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STANDARD SELECTIONS
A COLLECTION AND ADAPTATION OF SUPERIOR
PRODUCTIONS FROM BEST AUTHORS
FOR USE IN CLASS ROOM AND
ON THE PLATFORM
ARRANGED AND EDITED BY
ROBERT I. FULTON
DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORATORY AND PROFESSOR OF ELOCUTION
AND ORATORY IN THE OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
THOMAS C. TRUEBLOOD
PROFESSOR OF ELOCUTION AND ORATORY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
AND
EDWIN P. TRUEBLOOD
PROFESSOR OF ELOCUTION AND ORATORY IN EARLHAM COLLEGE
GINN AND COMPANY
BOSTON . NEW YORK . CHICAGO . LONDON
ATLANTA . DALLAS . COLUMBUS . SAN FRANCISCO
COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY
R. I. FULTON, T. C. TRUEBLOOD, AND E. P. TRUEBLOOD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Athenaeum Press
GINN AND COMPANY . PROPRIETORS
BOSTON . U.S.A.
PREFACE
The purpose of the compilers of this volume is:--
_First_, to provide some new material in poetry and eloquence that has
never before appeared in books of this character, in addition to many
standard selections familiar to the general public;
_Second_, to furnish selections that will stand the test of literary
criticism and at the same time prove to be popular and successful for
public entertainment;
_Third_, to offer for the use of classes in public speaking such
carefully selected literature of varied scope as will be helpful and
stimulating in the practice of reading aloud and profitable in acquiring
power of vocal interpretation;
_Fourth_, to stimulate interest in the works of the authors from whom we
have chosen and in the speeches or books from which extracts have been
taken;
_Fifth_, to present as models for students in public speaking notable
specimens of eloquence, among which are masterpieces of the seven great
orators of the world and from the six great triumphs in the history of
American oratory;
_Sixth_, to provide carefully chosen scenes from a few standard, modern
dramas for class-room and platform use. In these scenes the attempt has
been made to preserve the spirit and unity of the plays, to shorten them
to practical length, and to adapt them to the demands of the public
audience.
To avoid reprinting material which is already universally accessible, we
have inserted no scenes from Shakespeare; but the reader is referred to
Fulton and Trueblood's "Choice Readings" (published by Ginn and
Company), which contains copious Indexes to choice scenes from
Shakespeare, the Bible, and hymn-books. The two volumes include a wide
field of literature best suited for public speaking.
The selections throughout the book are arranged under six different
classes and cover a wide range of thought and emotion. While many shades
of feeling may be found in the same selection, it has been our aim to
place each one under the division with which, as a whole, it is most
closely allied.
We are grateful to the many authors and publishers who have courteously
permitted us to use their publications. Instead of naming them in the
preface we have chosen to make due acknowledgment in a footnote wherever
their selections appear in the volume.
F. AND T.
CONTENTS
I
NARRATIVE, DESCRIPTIVE, PATHETIC
PAGE
Arena Scene from "Quo Vadis?" The _Sienkiewicz._ 1
Arrow and the Song, The _Longfellow._ 8
Aux Italiens _Lytton._ 8
Bobby Shafto _Henry._ 12
Carcassonne _Nadaud._ 13
Child-wife, The _Dickens._ 15
Count Gismond _Browning._ 21
Death of Arbaces, The _Lytton._ 25
Dora _Tennyson._ 32
Easter with Parepa, An _Delano._ 37
Evening Bells, Those _Moore._ 41
Ginevra _Coolidge._ 42
High Tide at Lincolnshire, The _Ingelow._ 47
How Did You Die? _Cooke._ 52
Indigo Bird, The _Burroughs._ 53
Jackdaw of Rheims, The _Barham._ 54
Jaffar _Hunt._ 57
Jim Bludsoe _Hay._ 59
King Robert of Sicily _Longfellow._ 61
Lady of Shalott, The _Tennyson._ 67
Legend of Service, A _Van Dyke._ 72
Little Boy Blue _Field._ 76
Mary's Night Ride _Cable._ 77
Nydia, the Blind Girl _Lytton._ 80
O Captain, My Captain! _Whitman._ 88
On the Other Train _Anon._ 89
Pansy, The _Anon._ 92
"Revenge," The _Tennyson._ 94
Rider of the Black Horse, The _Lippard._ 98
Sailing beyond Seas _Ingelow._ 101
Sands of Dee, The _Kingsley._ 102
School of Squeers, The _Dickens._ 103
Secret of Death, The _Arnold._ 110
Shamus O'Brien _Le Fanu._ 113
Ships, My _Wilcox._ 117
Soldier's Reprieve, The _Robbins._ 118
Song, The _Scott._ 123
Stirrup Cup, The _Hay._ 124
Swan-song, The _Brooks._ 125
Sweet Afton _Burns._ 129
Violet's Blue _Henry._ 130
Waterfowl, To a _Bryant._ 132
Wedding Gown, The _Pierce._ 133
When the Snow Sifts Through _Gillilan._ 137
Wild Flower, To a _Thompson._ 138
Zoroaster, The Fate of _Crawford._ 139
II
SOLEMN, REVERENTIAL, SUBLIME
Centennial Hymn _Whittier._ 144
Chambered Nautilus, The _Holmes._ 145
Crossing the Bar _Tennyson._ 146
Destruction of Sennacherib, The _Byron._ 147
Each and All _Emerson._ 148
Laus Deo! _Whittier._ 149
Pilgrim Fathers, The _Hemans._ 151
Present Crisis, The _Lowell._ 152
Recessional, The _Kipling._ 155
Sacredness of Work, The _Carlyle._ 156
What's Hallowed Ground? _Campbell._ 157
III
PATRIOTIC, HEROIC, ORATORICAL
The Seven Great Orators of the World 159
I. Demosthenes
Encroachments of Philip, The 159
II. Cicero
Oration against Antony 162
III. Chrysostom
Undue Lamentations over the Dead 165
On Applauding Preachers 167
IV. Bossuet
On the Death of the Prince of Conde 169
V. Chatham
I. War with America 171
II. Attempt to Subjugate America 173
VI. Burke
I. Impeachment of Hastings 175
II. Conciliation with America 178
III. English Privileges in America 182
VII. Webster
I. Bunker Hill Monument 185
II. Revolutionary Patriots 188
III. Character of Washington 191
Six Great Triumphs in the History of American Oratory 193
I. Henry
Call to Arms, The 193
II. Hamilton
Coercion of Delinquent States 196
III. Webster
Reply to Hayne, The 199
IV. Phillips
Murder of Lovejoy, The 202
V. Lincoln
Slavery Issue, The 206
VI. Beecher
Moral Aspect of the American War 208
Abolition of War _Sumner._ 212
American Flag, The _Beecher._ 215
American People, The _Beveridge._ 217
American Question, The _Bright._ 218
America's Relation to Missions _Angell._ 220
American Slavery _Bright._ 222
Armenian Massacres, The _Gladstone._ 222
Battle Hymn of the Republic _Howe._ 225
Blue and the Gray, The _Lodge._ 226
Corruption of Prelates _Savonarola._ 228
Cross of Gold, The _Bryan._ 231
Death of Congressman Burnes _Ingalls._ 235
Death of Garfield, The _Blaine._ 237
Death of Grady, The _Graves._ 246
Death of Toussaint L'Ouverture _Phillips._ 239
Dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery, The _Lincoln._ 241
Fallen Heroes of Japan, The _Togo._ 242
Glory of Peace, The _Sumner._ 248
Hope of the Republic, The _Grady._ 249
Hungarian Heroism _Kossuth._ 250
International Relations _McKinley._ 251
Irish Home Rule _Gladstone._ 255
Lincoln _Castelar._ 258
Lincoln _Garfield._ 260
Louisiana Purchase Exposition _Hay._ 261
Man with the Muck-rake, The _Roosevelt._ 264
Message to the Squadron _Togo._ 271
Minute Man, The _Curtis._ 273
More Perfect Union, A _Curtis._ 275
Napoleon _Corwin._ 278
Napoleon _Ingersoll._ 279
National Control of Corporations _Roosevelt._ 280
Negro, The _Grady._ 283
New England _Quincy._ 284
New South, The _Grady._ 284
O'Connell _Phillips._ 290
Open Door, The _Henry._ 292
Organization of the World _Mead._ 294
Permanency of Empire, The _Phillips._ 296
Pilgrims, The _Phillips._ 297
Principles of the Founders _Mead._ 299
Responsibility of War, The _Channing._ 302
Scotland _Flagg._ 304
Secession _Stephens._ 243
Second Inaugural Address _Lincoln._ 305
Slavery and the Union _Lincoln._ 307
Subjugation of the Filipino _Hoar._ 309
Sufferings and Destiny of the Pilgrims _Everett._ 312
To Arms _Kossuth._ 313
True American Patriotism _Cockran_. 314
Vision of War _Ingersoll_. 315
War in the Twentieth Century _Mead_. 318
Washington _Phillips_. 321
IV
GAY, HUMOROUS, COMIC
A Boy's Mother _Riley_. 323
Almost beyond Endurance _Riley_. 324
Bird in the Hand, A _Weatherly_. 328
Breaking the Charm _Dunbar_. 325
Candle Lightin' Time _Dunbar_. 327
"Day of Judgment, The" _Phelps_. 330
De Appile Tree _Harris_. 335
Dooley on La Grippe Microbes _Dunne_. 337
Doctrinal Discussion, A _Edwards_. 340
Finnigin to Flannigan _Gillilan_. 343
Gavroche and the Elephant _Hugo_. 345
Hazing of Valiant, The _Anon_. 349
Hindoo's Paradise, The _Anon_. 353
If I Knew _Anon_. 354
Imaginary Invalid, The _Jerome_. 354
Jane Jones _King_. 357
Knee-deep in June _Riley_. 359
Little Breeches _Hay_. 362
Low-Backed Car, The _Lover_. 364
Mammy's Pickanin' _Jenkins_. 366
Mandalay _Kipling_. 368
Mr. Coon and Mr. Rabbit _Harris_. 370
Money Musk _Taylor_. 373
One-legged Goose, The _Smith_. 375
Pessimist, The _King_. 379
Schneider Sees Leah _Anon_. 380
Superfluous Man, The _Saxe_. 384
Usual Way, The _Anon_. 386
Wedding Fee, The _Streeter_. 387
When Malindy Sings _Dunbar_. 389
When the Cows Come Home _Mitchell_. 391
V
DRAMATIC, NOT IN THE DRAMA
Confessional, The _Anon._ 395
Jean Valjean and the Good Bishop _Hugo_. 400
Lasca _Anon._ 404
Michael Strogoff _Verne_. 408
Mrs. Tree _Richards_. 414
Portrait, The _Lytton_. 423
Tell-tale Heart, The _Poe_. 426
Uncle, The _Bell_. 431
VI
SCENES FROM THE DRAMA
Beau Brummell, Act I, Scene I; Act II, Scene 3 _Jerrold_. 468
Bells, The, Act III, Scene I _Williams_. 437
Lady of Lyons, The, Act II, Scene I; Act III,
Scene 2 _Lytton_. 441
Pygmalion and Galatea, Act I, Scene I; Act II,
Scene I _Gilbert_. 493
Rip Van Winkle, Act I, Scene I; Act II, Scene I _Irving_. 449
Rivals, The, Act I, Scene 2; Act II, Scene I;
Act III, Scene I; Act IV, Scene 2 _Sheridan_. 454
Set of Turquoise, The, Act I, Scene I; Act I,
Scene 2 _Aldrich_. 478
She Stoops to Conquer, Act II, Scene I _Goldsmith_. 486
INDEX OF AUTHORS 509
STANDARD SELECTIONS
I
NARRATIVE, DESCRIPTIVE, PATHETIC
THE ARENA SCENE FROM "QUO VADIS"[1]
HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ
The Roman Empire in the first century presents the most revolting
picture of mankind to be found in the pages of history. Society founded
on superior force, on the most barbarous cruelty, on crime and mad
profligacy, was corrupt beyond the power of words to describe. Rome
ruled the world, but was also its ulcer, and the horrible monster, Nero,
guilty of all hideous and revolting crimes, seems a fit monarch for such
a people.
A few years ago appeared "Quo Vadis?" the story from which this
selection is made. The book attained so great a popularity, that it was
translated into almost every tongue. In spite of its many faults, it
invited the attention, and, although it shocked the sensibilities, when
its great purpose was understood it melted the heart.
The author drew a startlingly vivid and horrible picture of humanity at
this lowest stage, and in conflict with it he showed us the Christ
spirit.
The extract is the story of how the young Vinicius, a patrician, a
soldier, a courtier of Nero, through the labyrinth of foul sin, of
self-worship and self-indulgence, with love for his guide, found his
way home to the feet of Him who commanded, "Be ye pure even as I am
pure."
It is the love story of Vinicius and the Princess Lygia, a convert to
Christ. The girl's happy and innocent life was rudely disturbed by a
summons to the court of the profligate emperor. Arrived there, she found
that Nero had given her to Vinicius, who had fallen passionately in love
with her; but on the way to Vinicius' house she was rescued by the giant
Ursus, one of her devoted attendants and a member of her own faith. They
escaped in safety to the Christians, who were living in hiding in the
city.
The imperious nature of the youthful soldier for the first time in his
life met resistance. He was so transported with rage and disappointment
that he ordered the slaves from whom Lygia had escaped to be flogged to
death, while he set out to find the girl who had dared to thwart his
desire. His egotism was so great that he would have seen the city and
the whole world sunk in ruins rather than fail of his purpose. For days
and days his search was unceasing, and at last he found Lygia, but in
making a second attempt to carry her off was severely wounded by the
giant Ursus. Finding himself helpless in the Christians' hands, he
expected nothing but death; but instead he was carefully and tenderly
nursed back to health. Waking from his delirium, he found at his bedside
Lygia--Lygia, whom he had most injured, watching alone, while the others
had gone to rest. Gradually in his pagan head the idea began to hatch
with difficulty that at the side of naked beauty, confident and proud of
Greek and Roman symmetry, there is another in the world, new, immensely
pure, in which a soul resides. As the days went by, Vinicius was
thrilled to the very depths of his soul by the consciousness that Lygia
was learning to love him. With that revelation came the certain
conviction that his religion would forever make an inseparable barrier
between them. Then he hated Christianity with all the powers of his
soul, yet he could not but acknowledge that it had adorned Lygia with
that exceptional, unexplained beauty, which was producing in his heart
besides love, respect; besides desire, homage. Yet, when he thought of
accepting the religion of the Nazarene, all the Roman in him rose up in
revolt against the idea. He knew that if he were to accept that teaching
he would have to throw, as on a burning pile, all his thoughts, ideas,
ambitions, habits of life, his very nature up to that moment, burn them
into ashes and fill himself with an entirely new life, and from his soul
he cried that it was impossible; it was impossible!
Before Vinicius had entirely recovered Nero commanded his presence at
Antium, whither the court was going for the hot summer months. Nero was
ambitious to write an immortal epic poem which should rival the
"Odyssey," and in order that he might describe realistically a burning
city, gave a secret command while he was in Antium that Rome should be
set on fire.
One evening, when the court was assembled to hear Nero recite some of
his poetry, a slave appeared.
"Pardon, Divine Imperator, Rome is burning! The whole city is a sea of
flames!" A moment of horrified silence followed, broken by the cry of
Vinicius. He rushed forth, and, springing on his horse, dashed into the
deep night. A horseman, rushing also like a whirlwind, but in the
opposite direction, toward Antium, shouted as he raced past: "Rome is
perishing!" To the ears of Vinicius came only one more expression:
"Gods!" The rest was drowned by the thunder of hoofs. But the expression
sobered him. "Gods!" He raised his head suddenly, and, stretching his
arms toward the sky filled with stars, began to pray.
"Not to you, whose temples are burning, do I call, but to Thee. Thou
Thyself hast suffered. Thou alone hast understood people's pain. If Thou
art what Peter and Paul declare, save Lygia. Seek her in the burning;
save her and I will give Thee my blood!"
Before he had reached the top of the mountain he felt the wind on his
face, and with it the odor of smoke came to his nostrils. He touched the
summit at last, and then a terrible sight struck his eyes. The whole
lower region was covered with smoke, but beyond this gray, ghastly plain
the city was burning on the hills. The conflagration had not the form of
a pillar, but of a long belt, shaped like the dawn.
Vinicius' horse, choking with the smoke, became unmanageable. He sprang
to the earth and rushed forward on foot. The tunic began to smolder on
him in places; breath failed his lungs; strength failed his bones; he
fell! Two men, with gourds full of water, ran to him and bore him away.
When he regained consciousness he found himself in a spacious cave,
lighted with torches and tapers. He saw a throng of people kneeling, and
over him bent the tender, beautiful face of his soul's beloved.
Lygia was indeed safe from the burning, but before the first thrill of
relief was over an infinitely more horrible danger threatened her. The
people were in wrath and threatened violence to Nero and his court, for
it was popularly believed that the city had been set on fire at the
emperor's instigation. The coward, Nero, was startled and thoroughly
alarmed, and welcomed gladly the suggestion that the calamity should be
blamed on the Christians, who were viewed with great suspicion by the
common people, and obliged even then to live in hiding. In order to
clear himself and to divert the people's minds, he instituted at once
against the Christians the most horrible persecutions that have ever
stained man's history. For days and days the people came in countless
numbers to witness the tortures of the innocent victims; but at last
they grew weary of blood-spilling. Then it was given out that Nero had
arranged a climax for the last of the Christians who were to die at an
evening spectacle in a brilliantly lighted amphitheater. Chief interest
both of the Augustinians and the people centered in Lygia and Vinicius,
for the story of their love was now generally known, and everybody felt
that Nero was intending to make a tragedy for himself out of the
suffering of Vinicius.
At last the evening arrived. The sight was in truth magnificent. All
that was powerful, brilliant and wealthy in Rome was there. The lower
seats were crowded with togas as white as snow. In a gilded padium sat
Nero, wearing a diamond collar and a golden crown upon his head. Every
eye was turned with strained gaze to the place where the unfortunate
lover was sitting. He was exceedingly pale, and his forehead was covered
with drops of sweat. To his tortured mind came the thought that faith of
itself would spare Lygia. Peter had said that faith would move the earth
to its foundations. He crushed doubt in himself, compressed his whole
being into the sentence, "I believe," and he looked for a miracle.
The prefect of the city waved a red handkerchief, and out of the dark
gully into the brilliantly lighted arena came Ursus. In Rome there was
no lack of gladiators, larger by far than the common measure of man; but
Roman eyes had never seen the like of Ursus. The people gazed with the
delight of experts at his mighty limbs, as large as tree trunks; at his
breast, as large as two shields joined together, and his arms of a
Hercules. He was unarmed, and had determined to die as became a follower
of the Lamb, peacefully and patiently. Meanwhile he wished to pray once
more to the Saviour. So he knelt on the arena, joined his hands and
raised his eyes towards the stars. This act displeased the crowd. They
had had enough of those Christians, who died like sheep. They understood
that if the giant would not defend himself, the spectacle would be a
failure. Here and there hisses were heard. Some began to cry for
scourgers, whose office it was to lash combatants unwilling to fight.
But soon all had grown silent, for no one knew what was waiting for the
giant, nor whether he would not defend himself when he met death eye to
eye.
In fact, they had not long to wait. Suddenly the shrill sound of brazen
trumpets was heard, and at that signal into the arena rushed, amid the
shouts of the beast-keepers, an enormous German aurochs, bearing on his
head the naked body of a woman.
Vinicius sprang to his feet.
"Lygia! Oh, ... I believe! I believe! Oh, Christ, a miracle! a miracle!"
And he did not even know that Petronius had covered his head at that
moment with a toga. He did not look; he did not see. The feeling of some
awful emptiness possessed him. In his head there remained not a thought.
His lips merely repeated as if in madness, "I believe! I believe! I
believe!"
This time the amphitheater was silent, for in the arena something
uncommon had happened. That giant, obedient and ready to die, when he
saw his queen on the horns of the wild beast, sprang up, as if touched
by living fire, and, bending forward, he ran at the raging animal.
From all breasts a sudden cry of amazement was heard, as the giant fell
on the raging bull and seized him by the horns. And then came deep
silence. All breasts ceased to breathe. In the amphitheater a fly might
be heard on the wing. People could not believe their own eyes. Since
Rome was Rome no one had ever seen such a spectacle. The man's feet sank
in the sand to his ankle; his back was bent like a bow; his head was
hidden between his shoulders; on his arms the muscles came out so that
the skin almost burst from their pressure; but he had stopped the bull
in his tracks. The man and the bull remained so still that the
spectators thought themselves looking at a group hewn in stone. But in
that apparent repose there was a tremendous exertion of two struggling
forces. The bull's feet, as well as the man's, sank in the sand, and the
dark, shaggy body was curved so that it seemed a gigantic ball. Which
of the two would fail first? Which would fall first?
Meanwhile a dull roar resembling a groan was heard from the arena, after
which a brief shout was wrested from every breast, and again there was
silence. Duller and duller, hoarser and hoarser, more and more painful
grew the groan of the bull as it mingled with the whistling breath from
the breast of the giant. The head of the beast began to turn in the iron
hands of the barbarian, and from his jaws crept forth a long, foaming
tongue. A moment more and to the ears of the spectators sitting nearer
came, as it were, the crack of breaking bones; then the beast rolled on
the earth, dead.
The giant removed in a twinkling the ropes that bound the maiden to the
horns of the bull. His face was very pale; he stood as if only half
conscious; then he raised his eyes and looked at the spectators.
The amphitheater had gone wild. The walls of the building were trembling
from the roar of tens of thousands of people.
Everywhere were heard cries for mercy, passionate and persistent, which
soon turned into one unbroken thunder.
The giant understood that they were asking for his life and liberty, but
his thoughts were not for himself. He raised the unconscious maiden in
his arms, and, going to Nero's padium, held her up and looked up
imploringly.
Vinicius sprang over the barrier, which separated the lower seats from
the arena, and, running to Lygia, covered her with his toga.
Then he tore apart the tunic on his breast, laid bare the scars left by
wounds received in the Armenian war, and stretched out his hands to the
multitude.
At this the enthusiasm passed everything ever seen in a circus before.
Voices choking with tears began to demand mercy. Yet Nero halted and
hesitated. He would have preferred to see the giant and the maiden rent
by the horns of the bull.
Nero was alarmed. He understood that to oppose longer was simply
dangerous. A disturbance begun in the circus might seize the whole city.
He looked once more, and, seeing everywhere frowning brows, excited
faces and eyes fixed on him, he slowly raised his hand and gave the sign
for mercy.
Then a thunder of applause broke from the highest seats to the lowest.
But Vinicius heard it not. He dropped on his knees in the arena,
stretched his hands toward heaven and cried: "I believe! Oh, Christ! I
believe! I believe!"
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Copyright, 1896, by Jeremiah Curtin.
THE ARROW AND THE SONG[2]
H. W. LONGFELLOW
I shot an arrow into the air.
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air.
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song.
Long, long afterward, in an oak,
I found the arrow still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Used by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers of his
works.
AUX ITALIENS
R. BULWER LYTTON
At Paris it was, at the opera there;
And she looked like a queen that night,
With a wreath of pearl in her raven hair,
And the brooch in her breast so bright.
Of all the operas that Verdi wrote,
The best, to my taste, is the "Trovatore":
And Mario can soothe, with a tenor note,
The souls in purgatory.
The moon on the tower slept soft as snow;
And who was not thrilled in the strangest way,
As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low,
"_Non ti scordar di me?_"
The Emperor there in his box of state,
Looked grave; as if he had just then seen
The red flag wave from the city gate,
Where the eagles in bronze had been.
The Empress, too, had a tear in her eye;
You'd have thought that her fancy had gone back again,
For one moment, under the old blue sky,
To that old glad life in Spain.
Well! there in our front row box we sat
Together, my bride betrothed and I;
My gaze was fixed on my opera hat,
And hers on the stage hard by.
And both were silent and both were sad;
Like a queen she leaned on her full white arm,
With that regal indolent air she had;
So confident of her charm!
I have not a doubt she was thinking then
Of her former lord, good soul that he was,
Who died the richest and roundest of men,
The Marquis of Carabas.
I hope that, to get to the kingdom of heaven,
Through a needle's eye he had not to pass;
I wish him well for the jointure given
To my lady of Carabas.
Meanwhile I was thinking of my first love
As I had not been thinking of aught for years;
Till over my eyes there began to move
Something that felt like tears.
I thought of the dress that she wore last time,
When we stood neath the cypress-trees together,
In that lost land, in that soft clime,
In the crimson evening weather;
Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot);
And her warm white neck in its golden chain;
And her full soft hair just tied in a knot,
And falling loose again.
And the Jasmine flower in her fair young breast;
(O the faint sweet smell of that Jasmine flower!)
And the one bird singing alone to its nest;
And the one star over the tower.
I thought of our little quarrels and strife,
And the letter that brought me back my ring;
And it all seemed there in the waste of life,
Such a very little thing.
For I thought of her grave below the hill,
Which the sentinel cypress-tree stands over;
And I thought, "Were she only living still,
How I could forgive her and love her!"
And I swear as I thought of her thus in that hour,
And of how, after all, old things are best,
That I smelt the smell of that Jasmine flower
Which she used to wear in her breast.
And I turned and looked; she was sitting there,
In a dim box over the stage; and drest
In that muslin dress, with that full soft hair,
And that Jasmine in her breast!
I was here, and she was there;
And the glittering horse-shoe curved between;--
From my bride betrothed, with her raven hair
And her sumptuous scornful mien,
To my early love with her eyes downcast,
And over her primrose face the shade,
(In short from the future back to the past)
There was but a step to be made.
To my early love from my future bride
One moment I looked, then I stole to the door,
I traversed the passage; and down at her side
I was sitting a moment more.
My thinking of her or the music's strain,
Or something which never will be expressed,
Had brought her back from the grave again,
With the Jasmine in her breast.
She is not dead, and she is not wed!
But she loves me now and she loved me then!
And the very first words that her sweet lips said,
My heart grew youthful again.
