte_               828
      Portrait, and picture by N. C.
        Wyeth.

  ~Opera in New York; Giulio
    Gatti-Casazza.~                       _Algernon St. John Brenon_ 368
      Pictures by Arthur I. Keller;
       caricatures by Enrico Caruso.

  ~Panama Tolls Blunder, The~             _Editorial_                630

  ~Perilous, Doings on.~ See “Scarborough,” “Christmas,” “Knowingest.”

  ~Pie-Colored Horse, The~                _Marion Hamilton Carter_   517
  Pictures by Reginald Birch.

  ~Play, A Strange New~                                              960

  ~Playing with Fire, The New Game of~    _Editorial_                795

  ~Political Virtues, The, President
    Wilson Will Need~                     _Editorial_                629

  ~Post-Impressionist Illusion, The~      _Royal Cortissos_          805
      Examples by “Cubists,”
        “Futurists,” and others.

  ~Realism and Reality in Fiction.~       _William Lyon Phelps_      864

  ~Reporters, On the Two Kinds of~        _Simeon Strunsky_          955

  ~Roman Amphitheater, The, at Pola.~
    Painted by                            _Jules Guérin_             642

  ~Root’s, Mr., Great Speech~             _Editorial_                796

  ~Saddle-horses, Thoroughbreds and
    Trotters as~                          _E. S. Nadal_               71
      Pictures by J. C. Coll, Reginald
        Birch, from photographs and a
        painting by Richard Newton, Jr.

  ~Salome, The Story of~                  _E. B._                    638

  ~Scarborough Spoons, The~               _Lucy Furman_              126
      Pictures by F. R. Gruger.

  ~Scott, Frank Hall, Portrait of~                                   468

  ~Scott, Frank Hall~                     _Editorial_                469

  ~Secret Writing.~                       _John H. Haswell_           83

  ~Servants, The Spoiling of~             _Annie Payson Call_        915

  ~Shakspere Critic, Our Great~           _Talcott Williams_         108
      Portrait by Amy Otis.

  ~Shave, A Clean~                        _Grace MacGowan Cooke_      63
      Picture by F. E. Schoonover.

  ~Sinai, In the Land of~                 _Frederick Jones Bliss_    919
      Pictures from photographs.

  ~Siren of the Air, The~                 _Allan Updegraff_          282
      Picture by W. M. Berger.

  ~Socialism, English, The Set-Back to~   _Gilbert K. Chesterton_    236

  “~Solidarity.~”                         _Edna Kenton_              407
      Picture by F. R. Gruger.

  ~State Rights, A Wrong Application of~  _Editorial_                954

  ~Stella Maris.~                         _William J. Locke_     14, 258
      Pictures by Frank Wiles.

  ~Suffragists, Militant, Wanted:
    Straight Thinking about~              _Editorial_                151

  ~Suffragists, the Silent, of America~   _Editorial_                953

  ~Sweetness and Light, On the Relative
    Claims of~                            _Louise Herrick Wall_      154

  ~Taft, President, “Considerate
    Judgment” for~                        _Editorial_                794

  ~Tammany, the Larger Hope against~      _Editorial_                951

  ~Tempting One by Trusting Him, On~      _May Gay Humphreys_        798

  ~Terry Lute, The Art of~                _Norman Duncan_            397
      Picture by Jay Hambidge.

  ~Toscanini at the Baton.~               _Max Smith_                691
      Pictures by Arthur I. Keller,
        caricature by Enrico Caruso.

  ~Trade of the World Papers, The~        _James Davenport Whelpley_

    XIII. The Trade of Northern Africa                               136
      Pictures from photographs.

     XIV. The Trade of Russia                                        296
      Pictures from photographs.

      XV. Japan’s Commercial Crisis                                  483
      Pictures from photographs, and tables.

     XVI. The Trade of China                                         770
      Pictures from photographs.

  ~T. Tembarom.~                          _Frances Hodgson Burnett_  325
      Drawings by Charles S. Chapman.                      614, 658, 934

  ~Unmarried Woman, The, of England~      _J. B. Atkins_             565

  ~Unmarried Woman, The, in France~       _William Morton Fullerton_ 899

  ~Valentine, The.~  Drawing by           _Charles D. Hubbard_       533

  ~Voting, New Anxieties about~           _Editorial_                311

  ~Vox Pabuli~                            _Deems Taylor_             476

  ~War and Arbitration, A Christmas
    Thought on~                           _Editorial_                314

  ~Waterways, American, and the
    “Pork-Barrel”~                        _Hubert Bruce Fuller_      386
      Pictures from photographs.

  ~Wellaway’s Host, Mr.~                  _Ellis Parker Butler_        3

  ~Wilson, Woodrow.~

    The Kind of Man Woodrow
      Wilson Is                           _W. G. McAdoo_             744
      Pictures from photographs.

    Woodrow Wilson as a Man of Letters    _Bliss Perry_              753

    President Wilson and the Foreign
      Service                             _Editorial_                791

  ~“Woman of Leisure,” New York, The
    Diary of a~                           _Elsie Hill_               797

  ~Woman’s Suffrage Movement, the,
    Violence in~                          _Millicent Garrett
                                            Fawcett_                 148

  ~Women, Merchants, and War.~            _Editorial_                471


  VERSE

  ~Along the Road.~                       _Robert Browning Hamilton_ 562

  ~Ape Owe ’Em.~                          _Deems Taylor_             157

  ~Aphrodite, The Temple of~              _Alfred Noyes_             838

  ~Browning, Robert~                      _Margaret Widdemer_        416

  ~Carrel-ative Thanatology.~             _Corinne Rockwell Swain_   959

  ~Charms.~                               _William Rose Benét_       676

  ~Daddy Do-Funny’s Wisdom Jingles.~      _Ruth McEnery Stuart_ 320, 960

  ~Davy.~                                 _Louise Imogen Guiney_     107
    Head-piece from photograph.

  ~Deep Water Song.~                      _John Reed_                677
    Decoration by R. C. Hallowell.

  ~Double Crowning, The~                  _Amelia J. Burr_           769

  ~Dreams Denied, The~                    _Marion Couthouy Smith_    217

  ~Dunbar, Paul Laurence~                 _James D. Corrothers_       56

  ~Editor, The, and the Song~             _Deems Taylor_             960

  ~Glory Shall Follow Glory~              _Charles Hanson Towne_     288

  ~Grapes, The, of Eshcol~                _Emily Huntington Miller_   94
    Decorations in color by F. V. DuMond.

  ~Lactic Acid Bacillus, the, Ode to~     _Corinne Rockwell Swain_   478

  ~Light-Bearer, A~                       _Marion Couthouy Smith_   364

  ~Limericks~:
      Text and pictures by Oliver Herford.

     XVII. The Financier Fox                                         159

    XVIII. The Fastidious Yak                                        160

      XIX. The Filcanthropic Cow                                     319

       XX. Tact                                                      320

      XXI. The Partial Pig                                           479

     XXII. The Optimist                                              480

    XXIII. The Misapprehended Goose                                  640

     XXIV. The Mendacious Mole                                       802

      XXV. A Mock Miracle                                            961

     XXVI. The Fan-tastic Squirrel                                   962

  ~Negro Singer, The~                     _James D. Corrothers_       56

  ~Not Yet.~                              _Katharine Lee Bates_      739

  ~Open Land, the, Song of~               _Richard Burton_           553

  ~Pitilessness of Desire, The~           _Shaemas O’Sheel_          235

  ~Poet, To a Certain~                    _Walter Brooke_            476
      Drawing by Oliver Herford.

  ~Prayer, A~                             _Louis Untermeyer_         580

  ~Provence, Christmas Echoes from~       _Edith M. Thomas_          177
      Pictures by Charles S. Chapman.

  ~Rear-Guard, The~                       _Leonard Bacon_            827

  ~Scamps of Romance.~                    _William Rose Benét_        60
      Decorations by Reginald Birch.

  ~Semele.~                               _Grace Denio Litchfield_   467

  ~Sleep.~                                _Katharine French_         378

  ~Snow, The Lingering~                   _Harriet Prescott
                                            Spofford_                898

  ~Sorehead, the, The Plaint of~          _James D. Corrothers_      157

  ~Theater, At the.~ A lullaby.           _Deems Taylor_             801

  ~Then and Now.~                         _Carolyn Wells_            157

  ~Thoughts, December Twenty-fourth~      _Deems Taylor_             319

  ~To Any One.~                           _Witter Bynner_             70

  ~Unmasked.~                             _Madison Cawein_           365
      Decorations by Joseph Clement Coll.

  ~Vermont.~                              _Sarah N. Cleghorn_        873

  ~Voice of the Dove, The~                _George Sterling_          950

  ~Where Am I While I Sleep?~             _Grace Denio Litchfield_   685

  ~Will’s Counselor.~                     _Charles Wharton Stork_    539

  ~Winter-Sleep.~                         _Edith M. Thomas_          872
      Decoration by Oliver Herford.

  ~“Worker,” The~                         _Edmund Vance Cooke_       638


[Illustration]




     ~Vol.~ LXXXV, No. 1      NOVEMBER, 1912      PRICE, 35 CENTS

                              THE CENTURY
                              ILLUSTRATED
                              ❁ MONTHLY ❁
                               MAGAZINE

[Illustration:

  _Beginning_
  THE CENTURY’S
  “AFTER THE WAR”
  _Series_

  _with_

  “_The Humor & Tragedy
  of the
  Greeley Campaign_”

  _by
  Henry Watterson_
]

                 THE CENTURY CO▴UNION SQUARE▴NEW YORK

  ~FRANK H. SCOTT, President.~  ~WILLIAM W. ELLSWORTH, Vice-President
  and Secretary.~  ~DONALD SCOTT, Treasurer.~  ~Union Square, New York.~
  Copyright, 1912, by The Century Co.]  (Title Registered U. S. Pat.
  Off.)  [Entered at N. Y. Post Office as Second Class Mail Matter.




[Illustration]




[Illustration:

  TIMOTHY COLE’S
  WOOD ENGRAVINGS
  OF
  MASTERPIECES
  IN
  AMERICAN GALLERIES

  WOMAN WITH A LAMP

  BY

  JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET
]

[Illustration: Owned by Mr. Henry Clay Frick

WOMAN WITH A LAMP. BY JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET

(TIMOTHY COLE’S WOOD ENGRAVINGS OF MASTERPIECES IN AMERICAN
GALLERIES--XIII)]




Copyright, 1912, by The Century Co. All rights reserved.




~The Century Magazine~

  ~Vol.~ LXXXV       NOVEMBER, 1912        ~No. 1~




MR. WELLAWAY’S HOST

BY ELLIS PARKER BUTLER

Author of “Pigs is Pigs,” “The Man Who was Some One Else,” etc.




I

“No, sir,” said Mr. Wellaway, positively, “this is not the club at
all. This is not the sort of club. The club I mean has a heavier
head--heavier and flatter.”

The clerk looked here and there among the racks of golf-clubs, but his
general manner was that of hopelessness. There seemed to be thousands
of golf-clubs in the racks, and he had shown Mr. Wellaway club after
club, each seeming to fit the description Mr. Wellaway had given, but
in vain. Mr. Wellaway looked up and down the shop.

“If I could remember the name of the clerk,” he said, “he would know
the club. He sold one of them to Mr. ----” He hesitated. “Now I can’t
remember _his_ name. A rather large man with a smooth face. He has
a small wart or a wen just at the side of his nose. You didn’t wait on
such a man last week, did you?”

“I can’t recall him by the description,” said the clerk.

“Pshaw, now!” said Mr. Wellaway, with vexation. “I know his name as
well as I know my own! I would forget my own if people didn’t mention
it to me once in a while. It is peculiar how a man can remember faces
and forget names, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” said the clerk. “If you just look through these clubs
yourself, you may be able to find what you want. Was the name of the
clerk you had in mind Mills? Or Waterson? Or Frazer?”

“It might be Frazer,” said Mr. Wellaway, doubtfully.

“If it was Frazer,” said the clerk, “he left here last Saturday.”

“But couldn’t you look up Frazer’s sales and see what kind of driver he
sold? But of course you can’t if I don’t remember the name of the man
he sold it to, can you?”

“Not very well,” admitted the clerk, with a polite smile. “Now, if you
like a heavy club--”

He was interrupted by another customer. The golf goods were on the
basement floor, and a short flight of steps led to the basement from
the main floor, and the new customer had come down the stairs. He
was a big, bluff, hearty man, with a cheerful manner and a rather red
face, and Mr. Wellaway immediately remembered having met him sometime
and somewhere. He nodded his head with the ready comradeship of a
fellow-golfer.

“Hel_lo_!” exclaimed the new-comer, heartily. “Well! well! so you
are at it too, are you? Got the golf fever?” Then to the clerk: “Got my
brassy mended?”

“What name, sir?” asked the clerk.

“Didn’t leave any name,” said the big man. “It’s a mahogany brassy,
the only real mahogany brassy you ever saw. I had it made to order,”
he said to Mr. Wellaway, as the clerk hurried away to the repair
department. “So you’ve taken up golf, have you? It’s a great game.”

“It _is_ a great game,” said Mr. Wellaway; “but I’ve been at it a
long time. Not that I’m much good at it.”

“No one is ever any good at it except the crack players,” said the
other. “I’m as bad as they make ’em; but I love it. Where do you play?”

“Van Cortlandt,” said Mr. Wellaway.

“Ever play Westcote?”

“No,” said Mr. Wellaway. “I’ve been in the village, but I didn’t know
there was a course there.”

“Best little course you ever saw,” said the hearty man. “Nine holes,
but all beauties. I want you to play it sometime. Look here,” he added
suddenly, “what have you got on for this afternoon?”

“Well, I was going up to Van Cortlandt,” said Mr. Wellaway,
hesitatingly.

“That’s all off now! You’re coming out with me and have a try at our
Westcote course. Yes, you are. You know I never take ‘No’ for an answer
when I make up my mind. And, look here, we have just time to get a
train.”

Mr. Wellaway’s host beckoned violently to the clerk.

“But my clubs--” protested Mr. Wellaway.

“That’s all right, too. Our professional can fit you out.”

“I ought to telephone my wife.”

“Oh, do it from the club.”

The temptation was too much for Mr. Wellaway. It was a hot day, and he
knew the public links at Van Cortlandt would be crowded to the limit.
He imagined the cool green of the little course at Westcote and let
himself be persuaded, and in four minutes he was aboard the commuters’
train, being whirled under the East River.

It was not until the train was out of the tunnel and speeding along
over the Long Island right of way that he felt the first qualm of
uneasiness; but it was a very slight qualm. He was ashamed that he
could not remember the name of his host. The man’s face was certainly
familiar enough, and the man evidently knew Mr. Wellaway well enough to
invite him to play golf, or Mr. Wellaway would not have been invited;
but the name would not make itself known. But, after all, that was
an easily remedied matter. The first friend they met would call Mr.
Wellaway’s host by name.

At Woodside they left the electric train and boarded the steam train,
but no one had spoken to Mr. Wellaway’s host on the platform. One or
two men had nodded to him in a manner that showed they liked him, but
none mentioned his name. Mr. Wellaway smiled. He would use a little
very simple Sherlock Holmes work when the conductor came through for
the fares.

Mr. Wellaway had noticed that his host used a fifty-trip ticket-book
when the conductor asked for the fare on the electric, and now he
waited until the new conductor tore the trip leaves from the book and
returned the book to its owner.

“I see you use a book,” said Mr. Wellaway. “Do you find it cheaper than
buying mileage?”

He held out his hand for the book. It was an ordinary gesture of
curiosity, and his host surrendered the book.

“No, I don’t, not usually,” he said. “And a commutation-ticket is
cheaper than either. Now, a commutation-ticket costs--”

He entered into the commuter’s usual closely computed average of cost
per trip, and Mr. Wellaway nodded his acquiescence in the figures; but
his mind was elsewhere. He read as though interested the face of the
book, and then turned it over. There on the back, in a bold hand, under
the contract the thrifty railroads make book-holders sign, was the
signature, “Geo. P. Garris.” Mr. Wellaway stared at the name while he
ransacked his memory to recall a George P. Garris. He not only could
not recall a George P. Garris, but he could not remember ever having
heard or seen the name of Garris. If the second “r” was meant for a
“v,” the name might be “Garvis,” but that did not help. He could not
recall a Garvis. At any rate, it was some satisfaction to know his host
was George P. Garris or George P. Garvis. When and how he had met him
would probably soon appear.

[Illustration: Drawn by Henry Raleigh

“‘LOOK HERE,’ HE ADDED SUDDENLY, ‘WHAT HAVE YOU GOT ON FOR THIS
AFTERNOON?’”]

“I see you are looking at that name,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host, “and I
don’t wonder. Matter of fact, I have no business to have that book; but
Garvis was a good fellow, and he needed the money, so I bought it of
him when he left Westcote.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Wellaway, blankly, and then: “So that’s why you are not
using a commutation-ticket this month.” He had to say something.

“That’s the reason,” said his host; “and this is Westcote.”


II

The Westcote Country Club was all Mr. Wellaway’s host had boasted.
The greens rolled away from the small club-house in graceful beauty,
small groves of elms and maples studded the course, and picturesque
stone walls and sodded bunkers provided sufficient hazards. Everything
was as neat as a new pin. It was a sight to make any golfer happy, but
when the station cab rolled up to the club-house door, Mr. Wellaway
was not entirely happy. He was beginning to feel like an interloper.
The more he studied the face of his host, the surer he became that
he had no business to be a guest. As a word in print, when studied
intensely, becomes a mere jumble of meaningless letters, so the face of
his host grew less and less familiar, until Mr. Wellaway had decided
his familiarity was with the type of face and not with this particular
face. One thing alone comforted him: his host seemed to know Mr.
Wellaway.

As they left the cab, Mr. Wellaway made a desperate effort to learn
the name of his host; for he felt that if he did not learn it now he
was in for a most unpleasant five minutes. Mr. Wellaway was a small,
gentle little man, but he was almost rude in his insistence that he be
permitted to pay the cabby.

“Yes, I will,” he insisted. “I certainly will. If you don’t let
me, I’ll be downright angry. You paid my fare, and you offer me an
afternoon’s sport; but I am going to pay this cabman.”

“But this is my party,” said his host.

“You go right into the club-house, and let me pay,” said Mr. Wellaway.
“I want to do this, and you ought to let me.” With a laugh the host
turned away. Mr. Wellaway fumbled in his pocket until he was alone with
the cabman.

“What is the charge?” he asked.

“Quarter,” said the cabby, briefly.

“Here’s a dollar,” said Mr. Wellaway. “Now, can you tell me the name of
that man--the man who drove up with me?”

“No, sir,” said the cabman; “I don’t know what his name is.”

“I just wanted to know,” said Mr. Wellaway.

When he entered the club-house his host was alone.

“You wanted to telephone,” he said to Mr. Wellaway. “There’s the booth.
It’s a money-in-the-slot machine. I’ll get a greens-ticket and a bag of
clubs for you while you are in there, and we will not lose any time.
When you come out, come up to the locker-room.”

Mr. Wellaway entered the booth and closed the door. He called for his
number and waited while the connection was made. It was hot in the
booth with the door closed, but not for the world would Mr. Wellaway
have opened it.

“Hello, is that you, Mary?” he asked, when he had dropped the requisite
coins in the slot at the request of the central. “This is Edgar. Yes.
I’m out at Westcote, on Long Island. I’m going to play golf. I met a
friend, and he insisted that I come out here and try his course. I say
I met a friend. Yes, a friend. An old acquaintance. He lives out here.”

For a few seconds Mr. Wellaway listened.

“No, listen!” said Mr. Wellaway. “I don’t know _what_ his name
is, but I’ll find out. I just met him, you know, and he asked me, and
I couldn’t say, ‘Thank you, I’ll accept; but what is your name?’ I
couldn’t say that, could I? When he knew me so well? Oh, nonsense,
Mary! I tell you it’s a man.”

As he listened to what Mary had to say to this, Mr. Wellaway sighed
deeply.

“No, it is not funny that I don’t know his name,” he said. “You know I
can’t remember names, and I know thousands of men, and speak to them,
and can’t recall their names. Listen! There’s no reason in the world
for your jealousy to get stirred up. Not the least. I’ll know his name
inside half an hour, and if you are going to act that way about it,
I’ll telephone you the minute I learn it. Yes, I will! Well, that’s all
right, too; but since you take that attitude, I’m going to telephone
you. Good-by.” He waited half a minute for an answering “Good-by,” and
then hung up the receiver softly. Mary’s jealousy was a real annoyance.
Mr. Wellaway stepped out of the booth and wiped his forehead.

The small sitting-room of the club was deserted. In the adjacent
butler’s pantry he could hear the steward at work, and above the
low ceiling he could hear his host changing his shoes. On the
bulletin-board, among the announcements of competitions and new rules,
was a list of members posted for dues or house-accounts. It was a
very short list, and Mr. Wellaway recognized none of the names. On
the opposite wall was a framed list of the club-members, perhaps one
hundred and twenty-five, and Mr. Wellaway ran his eye down them. Only
one of the names was familiar, that of George C. Rogers, and the host
was not Rogers, for Mr. Wellaway knew Rogers well. Not another name was
even faintly familiar. Mr. Wellaway was still poring over the list when
his host descended the stairs.

“I see,” said Mr. Wellaway, “that George Rogers is a member of the
club.”

“That so?” said his host. “I don’t know him. I don’t know many of the
fellows yet. Rankin and Mallows are putting me up for membership, but
I’m playing on a temporary card until the next meeting of the board of
governors. They say there’s no doubt I’ll be admitted; but I don’t take
chances. I pay as I go until I’m a full member. When I’m in, I’ll sign
checks like the rest of them; but until I am in, I’ll pay cash. Now,
you run up and shuck your coat, if you want to, while I get you a bag
of clubs and a greens-ticket. I left my locker open--Number 43.”

Mr. Wellaway ascended the stairs. All about the locker-room were the
lockers, two high, and on each was the name of the holder. The door of
43 stood open, and Mr. Wellaway darted for it, and looked for the name
of his host. There was no name on the locker.

[Illustration: Drawn by Henry Raleigh

“‘NOW, CAN YOU TELL ME THE NAME OF THAT MAN--THE MAN WHO DROVE UP WITH
ME?’”]


III

In the locker was the usual accumulation of golfer’s odds and ends.
A few badly scarred golf-balls lay on the floor, along with a pair
of winter golf-shoes. A couple of extra clubs stood in one corner.
A sweater hung from a hook, and from another hook hung the coat and
waistcoat his host had just removed. From one pocket, the inside
pocket, of the coat protruded the tops of three or four letters. Mr.
Wellaway stared at the letters and perspired profusely. He had only
to put out his hand and raise the letters partly from the pocket to
know the name of his host. Then he could make an excuse to telephone
his wife again. Assuredly there was nothing dishonorable in merely
glancing at the address of the letters. But he stood very still and
listened intently before he put out his hand. He could hear the
soft tread of rubber-soled shoes on the floor below. Very gently
Mr. Wellaway raised the letters from the pocket just as he heard
the rubber-soled shoes touch the zinc treads of the stairs. He slid
the letters back into the pocket in a panic, and jerked off his
coat, but he had seen the address of the outermost letter. It was an
unmailed letter, and it was addressed to “Mrs. Edgar Wellaway, Rimmon
Apartments, West End Avenue, New York.”

“All ready!” said his host, cheerfully.

“Just a moment,” said Mr. Wellaway. He was taking his papers from his
coat-pockets and putting them in the hip-pocket of his trousers. A man
cannot be too careful.


IV

Mr. Wellaway’s host used a Scotch-plaid golf-bag, without initials
painted on it, and when the two men issued from the club-house the
bag was leaning against the wall immediately under the outside
bulletin-board. One list on the board was headed “Applications for
Membership,” but there were no names entered later than a month and a
half old, and all these had the word “Elected” written after them. When
Mr. Wellaway caught sight of the other list his face brightened.

“My handicap is eighteen,” he said, looking through the list of members
with the handicaps set opposite the names.

“Two better than mine,” said his host. “I play at twenty.”

“Twenty?” said Mr. Wellaway, running his finger up and down the
handicap list.

“But I haven’t been given a handicap here yet,” said his host. “They
don’t give you a handicap here until you are a member.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Wellaway, and turned away. He had no further interest in
the handicap-list.

The course was clear for the entire first hole. Mr. Wellaway got away
with a clean drive, but sliced his second into the rough, while his
host sliced his first into a sand-pit, got out with a high niblick
shot, and lay on the putting-green in three. Mr. Wellaway wasted a
stroke chopping out of the rough, and put his ball on the green with a
clean iron shot in four, close enough to putt out in one, making the
hole a five. His host took two to hole out, doing another five, but
winning the hole on his handicap, which gave him one stroke on the
first hole. It was good golf, par golf, and Mr. Wellaway was elated. To
do a hole in par on a strange course, after getting into the rough, was
better golf than he knew how to play, and the loss of the hole after
such playing made him only the more eager to play his best. He forgot
Mary’s jealousy and his annoyance at not knowing the name of his host,
and played golf as he had never played it before. The professional’s
clubs seemed to work magic in his hands. At the ninth hole he was still
one down, but his host did the first hole on the second round in eight,
to Mr. Wellaway’s seven, and it was seesaw around the course the second
time, with all even when eighteen holes had been played.

“I guess we can play it off before the storm hits us,” said Mr.
Wellaway’s host, and for the first time Mr. Wellaway noticed the black
clouds piling up in the west. They started the nineteenth hole with a
rush of wind whirling the dust from the road across the course, and
before they had walked to where their balls lay after their drives,
the forward edge of the storm-clouds, low, ragged, and an ugly yellow,
was full over them, and a glare of lightning, followed by a tremendous
crash, blinded them both. Mr. Wellaway’s host threw his bag of clubs on
the grass as though it were red hot, and started at a full run for the
club-house. Mr. Wellaway followed him.

Except for the steward and his wife, the club-house was already
deserted, the last automobile tearing down the club roadway as
Mr. Wellaway reached the veranda. The lightning exceeded anything
Mr. Wellaway had ever seen, and crash followed crash in deafening
explosions, as though the electrical storm had centered near the
club-house. A fair-sized hickory-tree, half dead from the depredations
of the hickory-bark beetle, fell crashing across the sleeping-room
annex of the club-house. For half an hour after the rain began to fall
in sheets the lightning continued, while Mr. Wellaway and his host
stared at the storm through the windows of the club-house; but about
six o’clock the worst of the storm had passed on, and the rain had
become a steady, heavy downpour.

“There’s one thing sure,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host: “there’s no going
home for you to-night.”

“But I must go home,” said Mr. Wellaway.

“If you must, of course you must,” said his host; “but there would
be no sense in going in this rain. We will have dinner right here. I
suppose you can get us up a couple of chops or something?”

“Yes, sir,” said the steward, who had returned from a survey of his
sleeping-quarters. “Chops or steak.”

“Then I’ll just ’phone my wife that I’ll not be home,” said Mr.
Wellaway’s host, and he entered the telephone-booth. In a few minutes
he came out again. “Can’t get central,” he said with annoyance. “The
thing is either cut off or burned out. Probably a tree has fallen
across the wires. I hate to drag you out through all this rain, but my
wife will be distracted if I don’t get home. She’ll imagine I’m killed.
You will have to come home with me and take pot-luck.”

[Illustration: Drawn by Henry Raleigh

“VERY GENTLY MR. WELLAWAY RAISED THE LETTERS FROM THE POCKET JUST AS HE
HEARD THE RUBBER-SOLED SHOES TOUCH THE ZINC TREADS OF THE STAIRS”]

“Why, that’s very kind of you,” said Mr. Wellaway, “but I could not
think of it. My own wife will be worrying. I’ll just scoot through the
rain to the station and get the first train home.”

“Of course, if you think best,” said the host. “We have to pass the
station on the way to my house. But Sarah would be glad to put you up
for the night.”

The station was not as far as Mr. Wellaway had feared, for it was not
necessary to walk to the main station; there was another nearer, and
they reached it a few minutes before a train for the city was due. Mr.
Wellaway’s host walked to the ticket-window.

“I presume the train is late,” he asked.

“You presume exactly right,” said the young man in the ticket-office.
“She’s not only late, but she’s going to be later before she ever
gets to New York. The lightning struck the Bloom Street bridge, and
the bridge went up like fireworks. It will be about twenty-four hours
before anybody from this town gets to New York.”

“Twenty-four hours!” exclaimed Mr. Wellaway, aghast. “But I can
telegraph.”

“If you can, you can do more than I can do,” said the young man. “I’ve
tried, and I can’t do it, and I’m a professional.”

“Well!” said Mr. Wellaway.

“All right,” said his host. “Now there’s nothing for you to do but
accept my invitation, and I make it doubly warm. Sarah will be
delighted. You are the first guest we’ve had for the night since we
moved out here. She’ll be delighted, I tell you. And so will I.”

[Illustration: Drawn by Henry Raleigh

“‘A TALL, THIN FELLOW, WITH SANDY SIDEBURNS. PROBABLY A FLOOR-WALKER IN
SOME SHOP, WITH A PERPETUAL SMILE’”]

“But I ought to go home,” insisted Mr. Wellaway.

“But you can’t go home,” laughed his host. “Come right along. Sarah
will be delighted. She’s--she’s fond of company. Perhaps our ’phone
will be working. You can telephone your wife from our house. Really,
Sarah will be glad--she’ll be delighted, I tell you.”

So Mr. Wellaway accompanied his host. The house to which he was led
was an average suburban dwelling, a frame house of ample size, with
wide verandas, a goodly lawn, and the usual clumps of shrubbery. At the
screen door the host paused.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll let you wait here while I step
inside and tell Sarah we are coming. Sarah is the most hospitable of
women, and that’s the reason I want to tell her. She’ll welcome you
with open arms, but--you know how these hospitable women are, don’t
you? They like a minute or two to get into a more than casual mood. It
will be all right. Only a minute.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Wellaway, feeling rather uncomfortable, and his
host opened the door with a latch-key and entered. If Mr. Wellaway
could have heard what passed inside that door, he would have turned and
run.

“Darling!” exclaimed his host’s wife when she saw him. “How wet you
are! Go right up-stairs and get into a hot bath this minute! You’ll die
of cold!”

“In a minute, Sarah,” said her husband; “but, first, I’ve got a man out
there. He’s going to stay for dinner and sleep here.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Sarah, letting her mind jump to her larder. “But we
didn’t expect any one. Really I don’t know. Perhaps I can make what I
have do. Is--is it any one important?”

“Don’t know,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host, hastily. “I’ll tell you all
about it when I’m dressing. I don’t know the fellow’s name, but he
knows me as well as I know you. I ought to know his name as well as
I know yours, but I don’t. I met him somewhere, and I remember he
was a good fellow. We’ll get his name out of him somehow before he’s
in the house very long, but, for Heaven’s sake! don’t let him know I
don’t know. He may be some one important. He looks as if he might be
somebody. I’ll bring him in. Don’t give me away.”

“But you don’t know who he is. He may be a thief--”

“Hope not. I can’t let him stand out there any longer, anyway. Be
pleasant to him.”

He threw open the door.

“Come right in!” he exclaimed heartily. “I’ve bearded the lioness, and
told her the story of our lives. I don’t believe you have met before.”

“I have not had that pleasure,” said Mr. Wellaway, making his best bow,
“but I am delighted, although I’m sorry to come unannounced.”

“Announced or unannounced, you might know you are always welcome,” said
Sarah, charmingly. “And the first thing is to get on some dry clothes.
You’ll both of you take cold. Run along, and I’ll see what we have for
dinner.”

The garments given him by his host did not fit Mr. Wellaway specially
well. They were considerably too large, but he was glad to get into
anything dry. What dissatisfied him with them more than aught else was
that they were the sort of garments of which the newspapers remark,
“There were no marks of identification.” The spare room into which he
was put offered no more aid. Three or four recent magazines lay on the
small table, but bore no names except their own titles. For the rest,
the spare room was evidently a brand-new spare room, fresh from the
maker. For purposes of identification it might as well have been a
hotel bedroom. Mr. Wellaway dressed hastily and hurried down-stairs.

The parlor, to the right of the stairs, stood open, and Mr. Wellaway
entered. A large fireplace occupied one end of the room, and the
furnishings and pictures bespoke a home of fair means, but no great
wealth. Magazines lay on a console table, but what attracted Mr.
Wellaway was a book-case. The case was well filled with books in good
bindings, and Mr. Wellaway stepped happily across the carpet and laid
his hand on the book-case door. It was locked.


V

Mr. Wellaway’s host and his host’s wife descended the stairs together
just as the maid issued from the dining-room to announce dinner,
and once seated, the conversation turned to the storm, to the utter
disruption of the telephone service, and to the game of golf the two
men had been unable to finish. In the midst of the conversation Mr.
Wellaway studied the monogram on the handles of his fork and spoon.
It was one of those triumphs of monogrammery that are so beautiful as
to be absolutely illegible. The name on the butter-knife handle was
legible, however. It was “Sarah.”

The soup had been consumed, and the roast carved when Mr. Wellaway’s
host looked at his wife and raised his eyebrows. She smiled in
acknowledgment of the signal.

“Don’t you think some names are supremely odd?” she asked Mr. Wellaway.
“My husband was telling me of one that came under his notice to-day.
What was it, dear?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t have noticed it but for the circumstances,” said Mr.
Wellaway’s host; “but it was a rather ridiculous name for a human
being. Can you imagine any one carrying around the name of Wellaway?”

Mr. Wellaway gasped.

“Imagine being a Wellaway!” said Sarah. “Isn’t it an inhospitable name?
It seems to suggest ‘Good-by; I’m glad you’re gone.’ Doesn’t it?”

“I can see the man with my mind’s eye,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host. “A
tall, thin fellow, with sandy sideburns. Probably a floor-walker in
some shop, with a perpetual smile.”

“But tell him the rest,” said Sarah, chuckling.

“Oh, the rest--that’s too funny!” said Mr. Wellaway’s host. “I had a
letter this morning from this Mrs. Wellaway--”

Mr. Wellaway turned very red and moved uneasily in his chair.

“I ought to tell you that--that I know Mrs. Wellaway,” he stammered.
“I--I know her quite well. In fact--”

“Then you’ll appreciate this,” said his host, merrily. “You know the
business I’m in. Every one knows it. So you can imagine how I laughed
when I read this letter.”

From the inside pocket of his coat Mr. Wellaway’s host took a letter.
He removed the envelop and placed it on the table, address down.

“Listen to this,” he said: “‘Dear Sir: Only the greatest anguish of
mind induces me to write to you and ask your assistance. It may be that
I am the victim of an insane jealousy, but I fear the explanation is
not so innocent. I distrust my husband, and anything is better than
the pangs of uncertainty I now suffer. If your time is not entirely
taken, I wish, therefore, to engage you to make certain that my fears
are baseless or well founded. Please consider the matter as most
confidential, for I am only addressing you because I know that when a
matter is put in your hands it never receives the slightest publicity.
Yours truly, Mrs. Edgar Wellaway.’”

When he had read the letter, Mr. Wellaway’s host lay back in his chair
and laughed until the tears ran from his eyes, and his wife joined
him, and their joy was so great they did not notice that Mr. Wellaway
turned from red to white and choked on the bit of food he had attempted
to swallow. When they observed him, he was rapidly turning purple, and
with one accord they sprang from their chairs and began thumping him
vigorously on the back. In a minute they had thumped so vigorously that
Mr. Wellaway was pushing them away with his hands. He was still gasping
for breath when they half led, half carried him to the parlor and laid
him on a lounge.

“By George!” said his host, self-accusingly, “I shouldn’t have read you
that letter. But I didn’t know you would think it so funny as all that.
Do you feel all right now?”

“I feel--I feel--” gasped Mr. Wellaway. He could not express his
feelings.

“Well, it was funny, writing that to me, of all people, wasn’t it?”
said Mr. Wellaway’s host. “‘Not the slightest publicity.’ I suppose
she looked up the name in the telephone directory, and got the wrong
address. I know the fellow she was writing to. Same name as mine. Same
middle initial. Think you can finish that dinner now?”

“No, thank you,” said Mr. Wellaway. “I think I’d like to rest here.”

“Just as you wish,” said his host. “Hello! There’s the telephone bell.
You can ’phone your wife now, if you wish.”

“No, thank you,” said Mr. Wellaway, meekly. “I’ll not. It’s of no
importance--no importance whatever.”


VI

“Well, what do you think!” exclaimed Mr. Wellaway’s host’s wife a
few minutes later, as she entered the parlor. “Of all the remarkable
things! You would never guess it. Who do you think just called me on
the ’phone? That Mrs. Wellaway!”

“No!” exclaimed Mr. Wellaway’s host, and Mr. Wellaway sat straight up
on the lounge.

“But she did,” said Sarah. “And she’s hunting that distrusted husband!
She telephoned the country club, and the steward told her there had
been no strangers there except your guest, so she telephoned here!
Imagine the assurance of the--”

She stopped short and stared at Mr. Wellaway. He was going through all
the symptoms of intense pain accompanied by loss of intelligence. Then
he asked feebly,

“What--what did you tell her?”

“I told her he wasn’t here, and hadn’t been here, of course,” said Mr.
Wellaway’s hostess, “and that we did not know any such man, and that
I didn’t believe he had come to Westcote at all, and that if I had a
husband I couldn’t trust, I’d keep better track of him than she did.”

“Did you--did you tell her all that?” asked Mr. Wellaway with anguish.

They stared at him in dismay.

“See here,” said his host, suddenly, “are you Mr. Wellaway?”

For answer Mr. Wellaway dropped back on the lounge and covered his face
with his hands.

“Now, I’ll never, never be able to make Mary believe I was here,” he
said, and then he groaned miserably.


VII

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” said Mr. Wellaway’s hostess in real distress. “We
were absolutely unaware, Mr. Wellaway. We meant no harm. Roger did not
know your name. But you can fix it all right. You can telephone Mrs.
Wellaway that you _are_ here. Telephone her immediately.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Wellaway. “I’ll do that. That’s what I must do,” and
he went up the stairs to the telephone. He returned in ten minutes and
found his host and hostess sitting opposite each other, staring at each
other with sober faces. They looked at him eagerly as he entered. His
face showed no relief.

“She says,” he said, “she says she don’t believe I’m here. She says I
could telephone from anywhere, and say I was anywhere else. She says
she just telephoned here, and knows I’m not here. And then she asked me
where I was telephoning from, and--”

Mr. Wellaway broke down and hid his face in his hands.

“And I didn’t know where I was telephoning from!” he moaned. “I didn’t
know the street or the house number, or--or the name!”

“You didn’t know the name!” cried Mr. Wellaway’s host. “You didn’t know
my name was Murchison?”

“Murchison?” said Mr. Wellaway, blankly. “Not the--not _the_
Murchison? Not Roger P. Murchison, the advertising agent, the publicity
man?”

“Of course,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host. For a full minute Mr. Wellaway
stared at Mr. Murchison.

“I know,” said Mr. Wellaway. “You eat at the Fifth Avenue! You sit by
the palm just to the left of the third window every noon.”

“By George!” exclaimed Mr. Murchison. “I knew your face was familiar.
And you sit at the end table right by the first window. Why, I’ve seen
you there every day for a year.”

“Of course you have,” said Mr. Wellaway, cheerfully. “That explains
everything. It makes it all as simple as--” His face fell suddenly.
“But it doesn’t make it any easier about Mary.”

Mr. Murchison might have said that Mary was none of his concern, but he
creased his brow in thought.

“Sarah,” he said at length, “run up-stairs and telephone Mrs. Wellaway
that her husband is here. Tell her he means to stay over Sunday, and
that he wants her to hire a taxicab and come out immediately and stay
over Sunday. Tell her our game of golf was a tie, and I insist that Mr.
Wellaway play off the tie to-morrow afternoon.”

Mrs. Murchison disappeared.

“And now,” said Mr. Murchison, genially, “you know my name, and you
know my business, and I know your name, and everything is all right,
and I’m mighty glad to know you as long as you are not a floor-walker.
Oh, pardon me!” he added quickly, “you are not a floor-walker, are you?
You didn’t say what your business was.”

Mr. Wellaway blushed.

“Names,” he said. “I’m a genealogist. My business is looking up names.”

[Illustration: Drawn by Henry Raleigh

“MR. WELLAWAY’S HOST THREW HIS BAG OF CLUBS ON THE GRASS AS THOUGH IT
WERE RED HOT, AND STARTED AT A FULL RUN FOR THE CLUB-HOUSE”]




[Illustration]




STELLA MARIS

BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE

Author of “The Beloved Vagabond,” “The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne,”
“Septimus,” “The Glory of Clementina,” etc.


CHAPTER XXII

They found him lying on the sofa, a pitiable object, the whole of his
head from the back of his neck to his eyebrows swathed in bandages. His
clothes were mere limp and discolored wrappings. They looked as though
they had been wet through, for the red of his tie had run into his
shirt-front and collar. The coarse black sprouts on pallid cheek and
upper lip gave him an appearance of indescribable grime. His eyes were
sunken and feverish.

Unity uttered a little cry as she saw him, but checked it quickly, and
threw herself on her knees by his side.

“Thank God you’re alive!”

He put his hand on her head.

“I’m all right,” he said faintly; “but you shouldn’t have come. That’s
why I didn’t go straight home. I didn’t want to frighten you. I’m a
ghastly sight, and I should have scared your aunt out of her wits.”

“But how, in Heaven’s name, man,” said Herold, “did you get into this
state?”

“Something hit me over the head, and I spent the night in rain and
sea-water on the rocks.”

“On the rocks? Where? At Southcliff?”

“Yes,” said John, “at Southcliff. I was a fool to go down, but I’ve
been a fool all my life, so a bit more folly doesn’t matter.” He closed
his eyes. “Give me a drink, Wallie--some brandy.”

Herold went into the dining-room, which adjoined the library, and
returned with decanter, syphon, and glasses. He poured out a brandy
and soda for John and watched him drink it; then he realized that he,
too, would be the better for stimulant. With an abstemious man’s idea
of taking brandy as medicine, he poured out for himself an extravagant
dose, mixed a little soda-water with it, and gulped it down.

“That’ll do me good,” said John; but on saying it he fell to shivering,
despite the heat of the summer afternoon.

“You’ve caught a chill,” cried Unity. She counseled home and bed at
once.

“Not yet,” he murmured. “It was all I could do to get here. Let me rest
for a couple of hours. I shall be all right. I’m not going to bed,”
he declared with sudden irritability; “I’ve never gone to bed in the
daytime in my life. I’ve never been ill, and I’m not going to be ill
now. I’m only stiff and tired.”

“You’ll go to bed here right away,” said Herold.

John protested. Herold insisted.

“Those infernal clothes--you must get them off at once,” said he. John
being physically weak, his natural obstinacy gave way. Unity saw the
sense of the suggestion; but it was giving trouble.

“Not a bit,” said Herold. “There’s a spare bedroom. John can have mine,
which is aired. Mrs. Ripley will see to it.”

He went out to give the necessary orders. Unity busied herself with
unlacing and taking off the stiffened boots. Herold returned, beckoned
to Unity, and whispered that he had telephoned for a doctor. Then he
said to John:

“How are you feeling, dear old man?”

“My head’s queer, devilish queer. Something fell on it last night and
knocked me out of time. It was raining, and I was sheltering under the
cliff on the beach, the other side of the path, where you can see the
lights of the house, when down came the thing. I must have recovered
just before dawn; for I remember staggering about in a dazed way. I
must have taken the road round the cliff, thinking it the upper road,
and missed my footing and fallen down. I came to about nine this
morning, on the rocks, the tide washing over my legs. I’m black and
blue all over. Wonder I didn’t break my neck. But I’m tough.”

“Thank God you’re alive!” said Unity again.

He passed his hands over his eyes. “Yes. You must have thought all
manner of things, dear. I didn’t realize till Ripley told me that I
hadn’t let you know. I went out, meaning to catch the 7:15 and come
back by the last train. But this thing knocked all memory out of me.
I’m sorry.”

Herold looked in bewilderment at the stricken giant. Even now he had
not accounted for the lunatic and almost tragic adventure. What was he
doing on the beach in the rain? What were the happenings subsequent to
his recovering consciousness at nine o’clock?

“Does it worry you to talk?” he asked.

“No. It did at first--I mean this morning. But I’m all right
now--nearly all right. I’d like to tell you. I picked myself up,
all over blood, a devil of a mess, and crawled to the doctor’s--not
Ransome; the other chap, Theed. He’s the nearest; and, besides, I
didn’t want to go to Ransome. I don’t think any one saw me. Theed took
me in and fixed me up and dried my clothes. Of course he wanted to
drag me to the Channel House, but I wouldn’t let him. I made him swear
not to tell them. I don’t want them to know. Neither of you must say
anything. He also tried to fit me out. But, you know, he’s about five
foot nothing; it was absurd. As soon as I could manage it, he stuck me
in a train, much against his will, and I came on here. That’s all.”

“If only I had known!” said Herold. “I was down there all the morning.”

“You?”

“I had a letter from Julia, summoning me.”

“So had I.” He closed his eyes again for a moment. Then he asked, “How
is Stella?”

“I had a long talk with her. I may have straightened things out a bit.
She’ll come round. There’s no cause for worry for the present. Julia is
a good soul, but she has no sense of proportion, and where Stella is
concerned she exaggerates.”

When a man has had rocks fall on his head, and again has fallen on
his head upon rocks, it is best to soothe what is left of his mind.
And after he had partly soothed it,--a very difficult matter, first,
because it was in a troubled and despairing state, and, secondly,
because John, never having taken Unity into his confidence, references
had to be veiled,--he satisfied the need of another brandy and soda.
Then Ripley came in to announce that the room was ready.

“Ripley and I will see to him,” said Herold to Unity. “You had better
go and fetch him a change of clothes and things he may want.”

“Mayn’t I wait till the doctor comes?” she pleaded.

“Of course, my dear. There’s no hurry,” said Herold.

The two men helped Risca to his feet, and, taking him to the bedroom,
undressed him, clothed him in warm pajamas, and put him into the bed,
where a hot-water bottle diffused grateful heat. Herold had seen the
livid bruises on his great, muscular limbs.

“Any one but you,” said he, with forced cheeriness, “would have been
smashed to bits, like an egg.”

“I tell you I’m tough,” John growled. “It’s only to please you that I
submit to this silly foolery of going to bed.”

As soon as Ripley was dismissed, he called Herold to his side.

“I would like to tell you everything, Wallie. I couldn’t in the other
room. Unity, poor child, knows nothing at all about things. Naturally.
I had been worried all the afternoon. I thought I saw her--you
know--hanging about outside the office. It was just before I met you
at the club. I didn’t tell you,--perhaps I ought to,--but that was
why I was so upset. But you’ll forgive me. You’ve always forgiven me.
Anyway, I thought I saw her. It was just a flash, for she, if it was
she, was swallowed up in the traffic of Fleet Street. After leaving the
club, I went back to the office--verification in proofs of something in
Baxter’s article. I found odds and ends to do. Then I went home, and
Julia’s letter lay on my table. I’ve been off my head of late, Wallie.
For the matter of that, I’m still off it. I’ve hardly slept for weeks.
I found Julia’s letter. I looked at my watch. There was just time to
catch the 7:15. I ran out, jumped into a taxi, and caught it just as it
was starting. But as I passed by a third-class carriage,--in fact, I
realized it only after I had gone several yards beyond; one rushes, you
know,--I seemed to see her face--those thin lips and cold eyes--framed
in the window. The guard pitched me into a carriage. I looked out for
her at all the stations. At Tring Bay the usual crowd got out. I didn’t
see her. No one like her got out at Southcliff. What’s the matter,
Wallie?” He broke off suddenly.

“Nothing, man; nothing,” said Herold, turning away and fumbling for his
cigarette-case.

“You looked as if you had seen a ghost. It was I who saw the ghost.”
He laughed. And the laugh, coming from the haggard face below the
brow-reaching white bandage, was horrible.

“Your brain was playing you tricks,” said Herold. “You got to
Southcliff. What happened?”

“I felt a fool,” said John. “Can’t you see what a fool a man feels when
he knows he has played the fool?”

Bit by bit he revealed himself. At the gate of the Channel House he
reflected. He had not the courage to enter. Stella would be up and
about. He resolved to wait until she went to bed. He wandered down
to the beach. The rain began to fall, fine, almost imperceptible.
The beacon-light in the west window threw a vanishing shaft into the
darkness.

“We saw it once--don’t you remember?--years ago when you gave her the
name--Stellamaris. I sat like a fool and watched the window. How long I
don’t know. My God! Wallie, you don’t know what it is to be shaken and
racked by the want of a woman--”

“By love for a woman, you mean,” said Herold.

“It’s the same thing. At last I saw her. She stood defined in the
light. She had changed. I cried out toward her like an idiot,”--the
rugged, grim half face visible beneath the bandage was grotesque, a
parody of passion,--“and I stayed there, watching, after she had gone
away. How long I don’t know. It was impossible to ring at the door and
see Oliver and Julia.”

He laughed again. “You must have some sense of humor, my dear man.
Fancy Oliver and Julia! What could I have said to them? What could they
have said to me? I sat staring up at her window. The rain was falling.
Everything was still. It was night. You know how quiet everything is
there. Then I seemed to hear footsteps and I turned, and a kind of
shape--a woman’s--disappeared. I know I was off my head, but I began
to think. I had a funny experience once--I’ve never told you. It was
the day she came out of prison. I sat down in St. James’s Park and fell
half asleep,--that sort of dog sleep one has when one’s tired,--and I
thought I saw her going for Stella--Stella in her bed at the Channel
House--going to strangle her. This came into my mind, and then
something hit me,--a chunk of overhanging cliff loosened by the rain, I
suppose,--and, as I’ve told you, it knocked me out. But it’s devilish
odd that she should be mixed up in it.”

“As I said, your brain was playing you tricks,” said Herold, outwardly
calm; but within himself he shuddered to his soul. The woman was like a
foul spirit hovering unseen about those he loved.

Presently the doctor, a young man with a cheery face, came in and
made his examination. There was no serious damage done. The only
thing to fear was the chill. If the patient’s temperature went down
in the morning, he could quite safely be moved to his own home. For
the present rest was imperative, immediate sleep desirable. He wrote a
prescription, and with pleasant words went away. Then Unity, summoned
to the room, heard the doctor’s comforting opinion.

“I’ll be with you to-morrow,” said John.

“You don’t mind leaving him to Mrs. Ripley and me just for one night?”
asked Herold.

“He’s always safe with you,” Unity replied, her eyes fixed not on him,
but on John Risca. “Good-by, Guardian dear.”

John drew an arm from beneath the bedclothes and put it round her thin
shoulders. “Good-by, dear. Forgive me for giving you such a fright, and
make my peace with auntie. You’ll be coming back with my things, won’t
you?”

“Of course; but you’ll be asleep then.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said John.

She made him cover up his arm again and tucked the bedclothes snugly
about him, her finger-tips lingering by his cheeks.

“I’ll leave you, too. Try and get to sleep,” said Herold.

They went together out of the room and back to the library.

“Has he said anything more?”

He stood before her trembling all over.

“What is the matter?”

He burst into an uncontrollable cry. “It’s that hellish woman again!
He saw her spying on him outside his office, he saw her in a railway
carriage on the train he took. Because she disappeared each time,
he thinks it was an hallucination; and somehow he was aware of her
presence just before the piece of rock came down.”

Unity’s face beneath the skimpy hair and rubbishy tam-o’-shanter was
white and strained.

“She threw it. I knew she threw it.”

“So do I. He saw her. She disappeared as she did that night in the fog.
A woman like that isn’t human. She has the power of disappearing at
will. You can’t measure her cunning.”

“What did he go down for?”

He told her. Unity’s lips twitched.