The Marchioness there, of Carabas,
She is wealthy and young and handsome still,
And but for her ... well, we'll let that pass;
She may marry whomever she will.
But I will marry my own first love,
With her primrose face, for old things are best;
And the flower in her bosom, I prize it above
The brooch in my lady's breast.
The world is filled with folly and sin,
And love must cling where it can, I say,
For beauty is easy enough to win,
But one isn't loved every day.
And I think in the lives of most women and men,
There's a moment when all would go smooth and even,
If only the dead could find out when
To come back and be forgiven.
But O! the smell of that Jasmine flower!
And O that music! and O the way
That voice rang out from the donjon tower,
_Non ti scordar di me,
Non ti scordar di me!_
BOBBY SHAFTO[3]
DANIEL HENRY, JR.
_Theme._
"Bobby Shafto's gone to sea:--
Silver buckles on his knee--
He'll come back and marry me,
Pretty Bobby Shafto!"
"Mother Goose Melodies."
"With his treasures won at sea,
Spanish gold and Portugee,
And his heart, still fast to me,
Pretty Bobby Shafto!
"In a captain's pomp and pride,
With a gold sword at his side,
He'll come back to claim his bride,
Pretty Bobby Shafto!"
So she sang, the winter long,
Till the sun came, golden-strong,
And the blue birds caught her song:
All of Bobby Shafto.
Days went by, and autumn came,
Eyes grew dim, and feet went lame,
But the song, it was the same,
All of Bobby Shafto.
Never came across the sea,
Silver buckles on his knee,
Bobby to his bride-to-be,
Fickle Bobby Shafto!
For where midnight never dies,
In the Storm-King's caves of ice,
Stiff and stark, poor Bobby lies--
Heigho! Bobby Shafto.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] From "Under a Fool's Cap."
CARCASSONNE
GUSTAV NADAUD, translated by M. E. W. SHERWOOD
"How old I am! I'm eighty years!
I've worked both hard and long;
Yet patient as my life has been,
One dearest sight I have not seen,--
It almost seems a wrong.
A dream I had when life was new;
Alas, our dreams! they come not true;
I thought to see fair Carcassonne,--
That lovely city,--Carcassonne!
"One sees it dimly from the height
Beyond the mountains blue,
Fain would I walk five weary leagues,--
I do not mind the road's fatigues,--
Through morn and evening's dew;
But bitter frost would fall at night;
And on the grapes,--that yellow blight!
I could not go to Carcassonne,
I never went to Carcassonne.
"They say it is as gay all times
As holidays at home!
The gentles ride in gay attire,
And in the sun each gilded spire
Shoots up like those of Rome!
The bishop the procession leads,
The generals curb their prancing steeds.
Alas! I know not Carcassonne--
Alas! I saw not Carcassonne!
"Our Vicar's right! he preaches loud,
And bids us to beware;
He says, 'O guard the weakest-part,
And most that traitor in the heart
Against ambition's snare.'
Perhaps in autumn I can find
Two sunny days with gentle wind;
I then could go to Carcassonne,
I still could go to Carcassonne.
"My God, my Father! pardon me
If this my wish offends;
One sees some hope more high than his,
In age, as in his infancy,
To which his heart ascends!
My wife, my son have seen Narbonne,
My grandson went to Perpignan,
But I have not seen Carcassonne,
But I have not seen Carcassonne."
Thus sighed a peasant bent with age,
Half-dreaming in his chair;
I said, "My friend, come go with me
To-morrow, then thine eyes shall see
Those streets that seem so fair."
That night there came for passing soul
The church-bell's low and solemn toll.
He never saw gay Carcassonne.
Who has not known a Carcassonne?
THE CHILD-WIFE
CHARLES DICKENS
All this time I had gone on loving Dora harder than ever. If I may so
express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and ears
in love with her, I was saturated through and through. I took night
walks to Norwood where she lived, and perambulated round and round the
house and garden for hours together, looking through crevices in the
palings, using violent exertions to get my chin above the rusty nails on
the top, blowing kisses at the lights in the windows, and romantically
calling on the night to shield my Dora,--I don't exactly know from
what,--I suppose from fire, perhaps from mice, to which she had a great
objection.
Dora had a discreet friend, comparatively stricken in years, almost of
the ripe age of twenty, I should say, whose name was Miss Mills. Dora
called her Julia. She was the bosom friend of Dora. Happy Miss Mills!
One day Miss Mills said: "Dora is coming to stay with me. She is coming
the day after to-morrow. If you would like to call, I am sure papa would
be happy to see you."
I passed three days in a luxury of wretchedness. At last, arrayed for
the purpose, at a vast expense, I went to Miss Mills's, fraught with a
declaration. Mr. Mills was not at home. I didn't expect he would be.
Nobody wanted him. Miss Mills was at home. Miss Mills would do.
I was shown into a room upstairs, where Miss Mills and Dora were. Dora's
little dog Jip was there. Miss Mills was copying music, and Dora was
painting flowers. What were my feelings when I recognized flowers I had
given her!
Miss Mills was very glad to see me, and very sorry her papa was not at
home, though I thought we all bore that with fortitude. Miss Mills was
conversational for a few minutes, and then laying down her pen, got up
and left the room.
I began to think I would put it off till to-morrow.
"I hope your poor horse was not tired when he got home at night from
that picnic," said Dora, lifting up her beautiful eyes.
"It was a long way for him."
I began to think I would do it to-day.
"It was a long way for him, for he had nothing to uphold him on the
journey."
"Wasn't he fed, poor thing?"
I began to think I would put it off till to-morrow.
"Ye-yes, he was well taken care of. I mean he had not the unutterable
happiness that I had in being so near to you."
I saw now that I was in for it, and it must be done on the spot.
"I don't know why you should care for being near me, or why you should
call it a happiness. But of course you don't mean what you say. Jip, you
naughty boy, come here!"
I don't know how I did it, but I did it in a moment. I intercepted Jip.
I had Dora in my arms. I was full of eloquence. I never stopped for a
word. I told her how I loved her. I told her I should die without her. I
told her that I idolized and worshiped her. Jip barked madly all the
time. My eloquence increased, and I said if she would like me to die for
her, she had but to say the word, and I was ready. I had loved her to
distraction every minute, day and night, since I first set eyes upon
her. I loved her at that minute to distraction. I should always love
her, every minute, to distraction. Lovers had loved before, and lovers
would love again; but no lover had ever loved, might, could, would, or
should ever love, as I loved Dora. The more I raved, the more Jip
barked. Each of us in his own way got more mad every moment.
Well, well! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by and by quiet enough,
and Jip was lying in her lap winking peacefully at me. It was off my
mind. I was in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and I were engaged.
Being poor, I felt it necessary the next time I went to my darling to
expatiate on that unfortunate drawback. I soon carried desolation into
the bosom of our joys--not that I meant to do it, but that I was so full
of the subject--by asking Dora without the smallest preparation, if she
could love a beggar.
"How can you ask me anything so foolish? Love a beggar!"
"Dora, my own dearest, I am a beggar!"
"How can you be such a silly thing," replied Dora, slapping my hand, "as
to sit there telling such stories? I'll make Jip bite you, if you are so
ridiculous."
But I looked so serious that Dora began to cry. She did nothing but
exclaim, "O dear! O dear!" And oh, she was so frightened! And where was
Julia Mills? And oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please! until
I was almost beside myself.
I thought I had killed her. I sprinkled water on her face; I went down
on my knees; I plucked at my hair; I implored her forgiveness; I
besought her to look up; I ravaged Miss Mills's work-box for a
smelling-bottle, and in my agony of mind, applied an ivory needle-case
instead, and dropped all the needles over Dora.
At last I got Dora to look at me, with a horrified expression which I
gradually soothed until it was only loving, and her soft, pretty cheek
was lying against mine.
"Is your heart mine still, dear Dora?"
"O yes! O yes! it's all yours, oh, don't be dreadful."
"My dearest love, the crust well earned--"
"O yes; but I don't want to hear any more about crusts. And after we are
married, Jip must have a mutton chop every day at twelve, or he'll die."
I was charmed with her childish, winning way, and I fondly explained to
her that Jip should have his mutton chop with his accustomed regularity.
When we had been engaged some half-year or so, Dora delighted me by
asking me to give her that cookery-book I had once spoken of, and to
show her how to keep accounts, as I had once promised I would. I brought
the volume with me on my next visit (I got it prettily bound, first, to
make it look less dry and more inviting), and showed her an old
housekeeping book of my aunt's, and gave her a set of tablets, and a
pretty little pencil-case, and a box of leads, to practice housekeeping
with.
But the cookery-book made Dora's head ache, and the figures made her
cry. They wouldn't add up, she said. So she rubbed them out, and drew
little nosegays, and likenesses of me and Jip, all over the tablets.
Time went on, and at last, here in this hand of mine, I held the wedding
license. There were the two names in the sweet old visionary
connection,--David Copperfield and Dora Spenlow; and there in the corner
was that parental institution, the Stamp Office, looking down upon our
union; and there, in the printed form of words, was the Archbishop of
Canterbury, invoking a blessing on us and doing it as cheap as could
possibly be expected.
I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping
house than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She
kept house for us. We had an awful time of it with Mary Anne. She was
the cause of our first little quarrel.
"My dearest life," I said one day to Dora, "do you think Mary Anne has
any idea of time?"
"Why, Doady?"
"My love, because it's five, and we were to have dined at four."
My little wife came and sat upon my knee, to coax me to be quiet, and
drew a line with her pencil down the middle of my nose; but I couldn't
dine off that, though it was very agreeable.
"Don't you think, my dear, it would be better for you to remonstrate
with Mary Anne?"
"O no, please! I couldn't, Doady!"
"Why not, my love?"
"O, because I am such a little goose, and she knows I am!"
I thought this sentiment so incompatible with the establishment of any
system of check on Mary Anne, that I frowned a little.
"My precious wife, we must be serious some times. Come! sit down on this
chair, close beside me! Give me the pencil! There! Now let us talk
sensibly. You know, dear," what a little hand it was to hold, and what a
tiny wedding ring it was to see,--"you know, my love, it is not exactly
comfortable to have to go out without one's dinner. Now, is it?"
"N-n-no!"
"My love, how you tremble!"
"Because, I know you're going to scold me."
"My sweet, I am only going to reason."
"O, but reasoning is worse than scolding! I didn't marry to be reasoned
with. If you meant to reason with such a poor little thing as I am, you
ought to have told me so, you cruel boy!"
"Dora, my darling!"
"No, I am not your darling. Because you must be sorry that you married
me, or else you wouldn't reason with me!"
I felt so injured by the inconsequential nature of this charge, that it
gave me courage to be grave.
"Now, my own Dora, you are childish, and are talking nonsense. You must
remember, I am sure, that I was obliged to go out yesterday when dinner
was half over; and that, the day before, I was made quite unwell by
being obliged to eat underdone veal in a hurry; to-day, I don't dine at
all, and I am afraid to say how long we waited for breakfast, and then
the water didn't boil. I don't mean to reproach you, my dear, but this,
is not comfortable."
"Oh, you cruel, cruel boy, to say I am a disagreeable wife!"
"Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!"
"You said I wasn't comfortable!"
"I said the housekeeping was not comfortable!"
"It's exactly the same thing! and I wonder, I do, at your making such
ungrateful speeches. When you know that the other day, when you said you
would like a little bit of fish, I went out myself, miles and miles, and
ordered it to surprise you."
"And it was very kind of you, my own darling; and I felt it so much that
I wouldn't on any account have mentioned that you bought a salmon, which
was too much for two; or that it cost one pound six, which was more than
we can afford."
"You enjoyed it very much. And you said I was a Mouse."
"And I'll say so again, my love, a thousand times!"
I said it a thousand times, and more, and went on saying it until Mary
Anne's cousin deserted into our coal-hole and was brought out, to our
great amazement, by a picket of his companions in arms, who took him
away handcuffed in a procession that covered our front garden with
disgrace.
"I am very sorry for all this, Doady. Will you call me a name I want you
to call me?"
"What is it, my dear?"
"It's a stupid name,--Child-wife. When you are going to be angry with
me, say to yourself, 'It's only my Child-wife.' When I am very
disappointing, say, 'I knew a long time ago, that she would make but a
Child-wife.' When you miss what you would like me to be, and what I
think I never can be, say, 'Still my foolish Child-wife loves me.' For
indeed I do."
I invoke the innocent figure that I dearly loved to come out of the
mists and shadows of the past, and to turn its gentle head toward me
once again, and to bear witness that it was made happy by what I
answered.
COUNT GISMOND
ROBERT BROWNING
Christ God, who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honor, 'twas with all his strength.
And doubtlessly ere he could draw
All points to one, he must have schemed!
That miserable morning saw
Few half so happy as I seemed,
While being dressed in queen's array
To give our tourney prize away.
I thought they loved me, did me grace
To please themselves; 'twas all their deed;
God makes, or fair or foul, our face;
If showing mine so caused to bleed
My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped
A word, and straight the play had stopped.
They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen
By virtue of her brow and breast;
Not needing to be crowned, I mean,
As I do. E'en when I was dressed,
Had either of them spoke, instead
Of glancing sideways with still head!
But no: they let me laugh and sing
My birthday song quite through, adjust
The last rose in my garland, fling
A last look on the mirror, trust
My arms to each an arm of theirs,
And so descend the castle-stairs--
And come out on the morning-troop
Of merry friends who kissed my cheek,
And called me queen, and made me stoop
Under the canopy--(a streak
That pierced it, of the outside sun,
Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun)--
And they could let me take my state
And foolish throne amid applause
Of all come there to celebrate
My queen's-day--Oh I think the cause
Of much was, they forgot no crowd
Makes up for parents in their shroud!
Howe'er that be, all eyes were bent
Upon me, when my cousins cast
Theirs down; 'twas time I should present
The victor's crown, but ... there, 'twill last
No long time ... the old mist again
Blinds me as it did then. How vain!
See! Gismond's at the gate, in talk
With his two boys: I can proceed.
Well, at that moment, who should stalk
Forth boldly--to my face, indeed--
But Gauthier, and he thundered, "Stay!"
And all stayed. "Bring no crowns, I say!
"Bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet
About her! Let her cleave to right,
Or lay herself before our feet!
Shall she who sinned so bold at night
Unblushing, queen it in the day?
For honor's sake, no crowns, I say!"
I? What I answered? As I live,
I never fancied such a thing
As answer possible to give.
What says the body when they spring
Some monstrous torture-engine's whole
Strength on it? No more says the soul.
Till out strode Gismond; then I knew
That I was saved. I never met
His face before, but, at first view,
I felt quite sure that God had set
Himself to Satan; who would spend
A minute's mistrust on the end?
He strode to Gauthier, in his throat
Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth
With one back-handed blow that wrote
In blood men's verdict there. North, South,
East, West, I looked. The lie was dead,
And damned, and truth stood up instead.
This glads me most, that I enjoyed
The heart of the joy, with my content
In watching Gismond unalloyed
By any doubt of the event:
God took that on him--I was bid
Watch Gismond for my part: I did.
Did I not watch him while he let
His armorer just brace his greaves,
Rivet his hauberk, on the fret
The while! His foot ... my memory leaves
No least stamp out, nor how anon
He pulled his ringing gauntlets on.
And e'en before the trumpet's sound
Was finished, prone lay the false knight,
Prone as his lie, upon the ground:
Gismond flew at him, used no sleight
O' the sword, but open-breasted drove,
Cleaving till out the truth he clove.
Which done, he dragged him to my feet
And said, "Here die, but end thy breath
In full confession, lest thou fleet
From my first, to God's second death!
Say, hast thou lied?" And, "I have lied
To God and her," he said, and died.
Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked
--What safe my heart holds, though no word
Could I repeat now, if I tasked
My powers forever, to a third
Dear even as you are. Pass the rest
Until I sank upon his breast.
Over my head his arm he flung
Against the world; and scarce I felt
His sword (that dripped by me and swung)
A little shifted in its belt;
For he began to say the while
How South our home lay many a mile.
So 'mid the shouting multitude
We two walked forth to never more
Return. My cousins have pursued
Their life, untroubled as before
I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place
God lighten! May his soul find grace!
Our elder boy has got the clear
Great brow; though when his brother's black
Full eye shows scorn, it ... Gismond here?
And have you brought your tercel back?
I just was telling Adela
How many birds it struck since May.
THE DEATH OF ARBACES[4]
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
In the eventful year of the eruption of Vesuvius, there lived in Pompeii
a young Greek by the name of Glaucus. Heaven had given him every
blessing but one; it had denied him the heritage of freedom. He was
born in Athens, the subject of Rome. Succeeding early to an ample
inheritance, he had indulged that inclination for travel, so natural to
the young, and consequently knew much of the gorgeous luxuries of the
imperial court. His ideals in life were high. At last he discovered the
long-sought idol of his dreams in the person of Ione, a beautiful, young
Neapolitan, also of Greek parentage, who had lately come to Pompeii. She
was one of those brilliant characters which seldom flash across our
career. She united in the highest perfection the rarest of earthly
gifts,--Genius and Beauty. No wonder that the friendship of these two
ripened into a higher love than that which served a theme for the idle
gossip of the Roman baths, or the epicurean board of a Sallust or a
Diomede.
Arbaces, the legal guardian of Ione, was a subtle, crafty, cunning
Egyptian, whose conscience was solely of the intellect awed by no moral
laws. His great wealth and learning, and his reputation as a magician
gave him great power and influence over not only the superstitious
worshipers, but also the priesthood of Isis. Shrouding the deceit and
vices of a heathen metaphysical philosophy in a brilliant and imposing
ceremonial, Arbaces was the better able to gratify his own desires and
work out his diabolical scheme.
As Ione just ripened into beautiful womanhood, Arbaces determined to
claim her life and her love for himself alone; but his first overture
not only met with rebuff, but revealed the fact that she already loved
Glaucus. Angered by a fate which not even his dark sorcery could remove,
and which the prophecy of the stars had foretold, he is further enraged
by the violent opposition of Apaecides, the brother of Ione, who on his
own account threatens and has prepared to expose the lewd deceits and
hypocrisy of the worship of Isis. Arbaces murders Apaecides, imprisons
the priest Calenus, the only witness of the deed, and with great cunning
weaves a convicting net of circumstantial evidence around Glaucus, his
hated rival. Glaucus is tried, convicted and doomed to be thrown to the
lion.
The day of the sports of the amphitheater had come. The gladiatorial
fights and other games were completed. "Bring forth the lion and Glaucus
the Athenian," said the editor. Glaucus had been placed in that gloomy
and narrow cell in which the criminals of the arena awaited their last
and fearful struggle. The door swung gratingly back--the gleam of spears
shot along the walls.
"Glaucus the Athenian, thy time has come," said a loud and clear voice.
"The lion awaits thee."
"I am ready," said the Athenian. "Worthy officer, I attend you."
When he came into the air its breath, which, though sunless, was hot and
arid, smote witheringly upon him. They anointed his body, placed the
stylus in his hand, and led him into the arena.
And now when the Greek saw the eyes of thousands and tens of thousands
upon him, he no longer felt that he was mortal. All evidence of
fear--all fear itself--was gone. A red and haughty flush spread over the
paleness of his features--he towered aloft to the fullness of his
glorious stature. In the elastic beauty of his limbs and form, in his
intent but unfrowning brow, in the high disdain, and in the indomitable
soul, which breathed visibly, which spoke audibly, from his attitude,
his lip, his eye, he assumed the very incarnation, vivid and corporeal,
of the valor of his land--of the divinity of its worship--at once a hero
and a god.
The murmur of hatred and horror at his crime, which had greeted his
entrance, died into the stillness of involuntary admiration and
half-compassionate respect; and with a quick and convulsive sigh, that
seemed to move the whole mass of life as if it were one body, the gaze
of the spectators turned from the Athenian to a dark uncouth object in
the center of the arena. It was the grated den of the lion. Kept
without food for twenty-four hours, the animal had, during the whole
morning, testified a singular and restless uneasiness, which the keeper
had attributed to the pangs of hunger. Yet its bearing seemed rather
that of fear than of rage; its roar was painful and distressed; it hung
its head--snuffed the air through the bars--then lay down--started
again--and again uttered its wild and far-reaching cries.
The editor's lip quivered, and his cheek grew pale; he looked anxiously
around--hesitated--delayed; the crowd became impatient. Slowly he gave
the sign; the keeper, who was behind the den, cautiously removed the
grating, and the lion leaped forth with a mighty and glad roar of
release. The keeper retreated hastily through the grated passage leading
from the arena, and left the lord of the forest--and his prey.
Glaucus had bent his limbs so as to give himself the firmest posture at
the expected rush of the lion, with his small and shining weapon raised
high, in the faint hope that one well directed thrust might penetrate
through the eye to the brain of his grim foe.
At the first moment of its release the lion halted in the arena, raised
itself half on end, snuffing the upward air with impatient sighs; then
suddenly sprang forward, but not on the Athenian. At half speed it
circled around and around the arena; once or twice it endeavored to leap
up the parapet that separated it from the audience. At length, as if
tired of attempting to escape, it crept with a moan into its cage, and
once more laid itself down to rest.
The first surprise of the assembly at the apathy of the lion soon grew
into resentment at its cowardice; and the populace already merged their
pity for the fate of Glaucus into angry compassion for their own
disappointment. The editor called the keeper.
"How is this? Take the goad, prick him forth, and then close the door of
the den."
As the keeper, with some fear, but more astonishment, was preparing to
obey, a loud cry was heard at one of the entrances of the arena; there
was a confusion--a bustle--voices of remonstrance suddenly breaking
forth, and suddenly silenced at the reply. All eyes turned in wonder at
the interruption, toward the quarter of disturbance; the crowd gave way,
and suddenly Sallust appeared on the senatorial benches, his hair
disheveled,--breathless--half exhausted. He cast his eyes hastily round
the ring. "Remove the Athenian," he cried. "Haste,--he is innocent.
Arrest Arbaces the Egyptian. He is the murderer of Apaecides."
"Art thou mad, O Sallust?" said the praetor, rising from his seat. "What
means this raving?"
"Remove the Athenian. Quick! or his blood be on your head. Praetor, delay
and you answer with your own life to the Emperor. I bring with me the
eye-witness to the death of Apaecides. Room there--stand back--give way.
People of Pompeii, fix every eye on Arbaces--there he sits. Room there
for the priest Calenus."
"The priest Calenus,--Calenus," cried the mob. "Is it he?"
"It is the priest Calenus," said the praetor. "What hast thou to say?"
"Arbaces of Egypt is the murderer of Apaecides, the priest of Isis; these
eyes saw him deal the blow. It is from the dungeon into which he plunged
me--it is from the darkness and horror of a death by famine--that the
gods have raised me to proclaim his crime. Release the Athenian--he is
innocent."
"A miracle--a miracle," shouted the people. "Remove the Athenian.
Arbaces to the lion!"
"Officers, remove the accused Glaucus--remove, but guard him yet," said
the praetor.
"Calenus, priest of Isis, thou accusest Arbaces of the murder of
Apaecides?"
"I do."
"Thou didst behold the deed?"
"Praetor--with these eyes--"
"Enough at present--the details must be reserved for more suiting time
and place. Ho! guards--remove Arbaces--guard Calenus! Sallust, we hold
you responsible for your accusation. Let the sports be resumed."
"To the lion with the Egyptian!" cried the people.
With that cry up sprang--on moved--thousands upon thousands! They rushed
from the heights--they poured down in the direction of the Egyptian. In
vain did the aedile command--in vain did the praetor lift his voice and
proclaim the law. The people had been already rendered savage.
Arbaces stretched his hand on high; over his lofty brow and royal
features there came an expression of unutterable solemnity and command.
"Behold!" he shouted with a voice which stilled the roar of the crowd;
"behold the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the avenging Orcus
burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!"
The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld,
with ineffable dismay, a vast vapor shooting from the summit of
Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine tree; the trunk,
blackness,--the branches, fire,--a fire that shifted and wavered in its
hues with every moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying
red, that again blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare.
There was a dead heart-sunken silence. Then there arose on high the
universal shrieks of women; the men stared at each other, but were dumb.
At that moment they felt the earth shake beneath their feet; the walls
of the theater trembled; and beyond in the distance, they heard the
crash of falling roofs; an instant more and the mountain-cloud seemed
to roll towards them, dark and rapid, like a torrent; at the same time,
it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes mixed with vast fragments
of burning stone! Over the crushing vines,--over the desolate
streets,--over the amphitheater itself,--far and wide,--with many a
mighty splash in that agitated sea,--fell that awful shower! The crowd
turned to fly--each dashing, pressing, crushing, against the other.
Trampling recklessly over the fallen--amidst groans, and oaths, and
prayers, and sudden shrieks, the enormous crowd vomited itself forth
through the numerous passages; prisoner, gladiator and wild beast now
alike freed from their confines.
Glaucus paced swiftly up the perilous and fearful streets, having
learned that Ione was yet in the house of Arbaces. Thither he fled to
release--to save her! Even as he passed, however, the darkness that
covered the heavens increased so rapidly, that it was with difficulty he
could guide his steps. He ascended to the upper rooms--breathless he
paced along, shouting out aloud the name of Ione; and at length he
heard, at the end of a gallery, a voice--her voice, in wondering reply!
He rescued her and they made their way to the sea, boarded a vessel and
were saved from the wrath of Vesuvius.
Arbaces returned to his house to seek his wealth and Ione ere he fled
from the doomed Pompeii. He found them not; all was lost to him. In the
madness of despair he rushed forth and hurried along the street he knew
not whither; exhausted or lost he halted at the east end of the Forum.
High behind him rose a tall column that supported the bronze statue of
Augustus; and the imperial image seemed changed to a shape of fire. He
advanced one step--it was his last on earth! The ground shook beneath
him with a convulsion that cast all around upon its surface. A
simultaneous crash resounded through the city, as down toppled many a
roof and pillar!--The lightning, as if caught by the metal, lingered an
instant on the Imperial Statue--then shivered bronze and column! Down
fell the ruin, echoing along the street, crushing Arbaces and riving the
solid pavement where it crashed! The prophecy of the stars was
fulfilled!