“And he sat there in the rain just looking at her window?”

She put out her hand. “Good-by, Mr. Herold. When you see Miss
Stellamaris, you’ll tell her I’m a good girl--in that way, you
know--and that I love her. She has been a kind of beautiful angel to
me--has always been with me. It’s funny; I can’t explain. But you
understand. If you’d only let her see that, I’d be so happy--and
perhaps she’d be happier.”

“I’ll do my utmost,” said Herold.

He accompanied her down-stairs, and when she had gone, he returned
to the library and walked about. The horror of the woman was upon
him. He drank another brandy and soda. After a while Ripley came in
with a soiled card on a tray. He looked at it stupidly--“Mr. Edwin
Travers”--and nodded.

“Shall I show the gentleman up?”

He nodded again, thinking of the woman.

When the visitor came in he vaguely recognized him as a broken-down
actor, a colleague of early days. As in a dream he bade the man sit
down, and gave him cigarettes and drink, and heard with his outer ears
an interminable tale of misfortune. At the end of it he went to his
desk and wrote out a check, which he handed to his guest.

“I can’t thank you, old man. I don’t know how to. But as soon as I can
get an engagement--hello, old man,” he cried, glancing at the check,
“you’ve made a funny mistake--the name!”

Herold took the slip of paper, and saw that he had made the sum payable
not to Edwin Travers, but to Louisa Risca. It was a shock, causing
him to brace his faculties. He wrote out another check, and the man
departed.

He went softly into John’s room and found him sleeping peacefully.

Soon afterward Ripley announced that dinner was ready. It was past six
o’clock.

“Great Heavens!” he cried aloud, “I’ve got to play to-night.”

After a hurried wash he went into the dining-room and sat down at the
table, but the sight and smell of food revolted him. He swallowed a
few mouthfuls of soup; the rest of the dinner he could not touch. The
horror of the woman had seized him again. He drank some wine, pushed
back his chair, and threw down his table-napkin.

“I don’t want anything else. I’m going for a walk. I’ll see you later
at the theater.”

The old-fashioned Kensington street, with its double line of Queen
Anne houses slumbering in the afternoon sunshine, was a mellow blur
before his eyes. Whither he was going he knew: what he was going to do
he knew not. The rigid self-control of the day, relaxed at times, but
always kept within grip, had at last escaped him. Want of food and
the unaccustomed drink had brought about an abnormal state of mind. He
was aware of direction, aware, too, of the shadow-shapes of men and
women passing him by, of traffic in the roadway. He walked straight,
alert, his gait and general demeanor unaffected, his outer senses
automatically alive. He walked down the narrow, shady Church Street,
and paused for a moment or two by the summer greenery of Kensington
Churchyard until there was an opportunity of crossing the High Street,
now at the height of its traffic. He strode westward past the great
shops, a lithe man in the full vigor of his manhood. Here and there
a woman lingering in front of displays of millinery recognized the
well-known actor and nudged her companion.

The horror within him had grown to a consuming thing of flame. Instead
of the quiet thoroughfares down which he turned, he saw picture
after shuddering picture--the woman and Stellamaris, the woman and
John Risca. She attacked soul as well as body. The pictures took the
forms of horrible grotesques. Within, his mind worked amazingly,
like a machine escaped from human control and running with blind
relentlessness. He had said years ago that he would pass through his
hell-fire. He was passing through it now.

The destroyer must be kept from destroying or be destroyed. Which of
these should be accomplished through his agency? One or the other. Of
one thing he was certain, with an odd, undoubting certainty: that he
would find her, and finding her, that he would let loose upon her the
wrath of God. She should be chained up forever or he would strangle
her. Shivering thrills diabolically delicious ran through him at the
thought. Supposing he strangled her as he would a mad cat? That were
better. She would be out of the world. He would be fulfilling his
destiny of sacrifice. For the woman he loved and for the man he loved
why should he not do this thing? What but a legal quibble could call it
murder? Stellamaris’s words rang in his ears: “You say you love me like
that?”

“Yes, I love you like that. I love you like that,” he cried below his
breath as he walked on.

He knew where she lived, the name by which she passed. John had told
him many times. There were few things in John’s life he did not know.
He knew of the Bences, of Mrs. Oscraft, the fluffy-haired woman who
lived in the flat below. Amelia Mansions, he was aware, were in the
Fulham Road. But when he reached that thoroughfare, he stood dazed and
irresolute, realizing that he did not know which way to turn. A passing
postman gave him the necessary information. The trivial contact with
the commonplace restored in a measure his mental balance. He went on.
By Brompton Cemetery he felt sick and faint and clung for a minute or
two to the railings. He had eaten nothing since early morning, and then
only a scrap of bacon and toast; he had drunk brandy and wine, and he
had lived through a day in which the maddening stress of a lifetime had
been concentrated.

One or two passers-by stared at him, for he was as white as a sheet.
A comfortable, elderly woman, some small shopkeeper’s wife, addressed
him. Was he ill? Could she do anything for him? The questioning was
a lash. He drew himself up, smiled, raised his hat, thanked her
courteously. It was nothing. He went on, loathing himself as men do
when the flesh fails beneath the whip of the spirit.

He was well now, his mind clear. He was going to the woman. He would
save those he loved. If it were necessary to kill her, he would kill
her. On that point his brain worked with startling clarity. If he did
not kill her, she would be eventually killed by John; for John, he
argued, could not remain in ignorance forever. If John killed her, he
would be hanged. Much better that he, Walter Herold, whom Stellamaris
did not love, should be hanged than John--much better. And what the
deuce did it matter to anybody whether he were hanged or not? He
laughed at the elementary logic of the proposition. The solution of all
the infernally intricate problems of life is, if people only dared face
it, one of childish simplicity. It was laughable. Walter Herold laughed
aloud in the Fulham Road.

It was so easy, so uncomplicated. He would see her. He would do what he
had to do. Then he would take a taxicab to the theater. He must play
to-night. Of course he would. There was no reason why he shouldn’t.
Only he hoped that, Leonora Gurney wouldn’t worry him. He would manage
to avoid her during that confounded wait in the first act, when she
always tried to get him to talk. He would play the part all right. He
was a man and not a stalk of wet straw. After the performance he would
give himself up. No one would be inconvenienced. He would ask the
authorities to hurry on matters and give him a short shrift and a long
rope; but the length of the rope didn’t matter these days, when they
just broke your neck. There was no one dependent on him. His brothers
and sisters, many years his seniors,--he had not seen them since he was
a child,--had all gone after their father’s death to an uncle in New
Zealand. They were there still. The mother, who had remained with him,
the Benjamin, in England, had died while he was at Cambridge. He was
free from family-ties. And women? He was free, too. There had only been
one woman in his life, the child of cloud and sea foam.

Stellamaris, star of the sea, now dragged through the mire of mortal
things! She should go back. She should go back to her firmament,
shining down upon, and worshiped by, the man she loved. And he,
God!--he should be spared the terrifying agony of it.

Thus worked the brain which Walter Herold told himself was crystal
clear.

It was clear enough, however, to follow the postman’s directions. He
took the turning indicated and found the red-brick block, with the name
“Amelia Mansions” carved in stone over the entrance door. The by-street
seemed to be densely populated. He went into the entrance-hall and
mechanically looked at the list of names. Mrs. Rawlings’s name was
followed by No. 7. He mounted the stairs. On the landing of No. 7 there
were a couple of policemen, and the flat door was open, and the length
of the passage was visible. Herold was about to enter when they stopped
him.

“You can’t go in, sir.”

“I want Mrs. Rawlings.”

“No one can go in.”

He stood confused, bewildered. An elderly, buxom woman, with a
horrified face, who just then happened to come out of a room near the
doorway, saw him and came forward.

“You are Mr. Herold,” she asked.

“Yes; I want to see Mrs. Rawlings.”

“It’s all right, constable,” she said in a curiously cracked voice.
“Let this gentleman pass. Come in, sir. I am Mrs. Bence.”

He entered the passage. She spoke words to him the import of which
he did not catch. His brain was perplexed by the guard of policemen
and the open flat. She led him a short distance down the passage. He
stumbled over a packed kit-bag. She threw open a door. He crossed
the threshold of a vulgarly furnished drawing-room, the electric
lights turned on despite the daylight of the July evening. There were
four figures in the room. Standing and scribbling in note-books were
two men, one in the uniform of a sergeant of police, the other in a
frock-coat, obviously a medical man. On the floor were two women, both
dead. One was John Risca’s wife, and the other was Unity. And near by
them lay a new, bright revolver.


CHAPTER XXIII

In after time Herold’s memory of that disastrous night and the
succeeding days was that of a peculiarly lucid nightmare in which he
seemed to have acted without volition or consciousness of motive. He
ate, dressed, drove through the streets on unhappy missions, gave
orders, directions, consoled, like an automaton, and sometimes slept
exhaustedly. So it seemed to him, looking back. He spared John the
first night of misery. The man with his bandaged head slept like a log,
and Herold did not wake him. All that could be done he himself had
done. It was better for John to gather strength in sleep to face the
tragedy on the morrow. And when the morrow came, and Herold broke the
news to him, the big man gave way under the shock, and became gentle,
and obeyed Herold like a child. Thereafter, for many days, he sat for
the hour together with his old aunt, curiously dependent on her; and
she, through her deep affection for him, grew singularly silent and
practical.

In her unimaginative placidity lay her strength. She mourned for Unity
as for her own flesh and blood; but the catastrophe did not shake her
even mind, and when John laid his head in her lap and sobbed, all that
was beautiful in the woman flowed through the comforting tips of her
helpless fingers.

From Herold he learned the unsuspected reason of Unity’s crime and
sacrifice; and from Unity, too, for a poor little pencil scrawl found
in her pocket and addressed to him told him of her love and of her
intention to clear the way for his happiness. And when the inquest was
over and Unity’s body was brought to Kilburn and laid in its coffin in
her little room, he watched by it in dumb stupor of anguish.

Herold roused him now and then. Action--nominal action at least--had to
be taken by him as surviving protagonist of the tragedy. The morning
after the deed the newspapers shrieked the news, giving names in
full, raking up memories of the hideous case. They dug, not deep, for
motive, and found long-smoldering vengeance. Unity was blackened. John
responded to Herold’s lash. This must not be. Unity must not go to her
grave in public dishonor; truth must be told. So at the inquest, John,
wild, uncouth, with great strips of sticking-plaster on his head, told
truth, and gave a romantic story to a hungry press. It was hateful to
lay bare the inmost sacredness and the inmost suffering of his soul to
the world’s cold and curious gaze, but it had to be done. Unity’s name
was cleared. When he sat down by Herold’s side, the latter grasped his
hand, and it was clammy and cold, and he shook throughout his great
frame.

Then Herold, driven to mechanical action, as it seemed to him
afterward, by a compelling force, dragged John to an inquiry into
the evil woman’s life. It was Mrs. Oscraft, the full-blown, blowzy
bookmaker’s wife, the woman’s intimate associate for many years, who
gave the necessary clue. Horrified by the discovery of the identity of
her friend and by the revelation of further iniquities, she lost her
head when the men sternly questioned her. She had used her intimacy
with Mrs. Risca to cover from her own husband an intrigue of many
years’ standing. In return, Mrs. Risca had confessed to an intrigue of
her own, and demanded, and readily obtained, Mrs. Oscraft’s protection.
The women worked together. They were inseparable in their outgoings
and incomings, but abroad each went her separate way. That was why,
ignorant of the truth, Mrs. Oscraft had lied loyally when John Risca
had burst into her flat long ago. She had thought she was merely
shielding her fellow-sinner from the wrath of a jealous husband. Thus
for years, with her cunning, Mrs. Risca had thrown dust in the eyes
both of her friend and of the feared and hated wardress whom John had
set over her. Under the double cloak she had used her hours of liberty
to carry out the set, relentless purpose of her life. To spy on him
with exquisite craft had been her secret passion, to strike when the
time came the very meaning of her criminal existence.

“And for the last two or three years she gave no trouble and was as
gentle as a lamb, so how could I suspect?” Mrs. Bence lamented.

“It’s all over,” said John, stupidly; “it’s all over. Nothing matters
now.”

To Herold, in after time, the memories of these days were as those of
the doings of another man in his outer semblance. His essential self
had been the crazy being who had marched through the mellow Kensington
streets with fantastic dreams of murder in his head. At the sight of
Unity and the woman lying ghastly on the floor something seemed to
snap in his brain, and all the cloudy essence that was he vanished,
and a perfect mechanism took its place. When John with wearisome
reiteration said: “God bless you, Wallie! God knows what I should have
done without you,” it was hard to realize that he had done anything
deserving thanks. He was inclined to regard himself--when he had a
fugitive moment to regard himself--with abhorrence. He had talked;
Unity had acted. And deep down in his soul, only once afterward in his
life to be confessed, dwelt an awful remorse for his responsibility
in the matter of Unity’s death. But in simple fact no man in times of
great convulsion knows himself. He looks back on the man who acted and
wonders. The man, surviving the wreck of earthquake, if he be weak,
lies prone and calls on God and man to help him; if he be strong,
he devotes the intensity of his faculties to the work of rescue, of
clearing up debris, of temporary reconstruction, and has no time
for self-analysis. It is in reality the essential man in his vigor
and courage and nobility and disdain who acts, and the bruised and
shattered about him who profit by his help look rightly upon him as a
god.

It was only after John had visited the house of death, where, according
to law, the bodies both of slayer and slain had to lie, and had seen
the pinched, common face, swathed in decent linen, of the girl who for
his sake had charged her soul with murder and taken her own life, and
after he had driven away, stunned with grief and carrying with him, at
his feet in the taxicab, the useless kit-bag packed by the poor child
with Heaven knows what idea of its getting to its destination, and had
staggered to the comfort of the foolish old lady’s outstretched arms
and received her benediction, futilely spoken, divinely unspoken--it
was only then that, raising haggard eyes, all the more haggard under
the brow-reaching bandage he still wore, he asked the question:

“What about Stella? She is bound to learn.”

“I wrote to her last night,” said Herold. “I prepared her for the shock
as best I could.”

A gleam of rational thought flitted across John Risca’s mind.

“You remembered her at such a time, with all you had to do? You’re a
wonderful man, Wallie. No one else would have done it.”

“Are you in a fit state of mind,” said Herold, “to understand what
has happened? I tried to tell you this morning,”--as he had done
fitfully,--“but it was no use. You grasped nothing.”

“Go on now,” said John. “I’m listening.”

So Herold, amid the fripperies of Miss Lindon’s drawing-room, told the
story of his summons to the Channel House some time ago--Good God!--He
caught himself up sharply--it was only yesterday! and of his talk with
Stellamaris in the garden, and of her encounter with the evil woman,
and of the poison that had crept to the roots of Stella’s being.

John shivered, and clenched impotent fists. Stella left alone on the
cliff-edge with that murderous hag! Stella’s ears polluted by that
infamous tale! If only he had known it! Why did she hide it from him?
It was well the murderess was dead, but, merciful Heaven, at what a
price!

“Listen,” said Herold, gravely, checking his outburst; and he told of
his meetings with Unity,--it was essential that John should know,--of
her almost mystical worship of Stellamaris, of their discovery of the
revolver--

“Poor child!” cried John, “I bought it soon after I went to Kilburn.
I took it out the other day and played with a temptation I knew I
shouldn’t succumb to. I should never have had the pluck.”

Herold continued, telling him all he knew--all save that of which he
stood self-accused, and which for the present was a matter between him
and his Maker. And Miss Lindon, fondling on her lap a wheezy pug, the
successor to the Dandy of former days, who had been gathered to his
fathers long ago, listened in placid bewilderment to the strange story
of love and crime.

“I’m sure I don’t understand how people think of such things, let alone
do them,” she sighed.

“You must accept the fact, dear Miss Lindon,” said Herold, gently.

“God’s will be done,” she murmured, which in the circumstances was
as relevant a thing as the poor lady could have uttered. But John
sat hunched up in a bamboo chair that creaked under his weight,
and scarcely spoke a word. He felt very unimportant by the side of
Unity--Unity with whose strong, passionate soul he had dwelt in blind
ignorance. And Unity was dead, lying stark and white in the alien house.

After a long silence he roused himself.

“You wrote to Stella, you said?”

“Yes,” replied Herold.

“What will happen to her?”

“I don’t know.”

John groaned. “If only I had protected her as I ought to have done! If
only I had protected both of them!”

He relapsed again into silence, burying his face in his hands.
Presently Miss Lindon put the pug tenderly on the ground, rose, and
stood by his chair.

“My poor boy,” she said, “do you love her so much?”

“She’s dead,” said John.

Herold shook him by the shoulder. “Nonsense, man. Pull yourself
together.”

John raised a drawn face.

“What did you ask? I was thinking about Unity.”

       *       *       *       *       *

That day, the day after the tragedy, Stellamaris faced life in its
nakedness, stripped, so it appeared to her, of every rag of mystery.

She had breakfasted as usual in her room, bathed and dressed, and
looked wistfully over her disowning sea. Then, as she was preparing to
go down-stairs, Morris had brought in Herold’s letter, scribbled so
nervously and shakenly that at first she was at a loss to decipher it.
Gradually it became terribly clear: Unity was dead; the woman was dead;
Unity had killed the woman and then killed herself.

“Details of everything but the truth will be given in the morning
papers,” Herold wrote; “but you must know the truth from the first--as
I know it. Unity has given her life to save those she loved--you and
John--from the woman. She has laid down her life for you. Never forget
that as long as you live.”

She sat for some moments quite still, paralyzed by the new horror that
had sprung from this false, flower-decked earth to shake her by the
throat. The world was terrifyingly relentless. She read the awful words
again. Bit by bit feeling returned. Her flesh was constricted in a cold
and finely wrought net. She grew faint, put her hand to her brow and
found it damp. She stumbled to her bed by the great west window and
threw herself down. Constable, lying on the hearth-rug, staggered to
his feet and thrust his old head on her bosom and regarded her with
mournful and inquiring eyes. She caressed him mechanically. Suddenly
she sprang up as a swift memory smote her. Once she lay there by the
window, and the dog was there by the bed, and there by the door stood
the ungainly figure of a girl of her own age. Was it possible that that
ungainly child whom she had seen and talked to then, whom a few weeks
ago she had kissed, could have committed this deed of blood? She rose
again to her feet, pushed the old dog aside blindly, and hid her eyes
from the light of day. The girl was human, utterly human, at those two
meetings. Of what unknown, devastating forces were human beings, then,
composed?

She took up the letter again. “Unity has given her life to save those
she loved--you and John--from the woman. She has laid down her life for
you. Never forget that as long as you live.”

Walter Herold said that. It must be true. Through all of yesterday’s
welter of misery, after he had left her, she had clung despairingly
to him. There was no God, but there was Walter Herold. Her pride had
dismissed him with profession of disbelief, but in her heart she had
believed him. Not that she had pardoned John Risca, not that she had
recovered her faith in him, not that she had believed in Unity. Her
virginal soul, tainted by the woman, had shrunk from thoughts of the
pair; but despite her fierce determination to believe in neither God
nor man, she had been compelled to believe in Herold. She had stood up
against him and fought with him and had bitten and rent him, and he had
conquered, and she had felt maddenedly angered, triumphantly glad. The
whole world could be as false as hell, but in it there was one clear
spirit speaking truth.

She went to the southern window, rested her elbows on the sill, and
pressed the finger-tips of both hands against her forehead. The soft
southwest wind, bringing the salt from the dancing sea, played about
her hair. Unity had laid down her life to save those she loved. So had
Christ done--given his life for humanity. But Christ had not killed a
human being, no matter how murderous, and had not taken his own life.
No, no; she must not mix up things irreconcilable. She faced the room
again. What did people do when they killed? What were the common,
practical steps that they took to gain their ends? Her mind suddenly
grew vague. Herold had spoken of newspapers. She must see them; she
must know everything. Life was a deadly conflict, and knowledge the
only weapon. For a few seconds she stood in the middle of the room,
her young bosom heaving, her dark eyes wide with the diamond glints in
their depths. Life was a deadly conflict. She would fight, she would
conquer. Others miserably weaker than herself survived. Pride and race
and splendid purity of soul sheathed her in cold armor. A jingle,
separated from context, came into her mind, and in many ways it was a
child’s mind:

    Then spake Sir Thomas Howard,
    “’Fore God, I am no coward,”

“‘’Fore God, I am no coward,’” she repeated, and with her delicate head
erect she went out and down the stairs and entered the dining-room.

There she found Sir Oliver and Lady Blount sitting at a neglected
breakfast. The old faces strove pitifully to smile. Stella kissed them
in turn, and with her hand lingering on the old man’s arm, she gave him
Herold’s letter.

“Is it in the newspapers?” she asked.

“What, what, my dear?” said Sir Oliver, adjusting his glasses on his
nose with fumbling fingers.

She looked from one to the other. Then her eyes fell on the morning
papers lying on the table. They were folded so that a great head-line
stared hideously.

“Oh, darling, don’t read it--for Heaven’s sake don’t read it!” cried
Lady Blount, clutching the nearer newspaper.

But Stella took up the other. “I must, dearest,” she said very gently.
“Walter has written to me; but he could not tell me everything.”

She moved to the window that overlooked the pleasant garden, and with
steady eyes read the vulgar and soul-withering report, while the two
old people, head to head, puzzled out Herold’s scrawl.

When she had finished, she laid the paper quietly at the foot of
the table and came and stood between them, revolted by the callous
publication of names, almost physically sickened by the realistic
picture of the scene, her head whirling. She caught hold of the back of
Sir Oliver’s chair.

“The newspaper lies,” she said, “but it doesn’t know any better. Walter
tells us why she did it.”

Sir Oliver, elbow on table, held the letter in his shaking grasp. It
dropped, and his head sank on his hand.

“It’s too horrible!” he said in a weak voice. “I don’t understand
anything at all about it. I don’t understand what Walter means. And all
that old beastly story revived! It’s damnable!”

He looked quite broken, his querulous self-assertion gone. Lady Blount,
too, gave way, and stretched out an imploring and pathetic arm, which,
as Stella moved a step or two toward her, fell around the slim,
standing figure. She laid her cheek against Stella and cried miserably.

“O my darling, my precious one, if we could only spare you all this!
Walter shouldn’t have written. O my darling, what are we to do! What
are we to do!”

And then Stellamaris saw once more that Great High Excellency and Most
Exquisite Auntship, for all their love of her, were of the weak ones
of the world, and she looked down with a new and life-giving feeling
of pity upon the bowed gray heads. Once,--was it yesterday or weeks or
months or years ago? She could not tell,--but once, to her later pain
and remorse, she had commanded, and they had obeyed; now she knew that
she had to comfort, protect, determine. And in a bewildering flash came
the revelation that knowledge was a weapon not only to fight her own
way through the evil of the world, but to defend the defenseless.

“I wish Walter was here,” she whispered, her hand against the withered,
wet cheek.

“Why Walter, dear?”

“He is strong and true,” said Stellamaris.

“Why not John, darling?”

Yes, why not John? Stella drew a sharp breath. Sir Oliver saved her an
answer.

“John has enough to look to, poor chap. He has got everything about his
ears. Stella’s right. We want Walter. He’s young. He’s a good fellow
is Walter. I must be getting old, my dear,--” He raised his face, and,
with a sudden forlorn hope of dignity, twirled his white mustache,--“A
year ago I shouldn’t have wanted Walter or anybody. It’s only you, my
child, that your aunt and I are thinking of. We’ve tried to do our
duty by you, haven’t we, Julia? And God knows we love you. You’re the
only thing in the world left to us. It isn’t our fault that you are
drawn into this ghastliness. It isn’t, God knows it isn’t. Only, my
dear,”--there was a catch in his voice,--“you’re not able to bear it.
For us old folks who have knocked about the world--well, we’re used
to--to this sort of thing. I’ve had to send men to the gallows in my
time--once twenty men to be shot. The paltry fellows at the Colonial
Office didn’t see things as I did, but that’s another matter. We’re
used to these things, dear; we’re hardened--”

“If I have got to live in the world, dear Excellency,” said Stella,
feeling that there were some sort of flood-gates between the tumultuous
flow of her being and the still waters of pity in which for the moment
her consciousness acted, “it seems that I’ve got to get used to it,
like every one else.”

“But what shall we do, darling?” cried Lady Blount, clinging
pathetically to the child of sea-foam, from whom all knowledge of the
perilous world had been hidden.

“Anything but worry Walter to come down here.”

“I thought you wanted him?”

“I do,” said Stella, with her hand on her bosom; “but that is only
selfishness. He is needed more in London. I think we ought to go up and
see if we can help in any way.”

“Go up to London!” echoed Sir Oliver.

“Yes, if you’ll take me, Uncle dear.”

The old man looked at his wife, who looked helplessly at him. Through
the open window came the late, mellow notes of a thrush and the
sunshine that flooded the summer garden.

“I am going to send Walter a telegram,” said Stella, moving gently away.

She left the room with the newly awakened consciousness that she
was absolute mistress of her destiny. Love, devotion, service,
anything she might require from the two old people, were hers for the
claiming--anything in the world but guidance and help. She stood alone
before the dragons of a world, no longer the vague Threatening Land,
but a world of fierce passions and bloody deeds. Herold’s words flamed
before her: “Unity has given her life for those she loved.” Had she,
Stellamaris, a spirit so much weaker than Unity’s?

She advanced an eager step or two along the garden walk, clenching
her delicate fists, and the fiery dragons retreated backward. She
could give, too, as well as Unity, her life if need be. If that was
not required, at least whatever could be demanded of her for those
she loved. Again she read the letter. Underlying it was tenderest
anxiety lest she should be stricken down by the ghastly knowledge. With
the personal motive, the intense and omnipotent motive of her sex,
unconsciously dominating her, she murmured half articulately:

“He thinks I’m a weak child. I’ll show him that I am a woman. He shall
see that I’m not afraid of life.”

       *       *       *       *       *

So when Walter Herold went home late that night,--the theater being out
of the question, he had stayed at Kilburn until John had been persuaded
to go to bed,--he found a telegram from Stellamaris.

“Coming to London to see if I can be of any help. My dear love to John
in his terrible trouble. Tell me when I had better come.”

The next day, when they met before the inquest, he showed the telegram
to John, who, after glancing at it, thrust it back into his hand with a
deprecating gesture.

“No; let her stay there. What is she to do in this wilderness of
horror?”

“I have already written,” said Herold.

“To keep away?”

“To come.”

“You know best,” said John, hopelessly. “At any rate the news hasn’t
killed her. I feared it would. I had long letters from Oliver and Julia
this morning.”

“What do they say?”

John put his hand to his head. “I forget,” said he.


  (To be concluded)

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Drawn by Frank Wiles

“SHE LOOKED DOWN WITH A NEW AND LIFE-GIVING FEELING OF PITY UPON THE
BOWED GRAY HEADS”]




THE CENTURY’S AFTER-THE-WAR SERIES

[Illustration]

GREAT EVENTS IN AMERICAN PROGRESS

DURING THE HALF-CENTURY FOLLOWING THE CIVIL WAR

DESCRIBED BY AMERICAN JOURNALISTS AND BY WRITERS HAVING PERSONAL AND
SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE OF IMPORTANT INCIDENTS


PREFATORY EDITORIAL NOTE

Two generations of readers have entered on the field of action since
the Civil War marked the end of what may be called the formative era of
American life. Twenty-eight years ago ~The Century~ began its
memorable Civil War Series, which gave the surviving leaders, Joseph
E. Johnston, Beauregard, Longstreet, and their valiant colleagues on
the Confederate side, a chance to be read with calm appreciation by the
people of the North, and brought to the reviving people of the South
dispassionate accounts by Grant, Sherman, McClellan, Porter, and their
fighting coadjutors on land and sea, of the motives and deeds which
shaped the heroic contest and resulted in a reunited country. Through
the medium of personal recollection, with fairness and without feeling,
the brave men of both sides fought their battles over again before an
open-minded audience of all the people, and for the first time since
slavery became the cause of strife, both parts of the country shook
hands over “the bloody chasm” in mutual admiration and respect.

The forty-seven years which have elapsed since Appomattox have also
had their conflicts, though most of them have been waged in the ways
of peace. They have resulted, however, in forcing the republic,
shaped by the aims of the fathers, into the wider domain of empire
required by the expanding purposes of the sons. In order to bring the
great happenings of this period vividly before the new generations of
readers, ~The Century~ has organized an After-the-War Series.
It will treat of such compelling and lasting influences as the attempt
to “recall” Andrew Johnson, seventeenth President, by impeachment;
the acquisition of Alaska, with its great promise for the future;
the settlement of the Alabama Claims, which brought about a new
status for the United States with Europe; the memorable attempt to
make Horace Greeley President, which in a way may be compared to the
present campaign of the “Progressives”; the near ship-wreck of the
Hayes-Tilden contest; the chain of measures and financial disasters
from “Black Friday” and the Crédit Mobilier to the time when the
nation kept its faith by the resumption of specie payments; the large
features of Reconstruction, still being worked out in the South; the
victory of civil-service reform, beginning with Cleveland’s election
over Blaine; the solidifying of the Monroe Doctrine in the Venezuelan
dispute, which prepared the way for the Panama Canal; the diplomacy of
the war with Spain, by which the republic became an empire; and also
articles describing the remarkable Bryan conventions, the progress of
conservation, the battle with the trusts, and the gigantic problem of
organized labor. In its total effect the series will reveal the drift
of life in the United States.

Each of these commanding subjects will be treated by a prominent
American journalist having particular acquaintance with the theme, and
also, where supplemental articles are necessary, by writers having
special knowledge of these historic dramas of American progress and
personal contact with the actors. In this year of political conflict
Colonel Watterson’s article, which begins the series, has a timely as
well as a distinct personal interest.

[Illustration]




THE HUMOR AND TRAGEDY OF THE GREELEY CAMPAIGN

BY HENRY WATTERSON


I

Among the many misconceptions and mischances which befell the slavery
agitation in the United States and finally led a kindred people into
actual war, the idea that got afloat after this war, that every
Confederate was a Secessionist, best served the ends of the radicalism
which sought to reduce the South to a conquered province, and as such
to reconstruct it by hostile legislation supported, wherever needed, by
force.

Andrew Johnson perfectly understood that a great majority of the men
who were arrayed on the Southern side had taken the field against their
better judgment through pressure of circumstance. They were Union men
who had opposed Secession and clung to the old order. Not merely in
the Border States did this class rule, but in the Gulf States it held
a respectable minority until the shot fired upon Sumter drew the call
for troops from Lincoln. The Secession leaders who had staked their all
upon the hazard knew that to save their movement from collapse it was
necessary that blood be sprinkled in the faces of the people. Hence the
message from Charleston,

    With cannon, mortar, and petard,
    We tender you our Beauregard,

with the response from Washington, precipitated the conflict of
theories into a combat of arms for which neither party was prepared.

The debate ended, battle at hand, Southern men had to choose between
the North and the South, between their convictions and predilections on
one side and expatriation on the other side, resistance to invasion,
not secession, the issue. But, four years later, when in 1865 all
that they had believed and feared in 1861 had come to pass, these men
required no drastic measures to bring them to terms. Events more potent
than acts of Congress had already reconstructed them. Lincoln, with a
forecast of this, had shaped his ends accordingly. Johnson, himself a
Southern man, understood it even better than Lincoln, and backed by the
legacy of Lincoln, he proceeded not very skilfully to build upon it.

The assassination of Lincoln, however, had played directly into the
hands of the radicals, led by Ben Wade, in the Senate, and Thaddeus
Stevens in the House. Prior to that baleful night they had fallen
behind the marching van. The mad act of Booth put them upon their feet
and brought them to the front. They were implacable men, politicians
equally of resolution and ability. Events quickly succeeding favored
them and their plans. It was not alone Johnson’s lack of temper and
tact that gave them the whip-hand. His removal from office would have
opened the door of the White House to Wade, so that strategically
Johnson’s position was from the beginning beleaguered and, before the
close, came perilously near to being untenable.

[Illustration: From a photograph taken about 1872, owned by Mr. F. H.
Meserve

LYMAN TRUMBULL]

Grant, who, up to the time of his nomination for the Presidency, had
had no partizan conviction, not Wade, the uncompromising extremist,
came after, and inevitably four years of Grant had again divided the
triumphant Republicans. This was the situation during the winter of
1871-72, when the approaching Presidential election brought the country
face to face with an extraordinary state of affairs. The South was in
irons. The North was growing restive. Thinking people everywhere felt
that conditions so anomalous to our institutions could not last.


II

Johnson had made a bungling attempt to carry out the policies of
Lincoln and had gone down in the strife. The Democratic party had
reached the ebb-tide of its disastrous fortunes. It seemed the merest
reactionary. A group of influential Republicans, for one cause or
another dissatisfied with Grant, held a caucus and issued a call for
what they described as a Liberal Republican Convention to assemble in
Cincinnati, May 1, 1872.[1]

A Southern man and a Confederate soldier, a Democrat by inheritance
and conviction, I had been making in Kentucky an unequal fight for the
acceptance of the inevitable. The line of cleavage between the old
and the new South I had placed upon the last three amendments to the
Constitution, naming them the Treaty of Peace between the sections.
The negro must be invested with the rights conferred upon him by these
amendments, however mistaken and injudicious the South might think
them. The obsolete black laws instituted during the slave régime must
be removed from the statute-books. The negro, like Mohammed’s coffin,
swung in mid-air. He was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, nor good red
herring. For our own sake we must habilitate him, educate and elevate
him, make him, if possible, a contented and useful citizen. Failing of
this, free government itself might be imperiled.

I had behind me the intelligence of the Confederate soldiers almost to
a man. They, at least, were tired of futile fighting, and to them the
war was over. But there was an element, especially in Kentucky, which
wanted to fight when it was much too late--old Union Democrats and
Union Whigs--who clung to the hull of slavery when the kernel was gone,
and proposed to win in politics what had been lost in battle.

The leaders of this belated element were in complete control of the
political machinery of the State. They regarded me as an impudent
upstart, since I had come to Kentucky from Tennessee as little better
than a carpet-bagger, and had done their uttermost to put me down and
drive me out.

I was a young fellow of two and thirty, of boundless optimism and
with my full share of self-confidence, no end of physical endurance
and mental vitality, and having some political as well as newspaper
experience. It never crossed my fancy that I could fail. I met
resistance with aggression, answered attempts at bullying with scorn,
generally irradiated by laughter. Yet I was not wholly blind to
consequences and the admonitions of prudence, and when the call for a
Liberal Republican Convention appeared, I realized that, interested
as I was in what might come of it, if I expected to remain a Democrat
in a Democratic community, and to influence and lead a Democratic
following, I must proceed with caution. Though many of those proposing
the new movement were familiar acquaintances, some of them personal
friends, the scheme was, as it were, in the air. Its three newspaper
bell-wethers, Samuel Bowles of the Springfield “Republican,” Horace
White of the Chicago “Tribune,” and Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati
“Commercial,” were specially well known to me; so were Horace Greeley,
Carl Schurz, and Charles Sumner. Stanley Matthews was my kinsman;
George Hoadley and Cassius M. Clay were next-door neighbors. But they
were not the men I had trained with--not my “crowd,”--and it was a
question how far I might be able to reconcile myself, not to mention
my political associates, to such company, even conceding that they
proceeded under good fortune with a good plan, offering the South
extrication from its woes and the Democratic party an entering wedge
into a solid and hitherto irresistible Republicanism.

[Illustration: From a photograph taken about 1872, owned by Mr. F. H.
Meserve

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS]

Nevertheless, I resolved to go a little in advance to Cincinnati, to
have a look at the stalking-horse there to be offered, free to take it
or leave it, as I liked, my bridges and lines of communication still
open and intact.


III

A livelier and more variegated omnium-gatherum was never assembled.
They had already begun to pour in when I arrived. There were
long-haired and spectacled doctrinaires from New England, and
short-haired and blatant emissaries from New York, mostly, as it turned
out, friends of Horace Greeley. There were brisk Westerners from
Chicago and St. Louis. If Whitelaw Reid, who had come as Greeley’s
personal representative, had his retinue, so had Horace White and Carl
Schurz. There were a few rather overdressed persons from New Orleans
brought up by Governor Warmouth, and a motley array of Southerners
of every sort, who were ready to clutch at any straw that promised
relief to intolerable conditions. The full contingent of Washington
correspondents was there, of course, with sharpened eyes and pencils,
to make the most of what they had already begun to christen a conclave
of cranks.

[Illustration: From a photograph taken in 1872

HENRY WATTERSON]

Bowles and Halstead met me at the station, and we drove to the St.
Nicholas Hotel, where White and Schurz were awaiting us. Then and
there was organized a fellowship of the first three and myself which
in the succeeding campaign went by the name of the Quadrilateral. We
resolved to limit the Presidential nomination of the convention to
Charles Francis Adams, Bowles’s candidate, and Lyman Trumbull, White’s
candidate, omitting altogether, because of specific reasons urged by
White, the candidacy of B. Gratz Brown, who, because of his Kentucky
connections, had better served my purpose. The very next day the secret
was abroad, and Whitelaw Reid came to me to ask why, in a newspaper
combine of this sort, the “New York Tribune” had been left out.

[Illustration: From a photograph taken in 1872

HORACE WHITE]

To my mind it seemed preposterous that it had been, or should be, and
I stated as much to my new colleagues. They offered objection which
to me appeared perverse, if not childish. To begin with, they did
not like Reid. He was not a principal, like the rest of us, but a
subordinate. Greeley was this, that, and the other; he could never be
relied upon in any coherent, practical plan of campaign; to talk about
him as a candidate was ridiculous. I listened rather impatiently, and
finally I said: “Now, gentlemen, in this movement we shall need the
‘New York Tribune.’ If we admit Reid, we clinch it. You will all agree
that Greeley has no chance of a nomination, and so, by taking him in,
we both eat our cake and have it.” On this view of the case Reid was
invited to join us, and that very night he sat with us at the St.
Nicholas, where from night to night until the end we convened and went
over the performances and developments of the day and concerted plans
for the morrow.

As I recall these symposiums, amusing and plaintive memories rise
before me.

The first serious business that engaged us was the killing of the
boom for Judge David Davis of the Supreme Court, which was assuming
definite and formidable proportions. The preceding winter it had been
organizing at Washington under the ministration of some of the most
astute politicians of the time, mainly, however, Democratic members
of Congress. A party of these had brought the boom to Cincinnati,
opening headquarters well provided with the requisite commissaries.
Every delegate who came in that could be reached was laid hold of and
conducted here.

[Illustration: From a photograph by Sarony, taken in 1872

SAMUEL BOWLES]

We considered this flat burglary. It was a gross infringement upon our
preserve. What business had the professional politicians with a great
reform movement? The influence and dignity of journalism were involved
and imperiled. We, its custodians, could brook no such defiance from
intermeddling office-seekers, especially from brokendown Democratic
office-seekers.

The inner sanctuary of our proceedings was a common drawing-room
between two bedchambers shared by Schurz and me. Here we repaired after
supper to smoke the pipe of fraternity and reform and to save the
country. What could be done to kill off “D. Davis,” as we irreverently
called the eminent and learned jurist, the friend of Lincoln, and the
only aspirant having a “bar’l”? That was the question. We addressed
ourselves to the task with earnest purpose, but characteristically.
The power of the press must be invoked. It was our chief, if not our
only, weapon. Each of us indited a leading editorial for his paper,
to be wired to its destination and printed next morning, striking
“D. Davis” at a prearranged and varying angle. Copies of these were
made for Halstead, who, having with the rest of us read and compared
the different screeds, indited one of his own in general comment and
review for Cincinnati consumption. In next day’s “Commercial,” blazing
under vivid head-lines, these leading editorials, dated “Chicago,”
“New York,” “Springfield, Mass.,” and “Louisville, Ky.,” appeared
with the explaining line, “‘The Tribune’ of to-morrow morning [or the
‘Courier-Journal’ or ‘Republican’] will say,” etc.

Wondrous consensus of public opinion! The Davis boom went down before
it. The Davis boomers were paralyzed. The earth seemed to have arisen
and hit them amidships. The incoming delegates were stopped and
forewarned. Six months of adroit scheming was set at naught, and little
more was heard of “D. Davis.”

[Illustration: From a photograph by Gutekunst

ALEXANDER K. McCLURE]

Like the Mousquetaires, we were equally in for fighting and
foot-racing; the point with us being to “get there,” no matter how;
the end--the defeat of the rascally machine politicians and the reform
of the public service--being relied upon to justify the means. I am
writing this forty years after the event, and must be forgiven the
fling of my wisdom at my own expense and that of my associates in
harmless crime. Reid and White and I are the sole survivors. We were
wholly serious, maybe a trifle visionary, but as upright and patriotic
in our intentions and as loyal to our engagements as it was possible
for older, and maybe worse, men to be. For my part, I must say that
if I have never anything on my conscience heavier than the massacre
of that not very edifying, yet promising Davis “combine,” I shall be
troubled by no remorse, but to the end shall sleep soundly and well.

In that immediate connection an amusing incident throwing some light
upon the period thrusts itself upon my memory. The Quadrilateral, with
Reid added, had finished its consolidation of public opinion just
related, when the cards of Judge Craddock, Chairman of the Kentucky
Democratic Committee, and of Colonel J. Stoddart Johnston, editor of
the “Frankfort Yeoman,” the organ of the Kentucky Democracy, were
brought from below. They had come to look after me, that was evident.
By no chance could they have found me in more equivocal company. In
addition to ourselves, bad enough from the Kentucky point of view,
they found in the room Theodore Tilton and David A. Wells. When they
crossed the threshold and were presented _seriatim_, the face of
each was a study. Even an immediate application of whisky and water
did not suffice to restore their lost equilibrium and bring them to
their usual state of convivial self-possession. Colonel Johnston told
me years after that when they went away they walked in silence a block
or two, when the old judge, a model of the learned and sedate school
of Kentucky politicians and jurists, turned to him and said: “It is no
use, Stoddart. We cannot keep up with that young man or with these
times. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!”

[Illustration: From a photograph taken in 1861, owned by Mr. Frederick
H. Meserve

CARL SCHURZ]

The Jupiter Tonans of reform in attendance upon the convention was
Colonel Alexander K. McClure of the Philadelphia “Times.” He was one
of the handsomest and most imposing of men; Halstead himself was
scarcely more so. McClure was personally unknown to the Quadrilateral,
but this did not stand in the way of our asking him to dine with us as
soon as his claims to fellowship in the good cause of reform began to
make themselves apparent through the need of bringing the Pennsylvania
delegation to “a realizing sense.”

As he entered the room, he looked like a god, nay, he acted like one.
Schurz first took him in hand. With a lofty courtesy that I have never
seen equaled, he tossed his inquisitor into the air. Halstead came
next, trying him upon another tack, but fared no better than Schurz.
Then I hurried to the rescue of my friends. McClure, now looking a bit
bored and resentful, landed me somewhere near the ceiling.

It would have been laughable if it had not been ignominious. I took my
discomfiture with the bad grace of silence throughout the brief, stiff,
and formal meal which followed. But when it was over, and the party had
risen from the table and was about to disperse, I collected my energies
and resources for a final forlorn hope. I was not willing to remain so
crushed or to confess myself so beaten, though I could not disguise
from myself a feeling that all of us had been overmatched.

“McClure,” said I, with the cool and quiet resolution of despair,
drawing him aside, “what in the ---- do you want, anyhow?”

He looked at me with swift intelligence and a sudden show of sympathy,
and then over at the others with a withering glance.

“What? With those cranks? Nothing.”

Jupiter descended to earth. I am afraid we actually took a glass of
wine together. Anyhow, from that moment to the hour of his death we
were the best of friends.

Without the inner circle of the Quadrilateral, which had taken
matters into its own hands, were a number of persons, some of them
disinterested and others simple curiosity- and excitement-seekers,
who might be described as merely “lookers-on in Vienna.” The Sunday
afternoon before the convention was to meet, we, the self-elect,
fell in with a party of these in a garden “over the Rhine,” as the
German quarter of Cincinnati is called. There was first general and
rather aimless talk, then came a great deal of speech-making. Schurz
started it with a few pungent observations intended to suggest and
inspire some common ground of public opinion and sentiment. Nobody was
inclined to dispute his leadership, but everybody was prone to assert
his own. It turned out that each regarded himself, and wished to be
regarded, as a man with a mission, having a clear idea how things were
not to be done. There were civil-service reform protectionists and
civil-service reform free traders. There were a few politicians, who
were discovered to be spoilsmen, the unforgivable sin, and as such were
quickly dismissed. The missing ingredient was coherence of belief and
united action. Not a man of them was willing to commit or bind himself
to anything. Edward Atkinson pulled one way, and William Dorsheimer
exactly the opposite way. David A. Wells sought to get the two
together; it was not possible. Sam Bowles shook his head in diplomatic
warning. Horace White threw in a chink or so of a rather agitating
newspaper independence, while Halstead, to the more serious-minded, was
in an inflamed state of jocosity.

[Illustration: From a photograph by Sarony

MURAT HALSTEAD]

All this was grist to the mill of the Washington correspondents,
chiefly “story” writers and satirists, who were there to make the
most out of an occasion in which the bizarre was much in excess of the
conventional, with George Alfred Townsend and Donn Piatt to set the
pace. Hyde of the “Republican” had come from St. Louis to keep special
tab on Grosvenor of the “Democrat.” Though rival editors facing our
way, they had not been admitted to the Quadrilateral. McCullagh and
Nixon were among the earliest arrivals from Chicago. The lesser lights
of the gild were innumerable. One might have mistaken it for an annual
meeting of the Associated Press.


IV

The convention assembled. It was in Cincinnati’s great music-hall.
Schurz presided. Who that was there will never forget his opening words,
“This is moving day.” He was just turned forty-two; in his physiognomy
a scholarly Herr Doktor; in his trim, lithe figure a graceful athlete;
in the tones of his voice an orator.

Even the bespectacled doctrinaires of the East, whence, since the days
the Star of Bethlehem shone over the desert, wisdom and wise men have
had their emanation, were moved to something like enthusiasm. The rest
of us were fervid. Two days and a night and a half the Quadrilateral
had the world in a sling and things its own way. It had been agreed,
as I have said, to limit the field to Adams, Trumbull, and Greeley,
and Greeley being out of it as having no chance whatever, the list was
still further abridged to Adams and Trumbull. Trumbull not developing
very strong, Bowles, Halstead, and I, even White, began to be sure
that it would require only one ballot to nominate Adams--Adams the
indifferent, who had sailed away for Europe, observing that he was not
a candidate for the nomination, and otherwise intimating his disdain of
it and us.

Matters being thus apparently cocked and primed, the convention
adjourned over the first night of its session with everybody happy
except the “D. Davis” contingent, which lingered, but knew its “cake
was dough.” If we had forced a vote that night, as we might have done,
we should have nominated Adams. But, inspired by the bravery of youth
and inexperience, we let the golden opportunity slip. The throng of
delegates and the vast audience dispersed.

In those days it being the business of my life to turn day into night
and night into day, it was not my habit to go to bed much before the
presses began to thunder below. This night proved no exception: being
tempted by a party of Kentuckians, some of whom had come to back me and
some to watch me, I did not quit their agreeable society until the “wee
sma’ hours ayant the twal.”

[Illustration: Photograph by Pearsall, taken in 1872

HORACE GREELEY

This portrait, unusual for the absence of spectacles, is owned by his
daughter, Mrs. F. M. Clendenin.]

Before turning in, I glanced at the early edition of the “Commercial”
to see that something--I was too tired to decipher precisely what--had
happened. It was, in point of fact, the arrival about midnight of
General Frank P. Blair and Governor B. Gratz Brown of Missouri. I had
in my possession documents which would have induced at least one of
them to pause before making himself too conspicuous. The Quadrilateral,
excepting Reid, knew this. We had separated upon the adjournment of the
convention. I, being across the river in Covington, their search for me
was unavailing. They were in despair. When, having had a few hours
of rest, I reached the convention hall toward noon, it was too late.

[Illustration: HORACE GREELEY AND WHITELAW REID

From a photograph taken in the editorial rooms of “The Tribune” shortly
before the opening of the Greeley Campaign.]

[Illustration: From a cartoon by Thomas Nast in “Harper’s Weekly”

NAST’S CARTOON, “‘THE PIRATES’ UNDER FALSE COLORS--CAN THEY CAPTURE THE
‘SHIP OF STATE’?”

  At the left Sumner is reading a book; Andrew Johnson is behind the
  capstan; August Belmont in the gangway with a knife in his mouth;
  Fenton in the background; Whitelaw Reid on a keg of powder playing
  a violin tagged, “This is not an organ”; David Davis is behind
  Archbishop Hughes with the cross; Manton Marble is hiding behind his
  newspaper “The World”; Senator Tipton is bawling near Greeley; Carl
  Schurz is waving his hat to friends on the _Ship of State_ and
  Theodore Tilton is embracing him; Governor Hoffman holds a parasol;
  Horatio Seymour kneels to Jeff Davis lying on the Confederate flag,
  behind him a group of Confederates with Wade Hampton standing near
  Greeley; John Kelly holds the Tammany knife, and above his head are
  faces of Tweed, and Mayor Oakey Hall with eye-glasses.
]

I got into the thick of the session in time to see the close, not
without an angry collision with that one of the newly arrived actors
whose coming had changed the course of events, and with whom I had
lifelong relations of affectionate intimacy. Recently, when I was
sailing in Mediterranean waters with Joseph Pulitzer, who, then a mere
youth, was yet the secretary of the convention, he recalled the scene:
the unexpected and not over-attractive appearance of B. Gratz Brown,
the Governor of Missouri; his not very pleasing yet ingenious speech
in favor of the nomination of Greeley; the stoical, almost lethargic
indifference of Schurz. “Carl Schurz,” said Pulitzer, “was the most
industrious and the least energetic man I have ever known and worked
with. A word from him at that crisis would have completely routed Blair
and squelched Brown. It was simply not in him to speak it.”

[Illustration: From a photograph by Sarony, taken in 1872

THOMAS NAST]

The result was that Greeley was nominated amid a whirl of enthusiasm,
his workers, with Whitelaw Reid at their head, having maintained an
admirable and effective organization, and being thoroughly prepared to
take advantage of the opportune moment. It was the logic of the event
that B. Gratz Brown should be placed on the ticket with him.

The Quadrilateral was “nowhere.” It was done for. The impossible had
come to pass. There arose thereafter a friendly issue of veracity
between Schurz and me, which illustrates our state of mind. My version
is that we left the convention hall together, with an immaterial train
of after incidents; his that we did not meet after the adjournment. He
was quite sure of this because he had ineffectually sought me. “Schurz
was right,” said Joseph Pulitzer, upon the occasion of our yachting
cruise just mentioned, “because he and I went directly from the hall
with Judge Stallo to his home on Walnut Hills, where we dined and
passed the afternoon.”

The Quadrilateral had been knocked into a cocked hat. Whitelaw Reid was
the sole survivor. He was the only one of us who clearly understood
the situation and thoroughly knew what he was about. He came to me and
said: “I have won, and you people have lost. I shall expect that you
stand by the agreement and meet me as my guests at dinner to-night.
But, if you do not personally look after this, the others will not be
there.” I was as badly hurt as any; but a bond is a bond, and I did
as he desired, succeeding partly by coaxing and partly by insisting,
though it was uphill work.

Frostier conviviality I have never sat down to than Reid’s dinner.
Horace White looked more than ever like an iceberg; Sam Bowles was
diplomatic, but ineffusive; Schurz was as a death’s head at the board;
Halstead and I, through sheer bravado, tried to enliven the feast.
But they would none of us, nor it, and we separated early and sadly,
reformers hoist by their own petard.

[Illustration: THE SAME TUNES BY ANOTHER FIDDLE WILL SOUND AS SWEET. IT
IS TOO BAD TO HAVE THE NEW YORK WORLD PLAY SECOND FIDDLE TO ITS OWN
FAVORITE TUNES.