So perished the wise Magician--the great Arbaces--the Hermes of the
Burning Belt--the last of the royalty of Egypt.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] An adaptation by R. I. Fulton from the "Last Days of Pompeii."
DORA
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
With farmer Allan at the farm abode
William and Dora. William was his son,
And she his niece. He often look'd at them,
And often thought, "I'll make them man and wife."
Now Dora felt her uncle's will in all,
And yearn'd toward William; but the youth, because
He had been always with her in the house,
Thought not of Dora.
Then there came a day
When Allan call'd his son, and said, "My son,
I married late, but I would wish to see
My grandchild on my knees before I die;
And I have set my heart upon a match.
Now therefore look to Dora; she is well
To look to; thrifty too beyond her age.
She is my brother's daughter; he and I
Had once hard words, and parted, and he died
In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred
His daughter Dora. Take her for your wife;
For I have wish'd this marriage, night and day,
For many years." But William answer'd short;
"I cannot marry Dora; by my life,
I will not marry Dora." Then the old man
Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said,
"You will not, boy! you dare to answer thus!
But in my time a father's word was law,
And so it shall be now for me. Look to it;
Consider, William, take a month to think,
And let me have an answer to my wish;
Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack,
And never more darken my doors again."
But William answer'd madly; bit his lips,
And broke away. The more he look'd at her
The less he liked her; and his ways were harsh;
But Dora bore them meekly. Then before
The month was out he left his father's house,
And hired himself to work within the fields;
And half in love, half spite, he woo'd and wed
A laborer's daughter, Mary Morrison.
Then, when the bells were ringing, Allan call'd
His niece and said, "My girl, I love you well;
But if you speak with him that was my son,
Or change a word with her he calls his wife,
My home is none of yours. My will is law."
And Dora promised, being meek. She thought,
"It cannot be, my uncle's mind will change!"
And days went on, and there was born a boy
To William; then distresses came on him;
And day by day he pass'd his father's gate,
Heart-broken, and his father help'd him not.
But Dora stored what little she could save,
And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know
Who sent it; till at last a fever seized
On William, and in harvest time he died.
Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat
And look'd with tears upon her boy, and thought
Hard things of Dora. Dora came and said,
"I have obey'd my uncle until now,
And I have sinn'd, for it was all thro' me
This evil came on William at the first.
But, Mary, for the sake of him that's gone,
And for your sake, the woman that he chose,
And for this orphan, I am come to you.
You know there has not been for these five years
So full a harvest; let me take the boy,
And I will set him in my uncle's eye
Among the wheat; that when his heart is glad
Of the full harvest, he may see the boy,
And bless him for the sake of him that's gone."
And Dora took the child, and went her way
Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound
That was unsown, where many poppies grew.
Far off the farmer came into the field
And spied her not; for none of all his men
Dare tell him Dora waited with the child;
And Dora would have risen and gone to him,
But her heart fail'd her; and the reapers reap'd,
And the sun fell, and all the land was dark.
But when the morrow came, she rose and took
The child once more, and sat upon the mound;
And made a little wreath of all the flowers
That grew about, and tied it round his hat
To make him pleasing in her uncle's eye.
Then when the farmer pass'd into the field
He spied her, and he left his men at work,
And came and said, "Where were you yesterday?
Whose child is that? What are you doing here?"
So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground,
And answer'd softly, "This is William's child!"
"And did I not," said Allan, "did I not
Forbid you, Dora?" Dora said again,
"Do with me as you will, but take the child,
And bless him for the sake of him that's gone!"
And Allan said, "I see it is a trick
Got up betwixt you and the woman there.
I must be taught my duty, and by you!
You knew my word was law, and yet you dared
To slight it. Well--for I will take the boy,
But go you hence, and never see me more."
So saying, he took the boy that cried aloud
And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell
At Dora's, feet. She bow'd upon her hands,
And the boy's cry came to her from the field,
More and more distant. She bow'd down her head,
Remembering the day when first she came,
And all the things that had been. She bow'd down
And wept in secret; and the reapers reap'd,
And the sun fell, and all the land was dark.
Then Dora went to Mary's house, and stood
Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy
Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise
To God, that help'd her in her widowhood.
And Dora said, "My uncle took the boy;
But, Mary, let me live and work with you:
He says that he will never see me more."
Then answer'd Mary, "This shall never be,
That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself:
And, now I think, he shall not have the boy,
For he will teach him hardness, and to slight
His mother; therefore thou and I will go,
And I will have my boy, and bring him home;
And I will beg of him to take thee back;
But if he will not take thee back again,
Then thou and I will live within one house,
And work for William's child, until he grows
Of age to help us."
So the women kiss'd
Each other, and set out, and reach'd the farm.
The door was off the latch. They peep'd, and saw
The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees,
Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm,
And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks,
Like one that loved him; and the lad stretch'd out
And babbled for the golden seal, that hung
From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire.
Then they came in; but when the boy beheld
His mother, he cried out to come to her,
And Allan set him down, and Mary said,
"O Father!--if you let me call you so--
I never came a-begging for myself,
Or William, or this child; but now I come
For Dora. Take her back, she loves you well.
O Sir, when William died, he died at peace
With all men; for I ask'd him, and he said,
He could not ever rue his marrying me--
I had been a patient wife; but, Sir, he said
That he was wrong to cross his father thus,
'God bless him!' he said, 'and may he never know
The troubles I have gone thro!' Then he turn'd
His face and pass'd--unhappy that I am!
But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you
Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight
His father's memory; and take Dora back,
And let all this be as it was before."
So Mary said, and Dora hid her face
By Mary. There was silence in the room;
And all at once the old man burst in sobs:--
"I have been to blame--to blame. I have kill'd my son.
I have kill'd him--but I loved him--my dear son.
May God forgive me!--I have been to blame.
Kiss me, my children."
Then they clung about
The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times.
And all the man was broken with remorse;
And all his love came back a hundred-fold;
And for three hours he sobb'd o'er William's child
Thinking of William.
So those four abode
Within one house together; and as years
Went forward, Mary took another mate;
But Dora lived unmarried till her death.
AN EASTER WITH PAREPA
MYRA S. DELANO
When Parepa was here she was everywhere the people's idol. The great
opera houses in all our cities and towns were thronged. There were none
to criticise or carp. Her young, rich, grand voice was beyond compare.
Its glorious tones are remembered with an enthusiasm like that which
greeted her when she sung.
Her company played in New York during the Easter holidays, and I, as an
old friend, claimed some of her leisure hours. We were friends in Italy,
and this Easter day was to be spent with me.
At eleven in the morning she sang at one of the large churches; I waited
for her, and at last we two were alone in my snug little room. At noon
the sky was overcast and gray. Down came the snow, whitening the streets
and roofs. The wind swept icy breaths from the water as it came up from
the bay and rushed past the city spires and over tall buildings,
whirling around us the snow and storm. We had hurried home, shut and
fastened our blinds, drawn close the curtains, and piled coal higher on
the glowing grate. We had taken off our wraps, and now sat close to the
cheery fire for a whole afternoon's blessed enjoyment.
Parepa said, "Mary, this is perfect rest! We shall be quite alone for
four hours."
"Yes, four long hours!" I replied. "No rehearsals, no engagements.
Nobody knows where you are!"
Parepa laughed merrily at this idea.
"Dinner shall be served in this room, and I won't allow even the servant
to look at you!" I said.
She clasped her dimpled hands together, like a child in enjoyment, and
then sprang up to roll the little center-table near the grate.
The snow had now turned into sleet; a great chill fell over the whole
city. We looked out of our windows, peeping through the shutters, and
pitying the people as they rushed past.
A sharp rap on my door. John thrust in a note.
"MY DEAR FRIEND:--Can you come? Annie has gone. She said you would
be sure to come to her funeral. She spoke of you to the last. She
will be buried at four."
I laid the poor little blotted note in Parepa's hand. How it stormed! We
looked into each other's faces helplessly. I said, "Dear, I must go, but
you sit by the fire and rest. I'll be at home in two hours. And poor
Annie has gone!"
"Tell me about it, Mary, for I am going with you," she answered.
She threw on her heavy cloak, wound her long white woolen scarf closely
about her throat, drew on her woolen gloves, and we set out together in
the wild Easter storm.
Annie's mother was a dressmaker, and sewed for me and my friends. She
was left a widow when her one little girl was five years old. Her
husband was drowned off the Jersey coast, and out of blinding pain and
loss and anguish had grown a sort of idolatry for the delicate,
beautiful child whose brown eyes looked like the young husband's.
For fifteen years this mother had loved and worked for Annie, her whole
being going out to bless her one child. I had grown fond of them; and in
small ways, with books and flowers, outings and simple pleasures, I had
made myself dear to them. The end of the delicate girl's life had not
seemed so near, though her doom had been hovering about her for years.
I had thought it all over as I took the Easter lilies from my
window-shelf and wrapped them in thick papers and hid them out of the
storm under my cloak. I knew there would be no other flowers in their
wretched room. How endless was the way to this East-Side tenement house!
No elevated roads, no rapid transit across the great city then as there
are now. At last we reached the place. On the street stood the
canvas-covered hearse, known only to the poor.
We climbed flight after flight of narrow dark stairs to the small upper
rooms. In the middle of the floor stood a stained coffin, lined with
stiff, rattling cambric and cheap gauze, resting on uncovered trestles
of wood.
We each took the mother's hand and stood a moment with her, silent. All
hope had gone out of her face. She shed no tears, but as I held her cold
hand I felt a shudder go over her, but she neither spoke nor sobbed.
The driving storm had made us late, and the plain, hard-working people
sat stiffly against the walls. Some one gave us chairs and we sat close
to the mother.
The minister came in, a blunt, hard-looking man, self-sufficient and
formal. A woman said the undertaker brought him. Icier than the pitiless
storm outside, yes, colder than ice were his words. He read a few verses
from the Bible, and warned "the bereaved mother against rebellion at the
divine decrees." He made a prayer and was gone.
A dreadful hush fell over the small room. I whispered to the mother and
asked: "Why did you wait so long to send for me? All this would have
been different."
With a kind of stare, she looked at me.
"I can't remember why I didn't send," she said, her hand to her head,
and added: "I seemed to die, too, and forget, till they brought a
coffin. Then I knew it all."
The undertaker came and bustled about. He looked at myself and Parepa,
as if to say: "It's time to go." The wretched funeral service was over.
Without a word Parepa rose and walked to the head of the coffin. She
laid her white scarf on an empty chair, threw her cloak back from her
shoulders, where it fell in long, soft, black lines from her noble
figure like the drapery of mourning. She laid her soft, fair hand on the
cold forehead, passed it tenderly over the wasted delicate face, looked
down at the dead girl a moment, and moved my Easter lilies from the
stained box to the thin fingers, then lifted up her head, and with
illumined eyes sang the glorious melody:
"Angels, ever bright and fair,
Take, oh! take her to thy care."
Her magnificent voice rose and fell in all its richness and power and
pity and beauty! She looked above the dingy room and the tired faces of
men and women, the hard hands and the struggling hearts. She threw back
her head and sang till the choirs of paradise must have paused to listen
to the Easter music of that day.
She passed her hand caressingly over the girl's soft dark hair, and sang
on--and on--"Take--oh! take her to thy care!"
The mother's face grew rapt and white. I held her hands and watched her
eyes. Suddenly she threw my hand off and knelt at Parepa's feet, close
to the wooden trestles. She locked her fingers together, tears and sobs
breaking forth. She prayed aloud that God would bless the angel singing
for Annie. A patient smile settled about her lips, the light came back
into her poor, dulled eyes, and she kissed her daughter's face with a
love beyond all interpretation or human speech. I led her back to her
seat as the last glorious notes of Parepa's voice rose triumphant over
all earthly pain and sorrow.
And I thought that no queen ever went to her grave with a greater
ceremony than this young daughter of poverty and toil, committed to the
care of the angels.
That same night thousands listened to Parepa's matchless voice. Applause
rose to the skies, and Parepa's own face was gloriously swept with
emotion. I joined in the enthusiasm, but above the glitter and
shimmering of jewels and dress, and the heavy odors of Easter flowers,
the sea of smiling faces, and the murmur of voices, I could only behold
by the dim light of a tenement window the singer's uplifted face, the
wondering countenance of the poor on-lookers, and the mother's wide,
startled, tearful eyes; I could only hear above the sleet on the roof
and the storm outside Parepa's voice singing up to heaven: "Take, oh!
take her to thy care!"
THOSE EVENING BELLS
THOMAS MOORE
Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime.
Those joyous hours are passed away;
And many a heart that then was gay
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.
And so 'twill be when I am gone;
That tuneful peal will still ring on,
While other bards shall walk these dells,
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells.
GINEVRA
SUSAN COOLIDGE
So it is come! The doctor's glossy smile
Deceives me not. I saw him shake his head,
Whispering, and heard poor Giulia sob without,
As, slowly creeping, he went down the stair.
Were they afraid that I should be afraid?
I, who have died once and been laid in tomb?
They need not.
Little one, look not so pale.
I am not raving. Ah! you never heard
The story. Climb up there upon the bed:
Sit close and listen. After this one day
I shall not tell you stories any more.
How old are you, my rose? What! almost twelve?
Almost a woman! scarcely more than that
Was your fair mother when she bore her bud;
And scarcely more was I when, long years since,
I left my father's house, a bride in May.
You know the house, beside St. Andrea's church,
Gloomy and rich, which stands and seems to frown
On the Mercato, humming at its base.
That was my play-place ever as a child;
And with me used to play a kinsman's son,
Antonio Rondinelli. Ah, dear days!
Two happy things we were, with none to chide,
Or hint that life was anything but play.
Sudden the play-time ended. All at once
"You must wed," they told me. "What is wed?"
I asked; but with the word I bent my brow,
Let them put on the garland, smiled to see
The glancing jewels tied about my neck;
And so, half-pleased, half-puzzled, was led forth
By my grave husband, older than my sire.
O the long years that followed! It would seem
That the sun never shone in all those years,
Or only with a sudden, troubled glint
Flashed on Antonio's curls, as he went by
Doffing his cap, with eyes of wistful love
Raised to my face--my conscious, woeful face.
Were we so much to blame? Our lives had twined
Together, none forbidding, for so long.
They let our childish fingers drop the seed,
Unhindered, which should ripen to tall grain;
They let the firm, small roots tangle and grow,
Then rent them, careless that it hurt the plant.
I loved Antonio, and he loved me.
Life was all shadow, but it was not sin!
I loved Antonio; but I kept me pure,
Not for my husband's sake, but for the sake
Of him, my first-born child, my little child,
Mine for a few short weeks, whose touch, whose look
Thrilled all my soul and thrills it to this day.
I loved: but, hear me swear, I kept me pure!
It was hard
To sit in darkness while the rest had light,
To move to discords when the rest had song,
To be so young and never to have lived.
I bore, as women bear, until one day
Soul said to flesh, "This I endure no more,"
And with the word uprose, tore clay apart,
And what was blank before grew blanker still.
It was a fever, so the leeches said.
I had been dead so long, I did not know
The difference or heed. Oil on my breast,
The garments of the grave about me wrapped,
They bore me forth and laid me in the tomb.
Open the curtain, child. Yes, it is night.
It was night then, when I awoke to feel
That deadly chill, and see by ghostly gleams
Of moonlight, creeping through the grated door,
The coffins of my fathers all about.
Strange, hollow clamors rang and echoed back,
As, struggling out of mine, I dropped and fell.
With frantic strength I beat upon the grate;
It yielded to my touch. Some careless hand
Had left the bolt half-slipped. My father swore
Afterward, with a curse, he would make sure
Next time. Next time! That hurts me even now!
Dead or alive I issued, scarce sure which,
And down the darkling street I wildly fled,
Led by a little, cold, and wandering moon,
Which seemed as lonely and as lost as I.
I had no aim, save to reach warmth and light
And human touch; but still my witless steps
Led to my husband's door, and there I stopped,
By instinct, knocked, and called.
A window oped.
A voice--'twas his--demanded: "Who is there?"
"'Tis I, Ginevra." Then I heard the tone
Change into horror, and he prayed aloud
And called upon the saints, the while I urged,
"O, let me in, Francesco; let me in!
I am so cold, so frightened, let me in!"
Then with a crash, the window was shut fast:
And, though I cried and beat upon the door
And wailed aloud, no other answer came.
Weeping, I turned away, and feebly strove
Down the hard distance toward my father's house.
"They will have pity and will let me in,"
I thought. "They loved me and will let me in."
Cowards! At the high window overhead
They stood and trembled, while I plead and prayed.
"I am your child, Ginevra. Let me in!
I am not dead. In mercy, let me in!"
"The holy saints forbid!" declared my sire.
My mother sobbed and vowed whole pounds of wax
To St. Eustachio, would he but remove
This fearful presence from her door. Then sharp
Came click of lock, and a long tube was thrust
From out the window, and my brother cried,
"Spirit or devil, go! or else I fire!"
Where should I go? Back to the ghastly tomb
And the cold coffined ones! Up the long street,
Wringing my hands and sobbing low, I went.
My feet were bare and bleeding from the stones;
My hands were bleeding too; my hair hung loose
Over my shroud. So wild and strange a shape
Saw never Florence since.
At last I saw a flickering point of light
High overhead, in a dim window set.
I had lain down to die: but at the sight
I rose, crawled on, and with expiring strength
Knocked, sank again, and knew not even then
It was Antonio's door by which I lay.
A window opened, and a voice called out:
"Qui e?" "I am Ginevra." And I thought,
"Now he will fall to trembling, like the rest,
And bid me hence." But, lo, a moment more
The bolts were drawn, and arms whose very touch
Was life, lifted and clasped and bore me in.
"O ghost or angel of my buried love,
I know not, I care not which, be welcome here!
Welcome, thrice welcome, to this heart of mine!"
I heard him say, and then I heard no more.
It was high noontide when I woke again,
To hear fierce voices wrangling by my bed--
My father's and my husband's; for, with dawn,
Gathering up valor, they had sought the tomb,
Had found me gone, and tracked my bleeding feet,
Over the pavement to Antonio's door.
Dead, they cared nothing; living, I was theirs.
Hot raged the quarrel: then came Justice in,
And to the court we swept--I in my shroud--
To try the cause.
This was the verdict given:
"A woman who has been to burial borne,
Made fast and left and locked in with the dead;
Who at her husband's door has stood and plead
For entrance, and has heard her prayer denied;
Who from her father's house is urged and chased,
Must be adjudged as dead in law and fact.
The Court pronounces the defendant--dead!
She can resume her former ties at will,
Or may renounce them, if such be her will.
She is no more a daughter or a spouse,
Unless she choose, and is set free to form
New ties if so she choose."
O, blessed words!
That very day we knelt before the priest,
My love and I, were wed, and life began.
Child of my child, child of Antonio's child,
Bend down and let me kiss your wondering face.
'Tis a strange tale to tell a rose like you.
But time is brief, and, had I told you not,
Haply the story would have met your ears
From them, the Amieris.
Now go, my dearest. When they wake thee up,
To tell thee I am dead, be not too sad.
I who have died once, do not fear to die.
Sweet was that waking, sweeter will be this.
Close to Heaven's gate my own Antonio sits
Waiting, and, spite of all the Frati say,
I know I shall not stand long at that gate,
Or knock and be refused an entrance there,
For he will start up when he hears my voice,
The saints will smile, and he will open quick.
Only a night to part me from that joy.
Jesu Maria! let the dawning come!
THE HIGH TIDE AT LINCOLNSHIRE
JEAN INGELOW
The old mayor climbed the belfry tower,
The ringers rang by two, by three;
"Pull, if ye never pulled before;
Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he.
"Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!
Ply all your changes, all your swells,
Play uppe, 'The Brides of Enderby.'"
Men say it was a stolen tyde--
The Lord that sent it, He knows all;
But in myne ears doth still abide
The message that the bells let fall:
And there was naught of strange, beside
The flight of mews and peewits pied
By millions crouched on the old sea-wall.
I sat and spun within the doore,
My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes;
The level sun, like ruddy ore,
Lay sinking in the barren skies,
And dark against day's golden death
She moved where Lindis wandereth,
My sonne's faire wife, Elizabeth.
"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling
Ere the early dews were falling,
Farre away I heard her song.
"Cusha! Cusha!" all along;
Where the reedy Lindis floweth,
Floweth, floweth,
From the meads where melick groweth,
Faintly came her milking song.
Alle fresh the level pasture lay,
And not a shadowe mote be seene,
Save where full fyve good miles away
The steeple towered from out the greene;
And lo! the great bell farre and wide
Was heard in all the country side
That Saturday at eventide.
I looked without, and lo! my sonne
Came riding down with might and main:
He raised a shout as he drew on,
Till all the welkin rang again,
"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!"
(A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath
Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.)
"The old sea wall (he cried) is downe,
The rising tide comes on apace,
And boats adrift in yonder towne
Go sailing uppe the market-place."
He shook as one that looks on death:
"God save you, mother!" straight he saith,
"Where is my wife, Elizabeth?"
"Good sonne, where Lindis winds away,
With her two bairns I marked her long;
And ere yon bells beganne to play
Afar I heard her milking song."
He looked across the grassy lea,
To right, to left, "Ho Enderby!"
They rang "The Brides of Enderby!"
With that he cried and beat his breast;
For, lo! along the river's bed
A mighty eygre reared his crest,
And uppe the Lindis raging sped.
It swept with thunderous noises loud;
Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud,
Or like a demon in a shroud.
So farre, so fast the eygre drave,
The heart had hardly time to beat,
Before a shallow, seething wave
Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet.
The feet had hardly time to flee
Before it brake against the knee,
And all the world was in the sea.
Upon the roofe we sat that night,
The noise of bells went sweeping by;
I marked the lofty beacon light
Stream from the church tower, red and high--
A lurid mark and dread to see;
And awesome bells they were to me,
That in the dark rang "Enderby."
They rang the sailor lads to guide
From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed,
And I--my sonne was at my side,
And yet the ruddy beacon glowed;
And yet he moaned beneath his breath,
"O come in life, or come in death!
O lost! my love, Elizabeth."
And didst thou visit him no more?
Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare;
The waters laid thee at his doore,
Ere yet the early dawn was clear,
Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace,
The lifted sun shone on thy face,
Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place.
That flow strewed wrecks about the grass,
That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea;
A fatal ebbe and flow, alas!
To manye more than myne and me:
But each will mourn his own (she saith),
And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath
Than my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.
I shall never hear her more
By the reedy Lindis shore,
"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
Ere the early dews be falling;
I shall never hear her song,
"Cusha! Cusha!" all along
Where the sunny Lindis floweth,
Goeth, floweth;
From the meads where melick groweth,
When the water winding down,
Onward floweth to the town.
I shall never see her more
Where the reeds and rushes quiver,
Shiver, quiver;
Stand beside the sobbing river,
Sobbing, throbbing, in its falling
To the sandy lonesome shore;
I shall never hear her calling,
"Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;
Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot;
Quit your pipes of parsley hollow,
Hollow, hollow;
Come uppe Lightfoot, rise and follow;
Lightfoot, Whitefoot,
From your clovers lift the head;
Come uppe Jetty, follow, follow,
Jetty, to the milking-shed."
HOW DID YOU DIE?[5]
EDMUND VANCE COOKE
Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful,
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble is a ton, or a trouble is an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it,
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
But only--how did you take it?
You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there--that's disgrace.
The harder you're thrown, why, the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts;
It's how did you fight--and why?
And though you be done to the death, what then?
If you battled the best you could,
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why The Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he's slow, or spry,
It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,
But only--how did you die?
FOOTNOTE:
[5] By permission of Forbes & Co, publishers, and of the author.
THE INDIGO BIRD[6]
JOHN BURROUGHS
Oh, late to come but long to sing,
My little finch of deep-dyed wing,
I welcome thee this day!
Thou comest with the orchard bloom,
The azure days, the sweet perfume
That fills the breath of May.
A winged gem amid the trees,
A cheery strain upon the breeze
From tree-top sifting down;
A leafy nest in covert low;
When daisies come and brambles blow,
A mate in Quaker brown.
But most I prize, past summer's prime,
When other throats have ceased to chime,
Thy faithful tree-top strain;
No brilliant bursts our ears enthrall--
A prelude with a "dying fall,"
That soothes the summer's pain.
Where blackcaps sweeten in the shade,
And clematis a bower hath made,
Or, in the bushy fields,
On breezy slopes where cattle graze,
At noon on dreamy August days,
Thy strain its solace yields.
Oh, bird inured to sun and heat,
And steeped in summer languor sweet,
The tranquil days are thine.
The season's fret and urge are o'er,
Its tide is loitering on the shore;
Make thy contentment mine!
FOOTNOTE:
[6] By permission of Harper & Bros., publishers, and the author.
THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS
R. H. BARHAM
The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair!
Bishop and abbot and prior were there;
Many a monk, and many a friar,
Many a knight, and many a squire,
With a great many more of lesser degree,--
In sooth, a goodly company;
And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee.
Never, I ween, was a prouder seen,
Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,
Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims!
In and out through the motley rout,
That little Jackdaw kept hopping about:
Here and there, like a dog in a fair,
Over comfits and cates, and dishes and plates,
Cowl and cope, and rochet and pall,
Miter and crosier! he hopped upon all.
With a saucy air, he perched on the chair
Where, in state, the great Lord Cardinal sat,
In the great Lord Cardinal's great red hat;
And he peered in the face
Of his Lordship's Grace,
With a satisfied look, as if he would say,
"We two are the greatest folks here to-day!"
And the priests with awe, as such freaks they saw,
Said, "The deuce must be in that little Jackdaw!"
The feast was over, the board was cleared,
The flawns and the custards had all disappeared,
And six little singing-boys--dear little souls
In nice clean faces, and nice white stoles--
Came, in order due, two by two,
Marching that grand refectory through!
A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
Embossed and filled with water, as pure
As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,
Which a nice little boy stood ready to catch
In a fine golden hand-basin made to match.
Two nice little boys, rather more grown,
Carried lavender-water, and eau de Cologne;
And a nice little boy had a nice cake of soap,
Worthy of washing the hands of the Pope.
One little boy more a napkin bore,
Of the best white diaper, fringed with pink,
And a Cardinal's hat marked in "permanent ink."
The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight
Of these nice little boys dressed all in white;
From his finger he draws his costly turquoise:
And, not thinking at all about little Jackdaws,
Deposits it straight by the side of his plate,
While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait;
Till when nobody's dreaming of any such thing,
That little Jackdaw hops off with the ring!
There's a cry and a shout, and a terrible rout,
And nobody seems to know what they're about,
But the monks have their pockets all turned inside out;
The friars are kneeling, and hunting and feeling
The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling.
The Cardinal drew off each plum-colored shoe,
And left his red stockings exposed to the view;
He peeps, and he feels in the toes and the heels;
They turn up the dishes, they turn up the plates,
They take up the poker and poke out the grates,
They turn up the rugs, they examine the mugs;
But, no! no such thing,--they can't find THE RING!
The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,
He called for his candle, his bell, and his book!
In holy anger and pious grief
He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!
Never was heard such a terrible curse!
But what gave rise to no little surprise,
Nobody seemed one penny the worse!
The day was gone, the night came on,
The monks and the friars they searched till dawn;
When the sacristan saw, on crumpled claw,
Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw!
No longer gay, as on yesterday;
His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way;
His pinions drooped, he could hardly stand,--
His head was as bald as the palm of your hand;
His eye so dim, so wasted each limb,
Regardless of grammar, they all cried, "THAT'S HIM!
That's the scamp that has done this scandalous thing,
That's the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal's ring!"
The poor little Jackdaw, when the monks he saw,
Feebly gave vent to the ghost of a caw;
And turned his bald head as much as to say,
"Pray be so good as to walk this way!"
Slower and slower he limped on before,
Till they came to the back of the belfry-door,
Where the first thing they saw,
Midst the sticks and the straw,
Was the RING, in the nest of the little Jackdaw!
Then the great Lord Cardinal called for his book,
And off that terrible curse he took;
The mute expression served in lieu of confession,
And, being thus coupled with full restitution,
The Jackdaw got plenary absolution!
When these words were heard, the poor little bird
Was so changed in a moment, 'twas really absurd:
He grew slick and fat; in addition to that,
A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat!
His tail waggled more even than before;
But no longer it wagged with an impudent air,
No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair.
He hopped now about with a gait devout;
At matins, at vespers, he never was out;
And, so far from any more pilfering deeds,
He always seemed telling the Confessor's beads.
If any one lied, or if any one swore,
Or slumbered in prayer-time and happened to snore,
That good Jackdaw would give a great "Caw!"
As much as to say, "Don't do so any more!"
While many remarked, as his manners they saw,
That they never had known such a pious Jackdaw!
He long lived the pride of that country side,
And at last in the order of sanctity died:
When, as words were too faint his merits to paint,
The Conclave determined to make him a Saint.
And on newly made Saints and Popes, as you know,
It's the custom at Rome new names to bestow,
So they canonized him by the name of Jim Crow!
JAFFAR
LEIGH HUNT
Jaffar the Barmecide, the good vizier,
The poor man's hope, the friend without a peer,
Jaffar was dead, slain by a doom unjust;
And guilty Haroun, sullen with mistrust
Of what the good, and e'en the bad, might say,
Ordained that no man living, from that day,
Should dare to speak his name on pain of death.
All Araby and Persia held their breath;
All but the brave Mondeer; he, proud to show
How far for love a grateful soul could go,
And facing death for very scorn and grief
(For his great heart wanted a great relief),
Stood forth in Bagdad, daily, in the square
Where once had stood a happy house, and there
Harangued the tremblers at the scimitar
On all they owed to the divine Jaffar.
"Bring me this man," the caliph cried; the man
Was brought, was gazed upon. The mutes began
To bind his arms. "Welcome, brave cords," cried he,
"From bonds far worse Jaffar delivered me;
From wants, from shames, from loveliest household fears,
Made a man's eyes friends with delicious tears;
Restored me, loved me, put me on a par
With his great self. How can I pay Jaffar?"
Haroun, who felt that on a soul like this
The mightiest vengeance could not fall amiss,
Now deigned to smile, as one great lord of fate
Might smile upon another half as great.
He said, "Let worth grow frenzied if it will;
The caliph's judgment shall be master still.
Go, and since gifts so move thee, take this gem,
The richest in the Tartar's diadem,
And hold the giver as thou deemest fit!"
"Gifts!" cried the friend; he took, and holding it
High toward the heavens, as though to meet his star,
Exclaimed, "This, too, I owe to thee, Jaffar!"
JIM BLUDSOE[7]
JOHN HAY
Wall, no! I can't tell where he lives,
Because he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit
Of livin' like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three years,
That you haven't heard folks tell
How Jimmy Bludsoe passed in his checks,
The night of the Prairie Belle?
He warn't no saint--them engineers
Is all pretty much alike--
One wife in Natchez-Under-the-Hill,
And another one here in Pike.
A careless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward man in a row--
But he never flunked, and he never lied--
I reckon he never knowed how.
And this was all the religion he had--
To treat his engine well;
Never be passed on the river;
To mind the pilot's bell;
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire;
A thousand times he swore,
He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.
All boats has their day on the Mississip',
And her day came at last--
The Movastar was a better boat,
But the Belle, she wouldn't be passed,
And so came a-tearin' along that night,
The oldest craft on the line,
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,
And her furnaces crammed, rosin and pine.
The fire burst out as she cleared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,
And quick as a flash she turned and made
For that willer-bank on the right.
Ther' was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out
Over all the infernal roar,
"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last galoot's ashore."
Thro' the hot black breath of the burnin' boat
Jim Bludsoe's voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And know'd he would keep his word.
And sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,
And Bludsoe's ghost went up alone
In the smoke of Prairie Belle.
He warn't no saint--but at judgment
I'd run my chance with Jim
Longside of some pious gentleman
That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He'd seen his duty, a dead sure thing,
And went fer it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a-goin' to be too hard
On a man that died for men.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] By permission of Mrs. Hay.
KING ROBERT OF SICILY[8]
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane
And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,
Appareled in magnificent attire,
With retinue of many a knight and squire,
On St. John's eve, at vespers, proudly sat,
And heard the priests chant the Magnificat,
And as he listened, o'er and o'er again
Repeated, like a burden or refrain,
He caught the words, "Deposuit potentes
De sede et exultavit humiles;"
And slowly lifting up his kingly head,
He to the learned clerk beside him said,
"What mean those words?" The clerk made answer meet,
"He has put down the mighty from their seat,
And has exalted them of low degree."
Thereat King Robert muttered scornfully,
"'Tis well that such seditious words are sung
Only by priests and in the Latin tongue;
For unto priests and people be it known,
There is no power can push me from my throne!"
And leaning back, he yawned and fell asleep,
Lulled by the chant, monotonous and deep.
When he awoke it was already night;
The church was empty, and there was no light,
Save where the lamps, that glimmered few and faint,
Lighted a little space before some saint.
He started from his seat and gazed around,
But saw no living thing and heard no sound.
He groped toward the door, but it was locked;
He cried aloud, and listened, and then knocked,
And uttered awful threatenings and complaints,
And imprecations upon men and saints.
The sounds reechoed from the roof and walls
As if dead priests were laughing in their stalls.
At length the sexton hearing from without
The tumult of the knocking and the shout,
And thinking thieves were in the house of prayer,
Came with his lantern asking, "Who is there?"
Half choked with rage, King Robert fiercely said,
"Open: 'Tis I, the King! Art thou afraid?"
The frightened sexton muttering with a curse,
"This is some drunken vagabond or worse!"
Turned the great key and flung the portal wide;
A man rushed by him at a single stride,
Haggard, half naked, without hat or cloak,
Who neither turned, nor looked at him, nor spoke,
But leaped into the blackness of the night,
And vanished like a spectre from his sight.
Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane
And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,
Despoiled of his magnificent attire,
Bareheaded, breathless, and besprent with mire,
With sense of wrong and outrage desperate,
Strode on and thundered at the palace gate;
Rushed through the courtyard, thrusting in his rage
To right and left each seneschal and page,
And hurried up the broad and sounding stair,
His white face ghastly in the torches' glare.
From hall to hall he rushed in breathless speed,
Voices and cries he heard, but did not heed,
Until at last he reached the banquet room,
Blazing with light and breathing with perfume.
There on the dais sat another king,
Wearing his robes, his crown, his signet ring,
King Robert's self in feature, form and height,
But all transfigured with angelic light.
It was an Angel; and his presence there
With a divine effulgence filled the air,
An exaltation piercing the disguise,
Though none the hidden Angel recognize.
A moment speechless, motionless, amazed,
The throneless monarch on the Angel gazed,
Who met his look of anger and surprise
With the divine compassion of his eyes;
Then said, "Who art thou, and why comest thou here?"
To which King Robert answered with a sneer,
"I am the King, and come to claim my own
From an imposter, who usurps my throne!"
And suddenly, at these audacious words,
Up sprang the angry guests and drew their swords!
The Angel answered with unruffled brow,
"Nay, not the king, but the king's Jester, thou
Henceforth shalt wear the bells and scalloped cape,
And for thy counselor shalt lead an ape;
Thou shalt obey my servants when they call,
And wait upon my henchmen in the hall!"
Deaf to King Robert's threats and cries and prayers,
They thrust him from the hall and down the stairs;
A group of tittering pages ran before,
And as they opened wide the folding doors,
His heart failed, for he heard, with strange alarms,
The boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms,
And all the vaulted chamber roar and ring
With the mock plaudits of "Long live the King!"
Next morning, waking with the day's first beam,
He said within himself, "It was a dream!"
But the straw rustled as he turned his head,
There were the cap and bells beside his bed,
Around him rose the bare discolored walls,
Close by the steeds were champing in their stalls,
And in the corner, a revolting shape,
Shivering and chattering sat the wretched ape.
It was no dream; the world he loved so much
Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch!
Days came and went; and now returned again
To Sicily the old Saturnian reign;
Under the Angel's governance benign
The happy island danced with corn and wine,
And deep within the mountain's burning breast
Enceladus, the giant, was at rest.
Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate,
Sullen and silent and disconsolate,
Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters wear,
With look bewildered and a vacant stare,
Close shaven above the ears as monks are shorn,
By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn,
His only friend the ape, his only food
What others left,--he still was unsubdued.
And when the Angel met him on his way,
And half in earnest, half in jest, would say,
Sternly, though tenderly, that he might feel,
The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel,
"Art thou the King?" the passion of his woe,
Burst from him in resistless overflow,
And, lifting high his forehead he would fling
The haughty answer back, "I am, I am, the King!"
Almost three years were ended, when there came
Ambassadors of great repute and fame
From Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,
Unto King Robert, saying that Pope Urbane
By letter summoned them forthwith to come
On Holy Thursday to his City of Rome.
The Pope received them with great pomp and blare
Of bannered trumpets, on St. Peter's Square,
Giving his benediction and embrace,
Fervent, and full of apostolic grace.
While with congratulations and with prayers
He entertained the Angel unawares.
Robert, the Jester, bursting through the crowd,
Into their presence rushed, and cried aloud,
"I am the King! Look and behold in me
Robert, your brother, King of Sicily!
This man who wears my semblance in your eyes,
Is an imposter in a king's disguise.
Do you not know me? Does no voice within
Answer my cry, and say we are akin?"
The Pope in silence, but with troubled mien,
Gazed at the Angel's countenance serene;
The Emperor, laughing said, "It is strange sport
To keep a madman for thy fool at court!"
And the poor baffled Jester in disgrace
Was hustled back among the populace.
In solemn state the Holy Week went by,
And Easter Sunday gleamed upon the sky;
The presence of the Angel, with its light,
Before the sun rose, made the city bright,
And with new fervor filled the hearts of men,
Who felt that Christ indeed had risen again.
Even the Jester, on his bed of straw,
With haggard eyes the unwonted splendor saw,
He felt within a power unfelt before,
And, kneeling humbly on the chamber floor,
He heard the rushing garments of the Lord
Sweep through the silent air, ascending heavenward.
And now the visit ending, and once more
Valmond returning to the Danube's shore,
Homeward the Angel journeyed, and again
The land was made resplendent with his train,
Flashing along the towns of Italy
Unto Salerno, and from thence by sea.
And when once more within Palermo's wall,
And, seated on the throne in his great hall,
He heard the Angelus from convent towers,
As if a better world conversed with ours,
He beckoned to King Robert to draw nigher,
And with a gesture bade the rest retire;
And when they were alone, the Angel said,
"Art thou the King?" Then, bowing down his head,
King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast,
And meekly answered him: "Thou knowest best!
My sins as scarlet are; let me go hence,
And in some cloister's school of penitence,
Across those stones that pave the way to heaven,
Walk barefoot, till my guilty soul be shriven!"
The Angel smiled, and from his radiant face
A holy light illumined all the place,
And through the open window, loud and clear,
They heard the monks chant in the chapel near,
Above the noise and tumult of the street:
"He has put down the mighty from their seat,
And has exalted them of low degree!"
And through the chant a second melody
Rose like the throbbing of a single string:
"I am an Angel, and thou art the King!"
King Robert, who was standing near the throne,
Lifted his eyes, and lo! he was alone!
But all appareled as in days of old,
With ermined mantle and with cloth of gold,
And when his courtiers came, they found him there
Kneeling upon the floor, absorbed in silent prayer.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] Used by permission of, and special arrangement with, Houghton,
Mifflin, & Co., authorized publishers of his works.
THE LADY OF SHALOTT
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
PART I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs forever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle embowers
The Lady of Shalott.
By the margin, willow-veil'd
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot.
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower'd Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers "'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."
PART II
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colors gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear,
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.
PART III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight forever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick jewel'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
PART IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
_The Lady of Shalott_.
And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance--
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
Lying robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right--
The leaves upon her falling light--
Thro' the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reached upon the tide
The first house by the water side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
_The Lady of Shalott_.
Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross'd themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in His mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."
A LEGEND OF SERVICE[9]
HENRY VAN DYKE
It pleased the Lord of Angels (praise his name!)
To hear, one day, report from those who came
With pitying sorrow, or exultant joy,
To tell of earthly tasks in His employ;
For some were sorry when they saw how slow
The stream of heavenly love on earth must flow;
And some were glad because their eyes had seen,
Along its banks, fresh flowers and living green.
So, at a certain hour, before the throne
The youngest angel, Asmiel, stood alone;
Nor glad, nor sad, but full of earnest thought,
And thus his tidings to the Master brought:
"Lord, in the city Lupon I have found
Three servants of thy holy name, renowned
Above their fellows. One is very wise,
With thoughts that ever range above the skies;
And one is gifted with the golden speech
That makes men glad to hear when he will teach;
And one, with no rare gift or grace endued,
Has won the people's love by doing good.
With three such saints Lupon is trebly blest;
But, Lord, I fain would know which loves thee best?"
Then spake the Lord of Angels, to whose look
The hearts of all are like an open book:
"In every soul the secret thought I read,
And well I know who loves me best indeed.
But every life has pages vacant still,
Whereon a man may write the thing he will;
Therefore I read in silence, day by day,
And wait for hearts untaught to learn my way.
But thou shalt go to Lupon, to the three
Who serve me there, and take this word from me:
Tell each of them his Master bids him go
Alone to Spiran's huts, across the snow;
There he shall find a certain task for me,
But what, I do not tell to them nor thee.
Give thou the message, make my word the test,
And crown for me the one who answers best."
Silent the angel stood, with folded hands,
To take the imprint of his Lord's commands;
Then drew one breath, obedient and elate,
And passed the self-same hour, through Lupon's gate.
First to the Temple door he made his way;
And then because it was an holy-day,
He saw the folk by thousands thronging, stirred
By ardent thirst to hear the preacher's word.
Then, while the echoes murmured Bernol's name,
Through aisles that hushed behind him, Bernol came;
Strung to the keenest pitch of conscious might,
With lips prepared and firm, and eyes alight.
One moment at the pulpit step he knelt
In silent prayer, and on his shoulder felt
The angel's hand:--"The Master bids thee go
Alone to Spiran's huts, across the snow,
To serve Him there." Then Bernol's hidden face
Went white as death, and for about the space
Of ten slow heart-beats there was no reply;
Till Bernol looked around and whispered, "Why?"
But answer to this question came there none;
The angel sighed, and with a sigh was gone.
Within the humble house where Malvin spent
His studious years, on holy things intent,
Sweet stillness reigned; and there the angel found
The saintly sage immersed in thought profound,
Weaving with patient toil and willing care
A web of wisdom, wonderful and fair:
A seamless robe for Truth's great bridal meet,
And needing but one thread to be complete.
Then Asmiel touched his hand and broke the thread
Of fine-spun thought, and very gently said,
"The One of whom thou thinkest bids thee go
Alone to Spiran's huts, across the snow,
To serve Him there." With sorrow and surprise
Malvin looked up, reluctance in his eyes.
The broken thought, the strangeness of the call,
The perilous passage of the mountain-wall,
The solitary journey, and the length
Of ways unknown, too great for his frail strength,
Appalled him. With a doubtful brow
He scanned the doubtful task, and muttered, "How?"
But Asmiel answered, as he turned to go,
With cold disheartened voice, "I do not know."
Now as he went, with fading hope, to seek
The third and last, to whom God bade him speak,
Scarce twenty steps away whom should he meet
But Fermor, hurrying cheerful down the street,
With ready heart that faced his work like play,
And joyed to find it greater day by day!
The angel stopped him with uplifted hand,
And gave without delay his Lord's command:
"He whom thou servest here would have thee go
Alone to Spiran's huts, across the snow,
To serve Him there." Ere Asmiel breathed again
The eager answer leaped to meet him, "When?"
The angel's face with inward joy grew bright,
And all his figure glowed with heavenly light;
He took the golden circlet from his brow
And gave the crown to Fermor, answering; "Now!
For thou hast met the Master's bidden test,
And I have found the man who loves Him best.
Not thine, nor mine, to question or reply
When He commands us, asking 'how?' or 'why?'
He knows the cause; His ways are wise and just;
Who serves the King must serve with perfect trust."
FOOTNOTE:
[9] From "Music and other Poems," copyright, 1904, by Charles Scribner's
Sons.
LITTLE BOY BLUE
EUGENE FIELD
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little tin soldier is red with rust,
And his musket molds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new
And the soldier was passing fair,
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.
"Now, don't you go till I come," he said;
"And don't you make any noise!"
So toddling off to his trundle bed
He dreamt of the pretty toys.
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue--
Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true.
Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place.
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face.
And they wonder, as waiting these long years through,
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of that Little Boy Blue
Since he kissed them and put them there.
MARY'S NIGHT RIDE[10]
GEORGE W. CABLE
Mary Richling, the heroine of the story, was the wife of John Richling,
a resident of New Orleans. At the breaking out of the Civil War she went
to visit her parents in Milwaukee. About the time of the bombardment of
New Orleans she received news of the dangerous illness of her husband,
and she decided at once to reach his bedside, if possible. Taking with
her, her baby daughter, a child of three years, she proceeded southward,
where, after several unsuccessful attempts to secure a pass, she finally
determined to break through the lines.
About the middle of the night Mary Richling was sitting very still and
upright on a large, dark horse that stood champing his Mexican bit in
the black shadow of a great oak. Alice rested before her, fast asleep
against her bosom. Mary held by the bridle another horse, whose naked
saddle-tree was empty. A few steps in front of her the light of the full
moon shone almost straight down upon a narrow road that just there
emerged from the shadow of woods on either side, and divided into a main
right fork and a much smaller one that curved around to Mary's left. Off
in the direction of the main fork the sky was all aglow with camp-fires.
Only just here on the left there was a cool and grateful darkness.
She lifted her head alertly. A twig crackled under a tread, and the next
moment a man came out of the bushes at the left, and without a word took
the bridle of the old horse from her fingers and vaulted into the
saddle. The hand that rested a moment on the cantle as he rose grasped a
"navy six." He was dressed in dull homespun, but he was the same who had
been dressed in blue. He turned his horse and led the way down the
lesser road.
"If we'd gone on three hundred yards further," he whispered, falling
back and smiling broadly, "we'd 'a' run into the pickets. I went nigh
enough to see the videttes settin' on their hosses in the main road.
This here ain't no road; it just goes up to a nigger quarters. I've got
one o' the niggers to show us the way."
"Where is he?" whispered Mary; but before her companion could answer, a
tattered form moved from behind a bush a little in advance and started
ahead in the path, walking and beckoning. Presently they turned into a
clear, open forest, and followed the long, rapid, swinging stride of the
negro for nearly an hour. Then they halted on the bank of a deep, narrow
stream. The negro made a motion for them to keep well to the right when
they should enter the water. The white man softly lifted Alice to his
arms, directed and assisted Mary to kneel in her saddle, with her skirts
gathered carefully under her, and so they went down into the cold
stream, the negro first, with arms outstretched above the flood; then
Mary, and then the white man,--or, let us say plainly, the spy--with the
unawakened child on his breast. And so they rose out of it on the
farther side without a shoe or garment wet, save the rags of their dark
guide.
Again they followed him, along a line of stake-and-rider fence, with the
woods on one side and the bright moonlight flooding a field of young
cotton on the other. Now they heard the distant baying of house-dogs,
now the doleful call of the chuck-will's-widow, and once Mary's blood
turned, for an instant, almost to ice at the unearthly shriek of the
hoot owl just above her head. At length they found themselves in a dim,
narrow road, and the negro stopped.
"Dess keep dish yeh road fo' 'bout half mile, an' you strak 'pon de
broad, main road. Tek de left, an' you go whah yo' fancy tek you."
"Good-by," whispered Mary.
"Good-by, Miss," said the negro, in the same low voice; "good-by, boss;
don't you fo'git you promise tek me thoo to de Yankee' when you come
back. I 'feered you gwine fo'git it, boss."
The spy said he would not, and they left him. The half-mile was soon
passed, though it turned out to be a mile and a half, and at length
Mary's companion looked back as they rode single file with Mary in the
rear, and said softly:
"There's the road," pointing at its broad, pale line with his
six-shooter.
As they entered it and turned to the left, Mary, with Alice again in her
arms, moved somewhat ahead of her companion, her indifferent
horsemanship having compelled him to drop back to avoid a prickly bush.
His horse was just quickening his pace to regain the lost position, when
a man sprang up from the ground on the farther side of the highway,
snatched a carbine from the earth and cried: "Halt!"
The dark recumbent forms of six or eight others could be seen, enveloped
in their blankets, lying about a few red coals. Mary turned a frightened
look backward and met the eyes of her companion.
"Move a little faster," said he, in a low, clear voice. As she promptly
did so she heard him answer the challenge, as his horse trotted softly
after hers.
"Don't stop us, my friend; we're taking a sick child to the doctor."
"Halt, you hound!" the cry rang out; and as Mary glanced back three or
four men were just leaping into the road. But she saw also her
companion, his face suffused with an earnestness that was almost an
agony, rise in his stirrups with the stoop of his shoulders all gone,
and wildly cry:
"Go!"
She smote the horse and flew. Alice woke and screamed.
"Hush, my darling," said the mother, laying on the withe; "mamma's here.
Hush, darling, mamma's here. Don't be frightened, darling baby. O God,
spare my child!" and away she sped.
The report of a carbine rang out and went rolling away in a thousand
echoes through the wood. Two others followed in sharp succession, and
there went close by Mary's ear the waspish whine of a minie-ball. At the
same moment she recognized, once,--twice,--thrice,--just at her back
where the hoofs of her companion's horse were clattering--the tart
rejoinders of his navy six.
"Go!" he cried again. "Lay low! lay low! cover the child!" But his words
were needless. With head bowed forward and form crouched over the
crying, clinging child, with slackened rein and fluttering dress, and
sun-bonnet and loosened hair blown back upon her shoulders, with lips
compressed and silent prayers, Mary was riding for life and liberty and
her husband's bedside.
"O mamma, mamma," wailed the terrified little one.
"Go on! Go on!" cried the voice behind; "they're--saddling up! Go! go!
We're goin' to make it! We're going to make it! Go-o-o!"
And they made it!
FOOTNOTE:
[10] From "Dr. Sevier."
NYDIA, THE BLIND GIRL[11]
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
As Glaucus, a young Athenian, now a resident of Pompeii, was strolling
with his friend Clodius through the streets of that renowned city, their
steps were arrested by a crowd gathered round an open space where three
streets met; and just where the porticoes of a light, graceful temple
threw their shade, there stood a young girl, with a flower-basket on her
right arm and a small three-stringed instrument of music in her left
hand, to whose low and soft tones she was modulating a low, plaintive
air.
"It is my poor, blind Thessalian," said Glaucus, stopping; "I have not
seen her since my return to Pompeii. Hush! let us listen to her song."
THE BLIND FLOWER GIRL'S SONG
Buy my flowers, O buy, I pray!
The blind girl comes from afar;
If the earth be as fair as I hear them say,
These flowers her children are!
Do they her beauty keep?
They are fresh from her lap, I know,
For I caught them fast asleep
In her arms an hour ago.
Ye have a world of light,
Where love in the loved rejoices;
But the blind girl's home is the house of night,
And its beings are empty voices.
Come buy,--buy, come buy!--
Hark! how the sweet things sigh
(For they have a voice like ours)
O buy--O buy the flowers!
"I must have that bunch of violets, sweet Nydia," said Glaucus, "your
voice is more charming than ever."
The blind girl started forward as she heard the Athenian's voice; then
as suddenly paused, while a blush of timidity flushed over neck, cheeks,
and temples.
"So you are returned!" she said in a low voice.
"Yes, child, I have not been at Pompeii above a few days. My garden
wants your care, you will visit it, I trust, to-morrow, and mind, no
garlands at my house shall be woven by any hands but those of the pretty
Nydia."
Nydia smiled joyously but did not answer; and Glaucus, placing in his
breast the violets he had selected, turned gaily and carelessly from the
crowd.
Though of gentle birth, for her cradle was rocked at the foot of
Olympus, Nydia had been sold when quite young to Burbo, a gladiator of
the amphitheater. She was cruelly treated by the wife of Burbo.