From a cartoon by Thomas Nast in “Harper’s Weekly”

NAST’S CARTOON OF WHITELAW REID OF “THE TRIBUNE” AND MANTON MARBLE OF
“THE WORLD” PLAYING IN CONCERT]


V

The reception by the country of the nomination of Horace Greeley
was as inexplicable to the politicians as the nomination itself had
been unexpected by the Quadrilateral. The people rose to it. The
sentimental, the fantastic, and the paradoxical in human nature had to
do with this. At the South an ebullition of pleased surprise grew into
positive enthusiasm. Peace was the need, if not the longing, of the
Southern heart, and Greeley’s had been the first hand stretched out to
the South from the enemy’s camp,--very bravely, too, for he had signed
the bail-bond of Jefferson Davis,--and quick upon the news flashed the
response from generous men eager for the chance to pay something on a
recognized debt of gratitude.

Except for this spontaneous uprising, which continued unabated in July,
the Democratic party could not have been induced at its convention at
Baltimore to ratify the proceedings at Cincinnati and formally to make
Greeley its candidate. The leaders dared not resist it. Some of them
halted, a few held out, but by midsummer the great body of them came to
the front to head the procession.

Horace Greeley was a queer old man, a very medley of contradictions,
shrewd and simple, credulous and penetrating, a master penman of the
school of Swift and Cobbett, even in his odd, picturesque personality
whimsically attractive and, as Seward learned to his cost, a man to be
reckoned with where he chose to put his powers forth.

What he would have done with the Presidency had he reached it is not
easy to say or to surmise. He was altogether unsuited for official
life, for which, nevertheless, he had a longing. But he was not so
readily deceived in men or misled in measures as he seemed, and as most
people thought him.

His convictions were emotional, his philosophy experimental; but there
was a certain method in their application to public affairs. He gave
bountifully of his affection and his confidence to the few who enjoyed
his familiar friendship; he was accessible and sympathetic, though
not indiscriminating, to those who appealed to his impressionable
sensibilities and sought his help. He had been a good party man and was
temperamentally a partizan.

To him place was not a badge of bondage; it was a decoration,
preferment, promotion, popular recognition. He had always yearned for
office as the legitimate destination of public life and the honorable
reward of party service. During the greater part of his career, the
conditions of journalism had been rather squalid and servile. He was
really great as a journalist. He was truly and highly fit for nothing
else, but, seeing less deserving and less capable men about him
advanced from one post of distinction to another, he wondered why his
turn proved so tardy in coming, and when it would come. It did come
with a rush. What more natural than that he should believe it real
instead of the empty pageant of a vision?

After the first shock and surprise of the Cincinnati nomination, it had
taken me only a day and a night to pull myself together and to plunge
into the swim to help fetch the water-logged factions ashore. This
was clearly indispensable to forcing the Democratic organization to
come to the rescue of what would prove otherwise but a derelict upon a
stormy sea. Schurz was deeply disgruntled. Before he could be appeased,
a bridge found in what was called the Fifth Avenue Hotel Conference
had to be constructed in order to carry him across the stream which
flowed between his disappointed hopes and aims and what appeared to him
an illogical and repulsive alternative. Like another Achilles, he had
taken to his tent and sulked. He was harder to deal with than any of
the Democratic file-leaders; but he finally yielded, and did splendid
work in the campaign.

Carl Schurz was a stubborn spirit, not readily adjustable. He was a
nobly gifted man, but from first to last an alien in an alien land.
He once said to me, “If I should live a thousand years, they would
still call me a Dutchman.” No man of his time spoke so well or wrote
to better purpose. He was equally skilful in debate, an overmatch
for Conkling and Morton, whom, especially in the French Arms matter,
he completely dominated and outshone. As sincere and unselfish, as
patriotic and as courageous, as any of his contemporaries, he could
never attain the full measure of the popular heart and confidence,
albeit reaching its understanding directly and surely. Within himself a
man of sentiment, he was not the cause of sentiment in others. He knew
this and felt it.

During the campaign the Nast cartoons in “Harper’s Weekly,” which
while unsparing to the last degree to Greeley and Sumner, and treating
Schurz with a kind of considerate, qualifying humor, nevertheless
greatly offended him. I do not think Greeley minded them much, if
at all. They were very effective, notably the “Pirate Ship,” which
represented Greeley rising above the taffrail of a vessel carrying the
Stars-and-Stripes and waving his handkerchief at the man-of-war _Ship
of State_ in the distance, while the political leaders of the
Confederacy, dressed in true corsair costume, crouched below, ready to
spring. Nothing did more to sectionalize Northern opinion and fire the
Northern heart, or to lash the fury of the rank and file of those who
were urged to vote as they had shot, and who had hoisted above them
“the bloody shirt” for a banner.

In the first half of the canvass the impetus was with Greeley; the
second half, beginning in eclipse, seemed about to end in something
very like collapse. The old man seized his flag and set out upon his
own account for a tour of the country. And right well he bore himself.
If speech-making ever does any good toward the shaping of results,
Greeley’s speeches surely should have elected him. They were marvels
of impromptu oratory, mostly homely and touching appeals to the better
sense and the magnanimity of a people not ripe or ready for generous
impressions, convincing in their simplicity and integrity, unanswerable
from any point of view of sagacious statesmanship or true patriotism,
if the North had been in any mood to listen, to reason, and to respond.

I met him at Cincinnati and acted as his escort to Louisville and
thence to Indianapolis, where others were waiting to take him in
charge. He was in a state of querulous excitement. Before the vast
and noisy audiences which we faced he stood apparently pleased and
composed, delivering his words as he might have dictated them to a
stenographer. As soon as we were alone he would break out into a kind
of lamentation, punctuated by occasional bursts of objurgation. He
especially distrusted the Quadrilateral, making an exception in my
case as well he might, because, however his nomination had jarred my
judgment, I had a real affection for him, dating back to the years
immediately preceding the war, when I was wont to encounter him in the
reporters’ galleries at Washington, which he preferred to using his
floor privilege as an ex-member of Congress.

It was mid-October. We had heard from Maine. Indiana and Ohio had
voted, and Greeley was for the first time realizing the hopeless nature
of the contest. The South, in irons and under military rule and martial
law sure for Grant, there had never been any real chance. Now it was
obvious that there was to be no compensating ground-swell at the North.
That he should pour forth his chagrin to one whom he knew so well and
even regarded as one of his “boys” was inevitable. Much of what he said
was founded on a basis of fact, some of it was mere suspicion and
surmise, all of it came back to the main point that defeat stared us in
the face.

I was glad and yet loath to part with him. If ever a man needed a
strong friendly hand and heart to lean upon he did during those dark
days--the end in darkest night nearer than any one could divine. He
showed stronger mettle than had been allowed him; bore a manlier part
than was commonly ascribed to his slovenly, slipshod habiliments and
his aspect in which benignancy and vacillation seemed to struggle for
the ascendancy. Abroad, the elements conspired against him. At home his
wife lay ill, as it proved, unto death. The good gray head he still
carried like a hero, but the worn and tender heart was beginning to
break.

Happily the end came quickly. Overwhelming defeat was followed by
overwhelming affliction. He never quitted his dear one’s bedside until
the last pulse-beat, and then he sank beneath the load of grief. “‘The
Tribune’ is gone and I am gone,” he said, and spoke no more.

The death of Greeley fell upon the country with a sudden shock. It
aroused a wide-spread sense of pity and sorrow and awe. All hearts were
hushed. In an instant the bitterness of the campaign was forgotten,
though the huzzas of the victors still rent the air. President Grant,
his late antagonist, with his cabinet, and the leading members of the
two Houses of Congress, attended his funeral. As he lay in his coffin,
he was no longer the arch-rebel leading a combine of buccaneers and
insurgents, which the Republican orators and newspapers had depicted
him, but the brave old apostle of freedom, who had done more than all
others to make the issues upon which a militant and triumphant party
had risen to power. The multitude remembered only the old white hat and
the sweet, old baby face beneath it, heart of gold, and hand wielding
the wizard pen; the incarnation of probity and kindness, of steadfast
devotion to his duty, as he saw it, and to the needs of the whole human
family. It was, indeed, a tragedy; and yet, as his body was lowered
into its grave, there rose above it, invisible, unnoted, a flower of
matchless beauty--the flower of peace and love between the parts of the
Union to which his life had been a sacrifice.

The crank convention had builded wiser than it knew. That the
Democratic party could ever have been brought to the support of Horace
Greeley for President of the United States reads even now like a page
out of a nonsense-book. That his warmest support should have come from
the South seems an incredible, and was a priceless, fact. His martyrdom
shortened the distance across the bloody chasm; his coffin very nearly
filled it. The candidacy of Charles Francis Adams or of Lyman Trumbull
would have meant a mathematical formula, with no solution of the
problem, and as certain defeat at the end of it. Greeley’s candidacy
threw a flood of light and warmth into the arena of deadly strife; it
made a more equal and reasonable division of parties possible; it put
the Southern half of the country in a position to plead its own case
by showing the Northern half that it was not wholly recalcitrant, and
it made way for real issues of pith and moment relating to the time
instead of pigments of bellicose passion and scraps of ante bellum
controversy.

In a word, Greeley did more by his death to complete the work of
Lincoln than he could have done by a triumph at the polls and the term
in the White House he so much desired. Though only sixty years of age,
his race was run. Of him it may be truly written that he lived a life
full of inspiration to his countrymen, and died not in vain, “our later
Franklin” fittingly inscribed upon his tomb.


  [1] Dissatisfaction with the administration of General Grant led
      a number of distinguished Republicans to unite in a call for
      what they named a Liberal Republican Convention to assemble
      in Cincinnati the first of May, 1872. Charles Sumner, Lyman
      Trumbull, and Carl Schurz were foremost among these Republicans.
      Mr. Schurz was chosen permanent chairman of the convention and
      delivered a striking key-note speech. Stanley Matthews, afterward
      a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, served as
      temporary chairman.

      The free-trade and civil-service reform elements were largely
      represented under the leadership of David A. Wells, George
      Hoadley, and Horace White. Charles Francis Adams was the choice
      of these for the Presidential nomination. The opposition to Mr.
      Adams was divided at the outset between Justice David Davis of
      the Supreme Court, ex-Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, and
      Governor B. Gratz Brown of Missouri, with a strong undercurrent
      for Horace Greeley. The arrival upon the scene at the opportune
      moment of Governor Brown, accompanied by General Francis P.
      Blair, turned the tide from both Adams and Davis, and, Brown
      withdrawing and throwing his strength to Greeley, secured on the
      sixth ballot the nomination of the famous editor of the New York
      “Tribune,” Brown himself taking second place on the ticket.

      In the platform that was adopted the free-trade issue, in
      deference to Mr. Greeley’s Protectionist antecedents and
      sentiments, was “relegated to the congressional districts.”

      The result at Cincinnati was received with mingled ridicule and
      applause. Many Liberal Republicans refused to accept Mr. Greeley
      and fell back within the lines of the regular Republican party. A
      sub-convention, called the Fifth Avenue Conference, was required
      to hold others of them, including Carl Schurz. Finally, the
      Democratic National Convention, which met at Baltimore in July,
      ratified the Greeley and Brown ticket.

      During the midsummer there were high hopes of its election; but
      as the canvass advanced, its prospects steadily declined. Early
      in October Mr. Greeley made a tour from New England westward
      as far as Indiana and Ohio, delivering a series of speeches in
      persuasive eloquence regarded as unexampled in the political
      annals of the country. But nothing sufficed to stay overwhelming
      defeat, the portion fate seemed to have allotted Mr. Greeley on
      several occasions, in 1861 as a candidate for the Senate, in
      1869 as a candidate for Controller of New York, and in 1870 as a
      representative in Congress, to which he had been sent in 1848-9.

      During his absence from home his wife had fallen ill. He returned
      to find her condition desperate. She died and was buried amid
      the closing scenes of the disastrous campaign. Mr. Greeley had
      for years suffered from insomnia. His vigil by the bedside of
      his dying wife had quite exhausted him. Inflammation of the
      brain ensued; he remained sleepless, delirium set in, and he
      died November 29, 1872. General Grant and his Cabinet, with
      most of the officials of Congress and the Government, attended
      his funeral, the tragic circumstances of his death wholly
      obliterating partizan feeling and arousing general sympathy among
      all classes of the people.




COMMENTS ON COLONEL WATTERSON’S PAPER


  The foregoing was written in the south of France to help while
  away a winter vacation. I was not willing to give it to the public
  without the “visé” of my surviving colleagues, Whitelaw Reid and
  Horace White, to each of whom I sent a copy. At first I thought of
  recasting my matter to meet their objections. But, on second thought,
  it seems best to “let the hide go with the tallow,” as it were, their
  comments not only illuminating my narrative, but throwing on it
  the side lights of their differing points of view. No one holds in
  higher respect than I the noble aims and great sacrifices made by the
  Liberal Republicans.

  ~Henry Watterson.~


  I--BY WHITELAW REID

  Dorchester House,
  Park Lane, W., London, England,
  May 3, 1911.

  My dear Watterson:

I have read the manuscript with the greatest interest. On a few little
matters I shouldn’t have put things quite the same way; but that
of course is to be expected from the different points of view from
which we necessarily regard the subject. On the whole, it seems to me
extremely fair and accurate.

I shall append a few notes, which I have made on different points
suggested by the manuscript, not with the idea that you will find any
occasion to incorporate any of my suggestions in your account, but only
by way of refreshing your memory, as your manuscript has refreshed
mine, about interesting incidents of a period which now seems so remote
as to belong exclusively to our romantic youth.

On page 27 it would seem to be implied that Ben Wade was somewhat
influenced in his support of the impeachment policy by the fact
that if impeachment succeeded, he was the inevitable successor. I
saw a great deal of Wade in those days. He certainly knew what the
consequence to himself of a successful impeachment would be, but I
never saw any reason to suppose that if somebody else had been acting
Vice-President, Wade’s attitude would not have been the same. Probably
he would have been even more outspoken.

Page 31. What you say of the attitude of three of the Quadrilateral
toward myself is not news to me. I knew, however, the reasons for
it (which would probably have influenced me if I had been in their
places), and I bore no grudges. In fact, at the time I had a pretty
strong conviction that they were the people who were going to be badly
disappointed in the end; so that, while you all thought you were taking
me into camp, I was comforting myself with the belief that I was taking
the Quadrilateral into camp, and should find them very useful articles
to begin housekeeping with.

Page 35. Did McCullagh come from Chicago? I thought we always counted
him as belonging to Cincinnati until he went to St. Louis. When I first
went to Cincinnati, he was a reporter on the “Gazette,” from which he
went to the “Commercial.”

Page 40. The “bravery” of Greeley’s outstretched hand may have been
fully recognized, but I doubt if its self-sacrifice ever was. First
and last it must have cost him (poor man that he was) nearly a million
dollars. Shortly after the first volume of his history, “The American
Conflict,” was published, I remember congratulating him on the
pecuniary success. His reply was: “Oh, I haven’t made as much as the
newspapers say. Still, I’ve made a hundred thousand dollars that I know
of, for I have spent every cent of it. The past at least is secure.”
With that figure as a basis, you can calculate how much he would
probably have made from the enormously augmented sale of the first
volume when the second came out, as well as from the copyrights on the
second. The circulation of “The Tribune” was also affected for a time
in the same disastrous way.

Page 41. With my intimate knowledge of Greeley at that period I should
hardly have said he had a passion for office. What I did think was that
he had a passion for recognition, and was very sore at being treated
not as an equal and comrade, but as a convenience to the machine,
by Seward and Thurlow Weed. It was less office he sought than an
opportunity to teach those gentlemen their places and his. Certainly he
never had a lifelong passion for office like Lincoln.

Page 41. We had no better politics during the campaign than in the
management of the Fifth Avenue Conference. I remember that William
Henry Hurlbert and some others who were doing their best then to defeat
us did not wake up to the real significance of our attitude toward this
conference until the morning it met. Then Hurlbert described the course
of “The Tribune” as that of a court gallant, tiptoeing forward to bow
the favorites to their places.

I always thought we had the country with us until after the North
Carolina election, and believed we carried that. I am afraid it was
our old friend Ned Webster who deliberately rushed down to steal
it away from us, and that his very strong measures had pretty high
sanction. Or was it in the Hayes-Tilden election that he came to the
front? The truth is the North Carolina election was the turning-point.
If the result had been left as we believed it to be for the first two
or three days, I don’t think we should have had the October reaction,
or that Nast’s cartoons could have had anything like the effect they
did exert.

By the way, some of those cartoons could hardly have been tolerated at
any other time in America, and would hardly have been tolerated in any
other country at any time, such as the one depicting Greeley--Greeley
of all living men!--as clasping hands with the ghost of Wilkes Booth
across the grave of murdered Abraham Lincoln. I once told “Brooklyn”
Joe Harper he ought to be ashamed of that, and begin every day of
his life with a prayer for forgiveness for it. His reply was that we
all of us had done something at some time in our lives that we ought
to be ashamed of. He understood perfectly that I never resented in
the least Nast’s caricatures of myself. In fact, I thought some of
them extraordinarily clever, such as the one depicting me playing a
hand-organ in front of the old Manhattan Club, with Greeley as the
monkey holding out a hat for pennies, while on the end of the organ was
the familiar quotation from “The Tribune” of those days, “This is not
an organ.”

Page 42. You are perfectly right in praising Greeley’s hopeless
campaign in the West. In fact, if I were writing, I should pitch the
note a little higher. I remember Joseph H. Choate saying to a group,
of which I was a member, one Saturday night at the Century Club during
that campaign, “What extraordinarily good speeches Greeley is making
out West!” To give that its full value, please remember that Choate was
a partner of Evarts, who had nominated Seward, and that to that whole
combination Greeley was anathema.

Page 42. My recollection is that Mrs. Greeley died in the interval
after his return from the West, but before the election. I always
attributed his sudden collapse after the election as much to his
loss of sleep, while watching for a week at her bedside, as to
disappointment over the result, and this opinion was somewhat confirmed
by Dr. Choate (a brother of Joseph), to whose private sanatorium he
was taken. I asked Choate what the real disease was, and he said, “If
you want it in popular phrase, it is really an inflammation of the
outer membrane of the brain, due to loss of sleep or extraordinary
excitement.” Then I asked what his prognosis was, and he replied,
“He will either be well in a week or dead.” This is of course not a
description of insanity at all; and I always felt a cruel injustice was
done his memory in describing him as going crazy over defeat--as cruel
as it would be to say such a thing of a fever patient because he was in
a temporary delirium.

I was never convinced that the “last words” you quote were ever
uttered by him, “‘The Tribune’ is gone, and I am gone.” Dana was
surrounded in those days by people who for one reason or another
had grudges equal to his own against “The Tribune”--Amos Cummings,
who had left us in a pet because of some rebuke from John Russell
Young; Dr. Wood, whom Amos got away from us; and, above all, a man in
the proof-room, who resented my criticisms of his proofreading and
deserted us, taking with him the manuscript of one or two of Greeley’s
unbalanced articles, which his brother-in-law, John Cleveland, had
discovered and brought to me, and which I suppressed because they were
obviously unbalanced. They reveled in these things; and it happened at
that time to be all grist to Dana’s mill.


II--BY HORACE WHITE

I have read “The Humor and Tragedy of the Greeley Campaign.” What I
think of it depends upon the point of view from which I look at it. The
only tragic thing in it is the death of Greeley. All the rest is comedy.

Regarded as such it has high merits. I can think of nothing political
that is more mirth-provoking, unless it is Dickens’s description of
_Mr. Veneering’s_ campaign for a seat in Parliament with the help
of _Boots_ and _Brewer_ riding about London in cabs and
“bringing him in.”

The first three pages are serious. On the fourth page the fun begins,
and continues till the death of Greeley. At the bottom of page 33
there are two sentences beginning with the words, “We were wholly
serious,” which excuse the participants, including yourself, for
being at Cincinnati at all. Then the humor starts afresh and becomes
side-splitting at the place where McClure enters and tosses Schurz and
Halstead and yourself to the ceiling successively.

Now the question arises, What will the readers of your paper, who get
from it their first and only knowledge of the campaign of 1872--and
these will probably be ninety per cent. of its readers--think of
that campaign? They will think it was a very droll affair and quite
unaccountable. They will know nothing about disfranchisement or Santo
Domingo or nepotism or whisky frauds, or civil-service rapine or the
real causes of the uprising of 1871-72.

The McClure episode, by the way, is even more unaccountable. I don’t
understand it myself. It reads as though Colonel McClure was surveying
the scene from Olympus as a disinterested spectator, with great scorn
for the participants in the convention. In fact he was chairman of the
Pennsylvania delegation, supporting Greeley or Davis or somebody. He
was as deep in the mud as anybody else was in the mire.

Chapter V on Greeley is _prime_, but it is hardly true to say
or imply that his martyrdom shortened the distance across the bloody
chasm or that his coffin nearly filled it. Reconstruction, Ku Klux, and
carpet-baggery lasted through Grant’s second term, except in so far as
it was put down (in Texas and Arkansas) despite the Republican party.
The South did not get any real relief until Hayes came in, and then
only as the result of a bargain made before the vote of the Electoral
Commission was taken.

To sum up: I think that you have dwelt too much on the humorous side
of the Cincinnati Convention, and that you have omitted the only
features that gave it a _raison d’être_, or have given such slight
attention to them that the reader will not catch their significance.




IS THE NEGRO HAVING A FAIR CHANCE?

BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON


If I were asked the simple, direct question, “Does the negro in America
have a fair chance?” it would be easy to answer simply, “No,” and
then refer to instances with which every one is familiar to justify
this reply. Such a statement would, however, be misleading to any one
who was not intimately acquainted with the actual situation. For that
reason I have chosen to make my answer not less candid and direct, I
hope, but a little more circumstantial.


THE NEGRO TREATED BETTER IN AMERICA THAN ELSEWHERE

Although I have never visited either Africa or the West Indies to see
for myself the condition of the people in these countries, I have had
opportunities from time to time, outside of the knowledge I have gained
from books, to get some insight into actual conditions there. But I do
not intend to assert or even suggest that the condition of the American
negro is satisfactory, nor that he has in all things a fair chance.
Nevertheless, from all that I can learn I believe I am safe in saying
that nowhere are there ten millions of black people who have greater
opportunities or are making greater progress than the negroes in
America.

I know that few native Africans will agree with me in this statement.
For example, we had at Tuskegee a student from the Gold Coast who came
to America to study in our Bible Training School and incidentally to
learn something of our methods of study and work. He did not approve
at all of our course of study. There was not enough theology, and too
much work to suit him. As far as he was concerned, he could not see any
value in learning to work, and he thought it was a pretty poor sort of
country in which the people had to devote so much time to labor. “In
my country,” he said, “everything grows of itself. We do not have to
work. We can devote all our time to the larger life.”


LITTLE IMMIGRATION OF NEGROES

In the last ten years the official records show that 37,000 negroes
have left other countries to take residence in the United States. I can
find no evidence to show that any considerable number of black people
have given up residence in America.

The striking fact is, that negroes from other countries are constantly
coming into the United States, and few are going out. This seems in
part to answer the question as to whether the negro is having a fair
chance in America as compared with any other country in which negroes
live in any large numbers.

By far the largest number of negro immigrants come from the West
Indies. Even Haiti, a free negro republic, furnishes a considerable
number of immigrants every year. In all my experience and observation,
however, I cannot recall a single instance in which a negro has left
the United States to become a citizen of the Haitian Republic. On the
other hand, not a few leaders of thought and action among the negroes
in the United States are those who have given up citizenship in the
little Black Republic in order to live under the Stars and Stripes.
The majority of the colored people who come from the West Indies do so
because of the economic opportunities which the United States offers
them. Another large group, however, comes to get education. Here at the
Tuskegee Institute in Alabama we usually have not far from one hundred
students from South America and the various West Indian Islands. In
the matter of opportunity to secure the old-fashioned, abstract book
education several of the West Indian Islands give negroes a better
chance than is afforded them in most of our Southern States, but for
industrial and technical education they are compelled to come to the
United States.

In the matter of political and civil rights, including protection of
life and property and even-handed justice in the courts, negroes in the
West Indies have the advantage of negroes in the United States. In the
island of Jamaica, for example, there are about 15,000 white people and
600,000 black people, but of the “race problem,” in regard to which
there is much agitation in this country, one hears almost nothing
there. Jamaica has neither mobs, race riots, lynchings, nor burnings,
such as disgrace our civilization. In that country there is likewise no
bitterness between white man and black man. One reason for this is that
the laws are conceived and executed with exact and absolute justice,
without regard to race or color.


UNEQUAL LAWS THE CAUSE OF RACIAL TROUBLE IN AMERICA

Reduced to its lowest terms, the fact is that a large part of our
racial troubles in the United States grow out of some attempt to pass
and execute a law that will make and keep one man superior to another,
whether he is intrinsically superior or not. No greater harm can be
done to any group of people than to let them feel that a statutory
enactment can keep them superior to anybody else. No greater injury can
be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to
this or that race, or because of his color, he will be advanced in life
regardless of his own merits or efforts.

In what I have said I do not mean to suggest that in the West Indian
Islands there is any more social intermingling between whites and
blacks than there is in the United States. The trouble in most parts of
the United States is that mere civil and legal privileges are confused
with social intermingling. The fact that two men ride in the same
railway coach does not mean in any country in the world that they are
socially equal.

The facts seem to show, however, that after the West Indian negro
has carefully weighed his civil and political privileges against the
economic and other advantages to be found in the United States, he
decides that, all things considered, he has a better chance in the
United States than at home. The negro in Haiti votes, but votes have
not made that country happy; or have not even made it free, in any
true sense of the word. There is one other fact I might add to this
comparison: nearly all the negro church organizations in the United
States have mission churches in the islands, as they have also in
Africa.

Does the negro in our country have a fair chance as compared with the
native black man in Africa, the home of the negro? In the midst of
the preparation of this article, I met Bishop Isaiah B. Scott of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the strongest and most intelligent
colored men that I know. Bishop Scott has spent the greater part of his
life in the Southern States, but during the last seven years he has
lived in Liberia and traveled extensively on the west coast of Africa,
where he has come into contact with all classes of European white
people. In answer to my question, Bishop Scott dictated the following
sentence, which he authorized me to use:

“The fairest white man that I have met in dealing with the colored
man is the American white man. He understands the colored man better
because of his contact with him, and he has more respect for the
colored man who has accomplished something.”

Basing my conclusions largely on conversations which I have had with
native Africans, with negro missionaries, and with negro diplomatic
officials who have lived in Africa, especially on the west coast and in
South Africa, I am led to the conclusion that, all things considered,
the negro in the United States has a better chance than he has in
Africa.


THE NEGRO AS A DEPENDENT RACE

In certain directions the negro has had greater opportunities in the
States in which he served as a slave than he has had in the States in
which he has been for a century or more a free man. This statement is
borne out by the fact that in the South the negro rarely has to seek
labor, but, on the other hand, labor seeks him. In all my experience
in the Southern States, I have rarely seen a negro man or woman
seeking labor who did not find it. In the South the negro has business
opportunities that he does not have elsewhere. While in social matters
the lines are strictly drawn, the negro is less handicapped in business
in the South than any other part of the country. He is sought after
as a depositor in banks. If he wishes to borrow money, he gets it
from the local bank just as quickly as the white man with the same
business standing. If the negro is in the grocery business or in the
dry-goods trade, or if he operates a drug store, he gets his goods
from the wholesale dealer just as readily and on as good terms as his
white competitor. If the Southern white man has a dwelling-house, a
store-house, factory, school, or court-house to erect, it is natural
for him to employ a colored man as builder or contractor to perform
that work. What is said to be the finest school building in the city of
New Orleans was erected by a colored contractor. In the North a colored
man who ran a large grocery store would be looked upon as a curiosity.
The Southern white man frequently buys his groceries from a negro
merchant.

Fortunately, the greater part of the colored people in the South have
remained as farmers on the soil. The late census shows that eighty per
cent. of Southern negroes live on the land.

There are few cases where a black man cannot buy and own a farm in the
South. It is as a farmer in the Southern States that the masses of my
race have economically and industrially the largest opportunity. No one
stops to ask before purchasing a bale of cotton or a bushel of corn if
it has been produced by a white hand or a black hand.

The negro now owns, as near as I can estimate, 15,000 grocery and
dry-goods stores, 300 drug stores, and 63 banks. Negroes pay taxes on
between $600,000,000 and $700,000,000 of property of various kinds in
the United States. Unless he had had a reasonably fair chance in the
South, the negro could not have gained and held this large amount of
property, and would not have been able to enter in the commerce of this
country to the extent that he has.


SKILLED NEGRO LABOR BETTER TREATED IN THE SOUTH THAN IN THE NORTH

As a skilled laborer, the negro has a better opportunity in the South
than in the North. I think it will be found generally true in the
South as elsewhere that wherever the negro is strong in numbers and in
skill he gets on well with the trades-unions. In these cases the unions
seek to get him in, or they leave him alone, and in the latter case do
not seek to control him. In the Southern States, where the race enters
in large numbers in the trades, the trades-unions have not had any
appreciable effect in hindering the progress of the negro as a skilled
laborer or as a worker in special industries, such as coal-mining,
iron-mining, etc. In border cities, like St. Louis, Washington, and
Baltimore, however, the negro rarely finds work in such industries
as brick-laying and carpentry. One of the saddest examples of this
fact that I ever witnessed was in the City of Washington, where on
the campus of Howard University, a negro institution, a large brick
building was in process of erection. Every man laying brick on this
building was white, every man carrying a hod was a negro. The white
man, in this instance, was willing to erect a building in which negroes
could study Latin, but was not willing to give negroes a chance to lay
the bricks in its walls.

Let us consider for a moment the negro in the professions in the
Southern States. Aside from school teaching and preaching, into which
the racial question enters in only a slight degree, there remain law
and medicine. All told, there are not more than 700 colored lawyers in
the Southern States, while there are perhaps more than 3000 doctors,
dentists, and pharmacists. With few exceptions, colored lawyers feel,
as they tell me, that they do not have a fair chance before a white
jury when a white lawyer is on the other side of the case. Even in
communities where negro lawyers are not discriminated against by
juries, their clients feel that there is danger in intrusting cases to
a colored lawyer. Mainly for these two reasons, colored lawyers are
not numerous in the South; yet, in cases where colored lawyers combine
legal practice with trading and real estate, they have in several
instances been highly successful.


THE DIFFICULTY OF OBTAINING UNIFORM TREATMENT

Here again, however, it is difficult to generalize. People speak of
the “race question” in the South, overlooking the fact that each one
of the 1300 counties in the Southern States is a law unto itself. The
result is that there are almost as many race problems as there are
counties. The negro may have a fair chance in one county, and have no
chance at all in the adjoining county. The Hon. Josiah T. Settles, for
example, has practised both criminal and civil law for thirty years in
Memphis. He tells me that he meets with no discrimination on account
of his color either from judges, lawyers, or juries. There are other
communities, like New Orleans and Little Rock, where negro lawyers are
accorded the same fair treatment, and, I ought to add, that, almost
without exception, negro lawyers tell me they are treated fairly by
white judges and white lawyers.

The professional man who is making the greatest success in the South
is the negro doctor, and I should include the pharmacists and dentists
with the physicians and surgeons. Except in a few cities, white doctors
are always willing to consult with negro doctors.

The young negro physician in the South soon finds himself with a large
and paying practice, and, as a rule, he makes use of this opportunity
to improve the health conditions of his race in the community. Some
of the most prosperous men of my race in the South are negro doctors.
Again, the very fact that a negro cannot buy soda-water in a white drug
store makes an opportunity for the colored drug store, which often
becomes a sort of social center for the colored population.

From an economic point of view, the negro in the North, when compared
with the white man, does not have a fair chance. This is the feeling
not only of the colored people themselves, but of almost every one who
has examined into the conditions under which colored men work. But here
also one is likely to form a wrong opinion. There is, to begin with,
this general difference between the North and the South, that whereas
in the South there is, as I have already suggested, a job looking for
every idle man, in the North, on the contrary, there are frequently two
or three idle men looking for every job. In some of the large cities
of the North there are organizations to secure employment for colored
people. For a number of years I have kept in pretty close touch with
those at the head of these organizations, and they tell me that in many
cases they have been led to believe that the negro has a harder time in
finding employment than is actually true. The reason is that those who
are out of employment seek these organizations. Those who have steady
work, in positions which they have held for years, do not seek them.

As a matter of fact, I have been surprised to find how large a number
of colored people there are in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and
Chicago who hold responsible positions in factories, stores, banks, and
other places. In regard to these people one hears very little. There is
a colored man, for example, in Cleveland who has been for years private
secretary to a railway president. In St. Paul there is a colored man
who holds a similar position; in Baltimore there is still another
colored private secretary to a railway president.


THE SHIFTING OF OCCUPATIONS

In recent years there has been a great shifting of employment between
the races. A few years ago all the rough work in the mines, on the
railway, and elsewhere was performed by Irish immigrants. Now this work
is done by Poles, Hungarians, and Italians. In cities like New York,
Chicago, and Pittsburg one finds to-day fewer colored people employed
as hotel waiters, barbers, and porters than twenty years ago. In New
York, however, many colored men are employed in the streets and in
the subways. In Pittsburg thousands of colored men are employed in
the iron mills. In Chicago negroes are employed very largely in the
packing-houses. Twenty years ago in these cities there were almost no
colored people in these industries. In addition to the changes I have
mentioned, many colored people have gone into businesses of various
kinds on their own account. It should be remembered, also, that, while
in some trades and in some places discrimination is made against the
negro, in other trades and in other places this discrimination works
in his favor. The case in point is the Pullman-car service. I question
whether any white man, however efficient, could secure a job as a
Pullman-car porter.


BETTER OPPORTUNITY FOR EDUCATION IN THE NORTH

In the North, as a rule, the negro has the same opportunities for
education as his white neighbor. When it comes to making use of this
education, however, he is frequently driven to a choice between
becoming an agitator, who makes his living out of the troubles of his
race, or emigrating to the Southern States, where the opportunities
for educated colored men are large. One of the greatest sources of
bitterness and despondency among colored people in the North grows
out of their inability to find a use for their education after they
have obtained it. Again, they are seldom sure of just what they may or
may not do. If one is a stranger in a city, he does not know in what
hotel he will be permitted to stay; he is not certain what seat he may
occupy in the theater, or whether he will be able to obtain a meal in a
restaurant.


THE UNCERTAINTY OF TREATMENT OF THE RACE IN THE NORTH

The uncertainty, the constant fear and expectation of rebuff which
the colored man experiences in the North, is often more humiliating
and more wearing than the frank and impersonal discrimination which
he meets in the South. This is all the more true because the colored
youth in most of the Northern States, educated as they are in the same
schools with white youths, taught by the same teachers, and inspired
by the same ideals of American citizenship, are not prepared for the
discrimination that meets them when they leave school.

Despite all this, it cannot be denied that the negro has advantages in
the North which are denied him in the South. They are the opportunity
to vote and to take part, to some extent, in making and administering
the laws by which he is governed, the opportunity to obtain an
education, and, what is of still greater importance, fair and unbiased
treatment in the courts, the protection of the law.

I have touched upon conditions North and South, which, whether they
affect the negro favorably or adversely, are for the most part so
firmly entrenched in custom, prejudice, and human nature that they
must perhaps be left to the slow changes of time. There are certain
conditions in the South, however, in regard to which colored people
feel perhaps more keenly because they believe if they were generally
understood they would be remedied. Very frequently the negro people
suffer injury and wrong in the South because they have or believe
they have no way of making their grievances known. Not only are they
not represented in the legislatures, but it is sometimes hard to get
a hearing even in the press. On one of my educational campaigns in
the South I was accompanied by a colored newspaper man. He was an
enterprising sort of chap and at every public meeting we held he would
manage in some way to address the audience on the subject of his paper.
On one occasion, after appealing to the colored people for some time,
he turned to the white portion of the audience.

“You white folks,” he said, “ought to read our colored papers to find
out what colored people are doing. You ought to find out what they are
doing and what they are thinking. You don’t know anything about us,”
he added. “Don’t you know a colored man can’t get his name in a white
paper unless he commits a crime?”

I do not know whether the colored newspaper man succeeded in getting
any subscriptions by this speech or not, but there was much truth in
his statement.


THE GREATEST SOURCE OF DISSATISFACTION TO THE NEGRO IN THE SOUTH

One thing that many negroes feel keenly, although they do not say much
about it to either black or white people, is the conditions of railway
travel in the South.

Now and then the negro is compelled to travel. With few exceptions,
the railroads are almost the only great business concerns in the South
that pursue the policy of taking just as much money from the black
traveler as from the white traveler without feeling that they ought, as
a matter of justice and fair play, not as a matter of social equality,
to give one man for his money just as much as another man. The failure
of most of the roads to do justice to the negro when he travels is the
source of more bitterness than any one other matter of which I have any
knowledge.

It is strange that the wide-awake men who control the railroads in
the Southern States do not see that, as a matter of dollars and cents,
to say nothing of any higher consideration, they ought to encourage,
not discourage, the patronage of nine millions of the black race in
the South. This is a traveling population that is larger than the
whole population of Canada, and yet, with here and there an exception,
railway managers do not seem to see that there is any business
advantage to them in giving this large portion of the population fair
treatment.

What embitters the colored people in regard to railroad travel,
I repeat, is not the separation, but the inadequacy of the
accommodations. The colored people are given half of a baggage-car or
half of a smoking-car. In most cases, the negro portion of the car
is poorly ventilated, poorly lighted, and, above all, rarely kept
clean; and then, to add to the colored man’s discomfort, no matter
how many colored women may be in the colored end of the car, nor how
clean or how well educated these colored women may be, this car is
made the headquarters for the news-boy. He spreads out his papers, his
magazines, his candy, and his cigars over two or three seats. White men
are constantly coming into the car and almost invariably light cigars
while in the colored coach, so that these women are required to ride in
what is virtually a smoking-car.

On some of the roads colored men and colored women are forced to use
the same toilet-room. This is not true of every Southern railway.
There are some railways in the South, notably the Western Railway of
Alabama, which make a special effort to see that the colored people are
given every facility in the day coaches that the white people have,
and the colored people show in many ways that they appreciate this
consideration.

Here is an experience of R. S. Lovinggood, a colored man of Austin,
Texas. I know Mr. Lovinggood well. He is neither a bitter nor a foolish
man. I will venture to say that there is not a single white man in
Austin, Texas, where he lives, who will say that Professor Lovinggood
is anything but a conservative, sensible man.

“At one time,” he said to me, in speaking of some of his traveling
experiences, “I got off at a station almost starved. I begged the
keeper of the restaurant to sell me a lunch in a paper and hand it out
of the window. He refused, and I had to ride a hundred miles farther
before I could get a sandwich.

“At another time I went to a station to purchase my ticket. I was there
thirty minutes before the ticket-office was opened. When it did finally
open I at once appeared at the window. While the ticket-agent served
the white people at one window, I remained there beating the other
until the train pulled out. I was compelled to jump aboard the train
without my ticket and wire back to get my trunk expressed. Considering
the temper of the people, the separate coach law may be the wisest
plan for the South, but the statement that the two races have equal
accommodations is all bosh. I pay the same money, but I cannot have
a chair or a lavatory and rarely a through car. I must crawl out at
all times of night, and in all kinds of weather, in order to catch
another dirty ‘Jim Crow’ coach to make my connections. I do not ask to
ride with white people. I do ask for equal accommodations for the same
money.”


LACK OF A “SQUARE DEAL” IN EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH

In the matter of education, the negro in the South has not had what
Colonel Roosevelt calls a “square deal.” In the North, not only the
Jew, the Slav, the Italian, many of whom are such recent arrivals that
they have not yet become citizens and voters, even under the easy terms
granted them by the naturalization laws of the Northern States, have
all the advantages of education that are granted to every other portion
of the population, but in several States an effort is now being made
to give immigrant peoples special opportunities for education over and
above those given to the average citizen. In some instances, night
schools are started for their special benefit. Frequently schools which
run nine months in the winter are continued throughout the summer,
whenever a sufficient number of people can be induced to attend them.
Sometimes, as for example, in New York State, where large numbers of
men are employed in digging the Erie Canal and in excavating the Croton
Aqueduct, camp schools are started where the men employed on these
public works in the day may have an opportunity to learn the English
language at night. In some cases a special kind of text-book, written
in two or three different languages, has been prepared for use in these
immigrant schools, and frequently teachers are specially employed who
can teach in the native languages if necessary.

While in the North all this effort is being made to provide education
for these foreign peoples, many of whom are merely sojourners in this
country, and will return in a few months to their homes in Europe,
it is only natural that the negro in the South should feel that he
is unfairly treated when he has, as is often true in the country
districts, either no school at all, or one with a term of no more
than four or five months, taught in the wreck of a log-cabin and by a
teacher who is paid about half the price of a first-class convict.

This is no mere rhetorical statement. If a negro steals or commits a
murderous assault of some kind, he will be tried and imprisoned, and
then, if he is classed as a first-class convict, he will be rented out
at the rate of $46 per month for twelve months in the year. The negro
who does not commit a crime, but prepares himself to serve the State
as a first-grade teacher, will receive from the State for that service
perhaps $30 per month for a period of not more than six months.

Taking the Southern States as a whole, about $10.23 per capita is spent
in educating the average white boy or girl, and the sum of $2.82 per
capita in educating the average black child.

Let me take as an illustration one of our Southern farming communities,
where the colored population largely outnumbers the white. In Wilcox
County, Alabama, there are nearly 11,000 black children and 2000 white
children of school age. Last year $3569 of the public school fund went
for the education of the black children in that county, and $30,294
for the education of the white children, this notwithstanding that
there are five times as many negro children as white. In other words,
there was expended for the education of each negro child in Wilcox
County thirty-three cents, and for each white child $15. In the six
counties surrounding and touching Wilcox County there are 55,000 negro
children of school age. There was appropriated for their education last
year from the public school fund $40,000, while for the 19,622 white
children in the same counties there was appropriated from the public
fund $199,000.

There are few, if any, intelligent white people in the South or
anywhere else who will claim that the negro is receiving justice in
these counties in the matter of the public school fund. Especially will
this seem true when it is borne in mind that the negro is the main
dependence for producing the farm products which constitute the chief
wealth of that part of Alabama. I say this because I know there are
thousands of fair-minded and liberal white men in the South who do not
know what is actually going on in their own States.

In the State of Georgia, negroes represent forty-two per cent. of the
farmers of the State, and are largely employed as farm laborers on the
plantations. Notwithstanding this fact, Georgia has two agricultural
colleges and eleven district agricultural high schools for whites,
supported at an annual cost to the State of $140,000, while there is
only one school where negroes have a chance to study agriculture, and
to the support of this the State contributes only $8000 a year. When
one hears it said that the negro farmer of Georgia is incompetent
and inefficient as compared with the white farmer of Minnesota or
Wisconsin, can any one say that this is fair to the negro?

Not a few Southern white men see what is needed and are not afraid to
say so. A. A. Gunby of Louisiana recently said: “Every one competent
to speak and honest enough to be candid knows that education benefits
and improves the negro. It makes him a better neighbor and workman, no
matter what you put him at.”

Every one agrees that a public library in a city tends to make better
citizens, keeping people usefully employed instead of spending their
time in idleness or in committing crime. Is it fair, as is true of most
of the large cities of the South, to take the negro’s money in the form
of taxes to support a public library, and then to make no provision for
the negro using any library? I am glad to say that some of the cities,
for instance, Louisville, Kentucky, and Jacksonville, Florida, have
already provided library facilities for their black citizens or are
preparing to do so.

One excuse that is frequently made in the South for not giving the
negro a fair share of the moneys expended for education is that the
negro is poor and does not contribute by his taxes sufficient to
support the schools that now exist. True, the negro is poor; but in
the North that would be a reason for giving him more opportunities for
education, not fewer, because it is recognized that one of the greatest
hindrances to progress is ignorance. As far as I know, only two men
have ever given thorough consideration to the question as to the amount
the negro contributes directly or indirectly toward his own education.
Both of these are Southern white men. One of them is W. N. Sheats,
former Superintendent of Education for the State of Florida. The
other is Charles L. Coon, Superintendent of Schools at Wilson, North
Carolina, and formerly connected with the Department of Education for
that State.


THE NEGRO PAYS MORE THAN HIS SHARE TO EDUCATION IN THE SOUTH

In his annual report for 1900, Mr. Sheats made a thorough analysis of
the sources of the school fund in Florida, and of the way in which it
is distributed between the white and negro schools. In referring to the
figures which he obtained, he said:

  A glance at the foregoing statistics indicates that the section of
  the State designated as “Middle Florida” is considerably behind all
  the rest in all stages of educational progress. The usual plea is
  that this is due to the intolerable burden of negro education, and a
  general discouragement and inactivity is ascribed to this cause. The
  following figures are given to show that the education of the negroes
  of Middle Florida does not cost the white people of that section one
  cent. Without discussing the American principle that it is the duty
  of all property to educate every citizen as a means of protection to
  the State, and with no reference to what taxes that citizen may pay,
  it is the purpose of this paragraph to show that the backwardness of
  education of the white people is in no degree due to the presence
  of the negro, but that the presence of the negro has been actually
  contributing to the sustenance of the white schools.

Mr. Sheats shows that the amount paid for negro schools from negro
taxes or from a division of other funds to which negroes contribute
indirectly with the whites, amounted to $23,984. The actual cost of
negro schools, including their pro rata for administration expenses,
was $19,467.

“If this is a fair calculation,” Mr. Sheats concludes, “the schools for
negroes are not only no burden on the white citizens, but $4525 for
negro schools contributed from other sources was in some way diverted
to the white schools. A further loss to the negro schools is due to the
fact that so few polls are collected from negroes by county officials.”

Mr. Coon, in an address on “Public Taxation and Negro Schools” before
the 1909 Conference for Education in the South, at Atlanta, Georgia,
said:

  The South is spending $32,068,851 on her public schools, both
  white and black, but what part of this sum is devoted to negro
  public schools, which must serve at least forty per cent. of her
  school population? It is not possible to answer this question with
  absolute accuracy, but it is possible from the several State reports
  to find out the whole amount spent for teachers, and in all the
  States, except Arkansas, what was spent for white and negro teachers
  separately. The aggregate amount now being spent for public teachers
  of both races in these eleven States is $23,856,914, or 74.4 per
  cent. of the whole amount expended. Of this sum not more than
  $3,818,705 was paid to negro teachers, or twelve per cent. of the
  total expenditures.

He also brought out the fact that in Virginia, if, in addition to
the direct taxes paid by negroes, they had received their proportion
of the taxes on corporate property and other special taxes, such as
fertilizers, liquor, etc., there would have been expended on the
negro schools $18,077 more than was expended; that is, they would
have received $507,305 instead of $489,228. In North Carolina there
would have been expended $26,539 more than was expended, the negroes
receiving $429,197 instead of $402,658. In Georgia there would have
been expended on the negro schools $141,682 more than was expended.

In other words, Superintendent Coon seems to prove that negro
schools in the States referred to are not only no burden to the white
tax-payers, but that the colored people do not get back all the money
for their schools that they themselves pay in taxes. In each case
there is a considerable amount taken from the negroes’ taxes and spent
somewhere else or for other purposes.


CONVICT LABOR A GREAT EVIL IN THE SOUTH

It would help mightily toward the higher civilization for both races
if more white people would apply their religion to the negro in their
community, and ask themselves how they would like to be treated if
they were in the negro’s place. For example, no white man in America
would feel that he was being treated with justice if every time he
had a case in court, whether civil or criminal, every member of the
jury was of some other race. Yet this is true of the negro in nearly
all of the Southern States. There are few white lawyers or judges who
will not admit privately that it is almost impossible for a negro to
get justice when he has a case against a white man and all the members
of the jury are white. In these circumstances, when a negro fails to
receive justice, the injury to him is temporary, but the injury to the
character of the white man on the jury is permanent.

In Alabama eighty-five per cent. of the convicts are negroes. The
official records show that last year Alabama had turned into its
treasury $1,085,854 from the labor of its convicts. At least $900,000
of this came from negro convicts, who were for the most part rented
to the coal-mining companies in the northern part of the State. The
result of this policy has been to get as many able-bodied convicts
as possible into the mines, so that contractors might increase their
profits. Alabama, of course, is not the only State that has yielded
to the temptation to make money out of human misery. The point is,
however, that while $900,000 is turned into the State treasury from
negro-convict labor, to say nothing of negro taxes, there came out of
the State treasury, to pay negro teachers, only $357,585.

I speak of this matter as much in the interest of the white man as of
the black. Whenever and wherever the white man, acting as a court
officer, feels that he cannot render absolute justice because of public
sentiment, that white man is not free. Injustice in the courts makes
slaves of two races in the South, the white and the black.


THE BALLOT TO THE INTELLIGENT NEGRO

No influence could ever make me desire to go back to the conditions
of Reconstruction days to secure the ballot for the negro. That was
an order of things that was bad for the negro and bad for the white
man. In most Southern States it is absolutely necessary that some
restriction be placed upon the use of the ballot. The actual methods by
which this restriction was brought about have been widely advertised,
and there is no necessity for me discussing them here. At the time
these measures were passed I urged that, whatever law went upon the
statute-book in regard to the use of the ballot, it should apply with
absolute impartiality to both races. This policy I advocate again in
justice to both white man and negro.

Let me illustrate what I mean. In a certain county of Virginia, where
the county board had charge of registering those who were to be voters,
a colored man, a graduate of Harvard University, who had long been a
resident of the county, a quiet, unassuming man, went before the board
to register. He was refused on the ground that he was not intelligent
enough to vote. Before this colored man left the room a white man came
in who was so intoxicated that he could scarcely tell where he lived.
This white man was registered, and by a board of intelligent white men
who had taken an oath to deal justly in administering the law.

Will any one say that there is wisdom or statesmanship in such a policy
as that? In my opinion it is a fatal mistake to teach the young black
man and the young white man that the dominance of the white race in
the South rests upon any other basis than absolute justice to the
weaker man. It is a mistake to cultivate in the mind of any individual
or group of individuals the feeling and belief that their happiness
rests upon the misery of some one else, or that their intelligence
is measured by the ignorance of some one else; or their wealth by
the poverty of some one else. I do not advocate that the negro make
politics or the holding of office an important thing in his life. I
do urge, in the interest of fair play for everybody, that a negro who
prepares himself in property, in intelligence, and in character to cast
a ballot, and desires to do so, should have the opportunity.

In these pages I have spoken plainly regarding the South because I love
the South as I love no other part of our country, and I want to see her
white people equal to any white people on the globe in material wealth,
in education, and in intelligence. I am certain, however, that none of
these things can be secured and permanently maintained except they are
founded on justice.


THE CRIME OF LYNCHING

In most parts of the United States the colored people feel that they
suffer more than others as the result of the lynching habit. When he
was Governor of Alabama, I heard Governor Jelks say in a public speech
that he knew of five cases during his administration of innocent
colored people having been lynched. If that many innocent people were
known to the governor to have been lynched, it is safe to say that
there were other innocent persons lynched whom the governor did not
know about. What is true of Alabama in this respect is true of other
States. In short, it is safe to say that a large proportion of the
colored people lynched are innocent.

A lynching-bee usually has its origin in a report that some crime
has been committed. The story flies from mouth to mouth. Excitement
spreads. Few take the time to get the facts. A mob forms and fills
itself with bad whisky. Some one is captured. In case rape is charged,
the culprit is frequently taken before the person said to have been
assaulted. In the excitement of the moment, it is natural that the
victim should say that the first person brought before her is guilty.
Then comes more excitement and more whisky. Then comes the hanging, the
shooting, or burning of the body.