Glaucus bought her, took her to his home, and her sweetest joy was to
minister to the comfort and entertainment of her deliverer. The vines
that grew upon the walls of the peristyle were not more graceful, their
tendrils not more trusting and tender, nor the flowers woven into
wreaths and garlands by her skillful fingers more beautiful than the
blind flower-girl of the house of Glaucus.
As the months went on what wonder that the kind words and sympathetic
voice which had been the first that had sounded musically to her ear
should awaken in the breast of Nydia a deeper love than that which
springs from gratitude alone! What wonder that in her innocence and
blindness she knew no reason why the most brilliant and the most
graceful of the young nobles of Pompeii should entertain none other than
feelings of friendship for her! When the Athenian drew her unconsciously
to his breast, deeming her still a child--when he kissed her cheek and
wound his arm around her trembling form, Nydia felt that those feelings
she had innocently cherished were of love.
What wonder then that into her wild and passionate soul should creep the
pangs of jealousy when another claimed the homage of him who was all to
her!
Glaucus loved Ione, a beautiful young Neapolitan of Greek parentage who
had lately come to Pompeii. She was one of those brilliant characters
which seldom flash across our career. She united in the highest
perfection the rarest of earthly gifts,--Genius and Beauty. No one ever
possessed superior intellectual qualities without knowing them. In the
person of Ione, Glaucus found the long-sought idol of his dreams; and so
infatuated was he, that he could talk of no one else. No song was sweet
but that which breathed of love, and to him love was but a synonym of
Ione.
"Play to us, dear Nydia,--play, and give us one of thy songs; whether it
be of magic or not as thou wilt--let it at least be of love."
"Of love! wish you that I should sing of love?"
"Yes."
She moved a little way from Ione, who had learned to love her more as a
sister than a slave, and placing her light, graceful instrument on her
knee, after a short prelude, she sang the following strain, in which
with touching pathos, her own sighs were represented by the _Wind_, the
brightness of the beautiful Ione by the _Sun-beam_, and the personality
of Glaucus by his favorite flower, the _Rose_.
I
The Wind and the Beam loved the Rose,
And the Rose loved one;
For who seeks the Wind where it blows?
Or loves not the Sun?
II
None knew where the humble Wind stole,
Poor sport of the skies--
None dreamt that the Wind had a soul,
In its mournful sighs!
III
Oh, happy Beam! how canst thou prove
That bright love of thine?
In thy light is the proof of thy love,
Thou hast but--to shine!
IV
How can the Wind its love reveal?
Unwelcome its sigh;
Mute--mute to its Rose be it still--
Its proof is--to die!
Alike in their mornings at the house of Ione, and in their evening
excursions, Nydia was usually their constant, and often their sole
companion. They did not guess the secret fires which consumed her; the
flames of which were ever fanned by the unconscious breath of the two
lovers. Yet her fidelity arose above her pitiful pangs of jealousy and
in the hour of need she was the tried and trusted.
The scene changes; where only the brightness of uninterrupted love had
hitherto fallen, now creep the black shadows of tragic sorrow.
Ione falls into the clutches of Arbaces, a subtle, crafty Egyptian, who
attempted by the magic of his dark sorcery, to win her away from
Glaucus. In pursuit of his base designs, Arbaces murders Apaecides, the
brother of Ione, imprisons the priest Calenus, the only witness of the
deed, and with great cunning weaves a convicting web of circumstantial
evidence around Glaucus, his hated rival. Glaucus is tried, convicted,
and doomed to be thrown to the lion. Ione and Nydia are also prisoners
in the house of Arbaces. Glaucus has been placed in that gloomy and
narrow cell in which the criminals of the arena awaited their last and
fearful struggle.
Alas! how faithless are the friendships made around an epicurean board!
Where were the gay loiterers who once lingered at the feasts and drank
the rich wines of the house of Glaucus? Only Sallust shed a tear, but he
was powerless against Arbaces who was backed by the corrupt priesthood
of Isis.
What ministering angel should now come forth as a light out of darkness
bearing, even in her blindness, the conditions of deliverance, but
Nydia. From the slaves of Arbaces she learned the approaching fate of
Glaucus. Working upon the superstition of her special guard Sosia, she
manages to escape his vigilance for a time, and creeping along a dark
passage she overhears the cries of the priest Calenus lately
incarcerated in an adjoining dungeon cell. From him she learns the
circumstances of the crime of Arbaces for which the innocent Glaucus was
doomed to die. A few hours later she was captured by Sosia and replaced
in her cell.
Yet knowing that the sole chance for the life of Glaucus rested on her,
this young girl, frail, passionate, and acutely susceptible as she
was--resolved not to give way to despair. Glaucus was in deadly peril,
but she should save him! Sosia was her only hope, the only instrument
with which she could tamper.
As if afraid he would be again outwitted, Sosia refrained from visiting
her until a late hour of the following day.
"Kind Sosia, chide me not," said Nydia, "I cannot endure to be so long
alone, the solitude appalls me. Sit with me, I pray, a little while.
Nay, fear not that I should attempt to escape; place thy seat before the
door. Sosia, how much dost thou require to make up thy freedom?"
"How much?" said he, "why, about 2000 sesterces."
"The Gods be praised! not more? Seest thou these bracelets and this
chain? they are worth double that sum. I will give them thee if thou
wilt let me out, only for one little hour! let me out at midnight--I
will return ere to-morrow's dawn; nay, thou canst go with me."
"No," said Sosia, sturdily, "a slave once disobeying Arbaces is never
heard of more."
"Well, then, thou wilt not, at least, refuse to take a letter for me;
thy master cannot kill thee for that."
"To whom?"
"To Sallust, the gay Sallust. Glaucus was my master, he purchased me
from a cruel lord. He alone has been kind to me. He is to die to-morrow.
I shall never live happily if I cannot, in this hour of trial and doom,
let him know that one heart is grateful to him. Sallust is his friend;
he will convey my message."
"Well, give me the trinkets, and I will take the letter."
Nydia carefully prepared the epistle, but ere she placed it in the hands
of Sosia she thus addressed him:
"Sosia, I am blind and in prison. Thou mayst think to deceive me--thou
mayst pretend only to take the letter to Sallust--thou mayst not fulfill
thy charge; but here I solemnly dedicate thy head to vengeance, thy soul
to the infernal powers, if thou wrongest thy trust; and I call upon thee
to place thy right hand of faith in mine, and repeat after me these
words;--'_By the ground on which we stand--by the elements which contain
life and which can curse life--by Orcus, the all-avenging--by the
Olympian Jupiter, the all-seeing--I swear that I will honestly discharge
my trust, and faithfully deliver this letter into the hands of
Sallust_.' Enough! I trust thee--take thy reward. It is already
dark--depart at once."
Sosia was true to his trust--Sallust read the letter, she wrote,--"_I am
a prisoner in the house of Arbaces. Hasten to the Praetor! procure my
release, and we yet shall save Glaucus from the lion. There is another
prisoner within these walls, whose witness can exonerate the Athenian
from the charge against him;--one who saw the crime--who can prove the
criminal to be a villain hitherto unsuspected. Fly! hasten! quick!
quick! Bring with you armed men, lest resistance be made,--and a cunning
and dexterous smith; for the dungeon of my fellow-prisoner is thick and
strong. Oh! by thy right hand, and thy father's ashes, lose not a
moment!_"
The day for the sports in the amphitheater had come and all the seats
were filled with eager and expectant people. The gladiatorial fights and
other games of the arena were completed.
"Bring forth the lion and Glaucus the Athenian," said the editor.
Just then a loud cry was heard at one of the entrances of the arena; the
crowd gave way and suddenly Sallust appeared on the senatorial benches,
his hair disheveled; breathless; half exhausted--he cast his eyes
hastily around the ring.
"Remove the Athenian," he cried, "haste,--he is innocent. Arrest Arbaces
the Egyptian. He is the murderer of Apaecides."
"Art thou mad, O Sallust?" said the praetor, "what means this raving?"
"Remove the Athenian--quick, or his blood be on your head. I bring with
me the eye-witness to the death of Apaecides. Room there--stand
back--give way. People of Pompeii, fix every eye on Arbaces--there he
sits--room there for the priest Calenus."
"Enough at present," said the praetor. "The details must be reserved for
a more suiting time and place. Ho! guards! remove the accused Glaucus,
arrest Arbaces, guard Calenus! Sallust, we hold you responsible for your
accusation. Let the sports be resumed."
As the praetor gave the word of release, there was a cry of joy--a female
voice--a child voice--and it was of joy! It rang through the heart of
the assembly with electric force--it was touching, it was holy, that
child's voice!
"Silence!" said the grave praetor--"who is there?"
"The blind girl--Nydia," answered Sallust; "it is her hand that raised
Calenus from the grave and delivered Glaucus from the lion."
Stunned by his reprieve, doubting that he was awake, Glaucus had been
led by the officers of the arena into a small cell within the walls of
the theater. They threw a loose robe over his form and crowded around in
congratulation and wonder. There was an impatient and fretful cry
without the cell; the throng gave way, and the blind girl flung herself
at the feet of Glaucus.
"It is I who saved thee," she sobbed, "now let me die!"
"Nydia, my child!--my preserver!"
"Oh, let me feel thy touch--thy breath! yes, yes, thou livest! We are
not too late! That dread door methought would never yield! But thou
livest! Thou livest yet!--and I--I have saved thee!"
FOOTNOTE:
[11] Adapted by Robt. I. Fulton from "Last Days of Pompeii."
O CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN![12]
ON THE DEATH OF LINCOLN
WALT WHITMAN
O Captain, my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But, O heart, heart, heart! O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead.
O Captain, my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths--for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here, Captain, dear father! this arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck, you've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My Captain does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage is closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! but I with mournful tread
Walk the deck where my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead.
FOOTNOTE:
[12] By permission of David McKay, publisher.
ON THE OTHER TRAIN
A CLOCK'S STORY
ANONYMOUS
"There, Simmons, you blockhead! Why didn't you trot that old woman
aboard her train? She'll have to wait here now until the 1.05 A.M."
"You didn't tell me."
"Yes, I did tell you. 'Twas only your confounded stupid carelessness."
"She--"
"She! You blockhead! What else could you expect of her! Probably she
hasn't any wit; besides, she isn't bound on a very jolly journey--got a
pass up the road to the poorhouse. I'll go and tell her, and if you
forget her to-night, see if I don't make mince-meat of you!" and our
worthy ticket agent shook his fist menacingly at his subordinate.
"You've missed your train, marm," he remarked, coming forward to a
queer-looking bundle in the corner.
A trembling hand raised the faded black veil, and revealed the sweetest
old face I ever saw.
"Never mind," said a quivering voice.
"'Tis only three o'clock now; you'll have to wait until the night train,
which doesn't go up until 1.05."
"Very well, sir; I can wait."
"Wouldn't you like to go to some hotel? Simmons will show you the way."
"No, thank you, sir. One place is as good as another to me. Besides, I
haven't any money."
"Very well," said the agent, turning away indifferently. "Simmons will
tell you when it's time."
All the afternoon she sat there so quiet that I thought sometimes she
must be asleep, but when I looked more closely I could see every once
in a while a great tear rolling down her cheek, which she would wipe
away hastily with her cotton handkerchief.
The depot was crowded, and all was bustle and hurry until the 9.50 train
going east came due; then every passenger left except the old lady. It
is very rare, indeed, that any one takes the night express, and almost
always after ten o'clock the depot becomes silent and empty.
The ticket agent put on his greatcoat, and, bidding Simmons keep his
wits about him for once in his life, departed for home.
But he had no sooner gone than that functionary stretched himself out
upon the table, as usual, and began to snore vociferously.
Then it was I witnessed such a sight as I never had before and never
expect to again.
The fire had gone down--it was a cold night, and the wind howled
dismally outside. The lamps grew dim and flared, casting weird shadows
upon the wall. By and by I heard a smothered sob from the corner, then
another. I looked in that direction. She had risen from her seat, and
oh! the look of agony on the poor pinched face.
"I can't believe it," she sobbed, wringing her thin, white hands. "Oh! I
can't believe it! My babies! my babies! how often have I held them in my
arms and kissed them; and how often they used to say back to me, 'Ise
love you, mamma,' and now, O God! they've turned against me. Where am I
going? To the poorhouse! No! no! no! I cannot! I will not! Oh, the
disgrace!"
And sinking upon her knees, she sobbed out in prayer:
"O God! spare me this and take me home! O God, spare me this disgrace;
spare me!"
The wind rose higher and swept through the crevices, icy cold. How it
moaned and seemed to sob like something human that is hurt. I began to
shake, but the kneeling figure never stirred. The thin shawl had
dropped from her shoulders unheeded. Simmons turned over and drew his
blanket more closely about him.
Oh, how cold! Only one lamp remained, burning dimly; the other two had
gone out for want of oil. I could hardly see, it was so dark.
At last she became quieter and ceased to moan. Then I grew drowsy, and
kind of lost the run of things after I had struck twelve, when some one
entered the depot with a bright light. I started up. It was the
brightest light I ever saw, and seemed to fill the room full of glory. I
could see 'twas a man. He walked to the kneeling figure and touched her
upon the shoulder. She started up and turned her face wildly around. I
heard him say:--
"'Tis train time, ma'am. Come!"
A look of joy came over her face.
"I am ready," she whispered.
"Then give me your pass, ma'am."
She reached him a worn old book, which he took, and from it read
aloud:--
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you
rest."
"That's the pass over our road, ma'am. Are you ready?"
The light died away, and darkness fell in its place. My hand touched the
stroke of one. Simmons awoke with a start and snatched his lantern. The
whistle sounded down brakes; the train was due. He ran to the corner and
shook the old woman.
"Wake up, marm; 'tis train time."
But she never heeded. He gave one look at the white set face, and,
dropping his lantern, fled.
The up train halted, the conductor shouted "All aboard," but no one made
a move that way.
The next morning, when the ticket agent came, he found her frozen to
death. They whispered among themselves, and the coroner made out the
verdict "apoplexy," and it was in some way hushed up.
But the last look on the sweet old face, lit up with a smile so
unearthly, I keep with me yet; and when I think of the occurrence of
that night, I know she went out on the other train, that never stopped
at the poorhouse.
THE PANSY
ANONYMOUS
Of all the bonny buds that blow,
In bright or cloudy weather,
Of all the flowers that come and go,
The whole twelve moons together,
This little purple pansy brings,
Thoughts of the sweetest, saddest things.
I had a little lover once,
Who used to give me posies;
His eyes were blue as hyacinths,
His lips were red as roses;
And everybody loved to praise
His pretty looks and winsome ways.
The girls that went to school with me
Made little jealous speeches,
Because he brought me royally
His biggest plums and peaches,
And always at the door would wait,
To carry home my books and slate.
They couldn't see--with pout and fling--
"The mighty fascination
About that little snub-nosed thing,
To win such admiration;
As if there weren't a dozen girls
With nicer eyes and longer curls!"
And this I knew as well as they,
And never could see clearly
Why, more than Marion or May,
I should be loved so dearly.
So once I asked him, why was this;
He only answered with a kiss;
Until I teased him: "Tell me why,
I want to know the reason."
Then from the garden-bed close by
(The pansies were in season)
He plucked and gave a flower to me,
With sweet and simple gravity.
"The garden is in bloom," he said,
"With lilies pale and slender,
With roses and verbenas red,
And fuchsias' purple splendor;
But over and above the rest,
This little heart's-ease suits me best."
"Am I your little heart's-ease, then?"
I asked with blushing pleasure.
He answered "Yes!" and "Yes!" again--
"Heart's-ease and dearest treasure;"
That the round world and all the sea
Held nothing half so sweet as me!
I listened with a proud delight,
Too rare for words to capture,
Nor ever dreamed what sudden blight,
Would come to chill my rapture.
Could I foresee the tender bloom
Of pansies round a little tomb?
Life holds some stern experience,
As most of us discover,
And I've had other losses since
I lost my little lover;
But still this purple pansy brings
Thoughts of the sweetest, saddest things.
"THE REVENGE"
A BALLAD OF THE FLEET, 1591
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away:
"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!"
Then spake Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick,
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?"
Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are no coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore;
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."
So Lord Howard passed away with five ships of war that day,
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land
Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford and Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below;
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.
He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight
With his huge sea castles heaving upon the weather bow.
"Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, let us know,
For to fight is but to die!
There'll be little of us left, by the time this sun be set."
And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good Englishmen;
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turned my back upon Don or Devil yet."
Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah, and so
The little "Revenge" ran on, sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck and her ninety sick below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were
seen,
And the little "Revenge" ran on, thro' the long sea-lane between.
Thousands of their soldiers looked down from their decks and
laugh'd,
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft
Running on and on, till delay'd
By their mountain-like "San Philip," that, of fifteen hundred tons,
And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,
Took the breath from our sails and we stay'd.
And while now the great "San Philip" hung above us like a cloud
Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud,
Four galleons drew away
From the Spanish fleet that day,
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,
And the battle-thunder broke from them all.
And the sun went down, and the stars came out, far over the summer
sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons
came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and
flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and
her shame,
For some were sunk, and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us
no more--
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?
For he said: "Fight on! fight on!"
Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck;
And it chanced that, when half of the summer night was gone,
With a grisly wound to be dressed, he had left the deck,
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,
And himself he was wounded again, in the side and the head,
And he said: "Fight on! fight on!"
And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer
sea,
And the Spanish fleet, with broken sides, lay round us, all in a
ring;
But they dared not touch us again, for they feared that we still
could sting,
So they watched what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we,
Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,
And half of the rest of us maim'd for life
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife.
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it
spent;
And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride:
"We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die--does it matter when?
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner--sink her, split her in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!"
And the gunner said: "Ay, ay," but the seamen made reply:
"We have children, we have wives,
And the Lord hath spared our lives.
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;
We shall live to fight again, and to strike another blow."
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.
And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last.
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:
"I have fought for Queen and Faith, like a valiant man and true;
I have only done my duty, as a man is bound to do;
With a joyful spirit, I, Sir Richard Grenville, die!"
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.
And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true,
And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap,
That he dared her with one little ship and his English few;
Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,
But they sank his body with honor down into the deep,
And they mann'd the "Revenge" with a swarthier alien crew,
And away she sail'd with her loss, and long'd for her own;
When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke from sleep,
And the water began to heave, and the weather to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,
Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and
their flags,
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd navy of
Spain,
And the little "Revenge" herself went down by the island crags,
To be lost evermore in the main.
THE RIDER OF THE BLACK HORSE
GEORGE LIPPARD
It was the 7th of October, 1777. Horatio Gates stood before his tent,
gazing steadfastly upon the two armies now arrayed in order of battle.
It was a clear, bracing day, mellow with the richness of autumn. The sky
was cloudless, the foliage of the wood scarce tinged with purple and
gold, the buckwheat in yonder fields frostened into snowy ripeness. But
the tread of legions shook the ground, from every bush shot the glimmer
of the rifle barrel, on every hillside blazed the sharpened bayonet.
Gates was sad and thoughtful, as he watched the evolutions of the two
armies. But all at once a smoke arose, a thunder shook the ground and a
chorus of shouts and groans yelled along the darkened air. The play of
death had begun. The two flags, this of the stars, that of the red
cross, tossed amid the smoke of battle, while the sky was clouded with
leaden folds, and the earth throbbed with the pulsations of a mighty
heart.
Suddenly, Gates and his officers were startled. Along the height on
which they stood came a rider on a black horse, rushing towards the
distant battle. There was something in the appearance of this horse and
his rider that struck them with surprise. Look! he draws his sword, the
sharp blade quivers through the air, he points to the distant battle and
lo! he is gone; gone through those clouds, while his shout echoes over
the plains. Wherever the fight is thickest, there through intervals of
cannon-smoke you may see riding madly forward that strange soldier,
mounted on his steed black as death. Look at him, as with face red with
British blood he waves his sword and shouts to his legions. Now you may
see him fighting in that cannon's glare, and the next moment he is away
off yonder, leading the forlorn hope up that steep cliff. Is it not a
magnificent sight, to see that strange soldier and that noble black
horse dashing, like a meteor, down the long columns of battle?
Let us look for a moment into those dense war-clouds. Over this thick
hedge bursts a band of American militiamen, their rude farmer-coats
stained with blood, while scattering their arms by the way, they flee
before that company of red-coat hirelings, who come rushing forward,
their solid front of bayonets gleaming in the battle light. At this
moment of their flight, a horse comes crashing over the plains. The
unknown rider reins his steed back on his haunches, right in the path of
a broad-shouldered militiaman. "Now, cowards! advance another step and
I'll strike you to the heart!" shouts the unknown, extending a pistol
in either hand. "What! are you Americans, men, and fly before British
soldiers? Back again, and face them once more, or I myself will ride you
down!"
This appeal was not without its effect. The militiaman turns; his
comrades, as if by one impulse, follow his example. In one line, but
thirty men in all, they confront thirty sharp bayonets. The British
advance. "Now upon the rebels, charge!" shouts the red-coat officer.
They spring forward at the same bound. Look! their bayonets almost touch
the muzzles of their rifles. At this moment the voice of the unknown
rider was heard: "Now let them have it! Fire!" A sound is heard, a smoke
is seen, twenty Britons are down, some writhing in death, some crawling
along the soil, and some speechless as stone. The remaining ten start
back. "Club your rifles and charge them home!" shouts the unknown. That
black horse springs forward, followed by the militiamen. Then a confused
conflict, a cry for quarter, and a vision of twenty farmers grouped
around the rider of the black horse, greeting him with cheers.
Thus it was all the day long. Wherever that black horse and his rider
went, there followed victory. At last, towards the setting of the sun,
the crisis of the conflict came. That fortress yonder, on Bemus Heights,
must be won, or the American cause is lost! That cliff is too
steep--that death is too certain. The officers cannot persuade the men
to advance. The Americans have lost the field. Even Morgan, that iron
man among iron men, leans on his rifle and despairs of the field. But
look yonder! In this moment when all is dismay and horror, here,
crashing on, comes the black horse and his rider. That rider bends upon
his steed, his frenzied face covered with sweat and dust and blood; he
lays his hand upon that bold rifleman's shoulder, and as though living
fire had been poured into his veins, he seizes his rifle and starts
toward the rock. And now look! now hold your breath, as that black
steed crashes up that steep cliff. That steed quivers! he totters! he
falls! No! No! Still on, still up the cliff, still on towards the
fortress. The rider turns his face and shouts, "Come on, men of Quebec!
come on!" That call is needless. Already the bold riflemen are on the
rock. Now, British cannon, pour your fires, and lay your dead in tens
and twenties on the rock. Now, red-coat hirelings, shout your battle-cry
if you can! For look! there, in the gate of the fortress, as the smoke
clears away, stands the black horse and his rider. That steed falls
dead, pierced by an hundred balls; but his rider, as the British cry for
quarter, lifts up his voice and shouts afar to Horatio Gates waiting
yonder in his tent, "Saratoga is won!" As that cry goes up to heaven, he
falls with his leg shattered by a cannon-ball.
Who was the rider of the black horse? Do you not guess his name? Then
bend down and gaze on that shattered limb, and you will see that it
bears the mark of a former wound. That wound was received in the
storming of Quebec. The rider of the black horse was Benedict Arnold.
SAILING BEYOND SEAS
JEAN INGELOW
Methought the stars were blinking bright,
And the old brig's sails unfurl'd;
I said: "I will sail to my love this night,
At the other side of the world."
I stepp'd aboard--we sail'd so fast--
The sun shot up from the bourn;
But a dove that perch'd upon the mast
Did mourn, and mourn, and mourn.
O fair dove! O fond dove!
And dove with the white, white breast--
Let me alone, the dream is my own,
And my heart is full of rest.
My true love fares on this great hill,
Feeding his sheep for aye;
I look'd in his hut, but all was still,
My love was gone away.
I went to gaze in the forest creek,
And the dove mourn'd on apace;
No flame did flash, nor fair blue reek
Rose up to show me his place.
O last love! O first love!
My love with the true, true heart,
To think I have come to this your home,
And yet--we are apart!
My love! He stood at my right hand,
His eyes were grave and sweet;
Methought he said: "In this far land,
O, is it thus we meet?
Ah, maid most dear, I am not here;
I have no place, no part,
No dwelling more by sea or shore,
But only in thy heart."
O fair dove! O fond dove!
Till night rose over the bourn,
The dove on the mast, as we sail'd fast,
Did mourn, and mourn, and mourn.
THE SANDS OF DEE
CHARLES KINGSLEY
"O Mary go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o' Dee!"
The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam,
And all alone went she.
The creeping tide came up along the sand,
And o'er and o'er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see;
The blinding mist came down and hid the land--
And never home came she.
"Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair--
A tress o' golden hair,
O' drowned maiden's hair
Above the nets at sea?
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair,
Among the stakes o' Dee."
They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel, crawling foam,
The cruel, hungry foam,--
To her grave beside the sea;
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,
Across the sands o' Dee.
THE SCHOOL OF SQUEERS[13]
CHARLES DICKENS
The following advertisement appeared in the morning papers:
EDUCATION.--At Mr. Wackford Squeers's Academy, Dotheboys Hall at
the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in
Yorkshire, Youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with
pocket money, provided with all necessaries, instructed in all
languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry,
astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra,
single-stick, if required, writing, arithmetic, fortification, and
every other branch of classical literature. Terms twenty guineas
per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled. Mr.
Squeers is in town and attends daily, from one till four, at the
Saracen's Head, Snow Hill. N.B. An able assistant wanted. Annual
salary, five pounds. A Master of Arts would be preferred.
Nicholas Nickleby obtained the above situation, having found that it was
not absolutely necessary to have acquired the degree, and arrived at the
inn, to join Mr. Squeers, at eight o'clock of a November morning. He
found that learned gentleman sitting at breakfast, with five little boys
in a row on the opposite seat. Mr. Squeers had before him a small
measure of coffee, a plate of hot toast, and a cold round of beef; but
he was at that moment intent on preparing breakfast for the little boys.
"This is two penn'orth of milk, is it, waiter?" said Squeers, looking
down into a large blue mug, and slanting it gently, so as to get an
accurate view of the quantity of liquid contained in it.
"That's two penn'orth, sir," replied the waiter.
"What a rare article milk is, to be sure, in London! Just fill that mug
up with lukewarm water, William, will you?"
"To the very top, sir? Why, the milk will be drowned."
"Never you mind that. Serve it right for being so dear. You ordered that
thick bread and butter for three, did you?"
"Coming directly, sir."
"You needn't hurry yourself, there's plenty of time. Conquer your
passions, boys, and don't be eager after vittles." As he uttered this
moral precept, Mr. Squeers took a large bite out of the cold beef, and
recognized Nicholas.
"Sit down, Mr. Nickleby. Here we are, a-breakfasting, you see! Oh!
that's the milk and water, is it, William? Very good; don't forget the
bread and butter presently. Ah! here's richness! Think of the many
beggars and orphans in the streets that would be glad of this, little
boys. A shocking thing hunger is, isn't it, Mr. Nickleby?"
"Very shocking, sir," said Nicholas.
"When I say number one, the boy on the left hand nearest the window may
take a drink; and when I say number two, the boy next him will go in,
and so till we come to number five which is the last boy. Are you ready?
"Yes, sir," cried all the little boys.
"That's right, keep ready till I tell you to begin. Subdue your
appetites, boys, and you've conquered human nature. This is the way we
inculcate strength of mind, Mr. Nickleby. Number one may take a drink."
Number one seized the mug ravenously, and had just drunk enough to make
him wish for more, when Mr. Squeers gave the signal for number two, who
gave up at the same interesting moment to number three; and the process
was repeated until the milk and water terminated with number five.
"And now," said Squeers, dividing the bread for three into as many
portions as there were children, "You had better look sharp with your
breakfast, for the horn will blow in a minute or two, and then every boy
leaves off.--Ah! I thought it wouldn't be long; put what you haven't had
time to eat in here, boys! You'll want it on the road." Which they
certainly did, for the air was cool, and the journey was long and
tiresome. However, they arrived quite safely; and Nicholas, weary,
retired to rest.
In the morning he was taken to the school-room accompanied by Squeers.
"There, this is our shop, Nickleby." It was a crowded scene. A bare and
dirty room, with a couple of windows, whereof a tenth part might be of
glass, the remainder being stopped up with old copybooks and paper. Pale
and haggard faces, lank and bony figures, little faces, which should
have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged suffering.
There was childhood with the light of its eye quenched, its beauty gone
and its helplessness alone remaining--truly an incipient Hell. A few
minutes having elapsed, Squeers called up the first class.
"This is the first class in English, spelling, and philosophy,
Nickleby. We'll get up a Latin one, and hand that over to you. Now then,
where's the first boy?"
"Please, sir, he's cleaning the back parlor window."
"So he is, to be sure. We go upon the practical mode of teaching,
Nickleby, the regular educational system. C-l-e-a-n, clean. Verb active.
To make bright, to scour. W-i-n, win, d-e-r, der, winder. A casement.
When a boy knows this out of his book he goes and does it. It's just the
same principle as the use of the globes. Where's the second boy?"
"Please, sir, he's weeding the garden."
"To be sure, so he is. B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney,
bottinney. Noun substantive. A knowledge of plants. When a boy learns
that bottinney is a knowledge of plants, he goes and knows 'em. That's
our system, Nickleby. Third boy, what's a horse?"
"A beast, sir."
"So it is. A horse is a quadruped, and quadruped is Latin for beast, as
everybody that's gone through the grammar knows, or else where's the use
of havin' grammars at all? As you're perfect in that, go and look after
my horse, and rub him down well or I'll rub you down. The rest of the
class go and draw water up, till somebody tells you to leave off, for
it's washing day to-morrow and they want the coppers filled."
So saying, he dismissed his first class to their experiments in
practical philosophy.
It was Squeers's custom to call the boys together, and make a sort of
report, after every half-yearly visit to the metropolis. They were
therefore soon recalled from the house, window, garden, stable, and cow
yard, and Mr. Squeers entered the room. A deathlike silence immediately
prevailed.
"Boys, I've been to London, and have returned to my family and you as
strong and as well as ever."
According to half-yearly custom, the boys gave three feeble cheers at
this refreshing intelligence. Such cheers! Sighs of extra strength with
the chill on.
"I have seen the parents of some boys, and they're so glad to hear how
their sons are getting on, that there's no prospect at all of their
going away, which of course is a very pleasant thing to reflect upon for
all parties. But I've had disappointments to contend against. Bolder's
father was two pound ten short. Where is Bolder?
"Here he is, please, sir."
"Come here, Bolder," said Squeers.
An unhealthy boy with warts all over his hands, stepped from his place
to the Master's desk, and raised his eyes imploringly to Squeers's face.
"Bolder, if your father thinks that because--why, what's this, sir?"
As Squeers spoke, he caught up the boy's hand by the cuff of his jacket,
and surveyed the warts with an edifying aspect of horror and disgust.
"What do you call this, sir?"
"I can't help it, indeed, sir. They will come; it's the dirty work, I
think, sir--at least I don't know what it is, sir, but it's not my
fault."
"Bolder, you're an incorrigible young scoundrel, and as the last
thrashing did you no good, we'll see what another will do towards
beating it out of you."
With this, and wholly disregarding a piteous cry for mercy, Mr. Squeers
fell upon the boy and caned him soundly; not leaving off, indeed, until
his arm was tired out.
"There, rub away as hard as you like, you won't rub that off in a hurry.
Now let us see. A letter for Cobbey. Stand up, Cobbey. Oh! Cobbey's
grandmother is dead, and his uncle John has took to drinking, which is
all the news his sister sends, except eighteen pence, which will just
pay for that broken square of glass. Mrs. Squeers, my dear, will you
take the money?
"Graymarsh, he's the next. Stand up, Graymarsh. Graymarsh's aunt is very
glad to hear he's so well and happy, and sends her respectful
compliments to Mrs. Squeers and thinks she must be an angel. She
likewise thinks that Mr. Squeers is too good for this world, but hopes
he may long be spared to carry on the business. Would have sent the two
pairs of stockings as desired, but is short of money, so forwards a
tract instead, and hopes that Graymarsh will put his trust in
Providence. Hopes, above all, that he will study in everything to please
Mr. and Mrs. Squeers, and look upon them as his only friends; and that
he will love master Squeers, and not object to sleeping five in a bed,
which no Christian should. Ah! a delightful letter. Very affecting
indeed.
"Mobbs!--Mobbs's mother-in-law took to her bed on hearing that he
wouldn't eat fat, and has been very ill ever since. She wishes to know,
by an early post, where he expects to go to if he quarrels with his
vittles; and with what feelings he could turn up his nose at the cow's
liver broth, after his good master had asked a blessing on it. This was
told her in the London newspapers--not by Mr. Squeers, for he's too kind
and good to set anybody against anybody. She is sorry to find he is
discontented, which is sinful and horrid, and hopes Mr. Squeers will
flog him into a happier state of mind. With which view she has also
stopped his half penny a week pocket-money, and given a double-bladed
knife with a cork-screw in it to the missionaries, which she had bought
on purpose for him. A sulky state of feeling won't do. Cheerfulness and
contentment must be kept up. Mobbs, come to me!"
Mobbs moved slowly towards the desk, rubbing his eyes in anticipation of
good cause for doing so; and he soon afterwards retired, with as good
cause as a boy need have.
This business dispatched, a few slovenly lessons were performed, and
Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving Nicholas to take care of the
boys in the school-room which was very cold, and where a meal of bread
was served out shortly after dark.
There was a small stove at that corner of the room which was nearest
the master's desk, and by it Nicholas sat down, depressed and
self-degraded.
As he was absorbed in his meditations, he all at once encountered the
upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees before the stove, picking a
few stray cinders from the hearth and planting them on the fire. He had
paused to steal a look at Nicholas, and when he saw that he was
observed, shrank back, as if expecting a blow.
"You need not fear me. Are you cold?"
"N-n-o."
"You are shivering."
"I'm not cold. I'm used to it."
There was such an obvious fear of giving offense in his manner, and he
was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, that Nicholas could not help
exclaiming, "Poor fellow!"
"Oh dear, oh dear! my heart will break. It will, it will!" said Smike.
"Hush! Be a man; you are nearly one by years. God help you!"
"By years! Oh dear, dear, how many of them! How many of them since I was
a little child, younger than any that are here now! Where are they all?"
"Of whom do you speak? Tell me."
"My friends, myself--my--oh! what sufferings mine have been!"
"There is always hope."
"No, no; none for me. Do you remember the boy that died here?"
"I was not here, you know."
"Why, I was with him at night, and when it was all silent, he cried no
more for friends he wished to come and sit with him, but began to see
faces round his bed that came from home. He said they smiled, and talked
to him; and he died at last lifting his head to kiss them. Do you
hear?"
"Yes, yes," rejoined Nicholas.
"What faces will smile on me when I die? Who will talk to me in those
long nights? They cannot come from home; they would frighten me if they
did, for I shouldn't know them. Pain and fear, pain and fear for me,
alive or dead. No hope, no hope!"
The bell rang to bed; and the boy, subsiding at the sound into his usual
listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid notice. It was with a
heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterwards--no, not retired, there was no
retirement there--followed to his dirty and crowded dormitory.
FOOTNOTE:
[13] Adapted by E. P. Trueblood from "Nicholas Nickleby."
THE SECRET OF DEATH
EDWIN ARNOLD
"She is dead!" they said to him; "come away;
Kiss her and leave her,--thy love is clay!"
They smoothed her tresses of dark-brown hair;
On her forehead of stone they laid it fair;
Over her eyes, that gazed too much,
They drew the lids with a gentle touch;
With a tender touch they closed up well
The sweet thin lips that had secrets to tell;
About her brows and beautiful face
They tied her veil and her marriage lace,
And drew on her feet her white silk shoes--
Which were the whitest no eye could choose--
And over her bosom they crossed her hands.
"Come away!" they said; "God understands."
And there was silence, and nothing there
But silence, and scents of eglantere,
And jasmine, and roses, and rosemary;
And they said, "As a lady should lie, lies she."
And they held their breath till they left the room,
With a shudder, to glance at its stillness and gloom.
But he who loved her too well to dread
The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead,--
He lit his lamp, and took the key
And turned it,--alone again,--he and she.
He and she; but she would not speak,
Though he kissed, in the old place, the quiet cheek.
He and she; yet she would not smile,
Though he called her the name she loved erewhile.
He and she; still she did not move
To any one passionate whisper of love.
Then he said: "Cold lips and breasts without breath,
Is there no voice, no language of death?
"Dumb to the ear and still to the sense,
But to heart and to soul distinct, intense?
"See now; I will listen with soul, not ear;
What was the secret of dying, dear?
"Was it the infinite wonder of all
That you ever could let life's flower fall?
"Or was it a greater marvel to feel
The perfect calm o'er the agony steal?
"Was the miracle greater to find how deep
Beyond all dreams sank downward that sleep?
"Did life roll back its records, dear,
And show, as they say it does, past things clear?
"And was it the innermost heart of the bliss
To find out so, what a wisdom love is?
"Oh, perfect dead! Oh, dead most dear,
I hold the breath of my soul to hear!
"I listen as deep as to horrible hell,
As high as to heaven, and you do not tell.
"There must be pleasure in dying, sweet,
To make you so placid from head to feet!
"I would tell you, darling, if I were dead,
And 'twere your hot tears upon my brow shed,--
"I would say, though the Angel of Death had laid
His sword on my lips to keep it unsaid.
"You should not ask vainly, with streaming eyes,
Which of all deaths was the chiefest surprise,
"The very strangest and suddenest thing
Of all the surprises that dying must bring."
Ah, foolish world! Oh, most kind dead!
Though he told me, who will believe it was said?
Who will believe that he heard her say,
With the sweet, soft voice, in the dear old way:
"The utmost wonder is this,--I hear
And see you, and love you, and kiss you, dear;
"And am your angel, who was your bride,
And know that, though dead, I have never died."
SHAMUS O'BRIEN
A TALE OF '98, AS RELATED BY AN IRISH PEASANT
JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU
Jist after the war, in the year '98,
As soon as the Boys wor all scattered and bate,
'Twas the custom, whenever a peasant was got,
To hang him by trial--barrin' such as was shot.
An' the bravest an' hardiest Boy iv them all
Was Shamus O'Brien, from the town iv Glingall.
An' it's he was the Boy that was hard to be caught,
An' it's often he run, an' it's often he fought;
An' it's many the one can remember right well
The quare things he did: an' it's oft I heerd tell
How he frightened the magistrates in Chirbally,
An' 'scaped through the sojers in Aherlow valley;
How he leathered the yeoman, himself agin four,
An' stretched the two strongest on ould Golteemore.
But the fox must sleep sometimes, the wild deer must rest,
An' treachery prey on the blood iv the best;
Afther many a brave action of power and pride,
An' many a hard night on the mountain's bleak side,
An' a thousand great dangers and toils overpast,
In the darkness of night he was taken at last.
Now, Shamus, look back on the beautiful moon,
For the door of the prison must close on you soon.
Farewell to the forest, farewell to the hill,
An' farewell to the friends that will think of you still.
Farewell to the pathern, the hurlin' an' wake,
And farewell to the girl that would die for your sake!
An' twelve sojers brought him to Maryborough jail,
An' the turnkey resaved him, refusin' all bail.
Well, as soon as a few weeks were over and gone,
The terrible day iv the thrial kem on,
There was sich a crowd there was scarce room to stand,
An' sojers on guard, an' Dragoons sword-in-hand;
An' the courthouse so full that the people were bothered,
An' attorneys an' criers on the point iv bein' smothered;
An' counsellors almost gev over for dead,
An' the jury sittin' up in their box overhead;
An' the judge settled out so detarmined an' big
With his gown on his back, and an illegant wig;
An' silence was called, an' the minute 'twas said
The court was as still as the heart of the dead,
An' they heard but the openin' of one prison lock,
An' Shamus O'Brien kem into the dock.
For one minute he turned his eye round on the throng,
An' he looked at the bars so firm and so strong,
An' he saw that he had not a hope nor a friend,
A chance to escape, nor a word to defend;
An' he folded his arms as he stood there alone,
As calm and as cold as a statue of stone;
And they read a big writin', a yard long at laste,
An' Jim didn't understand it nor mind it a taste,
An' the judge took a big pinch iv snuff, and he says,
"Are you guilty or not, Jim O'Brien, av you plase?"
An' all held their breath in the silence of dhread,
An' Shamus O'Brien made answer and said:
"My lord, if you ask me, if in my lifetime
I thought any treason, or did any crime
That should call to my cheek, as I stand alone here,
The hot blush of shame, or the coldness of fear,
Though I stood by the grave to receive my death-blow
Before God and the world I would answer you, No!
But if you would ask me, as I think it like,
If in the Rebellion I carried a pike,
An' fought for ould Ireland from the first to the close,
An' shed the heart's blood of her bitterest foes,
I answer you, Yes; and I tell you again,
Though I stand here to perish, it's my glory that then
In her cause I was willin' my veins should run dhry,
An' that now for her sake I am ready to die."
Then the silence was great, and the jury smiled bright,
An' the judge wasn't sorry the job was made light;
By my sowl, it's himself was the crabbed ould chap!
In a twinklin' he pulled on his ugly black cap.
Then Shamus's mother, in the crowd standin' by,
Called out to the judge with a pitiful cry:
"O judge! darlin', don't, O, don't say the word!
The crather is young, have mercy, my lord;
He was foolish, he didn't know what he was doin';
You don't know him, my lord--O, don't give him to ruin!
He's the kindliest crathur, the tindherest-hearted;
Don't part us forever, we that's so long parted!
Judge mavourneen, forgive him, forgive him, my lord,
An' God will forgive you--O, don't say the word!"
That was the first minute O'Brien was shaken,
When he saw that he was not quite forgot or forsaken;
An' down his pale cheeks, at the word of his mother,
The big tears wor runnin' fast, one afther th' other;
An' two or three times he endeavored to spake,
But the sthrong manly voice used to falther and break;
But at last, by the strength of his high-mountin' pride,
He conquered and masthered his grief's swelling tide;
"An'," says he, "mother, darlin', don't break your poor heart,
For, sooner or later, the dearest must part;
And God knows it's better than wand'ring in fear
On the bleak, trackless mountain, among the wild deer,
To lie in the grave, where the head, heart, and breast,
From labor and sorrow, forever shall rest.
Then, mother, my darlin', don't cry any more,
Don't make me seem broken, in this my last hour;
For I wish, when my head's lyin' undher the raven,
No thrue man can say that I died like a craven!"
Then toward the Judge Shamus bent down his head,
An' that minute the solemn death-sentence was said.
The mornin' was bright, an' the mists rose on high,
An' the lark whistled merrily in the clear sky;
But why are the men standin' idle so late?
An' why do the crowds gather fast in the strate?
What come they to talk of? what come they to see?
An' why does the long rope hang from the cross-tree?
O Shamus O'Brien! pray fervent and fast,
May the saints take your soul, for this day is your last;
Pray fast an' pray sthrong, for the moment is nigh,
When, sthrong, proud, an' great as you are, you must die!--
At last they threw open the big prison-gate,
An' out came the sheriffs and sojers in state,
An' a cart in the middle an' Shamus was in it,
Not paler, but prouder than ever, that minute.
An' as soon as the people saw Shamus O'Brien,
Wid prayin' and blessin', and all the girls cryin',
A wild, wailin' sound kem on by degrees,
Like the sound of the lonesome wind blowin' through trees.
On, on to the gallows the sheriffs are gone,
An' the cart an' the sojers go steadily on;
An' at every side swellin' around of the cart,
A wild, sorrowful sound, that id open your heart.
Now under the gallows the cart takes its stand,
An' the hangman gets up with the rope in his hand;
An' the priest, havin' blest him, goes down on the ground,
An' Shamus O'Brien throws one last look round.
Then the hangman dhrew near, an' the people grew still,
Young faces turned sickly, and warm hearts turned chill;
An' the rope bein' ready, his neck was made bare,
For the grip of the life-strangling cord to prepare;
An' the good priest has left him, havin' said his last prayer.
But the good priest did more, for his hands he unbound,
An' with one daring spring Jim has leaped on the ground;
Bang! bang! go the carbines, and clash go the sabers;
He's not down! he's alive! now stand to him, neighbors!
Through the smoke and the horses he's into the crowd,--
By the heavens, he's free!--than thunder more loud,
By one shout from the people the heavens were shaken--
One shout that the dead of the world might awaken.
The sojers ran this way, the sheriffs ran that,
An' Father Malone lost his new Sunday hat;
To-night he'll be sleepin' in Aherloe Glin,
An' the divil's in the dice if you catch him ag'in.
Your swords they may glitter, your carbines go bang,
But if you want hangin', it's yourselves you must hang.
MY SHIPS[14]
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
If all the ships I have at sea--
Should come a-sailing home to me,
Ah well! the harbor could not hold
So many ships as there would be,
If all my ships came home to me.
If half my ships now out at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
Ah well! I should have wealth as great
As any king that sits in state,
So rich the treasure there would be
In half my ships now out at sea.
If but one ship I have at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
Ah well! the storm clouds then might frown,
For if the others all went down,
Still rich and glad and proud I'd be,
If that one ship came home to me.
If that one ship went down at sea,
And all the others came to me,
Weighed down with gems and wealth untold,
Of riches, glory, honor, gold,
The poorest soul on earth I'd be,
If that one ship came not to me.
Oh, skies, be calm, oh, winds, blow free!
Blow all my ships safe home to me!
But if thou sendest some awrack,
To never more come sailing back,
Send any--all that skim the sea,
But send my love ship back to me.
FOOTNOTE:
[14] By permission of the author.
THE SOLDIER'S REPRIEVE
R. D. C. ROBBINS
"I thought, Mr. Allan, when I gave my Bennie to his country, that not a
father in all this broad land made so precious a gift,--no, not one. The
dear boy only slept a minute, just one little minute, at his post; I
know that was all, for Bennie never dozed over a duty. How prompt and
reliable he was! I know he only fell asleep one little second;--he was
so young, and not strong, that boy of mine! Why, he was as tall as I,
and only eighteen! and now they shoot him because he was found asleep
when doing sentinel duty! Twenty-four hours, the telegram said,--only
twenty-four hours. Where is Bennie now?"
"We will hope with his heavenly Father," said Mr. Allan, soothingly.
"Yes, yes; let us hope; God is very merciful!"
"'I should be ashamed, father!' Bennie said, 'when I am a man, to think
I never used this great right arm,'--and he held it out so proudly
before me,--'for my country, when it needed it! Palsy it rather than
keep it at the plow!'
"'Go then, go, my boy,' I said, 'and God keep you!' God has kept him, I
think, Mr. Allan!" and the farmer repeated these last words slowly, as
if, in spite of his reason, his heart doubted them.
"Like the apple of His eye, Mr. Owen, doubt it not!"
Blossom sat near them listening, with blanched cheek. She had not shed a
tear. Her anxiety had been so concealed that no one had noticed it. She
had occupied herself mechanically in the household cares. Now she
answered a gentle tap at the kitchen door, opening it to receive from a
neighbor's hand a letter. "It is from him," was all she said.
It was like a message from the dead! Mr. Owen took the letter, but could
not break the envelope, on account of his trembling fingers, and held it
toward Mr. Allan, with the helplessness of a child.
The minister opened it, and read as follows:
"DEAR FATHER:--When this reaches you, I shall be in eternity. At first,
it seemed awful to me; but I have thought about it so much now, that it
has no terror. They say they will not bind me, nor blind me; but that I
may meet my death like a man. I thought, father, it might have been on
the battle-field, for my country, and that, when I fell, it would be
fighting gloriously; but to be shot down like a dog for nearly
betraying it,--to die for neglect of duty! O father, I wonder the very
thought does not kill me! But I shall not disgrace you. I am going to
write you all about it; and when I am gone, you may tell my comrades. I
cannot now.
"You know I promised Jemmie Carr's mother I would look after her boy;
and, when he fell sick, I did all I could for him. He was not strong
when he was ordered back into the ranks, and the day before that night,
I carried all his luggage, besides my own, on our march. Toward night we
went in on double-quick, and though the luggage began to feel very
heavy, everybody else was tired too; and as for Jemmie, if I had not
lent him an arm now and then, he would have dropped by the way. I was
all tired out when we came into camp, and then it was Jemmie's turn to
be sentry, and I would take his place; but I was too tired, father. I
could not have kept awake if a gun had been pointed at my head; but I
did not know it until--well, until it was too late."
"God be thanked!" interrupted Mr. Owen, reverently. "I knew Bennie was
not the boy to sleep carelessly at his post."
"They tell me to-day that I have a short reprieve,--given to me by
circumstances,--'time to write to you,' our good Colonel says. Forgive
him, father, he only does his duty; he would gladly save me if he could;
and do not lay my death up against Jemmie. The poor boy is
broken-hearted, and does nothing but beg and entreat them to let him die
in my stead.
"I can't bear to think of mother and Blossom. Comfort them, father! Tell
them I die as a brave boy should, and that, when the war is over, they
will not be ashamed of me, as they must be now. God help me: it is very
hard to bear! Good-by, father! God seems near and dear to me; not at all
as if He wished me to perish forever, but as if He felt sorry for His
poor, sinful, broken-hearted child, and would take me to be with Him
and my Saviour in a better--better life."
A deep sigh burst from Mr. Owen's heart. "Amen," he said
solemnly,--"Amen."
"To-night, in the early twilight, I shall see the cows all coming home
from pasture, and precious little Blossom standing on the back stoop,
waiting for me--but I shall never, never come! God bless you all!
Forgive your poor Bennie."
Late that night the door of the "back stoop" opened softly, and a little
figure glided out, and down the footpath that led to the road by the
mill. She seemed rather flying than walking, turning her head neither to
the right nor to the left, looking only now and then to Heaven, and
folding her hands as if in prayer. Two hours later, the same young girl
stood at the Mill Depot, watching the coming of the night train; and the
conductor, as he reached down to lift her into the car, wondered at the
tear-stained face that was upturned toward the dim lantern he held in
his hand. A few questions and ready answers told him all; and no father
could have cared more tenderly for his only child than he for our little
Blossom.
She was on her way to Washington, to ask President Lincoln for her
brother's life. She had stolen away, leaving only a note to tell her
father where and why she had gone. She had brought Bennie's letter with
her; no good, kind heart, like the President's, could refuse to be
melted by it. The next morning they reached New York, and the conductor
hurried her on to Washington. Every minute, now, might be the means of
saving her brother's life. And so, in an incredibly short time, Blossom
reached the Capital, and hastened immediately to the White House.
The President had but just seated himself to his morning's task, of
overlooking and signing important papers, when, without one word of
announcement, the door softly opened, and Blossom, with downcast eyes,
and folded hands, stood before him.
"Well, my child," he said, in his pleasant, cheerful tones, "what do you
want so bright and early in the morning?"
"Bennie's life, please, sir," faltered Blossom.
"Bennie? Who is Bennie?"
"My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleeping at his post."
"Oh, yes," and Mr. Lincoln ran his eye over the papers before him. "I
remember! It was a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was at a time of
special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost for his culpable
negligence."
"So my father said," replied Blossom, gravely; "but poor Bennie was so
tired, sir, and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it was
Jemmie's night, not his; but Jemmie was too tired, and Bennie never
thought about himself, that he was tired, too."
"What is this you say, child? Come here; I do not understand," and the
kind man caught eagerly, as ever, at what seemed to be a justification
of an offense.
Blossom went to him; he put his hand tenderly on her shoulder, and
turned up the pale, anxious face toward his. How tall he seemed, and he
was President of the United States, too! A dim thought of this kind
passed for a moment through Blossom's mind; but she told her simple and
straightforward story, and handed Mr. Lincoln Bennie's letter to read.
He read it carefully; then, taking up his pen, wrote a few hasty lines,
and rang his bell.
Blossom heard this order given: "SEND THIS DISPATCH AT ONCE."
The President then turned to the girl and said: "Go home, my child, and
tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence,
even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln
thinks the life far too precious to be lost. Go back, or--wait until
to-morrow; Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced
death; he shall go with you."