Not a few cases have occurred where white people have blackened their
faces and committed a crime, knowing that some negro would be suspected
and mobbed for it. In other cases it is known that where negroes have
committed crimes, innocent men have been lynched and the guilty ones
have escaped and gone on committing more crimes.

Within the last twelve months there have been seventy-one cases of
lynching, nearly all of colored people. Only seventeen were charged
with the crime of rape. Perhaps they are wrong to do so, but colored
people in the South do not feel that innocence offers them security
against lynching. They do feel, however, that the lynching habit tends
to give greater security to the criminal, white or black. When ten
millions of people feel that they are not sure of being fairly tried
in a court of justice, when charged with crime, is it not natural that
they should feel that they have not had a fair chance?

I am aware of the fact that in what I have said in regard to the
hardships of the negro in this country I throw myself open to the
criticism of doing what I have all my life condemned and everywhere
sought to avoid; namely, laying over-emphasis on matters in which the
negro race in America has been badly treated, and thereby overlooking
those matters in which the negro has been better treated in America
than anywhere else in the world.

Despite all any one has said or can say in regard to the injustice and
unfair treatment of the people of my race at the hands of the white men
in this country, I venture to say that there is no example in history
of the people of one race who have had the assistance, the direction,
and the sympathy of another race in all its efforts to rise to such an
extent as the negro in the United States.

Notwithstanding all the defects in our system of dealing with him, the
negro in this country owns more property, lives in better houses, is
in a larger measure encouraged in business, wears better clothes, eats
better food, has more school-houses and churches, more teachers and
ministers, than any similar group of negroes anywhere else in the world.

What has been accomplished in the past years, however, is merely an
indication of what can be done in the future.

As white and black learn day by day to adjust, in a spirit of justice
and fair play, those interests which are individual and racial, and
to see and feel the importance of those fundamental interests which
are common, so will both races grow and prosper. In the long run no
individual and no race can succeed which sets itself at war against the
common good.




PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

BY JAMES D. CORROTHERS


    He came, a dark youth, singing in the dawn
        Of a new freedom, glowing o’er his lyre,
        Refining, as with great Apollo’s fire,
        His people’s gift of song. And, thereupon,
    This negro singer, come to Helicon,
        Constrained the masters, listening, to admire,
        And roused a race to wonder and aspire,
        Gazing which way their honest voice was gone,
    With ebon face uplit of glory’s crest.
        Men marveled at the singer, strong and sweet,
        Who brought the cabin’s mirth, the tuneful night,
    But faced the morning, beautiful with light,
        To die while shadows yet fell toward the west,
        And leave his laurels at his people’s feet.

    Dunbar, no poet wears your laurels now;
        None rises, singing, from your race like you,
        Dark melodist, immortal, though the dew
        Fell early on the bays upon your brow,
    And tinged with pathos every halcyon vow
        And brave endeavor. Silence o’er you threw
        Flowerets of love. Or, if an envious few
        Of your own people brought no garlands, how
    Could Malice smite him whom the gods had crowned?
        If, like the meadow-lark, your flight was low,
        Your flooded lyrics half the hilltops drowned;
    A wide world heard you, and it loved you so
        It stilled its heart to list the strains you sang,
        And o’er your happy songs its plaudits rang.




THE NEGRO SINGER

BY JAMES D. CORROTHERS


    O’er all my song the image of a face
        Lieth, like shadow on the wild, sweet flowers.
        The dream, the ecstasy that prompts my powers;
        The golden lyre’s delights bring little grace
    To bless the singer of a lowly race.
        Long hath this mocked me: aye, in marvelous hours,
        When Hera’s gardens gleamed, or Cynthia’s bowers,
        Or Hope’s red pylons, in their far, hushed place!
    But I shall dig me deeper to the gold;
        Fetch water, dripping, over desert miles,
        From clear Nyanzas and mysterious Niles
    Of love; and sing, nor one kind act withhold.
        So shall men know me, and remember long,
        Nor my dark face dishonor any song.




[Illustration:

In the Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia

Engraved on wood by Henry Wolf

THE ANNUNCIATION

PAINTED BY H. O. TANNER]




EXHORTATION (A NEGRO SERMON)

WORDS BY ALEX. ROGERS

MUSIC BY WILL MARION COOK

_Copyright, 1912, by G. Schirmer_

[Illustration:

  Re-mem-ber, if a brudder smotes dee on de lef’ cheek,
  Turn roun’ and’ han’ him de od-der!
  Kase, -- ef you kaint ’turn good fu’ e-vil,----
  What’s de good o’ bein’ a brudder?
  Sez’ -- when de an-gry pas-sions ris-es wid-in dee,----
  Say, “Sat-an,-- go!--git dee be-hin’ me!”
  Den stop! an’ count a hun-dert,---- den go on ’bout yo’ bus’ness!--
  Be
]

[Illustration:

    keer-ful,---- be cau-tious,---- al-ways look be-fo’-- you leap,----
  Be sho’ you do-- some pray-in’-- be-fo’ you goes-a to sleep.----
  To fight is wrong,---- it’s wrong to fight,----
  An’ no two wrongs-a kaint make-a one right,
  So try an’ be right unto de en;--
  Dat’s right, all right! A-men! A-men!
  Dat’s right, all right! A-men! A - A - A - A - A - A - men!----
]




[Illustration:

  Scamps of Romance

  by

  William Rose Benét
]


I

    We’re off across the hills to-day with merriment agog,
    With pipe and timbrel ribboned gay, with fiddle-scrape and clog.
    Then, Nolly Goldsmith, here’s to thee!
    Send Villon’s soul no ill!
    But all hail that Prince of Vagabonds, Sir John Maundeville!

    Oh, Sir John Maundeville, Sir John Maundeville,
    Saw more Golcondas in the west than e’er another will!
    Brave Marco Polo pales to naught,
    Aladdin’s boast is still,
    Before the gallant glory of Sir John Maundeville!

    So we march--tramp! tramp!--and the ringing of our tread
    Hales forth the highway swaggerers of lusty times long dead.
    When so the glad world’s purple clad, it’s hail the romance scamp,
    With the zesting of our jesting, and our march--tramp! tramp!


II

    There’s Spindleshanks and Bonfire-head and trolling Heneree,
    And each as mad a braggart bred as any age may see.
    There’s castles in each wind-piled cloud and Spain just o’er the
      hill;
    And, for best of all romancers, there’s Sir John Maundeville!

      Oh, Sir John Maundeville, Sir John Maundeville!
      Æneas Sylvius, go up, and, Hakluyt, rest you still;
      Cathay, Damascus, Lamary, and Persia shall fulfil
      The magic of the legends of Sir John Maundeville!

[Illustration:

  JOHANNES
  DE
  MONTEVILLA
]


III

    Come, hydra of the Lernean slough! Promethean vulture, come!
    The charms that we have learned for you shall strike your terrors
      dumb.
    The ghost of Raleigh gapes askance; he takes our mirth so ill.
    And Pliny louts his bonnet to Sir John Maundeville!

      Oh, Sir John Maundeville, Sir John Maundeville!
      Of Noah’s Ark and Hills o’ Gold he’ll spin you yarns until
      The Chan of rich Cathay’s your slave, and Caffolos is shrill
      Singing the lofty praises of Sir John Maundeville!


[Illustration]


IV

    We know the wild chimæric herds--Aspis, Leviathan,
    And all the fabled beasts and birds were since the world began.
    The Solan Geese flop from their trees; yon crawls the Cuckodrill--
    And all because we read about Sir John Maundeville!

      Oh, Sir John Maundeville, Sir John Maundeville,
      From Malabar to Tartary they marvel at you still.
      Old Aldrovandus drops a tear in envy fit to kill
      Because we sing the praises of Sir John Maundeville.


V

    We’re off across the hills to-day with merriment agog,
    With pipe and timbrel ribboned gay, with fiddle-scrape and clog.
    And in our pack we’ll bring you back
    (I’ faith, we swear we will!)
    Mad tales and lays your ghost shall praise
    Sir John Maundeville.

      Oh, Sir John Maundeville, Sir John Maundeville,
      The world that gaped at romance then shall gape at romance still.
      There’s portents in each autumn leaf,--Vale Parlous o’er the
        hill,--
      And our jolly dreamland captain is Sir John Maundeville!

    So we march--tramp! tramp! Do you wonder that our tread
    Stamps up the ghosts of gallant knights from dust of days long dead?
    When so the glad world’s romance-clad, it’s hail the romance scamp,
    With old glories on our stories, and our march--tramp! tramp!

[Illustration]




[Illustration: Drawn by Oliver Herford]




A CLEAN SHAVE

BY GRACE MAC GOWAN COOKE

Author of “Mistress Joy,” “The Machinations of Ocoee Gallantine,” etc.,
etc.

WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY F. E. SCHOONOVER


There was a storm brewing. The sun had gone down in splendor over Big
Bald; heat lightnings laced the primrose of its afterglow. Now the air
trembled to a presage of thunder; the world panted for its outburst of
elemental rage.

The camp-meeting was in a brush arbor; the dry leaves on the boughs
with which it was roofed rustled faintly when breathings of the coming
tempest whispered across the highlands. The congregation, seated on
backless puncheon benches, seemed to crouch beneath the uncertain
illumination of a few torches and lanterns. Protracted meetings in the
mountains are always held in midsummer, when the crops are laid by,
so that perhaps the rising generation comes to associate their souls’
salvation and hot, breathless nights like this. Fleeing from the wrath
to come no doubt gets hopelessly mixed in some minds with running for
adequate shelter from the sudden passionate thunder-storms of the
season.

There were six exhorters at work, swaying on their feet, shouting, two
of them singing, the mourners’ bench partly filled, a promising tremor
of excitement abroad in that portion of the congregation which had not
yet come forward or risen for prayer--and the shower was almost upon
them.

Vesta Turrentine, who always came up from the riverside store kept
by her widower father at Turrentine’s Landing to stay with her Aunt
Miranda during protracted meetings, had withdrawn to the end of a
bench, where she sat with bowed head, watchful, agonizedly alert,
letting her attitude pass for that of a penitent, hoping to be
undisturbed. She was a slim, finely built young creature, already past
the mere adolescence at which the mountain girl is apt to seek a mate.
As she sat, chin on hand, dark eyes staring straight forward, her
salient profile, a delicate feminine replica of old Jabe Turrentine’s
own eagle outlines, relieved against the lights of the meeting, a man
who crawled through the bushes found her very good to look upon. So
absorbed was he in staring at her that he did not notice another man,
deeper in shadow, who stared at him. Careless of observation, certain
that the meeting was fully occupied with itself, Ross Adene, the first
man, crept forward to the girl’s knee, touched it, laid his yellow head
against it with a murmured greeting.

[Illustration:

Drawn by F. E. Schoonover

Half-tone plate engraved by H. C. Merrill

“HE WORKED WITH THE AIR OF A MAN WHO HAS COME AT LAST TO SOME DECISION,
TURNED TO REACH FOR THE TOWEL--AND LOOKED INTO THE MUZZLE OF HIS OWN
GUN, WITH HIS DAUGHTER’S RESOLUTE EYES BEHIND IT” (SEE PAGE 69)]

“Ross?” The whisper was strangled by terror; her hand went down against
his hair, spread protectingly to conceal its shine.

“Who did you reckon it was?” whispered the young fellow. “Anybody else
hangin’ round hidin’ to get sight of ye and a chance to speak with ye?”

“Didn’t you get my word?” Vesta breathed. “Pappy’s on the
mounting--unless’n the storm’s turned him back.”

“I reckon it has,” Ross answered, settling himself comfortably in the
deep shadow beside her. “It’s shore goin’ to be a big one.”

As he spoke there was an instant’s breathless hush of the voices in
the meeting, a dying down of the lights. It was followed by a white
flash so blinding, so all-enveloping, that in it one could see nothing.
Close after came a crash which seemed to rend earth and menace heaven.
The young fellow leaped to his feet, regardless of all concealment,
pulling the girl up beside him, flinging an arm about her. After that
lightning-flash the torches and lanterns seemed darkness. Women were
screaming, mothers calling to their children, men shouting hoarsely,
and running toward plunging teams hitched in the grove.

It would have seemed that in such confusion even the rashest intruder
might go unchallenged, unrecognized, yet Vesta pushed her companion
from her and into the shadow again before she looked around for her
people. Her Aunt Miranda was puffing ponderously down the aisle toward
a shrieking infant which had awakened from its nap on a back bench.

“Aunt ’Randy,” Vesta called, “I’m goin’ home with--somebody. I’m all
right. I’ll be thar afore ye.”

She could see Mrs. Minter’s lips shape themselves to some words which
her vigorously nodded head suggested were those of assent. She dipped
into the dark; Ross swept his sweetheart up on a capable arm, and they
set off running down the wood path which led across the fields to the
Minter place.

The noises of the meeting behind them diminished as they ran. Other
people were hurrying through the forest, calling, assuring themselves
of the whereabouts and safety of members of their parties. Here and
there lanterns or torches flickered.

“Hadn’t we better go through the bushes?” panted the girl. “Somebody’s
apt to see ye--an’ then--”

“No,” returned Adene, half lifting her along; “nobody’ll take notice in
a storm like this; an’ if they should, I’m about tired of dodgin’. We
got to marry sometime, girl. How about then? Yer pappy’ll know then,
won’t he?”

Thereafter they ran in silence. Twice the lightning illuminated their
way, diminishing peals of thunder following. It was after the second
of these that a shot rang out, startling Vesta so that she clung to
Ross’s arm and screamed. The young fellow made the usual dry comment of
the mountain-born, “They’s a man standin’ somewhars right now with an
empty gun in his hand.” Then they fled breathlessly under the cover of
a projecting ledge in the small bluff among the bushes which had been
Adene’s objective point. The heavens opened, and the floods descended.

There is something cozy and delightful about standing sheltered and
dry, while the whole world falls down in rain, the elements themselves
seeking all in vain to reach and destroy you. Vesta put out a hand to
let the great drops strike on it, pushing back her hair and lifting her
face to the keen, sweet coolness of the downpour.

“Don’t you love it?” she asked again and again. “Hit ’minds me of
playin’ when I was a child, and just goin’ crazy hollerin’ ‘Rain flag’
when hit come down this a-way.”

“You an’ me used to play that together,” Ross reminded her. “That was
in the days before your dad took up the feud again.”

At this the girl turned and clutched him.

“Oh, Ross, I sent ye word not to come to-night,” she said, “but I
wanted to see ye an’ warn ye, too. Pappy’s actin’ quare. He’s bound I
shall marry.”

“Well, so ’m I,” assented Ross, half humorously. “Him an’ me won’t fall
out over that.”

“Don’t make a joke of it,” said Vesta. “Hit’s as much as your life’s
worth, an’ you know it. Hit’s as much as your life’s worth to be here
to-night. We ort never to meet again.”

She added the concluding words in a lower tone not intended, perhaps,
for her lover’s ears.

“Has he picked out a man for ye?” The young fellow returned to what she
had first said.

“U-m--h-m,” assented Vesta, reluctantly.

“Who?”

“Sam Beath.” She spoke very low.

“Sam Beath.” The young fellow repeated her words louder. “That feller
that come up from the Far Cove neighborhood to stay in the store?”

“Pappy don’t like him--for me--so very well,” Vesta faltered, “but he’s
kin to kin of ourn, an’--you know, he’ll keep up the feud. Pappy says
I’m gittin’ awful old; an’--”

“If what he wants is to see his gal married, you an’ me’ll wed
to-morrow night after meetin’,” Ross declared.

Vesta laid hold of the lapels of his coat. She even slipped an arm
about his neck in entreaty, a tremendous demonstration for a mountain
girl, who feels that she must always be in the shy, reluctant attitude
of one who is besought, whose scruples are overcome.

“Ross, I know ye don’t mean it, honey, but, oh, for any sakes! walk
careful! Three years you an’ me has been promised to each other,
a-meetin’ wherever we could, me scared to death for ye all the time;
but pappy ain’t never found it out. Ross, give me yo’ word that you’ll
be careful.”

A fleeting glow showed Adene his sweetheart’s pale, entreating face,
and then came darkness and the steady drumming of the rain on the
leaves.

“You an’ me are a-goin’ to be married to-morrow night after meetin’
at Brush Arbor,” he repeated doggedly. And Vesta, used to the men of
her world, with whom action follows the word swiftly, if it does not
precede, began to cry, leaning weakly against his shoulder.

“Ross, I’ll run away with ye, I’ll go anywhars you say. I’ll work my
fingers to the bone for you. I’ll never look on the face of my kin
again--for your sake.”

In her pleading she raised her voice until it was almost a cry. The
storm had died down; the lisp of falling water scarcely blurred the
sound of their words.

“Not for my sake you won’t,” returned her lover, sturdily, putting a
strong arm about her, bending to cup her cheek in his hand. “Why, I
like your daddy fine. I picked him out for a father-in-law same’s I
picked you out for a wife. I ain’t never had any dad of my own to look
to. Yourn suits me. I’ll make friends with him.”

“And why ain’t you got no father?” inquired Vesta, tragically. “’Ca’se
my uncle shot him down when you was a baby in your mother’s lap--and
there all the trouble began.”

“Hit’s a long time ago,” said Ross, philosophically. “I ain’t bearin’
any grudge till yet. I reckon if your uncle hadn’t ’a’ got my father,
my father’d ’a’ got him. I aim to marry ye, here in Brush Arbor
meetin’, an’ make friends with your daddy an’ put an end to the feud.”

As a spectacular conclusion to the storm, and apparently to Ross’s
speech as well, there blazed through the woods a sudden greenish-white
radiance of lightning. It flickered on the wet leaves, giving them
a phosphorescent glow; it lit with an infernal illumination a face
peering between those leaves, looking squarely into Adene’s own--a dark
face, full of the strong beauty of age and courage, vivid yet with the
zest of life. The young fellow’s hand went up to cover Vesta’s eyes, to
press her head in against his breast.

“What is it?” she breathed.

“You said you was scared of lightning,” Ross answered close to her ear,
as the thunder reverberated through a darkened, wet world.

Evidently she had not seen. Certainly he would not tell her. As the
detonations died down, he stood rigid, waiting for the bolt of death,
weighing with instant clearness the chance of whether old Jabe would
kill only him, or slay as well the daughter who had proved treacherous.

Nothing came. A light wind sprang up and set drops pattering down from
the boughs. The storm-clouds were rent, torn, scattered, rolling
sullenly away to the north. A few drowned stars began to make the sky
lighter.

All at once, as he waited for the death that came not, Ross remembered
the shot they had heard as they ran through the woods. That was Jabe
Turrentine’s gun. Turrentine had been the man standing with an empty
weapon, without another cartridge to reload. When he was certain of
this, Adene felt momentarily safe. The old panther had missed his
spring; he would not try again to-night. Ross laughed a little softly
to himself as he imagined Jabe skulking quietly between the dripping
trees to the horse that must be tied somewhere near the timber’s edge,
getting on the animal and riding down the river road to his store. Yes,
that’s what the old man would do. And, after that, Ross Adene knew that
the next move in the game was his.

“I reckon I’d better take you on home,” he said at length. “If we’re
a-goin’ to be married to-morrow night, I’ve got some sev-rul things to
do.”

Hand in hand they went through the drenched leafage, speaking low,
Vesta trying feebly to remonstrate. When they came to where the
lighted windows of the Minter cabin made squares of ruddy light in the
blue-black darkness, Ross said his farewells.

“You put on whatever frock it is you want to be married in to-morrow
night and go to meetin’,” he concluded. “For wedded we’ll shorely be at
Brush Arbor church. I’ll speak to the preacher, an’ mebby your daddy’ll
come to the weddin’ hisself.”

Vesta wept. She kissed her lover farewell as we bid good-by to the
dead. In the dim radiance streaming out from the dwelling she watched
his rain-gemmed, yellow head as he walked away, hat in hand, shoulders
squared, moving proudly.

“O Lord,” she sighed to herself, “why can’t men persons take things
like women does--a few ill words and no harm done?”

The night sky refusing answer, she went silently in and to bed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Next morning Ross Adene put his house in order, as might a man on the
eve of a duel. His day was busily spent. He notified the revivalist
who was conducting meetings at Brush Arbor church of an intention to
wed Vesta Turrentine directly after sermon that night, and, late in
the afternoon, took his dugout canoe and dropped thoughtfully down the
river toward Turrentine’s Landing. There was money in his pocket, but
no weapon on him. He had not traveled the road, for he knew that even
in daylight some wayside clump of trees might hide an ambush. He put
his canoe into the current, crossed the stream, going down the farther
bank, out of rifle-shot of the leaning willows that dipped long, green
tresses to the water, offering a veil for a possible foe. When he was
opposite the landing he came squarely across, his eyes searching the
prospect ahead.

There was nobody about as he beached his boat, pulling it well up out
of reach of the current, and walked deliberately toward the store.
The landing had no village, the only buildings being the store,
Turrentine’s dwelling, and barns. He approached the former by the
front way, and stopped in the door, offering a glorious target to any
hostile person who might be within; for he stood six feet tall and
broad-shouldered against the westering light. The interior of the room
was at first obscure to him, but almost immediately he made out old
Jabe behind the counter and Sam Beath sitting humped in a chair at the
back of the store.

For a moment no word was spoken. There was no exclamation, though there
was a mental shock of encounter, evinced by not so much as the tremor
of an eye upon the part of either of the principals. Beath it was who
glanced stealthily toward the corner where Turrentine’s loaded rifle
stood.

“Howdy,” said Ross in the even, musical monotone of his people.

“Howdy,” responded old Jabe’s deep bass.

Beath did not speak. Ross remained in the doorway until he considered
that he had given quite sufficient opportunity for any gentleman who
desired to pick a vital spot in his frame. When he felt he had been
amply generous in this way, he came stepping slowly into the building,
walked to the counter, and laid his empty hands upon it.

“And what can I do for you to-day?” inquired old Jabe with a sardonic
exaggeration of the shopkeeper’s manner.

“I want to buy me a right good suit of clothes,” returned Ross, mildly.

The man in the back of the store, staring at the two, began to wonder
when old Jabe would take advantage of the opening offered him.

“Err-um,” grunted Turrentine. “Somethin’ to be buried in--eh?”

“Well--no,” demurred the customer, amiably. “Somethin’ to be married
in. A weddin’ suit is what I’m a-seekin’.”

Beath’s eyes went without any volition of his own to a bolt of fine
white muslin on the shelf. From that Vesta had chosen a dress pattern
the day her father bade him ask her in marriage. His proposal had been
bafflingly received, but she had chosen the dress and taken it with her
to her Aunt Miranda’s to finish.

Meantime, as though his customer had been any mountain man of the
district, the storekeeper calmly estimated Ross’s height and breadth,
turned to his shelves, and pulled down a suit. The two immersed
themselves in a discussion of fabric and cut. The assistant, used to
old Jabe’s browbeating, could scarcely believe his eyes as he noted the
glances of approval his employer gave to the goodly proportions he was
fitting. Beath’s ears seemed to him equally unreliable when Turrentine,
a big man himself, remarked with apparent geniality on the chance of a
wrestling-bout between them.

“I ain’t backin’ off,” responded Adene, “but I’d ruther stand up to you
when I didn’t have somethin’ else on hand.”

“Aw, I’m gittin’ old,” said Turrentine, deprecatingly. “Time was when
you might have said such of me; but I’m gittin’ old.”

The blue eyes of the younger man looked ingenuously into the face so
like Vesta’s.

“Well, we’re all gettin’ older day by day,” Ross allowed, “but yet you
don’t look as though you was losin’ your stren’th, an’ that’s a fact.”

Turrentine folded the suit and laid it on the counter.

“I think them clothes’ll fit ye,” he said. “An’ I’ll th’ow in this
hyer necktie you looked at. I always th’ow in a necktie with a suit.
That all?”

“Well--no,” Ross repeated his phrase. “I want to buy the best razor
you’ve got in the shop.”

With a sudden movement that might have been excitement or even rage,
Sam Beath took off his hat and cast it on the floor beside his chair.
Turrentine bent down to get from under the counter a tray of razors,
setting it on the boards and inviting his customer’s attention. Beath
could scarcely bear to look at the two men facing each other across
these bits of duplicated and reduplicated death, so tremendously did
the juxtaposition excite him. He felt as he had sometimes on the
hunting trail when the kill was imminent--as though he must cry out.
Jabe and Ross were oblivious, trying, choosing, drawing their thumbs
lightly over edges.

“I believe I like that un,” Ross said finally. “What say?”

“You’ve got a good eye for a blade,” old Jabe agreed, taking the razor
in his fingers. “That thar’s by far the best un in the lot.” He opened
and held it up, so that a stray gleam of sun winked wickedly upon the
steel. “You could cut a man’s head off with that, slick an’ clean, ef
ye had luck strikin’ a j’int--an’ I allers _do_ have luck.”

“I wasn’t aimin’ to put it to no such use,” Ross commented gently. “An’
yit, when you’re a-buyin’ a tool, hit’s but reasonable to know what its
cay-pacities may be. I’ll take that un.”

“Now--is that all?” Jabe put his query with the half-smile of a man who
might easily suggest something else. He laid the razor with the other
purchases.

“Is it honed, ready to use?” inquired Ross.

“Why, yes,” agreed old Jabe in a slightly puzzled tone. “A few licks on
a strop or your boot-laig’ll make it all right.”

Ross was rubbing a rough cheek with thoughtful fingers, looking
sidewise at the storekeeper.

“I’m a-goin’ to git married to-night,” he murmured. “Looks like I need
a clean shave. They tell me you’re a master hand at shavin’ folks. Will
ye shave me?”

Beath’s chair dropped forward with a slam, but neither of the men
started or turned. The black eyes burned deep into the blue; the blue
were unfathomable. Behind a mask of primitive civility the two men
interrogated savagely each other’s motives. Jabe was the first to speak.

“Why, shorely, shorely,” he said with what seemed to Beath ominous
relish. “Set down on that thar cheer that’s got a high back to it, so’s
you can lean yo’ head right. Sam,”--Beath leaped as though he had been
struck,--“bring me the wash-pan an’ soap an’ a towel. I’ll git the
lather-brush.”

Beath finally arrived with the required articles. His shaking hand
had spilled half the water from the basin; his eyes gloated. He put
the things down on a box and retired once more to his chair, seating
himself with the air of a man at a play.

Ross leaned back, found a comfortable rest for his head, and closed his
eyes. The strong, brown young throat exposed by the turned-down collar
of his shirt fascinated Beath so that he could not look away from it.

Jabe took the towel and put it about his customer’s neck with expert
fingers. As he did so, Beath’s hand began to play about his own throat,
and there was a click as it nervously contracted. Turrentine dipped
his brush in the water and whirled it on the soap-cake, lathering
Ross’s face silently and with a preoccupied manner. Beath’s glance
flickered from the man in the chair to the man who worked over him.
When Jabe took up the razor, passed it once or twice across the strop
and approached it to Ross’s cheek, Beath swallowed so noisily that the
sound of it was loud in the silent room.

Suavely--the old man was grace itself--the operation of shaving the
bridegroom was begun. Placidly it progressed, with a murmured word
between the two men, the deft turning of the inert head by the amateur
barber, an occasional deep-toned request.

Yet always the onlooker shook with anticipation of the sweep of old
Jabe’s arm which must come. Continually Beath figured to himself the
sudden jetting out of crimson from that artery in the neck that was
beating evenly and calmly under old Jabe’s touch. Perhaps the end might
have arrived then and there, and swiftly, had those fingers felt the
swell of excitement in the blood of a possible victim. But Ross had
closed his eyes and seemed to be dozing. Jabe made an excellent job of
it.

“Thar--I believe that’s about all you need,” he remarked at length.

The low sun came through the door between piles of calico, heaps of
ax-handles, and glinted on Adene’s yellow head. Suddenly Beath felt the
light for a moment obscured. He glanced up to see a woman’s figure,
black against the glow, yet unmistakable in its slim alertness, and
clothed, as his eye accustomed to fabrics told him, in the white muslin
he had believed to be selected for a wedding-dress. Neither old Jabe
nor his customer appeared to mark as Vesta Turrentine slipped like a
shadow through the doorway and stole to the corner where her father’s
rifle stood. Sam watched as she lifted the weapon in practised fingers.
His mouth was open, but he did not cry out.

Ross unclosed his eyes lazily, raised his thumb to his cheek, close by
the ear, very near indeed to the great veins and arteries Beath had
looked to see the razor sever.

“Ain’t they a rough place right thar?” he inquired with a half-smile.

The ultimate spark of daring was in the eyes that gazed up into those
of the man Ross had chosen for a father-in-law. Old Jabe, with a
portentously solemn face, muttered an assent, dabbed the lather on, and
made a pass with his razor.

“U-m-m--looks like they was a little more to do in that direction.
Maybe I ain’t quite finished ye up yit,” the old man’s voice had a
lilt of laughter in it, and it seemed that the end had surely arrived.
Turrentine’s devil was always a laughing fiend. He worked with the air
of a man who has come at last to some decision, turned to reach for the
towel--and looked into the muzzle of his own gun, with his daughter’s
resolute eyes behind it.

There was no start, no outcry; the old fellow only stood, scowling,
formidable, checked midway in some spectacular vengeance, Beath was
sure. The clerk crept, stooping behind the piles of merchandise, toward
Vesta.

“Put down that thar razor.”

The girl’s tone had a ring of old Jabe’s own power.

“Ye say,” drawled Jabe, making a jest of a necessity, as he laid the
blade on the counter. “What else?”

“You let him walk out o’ that door with me, same as he walked in,”
Vesta’s air was resolute, her aim steady.

At the first word Adene had turned his head merely, showing no
disposition to get beyond Jabe’s reach. But in the instant of her
demand Beath rose up from behind some boxes, grasped the gun,
twisting its barrel upward, and disarming Vesta. Ross sprang toward
his sweetheart, hit out at the clerk’s unguarded side, and sent him
staggering across the room, to fall sprawling at his employer’s feet.
For a long moment while Beath was scrambling to hands and knees, life
and death seemed to hang in the balance as old Jabe studied the two
opposite; mechanically he had taken the gun Beath thrust into his hand.
When Vesta saw it in his grasp, she flung herself upon her lover’s
breast, clasping her arms about him, protecting his life with hers.

“Me first,” she screamed. “You’ll have to kill me first.” She waited
for the bullet.

Jabe interrogated the pair with remorseless eye; he moved forward a
pace, though Sam Beath on all fours thought it was plenty close to
shoot. His gun was not raised. Instead, the old man and the young
were studying each other once more, speeding messages from eye to eye
above Vesta’s bent head. At last Jabe seemed to find that for which he
sought. He looked long at the daughter who defied him in words, and her
lover who braved him in action. Adene read the look aright.

“You’re bid to the weddin’ at Brush Arbor church, father-in-law,” he
said in the tone of one who finds a satisfactory answer to a riddle.

The gun-butt rattled on the puncheon floor.

“Will your dugout hold three?” asked Jabe.

Vesta stirred, but still feared to look up.

“Shore; five, by crowdin’,” came the answer.

The girl raised her head, glanced incredulously from father to lover,
and a light of comprehension dawned in her eyes.

“An’ me,” yammered Sam Beath. “What about me?”

“You can keep sto’ or come along to the weddin’, accordin’ to yo’
ruthers,” allowed old Jabe, generously; “ye hearn my son-in-law say his
boat would hold five.”




[Illustration: Drawn by Oliver Herford]




TO ANY ONE

BY WITTER BYNNER


    Whether the time be slow or fast,
      Enemies hand in hand
    Must come together at the last
      And understand.

    No matter how the die is cast
      Or who may seem to win,
    You know that you must love at last!--
      Why not begin?




[Illustration: THOROUGHBREDS AND TROTTERS AS SADDLE-HORSES

BY E. S. NADAL

Drawn by Joseph Clement Coll]


Ever since the employment of an English judge of saddle-horses at the
New York Horse Show, a few years ago, a lively discussion has been
going on between the advocates of thoroughbreds and of our American
saddle-horse, which is for the most part trotting-bred, upon the
subject of their respective merits as saddle-horses. The English
judge had of course an Englishman’s preference for a thoroughbred.
He has shown this in his awards, and he has established a class of
thoroughbreds under saddle. His view has naturally not found favor
with the friends of the American saddle-horse, an animal usually a
cross between the trotter and the Kentucky saddle-horse, which is a
registered family, and is itself largely of trotting ancestry. The
discussion, however, has not been confined to the merits of these two
animals as saddle-horses, but has covered the whole subject of their
respective characteristics.

Against the thoroughbred it is charged that he is unsound, wanting in
stamina, flighty and excitable, and has not the trotting action to make
a comfortable hack under the saddle or to become a good harness-horse,
and even that he is inferior to some other horses in style and beauty.
There is a certain truth in these accusations; but they contain also a
great deal of untruth.

It is not possible to say that there is a want of stamina in a family
of horses to which belong all runners, virtually all steeplechasers,
and from which are directly descended all hunters and nearly all
cavalry horses. Nearly all steeplechasers are thoroughbreds, and
these horses do their four miles like old-fashioned runners, besides
going over the exhausting jumps. And how can blood be said to want
stamina which is the basis of the blood of all the cavalry horses in
Europe? In 1870 the German cavalry horses of this breeding could do
their thirty-five miles a day for three months during the roughest
winter weather. And taking it nearer home, do any horses surpass in
toughness the half-bred horses of Canada and tide-water Virginia? The
old Virginians say that Kentucky can show a better head and tail than
can be found in Virginia, but that for everything between Virginia
is better, and the assertion is not without a color of truth. My
observation is that, as a rule, trotting and saddle-bred horses have
not the stamina of the best horses descended from the thoroughbred.

When we come to speak of gaits under the saddle, it will of course
be admitted that thoroughbreds can walk, canter, and gallop. Their
deficiency is in the trot. Most thoroughbreds do not show good hock
action. They do not give one that definite rise and fall which one
should have when riding at a trot. But there are thoroughbreds that
have good hock action. Where, for instance, can one find better hock
action than in the thoroughbred mare Jasmine, which has lately been
seen about New York? There are many thoroughbreds with such a trot.

[Illustration]

When we come to speak of disposition, the case against the thoroughbred
is rather stronger. It cannot be denied that he is hot-tempered. That
an animal should be used for generations for an exciting employment,
and that employment an artificial one, must result, one would expect,
in some eccentricity of temper. And the bad effects are rendered worse
by certain necessary concomitants of the employment. It cannot be good
for the temper of an animal two years old to be an hour getting away
at the start, and to be whipped and spurred for the last hundred yards
of every race. As a matter of fact, they are frequently as excitable
and often as vicious as one might expect animals to be which had been
subjected to such an experience. There is a thoroughbred stallion
in Kentucky that has killed two grooms. It is said that an attempt,
which for some reason was not successful, was made to put out his
eyes in order that he could be handled with safety. A few years ago
at Lexington I was told that a thoroughbred stallion at a stable
near by had just taken two fingers off a groom’s hand. I went to the
stable, had the animal brought out, and studied his countenance from
a respectful distance, and he looked to me as though he could do it.
The eye was somewhat ruthless, perhaps, but I should not say that the
countenance was vicious or ill tempered. It had rather the opaque look
of faces one will see behind the bars of a menagerie--faces unrelated
to kindness or unkindness, and expressive only of the wish to survive
and the readiness to perish in the struggle for existence. A few years
ago we had in my native county, Greenbrier County, West Virginia, a
celebrated performer on the turf, King Cadmus, which had killed at
least one person. Once, when racing, he seized with his teeth a jockey
on a horse that was passing him, threw him under his feet, and killed
him. He was a lop-eared, rough-made brute, and if a man did not know
him and took him for some harmless old screw, which might easily be
possible, without any sign of ill temper he would allow the man to
approach till he was in reach of his teeth, when he would try to seize
him and throw him under his feet. Some of his colts are still about
Greenbrier, and, strangely enough, do not seem to have inherited his
vicious disposition,--an instance, I suppose, of failure to transmit
acquired characteristics. I remember when a boy seeing Rarey leading
about his celebrated Cruiser, which must have been very much such a
horse as Cadmus. Possibly the animals I have mentioned might have been
reformed if they had had such a handler as Rarey.

But these horses are exceptions, as it is hardly necessary to point
out. A few years ago in Kentucky I rode for some weeks a four-year-old
thoroughbred stallion that a child could have ridden, a very handsome
bay, sixteen hands high, very fashionably bred (half-brother to
Foxhall). He had been raced, but had not been found fast enough for the
track. He was perfectly gentle. His only fault was not one of temper
at all. He was a little sluggish, sluggishness being sometimes a fault
of thoroughbreds. This fault affected his trot. A certain ambition and
steady force in a horse are necessary to a comfortable trot.

But apart from the subject of gaits and disposition, it is claimed
that the thoroughbred is inferior in style and beauty to certain other
horses, such, for instance, as the Kentucky saddle-horse. That, of
course, is a matter of taste, and tastes differ and change from time
to time. I prefer the Kentucky horse myself, and believe him to be
the handsomest horse in the world, and yet I find that when I go to
England and live among people to whom the thoroughbred type seems
perfection, I begin insensibly to see it as they do, and so I think
will almost any one. There is no doubt that the type at its best is
very beautiful. I have now in mind a chestnut mare, Miss Trix, which
I saw at a pretty little show in the west of England summer before
last and which afterward took the first prize at the international in
London. A more beautiful creature it would be hard to find, or one
better gaited or better mannered. And even when one sees this type in
this country, where the taste and feeling are mostly on the side of the
Kentucky horse, it is impossible to deny that it is beautiful. Three
years ago at the State fair at Lexington I saw a class of thoroughbred
stallions judged very early before the crowd was on the grounds. It
was an extraordinary display of equine beauty that was gaily paraded
before the stand on that bright and fragrant September morning, and,
difficult as the choice seemed, the blue ribbon went deservedly to the
most beautiful, a brown horse named Jack-pot. Later in the day I saw
Jack-pot judged for the championship against the superbly handsome and
universally accomplished chestnut stallion Bourbon King, the champion
saddle-horse of Kentucky. The prize went to Bourbon King, and I myself
should have so voted; but surely no one would propose that such a type
of beauty as Jack-pot should be allowed to disappear from the earth.

[Illustration: ATHLETE. A COMBINATION TROTTING AND SADDLE BRED HORSE
FROM GREENBRIER COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA]

There is one point in which the thoroughbred is doubtless superior
to the Kentucky saddle-horse. I mean the shoulder. The fault of the
Kentucky saddle-horse often is that he is thick in the shoulder.
The Kentucky horse would be about perfect if one could give him the
shoulder of the thoroughbred; yes, and if one could give him a little
heavier bone. No doubt the Kentucky men would say that the proof of
the pudding is in the eating, and since the Kentucky horse, as he now
is, is about perfect in gaits, there is no occasion to change him.
There is reason in this, and yet there are practical advantages in the
thoroughbred shoulder. The rider grasps it with his knees more easily
than a thicker shoulder. And for women who ride with a side-saddle
a deep and slender shoulder and high withers are a necessity;
they are needed to hold a side-saddle in place. If the horse is
thick-shouldered, the groom must be continually getting off to tighten
the girths, which thus have to be made so tight that the animal can
scarcely breathe. And then, quite apart from its utility, there is
no doubt of the beauty of the thoroughbred shoulder. It is beautiful
whether you see it in Jack-pot or Miss Trix, or in some old screw of
thoroughbred ancestry that pulls a grocer’s wagon. You will sometimes
see about a stable a half-starved, uncared-for animal with a shoulder
the memory of which will remain with you for years. That shoulder is
entirely the property of the thoroughbred. You never see it except in a
thoroughbred or a descendant of thoroughbreds. I do not know whence it
comes. It does not appear to come from the Arab, from which are derived
most of the characteristics of the thoroughbred. It can come only from
the thoroughbred. For this reason I cannot agree with those critics
who have opposed the recent action of the Kentucky saddle-horsemen in
admitting to registration the product of Kentucky saddle-horses crossed
with thoroughbreds. Of course it is to be hoped that breeders will
choose those thoroughbreds that are without certain thoroughbred faults.

[Illustration: Drawn by Joseph Clement Coll

AWARDING THE BLUE RIBBON]

There is one purpose for which thoroughbreds are certainly necessary.
Hunters must be of thoroughbred blood. There are horses not of
thoroughbred blood that can be taught to jump, but a hunter must also
be able to run. It is often said that hunting in this country is
not serious, and that is probably true. Hunting over timber is too
dangerous to be widely and generally practised. It is different from
hunting over hedges, which can be broken through. A horse must clear
a wood fence if he is to get over it safely. If he strikes the fence
with his knees, he may turn a somersault and fall on his rider, and
horses cannot be relied upon to clear fences. The most celebrated of
English hunters, Assheton Smith, who had made a study of falling and
had learned how to fall, had sixty falls the year he was eighty. (By
the way, one wonders what kind of horses he rode; they could have done
better for him than that in Virginia.) We may be sure he did not have
those falls over timber.

But it is not certain that hunting has no considerable future in this
country. Knowing what the spirit of sport has accomplished here within
the memory of most of us, there is no saying what it may yet do. I have
sometimes wondered why some such large preserves of land, stretches of
forest and meadow as are taken by clubs for shooting and fishing, are
not set apart for hunting, in which it would be possible to hunt the
stag and the fox or even to revive sports more old fashioned.

I lately found a hunting-man in Virginia, a nice fellow and a
gentleman, who has a whole valley to himself in which to pursue the
fox. He has his own pack of hounds, and as his business is training
hunters, he has always in his stable half a dozen animals he can use.
To be sure he does not own the valley, a beautiful one; but he is quite
as well off as though he did, for there are no wire fences, the timber
fences are not too plentiful, and he tells me he can always start a
fox. He hunts entirely alone, and does not mind the lack of company.
He happens to be afflicted with an infirmity of speech, which makes
the society of all but a few of his fellow-creatures irksome to him.
This kind of sport was a new idea to me, who had always thought of
hunting as done in company and with the accompaniment of red coats and
blowing horns and the like. It struck me as a pretty idea, quite like
Fitz-James’s pursuit of the stag in the first canto of “The Lady of
the Lake.” This gentleman rides mostly thoroughbreds. He told me that
he found it more and more necessary to ride thoroughbreds, or, at any
rate, horses as clean bred as he could get them, for the reason that
they are now breeding faster hounds than formerly. I wondered why they
should breed faster dogs unless at the same time they bred faster foxes.

[Illustration: From a painting by Richard Newton, Jr.

THE MASTER OF FOX HOUNDS, ORANGE COUNTY HUNT (NEW YORK), ON HIS
THOROUGHBRED HUNTER, GREEK DOLLAR]

I may add that the evidence in favor of fox-hunting is pretty strong,
to judge from the testimony of those who know most about it. A
celebrated hunter has expressed the opinion that all the time that is
not spent in hunting is wasted, and that is what men like Assheton
Smith and Anstruther Thompson really thought and have thought for two
hundred years. If that view is the correct one, the sport will probably
continue to exist and grow in this country. In the end Americans are
likely to have whatever is good.

With regard to the questions of type and taste, I may say here that a
certain deference is due to the opinion which the world’s best horsemen
have long entertained. We should not dismiss too lightly the views
of such men as Admiral Rous, Assheton Smith, and Mackenzie Grieve.
The last-named famous horseman, who lived in Paris and was a member
of the well-known Jockey Club there, I once saw in his old age in
Rotten Row. One afternoon in Hyde Park I noticed an acquaintance on
foot in conversation over the railing with some one on a black horse.
The horse, which had not a white hair, was a beautiful creature, of
the kind not usual in Rotten Row, having the graceful curves of the
_haute école_, preferred on the Continent, and attractive to the
finer Latin perceptions rather than the straight lines of the half-bred
English hack. The horse of the _haute école_ is very thoroughbred
in type, however, as this animal was. But perfect as the horse was,
I was even more interested in the man in the saddle. All he was
doing was sitting on a horse that was standing still, but there was
a singular grace in his manner of doing this. The pose and attitude
were beautiful. An old dandy, much made up, and dyed to the eyebrows,
there was in every detail of his dress, from his silk hat to his
patent-leather boots, a correctness and thoroughness that argued great
courage and spirit in a man of his age. The tight trousers of some dark
color were worn over Wellington boots, which a good London tailor will
tell you is the only way to have them set well. The frock-coat showed
the slender waist essential to good looks in the saddle. I wondered
if this waist might not be the result of pretty severe banting, being
sure that the plucky old fellow would have preferred death to abating
one jot his pretensions to the character of a perfect horseman. Greatly
interested in this survivor of the dandies, it pleased me to think
that he might in his youth have been the model from which Bulwer made
his sketch of Pelham riding in the park in Paris. Some days later,
happening to meet my acquaintance, I asked him who his friend was, and
he told me that he was Mr. Mackenzie Grieve. Before forming a final
opinion of the thoroughbred from the point of view of taste and beauty,
I should like to consult the shade of Mackenzie Grieve. His opinions,
whatever they were, he no doubt held strongly.

[Illustration]

When we come to speak of horses partly thoroughbred (and that is of
course the subject most interesting to breeders), I can say that I
myself have known numbers of them that were neither flighty nor weedy
nor wanting in physical stamina nor deficient in gaits or in looks. I
may take occasion to mention one or two of these. There was a big roan
mare, nearly thoroughbred, in my native county, which was sent to New
York and was for some years ridden by an eminent lawyer. She was a most
distinguished horse. No matter how many good horses this gentleman
has ridden or may ride, he can never forget Betsey, nor be in danger
of confusing her with any other horse. She was sixteen hands high, and
in condition would weigh nearly twelve hundred pounds. She had been a
favorite runner at county fairs and of course could gallop. She could
walk like a storm, she had a single foot that was a lullaby, she had a
perfectly square trot, she was excellent in harness, and she could be
ridden or driven by anybody. A little plain in the quarters, she had as
fine a neck, head, and shoulders as I ever saw. “She has a grand front
on her,” said the owner’s young Irish coachman, who knew the type. I
had at first some misgivings as to the appearance she would make by the
side of New York prize-winners; but when I went to the Riding Club and
she was brought out with the saddle on, her fine head carried high,
her large, prominent eyes awake, with her deep shoulder and sweep of
neck looking as though she had just descended from one of the classic
engravings of the eighteenth century, I wondered that I should have had
any doubts as to the appearance she would make when put in competition
with the equine upstarts of the present day.

Another of our mountain horses, also nearly thoroughbred, went to the
Riding Club. He was perhaps a little eccentric in temper, if one was
rough with him, and I think once he did run up the steps into the Plaza
Bank; but for gaits, sureness of foot, and physical endurance he was
remarkable. All his gaits were perfection, and, as for strength, I can
only say that I first rode him in 1890, then a full-grown horse, and
I believe he is still living, a pretty good horse yet. His purchaser,
a well-known New York specialist in nervous diseases, said to me, “I
am nervous, and he’s neurotic,” but he admitted that his trot was,
as he said, “the poetry of motion.” The animal came fairly by his
eccentricities of temper and his tenacity of life and strength. His
mother died not long ago at the age of twenty-five, and up to the day
of her death she would run away if you struck her.

[Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch. Half-tone plate engraved by R.
Varley

A MORNING CANTER IN CENTRAL PARK]

It should not be forgotten that, whatever faults modern thoroughbreds
may have, there is a lot of good old-fashioned thoroughbred blood
behind such horses as I have mentioned--such blood as that of Diomed,
the winner of the first English Derby in 1780. Diomed, one of many
good horses imported here from England, was the ancestor of perhaps
three fourths of the horses now running in this country. Mr. Moses
Green, of Warrenton, Virginia, a man widely learned in pedigrees,
whose grandfather imported Diomed, writes me, “I have often heard my
grandfather say that he did not consider a race-horse one that could
not run four miles in good company in fast time and repeat.” One little
story of Mr. Green’s I may mention in passing. He once told me that he
had passed a considerable part of his childhood on the back of Diomed,
and the story is in a sense true, notwithstanding the fact that Mr.
Green, although by no means a young man, was of course born long after
the death of Diomed. It was the custom to spread the skin of an animal
under a mattress to keep the mattress from sinking in between the cords
of the bedstead, and the skin of Diomed served this purpose on the bed
on which Mr. Green slept when a child.

[Illustration: Drawn by Joseph Clement Coll

AT A COUNTRY HORSE SHOW]

The objection urged by thoroughbred men against American saddle-horses
is that they are of harness rather than saddle type. The objection
most commonly made to trotting-horses in general is, however, from the
breeder’s point of view. It is claimed that they do not breed true. Of
course, trotters can scarcely be said to be a family as thoroughbreds
and hackneys are. A thoroughbred[2] must be the progeny of animals
themselves thoroughbred. Trotters may become “standard” by performance.
Any animal that has trotted a mile in 2:30 at some recognized fair is
entitled to registration as standard. The offspring of parents that
are themselves standard by performance and not by birth are entitled
to registration as standard by birth. There are thus many standard
animals whose pedigree cannot be traced. Nevertheless, although we may
not know the pedigree of an animal that is standard by performance,
we know that he must be trotting bred, since no horse can trot a mile
in 2:30 that is not trotting bred. It must be admitted, however, that
trotters cannot be bred with the certainty with which you can breed
thoroughbreds and hackneys.

[Illustration: DELHI. An ideal type of thoroughbred saddle-horse. Owned
and bred by Mr. James R. Keene.]

[Illustration: SIR EDWARD. A fine type of thoroughbred hunter. Owned
and bred by the Hon. Adam Beck.]

[Illustration: TENERIFFE. An ideal standard bred roadster. Owned and
bred by Mr. W. M. V. Hoffman.]

[Illustration: MAHLI. A fine type of Kentucky saddle-horse. Owned by
Mrs. Thomas J. Regan.]

Thoroughbreds and hackneys, being, as families, older than trotters,
hold their qualities more intensely and are more capable of reproducing
them. In the matter of speed, however, you cannot breed a Derby
winner any more certainly than you can breed a two-minute trotter.
But the trotter’s inability to reproduce himself with certainty is
not altogether without its advantages. One would be sorry to lose the
variety in types thrown off by the trotter, which is a result of this
inability. There is no family which produces animals that have such
various uses as trotters, and in which a single animal will be found
to have so many good qualities. He will be a good saddle- and a good
harness-horse, and he will combine spirit with the best manners and
the kindest disposition. For instance, that wonderful animal sought
for with such avidity by ladies, a combination of opposite, if not
irreconcilable, qualities, “a bed by night, a chest of drawers by
day,” if he exists anywhere, can surely be found only among trotters.
In horses for use in harness one will get in the same animal, besides
speed, action nearly as good as that of the best hackneys, with a vigor
and endurance greater than theirs, and a head and neck that for quality
and fineness one will rarely see in hackneys, and will not often find
surpassed among thoroughbreds. We in this country are so used to that
head and neck that the English, who send us their best hackneys,
are careful not to send us animals that are deficient in quality.
Two years ago I saw at Bath, which has the best show in the west of
England, a pair of hackneys that won there and had been winning all
over England, very fine movers, but with plain heads and necks. They
would have been sent to this country had it not been for their want of
quality. Furthermore, a trotter will have, with the quality of a
thoroughbred, a sense and kindness, to find which among thoroughbreds
you must pick and choose.

[Illustration: ROSALIND

  A famous saddle-horse and winner of many blue ribbons. Owned and
  ridden by Mrs. W. A. McGibbon.
]

[Illustration: HERO

  A fine type of heavy-weight Virginia trotting bred hunter and jumper.
  Owned by Mr. Paul D. Cravath.
]

[Illustration: KENTUCKY’S CHOICE

  One of the most famous registered saddle horses in the world. He was
  sold for $7500, the record price for a Kentucky saddler. Owned by
  Mrs. Richard Tasker Lowndes.
]

[Illustration]

A critic who objected to the trotter on account of his inability to
breed true has lately proposed to get a coach-horse from the Kentucky
saddle-horse, a suggestion which, if somewhat novel, seems to me a good
one. I fancy that this writer must have had in mind the pair of Forest
Denmarks I saw at the Lexington Fair three years ago. These horses were
by Forest Denmark, a registered Kentucky saddle-horse. One of them,
Tattersall, was not only a saddle-horse, but had been the champion
gaited saddle-horse of Kentucky. They were undoubtedly the best pair
in the State. They were afterward bought by an ardent adherent of
Christian Science from Texas for presentation to Mrs. Eddy, and were
sent to her. Mrs. Eddy, after trying them and finding them not entirely
amenable to influence, requested her Texan admirer to take them back,
which he did. I know the Forest Denmarks well. They are largely
trotting bred. One of them, the champion heavy-weight saddle-horse
in a recent New York Horse Show, the Cardinal, was originally a
harness-horse. The official spelling of the name of these horses, by
the way, is probably incorrect. The founder of this branch of the
Denmarks was a horse called Ned Forrest and must have been named after
Edwin Forrest, the actor.

The saddle-horses brought to New York are largely of mixed saddle and
trotting stock, and are often pure trotters. Trotters have the hock
action necessary to a comfortable trot under the saddle much more
generally than thoroughbreds. They have this action till they get down
to their very fast gait, when they are likely to begin to roll, which
is unpleasant. This does not always happen, however. There is now in
New York a gentleman who rides only trotters that have a record of
2:10 or thereabouts, and who finds such a trot the best of gaits. I
can believe that, from some such experiences of my own. About forty
years ago I used to ride, on the road from Madison, New Jersey, to
Morristown, a big trotter of Kimball Jackson stock that was fast for
those days, and was, besides, a powerful and particularly honest and
friendly horse. Going at a slow trot, he was perhaps the roughest
horse I ever was on. But when he got down to his fast trot, one did
not leave the saddle at all. I have never obtained such pleasure from
any action in the saddle as from that horse going at that gait. A
thoroughbred galloping on turf, measuring the earth like an animated
pair of compasses, with a succession of leaps and bounds, and going at
the rate of an express-train with scarcely more shaking to the rider
than a walk would give him,--so smoothly, indeed, that he might almost
carry a glass of water,--will of course give one delightful sensations.
But that trotting-horse was even better. You will notice in a trotting
race in harness that a horse, when put to top-speed, will now and then
give a leap forward of perhaps fifteen or eighteen feet, still holding
his trot. It was at the moment when the Kimball Jackson trotter, with
one of his powerful hind-quarters, assisted perhaps with an extra shove
off from the other, would propel himself forward through the air in
this occasional leap that I experienced the keenest delight that I ever
got from any kind of locomotion. I cannot forget those morning rides in
that pretty country on sunny October days, the air a golden fluid, and
the distant hills lying in cameo clearness, over which were chasing the
thick, sharply defined shadows cast by the clouds.

A very great merit of the trotter is his sense and kindness. His
education is happier than that of the thoroughbred. As a harness-horse,
he is nearer to everyday use than the thoroughbred. He is raced at
a more mature age, and he does not receive the cruel treatment of
the thoroughbred. Whip and spur seem to be inseparable from running
races. But a trotter may break if he is whipped severely, although one
sometimes sees the whip laid on pretty well in a trotting-race. People
in Europe, who have used our trotters, and even those who do not like
them, have told me that they found them remarkably sensible and kind as
compared with their own horses. Sense and kindness, I am sure, are not
only among the most useful, but among the most attractive, qualities
a horse can have. A certain trotting-bred horse of my acquaintance
has a soul such as I never knew in any other horse. I have tried hard
to trace his pedigree, because I wanted to know where that soul came
from, and to see it bred into other horses. But I have never been
able to find it. Perhaps some one who reads this may help me to some
information about it. He was a black gelding, 16:2 hands high, very
handsome, and was bought by Hudson from Bayless and Turney of Paris,
Kentucky, and sent to New York in 1896, at that time five years old. I
suppose he was bred in Bourbon County. I say I never saw such a mind in
any other horse. Horsemen have many best horses they ever knew. It is
not their way to be off with the old love before they are on with the
new. But I am sure he was, on the whole, the nicest horse I ever knew.
High-lifed as he was, he was full of sweet intelligence. In his dark,
melancholy eyes one read that “sad lucidity of soul” mentioned by the
poet. And he was so kind and considerate. A horse of great ambition,
his one fault was that he pulled; but he consented without the least
show of ill temper to the use of a pretty severe curb.

[Illustration: Drawn by Joseph Clement Coll

READY FOR THE PARK]

I could cite many examples of his sweet intelligence. Once when a
young woman upon a bicycle in Central Park was trying to ride us down,
and going, as an unskilful bicyclist will do, in just the direction
she wished to avoid, his efforts to keep out of her way, while at
the same time putting me to as little inconvenience as possible,
were charming--the horse evidently wondering whether a woman was a
reasoning animal. One could teach him something one day in fifteen
minutes, and the next day one could teach him as quickly just the
contrary. When he first came on from Kentucky, where he had been
single-footed, I found it hard to suggest a trot to him. I took him
to a big mud-hole in the bridle-path in the park, and for some time
worked him back and forth through it, evidently much perplexed as to
what I wanted of him. In mud six inches deep he could not throw his
foot out laterally, and had to bring it up vertically, and soon struck
a trot. I patted him on the neck, and he stepped out cheerfully with an
expression of, “Oh, is that what you want? I’d rather do that than the
other.” He could trot in much less than three minutes, and so must have
been trotting bred, but no thoroughbred had a better canter or gallop.
And with all the qualities above enumerated, he was magnificently
handsome. I gave the lady to whom I sold him the choice of two names,
Casabianca, in allusion to his docility and devotion and because he
would stand without hitching; and Solomon, because, as regarded his
sense and intelligence, she would discover that the half had not been
told her.

I think I have given pretty fairly the points of contrast between these
two families of horses. In harness there can be no question that the
trotter is the better. For use under saddle there is no doubt also that
the American preference is for the trotter. But we have seen that the
thoroughbred has his points of superiority as a saddle-horse. We should
preserve the thoroughbred, improve him, if one likes, eliminate his
undesirable qualities, but still preserve him. The saddle-horse of the
future will combine the good qualities of the thoroughbred with those
of the trotter.


  [2] An animal, especially a horse, of pure blood, stock, or race;
      strictly, and as noting horses, a race-horse all of whose
      ancestors for a given number of generations (seven in England,
      five in America) are recorded in the stud-book. In America the
      name is now loosely given to any animal that is of pure blood and
      recorded pedigree, ... whose ancestry is known and recorded for
      five generations of dams and six of sires.--_C. D._




[Illustration: SECRET WRITING]

THE CIPHERS OF THE ANCIENTS, AND SOME OF THOSE IN MODERN USE

BY JOHN H. HASWELL


The art of transmitting information by means of writings designed to
be understood only by the persons who have especially agreed upon the
significance of the characters employed was known and practised by
the ancients long before the Christian era. It has many high-sounding
names, among which will be found cryptography, cryptology, polygraphy,
stenganography, cipher, etc. The first is what might be styled its
scientific name; the latter the one commonly used by the foreign
offices.

The oldest example of secret writing is the Spartan scytale. According
to Plutarch, the Lacedæmonians had a method which has been called
the scytale, from the staff employed in constructing and deciphering
the message. When the Spartan ephors, who, in the fourth century
~B.C.~, were the supreme power of the state, controlling alike
its civil and military administration, wished to forward their orders
to their commanders abroad, they wound slantwise a narrow strip of
parchment upon a staff so that the edges met close together, and the
message was then written in such a way that the center of the line
of writing was on the edges of the parchment. The parchment was then
unwound and sent to the general, who, by winding it upon a similar
staff, was enabled to read the message.

Various other devices of secret writing were practised by the old
Greeks and Romans. All served their purpose, and some of them were
remarkably ingenious. One, by reason of its being not only very
ingenious, but at the same time highly ludicrous, seems worthy of
mention. It was the one which Histiæus, while at the Persian court,
employed to advise Aristagoras, who was in Greece, to revolt. As the
roads were well guarded, there seemed to Histiæus only one safe way of
making his wishes known. He chose one of his most faithful slaves, and,
having shaved his head, tattooed it with his advices; then keeping him
till the hair had grown again, Histiæus despatched him to Aristagoras
with this message: “Shave my head and look thereon.”

Among the Greeks many systems of cipher were employed to transmit
messages during war-times. To illustrate one, let us suppose that the
English alphabet, by omitting the letter j, consists of twenty-five
letters; then arrange these thus:

  1 2 3 4 5
  ---------
  a f l q v 1
  b g m r w 2
  c h n s x 3
  d i o t y 4
  e k p u z 5

Represent every letter by two figures, by the intersection of a
vertical with a horizontal row. Thus we find that 11 represents a; 34,
o; 52, w; 14, d; and so on.

During the Middle Ages secret systems were employed in the operation of
telegraphic, military, and naval signals. Torches placed in particular
positions at night, flags held in position by day, guns fired at
particular intervals, drums beaten in a prearranged way, musical sounds
to represent letters, lamps covered by different-colored glass, square
holes diversely closed by shutters, levers projecting at different
angles from a vertical post--all these were adopted as signals; but
secret writing was in most cases a transposition of alphabetical
letters.

Schemes of cryptography are endless in their variety. Bacon lays down
the following as the “virtues” to be looked for in them: “that they be
not laborious to write and read; that they be impossible to decipher;
and, in some cases, that they be without suspicion.” Bacon remarks that
though ciphers were commonly in letters and alphabets, yet they might
be in words. Upon this basis codes have been constructed, classified
words taken from dictionaries being made to represent complete ideas.
In recent years such codes have been adopted by governments, merchants,
and others to communicate by telegraph, and have served the purpose
not only of keeping business affairs private, but also of reducing the
excessive cost of telegraphic messages to distant points. Obviously
this class of ciphers presents greater difficulties to the skill of
the decipherer. Figures and other characters have been also used as
letters, and with them ranges of numerals have been combined as the
representatives of syllables, parts of words, words themselves, and
complete phrases. Shorthand marks and other arbitrary characters have
also been largely imported into cryptographic systems to represent both
letters and words. Complications have been introduced into ciphers by
the employment of “dummy” letters or words. Other devices have been
introduced to perplex the decipherer, such as spelling words backward,
making false divisions between words, etc. The greatest security
against the decipherers has been found in the use of what might be
called a double code. One of the double-code methods is that after the
message has been put into, say, a figure code, to recode it in one in
which only words or consonants appear.

Variety is also of great importance. All the world might know the
principle upon which a cipher is constructed, and yet the changes may
be so numerous as, like those of the Yale lock, to be almost infinite.
No cipher can ever be perfect where the same letter, figure, or
character is always represented in the same manner; some mode must be
adopted by which an endless variety may be secured.

During the time of the Great Commoner, Sir John Trevanion, a
distinguished cavalier, was made prisoner, and locked up in Colchester
Castle. Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle had just been made
examples of as a warning to “malignants,” and Trevanion had every
reason for expecting a similar bloody end. As he awaited his doom,
indulging in a hearty curse in round cavalier terms at the canting,
crop-eared scoundrels who held him in durance vile, and muttering a
wish that he had fallen sword in hand facing the foe, he was startled
by the entrance of the jailer, who handed him a letter:

“May’t do thee good,” growled the fellow; “it has been well looked to
before it was permitted to come to thee.”

Sir John took the letter and the jailer left him his lamp by which to
read it:

  Worthie Sir John:--Hope, that is ye beste comfort of ye afflicted,
  cannot much, I fear me, help you now. That I would saye to you, is
  this only: if ever I may be able to requite that I do owe you, stand
  not upon asking me. ’Tis not much I can do: but what I can do, bee
  you verie sure I wille. I knowe that, if dethe comes, if ordinary men
  fear it, it frights not you, accounting it for a high honour, to have
  such a rewarde of your loyalty. Pray yet that you may be spared this
  soe bitter, cup, I fear not that you will grudge any sufferings; only
  if bie submission you can turn them away, ’tis the part of a wise
  man. Tell me, an if you can, to do for you any thinge that you wolde
  have done. The general goes back on Wednesday. Restinge your servant
  to command. R. T.

Now this letter was written according to a preconcerted cipher. Every
third letter after a punctuation mark, was to tell. In this way, Sir
John made out: “Panel at east end of chapel slides.”

On the following evening the prisoner begged to be allowed to pass an
hour of private devotion in the chapel. By means of a bribe, this was
accomplished. Before the hour had expired, the chapel was empty--the
bird had flown.

An excellent plan of indicating the _telling_ letter or word is
through the heading of the communication. “Sir” might signify that
every third letter or word was to be taken; “Dear Sir” that every
seventh; “My dear Sir” that every ninth was to be selected.

A system very early adopted, known as the “grille” was the use of
pierced cards, through the holes of which the communication was
written. The card was then removed, and the blank spaces filled up. As
for example:

  My dear X. (The) lines I now send you are forwarded by the kindness
  of the (bearer) who is a friend. (Is not) the message delivered yet
  (to) my brother? (Be) quick about it, for I have all along (trusted)
  that you would act with discretion and despatch. Yours ever, Z.

There were other and very complicated systems based on arithmetical
calculations for the transposition of letters of the alphabet,
illustrations of which would be very prolix and possibly not
interesting.

At the close of the sixteenth century, when the Spaniards were
endeavoring to establish relations between the scattered branches of
their vast monarchy, which at that period embraced a large portion of
Italy, the Lower Countries, the Philippines, and enormous districts
in the New World, they needed some method to correspond with their
agents. They accordingly invented a cipher, which they varied from
time to time, in order to disconcert those who might attempt to pry
into the mysteries of their correspondence. The cipher, composed
of fifty signs, was of great value to them through all the troubles
of the “League” and the wars then desolating Europe. Some of their
despatches having been intercepted, Henry IV handed them over to a
clever mathematician, Vieta, with the request that he would find the
clue. He did so, and was able also to follow it as it varied, and
France profited for two years by his discovery. The court of Spain,
disconcerted at this, accused Vieta before the Roman court as a
sorcerer and in league with the devil. This proceeding only gave rise
to laughter and ridicule.

The manner in which the French took possession of the republic of
Strasburg, during the reign of Louis XIV, while peace prevailed, is
very interesting. At that time the city had acquired great privileges,
it being a free town, and was governed as a republic.

In 1680, when M. de Louvois was the French Minister of War, he
summoned before him one day a gentleman named De Chamilly, and gave
him the following instructions: “Start this evening for Basel, in
Switzerland; you will reach it in three days; on the fourth, punctually
at two o’clock, station yourself on the bridge over the Rhine, with
a portfolio, ink, and a pen. Watch all that takes place, and make a
memorandum of everything in particular. Continue doing so for two
hours; have a carriage and post-horses awaiting you; and at four
precisely, mount and travel night and day till you reach Paris. On the
instant of your arrival, hasten to me with your notes.”

De Chamilly obeyed; he reached Basel, and on the day and at the hour
appointed stationed himself, pen in hand, on the bridge. Presently a
market-cart drove by, then an old woman with a basket of fruit passed;
anon a little urchin trundled his hoop by; next an old gentleman in
blue top-coat jogged past on his gray mare. Three o’clock chimed
from the cathedral tower. Just at the last stroke, a tall fellow in
yellow waistcoat and breeches sauntered up, went to the middle of the
bridge, lounged over, and looked at the water; then he took a step
back and struck three hearty blows on the footway with his staff. Down
went every detail in De Chamilly’s book. At last the hour of release
sounded, and he jumped into his carriage. Shortly before midnight,
after two days of ceaseless traveling, De Chamilly presented himself
before the minister, feeling rather ashamed at having such trifles to
report. M. de Louvois took the portfolio with eagerness and glanced
over the notes. As his eye caught the mention of the yellow-breeched
man, a gleam of joy flashed across his countenance. He rushed to the
king, roused him from sleep, spoke in private with him for a few
moments, and then hastily despatched four couriers who had been in
readiness since five o’clock on the preceding evening. Eight days
after, the town of Strasburg was entirely surrounded by French troops,
and summoned to surrender; it capitulated and threw open its gates on
the thirtieth of September, 1681. Evidently the three strokes of the
stick given by the fellow in yellow costume, at an appointed hour,
were the signals of the success of an intrigue concerted between M.
de Louvois and the magistrates of Strasburg, and the man who executed
this mission was as ignorant of the motive as was M. de Chamilly of
the motive of his. This unjustifiable action of France received formal
recognition at the Peace of Ryswick in 1697, and she continued to hold
the place until it was wrested from her by the Germans during the late
Franco-German War.

The mysterious cards employed by the Count de Vergennes, who was
Minister for Foreign Affairs under Louis XVI, in his relations with
the diplomatic agents of France, exhibit great ingenuity in their
arrangement and show what the political condition of Europe must have
been at that time to require such precautions. The count was a great
friend of America, and it was largely through his influence that the
treaties of amity and commerce and alliance of 1778 were concluded.
These cards were used in letters of recommendation or passports which
were given to strangers about to enter or depart from France; they were
intended to furnish information without the knowledge of the bearers.
This was the system. The cards given to a man contained only a few
words, such as,

  _Alphonse D’Angeha_

  _Recommendé à M. le Comte de Vergennes, par le Marquis de Puységur,
  Ambassadeur de France à la Cour de Lisbonne._

The card told more tales than the words written on it. Its color
indicated the nation of the stranger. Yellow showed him to be English;
red, Spanish; white, Portuguese; green, Dutch; red and white, Italian;
red and green, Swiss; green and white, Russian, etc. The person’s
age was expressed by the shape of the card. If it was circular, he
was under 25; oval, between 25 and 30; octagonal, between 30 and 45;
hexagonal, between 45 and 50; square, between 50 and 60; an oblong
showed that he was over 60. Two lines placed below the name of the
bearer indicated his build. If he was tall and lean, the lines were
waving and parallel; tall and stout, they converged; and so on. The
expression of his face was shown by a flower on the border. A rose
designated an open and amiable countenance, while a tulip marked
a pensive and aristocratic appearance. A fillet round the border,
according to its length, told whether the man was bachelor, married,
or widower. Dots gave information as to his position and fortune. A
full stop after his name showed that he was a Catholic; a semicolon
that he was a Lutheran; a comma that he was a Calvinist; a dash that
he was a Jew; no stop indicated him as an atheist. So also his morals
and character were pointed out by a pattern in the angles of the card.
So at one glance the minister could tell all about his man, whether
he was a gamester or a duelist; what was his purpose in visiting
France; whether in search of a wife or to claim a legacy; what was his
profession--that of a physician, lawyer, or man of letters; whether he
was to be put under surveillance or allowed to go his way unmolested.

When the Chevalier de Rohan was in the Bastille in 1674, his friends
wanted to convey to him the intelligence that his accomplice was dead
without having confessed. They did so by passing the following words
into his dungeon, written on a shirt: “mg dulhxcclgu ghj yxuj; lm ct
ulgc alj.” In vain did he puzzle over the cipher, to which he had not
the clue. It was too short; for the shorter a cipher letter, the more
difficult it is to make out. The light faded, and he tossed on his hard
bed, sleeplessly revolving the mystic letters in his brain, but he
could make nothing out of them. Day dawned, and with the first gleam he
was poring over them; still in vain. He pleaded guilty, for he could
not decipher “Le prisonnier est mort; il n’a rien dit.”

The following mystic message is very difficult to decipher: “Tig C f p
w y w e. i t ao eovhvygnvrxr mbiddutl.”

Take the first word, Tig, and under the second letter place that which
precedes it in the alphabet, namely, h; then under the third letter, in
succession backward, the two preceding letters, thus:

  T i g
    h f
      e

In like manner arrange the second word and the connecting letters, and
we obtain the following:

  C f p w y w e
    e o v x v d
      n u w u c
        t v t b
          u s a
            r z
              y

By following the oblique line of letters, we get the words “~The
Century~.” When all the words are so adjusted, we read, “~The
Century~ is an entertaining magazine.”

I cannot refrain from adding one more method which has been proposed
for the transmission of secret messages. Let a man, says the ingenious
author, breathe his words slowly in a long hollow cane hermetically
sealed at the farthest end, then let him suddenly and closely seal the
end into which he breathed. The voice will continue in the tube till
it has some vent. When the seal is removed at the end which was first
sealed, the words will come but distinctly and in order, but if the
seal at the other end be removed, their inverted series will create
confusion. This happy conception seems to have been proposed in all
good faith by its author.

The first attempt at secret writing by the United States was made by
Silas Deane, who was the first agent sent abroad by the Continental
Congress. He was despatched to France for the purpose of purchasing
arms and ammunition and to sound that country as to the probabilities
of her recognizing the colonies if they should be forced to form
themselves into an independent state; and whether their ambassadors
would be received; and would France be disposed to enter into any
treaty or alliance with them, for commerce or defense, or both; and
if so, upon what principal condition. His instructions stated: “It
is scarce necessary to pretend any other business at Paris than the
gratifying of that curiosity which draws numbers thither yearly, merely
to see so famous a city.” His mission being confidential, it was
necessary to have great secrecy attached to his correspondence. For
this purpose he was furnished by John Jay with an invisible ink and
a chemical preparation for rendering the writing legible. As letters
apparently blank might excite suspicion and lead to experiments that
might expose the contrivance, the communications were written on large
sheets of paper, beginning with a short letter written with common ink,
respecting some fictitious person or business and under a feigned name,
and the balance of the paper was used for the real or intended letter
written in the invisible ink. Mr. Jay was the only one intrusted with
the secret, and the letters were consequently addressed to him as “John
Jay, Esq., Attorney at Law.” When a single sheet was insufficient to
contain the secret despatch, Mr. Timothy Jones, or some other imaginary
gentleman, requested the favor of Mr. Jay to forward the inclosed
letter according to its directions; and the inclosed letter, with the
exception of a short note on some fictitious business, was filled with
the residue of the despatch in invisible ink.

Robert Morris, a member of the Committee of Secret Correspondence,
writing to Mr. Jay, from Philadelphia, says:

  Although your express delivered me your favor last Wednesday or
  Thursday, yet I did not receive the letter from Mr. Deane until this
  day, and shall now send after the express, that he may convey this
  safe to your hands; should he be gone I must find some other safe
  conveyance. You will find inclosed both of Mr. Deane’s letters, as
  you desired, and I shall thank you for the copy of the invisible
  part. He had communicated so much of this secret to me before his
  departure, as to let me know he had fixed with you a mode of writing
  that would be invisible to the rest of the world; he also promised
  to ask you to make a full communication to me, but in this use your
  pleasure; the secret, so far as I do or shall know it, will remain so
  to all other persons.

The letter of Mr. Deane written in common ink and at the top of the
page was as follows:

  Dear Sir: I have now to inform you of my safe arrival at this
  place, after a passage of thirty-two days from Martinico, and am so
  extremely weak that I am scarcely able to hold my pen, yet could not
  let this opportunity slip of letting you know where I am, and that I
  have a prospect of recovering; for though weak, my fever and cough
  have left me almost entirely. There is not much news here, and if
  there was, I should not dare to write it, as that might intercept the
  letter if taken. My compliments to all friends.

  Yours
  ~Timothy Jones~.

  John Jay, Esqr., Attorney at Law,
  New York.

Under this apparently innocent letter was written in invisible ink the
following public and important letter to Robert Morris:

  Dear Sir: I shall send you, in October clothing for twenty thousand
  men, thirty thousand fusils, one hundred tons of powder, two hundred
  brass cannon, twenty four brass mortars, with shells, shot, lead,
  etc., in proportion. I am to advise you that if, in future, you will
  give commissions to seize Portuguese ships, you may depend on the
  friendship and alliance of Spain. Let me urge this measure; much may
  be got, nothing can be lost by it. Increase, at all events, your
  navy. I will procure, if commissioned, any quantity of sail-cloth
  and cordage. A general war is undoubtedly at hand in Europe, and
  consequently America will be safe, if you baffle the arts and arms of
  the two Howes through the summer. Every one here is in your favor.
  Adieu. I will write you again next week.

  ~Silas Deane.~

The letter with its secret companion was received by Mr. Jay, who,
having applied the necessary chemicals, brought out the hidden intent
of the writer, transcribed both letters, and sent them to Robert
Morris, in order that the information conveyed might be presented to
Congress for the consideration of that body. Mr. Morris acknowledged
the receipt of Mr. Jay’s letter as follows:

  Your favor of the 7th ultimo came safe to hand. Timothy Jones
  is certainly a very entertaining agreeable man; one would not
  judge so from anything contained in his cold insipid letter of
  the 17th September, unless you take pains to find the concealed
  beauties therein; the cursory observations of a sea captain would
  never _discover_ them, but transferred from his hand to the
  penetrating eye of a _Jay_, the diamonds stand confessed at
  once. It puts me in mind of a search after the philosopher’s stone,
  but I believed not one of the followers of that phantom has come
  so near the mark as you, my good friend. I handed a copy of your
  discoveries to the Committee, which now consists of Harrison, R.
  H. Lee, Hooper, Dr. Witherspoon, Johnson, you, and myself; and
  honestly told them who it was from, because measures are necessary in
  consequence of it; but I have not received any directions yet.

Congress responded, however, by giving orders for a supply of blankets,
clothing, flints, and lead to be shipped in armed vessels, and these
were to enter the service of the United States.

Shortly after this another cipher was adopted by the Government, which
continued to be used by the Department of State after the inauguration
of the Government under the Constitution, down to as recent a date as
1867. It was very seldom used, however, after the War of 1812. It was
constructed upon the principle of a combination of numbers ranging
from 1 to 1600, each number representing either punctuation-marks,
letters, syllables, or in some few instances complete words. It
was a cumbersome, laborious cipher, suited, perhaps, to ordinary
correspondence, with the merit of being easily deciphered by an expert.
It was found not only very inconvenient for corresponding by means of
the cable, but exceedingly expensive. A similar cipher, however, is now
being used by at least one of the principal powers of Europe.

In 1864 the French government under the Emperor Napoleon III, taking
advantage of the Civil War in the United States, occupied Mexico
and placed Maximilian on the throne as emperor. As soon as the war
was over, Mr. Seward took steps to force the French to retire from
that country, and by that means enabled the people to choose between
Maximilian as emperor and Juarez as president, without being influenced
by the presence of the French military forces. A cabinet meeting was
called, at which General Grant was present by invitation. The result of
the conference was that an instruction was prepared by Secretary Seward
to our minister at Paris that plainly stated the sentiments of the
United States, which was to the effect that the French must evacuate
Mexico at once, or the United States would send her troops into that
country and help the forces of the republic. The Atlantic cable had
only just been completed, and the president of the company wanted the
patronage of the Government to aid the enterprise. He called upon Mr.
Seward and requested him to use the cable, promising that the rates
should be entirely satisfactory to the Government, notwithstanding
those to the public were ten dollars per word. In addition to the
ordinary charge, the cable company imposed double rates upon all
messages in which a cipher code was used. The instruction was given to
the writer to put it in cipher, when he called the attention of the
secretary to the great expense that would attend its transmission by
cable, as each syllable in the instruction would be represented by four
figures, and the cable company considered each figure as an equivalent
for a word, and charged double rates accordingly. Having in view the
assurances of the president of the company that the charges would not
be excessive, Mr. Seward gave directions to have the instruction put
in cipher and sent by cable, which was done. The instruction would
occupy in print about a page and a quarter of an ordinary congressional
document. The bill of the cable company was afterward submitted, and
it amounted to over $23,000, which Mr. Seward, not considering it
reasonable, refused to pay. The rates were soon reduced to the public
one half, and several other reductions followed, but the bill which
Mr. Seward refused to pay was never paid.

During the occupation of Mexico by the French, cipher telegrams were
sent to General Bazaine, commander of the French forces. Some of these
coming into the possession of the authorities of the United States
were deciphered by an army officer and much valuable information was
obtained.

The value and importance of secret writing is of course obvious, but
the advantages which have accrued from it, while easily surmised, have
become known only in a vague and general way. A specific illustration
of a particular benefit derived from it by the United States in a very
important matter and at a very critical time relates to the treaty of
1871 between this country and Great Britain, whereby the so-called
“Alabama Claims” were to be adjusted by a Tribunal of Arbitration at
Geneva, and which came very near being nullified in consequence of our
presentation to that tribunal of what was known as “indirect claims,”
namely, claims not for actual losses, but for the deprivation of
prospective profits, etc. Great Britain sought to use the presentation
of these claims as a ground for setting aside the jurisdiction of
the tribunal, and consequently subverting it. Our agent before the
tribunal, Judge J. C. Bancroft Davis, devised a plan for saving the
case of the United States and preserving the tribunal. The nature of
this plan was such as to require the approval of the President before
it could be put into operation, and had to be communicated to him
quickly as well as secretly. In anticipation of some such emergency,
the writer, at Mr. Davis’s request, had prepared for him, just before
his departure for Geneva, a cipher which, while perfectly secret,
could be easily managed and the key of which could be memorized. Mr.
Davis and Secretary Fish had recourse to this cipher for the purpose
of the important correspondence above referred to, which could not
have been conducted openly and which resulted in the maintenance of
the Geneva Tribunal. An amusing feature of this correspondence was the
perturbation it caused our minister at London, General Schenck. The
messages were relayed through his office, and he, not being in the
secret of the cipher, insisted upon having them repeated, because, as
he said, he found them to be only “a jargon of unmeaning words.”

The Government, as such, has no distinct cipher, but each of the three
departments, State, War, and Navy, the only departments really needing
methods for secrecy of correspondence, is provided with a cipher of its
own.

During the Civil War the Navy Department devised a cipher which was
simply a substitution of one letter of the alphabet for another, and
this was operated by a mechanical contrivance consisting of disks,
one of which was stationary and the other movable. The stationary
disk contained the letters of the “true reading,” and the movable
disk the cipher substitutes. The process of its operation was tedious
and awkward, but it was continued in use until the middle of the
eighties, when several naval officers were designated to prepare a more
convenient code. The new system is a combination of numerals and cipher
words to represent words and phrases, following the general principle
of most commercial codes. While not as full as it might be, it answers
its purpose very well. Through overcaution, however, its operation has
been made unnecessarily complicated, two translations being required to
decipher a message, while one should be sufficient. Words have to be
translated into figures and the figures then translated into the true
meaning.

The code-book of this cipher is always kept in a canvas bag lined with
zinc and heavily weighted. The bag is in the personal custody of the
commanding officer, whose orders are, that in the event of danger of
capture by the enemy, it is to be thrown overboard. Hence there is
little likelihood of the code ever falling into improper hands.

The cipher of the War Department is very simple in its nature, and by
virtue of its simplicity, easiness of operation, its inscrutability,
and above all the readiness with which, in the event of its capture, a
new and entirely different key can be substituted, commends itself as
possessing a superiority over all others for military purposes. It may
in a general way be described as an ingenious method of distorting the
order of the words in a message, and further obscuring the sense by the
systematic interpolation of irrelevant words and the introduction of
meaning and meaningless names. The variety of distortions is great, and
whenever a copy of the cipher is captured, another can be supplied and
communicated to all parties interested in a very short space of time.
This cipher is an elaboration of one that was designed for the governor
of Ohio, at the beginning of our Civil War, to facilitate secret
correspondence between him and the governors of Indiana and Illinois.
Its effectiveness soon became recognized, and it was generally used
during the war for the direction of military operations and the
correspondence between our generals and the War Department.

In this connection it may be stated that during our Civil War the
telegraph and the cipher system for the first time in history became
important factors in the matter of tactics and strategy. The telegraph
was first utilized as a military aid during the Crimean War (1854-55),
but its use was confined to being merely a means of communication
between the headquarters of the allied forces. But in our Civil War
the telegraph and cipher were the principal channels for the direction
of military operations, embodying, as they did, all the elements of
celerity and secrecy, and rendering the signal corps picturesque but
very ancient fire or flag system, in general, of very little practical
value. By way of illustration, the fact may here be stated that during
the siege of Petersburg, General Meade received and sent in five hours
over three hundred telegrams, being more than one in every three
minutes. Such a feat is readily seen to be far beyond the capacity of
any system of wigwagging, fire, or flag signals, no matter how ancient
or modern. It must be admitted, however, that these signal systems are
at times of great and essential value, especially when telegraph lines
cannot be established. The victory of the Federal troops at Lookout
Mountain was mainly due to the skill of our signal corps in deciphering
the signals of the Confederates and advising our generals accordingly.

For military purposes, telegraph operators were looked upon as
possessing the best qualifications for enciphering and deciphering
secret communications, but the sense of self-importance or esteem
which seemed to attach to the person intrusted with these operations
caused the staff-officers eagerly to seek such employment. As the war
progressed, however, the work gradually devolved entirely upon the
telegraphers, but not until after some discomfiting experiences on
the part of some distinguished officers. General Grant undertook to
send from La Grange, Tennessee, a cipher message to General Hamilton,
who was at the front. Hamilton could not understand it, and had it
repeated, but all to no purpose. Grant insisted that the message was
correctly enciphered, but very soon afterward he gladly abandoned the
cipher business to his operators. On another occasion General Grant,
upon leaving his headquarters at Chattanooga to go to Knoxville, failed
to take his telegraph operator with him. While at Knoxville he received
several telegrams from Washington which he could not understand, and
being consequently much annoyed, he directed his operator to turn
over the cipher-key to his chief of staff, so that he would not be
troubled with unintelligible telegrams in the future. For doing this he
was reprimanded by General-in-Chief Halleck, who, in a letter, dated
January 22, 1864, said:

  A new and very complicated cipher was prepared for communications
  between you and the War Department which, by direction of the
  Secretary of War was to be communicated to only two individuals--one
  at your headquarters and one in the War Department. It was to be
  communicated to no one else--not even to me or any member of my
  staff.... On account of this cipher having been communicated to Col.
  Comstock, the Secretary has directed another to be prepared in its
  place, which is to be communicated _to no one, no matter what his
  rank_, without his special authority.

General Grant replied that he had regarded the whole matter of the
cipher management as merely an exhibition of departmental bureaucracy,
and that he had considered himself as capable as the director of the
bureau of telegraph matters in Washington to select a proper person
to intrust with the cipher, but he was no stickler for forms and was
always ready to obey any order or even wish of the Secretary of War,
or any of his superiors, no matter how conveyed, if he only knew or
thought it came from him. This ended the episode, and in a few hours
the new cipher was ready for use.

Copies of our military cipher messages frequently got into the hands
of the Confederates by means of tapping the wires, but they never
succeeded in deciphering them, although they went to the extent of
advertising them in their newspapers for decipherment, and it may be
added, to the credit of our corps of military telegraph operators, that
no operator ever proved recreant to his trust.

As compared with the simplicity of complexity and celerity of operation
of the Government’s military cipher, that of the Confederates was
very crude and clumsy. All their methods of secret communication were
unraveled by our signal corps and telegraph operators. In addition
to their signal system, the Confederates had a cipher for use in
telegraphing and one for sending secret information through the mail.
The first telegraph cipher message captured by our forces was the
following:


  Vicksburg, Dec. 26, 1862.

  Gen. J. E. Johnston, Jackson.

  I prefer oaavyr, it has reference to xhvkjqchffabpzelreqpzwnyk
  to prevent anuzeyxswstpjw at that point, raeelpsghvelvtzfautl
  ilasltlhifnaigtsmmlfgcca jd.

  ~J. C. Pemberton~,
  _Lt. Gen. Comdg._

After translation it read:

  I prefer _Canton_. It has reference to _fortifications at
  Yazoo City_ to prevent _passage of river_ at that point.
  _Force landed about three thousand, above mouth of river._

This code was merely a system of transposition or substitution of
letters, which was effected by the use of either one of the three
following keys, “Manchester Bluff,” “Complete victory,” or “Come
retribution,” in connection with a square formed by twenty-six
alphabets, the letters of each being written horizontally, one alphabet
under the other, the first beginning with “a,” the second with “b,”
the third with “c,” and so on, following the regular sequence of the
letters. In the foregoing despatch the key “Manchester Bluff” was
used, and by placing those letters over the enciphered letters of the
message and applying the squared alphabets and beginning with the
letters _oaavvr_, we look for “o” under the letter m in the top
alphabet and find it in the alphabet which begins with c, and translate
it c. Then we look for “a” under the letter a (the second letter of
Manchester), and find that it means a; then we look for “a” under n
(the third letter of Manchester) in the top alphabet, and find it in
the alphabet which begins with n, and we translate it n, and so on.
This system has no special merit except its age. The ancients used it,
and it is generally the plan adopted by tyros in cryptography. The
tediousness of its process makes it impractical.

The mail cipher consisted of substituted letters; telegraphic
characters; parts of geometric figures, like the inscription on one of
the tombs in Trinity churchyard

[Illustration]

(meaning “Remember death”); and a few hieroglyphics. A letter from
a Confederate agent which was intercepted in 1863 by the postmaster
at New York was written in this cipher. Notwithstanding its puzzling
appearance, it was deciphered readily, and the information obtained
enabled the Government to seize a large quantity of bank-notes and the
machinery for printing them which had been prepared for the Confederacy
in that city. The lack of ingenuity and skill and the great crudity and
cumbersomeness displayed by the Confederates in their ciphers must be
regarded as surprising.

The cipher of the Department of State is the most modern of all in
the service of the Government. It embraces the valuable features of
its predecessors and the merits of the latest inventions. Being used
for every species of diplomatic correspondence, it is necessarily
copious and unrestricted in its capabilities, but at the same time
it is economic in its terms of expression. It is simple and speedy
in its operation, but so ingenious as to secure absolute secrecy.
The construction of this cipher, like many ingenious devices whose
operations appear simple to the eye but are difficult to explain in
writing, would actually require the key to be furnished for the purpose
of an intelligible description of it.

Ciphers are now more generally used than at any other period of the
world’s history. Introduced for the first time by the United States
in connection with the telegraph as a war factor, telegraphic ciphers
have now become incorporated in the military systems of all nations.
But it is in peaceful pursuits that the largest field for their
operations has been found. They are now an essential element of all
financial, commercial, and industrial enterprises. In former times they
were employed for purposes of evil and cruelty, and were consequently
looked upon with horror and aversion. Their functions now, however, are
chiefly to benefit humanity by facilitating commerce and industry, and
hence they merit public interest and favor.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




THE GRAPES OF ESHCOL

BY EMILY HUNTINGTON MILLER

WITH DECORATIONS BY FRANK VINCENT DU MOND


    I have not entered in: across my way,
      Shining and deep, a silent river lies;
    But sometimes, in the dawning of the day,
      I see the vision of its vineyards rise.

    And once, when Joy and I walked hand in hand,
      One passed, his staff with purple clusters bent;
    The winey juices dripped along the sand,
      And all the air throbbed fragrance as he went.

    He spake no word, but in his eyes there shone
      The steady radiance of the evening star,
    And wooing breath of music, lightly blown
      By fitful winds, came stealing from afar.

    And still I wait till, on some raptured morn,
      Astir with wings, and tremulous with light,
    The grapes of Eschol, through the desert borne,
      May gleam again upon my eager sight.

    Tranquil and cool, a little path will run
      Through smiling meadows downward to the sea.
    Through fruitful vineyards shining in the sun,
      And Joy, that fled, will walk again with me.

[Illustration]




THE FRATERNITY IDEA AMONG COLLEGE WOMEN

WHAT DOES IT STAND FOR?

BY EDITH RICKERT

  The wide attention that lately has been attracted to the influence
  of the fraternities in men’s colleges and universities, from the
  social and democratic points of view, has suggested the treatment
  of the somewhat similar societies in colleges for women. At our
  request, Miss Rickert has made a comprehensive and impartial
  investigation, the results of which are embodied in the present paper
  and in one to follow, entitled, “What Can We Do About It?” Parents,
  college authorities, fraternity members, and other students will be
  interested in the facts and conclusions here presented.--~The
  Editor.~


A trifling device of Greek letters in gold and enamel is a potent
badge of social distinction in our democratic country, a hallmark of a
certain sort of aristocracy.

[Illustration]

The college fraternities are aristocratic in that they are
self-perpetuating. Their privileges are not to be won through the
conquest of adverse conditions and opposing forces; they are handed
down by the older generations. Theoretically, admittance depends upon
congeniality of spirit; virtually, clanship of race is coming to count
more than kinship of soul. The chapters to-day show an increasing
proportion of brothers, daughters, cousins, and friends. “If we build
a chapter-house, Mrs. Vangoelet will allow her two sisters to come in
with us; otherwise not,” expresses this attitude.

The Pan Hellenic Society is an organization of nearly fifty thousand
college women, which is spreading enormously. Sixty chapters were
established between 1890 and 1900, and two hundred between 1900 and
1910. It has a foothold in seventy-five of our leading coeducational
institutions (that is, in all but about three), and several of the
large women’s colleges. It is elaborately inspected and regulated by
Pan-Hellenics, national and local.

The fraternities are aristocratic in that they are destructive to
freedom of intercourse. The fraternal spirit is the great modern
separator. It builds first a high wall between the Greeks and the
barbarians, and then a maze of social distinctions between fraternity
and fraternity. Are there not Attic Greeks and Doric, and Greeks from
the far Ionian Isles?

The women’s fraternities began as sororities, and the change of name
is significant. It means, they claim, that women as human beings
have as much right to be included in the word “fraternity” as in the
phrase “the brotherhood of man.” It means more than that. Consciously
or unconsciously they have been moved by the aristocratic impulse to
attach the early traditions, to create the social atmosphere, of the
men’s fraternities; in other words, to lengthen the pedigree of their
organization.

Is this unjust? The fraternity women have responded most generously to
my inquiries; they have heaped upon me a small mountain of manuscript
in explanation and defense of their theories and their practice. How
shall I get at the truth? It is almost impossible to say anything that
is not true of one fraternity or one chapter and at the same time
untrue of others; but I have tried to understand their ideals and to
follow up and judge the tendencies of their practice.

With college men the fraternity is frankly a social privilege which
may become an invaluable business asset in after life. With women
it is theoretically a means of completing individual development:
“The university endeavors to graduate a student; the fraternity a
significant, unselfish, gracious woman.”

The fraternity idea, however, reaches about one student in ten!

But forget for a time the nine tenths, the heterogeneous mass of the
“barbarians,” and look at the system as it develops the elect few;
and, to be just, consider it in its ideal form, toward which all the
chapters are striving. Here is a group of between fifteen and thirty
girls living in a dignified, well-appointed chapter-house near the
campus, with a “house mother,” or chaperon. They are good-looking,
well-dressed, all-round girls; athletic, dramatic, social-minded,
rarely given to overstudy, almost always popular with men. They are
not all rich, and not all of patrician family. One is a governor’s
daughter, one a milliner’s; one spends all her summers abroad, one
earns next year’s fees by teaching in a vacation school; one has always
helped with the housework at home, another has never touched a duster
or a broom until she takes her turn in polishing the chapter-house
floors. If they have one common quality, it is this, as an observant
college officer says, that they “do not have to be explained; they are
so instantaneously attractive as to make the reason for their selection
immediately evident.”

These girls make a happy family of elder and younger sisters, the
elder feeling strongly responsible for the physical, intellectual,
and spiritual welfare of the younger, the younger bound to heed the
precepts and to follow the examples of the elder. They are closely
linked by observance of a ritual which is said to be beautiful and
uplifting. One enthusiast writes me: “That mere girls could have
written our rituals, given expression and symbol to our creeds and
initiation ceremonies, seems almost impossible, yet a proof of the
divinity of clear-eyed womanhood.”

They are said to be outspoken in criticizing one another in the light
of their ideals, meek in accepting criticism. One chapter even went to
the length of establishing after its service a special meeting in which
members were subjected to the fire of anonymous criticisms from their
fellows, and so set to cure dominant faults. They manage their own
household and business affairs with a precision and technic alarming to
read about. They learn independence and self-reliance, on the one hand;
self-control and a graceful yielding to the will of the majority on the
other.

Their friendships are more loyal than the outsider can well imagine.
Pushed to extremes, this loyalty even led, in one instance, to a
concealment of theft and a levying of contributions to make up the
loss; in two other cases cited, to expulsion from a chapter for “loose
morals,” with, however, a rigid silence in the presence of outsiders as
to the cause.

Indeed, life in the chapter-house seems to call out most of the
virtues--unselfishness, neatness, tidiness, promptness, and general
efficiency. In this college home, which to the fraternity girls is far
more the vital center of their college experience than the classroom or
the laboratory, there is much exchange of hospitality between chapters
and individuals. Members of the faculty and distinguished guests are
entertained. The girls are at the opposite pole from the poor student
who cooks her own breakfast in her room, from the unfortunate “barb”
who is left to the promiscuous friendships of the cheap boarding-house.
They learn to plan a successful dinner, to pacify an enraged cook,
to distinguish between porterhouse and sirloin, to lay out money to
the best advantage in entertainment, to undertake without a quiver
a reception for a thousand guests with only an afternoon of actual
preparation. They learn to preside and to receive with grace and charm,
to deal tactfully with many temperaments, to shuffle guests. Briefly,
they become skilled in the complete art of the social game.

To sum up, according to the claims made for the fraternity girl in
the handbook of her organization; she develops individuality and the
power to lead; she acquires invaluable business training and womanly
charm. She is given a wider outlook over the field of collegiate
education than her less fortunate sisters; she is blessed with
congenial friendships that amount almost to a continuance of family
relationships, and “whatever the line of service to which she may
consecrate herself,” she “will always be a success.”

This is a composite picture, made up from scores of glowing accounts of
the benefits of the system. Is it true?

Certainly the shield has a reverse side. Over against the select
fraternity of the pillared porch, let us place that which, during a
severe winter, had to go outside the pale and take in new members in
order to pay the coal bill. Let us also remember the chaperon who is
also the cook, and does not appear at functions.

“Good-looking?” Yes, I have heard of a would-be chapter that was almost
excluded from the national organization because the photograph sent
on showed that they did not do their hair becomingly; and they were
solemnly admonished to this effect in a type-written letter!

“Well-dressed?” One would scarcely believe the difference it makes to a
“rushee” whether she is wearing a smart fall hat or a summer left-over;
and if her belt pin should one day fail to do its duty, her cause might
as well be lost. One method of choosing likely members is to send
delegates to the station to observe the new girls as they arrive. There
is witnessed the triumph of the tailored suit over the dowdy frills
of the country dressmaker, of the suitcase that has lived abroad over
the bulging valise that is packed with home-grown apples and home-made
cookies.

“All-round?” Yes, with possibly a slight depression on the side of
scholarship. I have heard of a good many cases in which girls were
dragged out of the mire of conditions and hauled through their college
course by the zeal of fraternity sisters pulling all together for the
glory of the chapter. They have ideals of scholarship, indeed they are
trying to establish a standard for admission, and they even carry off
a share of the honors; but, on the whole, their social mind interferes
with the scholastic attitude, and prevents over-application to mental
effort.

“Rich?” Not necessarily; yet would not the girl who drives her own
automobile have some advantage over the one who works her way through
college, and the girl whose parents have a delightful home most
suitable for “rushing” purposes near the campus be preferred to any
sweet madonna-of-the-boarding-house? I heard only the other day how
an initiation fee was raised to five times its original amount on the
plea, “The girls will appreciate it _so_ much more if they have to
pay a _lot_!”

“Family?” Not at all, yet I know of a girl who was rushed hard and as
suddenly dropped because it was discovered that her father had been a
butcher; of another, who was regarded as eligible until it was found
out, what neither her name nor her features suggested, that her really
distinguished family was of Jewish strain.

These instances must be set over against the ideal picture of the
governor’s daughter and the milliner’s child, the mother’s helper and
the patrician of the South, scrubbing floors together.

Family jars, I am told, are beneath the dignity of the fraternities.
It is difficult not to be skeptical as to the power of the ritual or
of the pin to keep twenty healthy girls from splitting into factions
over nothing at all; but even if outer harmony is maintained, is
it conceivable that there should not very often be discomfort and
even actual suffering among the minority? Suppose a chapter one year
includes twelve students and eight butterflies, and the next year
changes to three students and seventeen butterflies? What of the
occasional “mistake”? I know a Theta girl whose mother was a Beta,
but this fact was not discovered by the Betas until she was pledged.
“What a pity!” they lamented; but “What an escape!” said she. As it
happened, she felt entirely at home with the Thetas and could not bear
the Betas; but suppose the situation had been reversed! She would have
had no remedy except to withdraw, which would have made her painfully
conspicuous and set everybody to wondering about the reason, or to
change her college. But a girl out of harmony with a crowd and obliged
to live with them in intimate association, is greatly to be pitied,
whether she conforms or holds her own. What is to be said of the
ethics of forcing an Episcopalian to dance in Lent against her strong
religious scruples? Can it be doubted that such a minority often yields
its own convictions to keep pace with the others, or, not yielding, is
painfully out of step?

As to the wonderful ritual devised by “clear-eyed womanhood,” I have
heard it also described as “childish,” “poppycock,” “bunk.” The ideals
are necessarily those of immaturity, and have all the vagueness and
some of the wrong-headedness of youth. “They are not harmful,” writes a
dean, a fraternity woman who is familiar also with a college where no
fraternities exist, “except that they are sentimental.” I take this to
mean that they are more suited to discourses at fraternity banquets, as
a kind of leaven to reminiscences of good old times, than to practical
application outside the fraternity world.[3] That they may “have a
dynamic force upon character” is doubtless true of the persons who do
not develop beyond the stage at which they are propounded; that they
lead to much real kindness among fraternity sisters in time of illness
and trouble need not be doubted. But a loyalty which hides a thief and
turns her loose in the world without warning may be a dangerous thing,
and when it expels a girl for “loose morals,” and gives no further
explanation, it is cruel, if the term means cigarettes or slight
indiscretions with men, and dangerous if her character is such that she
ought not to be allowed to remain on the campus.

“Manage their own households and business affairs?” Yes, but a peep
behind the scenes reveals a case of cutting out breakfast to save up
for a tea, of giving a formal dinner and living on bread and potatoes
for a week to make up the expense. An inspector’s story hints that this
business management is not unlike the average amateur performance. A
dean, herself a fraternity woman of many years’ experience, writes:
“Usually ... the accounts of such an organization are not so well
looked after as those of the more general women’s organizations in
which less of the ‘family’ idea prevails,” and “the business training
of these undergraduates” ... is “probably inferior to that gained
by officers in such bodies as the Women’s League, the Young Women’s
Christian Association, the Student Government Association, or the
boards of college publications.”

Then are the conclusions quoted by the handbook as to the influence
of the fraternities on their members warranted by the facts? Do they
cultivate individuality? How is it possible? In the first place, the
fraternity girl is essentially “clubable”; and by the statute of
limitations in personality she is bound to be more conventional, yes,
even more superficial in her attractions, than the girl who is strongly
individual. The fraternities are admitted to be groups in which like
seeks like, and the whole flock aims to induce still greater likeness
to the pattern of the group. The girl with a streak of genius cannot
easily find her like, so she flocks not at all; the poor, proud girl
fears patronage, and will not; the awkward, ill-bred country girl
can’t; the dig dare not for fear of missing some intellectual good
thing. All these must develop more or less as individuals; but the
fraternity girl, unless she enters as an individual strong enough to
dominate her companions, must herself be dominated by them.

“Cultivate leadership?” Probably, in that they give to all their
members in some measure the poise that comes only from an assured
social position; and poise is the first requisite for leadership.
Again, the fraternity girl who takes a leading part in outside college
activities has always an advantage in that she does this with the
backing of her group, who are all prepared to do team-work when
occasion demands.

In the same way, it is only the few that from the first show executive
and business ability who get much training in these directions through
fraternity membership.