"God bless you, sir," said Blossom; and who shall doubt that God heard
and registered the request?
Two days after this interview, the young soldier came to the White House
with his little sister. He was called into the President's private room,
and a strap fastened upon the shoulder. Mr. Lincoln then said: "The
soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and die for the act
so uncomplainingly, deserves well of his country." Then Bennie and
Blossom took their way to the Green Mountain home. A crowd gathered at
the Mill Depot to welcome them back; and as Farmer Owen's hand grasped
that of his boy, tears flowed down his cheeks, and he was heard to say
fervently, "THE LORD BE PRAISED!"
THE SONG[15]
WALTER SCOTT
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
In our isle's enchanted hall,
Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,
Fairy strains of music fall,
Every sense in slumber dewing.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more;
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
While our slumbrous spells assail ye,
Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveille;
Sleep! the deer is in his den;
Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;
Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye
Here no bugles sound reveille.
FOOTNOTE:
[15] From "Lady of the Lake."
THE STIRRUP CUP[16]
JOHN HAY
My short and happy day is done;
The long and lonely night comes on
And at my door the pale horse stands
To carry me to distant lands.
His whinny shrill, his pawing hoof,
Sounds dreadful as a gathering storm;
And I must leave this sheltering roof
And joys of life so soft and warm.
Tender and warm the joys of life--
Good friends, the faithful and the true;
My rosy children and my wife,
So sweet to kiss, so fair to view.
So sweet to kiss, so fair to view,
The night comes on, the lights burn blue;
And at my door the pale horse stands
To bear me forth to unknown lands.
FOOTNOTE:
[16] By permission of Mrs. Hay.
THE SWAN-SONG
KATHERINE R. BROOKS
The great old-fashioned clock struck twelve, but as yet not one of the
boys had stirred. All were listening too intently to what Carl von Weber
was saying to notice the time. Around one of the grand pianos a group of
boys was gathered. Perched on the top of it was a bright, merry-looking
boy of fourteen. By his side sat a pale, delicate little fellow, with a
pair of soft, dark eyes, which were fixed in eager attention upon Carl's
face. Below, and leaning carelessly upon the piano, was Raoul von
Falkenstein, a dark, handsome boy of fifteen.
"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, scornfully, after Carl had finished. "Is that
all? just for a few paltry thalers and a beggarly violin, to work myself
to death? No! I don't think I shall trouble myself about it."
"Oh, Raoul!" cried Franz, the little fellow who sat by Carl, "you forget
that it is to be the most beautiful violin in Germany, and to be given
to us by the Empress herself. And the two hundred thalers--just think of
that!" and Franz's dark eyes grew bright to think what he could do with
them.
"Really," returned Raoul, insolently, "you don't mean to say that you
are going to try! Why, the last time you played you broke down
entirely!"
The color mounted into Franz's face, and the tears came into his eyes;
and Carl cried out, angrily:
"For shame! you know very well that it was only fright that made Franz
fail.
"Don't mind him," he said, putting his arm around his friend's neck, "he
is only hateful, as he always is. Let us go and see who is to be chosen
for the concert. Come, Franz!"
"No, Carl," said his friend, quietly; "I would rather stay here. You go
and find out, and then come and tell me."
The Empress once a year gave a prize to the school, but this year it
was to be finer than usual, and her Majesty had sent to Herr Bach and
requested him to choose five of his best boys, each of whom was to
compose a piece of his own. No one was to see it until the end of three
weeks, when they were to play it at a grand concert, which the imperial
family were to attend with the whole court. Franz was very anxious to be
chosen, for he wanted the prize very much. He thought how pleased the
mother would be, and he thought how hard she worked to give her little
boy a musical education, and how many comforts the thalers would buy.
Oh, he would work hard for it. The dear mother would be so surprised.
And he fell into a brown study, from which he was awakened by feeling a
pair of strong arms around him, and being frantically whirled around the
room, while a voice shouted in his ear:
"We've got it! We're chosen--you, Gottfried, Johann, old hateful Raoul,
and I!"
The boys worked very hard, for there was only a short time given them.
Franz put his whole soul into his composition, and made himself almost
sick over it. Raoul went about declaring, in his usual contemptuous
manner, that he did not intend to kill himself over it, but secretly he
worked with great industry.
One lovely moonlight night, as he sat by his window composing, for the
moon was so bright he could see very well, he impatiently flung his pen
down and muttered, "There is no use; I can never do it; this will never
do!" and began angrily to tear up one of the music sheets, when suddenly
he stopped and raised his head and listened intently. Such a lovely
melody, so soft and clear, rising and falling in the sweetest cadences,
now growing louder and louder in a wild, passionate crescendo, and then
dying slowly away!
For a moment, the boy remained silent; then, suddenly springing to his
feet, he cried:
"It is Franz! I know it, for no one but he could write anything so
beautiful. But it shall be mine, for it is the piece that will gain the
prize! Ah, Franz, I play before you, and what I play shall be--"
He stopped, and the moonlight streaming in at the window glanced across
the room, and revealed a look of half triumph, half shame on his dark,
haughty face. Why had he stopped? Perhaps his guardian angel stood
behind him, warning him against what he was about to do. For a moment, a
fierce struggle seemed to take possession of the boy, between his good
and his evil spirit. But, alas! the evil conquered, and, sitting down,
he wrote off what he had heard, aided by his wonderful memory; and,
after an hour, he threw down the piece, finished. Then, with an exulting
smile, he cried, "The prize is mine!" and, throwing himself on the bed,
he fell into a troubled sleep.
The time had come at last for the great concert, and the boys were so
excited they could hardly keep still; even Franz, whose cheeks glowed
with a brilliant hectic flush, and whose eyes were strangely bright. The
hall was crowded. The imperial family was there, together with the whole
court.
The concert began with an overture from the orchestra. Then came
Fraulein, the prima donna of the Imperial Opera, and then the boys. Carl
came first, and played a brilliant, sparkling little piece, and was
loudly applauded; next Gottfried and Johann, and then Raoul. When he
stepped out upon the platform, his handsome face and fine form seemed to
make an impression on the audience, for they remained perfectly silent.
Raoul commenced. At first Franz paid no attention to him, then suddenly
he started. The melody flowed on; louder and louder, clearer and clearer
it rose. Franz stood motionless, listening in strained, fixed attention,
until at last, overcome with grief and astonishment, he sank upon the
floor and cried out piteously, with tears streaming down his face:
"Oh, Raoul! Raoul! how could you, could you do it--my own little piece
that I loved so much? Oh, mother! mother!"--and, burying his head in
his arms, he sobbed in an agony of grief.
He heard the burst of applause that greeted his piece--not Raoul's; he
heard it all, but moved not until he heard Carl say:
"Come, Franz! it's time to go. They are all waiting for you; but I am
afraid that Raoul has won the prize."
What should he do, he wondered? And then he thought perhaps the kind
Father in heaven would help him. So, breathing a little prayer in his
heart, he walked calmly forth upon the platform.
At first, he trembled so that he could hardly begin; then a sudden
inspiration seemed to come to him--a quick light swept across his face.
He raised the violin to his shoulder and began.
The audience at first paid no attention; but presently all became quiet,
and they leaned forward in breathless attention. What a wonderful song
it was!--for it was a song. The violin seemed almost to speak, and so
softly and sweetly and with such exquisite pathos were the notes drawn
forth that the eyes of many were filled with tears. For it was pouring
out all little Franz's griefs and sorrows; it was telling how the little
heart was almost broken by the treachery of the friend; it was telling
how hard he had worked to win, for the dear mother's sake; and it was
telling, and the notes grew sweeter as it told, how the good God had not
forsaken him. The boy seemed almost inspired; his eyes were raised to
heaven, and his face glowed with a rapt delight, as he improvised his
beautiful song. Not a sound was heard; it seemed as if all were turned
to stone, so intense was the silence. His heart seemed to grow lighter
of its burden, and the song burst into a wild, sweet carol, that rang
rich and clear through the hall; and then it changed and grew so soft it
could hardly be heard, and at last it died away.
For a moment the vast audience seemed spell-bound; then, all rising with
one uncontrollable impulse, and breaking into a tempest of applause
that rocked the building to its very foundations, they rained down
bouquets on his head.
But the boy stood with a far-off look in his large and beautiful eyes,
and then, giving a little sigh, fell heavily to the floor.
When he returned to consciousness, he heard a voice say, "Poor child!"
It seemed like Herr Bach's; and then he heard Carl say, in a sobbing
voice, "Franz! dear Franz!" Why did they pity him, he wondered; and then
it all came back to him--the prize, the violin, and Raoul.
"Where is the violin?" he murmured.
"It will be here in a moment," some one said.
Then he saw the pale, remorseful face of Raoul, who said: "Dear little
Franz, forgive me!"
The boy raised his hand and pointed to heaven, and said, softly: "Dear
Raoul, I forgive you!"--and then all the pain and bitterness in his
heart against Raoul died out.
The sweet face of the Empress, made lovely by its look of tender pity,
bent over him, and she kissed him and murmured, "Poor little one!" Then
she placed the beautiful violin in his arms, and the thalers in his
hands.
And so, with the famed violin and bright thalers clasped close on his
breast, the life-light died out of his eyes, and little Franz fell
asleep.
SWEET AFTON
ROBERT BURNS
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise,
My Mary's asleep by the murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
Thou stock-dove, whose echo resounds through the glen,
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,
Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear,
I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair.
How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills!
Far marked with the courses of clear, winding rills,
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below!
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft as mild evening sweeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.
Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by my cot where my Mary resides;
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As gathering sweet flowerets she stems thy clear wave.
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays,
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
VIOLET'S BLUE[17]
DANIEL HENRY JR.
_Theme_.
"Violet's blue--Diddle, diddle!
Lavender's green.
When I am King--Diddle, diddle!
You shall be Queen."
"Mother Goose Melodies."
You shall have crown--Diddle, diddle!
Jewels and gold,
Damasks and lace--Diddle, diddle!
Centuries old.
Pages behind--Diddle, diddle!
Heralds before,
And all the state--Diddle, diddle!
Queens had of yore.
But when you're queen--Diddle, diddle!
And I am king,
Will your eyes shine--Diddle, diddle!
Will my lips sing,
As they do now--Diddle, diddle!
When we are still,
Poor country-folk--Diddle, diddle!
Plain Jack and Jill?
Can our hearts beat--Diddle, diddle!
Our love unfold,
Prisoned in pomp--Diddle, diddle!
Girdled with gold?
Love thrives alone--Diddle, diddle!
In open air;
Where pageants are--Diddle, diddle!
Love is not there.
When skies are blue--Diddle, diddle!
And fields are green,
I will be king--Diddle, diddle!
You shall be queen.
Queen of Day-dreams--Diddle, diddle!
King of No-lands,
With full-filled hearts--Diddle, diddle!
And empty hands.
Let others king--Diddle, diddle!
And queen, who will:
We're better so--Diddle, diddle!
Plain Jack and Jill.
FOOTNOTE:
[17] From "Under a Fool's Cap," published by Kegan Paul, French & Co.,
London.
TO A WATERFOWL[18]
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?
There is a power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast--
The desert and illimitable air--
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart:
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
FOOTNOTE:
[18] By permission of D. Appleton & Co., publishers.
THE WEDDING-GOWN
ETTA W. PIERCE
"Bring it from the oaken press; full fifty years ago
I sewed those seams, my heart all full of youth and hope and Joe--
Joe, whose wife I was to be--my lover, strong and brown,
Captain of the stanchest craft that sailed from Gloucester town.
It seems a worthless thing to hold so carefully in store,
This poor, old, faded bridal dress, which no bride ever wore;
Cut in the curious style of half a century ago,
With scanty skirt and 'broidered bands--my own hands shaped it so.
Niece Hester, spread it on my bed--my eyes grow blind with tears;
I touch its limp and yellow folds, and lo! the long dead years
Come trooping back like churchyard ghosts. This was my
wedding-gown--
'Twas made the year the equinox brought woe to Gloucester town.
"Ah, I remember well the night I walked the beach with him--
The moon was rising just above the ocean's purple rim,
And all the savage Cape Ann rocks shone in her mellow light;
The time was spring, and heaven itself seemed close to us that
night.
We heard the cool waves beat the shore, the seabird's startled cry;
Like spirits in the dark, we saw the coasters flitting by.
High in their towers the beacons burned, like wintry embers red,
From Ipswich, down the rough sea-line, to crag-girt Marblehead.
'I love you, Nan!' Joe said, at last, in his grave, simple way--
I'd felt the words a-coming, child, for many a long, glad day.
I hung my head, he kissed me--oh, sweetest hour of life!
A stammering word, a sigh, and I was Joe's own promised wife.
"But fishing-folks have much to do; my lover could not stay--
The gallant Gloucester fleet was bound to waters far away,
Where wild storms swoop, and shattering fogs muster their dim, gray
ranks,
And spread a winding-sheet for men upon the fatal Banks.
And he, my Joe, must go to reap the harvest of the deep,
While I, like other women, stayed behind to mourn and weep,
And I would see his face no more till autumn woods were brown.
His schooner _Nan_ was swift and new, the pride of Gloucester town;
He called her by my name. ''Tis sure to bring me luck,' said Joe.
She spread her wings, and through my tears I stood and watched her
go.
"The days grew hot and long; I sewed the crisp and shining seams
Of this, my wedding-gown, and dreamed a thousand happy dreams
Of future years and Joe, while leaf and bud and sweet marsh-flower
I fashioned on the muslin fine, for many a patient hour.
In Gloucester wood the wild rose bloomed, and shed its sweets and
died,
And dry and tawny grew the grass along the marshes wide.
The last stitch in my gown was set; I looked across the sea--
'Fly fast, oh, time, fly fast!' I said, 'and bring him home to me;
And I will deck my yellow hair and don my bridal gown,
The day the gallant fishing-fleet comes back to Gloucester town!'
"The rough skies darkened o'er the deep, loud blew the autumn
gales;
With anxious eyes the fishers' wives watched for the home-bound
sails
From Gloucester shore, and Rockport crags, lashed by the breakers
dread,
From cottage doors of Beverly, and rocks of Marblehead.
Ah, child, with trembling hand I set my candle at the pane,
With fainting heart and choking breath, I heard the dolorous rain--
The sea that beat the groaning beach with wild and thunderous
shocks,
The black death calling, calling from the savage equinox;
The flap of sails, the crash of masts, or so it seemed to me,
And cries of strong men drowning in the clutches of the sea.
"I never wore my wedding-gown, so crisp and fine and fair;
I never decked with bridal flowers my pretty yellow hair,
No bridegroom came to claim me when the autumn leaves were sear,
For there was bitter wailing on the rugged coast that year;
And vain was further vigil from its rocks and beaches brown
For never did the fishing-fleet sail back to Gloucester town.
"'Twas fifty years ago. There, child, put back the faded dress,
My winding-sheet of youth and hope, into the oaken press.
My life hath known no other joy, my heart no other glow,
Feeble and worn, it still beats on in faithful love for Joe;
And, like some hulk cast on a shore by waters sore distressed,
I wait until he calls me from his own good place of rest."
She woke at dawn and lifted up her head so old and gray,
And stared across the sandy beach, and o'er the low blue bay.
It was the hour when mists depart and midnight phantoms flee,
The rosy sun was blushing red along the splendid sea.
A rapture lit her face. "The bay is white with sails!" she cried,
"They sweep it like the silver foam of waves at rising tide--
Sails from an unknown sea. Oh, haste and bring my wedding-gown--
It is the long-lost fishing-fleet come back to Gloucester town!
And look! his _Nan_ leads all the rest. Dear Lord, I see my Joe!
He beckons from her shining deck--haste, friends, for I must go.
The old, old light is in his eyes, the old smile on his lips;
All grand and pale he stands among the crowding, white-winged
ships.
This is our wedding-morn. At last the bridegroom claims his bride.
Sweetheart, I have been true; my hand--here--take it!"
Then she died.
WHEN THE SNOW SIFTS THROUGH[19]
S. W. GILLILAN
The icy gale that hurled the snow
Against the window pane,
And rattled the sash with a merry clash
Used not its strength in vain;
For now and then a wee flake sifted
Through the loose ill-fitting frame,
By the warmer breezes each was lifted
All melting as they came.
The baby stood with shining eyes,
Her hands upon the sill;
She watched each flake and the course 'twould take,
And her voice was never still.
'Twas, "Papa, where does the whiteness go?"
And, "Where's all the beauty gone?
What makes it be wet spots 'stead o' snow,
When it gets in where it's warm?"
I smiled that day, but seldom now
Does the thought of smiling come;
A phantom shape, a bow of crape,
And my sweet little child went home.
O Father, "Where does the whiteness go?
And whither's the beauty flown?
Why are there 'wet spots 'stead o' snow'
On my cheek as I face the storm?"
Again the wild wind hurls the snow
Against the frosted pane
And a few flakes dash through the rattling sash,
While I hear those words again.
The flakes scurry off to a spot on the hill
Where a little mound is seen,
And they cover it softly and tenderly
As the grass with its cloak of green.
FOOTNOTE:
[19] By permission of the author.
TO A WILD FLOWER[20]
MAURICE THOMPSON
In the green solitudes
Of the deep, shady woods
Thy lot is kindly cast, and life to thee
Is like a gust of rarest minstrelsy.
The winds of May and June
Hum many a tender tune,
Blowing above thy leafy hiding-place,
Kissing, all thrilled with joy, thy modest face.
About thee float and glow
Rare insects, hovering low,
And round thee glance thin streams of delicate grass,
Plashing their odors on thee as they pass.
The sheen of brilliant wings
Songs of shy, flitting things,
The low, mysterious melodies that thrill
Through every summer wood, thy sweet life fill.
Oh bloom! all joy is thine,
All loves around thee shine,
The thousand hearts of nature throb for thee,
Her thousand voices praise thee tenderly.
Oh bloom of purest glory,
Flower of love's gentlest story,
Forever keep thy petals fresh and fair,
Forever send thy sweetness down the air!
I'll put thee in my song,
With all thy joys along,
At which some sunny hearts may sunnier grow,
And frozen ones may gently slip their snow.
FOOTNOTE:
[20] Used by permission of, and special arrangement with, Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., the authorized publishers of this author's works.
THE FATE OF ZOROASTER
F. MARION CRAWFORD
Zoroaster a young Persian and Nehushta a Hebrew maiden were
betrothed lovers; an unfortunate misunderstanding separated them
and, in a fit of jealousy, Nehushta became a wife of Darius, king
of the Persians. Zoroaster entered the priesthood and later became
the high priest of the temple in the king's palace. In a subsequent
interview with the high priest, Nehushta discovers that her
jealousy was groundless, but it was now too late to correct her
unhappy mistake. In the meantime Nehushta had incurred the jealousy
and hatred of another wife of Darius, who, in the absence of the
king, planned the massacre of the priests of the temple and
Nehushta and her servants.
Four days after the king's departure, Nehushta was wandering in the
gardens as the sun was going down. Just then a strange sound echoed far
off among the hills, an unearthly cry that rang high in the air and
struck the dark crags and doubled in the echo and died away in short,
faint pulsations of sound. She started slightly, she had never heard
such a sound before. Again that strange cry rang out and echoed and died
away. Her slave women gathered about her.
"What is it?" asked Nehushta.
"The war cry of the children of Anak is like that," said a little Syrian
maid.
Nehushta pushed the slaves aside and fled towards the palace. The truth
had flashed across her. Some armed force was collecting on the hills to
descend upon the palace. But one thought filled her mind. She must find
Zoroaster and warn him.
Through the garden she ran, and up the broad steps to the portico.
Slaves were moving about under the colonnade, lighting the great torches
that burned there all night. They had not heard the strange cries from
the hills. As she entered the great hall, she heard the cry again.
"Go, my little maid, in one direction and I will go in another, and
search out Zoroaster, the high priest, and bring him."
The girl turned and ran through the halls, and Nehushta went another way
upon her search. Something within her told her that she was in great
danger, and the calm she had seen in the palace could not allay the
terror of that cry she had heard three times from the hills. Just then
the Syrian maid came running in and fell breathless at Nehushta's feet.
"Fly, fly, beloved mistress, the devils of the mountains are upon
us--they cover the hills--they are closing every entrance--the people in
the lower palace are all slain."
"Where is Zoroaster?"
"He is in the temple with the priests--by this time he is surely
slain--he could know of nothing going on--fly, fly!"
"On which side are they coming?"
"From the hills, from the hills they are descending in thousands."
"Go you all to the farther window, leap down upon the balcony--it is
scarce a man's height,--follow it to the end past the corner where it
joins the main wall of the garden. Run along upon the wall till you find
a place where you can descend. Through the gardens you can easily reach
the road. Fly, and save yourselves in the darkness." But before she had
half finished, the last of the slave women, mad with terror,
disappeared.
"Why do you not go with the rest, my little maid?" asked Nehushta.
"I have eaten thy bread, shall I leave thee in the hour of death?"
"Go, child, I have seen thy devotion; thou must not perish."
But the Syrian leaped to her feet as she answered:
"I am a bondwoman, but I am a daughter of Israel, even as thou art.
Though all the others leave thee, I will not. It may be I can help
thee."
"Thou art a brave child; I must go to Zoroaster; stay thou here, hide
thyself among the curtains, escape by the window if any one come to harm
thee." She turned and went rapidly out.
But the maid grasped the knife in her girdle, and stole upon her
mistress's steps. The din rose louder every moment--the shrieks of
wounded women with the moaning of wounded men, the clash of swords and
arms, and a quick, loud rattle, as half a dozen arrows struck the wall
together.
Onward flew Nehushta till she reached the temple door; then she
listened. Faintly through the thick walls she could hear the sound of
the evening chant. The priests were all within with Zoroaster,
unconscious of their danger. Nehushta tried the door. The great bronze
gates were locked, and though she pushed with her whole strength, they
would not move a hair's breadth.
"Press the nail nearest the middle," said a small voice. Nehushta
started. It was the little Syrian slave. She put her hand upon the round
head of the nail and pressed. The door opened, turning noiselessly upon
its hinges. The seventy priests, in even rank, stood round. Solemnly the
chant rose round the sacred fire upon the black stone altar. Zoroaster
stood before it, his hands lifted in prayer. But Nehushta with a sudden
cry broke their melody.
"Zoroaster--fly--there is yet time! The enemy are come in thousands;
they are in the palace. There is barely time!"
The high priest turned calmly, his face unmoved, although the priests
ceased their chanting and gathered about their chief in fear. As their
voices ceased, a low roar was heard from without as though the ocean
were beating at the gates.
"Go thou and save thyself," said Zoroaster. "I will not go. If it be the
will of the All-Wise that I perish, I will perish before this altar. Go
thou quickly and save thyself while there is yet time."
But Nehushta took his hand in hers, and gazed into his calm eyes.
"Knowest thou not, Zoroaster, that I would rather die with thee than
live with any other? I swear to thee, by the God of my fathers, I will
not leave thee!"
"There is no more time! There is no more time! Ye are all dead men!
Behold, they are breaking down the doors!"
As she spoke the noise of some heavy mass striking against the bronze
gates echoed like thunder through the temple, and at each blow a chorus
of hideous yells rose, wild and long drawn out.
"Can none of you save Zoroaster?" cried Nehushta.
But Zoroaster gently said:
"Ye cannot save me, for my hour is come; we must die like men, and like
priests of the Lord before His altar;" and, raising one hand to heaven,
he chanted:
"Praise we the all-wise God
Who hath made and created the years and the ages;
Praise Him who rides on death,
In whose hand are all power and honor and glory;
Who made the day of life,
That should rise up and lighten the shadow of death."
With a crash the great bronze doors gave way, and fell clanging in. In
an instant the temple was filled with a swarm of hideous men. Their
swords gleamed aloft as they passed forward, and their yells rent the
roof. They had hoped for treasure--they saw but a handful of
white-robed, unarmed men. Their rage knew no bounds, and their screams
rose more piercing than ever, as they surrounded the doomed band, and
dyed their blades in the blood that flowed red over the white vestures.
The priests struggled like brave men, but the foe were a hundred to one.
A sharp blade fell swiftly and the brave little slave fell shrieking to
the floor.
Nehushta's eyes met the high priest's triumphant gaze and her hands
clasped his wildly.
"Oh, Zoroaster, my beloved, my beloved! Say not any more that I am
unfaithful, for I have been faithful even unto death, and I shall be
with you beyond the stars for ever!"
"Beyond the stars and for ever!" he cried; "in the light of the glory of
God most high!"
The keen sword flashed and severed Nehushta's neck and found its sheath
in her lover's heart; and they fell down dead together.
II
SOLEMN, REVERENTIAL, SUBLIME
CENTENNIAL HYMN[21]
JOHN G. WHITTIER
Our father's God! from out whose hand
The centuries fall like grains of sand,
We meet to-day, united, free
And loyal to our land and Thee,
To thank Thee for the era done,
And trust Thee for the opening one.
Here where of old, by Thy design,
The fathers spake that word of Thine
Whose echo is the glad refrain
Of rended bolt and falling chain,
To grace our festal time, from all
The zones of earth, our guests we call.
Be with us while the New World greets
The Old World thronging all its streets
Unveiling all the triumphs won
By art or toil beneath the sun;
And unto common good ordain
This rivalship of hand and brain.
Thou, who hast here in concord furled
The war flags of a gathered world,
Beneath the Western skies fulfill
The Orient's mission of good-will,
And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece,
Send back its Argonauts of peace.
For art and labor met in truce,
For beauty made the bride of use,
We thank Thee; but, withal, we crave
The austere virtues strong to save,
The honor proof to place or gold,
The manhood never bought nor sold!
Oh, make Thou us, through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw
The safeguards of Thy righteous law;
And, cast in some diviner mold,
Let the new cycle shame the old!
FOOTNOTE:
[21] By permission of, and special arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin &
Co., authorized publishers of this author's works.
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS[22]
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,--
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings,
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,--
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
FOOTNOTE:
[22] Used by permission of, and special arrangement with, Houghton,
Mifflin and Co., authorized publishers of this author's works.