As to the wide outlook over the field of collegiate education, it is
limited in two ways: first, in that the fraternity women are more or
less segregated from the other students, and second, in that they do
not come into contact at all with the great women’s colleges, Vassar,
Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, and Bryn Mawr.[4]

[Illustration:

  GAMMA PHI BETA       DELTA GAMMA
  ALPHA PHI            KAPPA KAPPA GAMMA
  ALPHA CHI OMEGA      CHI OMEGA

A GROUP OF WOMEN’S FRATERNITY HOUSES (UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN)]

Then is the fraternity woman bound to be a success? Few of them, even
while they claim inestimable benefits inexplicable to the outsider, say
this. Some of them think that when the admitted defects in the system
are removed, when rushing is prohibited, when pledge-day is postponed
until the new students have had time to find themselves intellectually
and socially and to make their friends, when a uniform scholarship
standard and uniform house-rules are enforced, it will make for the
finest type of womanhood.

[Illustration: Drawn by J. Norman Lynd

“ONE METHOD OF CHOOSING LIKELY MEMBERS IS TO SEND DELEGATES TO THE
STATION TO OBSERVE THE NEW GIRLS AS THEY ARRIVE”]

Doubtless there is need of these things. When rushing reaches the point
of tying a girl in the rooms of a fraternity house until she puts on
the fraternity-badge, it is time to take measures. When of two girls
who are intimate friends, one is pledged because she knows better how
to make use of her good points, while, with the breaking up of their
friendship, the other, made of equally fine stuff, is left forlorn
because she lacks an intangible something that attracts all the girls
in a chapter, or has an intangible something that repels one member of
it, a remedy should be found. When a popular girl has an engagement for
five nights in a single week, or averages from sixty to eighty “dates”
in a year, it almost looks as though scholarship needs attention. When
the chaperon exerts her influence from the kitchen, and social events
are untrammeled as to numbers and hours and expense, it is almost time
for a reform. In other words, while there are chapters that are almost
wholly admirable in their constituency and conduct, there are also
others that reflect in the miniature college world the pace of the
civilization about them.

But if all these reforms were accomplished,--and it is difficult to see
how enough pressure can be brought by the National Pan-Hellenic to do
this except sporadically,--the evils of the system remain as before,
inherent and ineradicable. As regards those within, the fraternity idea
means _type_; as regards those outside, it means _caste_.

“You’d never think Caroline was a Chi Chi, would you? She ought to have
been a Tau Tau!” is overheard on the campus. What does this mean but
type?

“The girl who sits next to me is an Alpha; I knew it before I saw her
pin.” What does this mean but type?

[Illustration: Drawn by J. Norman Lynd

A NOVEL METHOD OF EXTRACTING A PROMISE TO WEAR A FRATERNITY-BADGE]

“I knew a chapter that was made up of three distinct types, digs,
butterflies, and Y. W. C. A.’s.... To be sure, it rather _slumped_
for a time.” Why?

When a shrewd member of the faculty can forecast that certain freshmen
will make Gamma Gamma, and certain others Omicron Omega, it must be
admitted that not only is there a general fraternity type, but there is
a tendency to type for each combination of Greek letters that is worn
on a pin.

[Illustration: A TYPICAL SITTING-ROOM IN A GIRL’S WELL-APPOINTED
FRATERNITY HOUSE]

No doubt in the leveling up to type, many individual faults, such as
selfishness, self-distrust, laziness, frivolity, lack of initiative,
lack of self-control, bad temper, bad manners, and so on, are
corrected; but in so far as the system is artificial, it is bound
to develop conventionality. It is artificial because it chooses and
restricts friendships. Close intimacy with outsiders is almost always
made impracticable by circumstances and the mutual attitude of the
elect and the non-elect; and in some cases it is held to be disloyal to
the chapter. It is artificial because it strives to eliminate from a
girl’s experience all incongruous and hostile elements, and these are
often conducive to growth. The fraternity girl’s position is comparable
to that of the child who is fed on soft foods.

That is, the trouble is that she _is cultivated_ instead of being
allowed to grow freely. She is rushed, pledged, initiated; she is
studied, counseled, criticized, disciplined, drawn out, molded. Her
power of initiative is developed only in that she “_is made_ to go
out and do things.” Even as an upper classman, when it is her turn to
uphold the fraternity ideals and to mold her younger sisters, she still
lives in the rarefied atmosphere of an artificially selected community,
where there is no chance for the free play of the individual. The
fraternity girl, with all her initiative, her poise, her charm, her
efficiency, is crippled by the fact that she is not allowed to come to
grips with all sort of conditions and people, by which alone is gained
the personal, as opposed to the group, attitude toward life.

Does the fraternity idea mean caste? Are fraternity girls snobbish?
This question brought an emphatic denial from fraternity women on all
sides. The existence of snobbery here and there, in chapters and in
individuals, is admitted; but the attitude of the organization, I am
told, is to root it out, and by all means to encourage democracy. The
only difficulty here is that snobbery is the foundation-stone of the
system, and when it goes, the system topples. This is the way of it.
If you and I have a secret, and we talk together in the presence of a
third person who does not know it, by no means in our human power can
we avoid a snobbish attitude toward that third person. We ourselves
may forget the secret; but the person outside, by the very fact that
he is shut out from it, magnifies its importance, and no equality of
dealing is possible between him and ourselves. Extend the picture to
a houseful of girls, linked together by a common knowledge, a common
family, and a common social life, and give these girls the right to say
who shall be privileged to join them, what chance for equal dealing
has the outsider, or even a less closely organized group of outsiders,
against their united social attitude? The fraternity girl may not feel
_snobbish_, but if the barbarian is _snubbed_, the result is
much the same. What though the “frat” girl claims that the “barb” will
not meet her half-way? As long as there is consciousness of effort to
bridge the gap, the gap is plainly there.

[Illustration: Drawn by J. Norman Lynd

MEETING DISTINGUISHED GUESTS AT A FRATERNITY HOUSE, AND--]

Where there is a gap, there is caste, and where caste is recognized,
snobbery is inevitable. When the fraternity woman disclaims snobbery,
she means that she is careful not to emphasize the distinctions between
herself and others. She is like the teacher who, in order to preserve
strict impartiality, takes off her fraternity-pin when she goes to
class. No, the fraternity woman, aware as she is of the “greater
blessings of her lot,” does not snub those less fortunate than herself;
she either ignores them or is kind to them. Sometimes she manages
both attitudes at the same time, as in the case of a party given to
all the students, in which the programs of the fraternity members are
filled weeks ahead. And if the outsiders who go feel like parasites,
it is surely their own fault. Admit, on the one hand, a fund of common
knowledge and common acquaintance, extensive social experience, and
the assurance of social standing, and, on the other, instead of
these things, the ever-present sense of having been passed over as
negligible, or, what is yet worse, of having been tried and found
wanting. Can the gap be bridged?

[Illustration: PREPARING HER OWN DINNER]

Nor do the attempts of the fraternities to bridge the gap bear out
their claims of democracy. In a recent report on social customs made
by a committee of the Pan-Hellenic, only three chapters mentioned any
effort to be “nice” to the whole student body. One spoke of a spring
picnic; two, of attempts at occasional “open houses,” in one case
dubbed a failure by some members; and the third, “prospects of a party
for all college women and a freshman scholarship”! I am afraid it is
impossible to deny that the fraternities live in a world by themselves,
shut off by an insuperable barrier from those who are not “their sort.”
And if this is not caste, what is?

The system, however, does create a sort of noblesse oblige, which in
some cases makes the fraternity girls leaders in the class and student
organizations, Young Women’s Christian Association, and various other
college activities, although in this they are sometimes thwarted
by inter-fraternal rivalries and jealousies, and by the combined
hostilities of the barbarians. Further, they are said to coöperate
earnestly and efficiently with deans and presidents in coercing
refractory members of their own body, and in helping put through
reforms and other measures for the good of the whole student body. They
are the most loyal part of the alumnæ, and through their permanent
connection with their chapters, continue to come back and show interest
in their alma mater long after other students have broken the tie.

[Illustration: Drawn by J. Norman Lynd

“THE UNFORTUNATE ‘BARB’ WHO IS LEFT TO THE PROMISCUOUS FRIENDSHIPS OF
THE CHEAP BOARDING-HOUSE”]

So far I have said little about the girl who is left out. To many of
the fraternity women she seems the most deplorable feature of the
system. Except in the college where the societies contain all but a
very few of the students, her case does not seem to me serious. To be
sure, she misses a great deal of fun and social training; but if she
is worth saving, she saves herself in the end; and if she gives up in
despair and goes home because she does not “make a frat,” she is not
of the stuff that the college needs. Probably some sensitive girls are
embittered for a long time by the slight, but the finer ones conquer,
even though the sting lingers throughout their course. A large number
in the great mass of the students are unaffected by the fraternity
problems. They do not expect or wish to get in, and they have virtually
very little to do with the fraternity girls except as they work in the
same student organizations. They have their own sets, their own social
life, averaging more good times, perhaps, than they are credited with
by their pitying superior sisters. What the university fails to do to
counteract the effects of poverty, ill breeding, bad preparation, and
inexperience is another thing altogether. Individual tragedies settle
themselves, and those who win come out stronger, finer women for their
victory over adverse conditions than any fraternity girl for whom the
way has been made smooth.

But the fraternity idea must be judged not so much by those whom it
shuts out from special privilege as by the results that it produces in
those whom it fosters.

The Pan Hellenic Society believes itself specially chosen and trained
for service. And what has it done? Aside from a vague and general
interest in alumnæ activities, this service is reduced to scholarships,
some isolated attempts in education and philanthropy, a certain
“dynamic force” upon the character of its members, scarcely apparent
to outsiders, and continued perfection of organization, thus far for no
more evident purpose than the reform of its own body.

[Illustration: “‘WORSHIPING AT THEIR OWN LITTLE SHRINE’”]

In other words, the fraternity system seems grotesquely out of
proportion in the general scheme of things. Why should this one feature
of undergraduate life be magnified by means of publications, council
meetings, and conventions, if it is to fulfil no other purpose than
the perpetuation of itself? How does it stand in relation to the many
needs of the world? Is it not rather like a crystallization of an
immature stage of development? Why should a fraternity woman go about
the world seeking only her own kind, like the missionary to China who
wrote to her fraternity paper of the various social advantages that
came to her through her encounters there with Greek sisters? It looks
to me very much like an actual limitation of growth. Take the case of
the country girl whom college has unfitted for her home environment.
It was cited as one of the inestimable blessings of the system that her
sole interest now lies in her fraternity literature and friends. To my
mind this relationship is rather a handicap that retards the shifting
of focus that must take place in her before she can make her life a
success.

For these reasons I believe that the fraternities, notwithstanding
individual benefits, are hastening on our “French Revolution”; they are
creating a type that rules by habit rather than by individual power and
wisdom; and by their inflexible system of caste they are emphasizing
the gap, already more than sufficient for women as for men, between
privilege and the working world.

A college president recently said to me in substance: “I always think
of the fraternity men as in a circle, hand in hand, facing outward; but
of the women as turned the other way, worshiping at their own little
shrine, with their backs to the winds of the world.”

[Illustration: “‘WITH THEIR BACKS TO THE WINDS OF THE WORLD’”]


  [3] And yet I read in a belated answer from a broadminded fraternity
      woman: “The vows of these childish secret societies are regarded
      as just as binding as marriage-vows.”

  [4] In Wellesley the societies are local, and in Smith they are not
      properly fraternities at all.




[Illustration]




DAVY

BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY


    Davy, her knight, her dear, was dead:
    Low in dust was the silken head.
      “Isn’t there heaven,”
      (She was but seven)
    “Isn’t there” (sobbing) “for dogs?” she said.

    “Man is immortal, sage or fool:
    Animals end, by different rule.”
      So had they prated
      Of things created,
    An hour before, in her Sunday-school.

    Trusty and glad and true, who could
    Match her hero of hardihood,
      Rancorless, selfless,
      Prideless, pelfless?--
    How I should like to be half so good!

    Firebrand eye and icicle nose;
    Ear inwrought like a guelder-rose;
      All the sweet wavy
      Beauty of Davy;--
    Sad, not to answer whither it goes!

    “Isn’t there heaven for dogs that’s dead?
    God made Davy, out of His head:
      If He unmake him,
      Doesn’t He take him?
    Why should He throw him away?” she said.

    The birds were busy, the brook was gay,
    But the little hand was in mine all day.
      Nothing could bury
      That infinite query:
    “Davy,--_would_ God throw him away?”




[Illustration: Copyright by Amy Otis

HORACE HOWARD FURNESS

FROM A PENCIL PORTRAIT BY AMY OTIS]




[Illustration]




OUR GREAT SHAKSPERE CRITIC

THE LATE HORACE HOWARD FURNESS

~November 2, 1833--August 13, 1912~

BY TALCOTT WILLIAMS


Only a great man can accomplish a great task. For fifteen of
Shakspere’s most familiar plays, Horace Howard Furness condensed the
criticism of three centuries for each play in a single volume, save
“Hamlet,” which has two.[5] From 6000 to 8000 works have been published
on Shakspere. All on each play is brought within the compass of its
volume. Who holds this volume holds the fruits of all past criticism
and comment on the play.

Mere industry can do much, but mere industry could never build the
monument of these volumes. I confess I never look at the impressive row
without amazement at the labor for which they stand. It would be much,
if this were all. Long labor of this order grinds like a glacier over a
writer’s style and individuality. Textual criticism saps men. There is
a certain form of stupidity never found except in “notes.”

    Small have continual plodders ever won
    Save bare authority, from others’ books.

Nothing saves a man from this but personality. The first great tonic
is humor. Dr. Furness, man and work together, brim with it. Who else
would have made a merry mark of the one word in Shakspere--in “The
Tempest,” “young _scamels_ from the rock”--for which no one has
even suggested a convincing or even plausible meaning? The humor
needed to salt these barrels and barrels of Shaksperian pemmican is
much more than the capacity to see a joke. This is to humor what a
pocket-dictionary is to an encyclopedia. What is needed for adequate
comment on Shakspere, the most English of all figures in the world
of letters, is that numberless capacity to see the broad laugh in
all things which lies so near to tears that when the coin of fate is
flipped no man knows which is to be uppermost. This gives sanity. It
enables the editor of a variorum to know from time to time what a fool
a German scholar can make of himself and his author. I suppose no man
could see Horace Howard Furness, that solid figure, that sturdy step,
that firm face of roomy planes and liberal modeling, those twinkling
eyes, that air of benignant wisdom and general good-nature, without
seeing that the worst joke of all, life itself, could not daunt this
resolution or dull this humor.

There is a look we all know on the face of the judge--a detached
habit of thought. It comes on the bench, and it comes, too, let me
assure you, if a man has had before his bar for forty years all the
culprits who for two centuries have been writing about Shakspere. His
beam will stand sure and he will “poise the cause in justice’s equal
scales.” There are scholars whose lives are given to the great in
letters who become surfeited with honey and “in the taste confound the
appetite.” Nothing saves from this but the incommunicable capacity for
the perception of the best. This capacity grows by what it feeds upon.
Through these volumes there has grown certainty of touch and serenity
of judgment, but from the first issue there was apparent, as in the
man, the norm which is not to be corrupted even by the Elizabethan
extravagance of the greatest of Elizabethans.

Dr. Furness came to his life task through the Kemble tradition. The
Kembles, who succeeded Garrick, first gave dignity to Shakspere. Three
critics of the contemporary stage, dramatic critics all, Coleridge,
Lamb, and Hazlitt, two of them working journalists, began the present
attitude. It has since been impossible for any scholar to say, as
Samuel Johnson did, that a passage in a third-rate play, Congreve’s
“Mourning Bride,” was better than anything in Shakspere.

The stage was dear to him, and he believed that no play could be
adequately understood unless it was heard. The foremost players of his
day he knew, and each had counseled with him, and he had gladly learned
from them. With Fanny Kemble and her light touch and perspicuous,
penetrating interpretation as a model, he read the familiar plays
himself to many audiences, interspersing comment. To all who read or
act he was a living proof that lines are “read” by the mind and that he
or she who fully understands will fully express, and he or she alone.
Deaf as he was, stress, cadence, emphasis, intonation, and expression
were as manifold, accurate, and illuminating as his comment. All was
suffused with the cheer and glow of strength, and had behind that
incomparable organ of interpretation, a mind that knew, loved, and
voiced the inner meaning of the uttered word.

It is now sixty-five years since Dr. Furness, a boy of fourteen,
received from Fanny Kemble a season ticket for her readings. In her
readings she sat at a green baize-covered table still cherished in his
library. She made him a Shaksperian for life. He was living in a city
which, until Boston took its place a little over twenty years ago,
as Chicago is doing to-day, gave the stage a more serious, steady,
intelligent, and consistent support than any other.

To a local stage possessing this tradition the Philadelphia of
threescore years ago added through his father, William Henry Furness,
for fifty years head of the Unitarian Church founded by Joseph
Priestley, a more intimate contact with the romantic movement in
England than fell to other young Americans of the period. It was in
Philadelphia that Wordsworth was first appreciated at his full value by
an American. It was there that Coleridge was first printed. There, in a
commonwealth for two centuries nearer Germany than any other American
State, German translation began. William Henry Furness early addressed
himself to this field. His daughter, Mrs. Annis Lee Wister, continued
the task through thirty years, her last work appearing in a volume of
her brother’s variorum series. Where other commentators in our tongue,
in either home of our race, have looked to English comment, Dr. Furness
from the first significant dedication of his “Hamlet” (1877), written
in personal exultation over German triumph as proving Germany no longer
the “Hamlet of Nations,” has seen Shakspere as a world poet, has come
close to German authority and research, and equaled its thorough and
exact character without falling into its pedantry or its far-fetched
gloss.

From many causes he knew all it is to be a gentleman, and when every
year he rose as dean of the Shakspere Society on St. George’s day
to give the solitary toast, “William Shakspere, gentleman,” it was
on the last word that his sturdy accent fell. Beyond all the other
great voices of our tongue, Shakspere was “gentle.” The author of
“Coriolanus” loathed the general mass. He scarce mentions it without
touching on its evil smell. Its sweaty nightcap ever stank in his
nostrils. Certain sympathies are needed for full critical appreciation
of the poet who was the last word of the feudalism of the past to the
democracy of the future, and these sympathies Dr. Furness had.

The Shakspere Society first began his study. For sixty-one years
its fortnightly meetings have gathered a group of men foremost in
Philadelphia. One has read Shakspere there with a cabinet-minister, a
chancellor of the bar association, a judge of the first rank, a great
physician as well known in the art of letters as in the letters of his
art, and a novelist whose best seller has not had its total exceeded.
It was in a like practical atmosphere that, a young man not yet thirty,
Dr. Furness was stirred half a century ago to try to compare texts by
the aid of a scrap-book. Out of this grew the Variorum, first with the
first folio for a basis and later the Cambridge text. He had leisure,
a perilous gift. He early collected, until 7000 volumes were at hand
in a building for their use; but most collectors are swamped by their
apparatus. “A Concordance of Shaksperian Poems,” 1874, by Mrs. Furness,
bespoke a common bond in a perfect union. In 1883 she was taken. After
a generation, those who then saw his grief from without will not
adventure to speak of it. A sense of loss was never absent from him.
It drove him to arduous labors, which the years made a habit of life.
Save a single volume of his father’s intimate friendship with Emerson,
he wrote nothing but the Variorum. His prefaces, his addresses, and his
letters should, now that he is gone, make a volume. He preserved the
epistolary gift, lost in our day. His simplest note had style, charm,
and weight.

In his research he was to the end a firm believer in the study of the
plays and the plays alone. The order in which the plays were written
did not interest him. For “weak endings,” “incomplete lines,” and
all the newer apparatus of Shakspere study, he had an unconcealed
disregard. It was not for him. He would have questioned his personal
identity as soon as question the personal authorship of Shakspere’s
plays.

The happy fortune befell me once at his side and over his ear-trumpet
to say of him that which greatly pleased. It was at the luncheon
when the New Theatre gave him a gold medal and he monopolized the
affectionate attention of every woman in the room. His appreciation
gave whatever value there was to my words, in which I said that it was
not as a scholar unrivaled and a critical authority unequaled that
he would be most loved and remembered, but because his work had made
accurate study possible to the wandering player, given the solitary
teacher on the frontier the best of past criticism, and armed the
smallest village club with a library of learning, making the best of
Shakspere the general possession of all. It was for this he labored.
It was this American ideal that inspired him. It was in the service of
this ideal that he renounced all royalties.

It is only as a friend I write of Horace Howard Furness, as one of
those that loved and knew. It is ever ill writing of one’s friends
when they are gone, but his going changed the very horizon of life for
us all, robbed of its landmark the landscape of the years, and left a
gap where once we all looked up and learned and had new sense of the
fashion in which long purpose, fulfilled and never forgotten, shapes
character and carves cliffs from which men see afar.

For forty years he sat at a desk and worked to make books from books
on a book. In all our American life there is no other, few in any
land, who so encysted himself in a task wholly of letters. There goes
with this for most, as all know, the bent figure, the absent-minded
or the self-conscious gaze, aloofness from the actual. Not he. To
the last there was the sturdy, erect figure, the ruddy, full face,
shaped and blocked as of a man of many tasks, the resolute mustache,
the solid chin, the stiff, short, aggressive hair, early whitened by
tears and tasks--“your white-haired son,” as he wrote in an inimitable
acknowledgment to his father in one of his volumes. Even a year from
eighty his very step was decision. He bore down Chestnut Street in his
weekly visit from his country home like “a royal, good, and gallant
ship, freshly beheld in all her trim.”

There is in Philadelphia a little group which has dined together just
short of four decades every three weeks for eight months of each year.
He was of the first that met, and the last of the first to go. To one
who began thirty years ago as the youngest of those who sat at this
board, and now, alas! finds himself among the elder at a table peopled
with the past, nothing so bulks in all the round of a manifold social
contact as this dominant figure, alert, awake, clear-visioned, felt
through all this gathered group of men. Each of them was himself felt
in all the various walks of life, on the bench, in law, in medicine,
in letters, in art, in journalism, and in affairs; yet he the center,
stone-deaf. How did he do it? I do not know. I only saw. He alone had
the secret. Gay, responsive, indomitable, flashing sheer personality,
and with a big silver ear-trumpet moving here and there, into which
some one at his side poured a reversion of the passing talk, who is
there whom you know, or whom you have known, who could have done it?
None other that I know. Yet he so did it that one felt that the best
recipe and assurance of unflagging talk, of explosive, masculine
laughter, of a perpetual source of the dearest and most precious thing
on earth, the easy interchange, conflict, and contact of friends
with friends--the best recipe for all this was to have there a great
scholar, unable to hear a word until it was dropped into the silver
trumpet, yet giving edge, guidance, direction, and inspiration to all
the flow of mutual utterance that has run in this well-worn channel for
twoscore years.

To do this was more like his very self than all his throned volumes;
and I am not sure but that, in the great chancery of existence, it is
better worth while to have made friends gay, high-spirited, and ready
to give a frolic welcome to all the years as they came than to be known
ever after, as he will be, as foremost in his great field. It was like
him to concentrate all his social life on this one group. Elsewhere he
was always sought and scarcely seen, though his house was graced by an
open hospitality the loss of which in time he made up by night work.
How wise to know your friends in your forties, and to gather them and
to be with them to the very threshold of the eighties! How far wiser
than the wandering way in which, like children, we fill our hands so
full that we can neither use, nor give, nor leave, nor enjoy! It was
like him resolutely to keep this dinner of high talk and plain fare,
with men who dined much and well elsewhere, to a dollar apiece, as a
constant protest against a lavish age which kills all by gilding it, as
with the luckless boy in the Medicean festival.

Life was compounded by him of simples; but they were “collected from
all simples that have virtue under the moon.” He lived in one city and
loved it. Two homes housed all his years.

He sprang of a goodly ancestry and was justly and openly proud of it.
He held high the long descent of men given to the works of the mind.
His father was known before him, and his sons were known with him and
will be known after him.

His heart visibly and frankly warmed, though without word or bruit,
when in a narrow span of years he and his son Horace Howard Furness,
Jr., published each his volume which garner the comment of all the
years on a play of Shakspere. Another son, Dr. W. H. Furness, in the
same span, wrote an authoritative volume on the Dyaks of Borneo,
placing in the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania the best
existing monographic collection on the region he studied. A daughter,
Mrs. Horace Jayne (Caroline Furness Jayne), issued the one most
important book ever published on the perplexing, fascinating, and
almost unknown field of cat’s-cradles, a mine of patient research
and accurate, skilful description. His sister, Mrs. Caspar Wister,
published the long series of translations from German novels the
success of which, among a score of failures in this field, was wholly
due to the skill with which the “translator” adapted this fiction “made
in Germany” to the English-speaking world. Five years ago this brother
and sister were at work side by side, Mrs. Wister on the proof-sheets
of her fortieth German translation, “The Lonely House,” by Adolph
Streckfuss, and he on the proof-sheets of “Antony and Cleopatra,”
the twelfth in his monumental march. Her first translation, “Seaside
and Fireside Fairies,” from George Blum and Louis Wahl, had appeared
forty-three years, and his “Romeo and Juliet” thirty-six years, before.
His brother, Frank Furness, whose death preceded his by so short a
span, was, when a mere lad, in Rush’s Lancers, and all his life looked
the cavalryman, with his drooping, yellow mustache and his seamed face.
He retained to the end the walk of a man who, for years together in
his youth, has felt the saddle-leathers between his legs. Like Lever’s
hero, he once escaped capture by taking a barn-yard fence no other man
would have dared or persuaded his cavalry mount to venture. By carrying
powder to a battery not only under fire, but through burning woods,
he won a medal of honor. At Cold Harbor he risked life openly and
flagrantly by walking out between two firing-lines a few rods apart to
give a wounded Confederate a drink of water. Years later, when there
came to this dauntless soul heartbreaking grief, he solaced himself by
finding through a newspaper friend, who sowed the strange and moving
tale broadcast in Southern papers, the man whose life he had saved,
bringing him to Philadelphia and filling a month with mutual memories
for both. To the world Frank Furness was known as an architect, a pupil
of Richard Morris Hunt.

It could be only in such a family that, as a family lark at a family
dinner, a novel was written, the first chapter by Horace Howard
Furness, the others in turn by the rest, three sons, a daughter, a
son-in-law, and a daughter-in-law, no author to kill a character
without the consent of its creator, and all printed in seven copies
as “Grace Auchester.” I foresee a pretty penny for this volume in
catalogues of Shaksperiana a century hence.

It is the odd blunder of a dull world that social buoyancy and the
notable mind seldom march together; but, as an acute thinker has said,
a man with a strong pair of legs can walk east as easily as he walks
west, and our great Shaksperian had all the mirth that rang under the
rafters of the Mermaid. He made the Hasty Pudding Club at Harvard.
He was the dancer of his year and led in the play of more than sixty
years ago. I like it that after his death there were found, preserved
through all the half century, the pink tights and the spangled skirt
which the toil-worn commentator had worn in glad youth as _Mlle.
Furnessina_. In the world of silence in which he lived so long
he seemed to know laughter by instinct. His speech on the “Miseries
of Old Age” at a Harvard dinner four years ago swept the tables. He
presided over a dinner or a meeting marvelously. His instinct, his
attention, his capacity to interpret a look as easily as a word,
carried him through all. Nor was humor ever far from the ceremonial
surface of things. For example, at the lunch given at the opening of
the Bryn Mawr College library--it was on the hottest of June days, and
he was sweltering under the crimson trappings and beef-eater hat of
his Cambridge degree of Litt.Doc. (1899), when a young friend spoke a
consoling word to him. He replied, “Ah, Mademoiselle, il faut souffrir
pour être _swell_.”

The world narrowly missed in him a great Arabic scholar. His trip
abroad after his graduation at Harvard carried him far afield. He was
in Damascus when the Crimean War set the East ablaze. He saw Richard
Burton, imperious-souled, a vision of masterful will, holding his
consular court; and to the vision he recurred again and again. He had a
week or two in the desert. He became enamoured of Arabic and its study,
of which relics exist in a grammar and reader that he owned. But his
brief days over Semitics had this strange by-product. In the polychrome
Bible, projected by Professor Haupt of Johns Hopkins, and halted midway
for lack of support, Dr. Furness, perhaps the only man alive so versed
in Elizabethan English that it was as the tongue to which he was born,
and knowing enough of Hebrew, furnished the translation of the revised
text. In the Hebrew lyrics and psalms translated for this edition of
the Old Testament he reached the summit of his style, an incomparable
mingling of nice scholarship and exalted utterance. How fit it was that
the Bible and Shakspere should attract the same critical capacity!

If I were to sum by a single inanimate object the temper and tradition
of Dr. Furness, I would turn to the gloves, in his unrivaled
collection, which one is glad to believe were Shakspere’s. They are
manifestly the gloves of an Elizabethan gentleman not too large in
build, gold-embroidered, and shapely. They were treasured as genuine by
the descendants of Shakspere’s son-in-law, the physician who attended
him in his last illness, and were handed down in that family. They
passed to Garrick, who gave them to Philip Kemble, and so by descent
again they passed from Fanny Kemble to their recent owner. There again
is the double line of grace, the descent both of line and of genius,
to make precious the gloves that rested on Shakspere’s hand, took its
shape and knew its strength and beauty.


  [5] The plays edited by Dr. Furness are “Romeo and Juliet,” 1871;
      “Macbeth,” 1873; “Hamlet,” two volumes, 1877; “King Lear,”
      1880; “Othello,” 1886; “The Merchant of Venice,” 1888; “As You
      Like It,” 1890; “The Tempest,” 1892; “Midsummer-Night’s Dream,”
      1895; “The Winter’s Tale,” 1898; “Much Ado about Nothing,” 1899;
      “Twelfth Night,” 1901; “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” 1904; “Antony
      and Cleopatra,” 1909, and “Cymbeline,” completed and to appear.
      His son Horace Howard Furness, Jr., will complete his father’s
      task, and has already published “Richard III,” 1911, and revised
      “Macbeth.”




THE HUNGRY SHEEP

BY WILLIAM LYON PHELPS

Lampson Professor of English Literature at Yale University

    “_The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
    But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
    Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread._”

  ~Milton~, “_Lycidas_.”


One of to-day’s favorite questions, both in private speculation and in
public debate, is this, “Why do not more men go regularly to church?”
Like all questions of real interest, it is much easier to ask than
to answer. The pews undoubtedly contain more women than men, though
this fact by itself need occasion no alarm. It does not prove that
the church has “lost its hold” or that the habit of going to church
is relatively unimportant. Women have always taken more interest in
religious organizations than men, both because they have more leisure
for contemplation, and because public worship appeals more to a woman’s
nature than it does to a man’s. If the mere fact that the minister sees
in front of him more brilliant hats than bald heads be a sign that the
church does not appeal to the solid intelligence of humanity, then
the symphony concert and the art museum fail even more signally. The
masculine proportion of listeners at a high-class musical entertainment
or among the visitors at an art gallery is even less than it is at
church. Indeed, it is rather interesting to observe that at almost
any public spectacle the number of men is in inverse ratio to the
intellectual value of the performance. At a vaudeville the men vastly
outnumber the women, and amid the enormous throng at a prize-fight
there are hardly any women at all. Thus the fact that the seats at a
prize-fight are crowded with men, while the pews are filled with women,
does not in itself indicate that the church is on the down-grade.

Still, it is unfortunate that more men do not attend church, and it is
more unfortunate for the men than it is for the church. Men need the
church more than the church needs men. The real difficulty is not a
fundamental one; it does not lie in the nature of religion or in the
nature of man. Next to questions of sex and means of subsistence, the
average man is at heart more interested in religion than in any other
one thing. The ordinary man is a natural theologian. He takes keen
interest in constructing his God, his scheme of the universe, and the
problem of life after death has always had, and probably always will
have, an irresistible fascination.

The main trouble with the church to-day is not in the pews; it is in
the pulpit. There is more Christian faith in the average congregation
than there is in the average preacher. During the short period of
Emerson’s pastorate, he was obliged to call on an old man who was
dying. The young minister murmured apologetically a number of confused
and clumsy commonplaces, and finally his aged client cried sharply,
“Young man, if you don’t know your business, you had better go home.”
Emerson, who came to give advice, took it, like the honest and sincere
man that he was; and he had no peace until he left the church for good
and all. He was totally unfitted to be a minister because he had no
Christian faith, and as soon as he realized his unfitness, he sought
another occupation, and became enormously useful to humanity in other
ways.

A United States senator met three clergymen in three different parts
of the country, and each complained that he could not get a large
audience. The senator asked the first man if he believed that the Bible
was the word of God; the cleric smiled pityingly, and said that of
course he did not in the crude and ordinary sense, and then he launched
a mass of vague metaphysical phrases. The senator asked the second
man if he believed in the future life, and the reverend gentleman said
that he did not believe in personal immortality, but that the essence
of life was indestructible, or some such notion. The senator asked the
third man, a pastor of an orthodox evangelical church, if he believed
in the divinity of Jesus Christ; the shepherd of souls replied that all
men were divine. The three clergymen had themselves supplied abundant
reasons why their audiences were small. They had nothing to offer them
but wind. The hungry sheep looked up, and were not fed.

A vital Christian faith is the prime essential for a man who wishes to
succeed in the ministry. It is worth more to him than all the learning
in the world. If an honest man cannot believe, we surely ought not to
blame him or quarrel with him; but he has no business in the pulpit.
Christian faith is just as necessary a prerequisite for a clergyman
as a knowledge of mathematics is for a civil engineer. Without it, he
is not merely ineffective; he is futile and absurd. I remember being
present once in a vast audience where Mr. Moody was talking, and at
the end of his remarks he said that he would be glad to answer any
questions. Some one asked, “What, in your judgment, is the best work
a modern minister can do?” Before Mr. Moody had time to reply, there
was a voice from the throng, which cried out, “This is the work of
God, that ye believe on him whom He hath sent.” The great evangelist
hesitated a moment, and then said that he had nothing to add.

The Protestant clergy of to-day are sadly weakened by a spirit of
compromise. They are afraid to preach Christianity, partly because
they do not believe in it, and partly because they are afraid it won’t
“draw.” They attempt to beguile men into the church by announcing
secular themes, by the discussion of timely political and literary
topics. As a matter of fact, the ungodly respect heartily a Christian
minister who is absolutely sincere and who confines his sermons to
religion, and they despise a vacillating and worldly minded pastor,
who seems to apologize for his religion, and who substitutes lectures
on politics and socialism for the preaching of the gospel. No mistake
is greater than the mistake of the minister who conceives it to be his
duty to preach politics from the pulpit. To an audience who have read
the daily papers all the week, and the Sunday paper that very morning,
nothing is more superfluous than a political discourse in church.
I remember the case of a prominent clergyman who, during a whole
Presidential campaign, preached Sunday after Sunday against one of the
candidates, to a constantly diminishing audience. On the night when the
returns came in, the object of his attacks was apparently successful,
and he cried out in despair, “What can be done now?” He was effectively
answered by one of the ungodly who happened to be present. “I don’t see
that there is anything left for you now, Doctor, except to preach the
gospel.”

The tremendous strength of the Roman Catholic Church lies in its
fidelity to principle, in its religious vitality, and in its hatred
of compromise. It should be an object-lesson to all Protestant
ministers. They may not believe its dogmas, they may not accept any
theological dogmas at all; but they ought to learn that the chief duty
of a preacher is to hold forth Christianity, and not to discourse on
sanitation, political economy, or literature. People everywhere are
eager for the gospel, and always respond to it when it is convincingly
set forth, whether by men like Phillips Brooks or men like Billy
Sunday. The great Boston bishop never had any trouble in getting
an audience; and although he was a man of the highest and broadest
cultivation, interested in every modern movement in literature,
politics, and art, he never preached anything but the Christian
religion. He used all his remarkable gifts in that one direction.
The result was that his congregations were enormous, and that he was
beloved and respected by all classes of men.

The pastor should be a leader, not a follower. If he has less
conviction than his audience, how can he lead them? What would be
thought of the general of an army who had no definite ideas as to where
he ought to take his men, and no conviction that his cause was good?
If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for
battle? The main difficulty with the church to-day is that the people
in the pews do not have the gospel preached to them. The hungry sheep
look up, and are not fed.




[Illustration]




THE FEMINIST OF FRANCE

BY ETHEL DEAN ROCKWELL


I

Feminists include as many different kinds of women in France as
elsewhere. The term can be applied equally to a George Sand or a
Marguérite Audoux. We find the movement as marked, too, in France
as in other countries. But the interesting thing about it is that
though similar to all the others in basic principles, the French
feminist is instinctively individual, always French. Compare her, for
instance, with her sister across the channel. In England she bends all
her energies to winning the suffrage, to carrying reforms by act of
Parliament; in France she takes no part in political campaigns, cares
not at all for the vote. In England the ladies of the aristocracy
are the prime movers; in France, with few exceptions, the women of
the upper classes look on the movement with indifference, and the
leaders come from a small group of intelligent and ambitious women of
the bourgeoisie. In England women are working for the cause of all
women rather than for individual advantage; in France they impress
one as working for their own benefit, not for humanity. In England,
throwing off their feminine garb, they often become blatant, clamorous,
unwomanly; in France, believing that woman’s deadliest weapon is her
womanliness, they never withdraw the battery of their feminine charms.
In England the feminist is still a conformist to moral law; in France,
unfortunately, she is too often a rebel against moral as well as social
restrictions.

The tendency has existed in many brilliant women since French history
began. We naturally think of the women of the salons, for instance.
But they were only sporadic examples of cleverness. A general “woman
movement” was not known till the French Revolution.

“Since when have women occupied themselves with politics?” asked
Napoleon of Mme. de Staël.

“Since they have been guillotined,” was her reply.

But the Revolution brought them no recognition, for upon its heels
came Napoleon, who took from them even that which they had. Two other
movements also came to naught: followers of St. Simon, the Socialist,
who believed in the complete emancipation of woman and in her entire
equality with man, owed their failure to the extravagance of some
of their doctrines, and to lack of organization. The other attempt
was snuffed out in 1851 with the _coup d’état_ of Napoleon III.
Through the twenty years of political reaction succeeding that event,
there were always women, often famous, who fought valiantly, if not
always wisely, for emancipation; and since the establishment of the
republic, their efforts have made uninterrupted headway.


II

We speak of steady advance. Yet measured by American standards, or
those of other Northern countries, Frenchwomen must yet travel far to
reach the point where these were fifty years ago. Americans accept as a
matter of course liberty of thought and action, equal opportunities for
study and work, and the respect of men. Frenchwomen are not generally
possessed of these blessings. Why this difference? Among many causes,
three stand out preëminent--social, civil, and religious reasons.

Socially, France belongs with the Latin races. In these countries man
has generally treated woman with gallantry, but not respect, and has
received her attempts at higher life in a spirit of mockery which it
has been almost impossible to overcome. Because her happiness depended
on his good will, her one aim in life has been to please him. As
Pierre de Coulevain expresses it, “She is entirely absorbed by man and
maternity.” The moral standard of both men and women has been low, and
the well-known bargaining about the dowry has added sordidness. The
case of the _jeune fille_ serves as an example. Her carefully
guarded, restricted life, her interests, and her education, not fitting
her to think or to be of service to her community, are too well known
to need amplification. It well illustrates how, in Southern countries,
their Latin heritage has been a strong social factor in the retarded
awakening of women.

In France these conditions were fixed still more immutably by
Napoleon’s civil code, which thus becomes the second, or civil, reason.
Napoleon’s only use for women was as producers of more men for his
wars. “Make them believers, not thinkers,” was his command. In legal
status he classed them with children, imbeciles, and criminals. A
married woman could possess no property; her husband owned what she
brought him in marriage and what she inherited or earned thereafter.
The pitiful plight of Balzac’s _Eugénie Grandet_ and her mother
was not an exceptional case, but the rule. Furthermore, she could not
testify in civil suits, or be a witness to any legal document, or have
any part in the family council for the government of her children.
Yet this Frenchwoman, a nullity in the eyes of the law, is respected
by all the world for her marvelous common sense and managing ability.
So marked is this that virtually all the petty retail business in the
country is in her hands, and she manages her business, her children,
and her husband as a matter of course.

This principle of the subjection of woman to the higher authority
of man, installed by immemorial custom, fast bound in civil law by
Napoleon’s code, has in general also been emphasized by the church.
It has consistently developed the passive virtue of sacrifice and
the cheerful acceptance of things as they are. Therefore, although
conditions have changed, to-day, and there are many noble Catholic
feminists, it has in the past been the exception rather than the rule;
and Frenchwomen of the upper classes have been led by their convent
training to accept without question the position assigned them by
social custom and the Napoleonic code. Two of these three conditions
are aptly summed up by Pierre de Coulevain when she says, “France
is the land of femininity, not of feminism: femininity is Latin and
Catholic; feminism is Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.”

Against these germs of arrested development have sprung up other germs
which have almost killed the first and have produced the present
epidemic of feminism. World forces which affect even China are of
course felt in France. One of these is economic pressure. By the
introduction of machinery and the constantly increasing cost of living,
women of the lower classes have been forced into industry in France
as everywhere else, until it has been stated that sixty per cent. of
the women of France are now wage-earners. Naturally, then, industrial
conditions have compelled them to demand recognition on the same basis
as men. In the middle classes this same pressure postpones the age of
marriage for the man, thus throwing the burden of support for a longer
time on the girl’s father; at the same time it makes it increasingly
difficult for the father to provide the necessary dot. It therefore
sends girls into professions to ease the family burden, instead of
into the convent. “To ease the family burden,” I say, for she seldom
works, as do so many American young women, for her own enrichment. Her
earnings go to her parents.

[Illustration:

  Photograph by T. T.
  MME. MARGUÉRITE DURAND
  Editor and journalist.

  Photograph by Chéri-Rousseau
  MME. DIEULAFOY
  Lecturer and archæologist.

  Photograph by Henri Manuel

  MME. CURIE

  The joint discoverer of radium,
  who succeeded her husband
  in a chair of physics and
  chemistry at the Sorbonne.

  From the portrait by Gandara
  COUNTESS MATHIEU DE NOAILLES
  Novelist and poet.

  Photograph by Touranchet
  MME. BLANC (~Th. Bentzon~)
  Novelist and journalist.
]

Then, too, the tradition that every girl must marry or retire to
a convent has left too many women unaccounted for in the social
scheme. Four and a half million women in France have no home or
children--unmarried women, widows, divorcées, or mothers whose children
are grown. Olive Schreiner says that the woman movement is the endeavor
on the part of women to find new fields of labor as the old slip from
them--a demand for a continued share in the work of the world. And
these millions of Frenchwomen with no home ties are clamoring for their
share. They claim the privilege of employing their hitherto ingrowing
energy in useful work, and in whatever field they wish.

To these economic and social stimuli a third factor should be
added--the result of the separation of church and state in 1905; and
with time this change will be increasingly felt. Since the convents
exerted a conservative influence, their dissolution minimizes that
tendency. The convents had been almost exclusively the schools of the
girls of the higher classes; they had been the refuge of unmarried
and unfortunate women; the sisters had had charge of the hospitals,
nursing, and nearly all other charities. But since girls must now
follow the nuns to the border countries for their education, not so
many go; and those who stay at home receive a more modern and less
conservative training. Since the unsought in marriage must leave France
in order to take refuge in a convent, more stay in the world. And since
the hungry and sick were left without caretakers, other women had to
take up the works of charity discontinued by the nuns. Thus perforce,
since the separation, new fields of activity, new occupations, new
responsibilities have been thrust upon the women of France. The
withdrawal of the nuns created a vacuum into which others have rushed.

They are ready for these fresh fields and pastures new. They see
women of other nations so engaged, and example is contagious. A gain
for feminism in Sweden gives impetus in France; a rebellion against
long-established custom in Constantinople gives courage for one in
Paris. Above all, the several international women’s conferences that
have met in Chicago, Berlin, London, and Paris in the last fifteen
years have been great educators, great awakeners. Then, too, Parisians
never lack for foreign examples, for Paris is cosmopolitan, and
Americans especially she has always with her. The Frenchwoman, who,
when her children are grown, is inclined to lose all interest in life,
and settle down to old age, sees American grandmothers making a tour of
the world, and tries to find the secret of their eternal youth. Thus it
may be that as French diplomats have won half Africa by the skilful use
of American inventions and institutions, so Frenchwomen may yet win all
France by clever adaptation of the American type of woman.

Englishwomen also furnish examples in their interest in sport. “Sport”
is fashionable. Bicycling was once a fad; tennis, riding, and swimming
are popular. The girls’ schools are now advertising swimming-pools and
tennis-courts. For one woman that you met skating thirty years ago, you
now meet five hundred. We long ago learned, if we ever had to learn,
the moral and intellectual value of exercise. The French, both men
and women, are only now discovering it. We find, therefore, that the
hothouse products are vanishing, and with them, morbidity, unhealthy
thoughts, overstimulated emotions, sluggish brains. In their stead we
find healthy bodies, healthy minds, initiative, organizing ability,
development of the dormant will power, and last, but not least, natural
and unrestrained meeting with men in all sorts of games.

Certain classes of men have been strong and active supporters of the
feminist cause. Indeed, this is one of the most characteristic features
of the movement in France. It seems sometimes as though the men were
more ardent and intelligent feminists than the women themselves. The
little band of French Protestants is naturally in the forefront of
sympathy for the movement. There are fewer Protestants in all France
than there are Jews in New York City, but they exercise an influence
for progress far out of proportion to their small number. Almost all
literary men, no matter what their creed, and lawyers, teachers,
professional men in general, as well as a few deputies and senators,
are on the side of the feminists. The constant pounding away on the
question by playwrights and poets such as Brieux, Lavédan, Mirbeau,
and Jules Bois, has done much to break down prejudice and widen the
point of view. The Odéon and Comédie Française have struck sounding
blows against the old order of “The Doll’s House,” and novelists like
Victor Margueritte, and Marcel Prévost have done their part in arousing
sympathy for the _Noras_ of France. Socialists, too, espouse the
women’s cause.


III

In the combination of all these causes, then, economic, industrial,
cosmopolitan, social, religious, and literary, the awakening has
come to the women--and men--of France. The successive steps, seeming
slow as they were laboriously gained, become rapid in retrospect. In
professional studies, since 1868, when the first woman was admitted to
a medical school, one after another all barriers have come down, till
to-day all doors are wide open, and in the University of Paris alone
there are over two thousand women students. After permission to study
and take a degree was obtained, came the more arduous struggle to be
allowed to practise their profession, for prejudice acted as a complete
boycott. The prejudice was of two sorts. One was that of friends and
family, who considered a woman utterly disgraced if she worked. This
attitude is still general, and is the cause of untold unhappiness
and estrangement. The other prejudice, and a strong one, was from
her competitors, the men. Women medical students could obtain their
degree, but had no opportunity to attend clinics or to be internes in
hospitals. Law students, likewise, could not take the bar examinations
or practise. It is owing to the unflagging efforts of two or three able
women that this competitive struggle is also now a thing of the past.
Mlle. Jeanne Chauvin was the test case in law practice. She won after
a long and bitter struggle only ten years ago. In the profession of
university teaching women have been on a par with men since Mme. Curie,
having twice won the Nobel prize for her benefits to mankind through
her chemical discoveries, was appointed to succeed her deceased
husband in the chair of physics and chemistry in the Sorbonne. Three
years ago she became the test case in yet another contest--a contest
over the right of women to public recognition of their attainments
by admission to the Academy. In this first engagement, like most
pioneers, she lost; but the decision raised such a storm of protest and
discussion that there is scarcely a question of the ultimate victory in
this also. We shall yet see women taking their honored place among the
seats of the famous Forty.

The struggle to change woman’s legal status has been particularly long
and hard, and is still in progress. This cause owes much to Mlle. Maria
Chéliga, a Pole, who has lived most of her life in Paris, and by her
essays, lectures, stories, and plays has awakened public sympathy; and
to Mlle. Jeanne Schmahl, editor of “L’Avant Courrière,” who succeeded
after many years of effort in getting a bill through the Chamber of
Deputies giving to married women the control of their own earnings. At
first it failed in the Senate. Undaunted, she worked for eleven years
more until, in 1907, she wrested from an unwilling Senate the vote
in favor of the bill. For the last five years, therefore, a married
woman has been able to spend what she earns, and to have her own
bank-account. Within the last four years women at the head of large
business houses have been able to vote for the judges of the tribunals
of commerce, and thus see that their business interests are not
unfairly dealt with by this powerful body. Women teachers have for some
time been allowed to vote for the members of the board of education,
though women are not eligible for office in either of these bodies. A
married woman can now testify, and act as a witness in legal documents.
She still has no voice in the family council, a vital institution in
France; and if she invests her earnings in furniture or other portable
property, these possessions belong to the husband.

[Illustration:

  Photograph by Henri Manuel JEAN BERTHEROY (~Mme. Le
  Barillier~) Poet and historical novelist.

  Photograph by Henri Manuel MME. HENRI DE REGNIER (~Gérard
  D’Houville~) Poet and novelist.

  Photograph by Ogerau MME. SÉVÉRINE A fervent and eloquent public
  speaker, whose conférences at the Odéon are a feature of Parisian
  life.

  Photograph by Nadar JUDITH GAUTIER Daughter of Théophile Gautier.

  Photograph by Boisonnas and Tapouler MARCELLE TINAYRE Author of “La
  Maison du Péché.”
]

Another sign of the times is the ever-present discussion over the
education and training of the _jeune fille_. Thirty years ago
there was not a public school for girls in the country. To-day there
are many, though five for the whole of Paris seems insufficient. The
inadequate curriculum is a constant bone of contention, and has
already been much widened and strengthened in both state and Catholic
schools to meet the demand for vocational training. The _jeune
fille_ is gaining slowly in independence, and we find her in novels,
spoken of as looking forward quite naturally to activities and spheres
of usefulness outside of, as well as within the home. “A whole woman is
too much for a man,” one heroine declares.

Owing to the gap left by the nuns’ departure, we find one important
movement of humanitarian interest in the attempts to reorganize and
strengthen the profession of nursing. It had been left either to the
sisters, who were not always as modern in their methods as could be
desired, or to an outside class of _Sairey Gamps_, lower in
intelligence and decency than domestic servants. Now they are trying
to interest girls of the better classes in the profession, founding
training-schools and studying American methods.

The fact that the international professional-women’s club of London,
the Lyceum, has now a branch in Paris, and that there are many other
women’s clubs, is significant. Till recently the club movement has
found no response in France. The woman has been too much occupied
in her own household, too much claimed by an army of relatives, to
be drawn outside by clubs or anything else for the sake of her own
development. Then, again, the Frenchwoman of leisure and ability has
been content with her own lot and oblivious of her duty to her less
fortunate sisters. She has therefore not felt the need of united
effort through club organization for a common humanitarian cause.
And even when she has felt this call of duty, she has always shown
an astonishing lack of appreciation of the value of system and
organization for attaining the desired results. Sixty years ago the
feminist pioneers might have succeeded if their efforts had not been
scattered and individual. Indeed, even now French feminism gives one
an impression of ununified restlessness. That there is now a “club
movement,” therefore, shows that at last there is in France desire
for individual development, a sense of duty to one’s neighbor, and an
appreciation of the value of organization. There are still countless
activities that American women are habitually engaged in--municipal
improvement, efforts to improve labor conditions, child-labor laws,
social settlements, etc.--that have not yet reached France to a
noticeable extent. But now that a beginning has been made, we shall
look for all these and more.

Marked as is this general leavening of the lump, art and literature
show the most complete conquest. The art prizes are all open to women,
and at one time or another most of them have been won by women. To say
nothing of their success in painting, sculpture, and architecture,
women absolutely own the field in illustrating, arts-and-crafts
work and in making innumerable small art objects. They also nearly
monopolize literature: in essays, poetry, novels, journalism, their
name is legion, their influence unbounded.

Journalism in France is an influential literary profession, with strong
leaders that no other country can surpass. Women hold responsible
positions on the staff of most of the leading French reviews, and
contribute an astonishing number of articles, generally under men’s
names. Beginning with Mme. Juliette Adam, the line is unbroken. She
was the last of the old school, the first of the new, wielding high
political influence at first through her salon, then through the
pages of the “Nouvelle Révue,” which she founded in 1879. She also
wrote novels, essays, and reminiscences. Mme. Sévérine, a fervent and
eloquent public speaker, with rather a permanent instinct for revolt,
shouts her war-cry in the “Echo de Paris.” The “Révue des Deux-Mondes”
and the “Journal des Débats” include on their staff, among other
women, Mme. Arvède Barine. Three times has the Academy crowned a work
of hers, and she wears the cross of the Legion of Honor, as did Mme.
Thérèse Bentzon, who died five years ago. Mme. Blanc, as she was better
known, was on the staff of these two periodicals. This estimable
woman also wrote novels and essays, some crowned by the Academy. She
was especially loved in America, to which she made several visits,
because she was the most faithful interpreter to the French of American
literature, social customs, and educational methods. She was an ardent
Roman Catholic. Mlle. Maria Martin edits the “Journal des Femmes,” and
Marguérite Durand, “Les Nouvelles.” The latter is perhaps the most
popular woman in France, and charmingly and essentially feminine.

[Illustration:

  Photograph by Eug. Pirou
  MME. PEYREBRUNE
  Novelist and poet.

  Photograph by Chéri-Rousseau
  YVONNE SARCEY
  Writer and feminist.

  Photograph by Ogerau

  MME. ADAM (~Juliette Lamber~)

  Founder of the “Nouvelle Révue.”
  One of the most influential of
  modern Frenchwomen.

  Photograph by Henri Manuel
  MME. LUCIE DELARUS-MARDRUS
  Dramatist and poet.

  Photograph by Chéri-Rousseau
  MME. LUCIE FÉLIX-FAURE GOYAU
  Daughter of Félix Faure.
]

Novelists and poets have much in common. They are rather too apt to
be feminists of most advanced type, drowned in a noxious wave of
free-thinking, swinging too far in their revolt, and disregarding moral
laws.

[Illustration: GEORGETTE LEBLANC MAETERLINCK, ACTRESS, SINGER, AND
WRITER; THE WIFE OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK]

This epidemic of free-thinking seems to be most evident in the
upper classes, leaving the women of the bourgeoisie untouched. But
perhaps all this is only the fledgling trying its wings, a phase of
development, an ugly stage of self-consciousness, which the French
temperament, essentially one of harmony, will sooner or later adjust.
In poets this characteristic manifests itself in a tendency to reveal
without restraint the inmost secrets of their woman’s soul. Mme. de
Noailles, though admitted by men critics to be in the first rank,
is no exception. She is also a novelist and is on the staff of the
“Révue des Deux-Mondes.” Gérard d’Houville is another poet as well as
novelist; and Lucie Delarus-Mardrus another, seeking unusual and exotic
effects by travels in Eastern lands. The novelists confine their plots
for the most part to studies of feminists. Thus, Marcelle Tinayre’s “La
Rebelle” is a beautiful young journalist; her heroine in “Hellé” is a
charming example of the noblest type of emancipated young womanhood;
Colette Yver’s “Les Dames du Palais” deals with women lawyers and the
divorce question; her “Princesses de Science” takes up scientific
women. Gabriel Réval’s “Ruban de Venus” shows us artists; and women
interested in sociological questions are the heroines of Renée and
Tony d’Ulmès. But the inevitable underlying theme of them all is the
irresistibility of passion, “the impossibility of woman’s escaping the
brutal laws of her own temperament,” as one commentator expresses it.
Moreover, the heroines are all selfish in their feminism; they are in
search of their individual happiness.

Of the novelists and essayists, more than a passing word should be
given to Marcelle Tinayre, conceded by men critics to be the most
vigorous and virile of women writers, and even classed by one above
George Sand. Her works have been crowned by the Academy, and she
has won the cross of the Legion of Honor. Daniel Lesueur and Mme.
Peyrebrune are both important, and have been distinguished with many
honors. Mme. Maeterlinck is opera-singer, essayist, and lecturer, as
well as novelist. Jeanne Bertheroy and Judith Gautier, daughter of
Théophile Gautier, are famous, as are also Mme. Dieulafoy and Mme.
Félix-Faure Goyau, daughter of the former president of the republic.
Colette Yver, with her “Princesses de Science,” was the first to win
the prize offered by the woman’s paper, “La Vie Heureuse.” (This is the
prize that was awarded to the seamstress Marguérite Audoux for “Marie
Claire.”) Pierre de Coulevain, remarkably cosmopolitan, and with a
wonderfully wide point of view, is read more by foreigners than by the
French. Mme. Yvonne Sarcey is exceptional in appealing to a sense of
duty as the controlling force in life.

Much as we should like to linger over this long literary list, we must
pass on to other topics. In the matter of the suffrage, progress is
not so marked. Small suffrage societies here and there have existed
for twenty-five years, but the National French Woman’s Suffrage
Association was formed only three years ago. It has converted many
teachers and employees of the post, telegraph, and telephone service,
but has not made any impression on the women of the working-classes.
In 1911 it had a membership of 3000 out of a total female population
of 20,000,000. So it can be seen that the suffrage movement in France
is still in its swaddling-clothes. The most encouraging thing for the
suffrage supporters is the number of “_hommes-femmes_”; that is,
influential men who give devoted service to the suffrage cause. We have
already spoken of the broad-minded men who have done much to educate
public opinion to more enlightened views on women. They generally go
further still, and are suffragists. About three years ago they formed
a men’s association, called “The Voters’ League for Woman Suffrage,”
which counts among its members two senators and nine deputies. This
league holds itself in readiness to push forward whatever legislative
measures it considers worth while. It has been working on a bill for
women’s vote in municipal elections, and it is stated as a possibility
that it may be passed. Socialists also favor the suffrage, both because
from the anti-reactionary nature of their doctrines they must, to be
consistent, and because they want the women’s vote. But their help is
of little practical value, for the labor party and the unions control
the socialist party, and these two powerful organizations are bitter
and formidable enemies of women’s entrance into the economic and
political field. Opposition is strong from the politicians in power.
Having brought about the separation of church and state seven years
ago, they fear that all the old clerical question, which has been the
cause of many years of most bitter wrangling, would be reopened by the
women at the first opportunity, under the instigation of the priests.
It is asserted, moreover, that there is no decided Catholic opposition,
as such, to woman suffrage.

It must have become evident from the foregoing pages, however, that
feminism in France is not a matter of the suffrage. There have been
other conquests to make, in the realm of thought rather than action;
old prejudices, old traditions to be removed, rights of moral and
intellectual equality to be established. Indeed, French feminism
can well be defined as “a state of mind, not yet crystallized into
aggressive agitation for reform.” After all, in the last analysis, we
see that for the realization of the feminist ideals must come, and
is coming, a change in man--in his moral standards, in his attitude
toward women, in his whole Latin conception of the social basis of
society. Olive Schreiner says that the new woman is accompanied by the
new man, or there would be no new woman. We see this development in
France to-day. Says Marcel Prévost: “The new college youth cares more
for sport, is more robust physically and is more healthy-minded. He is
less sentimental, more athletic; he does not think of woman.” In this
one statement lies more hope for the ultimate complete emancipation of
woman than in all her literary and professional achievements.

The newer type of Frenchwoman, breaking away from tradition,
strong-willed, earnest, Maeterlinck is striving to depict in his later
heroines, like _Aglavaine_ and _Ariane_. His talented wife
thus interprets them for us:

  Apparently vainglorious, almost brazen, free, and unsubjected,
  marching in the light of day, without faith or principle, we are
  in reality the submissive slaves of to-morrow. Beneath our songs
  of gladness rises a sorrowful prayer, which no one hears. No one
  understands our obscure duty. Sprung from the present, we are
  daughters of the future, and it is but natural that the moment which
  created us should distinguish us but imperfectly. To hasten our work,
  would that men might understand us better, fear us less. Let them
  learn that for centuries and throughout the ages, there has been but
  one divine woman, lover, mother, sister. If at the present moment we
  appear different, rebellious, it is only that we may one day offer
  them stronger companions and nearer to perfection. For centuries
  men hailed in us a beauty that was all effacement. The women who
  charm the most in the past appear like those frescoes that old
  walls still offer to our eyes half-discolored, pale, ideal, frozen
  in contemplative attitude, with lilies in their hands. An abyss
  seems to separate these _Griseldas_ from the _Aglavaines_
  and _Arianes_. And yet these two are loving handmaids of
  the future.... It is customary to say that woman, influenced by
  man, perfects herself according to his ideal. But to-day, grown
  clearer-sighted, she seems to look over the shoulder of her mate, and
  perceive what he does not yet descry on the horizon.

[Illustration]




THE SCARBOROUGH SPOONS

A STORY FOR ENGLISH AND AMERICANS

(DOINGS ON PERILOUS)

BY LUCY FURMAN

Author of “Mothering on Perilous,” etc.


During their talks in the Eastern States one winter, the head workers
of the Settlement School on Perilous met Emily Scarborough, the
distinguished essayist and college professor, and one of them said to
her casually:

“In our work in the mountains we come across numbers of good, even
aristocratic, English names, and are always wishing we might trace the
families back through their century and more in Kentucky, and their
previous residence in Virginia, to their old English homes.

“Your own name, Scarborough, is well known to us.”

A look of instant interest succeeded the polite but weary smile on Miss
Scarborough’s face. This expression of weariness was the one flaw in
the satisfying beauty of the essayist, one of those rare celebrities
the sight of whom is not a shock to admirers. “Tell me about them,” she
said.

“The only thing to tell is that all the males of the family perished
in a feud twenty-five years ago--a feud so fierce that ‘the
Scarborough-Bohun War’ is still referred to with horror. The climax
came when Guilford Scarborough and his five sons were ambushed one
day by twenty of the Bohuns, and with their backs against a rocky
cliff fought until the last fell, a dozen Bohuns paying for victory
with their lives. That cliff to-day is called Scarborough’s Doom. One
daughter of the race survives.”

But Miss Scarborough seemed not to hear the last sentences.

“Guilford Scarborough!” she exclaimed.

“It was the name of the founder of our family, a poor knight who won
renown and an earldom by saving the king’s life at Agincourt. From that
day it has been the favorite name for our sons.

“The present earl, the head of our family in England, bears it; my
great-great-grandfather--a second son of the twelfth earl--who left
England and settled an estate in Virginia the middle of the eighteenth
century, bore it.”

She spoke simply, rapidly,--evidently descent from and kinship with
earls was only one of the many fortuitous circumstances of her
brilliant life.

“This Guilford of Virginia,” she continued, “had two sons who at
the outbreak of the Revolution took opposite sides. Lionel, my
great-grandfather, remained a stanch Tory, Guilford joined the
Continentals, and when last heard of, though a mere boy, was a captain
in Washington’s army. Afterward he disappeared as completely as if the
earth had swallowed him. Surely it cannot be that--”

“Many Revolutionary officers received land-grants in Kentucky for their
services,” interrupted the school woman, “and those who entered into
the isolation of the mountains were afterward lost to the world.”

“Then your mountain family may, nay, must be descended from the
lost Guilford,” exclaimed Miss Scarborough. “You will understand my
excitement when I tell you I have always supposed myself the sole
representative of the American line. You say that one woman there also
survives?”

“Yes, Dosia Vance. Her little girl--by the way, she has your name,
Emily--is in our school.”

“Theodosia and Emily,--how the old names come down through the
centuries!” said Miss Scarborough, adding, “You must put me in
communication with this Dosia Vance at once.”

“Oh, she is unable to write,” was the reply.

Miss Scarborough’s face paled. “A Scarborough not write!” she cried
incredulously.

“What possible chance could she have, sixty miles away from a school
or a church? One remarkable thing, however, she accomplished after
her marriage. With the help of an old blue-back speller and the
family Bible, she taught herself and her husband to read. Writing was
less possible. She is a woman of great natural intelligence, and is
ambitious for her children.

“Her two eldest sons are at Berea College; we have Emily, and shall
take the younger ones. Emily shows remarkable home-training; on the day
she came to us she was a perfect lady.”

The result of this casual talk was that Miss Scarborough began an
immediate correspondence with Dosia Vance through little Emily.

Of its progress the school women knew little, for soon after their
return in the spring, vacation began, and all the children, including
Emily, went home to hoe corn.

In June, however, a letter came to the school from the essayist. She
wrote:

  I send to-day by express a package which I beg you will have
  delivered to Theodosia Vance. As soon as I was satisfied that
  Theodosia was a descendant of the lost Guilford, I wrote my kinsman
  the earl of the interesting survival. He and I are very good friends,
  and several times on my trips abroad I have visited his home, the
  ancient seat of our family. On one of these occasions, he had an old
  leather case brought in, and showed me the most precious heirloom
  of the family, six dozen worn spoons, the property of the original
  Guilford of Agincourt. Taking out a dozen, the earl gave them to me.
  Of course I prize them more than anything I possess. When he heard
  of the finding of Theodosia, he sent me, for her, another dozen of
  the precious spoons. They are in this package.

The spoons at last arrived, and were sent on to Dosia. The school women
had much curiosity as to their reception; but when they made inquiries
of Emily on her return the first of August, the child only replied,
with her usual dignity, that “Maw was proud to get them.”

In early October another letter came from the essayist. “I have a
growing desire,” she wrote, “to follow up the Scarborough spoons and
see my new-found relatives. Emily’s letters interest me a good deal.
This being a sabbatical year with me, I purpose visiting your school
and the Vance home before going abroad for the winter.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Late October found Miss Scarborough journeying across the mountains
on her way from the railroad. To a woman accustomed to luxurious
motor-cars, a ride of fifty miles had not seemed formidable; but as
the heavy road-wagon crashed, thumped, and banged along its difficult
way at the rate of two miles an hour, she decided differently. Also,
as she saw women weaving and spinning in porches of lonely log-houses,
men felling timber in virgin forest, whole families gathering corn in
precipitous fields, some conception of the primitive hardships of the
life dawned upon her.

Although at forty-seven Emily Scarborough was as vigorous as she was
beautiful, before the two-days’ trip was ended, weariness possessed
her, every bone seemed dislocated, and on her arrival at the school she
had to be assisted to bed by the trained nurse.

The next morning the visitor was half awakened by a tap at the door
and by the entrance of some silent-footed person, who set down a tray.
Stillness followed; but increasingly aware that she was an object of
scrutiny, Miss Scarborough at last opened her eyes.

A small girl of twelve stood by the bed, gazing with grave, controlled
eagerness at the face on the pillow. When the eyes opened, she smiled
ever so slightly, and said quietly:

“Will you have your breakfast now, Cousin Emily?”

Miss Scarborough sat up in bed so suddenly that the masses of her
spun-silver hair fell in a cloud about her face and shoulders.

“Are you Emily?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied the child. Very gravely she extended a hand. “I am proud
to see you,” she said.

Miss Scarborough took the small hand.

“You know we are of one blood, Emily,” she said; “may I offer you the
salute of kinship?” She brushed the child’s delicate cheek with her
lips.

The little girl as calmly returned the salute, and then stepped back.

“I was glad when I heared you was coming,” she said.

“Why?”

“Well, I craved to see a ginuwine Scarborough, I have heared maw tell
such a sight about them.”

“I hope you did not expect so much that you are sadly disappointed in
me?” Although Miss Scarborough smiled, there was a tone of real anxiety
in her voice.

Emily’s gaze swept her slowly, critically, for some seconds.

“I was powerful afeared you wouldn’t be a pretty woman,” she said at
last; “but you are. I like your looks.” She sighed, as though from
relief, then made a more minute appraisement. “I like them big black
eyes,” she said; “I like that tender skin. I like that quare hair;
it favors the Scarborough spoons. I allow,” she summed up solemnly,
judicially, “that you are the pine-blank prettiest woman ever I seed.”

Miss Scarborough laughed, but her face flushed deeply with pleasure.
Then she in her turn scrutinized the slender figure in the checked
homespun dress, the small face with its lines of purity and look of
race, the well-carried head, smoothly plaited hair, and austere blue
eyes.

“I like your looks, too,” she said.

At this the child again smiled the rare smile.

“I am glad,” she said; “now you must eat before it is cold.”

Miss Scarborough reached for the negligée of pink-flowered silk that
hung beside her bed, and drew it over her delicate, embroidered gown,
Emily looking on large-eyed.

“You dress up in blossoms, don’t you?” she exclaimed, with another
joyous sigh.

“Emily,” said Miss Scarborough, “I do believe that you have the
artistic temperament. You love beauty, don’t you?”

“Ugly things they hurts me here in my breast,” replied the child,
solemnly, pressing both small hands upon her stomach.

For two days thereafter the distinguished guest remained in the school,
visiting its departments, talking graciously with its workers; but she
lingered longest in the classrooms where Emily recited, or at the table
or loom where Emily worked, and the attraction between the two was
plain to be seen.

On Friday morning the nag sent by Dosia arrived, and at noon Miss
Scarborough and Emily set out for the Vance home, formerly that of
the Scarboroughs. The last two miles the trail followed the summit of
a ridge, with glorious views on each hand of mountains in autumnal
splendor. At the highest point Emily reached around her cousin’s waist
and stopped the nag.

“I allus take a far look from here,” she said. After both had drunk
their fill of beauty, Emily pointed eastward, where against the horizon
a great blue wall was dimly visible, remarking, “Yan side of them is
where you lived at when you was little, maw says.”

Miss Scarborough looked once, then turned almost violently away,
cutting the horse with her whip.

Going down the ridge, Emily pointed out her home in the valley below.
Very lonely and remote it seemed, folded away here in the hills,
with never another habitation in sight. No wonder that here a branch
of the Scarboroughs had been swallowed up and lost. Drawing nearer,
the visitor saw a large log-house in a strip of bottom-land, with
corn-fields stretching up the mountains on all sides.

Dosia awaited them at the stile, and her greeting was full of kindness
and dignity.

“Cousin Emily Scarborough,” she said with emotion, “it gives me the
most gratefulest pleasure of my life to welcome you to my home and my
family.”

Edwin Vance, her tall husband, lifted the guest down, and she was
conducted into the principal room of the house.

Here, when there was opportunity, she looked about. It was a huge
room, with bare floor, log walls, and massive beams of hewn timber.
The furniture--all home-made--consisted of three bedsteads, a chest
of drawers, and a number of splint-bottomed chairs. On the beds were
beautiful woven coverlets, and a pitcher of rich dahlias adorned the
“fireboard.” Nothing was ugly, nothing useless; and any effect of
bleakness would have been obviated either by the great open fire, or by
the presence of Dosia, sitting with her four youngest children crowded
against her, her kind face, warm brown eyes, and auburn hair radiating
light and cheer.

After a while Edwin and the two small boys left the room, and soon the
lowing of cattle, whinnying of nags, squealing of hogs, and excited
clatter of fowls announced the joyful hour of feeding, while melodious
calls of “coo-nanny, coo-nanny, coo-sheep, coo-sheep,” echoed back from
the mountain-tops. Then Dosia went, followed by the five little girls.
Miss Scarborough heard her giving quiet orders out in the open hallway
that separated the two large rooms of the lower story. Later Emily
returned, to say with awe in her voice:

“Cousin Emily, we are aiming to eat out of the Scarborough spoons
to-night.”

“You have never used them before?” inquired Miss Scarborough.

“No, indeed. Maw she wouldn’t hardly let us look at them.” After gazing
into the fire a moment, the child spoke again. “Being as we are fixing
to use the spoons to-night, I thought maybe you might want to put on
that pretty dress that matches them so good.”

“Why, of course,” smiled Miss Scarborough. She had brought with her to
the school a simple dinner gown of soft, silvery satin, as lustrous and
shining as her own hair, and seeing Emily’s delight in it, had put it
into the “poke” on starting to Dosia’s.

“You can get over in yan corner to change,” said Emily. She came again
in a few moments, and, after pinning a splendid pink dahlia in the lace
on her cousin’s bosom, stood back with clasped hands and an ecstatic
sigh.

At last supper was ready, and the guest was taken into “t’ other house”
and seated at Dosia’s right. This room, too, was huge and bare, with a
long table in the middle. On the table was a handsome hand-woven cloth,
and, at the guest’s place, a napkin. A second napkin was spread over
an oblong object beside Dosia’s plate.

When all were seated, Dosia reverently lifted this napkin, displaying a
small leather case, the lid of which at a touch flew open, revealing a
dozen teaspoons of thin old silver. Dosia then rose in her chair.

“Beloved offsprings and husband,” she began impressively, “we are
gathered around this board to-night on a solemn occasion, not only to
celebrate the coming of our honored kinswoman, but likewise to remember
ourselves of past generations and dead-and-gone forefathers.

“You will one and all bear me witness, children, that never have I
give you a chance to forget that you was Scarboroughs on your maw’s
side, not casting no reflections on your paw’s, which is good as far
as it goes. But many’s the time I have heared my paw relate, which he
got from his paw, and so on back, that the Scarboroughs has been brave
folk and faithful folk and gentle folk for five hundred year’, and has
poured out their blood like water for the glory of Old England before
they come over and poured it out for this present land. You have heared
me tell all I know of their doings here--how your great-great-grandpaw
fit under Washington, and had this land we now stand on, two thousand
acre’ of it, granted him for his deeds; how his sons and grandsons
kept right on fighting spang down through the century, Indians, and
Mexicans, and then for the Union, dying mostly with their boots on,
and before they was good grown; how, when there wa’n’t no more wars on
the outside, they raised one here at home, for justice, and being few
again’ many, died a-fighting, down to my little brother of fourteen.
Never have I forebore to tingle your years with the braveness of our
men and the honorableness of our women, and what you was bound to live
up to.

“But little did I ever look to hear the history of them ’way-back
forefathers of ours that flourished allus-ago in Old England. On which
text Cousin Emily Scarborough is now raised up for to enlighten us. She
knows ’em from lid to lid, and has writ me some of the marvelousest
tales ever I heared, especially the antecedents of these here
Scarborough spoons, which come down from a man that saved his king that
was felled in battle five hundred year’ gone. These spoons, as you
know, has been kindly sont us at this present time by another far-away
relation in Old England. Him Cousin Emily speaks of as a’ earl, which
entitlement I don’t rightly know the meaning of, but I take it to
signify that he is a’ extry brave and God-fearing man, and one you
would not be ashamed to claim kin with.

“I will now ax Cousin Emily Scarborough to rise and relate such
glimpses of ancient history as she thinks befitting. Following which
I will pour the coffee. Then I request all and singular--you too,
Edwin, sence you may rightly be called a blood-relation--to rise in
your chairs whilst I pass around the Scarborough spoons. And then, in
solemn silence, I charge you to take, all together and simultaneous’, a
sup of coffee with them spoons, being careful not to chaw down on them
with your teeth, or so much as mumble them with your lips. Having done
which, lay them back in your saucers and don’t touch another finger to
them till Emily can gather and wash and restore them to their case. And
my onliest regret is that our two boys Guilford and Lionel hain’t here
to keep the feast, too.”

Miss Scarborough rose and related salient points in family history--the
story of Guilford of Agincourt; of Austin, the bishop burned at the
stake by Mary; of Lionel, the famous admiral of Elizabeth’s day; of
later Scarboroughs great in war or peace.

Then came the solemn moment when the case was passed, and every member
of the circle drew forth a spoon; then the still more awful instant
when, hanging breathless upon Dosia’s movements, the family took the
simultaneous sup of coffee.

Silence reigned until the spoons were collected, washed, and returned
to the case, after which the meal proceeded with subdued cheer.

As Emily Scarborough sat there, another scene rose before her--the
great old dining-room of Scarborough Castle, with its carved ceiling,
splendid plate, and elaborate service. But she rejoiced in the fact
that in log-house as in castle voices were gentle, manners kind,
spirits simple and earnest. “Ah, the old blood runs virile and pure in
whatever environment!” she said to herself with pride. But her next
breath was a sigh. Was it that she herself should have no part in
handing down such a heritage?

Bedtime came soon after all had returned to the first room, and Dosia
said:

“Now, Cousin Emily, I have got four good, warm beds in the loft,
every grain as nice as these. But they are purely for strangers and
sojourners; I couldn’t have the heart to send blood-kin that far off
from me to sleep. And I take it you feel the same, and would be better
pleased to sleep right here with me and Edwin and the children, in the
bosom of the family.”

“Certainly,” replied Miss Scarborough, repressing a smile. “Any
arrangement that suits you, Dosia.”

Edwin considerately left the room during the undressing. Miss
Scarborough and Emily had one bed, three of the little girls another,
Dosia, Edwin, and the smallest child a third, while the two little boys
occupied a pallet on the floor. There was general conversation for a
while, and it was all very sociable. Miss Scarborough felt that she was
indeed in the bosom of a family.

Days of large peace followed. With all the manifold, unceasing
activities of the household,--everything eaten and worn was produced
upon the land or manufactured in the house,--there was no stress or
strain, hurry or worry. Dosia herself had saved up what she called a
“good listening job” against Miss Scarborough’s visit, and while Emily
and the smaller girls carded, reeled, knitted, or sewed, she herself,
a picturesque figure in brown homespun and red yarn stockings, walked
back and forth across the floor in that most ancient and graceful of
all the occupations of women, spinning. At other times they ascended
to the huge “loft,” where on a great loom Dosia wove awhile on winter
clothing. Always the spirit of the home was perfect; the children hung
reverently upon their mother’s every word, and the visitor noticed that
Edwin never looked upon his wife without pride.

Dosia asked endless questions. “This great, unthinkable world of
which I have seed nothing, I crave to l’arn about it, now I may,” she
would say; and Miss Scarborough would tell tales, old and new, of the
countries she had visited, the family listening spellbound.

As the two women talked and listened there day after day, one the
typical woman of the past, with all her ancient duties and burdens,
the other the most admired and brilliant product of the new day, it
was the woman of the past whose eyes were clear and unclouded, whose
step as she spun was buoyant, whose smile was assured and calm. In
the other, with all her achievements and culture and beauty, a spring
seemed to be broken, a profound sadness at unguarded moments seemed to
brood. Only when little Emily brought knitting or sewing and sat at her
kinswoman’s feet, or when the two started off for a walk together, did
an expression of refreshment come into the beautiful, tired eyes.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was not until the last afternoon of her stay that Emily Scarborough
broached the subject nearest her heart. The day was a perfect one in
early November, after a night of frost. The children were all in the
fields helping their father, Dosia had moved her wheel to the porch,
and the guest was with her there. After sitting silent for some time,
Miss Scarborough said abruptly:

“I have a boon, a great boon, to ask of you, Dosia: I want Emily.”

Dosia’s yarn snapped, and the loose end whirled about the spindle.

“You mean to visit?” she asked.

“No, I mean to keep, all the time, for my own.” Miss Scarborough’s
voice vibrated strangely. Then she said more calmly: “I will give her
all she ought to have; the best possible education, travel, culture,
opportunity to develop her artistic instincts. She shall take my full
name and inherit my possessions. The old Virginia plantation after long
years has become a valuable property, and there is more beside.”

Dosia listened silently, a line of painful thought in her forehead.

“And not these alone; better things shall be hers,” continued Miss
Scarborough. “I have long been weary of teaching; I shall stop now and
make a home for Emily. And as my adopted daughter, the best social life
of two continents will be open to her. My very first act shall be to
take her to Scarborough Castle; I have the greatest desire to show her
to our kinsman the earl before she is in any way changed. All this,
Dosia, I can do for her, and you never can.”

Dosia listened, troubled and pale.

“I desire that my children shall get l’arning and see the world,” she
said slowly. “I feel as Scarboroughs they ought to. But has payrents
ever a right to lay down their responsibilities? I allow not. I allow
that me and Edwin is the ones accountable for Emily, and her proper
guardeens. I would gladly send her to visit with you a spell; but to
stay, that is different.”

“No,” interrupted Emily Scarborough in her imperious way; “it must be
for all time. I must have her for my own.”

Dosia deliberated for a long while, then she answered quietly, but
firmly:

“Well, then, Cousin, if all the time it must be, I can only say that is
more than I can consent to--that, as her mother, I don’t feel called to
part with my child.”

Miss Scarborough’s face flushed with sudden anger and resentment.

“But with all you have!” she exclaimed. “Nine children--nine!” Her
voice trembled.

“Twelve I have,” corrected Dosia, quietly, “nine living and three
dead,”--she lifted eyes and hand to a near-by hill-shoulder, where
three small grave-houses were plainly visible,--“but not one to spare.
I love the children God has give me, and I don’t aim ever to part with
them till I have to. If things was different with us, I might feel it
my duty to give up one; but my man is the workingest in this country,
and being not far behind him myself, we prosper and have plenty, as
you see. And now the women’s school has come, our young ones can get
l’arning and still be under our admonition. No, Cousin Emily; I am
greatly beholden to you for your kindness, I thank you from the deeps
of my heart; but, as her mother, I cannot give up my child.”

Miss Scarborough had been leaning forward, body tense, face flushed,
eyes feverishly bright. At Dosia’s final words she sank back in her
chair, her face suddenly paled and aged, and her eyes sought the
mountain-sides yesterday so glowing, but to-day dimmed as by a prophecy
of death.

“It is ever the way,” she said at last slowly and bitterly. “‘From him
that hath not shall be taken even that which he thinketh he hath.’ You
women who have everything never consider those of us who have nothing.”

Dosia lifted startled eyes upon her kinswoman.

“Have nothing,” she repeated. “You!”

“Yes, I,” exclaimed Emily Scarborough. Her voice rang sharply.

“You, that the school women said was the knowingest and
most-looked-up-to woman in all the land!”

“I that have knowledge, temporary fame, and what the world calls
success, still lack the one thing necessary: I have no life for my
heart,” cried Emily Scarborough.

Dosia gazed at her kinswoman, fascinated, dumb.

“Do you think a woman can be just a mind?” demanded the essayist,
passionately, “that such husks as honors, flattery, success, can feed
one’s real life? Do you not see that I am hideously alone, without a
tie to link me to the race, and that the loneliness and isolation are
killing me?”

After this outburst, Emily Scarborough sat a long while fronting the
dimmed mountains, struggling for calmness. When she spoke again, it was
with controlled utterance:

“You know, Dosia, that I was an only child, born at the close of the
Civil War, and brought up by my father, a general of the Confederate
army. Broken in health and spirit by the war, he found his chief solace
afterward in handing down to me a portion of his ripe scholarship. On
the next plantation lived a boy, a year or two older than I, of whom
my father was fond, and whom he taught along with me. As we grew up,
the comradeship between Godfrey and me became love. My father planned
for me a college education. To this Godfrey could not look forward. Not
only were all the old families land-poor in those days, but, as eldest
son, he must stay and run the plantation and provide for a widowed
mother and his sisters and brothers. When I left home, it was with the
hope of marrying him on the completion of my course.

“I arrived at college just at the time when there came to the women
of America, especially to the little band then receiving the higher
education, the first thrilling realization of their own possibilities.
To stand alone, to achieve, to prove to the world what woman’s unaided
strength could do, seemed to many not only a worthy ambition, but a
sacred duty. One of my professors, a brilliant woman and a leader in
the new movement, hailed my gifts with joy. ‘Assuredly, Emily, if your
development is not interfered with, you will one day be a torch-bearer
of the new womanhood,’ she declared. ‘Marriage,’ she would say at
other times, ‘is for the ungifted, the uninspired. Let the drudgery of
home-making and child-bearing be performed by women incapable of higher
things.’ When I ventured to tell her of my engagement to Godfrey, she
was horrified. ‘Bury your talents, your gifts for speaking and writing,
in the mud of a Virginia plantation!’ she exclaimed; ‘never shall you
be guilty of such weakness!’”

[Illustration: Drawn by F. R. Gruger. Half-tone plate engraved by G. M.
Lewis

“‘YAN SIDE OF THEM IS WHERE YOU LIVED AT WHEN YOU WAS LITTLE, MAW
SAYS’”]

“Under influences of this kind my ideals and purposes gradually
changed. I came to believe sincerely that my duty, as she said, was
to develop and perfect my gifts, and that the pangs I should feel in
renouncing Godfrey would be small in comparison with the lifelong
regret consequent upon the burial of my talents.

“On my father’s death in my last college year, two courses lay open to
me, one, marriage to Godfrey, the other, freedom to pursue my studies
in foreign universities and fit myself for a career. And although I
cared for Godfrey, and knew the gallant, unselfish struggle he was
making and the need of me in his daily life, I chose self instead of
him, freedom instead of love, a career instead of a life. He was too
wise to reproach me; he only said, ‘Some day, Emily, the woman’s heart
in you will awake, and you will know your need of me.’

“I hurried abroad, and threw myself absorbingly into study. Six years
passed almost with the swiftness of as many months; I had the coveted
degrees, the sense of power marked success brings, and at twenty-eight
I was called home to fill an important professorship. During this time
I kept up a correspondence with Godfrey. I said to myself I had a right
to his friendship, though I stifled as weakness any regrets or longings
for him and the eagerness I felt to see him again.”

[Illustration: Drawn by F. R. Gruger. Half-tone plate engraved by R. C.
Collins

“DOSIA LISTENED SILENTLY, A LINE OF PAINFUL THOUGHT IN HER FOREHEAD”]

“The first news I received on the landing of the ship was that of
his sudden death. It came as a shock--a shock the nature of which I
did not comprehend, however, so quickly was it overlaid by the noise
and excitement of my life, the glow of instant success, the thrill
of power, the adulation of thousands of women. In such a swift and
glittering current did my life sweep on during the ensuing years that
I was thirty-five before I realized the shallowness of it, knew that I
had not a real tie in the world, saw that I was poor, empty, selfish,
and, above all, horribly alone, and that not my life alone, but my
art, was starved and barren; for how could I, who had never known the
elemental emotions of my kind, hope to touch with my pen the quick of
feeling? Here, too, in saving my life, I had lost it.

“I awoke to suffering, to hunger, to knowledge that I had sold my
birthright. In other words, I knew at last that I was a woman, with
a woman’s deep and eternal needs. Love, home, children,--ties that
grapple one to life, experiences that, whether in the white flame of
joy or the seven-times heated furnace of suffering, weld one with the
race,--these inalienable rights of woman I awoke to desire and crave.
Too late, too late! For although even then I might have ended the mere
solitude,--other men beside Godfrey have wanted me,--I knew that he
alone was my mate, and, knowing it, nothing but loyalty was possible.
You remember the Scarborough motto, ‘Keep Troth.’ I had broken it with
him living; I would keep it with him dead.

“But, oh, the loneliness, the detachment, the need of something vital
in my days, of some creature to live for and call my own! If I had had
the man of my love for even a short while, and, dying, he had left me a
child, how different all would have been! Let them say what they will,
the deepest, most fundamental craving of every woman’s heart is for
children of her own; nothing else fulfils or satisfies. Missing this,
we only half live in our youth and not at all in our age. Knowing my
great need, I have many times considered the adoption of a child; but
in every case a selfish fastidiousness has held me back.

“When I heard of Emily, a child of my own blood, and already bearing
my name, my thoughts turned at once to her; when I saw her, small
embodiment that she is of the dignity and simplicity of our race, I
knew she was the one thing necessary. Everything in her appealed. She
drew me out of myself, warmed my cold heart; her admiration was like
wine to me; my very flesh rejoiced at her touch. With her to love and
be loved by, I could now set up the long-desired home. In my busy
plans, my happy absorption, my belief that blessing was at last to
crown my days, I did not even think of your refusal!”

Again Emily Scarborough sat silent, with stricken eyes fixed upon the
waning colors of the season.

“I was wrong, presumptuous, wicked,” she broke forth bitterly, “as
usual, absorbed in self, careless of the suffering of others. The door
of hope is closed; I shall never see another child I want. Nothing
remains but a return to the desolation of a life thrown back upon and
hating itself.

“But you, Dosia, so rich in love and duties and burdens, so necessary
to many, your children about you, your husband beside you, pity a
lonely woman with starved heart and barren body!”

Flinging out her arms in a wild gesture, she dropped them on the porch
railing, and bowed her head heavily upon them.

Scarcely breathing, and with wide, wet eyes, Dosia drew slowly nearer,
and stood a moment with hands outspread above the beautiful, bowed
head. Then laying them upon it, she said tenderly:

“Emily is yours, dear cousin. You have the better right, the greater
need; I give her to you gladly.”

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




THE TRADE OF NORTHERN AFRICA

(“THE TRADE OF THE WORLD” PAPERS)

BY JAMES DAVENPORT WHELPLEY

Author of “The Commercial Strength of Great Britain,” “Germany’s
Foreign Trade,” etc.


As the Atlantic liner enters the Mediterranean through the western
straits, the port rail is generally crowded with passengers on the
lookout for Gibraltar, that symbol of British power in the control of
the high seas. Before the great rock is reached, however, there is to
be seen plainly the little Spanish coast town of Tarifa, from which in
olden days the boats of its feudal lord sallied forth to demand toll of
every passing ship. This action was only the forerunner of what happens
now in every harbor the world over; for the word _tariff_, derived
from the name of this Spanish town, has come to mean the toll demanded
of foreign goods before they may enter domestic markets.

Among all the people who pass through the Strait of Gibraltar, few take
the trouble to sweep with their glasses the horizon to the south of the
strait. It presents a long, low coast-line, appearing and disappearing
from view as its promontories or indentations are passed; but it is
well worth looking at, for the land of which this coast is the northern
boundary, Morocco, has played a big part in the game of European
politics in the last few years. In the near future it will hold the
eyes of the world by reason of its own interest, wealth, and commerce,
and it will not be long before no vessel of importance carrying freight
or passengers to or from the Mediterranean will fail to make a port of
call somewhere along its coast.

There is little of novelty for the blasé traveler between Gibraltar and
Naples on the north side of the Mediterranean, but between Tangier and
Suez, on the south, everything can be found to excite the most jaded
interest, be it of ancient or modern civilization or a remoteness which
up to the present time defies the white man to enter except at peril
of his life. Northern Africa is one of the new-old spots of the earth
now in the making of its regenerated political and economic life, and
while from one end to the other it is within easy view or even reach of
the casual passer-by, the repellent hand of nature and the native are
raised most effectively against the foreigner, except in places where
the powers of Europe have made travel possible, in many cases at a cost
of lives and money beyond the scope of easy estimate.

To-day this continent of Africa is the most striking example of
non-resident landlordism in the history of the world. It is a stretch
of territory approximately 5000 miles north and south, and the same
east and west, presenting all possible variations of climate, unlimited
in the extent and range of its natural resources, inhabited by 150
million people, a tenth of the earth’s humanity, of all colors known to
the human race, and speaking with polyglot tongue. Its civilization is
ancient and modern; its barbarism the same. The ruins of Memphis speak
eloquently of glories existing in the days when Europe and America
were the haunts of wild men; the modern cities reflect the present-day
life of the rest of the world; and yet from the jungle, distant only a
few days’ journey, naked savages still peep for their first look upon a
white man.

In all this land and among all these millions of people not one
community has yet been found equal to the task of intelligent
self-government on modern lines. Hence it is that this great domain
has passed, peacefully in most cases, under the sway of the overlords
of the world, and the flags of far-away nations float above the homes
of the people from Cape Good Hope to Cairo, south and north, and from
Sokotra to St. Louis, east and west. The apportioning of Africa has
been accomplished in the foreign offices of Europe by men who know
naught of wind-swept plains or jungle heat, but who are experts in this
great paper game, the finals of which have not been played even yet.
The state of the game is the billion dollars’ worth of foreign commerce
which to-day flows through the African ports, and the billions more
which will materialize as fast as soldiers and pioneers can conjure
into actualities with sweat and human life the treaty agreements and
understandings arrived at by the master minds in the great game.

On the west coast, under the flag of Liberia, flickers a feeble flame
in the torch of liberty, but the country it illumines presents only
the scene of a pathetic failure at self-government and the mockery of
a republic. The flame itself is kept alive only through the jealous
ministrations of the absent overlords of the adjacent lands. On the
east coast, close to the heart of the desert, lies Abyssinia, with an
independence purely nominal. Hemmed in on all sides by watchful foreign
legionaries, her king can keep his crown so long as his own people
are willing and no harm comes to foreigners or foreign interests. A
false step--and the path is narrow--and the crown itself will become
as a vassal to those in the North who rule intelligently, but with a
purpose and a power that brooks no resistance. We can eliminate these
independencies, therefore, as they exist only on sufferance, and the
fact remains that the government of Africa is accomplished at long
range by those who have a purpose of their own to serve. That purpose
is to increase the trade of the world, with the hope that their share
may be the larger.

[Illustration: From a photograph by the Detroit Publishing Co.

A MARKET-PLACE IN TANGIER]

In the past, trade has followed the flag in Africa, but now as
elsewhere, in these days of open doors, favored nation treaties, and
equal trading, the exclusive right to buy and sell lies less within
the hands of the landlord than it did of old. In the first flush of
occupation, the landlord even now takes the large percentage; but to
the degree in which he administers his estate successfully, so do
opportunities for others present themselves, and are quickly taken
advantage of. In southern Africa, and to a great extent up and down the
east and west coast, it is now a free-for-all game. The same may be
said of Egypt in the north.

[Illustration: From a photograph by the Detroit Publishing Co.

THE ENTRANCE TO THE SUEZ CANAL AT PORT SAÏD]

At present France is still gathering her harvest of trade in Algeria
and Tunis by virtue of military control. The same will be her lot in
Morocco for a few years to come; but in this latter case the period of
undisputed gain will be shorter, for the German eagle is hovering along
the Moroccan coast with eye alert for opportunity to alight upon the
land. Once at rest, his free participation in the commercial spoil is
now assured through the foresight of those who play the game in Berlin.
The French traders will then need to look well to their profits, for
in this war for trade Germany has no superior in resourcefulness or
tenacity of purpose. As soon as France completes her self-imposed task
of policing the African coast from Tunis to Agadir, the only practical
advantage which will remain to the landlords of Africa because of
their holdings will lie in the fact that a great number of foreign
purchases are due to foreign enterprises, and in the conduct of these
the purchasing power is naturally more subservient to purveyors of like
nationality.

The conquest of Africa, as shown by the political map of to-day, was
achieved in the first instance without an appeal to arms except in
the case of the Boer republic and the Italian occupation of a portion
of Tripoli. Annexations, protectorates, and spheres of influence
generally follow conquests at arms. In Africa this method has been
largely reversed. Under the plea of establishing stable and peaceful
conditions, wars, generally of the bushwhacking variety, have followed
the political map-making; but by the time the real fighting began, each
one of the overlords was accredited by the world with fighting for
his own already established rights and for the ultimate good of the
native defenders of the soil. The latter have generally been converted
into rebels or outlaws by a decree written in London, Berlin, or Paris
before they fired their first arrow or gun at the foreign invader.
Italy is almost the only country which has done open violence to this
peculiarly African method of territorial aggrandizement, and by way of
contrast her action appears brutal, inexcusable, and bungling, and,
as many diplomats aver, she is demonstrating its amateurishness by
the questionable success achieved. This is specially true in view of
the known inherent and acquired leanness of the prize, a plucked bird
despoiled of its scanty trade feathers by Egypt on the east, Algeria
on the west, and the Kongo development on the south, long before Italy
moved to acquire the prize presumably for her own exclusive profit.

[Illustration: Photograph by the Detroit Publishing Co.

A PANORAMA OF ALGIERS]

Of the total foreign trade of Africa, fully one half is conducted
through the ports of Egypt, Tripoli, Algeria, Tunis, Morocco, and the
Kongo, and in these countries will take place the greater part of the
development of the future. In south Africa development of industry
will proceed, but the pace has been set, and for one reason or another
it may be added that, contrary to the expectations of the world
thirteen years ago, it is not rapid. On the other hand, in northern and
specially northwestern Africa, the gates are not yet fully open, the
trail of the trader does not yet reach far into the hinterland, and
from what is already known of the possibilities, the next twenty-five
years will witness an exploitation of northwest Africa which will
produce astonishing results. International effort is more concentrated
than in years gone by. The unknown spots on the earth’s surface have
shrunk to within comparatively small and well-defined boundaries. The
eager trader, looking for new markets, is now early on the ground when
the way is clear. Trade development in the twentieth century is far
more rapid than ever before; the attack upon a new field is sharper,
fiercer, more international, and more overwhelming. The new field
soon becomes an old one, and quickly makes the pace natural to its
geographical, social, and economic limitations.

The part the United States has played in northern Africa is not
considerable. The first official appearance was about one hundred
years ago, when American naval vessels chastised the pirates on the
Mediterranean coast. Our last was about ten years ago, when for some
reason yet to be discovered the United States Government sent a mission
to King Menelik of Abyssinia. The less said about that mission the
better. The chief commissioner met a tragic death before Africa was
sighted, and from that moment the mission trailed off into nothingness,
its disappearance marked by a succession of inexcusable and appalling
diplomatic blunders, to say nothing of an attempted duplication of
the mission by one bureau of the same government department acting
independently of the others. The foreign offices of the overlords
of Europe were considerate, and hid their amusement at this amateur
performance under the cover of a sympathetic demonstration.

[Illustration: From a photograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood

LEOPOLDVILLE ON STANLEY POOL (KONGO RIVER). THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT
TRADE CENTER OF THE KONGO FREE STATE]

As a nation holding a neutral position in the affairs of all continents
except the Americas, the United States has been looked to on several
occasions to furnish experts to help out young or old, but weaker,
nations struggling in the coils of inter-European jealousies. Almost
invariably Washington has made the mistake of taking the request
at its face-value. Experts have been sent, the best in their line
in the world, men full of enthusiasm for the task set before them,
but, after all, it was found that a knowledge of the big game was
even more essential than knowledge of finances or tariff, and the
experts, through no fault of their own, have shortly trailed back home
again, their only accomplishment having been, unwittingly perhaps, to
eliminate another “exceptional American opportunity”; and again the
foreign offices of Europe have condoled and regretted the necessity,
etc., and the old hands at the game have smiled among themselves at
the ease with which the “open door” had been closed without a sound of
protest from its hinges.

Of the billion dollars in foreign commerce which ebbs and flows
through African ports, about half is to be found in northern Africa,
distributed as follows:

                  IMPORTS            EXPORTS             TOTALS
  Egypt         $119,818,000       $103,559,000       $223,377,000
  Algeria         95,184,000         76,104,000        171,288,000
  Tunis           23,744,000         18,172,000         41,916,000
  Tripoli          2,667,000          1,080,000          3,747,000
  Morocco         11,875,000         10,011,000         21,886,000
                 -----------       ------------       ------------
                $253,288,000       $208,926,000       $462,214,000

The trade of Abyssinia, the Kongo, Liberia, and other political
divisions which might be included in what is known as northern Africa,
does not amount in its total to a sufficient sum to make any important
change in the significance of the above figures. With an area of,
say, two and a half million square miles and a population of fifty
millions, the density of population is about twenty to the mile; but
this calculation is valueless, owing to the vast areas virtually
uninhabited. The real density ranges from the 931 to the square mile in
the lower valley of the Nile to that found in the great stretches of
desert, where in the course of a week’s travel one may meet perhaps a
single caravan of Bedouins with their scanty outfits.

Up to the present time the foreign commercial intercourse of these
north Africans has been largely confined to Europe, and this state of
affairs will continue for some time to come. There are two reasons for
this: first, because of the flags of the European powers, which float
over this country and which are emblematic of the administration
control within the far-flung shadows they cast on the earth about.
Second, the Europeans are better traders than others, who would be
their competitors if they knew how to go about it. Of the quarter of
a billion dollars and more worth of merchandise the people of north
Africa buy from foreigners, the United States furnishes about one per
cent. Of the two hundred millions or more in goods sold abroad by
these same people, the United States buys considerably less than two
per cent. In this last statement is found another reason as well why
the trade of the United States is so small in northern Africa. Freight
both ways is a requisite of international trade. Commerce is not so
much a matter of gold as it is of barter. He who buys can sell, and so
long as the buyer and the seller are one and the same person, he will
dominate the situation. This is one of the stumbling-blocks in the path
of American commerce abroad. American traders go with their hands full
of goods to sell, but with ears closed to the offers of other wares
in exchange. Our home markets do not want them, hence we will not buy
them. The European will take them even if he has later to find a second
market to dispose of what he cannot use at home. It is admittedly
easier for him to do this, however, because of the geographical
location of his own base of operations.

Africa sells food-stuffs and raw materials. She wants staple
manufactured goods and novelties in exchange. The figures of her trade
show that she can buy little more than the equal of what she has to
sell; hence the advantage to the seller who can distribute with one
hand and collect with the other. It is a transaction with two profits,
so that both margins can be made smaller, and competition with the
single-handed salesman is made easier.

The more primitive these African peoples are, the more they are
dependent upon and controlled by the administrative power. The more
developed the country and easy of access, the more enlightened and
advanced the people, the wider and less restrained is their market.
To Egyptians and Algerians the people of the United States sell goods
of the kind imported to amounts reaching into seven figures, while
virtually nothing is sold in Tripoli, and only a few thousand dollars’
worth in Morocco, countries credited with at least two thirds the
population of the first named.

The entire civilized world is vitally interested in the progress made
by the European powers in their development of trade in northern
Africa, for the time is coming when the benefits to the outside trader
will not be apportioned according to nationality, control, or interest,
but will be measured by competitive power alone. To bear this in mind
is manifestly the greatest feature of modern statesmanship in the
making of commercial treaties, for it is necessary to safeguard the
future so that when the door opens by reason of pressure from within,
there shall be equal chance for all. It was an insistence upon this
principle which nearly brought war to Europe through the making of
the Moroccan agreement between France and Germany. The latter won her
point; she won it not only for herself, but for all others, including
the United States, and the importance thereof justified the seriousness
of the pourparlers which preceded the actual agreement.

It might be said with apparent justice that those who have borne the
burdens of the pioneer should have preference as their reward, but such
is not the lot of pioneers in these days of the new internationalism.
The commerce and finance of the world is assuming a solidarity that
admits of no nationality or preference, no matter what apparent claim
one or another people may have upon it by reason of pioneer work in the
earlier stages of development and organization.

Not long ago an English acquaintance of mine stopped me in the street
in London and asked me what I thought of things in Morocco. He was
a man of average intelligence and information, and in business for
himself in a small way. The German war-ship _Panther_ was then at
Agadir, and there was much talk concerning this bold move on the part
of the Kaiser.

“If I was not old,” he said, “I would go to Morocco. I was there
fifteen years ago and saw something of the country. There is nothing
between the valley of the Nile and Cape Verd that will compare with
the wealth and productiveness of Morocco, and with opportunities for
trading when Europeans are free to come and go in safety. This Agadir
business is the beginning of new days for the land of the Moors. It is
a very different country from what we know as northern Africa.”

That is the opinion of “the man in the street” in Europe, and it is
the knowledge of the few venturesome traders who have prospected
the country as widely as the Moors have permitted. They are a most
exclusive people. Four years ago the American consul at Tangier wrote
to his Government:

  Despite the many centuries of life, Morocco has not been developed;
  it is almost virgin territory. Its forests and mines are intact. No
  railroads, no electric transportation, no telephones, no telegraph,
  the interior a wilderness, where even the sultan dare not go, and
  eight to ten millions of people are living in primitive style.
  Morocco has a choice climate, fine scenery, great wealth of earth
  and sky, vast supplies of precious metals, and the soil has never
  been more than scratched by the crude wooden plows of the people--a
  soil that will give them three crops a year. There are warm winds and
  sunshine for 300 of the 365 days of the year; 300,000 square miles of
  fertile farm and grazing land broken by majestic mountains, crossed
  by rivers, and bounded by the sea on two sides. There are vast
  forests and valuable shrubs, and the sea is generously supplied with
  fish.

       *       *       *       *       *

Foreign adventure has obtained a slight and precarious foothold
along the northern and western coasts, where there are excellent
harbors. Tangier is the best known to the north, while on the west
lie El Araish, Rabat, Casablanca, Mogador, Mazagan, and Safi; but
the influence of these places extends barely forty or fifty miles
inland. The great inland Northern trade capital Fez, and Marrakesh
to the South, are as remote from foreign influence as the customs of
the people differ from those of Europeans. Notwithstanding all this,
the foreign trade of Morocco last year was over $20,000,000, or seven
times that of Tripoli, for the possession of which two European powers
calling themselves great are now at war.

The isolation of Morocco to the day, this year, that the
French established themselves in Fez, is due absolutely to the
self-sufficiency and hostile pride of the Moors, for their country lies
in sight of Spain and is only three days from London. In the midst of
the stirring affairs of the modern world Morocco has remained in truth
a _terra incognita_. The pressure has been too great, however.
Such isolation could not last; the advance-guards of the trade army
of the world have penetrated the barriers, and with eyes glistening
with eager lust of gain have told of what lies beyond. The future is
no longer a matter of doubt. The French soldiers now bivouac in Fez,
and changes are coming to Morocco even beyond the wildest fears of the
warlike and gloomy-eyed Moors. As a rule, a strong foe makes a strong
friend. In the degree with which they have so long successfully fought
modernization, it is probable they will in time accept the inevitable
with equal strength of character, and, aided by the natural wealth of
their land, become the strongest and wealthiest of all the countries
that bound the continent of Africa on the north, not excepting even
that most limited but most fertile of all places on the earth, the
valley of the Nile.

It is in Egypt that an effective demonstration has been made of what
can be accomplished by an intelligent landlord on a great estate. Here
was a country the people of which were living on its ancient monuments
and the erratic rise and fall of a great and uncontrolled river. These
people have only just learned to laugh, and how could they have done so
before, living as they were in the shadows of countless centuries of
slave-driving by rulers who took everything from them and did nothing
in return?

“What do you think of the British rule?” I asked an Egyptian farmer.

“We pay our taxes only once now,” was the reply he made.

But in that he summed up the evils of past administrations and one of
the greatest benefits of the present. The Turkish flag flies over
Egypt, but the Khedive is an intelligent man, so he does not take his
position very seriously. “England can have Egypt any time she wants
it,” say the European diplomats at home. Those on the ground say:
“England has Egypt now. Why should she take it twice?” That is the
truth. England has Egypt. The Egyptian nationalists would like to have
it for themselves, but they will not get it as things are going now.
The noisy and talkative politicians who crowd the cafés of Cairo can
plot and scheme to their hearts’ content, but there is a force at work
apparently beyond their power of comprehension. Mistakes are sometimes
made through the stupidity of subordinates, but a quiet and commanding
impulse is behind the finances of the country, is applied to the
industrial regeneration of the people, and the army is its complaisant
ally. Millions of money have been spent to regulate the Nile, and
millions more are constantly being added to this fund to bring the land
up to the highest point of its marvelous productive power. Here it must
be watered and there drained. Thousands of tourists annually visit the
monuments and bewail the gradual disappearance of the temples of Philæ
as the crest of the Assuan dam rises higher and higher; but for every
foot it submerges the temples, it adds thousands of acres to the green
fields of Egypt, from which the granaries are filled to running over.
It is a symbol of the decline of the old and the coming of the new
régime.

Those who come from the centers of civilization elsewhere find it hard
to reconcile themselves to this new order of things, for the treasures
bequeathed by ancient to modern Egypt are like unto no others in the
world, a wonderful and enviable heritage; but they were built at the
expense of the people of long ago, and now, when Rameses II lies in the
Cairo museum, the descendants of the starved and whip-driven slaves
who built his monuments are coming into their own under the paternal
eye and assisted by the guiding hand of a new civilization. It was not
without a sign, however, that this Egyptian king yielded to the spirit
of the present, for, as the story goes, when his mummy was taken from
its tomb, the wrappings undone, and the remains placed in temporary
position in the museum, one of the horrified attendants saw him slowly
raise his arm, as if in protest, from the position it had occupied for
centuries. The curator attempted to quiet the fears of the attendant
by a scientific explanation as to change of temperature and humidity
causing a relaxation of the time-bound muscles, but to this day the
more superstitious move with cautious tread in the neighborhood of
the glass case in which rest the bones of this builder of wonderful
monuments to himself, his wives, and his patron gods. In all of Egypt
there is nothing left to tell of anything done for the people. From
one end of the land to the other monuments good, bad, or indifferent
were built to the glorification of the living when they should come to
die. “Tombs of sorts,” as a weary tourist expressed it, but tombs they
are, and as the history of Egypt unfolded itself they proved to be in
reality more the graves of the hopes and aspirations of a nation and of
the hundreds of thousands who died in the building than of the rulers
they were meant to glorify. It was not until the Romans came fresh from
the oratory of the Forum that a temple was built to the gods of all the
people; but even these are few and far between.

Far out in the desert on a still and glorious night I talked with my
Arab guide as to the stars and his knowledge of the trail through their
guidance. He was struck dumb when I told him I had traveled countless
miles in other lands by the same guiding lamps that then looked down
upon us.

“I knew you had a moon,” he said, “but I did not know it was the
same moon,” and as I looked far out into the silvery desert with its
fleeting cloud shadows, and the remoteness of all things elsewhere was
borne in upon me, I almost believed with him that it was a moon that
shone for Egypt alone, and that he was wise and I was ignorant; for
this land, its history, its people, and their problems are like unto no
others.

To stand on the edge of the ocean of sand that reaches to the westward
hundreds upon hundreds of miles and view the brilliant green meadows of
the Nile Valley at one’s feet, watered as it is by the floods generated
in the tropic torrents which fall somewhere in the heart of darkest
Africa almost beyond the ken of man, is to realize what water means
to the twelve million people of Egypt in their struggle for existence.
Without it, land is to be had for the asking; with it, the most fertile
farm in the corn belt of the Mississippi Valley is to be bought acre by
acre, for half the price.

The foreign commerce of Egypt has grown apace as the country has
come under the sane and regulating influence of the Anglo-Saxon. The
landlord has reaped, and will long continue to reap as his reward, a
golden harvest of profitable trade and investment; but he takes none
but a natural advantage to himself. The German, the American, the
French, and all the other traders of the world are free to come and
go and to compete in supplying the wants of Egypt. The growth of the
Egyptian trade of other nations has been coincident with that of the
British, and the United States trade is no exception to this rule.

In 1911 the United States imported from Egypt $21,700,000 worth of
merchandise, or about one sixth of what Egypt has to sell. In the same
year the United States sold to Egypt $2,114,000 worth of goods, or
about one and a half per cent. of what was purchased. These figures of
import and export show a gain in gross amount of nearly one hundred
per cent. over the commerce of two years preceding. The producing
and absorptive power of the Egyptian people is steadily increasing.
They have yet far to go before they reach modern standards, but since
their release from the weight of ungoverned Turkish misrule they have
shown a recuperative power almost equal to that of the wonderful soil
upon which they live. Their trade will increase from year to year,
and as it grows larger, the share of the overlord the sultan and his
sub-tenant the Englishman will decrease in proportion, and thus it is
that in these days of internationalism the welfare of one community is
the concern of all even in a most narrow and practical sense--that of
markets for the handiwork of man.

On the northwest corner of Egypt is the Gulf of Solum, an indentation
of the Mediterranean. A reinforced garrison of Egyptian troops
officered by Englishmen is quietly camping there to see that in the
excitement of the Italian-Turkish war the eastern boundary of Tripoli
shows no sign of advance beyond a certain point. West of that
boundary-line two non-resident African landlords are at war for the
possession of Tripoli without consulting the wishes of the one million
inhabitants of the land, or the millions of their fellow-Mohammedans to
the south, west, and east. Turkey was the landlord in possession, Italy
the aggressor. The bird in hand this time was loosely held, and will
probably be lost to its erstwhile captor; but the bill of damages, only
a small instalment of which has yet been paid, to be assessed against
the invader will be heavy and the subsequent retention expensive,
unsatisfactory, and unremunerative.

To the onlooker the prize does not seem to be worth the price. Setting
aside all high-flown expressions such as “control of the Mediterranean”
and the like with which the Italian politicians keep up the spirits
of the people at home and justify the conduct of the war, expressions
which mean nothing, owing to their lack of foundation in truth, the
test as to the wisdom of the conquest of Tripoli narrows down to the
value of the land itself as a colonial possession.

Tripoli contains over 400,000 square miles of territory on which live
about one million people, a population of two and a half to the mile.
Most of these people, however, live on a narrow strip along the 1100
miles of coast-line, and the rest find abiding-places in scattered
groups among the oases of the desert. As a matter of fact, the entire
population of the country lives upon 19,000 square miles, or about
one twentieth of the territory of Tripoli. Along the coast, on which
there are no very good harbors, with the possible exception of Tobruk,
is the low plain of Jefara, about forty miles wide. To the south of
this rises the Jebel range of hills, and still farther south extends
a plateau over 40,000 square miles in extent, absolutely barren,
rocky, and uninhabited. This reaches to Hammada-el-Homra. To the south
of Hammada lies the land of Fezzan, a collection of oases in a vast
region of sand-dunes and desert. To the eastward lies Tobruk, whose
people trade with Egypt. Still on toward the Sahara is Murzuk, formerly
the great caravan station between the Mediterranean and Lake Chad,
but now, since the trade of this part of the world has been diverted
from the north to the mouth of the Kongo, the northern terminal of
the great caravan route. Only three European travelers have visited
Murzuk in the last twenty years. The green banner of the prophet flies
throughout this country, and the brotherhood of the Senussiya is bound
together in anti-foreign tenets. Its headquarters are at Kufrah, in
the Libyan Desert, and it sends a mission of its own to the sultan at
Constantinople, so independent of the government of Tripoli does it
regard itself.

There are legends as to the richness and prosperity of Tripoli in the
time of the Roman occupation, but that this prosperity has been grossly
exaggerated is now well known. The sand-dunes have been creeping over
the coastal plain of Jefara until they have reared their dreaded crests
within sight of the city of Tripoli. The sultan’s nominal authority
has extended even to the Tuaregs, near Ghat, but with the advent of
Europeans in the Niger Valley and Hausa Land, the southern portion of
Tripolitania, might as well be across the Sahara Desert, so far as the
northern coast is concerned. And Tripoli is no longer the gateway to
the Sudan or to black Africa. The trade that formerly flowed north and
south now goes to Egypt on the east or to Algeria on the west, or, in
some instances, to the west coast of Africa.

For the last ten years this quiet but effectual disintegration of
commercial Tripoli has been going on until there is little left for
the new landlord even should he succeed in establishing his rule
and secure acknowledgment thereof. There are no mineral resources,
no possibilities in agriculture, and the desolation of the vast,
unfertile, rainless area daunts the most intrepid adventure. The
problems of centralized government are many and apparently impossible
of solution, certainly by the Italians, who know naught of colonial
science. To the north the city of Tripoli, with its 50,000 population,
is an inharmonious community of Jews, Berbers, Arabs, Maltese, and
Levantines, with probably fewer than two hundred genuine Italians among
them. Hundreds of miles to the south, separated by rock and desert now
seldom traveled, are the Tuaregs, where the women own all property and
take plural husbands much for the same economic and social reasons
that the Turk has several wives.

Naturally the exports of a country like Tripoli are of the most
primitive character, exporting grass, hides, fruit, and a few other
things that are found wild or are grown in limited quantities. Her
imports are food-stuffs, cotton, and woolen goods, fuel, iron, and
steel. Of the exports, half a million dollars’ worth find their way
to the United States, and in return a few thousand dollars’ worth of
cloths and other manufactures are sold. Of the total foreign commerce,
amounting to less than five million dollars, the United States
participates to only a fractional per cent., and there is little hope
of improvement in the future. English merchants do the largest part
of the trading, with France second, Italy third, and Turkey fourth,
and both exports and imports hold in about the same proportion as to
destination and origin.

It is a relief to cross the Tripolitan border into Tunis and Algeria,
the French possessions. Here everything has been done by an intelligent
landlord to develop the country and encourage the industry of the
people. With an area only half again as large as Tripoli, and even
so the larger part desert, a population seven times as great finds a
living and occupation. A foreign commerce of 225 million dollars nearly
equally divided between export and import slightly exceeds even that of
Egypt, and the exchanges of the United States, although a comparatively
small trader, amount to nearly two million dollars’ worth of goods. The
administration of Algeria and Tunis has cost France many millions of
francs, but the task has been well done. In return, however, the people
of France have benefited largely, for they supply over eighty per cent.
of the imports of these African possessions, and take about seventy
per cent. of the exports. The United States sends machinery, oils, and
tobacco, and takes the raw products of the country in exchange. Trade
is on a stable and safe basis, and the consuming power of the country
is increasing rapidly in the direction of manufactured goods and the
conveniences of civilized life.

It requires a certain form of genius and a certain temperament to be
a successful landlord, and this is even more requisite when governing
a far-distant community of foreign people. These qualities have been
demonstrated by the French in their control of northern Africa, and,
it may be added, to the surprise of the rest of the civilized world,
for in their government at home the French people have not shown equal
genius or been as successful as they have in Africa. To allow the
exercise of autocratic power is perhaps the best way to utilize the
virtues of the French temperament.

In general the African continent is in good hands, English, French,
and German alike. The natives, as a rule, get justice; their religions
and their customs are respected, and they are benefited materially,
socially, and even politically as dependencies. In the days of a
recent British agent in Egypt who believed in a larger degree of local
government than had been allowed by his predecessor, some confusion
resulted and things got rather out of hand. Proof was promptly given
in the trouble that quickly arose that this was a mistake. When Lord
Kitchener arrived on the scene he had many loose ends to pick up and
weak spots to reinforce, but he was not long in the mending. His
administration has been notably successful so far, and with all the
firmness with which he is credited he has also developed a tact not
expected even by some of his greatest admirers. He came to Egypt at a
difficult time, and to keep his Mohammedan friends neutral, which he
has done, while their coreligionists are waging what they term a “holy
war” against the Italians to the west of Solum Bay, is not easy. It is
told of him that shortly after the beginning of the Italian-Turkish
war some of the Arab chiefs of Egypt and the Sudan were keen to go to
the assistance of the Tripolitans, and signified their wish to the
British agent. Lord Kitchener replied that of course they could go if
they wanted to, but whereas they were now free from compulsory military
service in the Egyptian army, it would be impossible for him to
overlook the value as soldiers of Arabs who had served in actual modern
warfare, and that on their return he would have to draw upon them for
military service. As this freedom from service in the Egyptian army
is one of the much-prized Arab privileges and exemptions, the sheiks,
recognizing the possibilities involved, promptly gave up their idea of
participating in the war, and have remained neutral, at least so far
as not to render assistance to Tripoli openly.

In all northern Africa no invader has attempted suddenly to change the
customs of the people, and the local religions have been recognized
and their tenets respected. Italy did not seem to profit by this
example, for her troops have shown scant regard for the feelings
of the Mohammedans, and it will take many years to live down the
situation created by the violation of mosques and other injudicious and
unnecessary vandalism. Northern Africa would not be what it is to-day
if the same policy had been followed by others, and it is fortunate for
the world at large that the Italian attack has been made upon the most
worthless and most sparsely inhabited part. Less harm can be done there
than elsewhere, and with the firm hand of Egypt to the east and France
to the west and the physical limitations to the south, the evil effects
of this ill-judged attempt at conquest may be confined within present
boundaries.

The United States has entered into the field of world politics too
late in the day to secure trade by other than competitive power. The
earth is now mapped out, and few boundaries will be changed in the
future except as it may be deemed wise or advantageous to create more
or less self-governing communities. Participation in the financing of
new or new-old governments will prove of little avail, for money is now
international, and the New York firm which underwrites its allotted
portion of an international loan has its branches or even its parent
house in Europe, and cannot use its power to draw trade to America
without giving offense elsewhere. It really makes no difference in
modern times which nation furnishes the money to take up a large issue
of securities, for in the end they find their resting-place where
there is money willing to be tied up, and this is generally in France,
England, or Germany. A debtor nation like the United States, especially
one whose people can find active employment for surplus funds at more
profit than is offered by government loans, cannot be rated as an
international money-lender.

The demand for an international or equal participation in any great
money transaction comes in reality not from keen and equal competition
for the privilege of investment, but from the machinations of
international money, which desires the backing and security of a
harmonious group of powerful governments to enforce its terms and
insure the collection of the debt without friction on the day it may
become due. With this backing the underwriters are assured of their
great profits as it decreases the difficulties of unloading the
securities upon an investing public at an advanced figure. The modern
international loan carries with it no special trading rights, for all
governments must now insist upon and obtain for its citizens abroad
treatment like unto those accorded other nationalities.

To reduce the cost of production, facilitate the shipping of goods, and
meet the local needs of foreign markets, or in other words to conduct
foreign trading on an intelligent and scientific basis, is the one hope
of the people of the United States in the world expansion of their
industries and the profitable employment of labor. In the long run
no nation stands a better chance of holding its own by reason of the
self-contained character of material resources, the climatic stimulus
to work and invention, the so-called unsophisticated enthusiasm of
the people for practical accomplishment, and the mixture of racial
strength in the make-up of the community. When the home market strikes
a balance between production and consumption, and a surplus for export
can be relied upon every year, it is reasonable to assume that the
same genius will be applied to conquering the foreign market that has
been developed at home. In no place in the world is there opportunity
for greater gain for American trade than in Africa even to-day, while
the future presents no such limitations as are met with in more highly
commercially developed areas.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




VIOLENCE IN THE WOMAN’S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT

A DISAVOWAL OF THE MILITANT POLICY

BY MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT

President of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (Great
Britain)


I write from the standpoint of those who regard the women’s movement
for political freedom as incomparably the most important political fact
of the present day; and who look upon the women’s movement, as a whole,
in its social, economical, political, industrial, and educational
developments as one of the most remarkable events which have ever taken
place in the history of the world. I do not know where one could look
for another so nearly universal in its operation, making itself felt in
every country in the world, in all civilizations, whether eastern or
western, and affecting the well-being of such masses of men and women
of all races and nations.

Men’s political movements toward freedom have nearly always been
accompanied by “confused noise and garments rolled in blood.” No great
emancipating evolution for men has taken place without violence and
bloodshed. One of our most learned historians, Lord Acton, wrote: “It
seems to be a law of political evolution that no great advance of
human freedom can be gained except after the display of some kind of
violence.” Yet notwithstanding all precedents to the contrary, but just
because men are men and women are women, the women’s movement toward
freedom did progress and progress marvelously for the first half of
the nineteenth century till about six years ago without the use of any
kind of violence. We shot no one, we exploded no bombs, we destroyed
nothing; but we have been building up and creating a new social order
in which the women of to-day occupy a wholly different and better place
from that occupied by the women of preceding ages. The universities
have been opened; girls’ schools have been made over again, and made
different; the medical and, in many countries, the legal, professions
have been opened; municipal and all other local franchises in Great
Britain and her colonies have been won; women have been made eligible
for election on all local governing bodies; the civil service has
been opened; the barbarity of medieval laws founded on the absolute
subjection of women in marriage has been modified; full parliamentary
suffrage has been won for women in New Zealand and Australia, in
Finland and Norway, in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington,
and California, and women’s suffrage amendments have been recommended
to the electorate by the representative governing bodies of six other
of the United States. All these actual victories and indications
of further victories in the near future have been won (Lord Acton
notwithstanding) without violence of any kind. The American humorist
Mark Twain, with his keen practical insight into the essence of things,
remarked this strange feature of the women’s movement. He wrote in
“More Tramps Abroad,” p. 208:

  For forty years they have swept an imposingly large number of unfair
  laws from the statute books of America. In this brief time these
  serfs have set themselves free--essentially. Men could not have done
  as much for themselves in that time without bloodshed, at least they
  never have, and that is an argument that they didn’t know how.

All these great and indeed immense victories for the cause of human
freedom have been accomplished by moral force and not by physical
force. Physical force as a means of promoting women’s freedom was never
even heard of till about six years ago, and for the first two and a
half years of their activity the so-called militant suffragists did not
use physical violence toward their adversaries; they suffered violence
far more than they inflicted it.

At the outset, so long as they confined themselves merely to
sensational and eccentric means of propaganda, they could hardly be
looked upon as a physical force party; they undoubtedly did service to
our common cause by making the claims of women more widely known; there
is probably hardly a village, hardly a family in which the claims of
women to share in the representative system of the country has not been
eagerly discussed. This to a very large extent we owe to the activities
of the “militants.” But when they departed from the attitude they first
adopted, of suffering violence but using none, in my judgment they put
themselves in the wrong morally; and if judged from the point of view
of practical success have put back the cause rather than promoted it.
For twenty-six years from 1886 to 1912 women’s suffrage was never once
defeated in the House of Commons. The Conciliation Bill, which had been
carried in second reading in 1911 by a majority 316 to 143 after a
truce from militancy of nearly eighteen months, was defeated in 1912 by
a narrow majority. This was very largely due to the intense indignation
and resentment caused by the window-smashing outrages which had taken
place a few weeks earlier.

The carrying of a women’s suffrage amendment to the government Reform
Bill is the next stage either of victory or defeat which awaits us.
If militancy is renewed, defeat is almost certain. The average man is
not convinced of the value of conferring full citizenship on women by
hearing of tradesmen’s windows being broken, or of attempts to set
houses and theaters on fire. The militants often claim that a display
of physical violence is the only way to success. This, I maintain, is
a wholly mistaken reading of the facts. Our victories have been won
through convincing large masses of quiet, sensible, average men and
women that the citizenship of women would be good for women themselves
and for the State as a whole. We can point to the activities of such
women as Julia Ward Howe and Jane Addams in the United States, of
Florence Nightingale and Josephine Butler in Great Britain, and can
more and more convince our countrymen of the futility and absurdity and
the loss to the community of excluding such women, and women at large,
from the rights of citizenship. I regard the militants as misguided
enthusiasts, and believe that at this moment they are the most
dangerous obstacles in the way of the immediate success of our cause
in England. But when I compare the degree of violence they have used
with the excesses of, say, the French Revolution or the destructive
fury which swept over our own and other countries, in connection with
the Reformation, or with the awful violence which has occasionally been
associated with the Labor movement both in this country and in the
United States, we may feel that there is no cause for panic and still
less for despair. The political emancipation of women has made immense
strides toward complete realization in the English-speaking countries
on both sides of the Atlantic. Every victory scored by either of us
helps the other. The latest honors are with America. We do not grudge
them; but hope soon to vie with them.

[Illustration]




[Illustration: TOPICS OF THE TIME]




A WAY OUT OF THE CANAL BLUNDER: REPEAL THE EXEMPTION


Any one who knows how little consideration is given to the preparation
of political platforms can readily understand how both the Democratic
and the Progressive parties were “committed” to the blunder of
advocating the exemption of our coastwise shipping from the tolls to
be charged for the use of the Panama Canal. It is this sort of inside
arrangement of party policies--which usually, in the last hours of
fatigue, restlessness, and excitement, there is never time to discuss
on their merits--that has cast discredit on platforms and has justified
many a candidate in disregarding or modifying a given “plank.” The
overwhelming judgment of our people, as reflected in the press, that
nothing is so important to us as a strict observance of our plighted
faith,--just as nothing is so important to a merchant as his credit
and reputation for honorable dealing,--shows how easy it is for half a
dozen men in a hotel parlor, at the suggestion of some “good fellow,”
to lead a convention to the indorsement of a disastrous policy.

To claim that we have not broken our pledge that there shall be no
discrimination in the tolls and conditions when we thus favor our own
coastwise trade, as against that of Canada, Mexico, and Colombia,--each
with an Atlantic and a Pacific coast,--simply does not rise to the
dignity of a quibble. Already by misrepresentation of the sense of
fair-dealing which pervades American commercial life, incalculable
injury has been done to our standing abroad--an injury which cannot
be measured in money. After all our honorable diplomacy--the return
of the Boxer indemnity, the open door policy in the Far East, and the
strict observance of our promise to withdraw from Cuba, which foreign
sneerers at America said we never would observe, “and never meant to
observe”--it is shameful to have to drop to a lower plane of national
conduct.

As if our cup of humiliation were not already full, it is argued that
we are at liberty to refuse to submit the question of the breach of the
Panama Treaty to the Hague Tribunal, if Great Britain should make the
appeal. “_Nicht zwei dumme streiche für eins_” (Not two stupid
strokes for one), says Lessing’s character in “Minna von Barnhelm.”
Unless we desire to become the welsher of the nations, it is time that
the good faith of the people should find an adequate expression in
the good faith of the Government. All the money saved (to whom?) in
tolls in a hundred years by the exemption could not compensate for the
loss in money--not to reckon honor--which will result from the loss
of credit and of great commercial opportunities all over the world. A
strange way, indeed, to promote American commerce!

But there remains for us another chance--or will, if Great Britain
shall a little longer pursue her friendly and forbearing course of
waiting for our public opinion to assert itself. _The coastwise
exemption should be repealed._ And, our obligations aside, why
should we enter upon a policy of subsidizing our ships just at the
time when apparently we are giving up the policy of subsidizing
our manufactures? Are we never to get away from the inequality of
privilege, that has already corrupted the sources of government by the
“vicious circle,” creating and feeding by legislation agencies whose
natural interest it thus becomes to destroy the principle of equality?
Why subsidize ships any more than subsidize railways, or newspapers, or
authorship? But if we _must_ subsidize our ships, let it be done
outright, in bills for that purpose, and not through the violation of
the plain words of a solemn treaty.

Not only should the exemption be repealed, but, if we are to recover
the ground that has been lost, it should be done in the first week of
the December session of Congress. We feel sure that President Taft,
whose misgivings tinctured his message of assent, now that the Canal
bill has provided for a _modus operandi_, would not interpose
his veto to the sober second thought of Congress. If the repeal is
not accomplished, and if we refuse the appeal to The Hague, the great
cause of Arbitration--the substitute for war--will be set back for
unreckonable years. And it is the championship of Arbitration, together
with his far-sighted and consistent defense and extension of the Merit
System, which will give the President his highest claim to the respect
of posterity. The object of the latter is to keep politicians from
gambling with the resources of office; the object of the former is to
prevent governments from gambling with the lives of men.

Should the repeal not be promptly made, it will become the duty of the
people to organize to bring it about. We much mistake the temper of the
country if within another six months its servants do not remove this
blot in the national escutcheon.




WANTED: STRAIGHT THINKING ABOUT MILITANT SUFFRAGISTS

APROPOS OF THE RENEWAL OF VIOLENCE IN ENGLAND


One of the startling signs of the times is the recrudescence of
violence among the militant suffragists in England. The physical
attacks by women upon members of the government, including the
hurling of a hatchet at the Prime Minister’s party; the attempt to
set fire to a theater in which he was about to make an address, and
other outrages, are in themselves a sufficiently deplorable symptom
of lawless impulses, with which the government, as it was obliged,
has dealt promptly and vigorously. As we have recognized in previous
articles, this course of action has been disavowed in England by other
prominent bodies of suffragists, who deserve honor for their refusal
to be deflected from their “appeal to reason” to a policy which can
only end in disaster. In this number of ~The Century~ we give
place to an article by Mrs. Fawcett, President of the National Union of
Women’s Suffrage Societies, of Great Britain, written at our request
for a disavowal of this policy. If, besides the editorials in the New
York “Evening Post,” there has been any similar official disavowal in
America, it has escaped the attention of one careful reader of the
daily news. Already many men in this country must be asking themselves
whether it is wise to add to the electorate a body of voters who do not
see the perilous influence of tolerating such actions--the influence
not only upon women, but upon other impressionable classes having a
real or fancied grievance.

And now comes another test of the wisdom and patriotism of these
ladies. Before these lines shall be published, Mr. and Mrs. Pethick
Lawrence, two convicted lawbreakers of England, are to be honored by
a reception by the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York,
as Mrs. Pankhurst was received at Carnegie Hall after a similar
conviction. We cannot conceal our sympathy with any person willing
to suffer for opinion’s sake, but in these instances the punishment
was inflicted not for opinion, but for deliberate violation of the
elementary principles of civilized government--by the destruction
of property (usually of unoffending persons) and the creation of
public disorder. Of what use is it for conservative agencies to
address themselves to the discouragement of lynching in the South,
or in Pennsylvania, or of hired assassination in New York City, or
the lawlessness of capital or of labor, or the lawlessness of brutal
students, fashionable smugglers, bribed officials, or “fixed” juries,
when the sentiment of so large and estimable a part of the community
as the advocates of woman suffrage--teachers of the young--fail to see
their responsibility toward their followers and the public? The defense
that “no class has ever obtained its rights except by violence” is both
false and insidious, and sets an example which will rise to plague the
women themselves if they ever obtain a measure of responsible power.
Deeper even than this vicious idea is the world-old delusion--which
has its strongest exponent in politics--that the end justifies the
means. The drift toward the employment of this standard is a hard blow
to those who believe that women are to show us a more excellent way in
government.

Admitting that this policy of terrorizing one’s opponents is valuable
as advertising a movement, it seems never to have occurred to the
advocates of woman suffrage that as effective a presentation of their
cause could have been obtained without violence. Ruskin said that war
would cease in Europe if on the declaration of hostilities Englishwomen
would put on mourning. Ingenuity certainly could devise some form
of _réclame_ more worthy than the precipitation of delicately
minded young women into the program of a New York vaudeville theater.
Something must be allowed to the instinctive protest of human nature
that _everything_ shall not be thrown into the melting-pot of
agitation.




THE NEW WAY OF FINANCING A CAMPAIGN

A NOTE OF POLITICAL HEALTH AND PROGRESS


We called slaveholding and Mormon polygamy “twin relics of barbarism,”
persisting in our modern civilization, and we put an end to them long
ago. We have now made an end of those twin evils of our politics, the
spoils system and secret campaign funds. Ten years of agitation put
the merit system into our laws, the movement for publicity of campaign
contributions, actively urged on after 1904, became effective in less
than six years. The Federal act bears date of June 25, 1910. The
spoils system and the secret campaign fund have the likeness of twins.
Both are a fraud upon the people, both are illegitimate devices for
perpetuating party power, both are indefensible save by frankly and
cynically immoral arguments.

Perhaps the greater evil of the two, as a betrayal of the interests of
the people, is the acceptance by campaign committees of large gifts of
money from persons or corporations who expect, and who have usually
received, much more than the worth of their money in legislative favors
or valuable privilege. There have been many indiscreet revelations
of the theory and practical working of the system. Indignantly
protesting that the highly protected manufacturing interests had been
too niggardly in their giving, one politician gave instructions to
“fry the fat” out of them; and it is notorious that in the field of
tariff legislation the covenant between the party in power and the
corporations that gave bountifully to keep it in power was faithfully
kept. The hand that gave the fund guided the pen that wrote the
schedules. It is equally notorious that with these great sums the
suffrage was corrupted. In one of the States where directions were
given to marshal the “floaters” in “blocks of five,” a distinguished
beneficiary of that process humorously admitted the efficiency of
“soap” in achieving the victory. It was bad, wholly bad; in a republic
no political evil could be much worse.

The completeness of the reform is astonishing. The statute enacted two
years ago and amended last year commands campaign committees to keep
accurate accounts of receipts and expenditures, and sworn detailed
statement of contributions received, with contributors’ names and the
objects for which the money was spent, must be filed with the Clerk of
the House of Representatives fifteen days before the day of election
and every sixth day thereafter; thirty days after election a final
statement must be so filed. The statements are open for inspection and
publication.

This law of publicity has been complied with in this campaign with such
alacrity that two of the party committees “rushed into print” with
their statements of contributions more than a month in advance of the
date fixed by the statute. The Democratic committee gave out the names
and the figures on September 9, and on September 10 the statement of
the Progressive party was given out.

It was then that the public suddenly became aware that this
Presidential campaign is unlike any other in our recent history. The
first striking fact observed was that the total of the contributions
was pitifully meager compared with the royal profusion with which,
according to the prevailing belief, former campaign committees have
been put in funds. The Wilson and Marshall Committee acknowledged the
receipt of $175,000 up to the date of publication, and there were only
three gifts as large as ten thousand dollars; the Roosevelt and Johnson
Committee had received $55,199, and the largest contributions were
two of $15,000 each. Comparison was at once made with the Republican
campaign fund of 1904, amounting to $1,900,000 as stated in testimony
and with old-time individual contributions of $50,000 and $100,000.
The total of the Republican fund in 1896 is not accurately known, but
it was certainly much larger than in 1904.

The second point of unlikeness of this campaign to all others within
any man’s memory is the fact that the fortunes of all three candidates
are committed to the management of men who are amateurs in “big
politics.” The “Zach” Chandlers, the Mark Hannas, the Arthur Pue
Gormans, where are they? If these men have successors in our day, they
are watching and waiting, it may be; certainly they are not in the
strife, they are not at the heads of the committees, they are not the
chief men in the work.

It means that our politics, our political campaign methods, have in
good faith been changed and reformed. As a part of what in the broad
sense, not in any party sense, we may call the progressive movement,
this change is of impressive significance. The machines and the bosses
may devise ways to retain much of their old power under the conditions
of what is called “direct government” of the people in the States,
but now that their dominance is destroyed in respect to the great
quadrennial contest of the parties, it is not easy to see how they can
regain control. They carried on the war of politics with money; they
bartered, when they could, government policies for cash. We have put
an end to all that. The qualities of the candidates, the merits of the
argument, the decision of the people for or against promised measures
and policies, are now to be determining. That is as it should be, it is
the ideal way, in a government by the people. For a government by the
“interests” and the politicians the old way was ideal.

In very truth the publicity of campaign contributions is a reform of
far-reaching vitality and importance, and it is immensely gratifying
that it has been ungrudgingly accepted by those upon whom this
ordinance of great self-denial has been imposed. But the people, the
voters themselves, must understand that their emancipation brings its
duties and responsibilities. It costs a great deal of money properly to
enlighten the electorate upon the issues of a Presidential campaign,
as it is of the very essence of good government that the voter should
make his choice with understanding. Knowledge is necessary, it is to
his interest that he have it, and he should pay the cost of putting
it within his reach. The corporations and the “interests” have been
relieved of this burden of expense. Let the men of the parties assume
it, willingly, for their own benefit, for the benefit of all. Campaign
committees must spend money, yet if at the close of the campaign they
are left with heavy debts, it will not be long before we lapse into the
old, bad conditions. Campaigns can be “financed” with the money of the
voters. A multitude of small individual contributions will fill the
campaign chest, and candidates and party will be under no obligations
save to the people, and those it will be their highest duty to fulfil.




IF LINCOLN COULD RETURN

(FIFTY YEARS AFTER EMANCIPATION)


On Sunday, September 22, in negro churches everywhere, men and women of
dark skin celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the first Emancipation
Proclamation. It was an occasion which might well have been made a day
of heart-searching, to ask ourselves whether, in our treatment of the
negro, the nation as a whole is honoring the memory of Lincoln himself,
and of those who labored, fought, and died to abolish slavery. Are we,
as a nation, dealing fairly with the negro? Or is “The Independent”
correct when it declares that of all our ninety millions there are none
to-day so oppressed as the race that Lincoln freed?

In this number of ~The Century~ we group examples of the work
of four members of the race,--in prose, poetry, art, and musical
composition, the first being a paper of entire authoritativeness and
singular moderation of tone. In it Dr. Washington, with the dauntless
faith and courage which have carried him so far, sets forth his answer
to the question whether the American negro is having a fair chance.
Discouragement he will not admit; he fixes his eyes ever upon the
hopeful signs. When he goes abroad it seems to him the working-classes
of Europe are worse off than our own colored people, whose accessions
from abroad are proof to him that the negro fares nowhere else so well.

That Dr. Washington serves a useful purpose in ever presenting the
cheerful side, is obvious. But he who fifty years after Emancipation
would stop there would see but one side of the question. The shadows
upon the race which the head of Tuskegee glides over so lightly lie
heavily upon ever-growing numbers of intellectual colored people, who
are moved but little by figures of increased negro farm holdings, by
statistics about negro grocers, lawyers, physicians, and teachers.
Grateful as their hearts may be that they are to-day in possession of
their own bodies, they regard the future with troubled eyes.

Looking upon their children they ask with panic fear if these are to be
the children of the ghettos now being established, set apart as though
leprous, with one avenue of advancement after another closed to them,
denied the participation in government guaranteed to them by law, and
in some States put beyond the pale of law. They read that the American
Bar Association has virtually drawn the color line. They read almost
every week of men of their race burned at the stake, North and South;
of their women, done to death, ruthlessly shot out of semblance to
their Maker, by the mobs that destroy them in the name of the purity
of the white race! They read that even Northern communities where the
mob rules, like Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and Springfield, Illinois,
once the very home of Lincoln, fail to punish those who defy the laws
and slay the accused or the innocent with barbarities known in no
other land. They see themselves left out of account in the South by
a leader of a new political party that boasts its desire for “social
justice.” If their children, deprived of school by the thousands, and
depressed and ignorant, without a single influence to uplift, go wrong,
the imputed shame is that of the whole race. Every negro criminal
becomes a living indictment of his people. Bitterest of all, they
cannot defend themselves against official wrong-doing, for having only
a phantom ballot in their hands, the vilest sheriff is beyond their
reach. Moreover, to the injury of the whole body-politic, no adequate
education through self-government is provided for them in this Republic
of Lincoln.

This is the reverse of the picture and its pathos is beyond
description. What would Lincoln say? Would he, if reembodied, declare
that the negro, for all his progress, is having a fair chance, North or
South, to-day?




[Illustration: OPEN LETTERS]




ON THE RELATIVE CLAIMS OF SWEETNESS AND LIGHT

_To One who Thinks Women “Movement-Mad”_


  _Dear Helen_:

A cowardly fear of being funny silenced me last night, but, now,
refreshed by sleep and by your absence, knowing that you are well on
your road, I mount my slow nag, and, armored to be dull, come pricking
after. I know that words are creatures of chance, subject to jeopardy
from all the winds that blow, and that in writing I am only increasing
the hazard of misunderstanding, “harnessing for a yet more perilous
adventure,” but despite this I follow soberly behind, your own words
upon my lips.

[Illustration]

You said, in part, you may recall, that our little group, and
especially the women among us, are movement-mad; that peaceful,
esthetic conversation has been done to death by furious talk on wrongs
and reforms; that the amenities of civilized society, so you said,
have fallen beneath the ax of chop-logic; that even at dinners we
women grow red and shrill over astonishing topics--eugenics, political
nominees, prison menus, and woman suffrage; that art, “the world’s
sweet inn,” has become a house of brawlers; that to speak of dancing
is to bring up in a dance-hall, and to discuss a play is to become
entangled in a wreckage of commandments. All of Pan’s gay world is
silenced, you declared, shut off with a cordon of linked question
marks; that the very laughter in our throats has become brazen and
controversial--the derisive laughter of the Hebrew Scriptures; that,
oh, dreadful climax, you will open your purse to no more reforms,
unless it be to a Society for the Reformation of Manners.

When you quote Falstaff’s plaint that “It were better to be eaten to
death with rust than scoured to nothing with perpetual motion,” I
understand what you mean--that is my misfortune in debate. But are you
really enamoured of rust? You, who would keep all talk in low relief,
sweet, level, and cool as the heads on a Greek frieze, are you not
turning from a world that is alive and alight to wander in a land of
shades?

Esthetic ideals were shaped for us by the centuries that lie between
us and Myron. What wonder that talk moves smoothly upon such age-worn
ways! Slave-owning Greeks and subtle Italians wrought out, in sweat
and toil, arts that were old when a social conscience was an amœba. In
sweat and strife men and women are blazing new trails to-day; and the
overcoming of inertia still generates heat. But, once more, something
comes forth, shining, from the lustration of fire.

Smile down upon us from your tranquil bleacher! It is quite true that
we are ravished by the dazzling, many-sided iridescence of what we take
for a new Truth, hailing its radiance with our uncouth cries. We buffet
hotly the ideas that each is driving toward his goal, but when, out
of the rush and turmoil, some one scores a touchdown the whole field
cheers.

When a new country is discovered--though it be a desert--the explorer
plants his flag with a shout; and there is as high authority, in the
authentic tribune of men’s hearts, for our passion as for your calm.
The “lark of aspiration” must sing as it mounts.

A modern master of friendship has said that, after all, there are only
two real subjects of conversation--love and conduct. As love is best in
tête-à-tête, that leaves us morals. Thinking of it in cold blood, it
seems as though we might be calmer talkers, but when have morals not
been associated with heat, here or hereafter? The part of your charge
that I find strangest is that this noisy super-heatedness, that you
impute to us, is a new evil. Where is your memory, Girl? Mine takes up
the thread about the year that you were born, when people were still
talking back over the questionable morality of one set of men freeing
the slaves of another set, and of the political right of the Southern
States to secede. I see a room, a hollow square of books, the air blue
with smoke, torn by lightning-jags of talk. Voices--raised voices, dear
Lady--talked of Predestination and Free Will. They talked as we poor
weaklings of this Laodicean age may never hope to talk, hurling Eternal
Damnation at each others’ heads and imputations of blasphemy, in horrid
whispers. Goethe’s Elective Affinities and the doctrine of one Thomas
Paine were discussed; Darwin, in relation to the osteoplastic romance
of Eve. Apostolic Succession, Infant Damnation, Predestination--these
are some of the live-wires of another day. I never hear the echo of
raised voices, down the long vista of my past, without realizing that
real talk is going forward--morals, preferably with a dash of love.

To-day, we, true children of those senior wranglers, have inescapably,
in our blood, the passion for moral research; “the invisible masters
that reign in our innermost cells” have predetermined our choice.
The names of all the protagonists have changed; the battleground
has shifted from skyey metaphysics to the slum street; from Infant
Damnation to Certified Milk for Babies; but we, too, are doing battle
for our realities. In the hospitals and the settlement houses are the
children and grandchildren of our old circuit-riders and militant
bishops. The children of those who warred for righteousness still seek
and serve.

Your quarrel is not with our little group of noisy talkers; your
quarrel, Madam, is with the leaven of the world, that froths and foams
and stirs because it is working. In the stormy schools of religious
controversy--in that old, warm talk on morals, when the souls of men
were the stake--we learned that we are our brothers’ keepers, and that
idea, once generated, will be conserved, generation by generation,
and the force of it will not be lost. As they strove to insure to men
eternal life, their children strive that men may inherit the earth.

Our contention, yours and mine, is the old Hellenic-Hebraic clash of
ideals.

“Beauty and Light!” you cry.

“Justice and Right!” comes the response.

We are both right, but my right is deeper and more elemental than
yours. Yours exists for a few, happy, chosen spirits; mine for the
whole, wide travailing world. Yours rests upon mine; mine does not
rest upon yours.

“Rest!” you jeer. “You people never rest, and you let no one else rest.”

“‘Restfulness,’” I cry, with inky vivacity, “Stevenson told us long ago
that ‘restfulness is a quality for cattle.’”

“Ah, Chantecler! Chantecler!” I hear you murmur, “when will you learn
the secret of the dawn.”

Well, you see I have given you the last word, at least.

  As ever yours,
  _Louise Herrick Wall_.




[Illustration: IN LIGHTER VEIN]




AFTER-DINNER STORIES

BY SYLVESTER MENLO


BEARDING WHISTLER IN HIS DEN

The following anecdote of Whistler was told by the painter himself.

One day when Whistler was absorbingly busy in painting the portrait of
a prominent American gentleman, a ring was heard at his studio bell,
and his man-servant appeared with the cards of a certain rich American
lady and her husband, saying they would like very much to see him. He
sent word that he was closely occupied with a sitter, and begged them
to excuse him. But the servant brought back word that the lady had come
from America for the distinct purpose of having him paint her portrait,
and that it was necessary for her to have an interview. He immediately
sent word down that interviews could be had only by appointment, and he
regretted that he could not receive her. But despite this rebuff, the
lady and her escort succeeded in passing the guard, and were soon heard
mounting the stairs; whereupon Whistler said to his sitter:

“Oh, Jack, for heaven’s sake, do go and send her away!”

At the top of the landing the sitter found the lady and her husband.
He expostulated with her on her intrusion, but was unable to make any
impression upon her, and so reported to the painter, who finally came
out with a handful of wet brushes between his fingers and advanced upon
the enemy with a determined manner, and, as he went toward her, pushing
his hand in front of him, to the imminent danger of spoiling a very
beautiful costume arranged for an effective portrait.

It was very amusing to see Whistler punctuating his remarks with
the jerks of his hand in which he had put two or three pencils to
illustrate the situation.

“My dear Madam,” he said [forward gesture], “you must know [gesture
repeated] that an artist [another gesture] cannot be interrupted in
his work [deprecatory gesture], and I must ask you kindly to desist
from this intrusion [forward gesture]. It is impossible for me to make
arrangements [gesture] except by appointment, and I am obliged to ask
you [gesture] to be so good as to excuse me.” As he approached her,
the lady was obliged to retire a few inches, until she reached the
top of the landing, when Whistler, seeing that she acknowledged her
discomfiture, bade her good morning as she took her leave. The painter
did not mention the lady’s name.

On the conclusion of the anecdote, one of his auditors said, “You must
have a great many such experiences with the _nouveaux riches_, Mr.
Whistler.”

“Ah, yes, ah, yes,” he said; “and it takes them a long time to grow up
to the portraits we make of them.”


“RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN”

In the early days of a certain club of New York, when it was rather
harder sledding for the club than it is at the present time, in a
meeting of the council the question came up as to the arrears of
members’ dues, and the treasurer reported that one man was particularly
recreant in this regard. It was in the winter, and the club was
then maintaining throughout the day and evening beautifully heated
and lighted quarters. At this time the only person in the club
who frequented it every day was this delinquent, who, in addition
to doing a large portion of his writing there, was accustomed to
make considerable inroads upon the stationery of the club for home
consumption.

At the meeting of the council referred to, there was protest against
this state of affairs, and a determination was manifest to put an end
to it, and after discussion the secretary was instructed to notify the
member in question that his name had been dropped from the rolls of the
club.

The question then arose whether there was anybody else who was in
arrears, whereupon the treasurer reported that this was true of another
member.

“Who can that be? Let us make an example of them both,” remarked one
member, bringing his fist down on the table for emphasis. The reply was
that it was Mr. X----, the poet.

“Oh, heavens!” replied another. “We can’t let X---- go. He’s too
important to the club.”

Whereupon the resolution was amended to read as follows: “Resolved,
that the secretary be instructed to drop the name of Mr. Q---- from the
rolls of the club for non-payment of dues, and to retain the name of
Mr. X---- for the same reason.”


SERVICEABLE FRENCH

Some years ago a young American woman, Miss G----, met at a Paris
pension a compatriot, a spinster. One evening the conversation turned
upon the study of languages. Miss G----, though she had lived some time
in Paris, expressed an indifference to acquiring French, and said,
with an air of concluding the matter, that on the whole she thought a
knowledge of French took away very much from the feeling of strangeness
which one had in the country, to which Miss G---- warmly assented.

“But, Miss S----,” she said, “you certainly know _some_ French;
otherwise it would be very difficult for you to find your way about the
city.”

“Oh, yes,” responded the older lady, “I know some French--quite enough
for all practical purposes.”

“For instance,” pursued Miss G----, who herself spoke French very
beautifully, “what do you do when you wish a _cocher_ to drive
faster?”

“Oh,” was the response, “that’s easy enough. I simply rise, poke him
in the back with my parasol, and”--shaking her hands, palms forward,
nervously--“I say, ‘Rapidilly, rapidilly!’ Oh, I know French enough for
that.”


THE PLAINT OF THE SOREHEAD

BY JAMES D. CORROTHERS

    ’Twa’n’t ’zackly de ack o’ “de Pahty,”
      ’Twus slidin’ too quick f’om de fence,
    Wid an appetite ovahly h’ahty--
      An’ _dis_ am de quinsequence!
    Nothin’ “comfo’tin’” visible!
      Laud! but it’s suttainly tough!--
    Mis’able, mis’able, mis’able!--
      Mis’able enough!

    I worked foh “de Pahty” last ’lection;
      An’ winked at de Dimocrats, too,
    Thinkin’ I’d “make a collection”
      F’om _one_ uv ’em, sho!--wouldn’t you?
    But heah I sets, sad an’ commis’able--
      I _tell_ you dey’s treated me rough!
    Mis’able, mis’able, mis’able!--
      Mis’able, sho’ ’nough!


APE OWE ’EM

BY DEEMS TAYLOR

    When fur stews can this sill leer I’m,
      Toot rye tomb ache theme e’en ink Lear,
    Youth inked wood butt bee weigh sting thyme;
      Use eh, “It’s imp lean on scents, shear!”

    Gnome attar; Anna lies align!
      Nation mice lender verse says knot--
    Fork rip tick poet real Ike mine,
      How Aaron weal, demesnes allot.


THEN AND NOW

BY CAROLYN WELLS

    When my jokes appeal to the editors’ mind,
      And they send me word they’ve kept ’em;
    I am so glad if they’re the kind
      Who pay when they accept ’em.

    Months later, when in print I find
      My charming lucubration;
    I am so glad if they’re the kind
      Who pay on publication.

[Illustration: AMBIDEXTROUS

“Oh! Jack, I’m so sorry you’ve hurt your arm.”]


[Illustration: Copyright, 1912, by John T. McCutcheon

“WHEN IMMORTAL MEETS IMMORTAL”

A PROPHETIC CARTOON. BY JOHN T. McCUTCHEON

(Both Mr. Woodrow Wilson and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt are members of
the American Academy of Arts and Letters.)

This drawing, made for the Chicago “Tribune,” before the nomination of
either candidate, is here reprinted by permission.]




LIMERICKS

TEXT AND PICTURES BY OLIVER HERFORD


[Illustration]


XVII--THE FINANCIER FOX

    There once was a plausible fox
    Who explained that he dabbled in “stocks,”
        But they found out one day
        “Live stock” was his “lay,”
    When he “cornered” ten prize Plymouth Rocks.


[Illustration]


XVIII--THE FASTIDIOUS YAK

    There was once a fastidious yak
    Who refused to eat hay from a stack.
      “A haystack,” said he,
      “Looks so very like me!”
    (The haystack’s the one at the back.)


THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW YORK




[Illustration]

How +did+ you make this pie so delicious?

“Why it was easy enough. I tried the new way that I found in my Libby’s
recipe booklet. Here it is--”

  =Pumpkin Pie=: 1½ cups cooked and strained pumpkin, 2 eggs, ¾
  cup sugar, ¼ cup molasses, ½ tablespoonful cinnamon, ½ tablespoonful
  ginger, ¼ teaspoonful salt, 1 cup (½ can) Libby’s Evaporated Milk,
  with 1 cupful water. Mix pumpkin, molasses, sugar and spices
  together. Add the mixed milk and water, then add the eggs thoroughly
  beaten. Mix well and put into deep pie tins lined with pastry. Bake
  45 minutes in moderate oven.


  _Libby’s_ Evaporated
  Milk

[Illustration]

For pies and all baking, for soups, coffee, tea or cocoa Libby’s milk
gives an added richness and a delicious flavor.

Libby’s milk is evaporated in clean, sanitary condenseries, located in
the heart of the greatest dairy regions in the world. It is always pure
and when open will keep sweet longer than raw milk.

Buy Libby’s milk for convenience and satisfaction. It’s the brand you
can trust.

_Send for a copy of Libby’s Milk Recipe Booklet_


  Libby, M^c.Neill & Libby
  Chicago




[Illustration: _Have you smoked one lately?_

EL Principe de Gales

  Havana
  Cigars
]