CROSSING THE BAR
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell
And after that the dark;
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark;
For though from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB
LORD BYRON
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath flown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And their idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
EACH AND ALL[23]
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,
On thee, from the hill top looking down;
And the heifer that lows on the upland farm,
Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton, tolling the bell at noon,
Dreams not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse and lists with delight,
As his files sweep round yon distant height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed hath lent;
All are needed by each one--
Nothing is fair or good alone.
I caught the linnet's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn, on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even:
He sings the song; but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear--they sing to my eye.
The delicate shell lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their emerald gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
And fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,
With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar
Nor rose, nor stream, nor bird is fair;
Their concord is beyond compare.
FOOTNOTE:
[23] Used by permission of, and special arrangement with, Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., the authorized publishers.
LAUS DEO![24]
ON HEARING BELLS ANNOUNCING EMANCIPATION
JOHN G. WHITTIER
It is done!
Clang of bell and roar of gun
Send the tidings up and down.
How the belfries rock and reel!
How the great guns, peal on peal,
Fling the joy from town to town!
Ring, O bells!
Every stroke exulting tells
Of the burial hour of crime.
Loud and long, that all may hear.
Ring for every listening ear
Of Eternity and Time!
Let us kneel!
God's own voice is in that peal,
And this spot is holy ground.
Lord, forgive us! What are we,
That our eyes this glory see,
That our ears have heard the sound!
For the Lord
On the whirlwind is abroad;
In the earthquake he has spoken;
He has smitten with his thunder
The iron walls asunder,
And the gates of brass are broken!
Loud and long
Lift the old exulting song;
Sing with Miriam by the sea
He has cast the mighty down;
Horse and rider sink and drown;
"He hath triumphed gloriously!"
Did we dare
In our agony of prayer,
Ask for more than He has done?
When was ever his right hand
Over any time or land
Stretched as now beneath the sun!
How they pale,
Ancient myth and song and tale,
In this wonder of our days,
When the cruel rod of war
Blossoms white with righteous law,
And the wrath of man is praise!
Blotted out!
All within and all about
Shall a fresher life begin;
Freer breathe the universe
As it rolls its heavy curse
On the dead and buried sin!
It is done!
In the circuit of the sun
Shall the sound thereof go forth.
It shall bid the sad rejoice,
It shall give the dumb a voice,
It shall belt with joy the earth!
Ring and swing,
Bells of joy! On morning's wing
Send the song of praise abroad!
With a sound of broken chains
Tell the nations that He reigns,
Who alone is Lord and God!
FOOTNOTE:
[24] By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., authorized publishers of
this author's works.
THE PILGRIM FATHERS
FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS
The breaking waves dashed high on a stern and rockbound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky their giant branches tossed,
And the heavy night hung dark the hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New England
shore.
Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came,--
Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings of
fame:
Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear,--
They shook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns of
lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang; this the stars heard and the sea!
And the sounding aisles of the dim wood rang to the anthems of the
free!
The ocean-eagle soared from his nest by the white waves' foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared;--this was their welcome
home.
There were men with hoary hair amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had they come to wither there, away from their childhood's
land?
There was woman's fearless eye, lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow serenely high, and the fiery heart of
youth.
What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?--They sought a faith's pure
shrine!
Aye, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod!
They have left unstained what there they found,--freedom to worship
God!
THE PRESENT CRISIS[25]
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth's aching
breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from East to West;
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb,
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of time.
For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along
Round the earth's electric circle the swift flash of right or
wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet humanity's vast frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibers feels the gush of joy or shame--
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or
blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
Backward look across the ages, and the beacon moments see
That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through oblivion's
sea;
Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry
Of those crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's
chaff must fly;
Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by.
Careless seems the great avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
We see dimly in the present what is small and what is great;
Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate!
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the delphic cave within,
"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with
sin."
Then to side with truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be
just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes--they were souls that stood
alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone;
Stood serene and down the future, saw the golden beam incline
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine
By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned
One new word of that grand credo which in prophet-hearts hath
burned,
Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven
upturned.
For humanity sweeps onward; where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands;
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into history's golden urn.
'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves
Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves.
Worshipers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their
time?
Turn those tracks toward past or future that make Plymouth Rock
sublime?
They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our
sires,
Smothering in their holy ashes freedom's new-lit altar fires.
Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to
slay,
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away
To light the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day?
New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth;
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! We ourselves must Pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter
sea,
Nor attempt the future's portal with the past's blood-rusted key.
FOOTNOTE:
[25] Used by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., authorized
publishers of this author's works.
THE RECESSIONAL
RUDYARD KIPLING
God of our fathers, known of old--
Lord of our far-flung battle line--
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine;
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget,--lest we forget.
The tumult and the shouting dies,
The captains and the kings depart--
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget,--lest we forget.
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not thee in awe--
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget,--lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on thy people, Lord!
THE SACREDNESS OF WORK
THOMAS CARLYLE
All true work is sacred; in all true hand-labor, there is something of
divineness. Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in Heaven. Sweat of
the brow; and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart;
which includes all Kepler's calculations, Newton's meditations, all
sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroism, martyrdoms--up to that
"Agony of bloody sweat," which all men have called divine! Oh, brother,
if this is not "worship," then, I say, the more pity for worship; for
this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky!
Who art thou that complainest of thy life of toil? Complain not. Look
up, my wearied brother; see thy fellow-workmen there, in God's Eternity;
surviving there, they alone surviving; sacred Band of the Immortals,
celestial Body-guard of the Empire of Mind. Even in the weak human
memory they survive so long, as saints, as heroes, as gods; they alone
surviving; peopling the immeasured solitudes of Time! To thee Heaven,
though severe, is not unkind; Heaven is kind--as a noble mother; as that
Spartan mother, saying, while she gave her son his shield, "With it, my
son, or upon it!" Thou, too, shalt return home, in honor to thy
far-distant home, doubt it not--if in the battle thou keep thy shield.
WHAT'S HALLOWED GROUND?
THOMAS CAMPBELL
What's hallowed ground? Has earth a clod
Its Maker meant not should be trod
By man, the image of his God,
Erect and free,
Unscourged by superstition's rod
To bow the knee?
What hallows ground where heroes sleep?
'Tis not the sculptured piles you heap,
In dews that Heavens far distant weep,
Their turf may bloom,
Or Genii twine beneath the deep
Their coral tomb.
But strew his ashes to the wind,
Whose sword or voice has saved mankind,
And is he dead, whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die!
Is't death to fall for Freedom's right?
He's dead alone that lacks her light!
And murder sullies, in Heaven's sight
The sword he draws.
What can alone ennoble fight?
A noble cause.
What's hallowed ground? 'Tis what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth.
Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth
Earth's compass round,
And your high priesthood shall make earth
All hallowed ground.
III
PATRIOTIC, HEROIC, ORATORICAL
THE SEVEN GREAT ORATORS OF THE WORLD
Harvard University after mature consideration has proclaimed that
in the history of eloquence there are seven great orators who stand
preeminent above other orators whom the world calls great. A
visitor to that venerable institution of learning, on coming to
Memorial Hall, will find at the theater end, on the outside and
just above the cornice, seven niches containing gigantic busts of
these seven orators: Demosthenes, the Greek; Cicero, the Roman;
Chrysostom, the Asiatic Greek; Bossuet, the Frenchman; Chatham, the
Englishman; Burke, the Irishman; and Webster, the American.
It is in furtherance of this idea that we have selected short
passages of eloquence from each of these men; and also with the
threefold purpose of acquainting young students with masterpieces
of oratory since the dawn of history, of providing passages well
worth committing to memory, and offering extracts well suited for
practice in public speaking.
I. DEMOSTHENES
THE ENCROACHMENTS OF PHILIP[26]
Men of Athens, if any one regard without uneasiness the might and
dominion of Philip, and imagine that it threatens no danger to the
state, or that all his preparations are not against you, I marvel, and
would entreat you every one to hear briefly from me the reasons why I am
led to form a contrary expectation, and why I deem Philip an enemy;
that, if I appear to have the clearer foresight, you may hearken to me;
if they, who have such confidence and trust in Philip, you may give your
adherence to them.
What did Philip first make himself master of after the peace? Thermopylae
and the Phocian state. And how used he his power? He chose to act for
the benefit of Thebes, not of Athens. Why so? Because, I conceive,
measuring his calculations by ambition, by his desire of universal
empire, without regard to peace, quiet, or justice, he saw plainly that
to a people of our character and principles nothing could he offer or
give that would induce you for self-interest to sacrifice any of the
Greeks to him. He sees that you, having respect for justice, dreading
the infamy of the thing, and exercising proper forethought, would oppose
him in any such attempt as much as if you were at war. But the Thebans,
he expected, would, in return for the services done them, allow him in
everything else to have his way, and, so far from thwarting or impeding
him, would fight on his side if he required it. You are judged by these
to be the only people incapable of betraying for lucre the national
rights of Greece, or bartering your attachment to her for any obligation
or benefit. And this opinion of you he has naturally formed, not only
from a view of present times, but by reflection on the past. For
assuredly he finds and hears that your ancestors, who might have
governed the rest of Greece on terms of submitting to Persia, not only
spurned the proposal when Alexander, this man's ancestor, came as herald
to negotiate, but preferred to abandon their country and endure any
suffering, and thereafter achieved such exploits as all the world loves
to remember,--though none could ever speak them worthily, and therefore
I must be silent, for their deeds are too mighty to be uttered in words.
But the forefathers of the Thebans either joined the barbarian's army or
did not oppose it; and therefore he knows that they will selfishly
embrace their advantage, without considering the common interest of the
Greeks. He thought then if he chose your friendship, it must be on just
principles; if he attached himself to them, he should find auxiliaries
of his ambition. This is the reason of his preferring them to you both
then and now. For certainly he does not see them with a larger navy than
you, nor has he acquired an inland empire and renounced that of the sea
and the ports, nor does he forget the professions and promises on which
he obtained the peace.
I cannot think that Philip, either if he was forced into his former
measures, or if he were now giving up the Thebans, would pertinaciously
oppose their enemies; his present conduct rather shows that he adopted
those measures by choice. All things prove to a correct observer that
his whole plan of action is against our state. And this has now become
to him a sort of necessity. Consider. He desires empire; he conceives
you to be his only opponents. He has been for some time wronging you, as
his own conscience best informs him, since, by retaining what belongs to
you, he secures the rest of his dominion. He knows that he is plotting
against you, and that you are aware of it; and supposing you to have
intelligence, he thinks you must hate him; he is alarmed, expecting some
disaster, unless he hastens to prevent you. Therefore he is awake and on
the watch against us; he courts certain people, who from cupidity, he
thinks, will be satisfied with the present, and from dullness of
understanding will foresee none of the consequences.
I imagine that what Philip is doing will grieve you hereafter more than
it does now. I see the thing progressing, and would that my surmises
were false, but I doubt it is too near already. So when you are able no
longer to disregard events, when, instead of hearing from me or others
that these measures are against Athens, you all see it yourselves and
know it for certain, I expect you will be wrathful and exasperated. I
fear then, as your ambassadors have concealed the purpose for which they
know they were corrupted, those who endeavor to repair what the others
have lost may chance to encounter your resentment, for I see it is a
practice with many to vent their anger, not upon the guilty, but on
persons most in their power. Had you not been then deceived there would
be nothing to distress the state. Philip would certainly never have
prevailed at sea and come to Attica with a fleet, nor would he have
marched with a land force by Phocis and Thermopylae; he must either have
acted honorably, observing the peace and keeping quiet, or been
immediately in a war similar to that which made him desire the peace.
Enough has been said to awaken recollection. Grant, O ye gods, it be not
all fully confirmed! Though he may deserve death I would have no man
punished to the damage and danger of the country.
FOOTNOTE:
[26] From the Second Philippic delivered at Athens, 344 B.C.
II. MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
ORATION AGAINST ANTONY[27]
Who is there who does not see that Antonius has been adjudged to be an
enemy? For what else can we call him, when the Senate decides that
extraordinary honors are to be devised for those men who are leading
armies against him? What, did not the Martial legion decide by its
resolutions that Antonius was an enemy before the Senate had come to any
resolution? For if he be not an enemy, we must inevitably decide that
those men who have deserted the consul are enemies. Admirably and
seasonably, O Romans, have you by your cries sanctioned the noble
conduct of the men of the Martial legion, who have come over to the
authority of the Senate, to your liberty, and to the whole republic, and
have abandoned that enemy and robber and parricide of his country. Nor
did they display only their spirit and courage in doing this, but their
caution and wisdom also. They encamped at Alba, in a city convenient,
fortified, full of brave men and loyal and virtuous citizens. The fourth
legion imitated and also joined the army of Caius Caesar.
What more adverse decisions, O Marcus Antonius, can you want? Caesar, who
has levied an army against you, is extolled to the skies. The legions
are praised in the most complimentary manner, which have abandoned you,
which were sent for into Italy by you, and which, if you had been chosen
to be a consul rather than an enemy, were wholly devoted to you. And the
fearless and honest decision of those legions is confirmed by the Senate
and is approved of by the whole Roman people. Do you suppose that the
municipal towns and the colonies and the prefectures have any other
opinion? All men are agreed with one mind, so that every one who wishes
the State to be saved must take every sort of arms against that
pestilence. What, does the opinion of Decimus Brutus which has this day
reached us appear to any one deserving of being lightly esteemed? The
family and name of Brutus has been by some especial kindness and
liberality of the immortal gods given to the republic, for the purpose
of at one time establishing, and at another of recovering, the liberty
of the Roman people. What has been the opinion which Decimus Brutus has
formed of Marcus Antonius? He excludes him from his province. He opposes
him with his army. He rouses all Gaul to war, which is already aroused
of its own accord, and in consequence of the judgment which it has
already formed. If Antonius be consul, Brutus is an enemy. Can we then
doubt which of these alternatives is the fact?
And just as you now with one mind and one voice affirm that you
entertain no doubt, so did the Senate just now decree that Decimus
Brutus deserved excellently well of the republic, inasmuch as he was
defending the authority of the Senate and the liberty and empire of the
Roman people. Defending it against whom? Why, against an enemy. For what
other sort of defense deserves praise? In the next place the province of
Gaul is praised and is deservedly complimented in most honorable
language by the Senate for resisting Antonius. But if that province
considered him the consul, and still refused to receive him it would be
guilty of great wickedness. For all the provinces belong to the consul
of right, and are bound to obey him. Decimus Brutus, imperator and
consul-elect, a citizen born for the republic, denies that he is consul.
Gaul denies it. All Italy denies it. The Senate denies it. You deny it.
Who then thinks he is consul except a few robbers? I think that at
present not only men but the immortal gods have all united together to
preserve this republic. For if the immortal gods foreshow us the future,
by means of portents and prodigies, then it has been openly revealed to
us that punishment is near at hand to him, and liberty to us. Or if it
was impossible for such unanimity on the part of all men to exist
without the inspiration of the gods, in either case how can we doubt as
to the inclination of the heavenly deities?
I will act therefore as commanders are in the habit of doing when their
army is ready for battle, who although they see their soldiers ready to
engage, still address an exhortation to them; and in like manner I will
exhort you who are already eager and burning to recover your liberty.
You have not to war against an enemy with whom it is possible to make
peace on any terms whatever. For he does not now desire your slavery, as
he did before, but he is angry now and thirsts for your blood. No sport
appears more delightful to him than bloodshed and slaughter and the
massacre of citizens before his eyes. You have not, O Romans, to deal
with a wicked and profligate man, but with an unnatural, and savage
beast. And since he has fallen into a well let him be buried in it. For
if he escapes out of it there will be no inhumanity of torture which it
will be possible to avoid. But he is at present hemmed in, pressed, and
besieged by those troops which we already have, and will soon be still
more so by those which in a few days the new consuls will levy. Apply
yourselves then to this business, as you are doing. Never have you shown
greater unanimity in any cause, never have you been so cordially united
with the Senate. And no wonder: for the question now is not in what
condition we are to live, but whether we are to live at all, or to
perish with torture and ignominy.
FOOTNOTE:
[27] Taken from the Fourth Philippic, delivered in the Forum at Rome.
III. SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
I. UNDUE LAMENTATIONS OVER THE DEAD
I am ashamed and blush to see unbecoming groups of women pass along the
mart, tearing their hair, cutting their arms and cheeks, and all this
under the eyes of the Greeks. For what will they not say? What will they
not utter concerning us? Are these the men who philosophize about a
resurrection? How poorly their actions agree with their opinions! In
words they philosophize about a resurrection, but they act just like
those who do not acknowledge a resurrection. If they fully believed in a
resurrection they would not act thus; if they had really persuaded
themselves that a deceased friend had departed to a better state they
would not thus mourn. These things and more than these, the unbelievers
say when they hear those lamentations. Let us then be ashamed, and be
more moderate, and not occasion so much harm to ourselves and to those
who are looking on us.
For on what account, tell me, do you thus weep for one departed? Because
he was a bad man? You ought on that very account to be thankful, since
the occasions of wickedness are now cut off. Because he was good and
kind? If so, you ought to rejoice, since he has been soon removed before
wickedness had corrupted him; and he has gone away to a world where he
stands ever secure, and there is no room even to mistrust a change.
Because he was a youth? For that, too, praise Him who has taken him,
because He has speedily called him to a better lot. Because he was an
aged man? On this account also give thanks and glorify Him that has
taken him. Be ashamed of your manner of burial. All this is not that
you may weep and lament and afflict yourselves, but that you may render
thanks to Him who has taken the departed.
When men are called to some high office, multitudes with praises on
their lips assemble to escort them at their departure to their stations,
so do all with abundant praise join to send forward, as to a greater
honor, those of the pious who have departed. Death is rest, a
deliverance from the exhausting labors and cares of this world. When,
then, thou seest a relative departing yield not to despondency; give
thyself to reflection; examine thy conscience; cherish the thought that
after a little while this end awaits thee also. Be more considerate; let
another's death excite thee to salutary fear; shake off all indolence;
examine your past deeds; quit your sins and commence a happy change.
We differ from unbelievers in our estimate of things. The unbeliever
surveys the heaven and worships it, because he thinks it a divinity; he
looks to the earth and makes himself a servant to it, and longs for the
things of sense. But not so with us. We survey the heaven and admire Him
that made it, for we believe it not to be a god, but a work of God. I
look on the whole creation, and am led by it to the Creator. He looks on
wealth and longs for and laments; I see poverty and rejoice. I see
things in one light, he in another. Just so in regard to death. He sees
a corpse and thinks of it as a corpse; I see a corpse and behold sleep
rather than death. And as in regard to books, both learned persons and
unlearned see them with the same eyes, but not with the same
understanding. To the unlearned the mere shapes of letters appear, while
the learned discover the sense that lies within those letters. So in
respect to affairs in general, we all see what takes place with the same
eyes, but not with the same understanding and judgment. Since,
therefore, in all other things we differ from them, shall we agree with
them in our sentiments respecting death? Consider to whom the departed
has gone. He has gone where Paul is, and the whole company of the
saints. Consider how he shall arise, with what glory and with what
splendor.
II. ON APPLAUDING PREACHERS
It is a mischief when one who teaches will in words impugn the teachings
by his deeds. This has been the cause of many evils in the churches.
Wherefore pardon me, I beseech you, if my discourse dwells long on this
evil affection. Many take a great deal of pains to be able to stand up
in public and make a long speech; and if they get applause from the
multitude, it is to them as if they had gained the very kingdom of
heaven; but if silence follows the close of their speech the defection
that falls upon their spirits from the silence is worse than hell
itself. This has turned the churches upside down, because you desire not
to hear a discourse calculated to lead to compunction, but one that may
delight you from the sound and composition of the words, as though you
were listening to singers and minstrels. When we idly busy ourselves
about beautiful expressions and the composition and harmony of our
sentences in order that we might not profit; when we make it our aim to
be admired, not to instruct; to delight, not prick to the heart; to be
applauded and depart with praise, not to correct men's manners, we do
wrong. Believe me, I speak what I feel, when as I discourse, I hear
myself applauded, at the moment I feel it as a man; I am delighted and
give way to the pleasurable feeling; but when I get home and bethink me
that those who applauded received no benefit from my discourse, but
whatever benefit they ought to have got they lost it while applauding
and praising, I am in pain, and groan and weep, and feel as if I had
spoken all in vain. I say to myself what profit comes to me from my
labors, while the hearers do not choose to benefit by what they hear
from me?
Even the heathen philosophers--we hear of their discoursing, and
nowhere do we find that noisy applause accompanied their words; we hear
of the apostles making public speeches, and yet nowhere do the accounts
add that in the midst of their discourses the hearers interrupted the
speaker with loud expressions of approbation. Christ spoke publicly on
the mount, yet no one said aught until He had finished His discourse.
How shall the hearer be otherwise than ridiculous? Nay, he will be
deemed a flatterer and his praise no better than irony, when he declares
that the teacher spoke beautifully; but what he said, this he cannot
tell. This has all the appearance of adulation. For when, indeed, one
has been hearing minstrels and players, it is no wonder if such has been
the case with him, seeing he looks not how to utter the strain in the
same manner; but where the matter is not an exhibition of song or of
voice, but the drift and purport of thoughts and wise reflections, and
it is easy for every one to tell and report what was said, how can he
but deserve the accusation, who cannot tell what the matter was for
which he praised the speaker? Nothing so becomes the church as silence
and good order.
Noise belongs to the theaters, and baths, and public processions, and
market-places; but where doctrines, and such doctrines, are the subject
of teaching, there should be stillness and quiet, and calm reflection,
and a haven of much repose. These things I beseech and entreat; for I go
about in quest of ways by which I shall be enabled to profit your souls.
And no small way I take this to be; it will profit not you only, but us
also. So shall we not be carried away with pride, not be tempted to love
praises and honor, not be led to speak those things which delight, but
those things that profit: so shall we lay the whole stress of our time
and diligence, not upon arts of composition and beauties of expression,
but upon the matter and meaning of the thoughts.
Is not all nature decked with stillness and silence? Over all the face
of heaven is scattered the charm of repose. On this account we are evil
spoken of even among the Gentiles, as though we did all for display and
ostentation. But if this be prevented the love of the chief seats will
also be extinguished. It is sufficient, if any one be enamored of
praise, that he should obtain it after having been heard, when all is
gathered in. Yea, I beseech you that doing all things according to God's
will, we may be found worthy of the mercy which is from Him, through the
grace and compassion of His only Son.
IV. JACQUES BENIGNE BOSSUET
ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE OF CONDE
Our lamentations ought to break forth at the loss of so great a man. But
for the love of truth and the shame of those who despise it, listen once
more to that noble testimony which he bore to it in dying. Informed by
his confessor that if our heart is not entirely right with God, we must,
in our addresses, ask God Himself to make it such as He pleases, and
address Him in the affecting language of David, "O God, create in me a
clean heart," the Prince is arrested by the words, pauses, as if
occupied with some great thought; then calling the ecclesiastic who had
suggested the idea, he says: "I have never doubted the mysteries of
religion, as some have reported." Christians, you ought to believe him,
for in the state he then was he owed to the world nothing but truth.
What was then taking place in his soul? What new light dawned upon him?
What sudden ray pierced the cloud, and instantly dissipated, not only
all the darkness of sense, but the very shadows, and if I dare to say
it, the sacred obscurities of faith? What then became of those splendid
titles by which our pride is flattered? On the very verge of glory, and
in the dawning of a light so beautiful, how rapidly vanish the phantoms
of the world! How dim appears the splendor of the most glorious victory!
How profoundly we despise the glory of the world, and how deeply regret
that our eyes were ever dazzled by its radiance! Come, ye people, or
rather ye princes and lords, ye judges of the earth, and ye who open to
man the portals of heaven; and more than all others, ye princes and
princesses, nobles descended from a long line of kings, lights of
France, but to-day in gloom, and covered with your grief, as with a
cloud, come and see how little remains of a birth so august, a grandeur
so high, a glory so dazzling. Look around on all sides, and see all that
magnificence and devotion can do to honor so great a hero; titles and
inscriptions, vain signs of that which is no more--shadows which weep
around a tomb, fragile images of a grief which time sweeps away with
everything else; columns which seem as if they would bear to heaven the
magnificent evidence of our emptiness; nothing, indeed, is wanting in
all these honors but him to whom they are rendered! Weep then over these
feeble remains of human life; weep over that mournful immortality we
give to heroes. But draw near, especially ye who run with such ardor the
career of glory, intrepid and warrior spirits! Who was more worthy to
command you, and in whom did you find command more honorable? Mourn then
that great captain, and weeping, say: "Here is the man that led us
through all hazards, under whom were formed so many renowned captains,
raised by his example to the highest honors of war; his shadow might yet
gain battles, and lo! in his silence his very name animates us, and at
the same time warns us, that to find at death some rest from our toils,
and not arrive unprepared at our eternal dwelling, we must, with an
earthly king, yet serve the king of heaven."
Serve then that immortal and ever merciful King, who will value a sigh
or a cup of cold water, given in His name, more than all others will
value the shedding of your blood. And begin to reckon the time of your
useful services from the day on which you gave yourselves to so
beneficent a Master. Will not ye too come, ye whom he honored by making
you his friends? To whatever extent you enjoyed his confidence, come
all of you, and surround his tomb. Mingle your prayers with your tears;
and while admiring, in so great a prince, a friendship so excellent, an
intercourse so sweet, preserve the remembrance of a hero whose goodness
equaled his courage. Thus may he ever prove your cherished instructor;
thus may you profit by his virtues; and may his death, which you
deplore, serve you at once for consolation and example.
For myself, if permitted, after all others, to render the last offices
at his tomb, O Prince, the worthy subject of our praises and regrets,
thou wilt live forever in my memory. There will thy image be traced, but
not with that bold aspect which promises victory. No, I would see in you
nothing which death can efface. You will have in that image only
immortal traits. I shall behold you such as you were in your last hours
under the hand of God, when His glory began to dawn upon you. There
shall I see you more triumphant than at Fribourg and at Rocroy; and
ravished by so glorious a triumph, I shall give thanks in the beautiful
words of the well-beloved disciple, "This is the victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith." Enjoy, O Prince, this victory, enjoy it
forever, through the everlasting efficacy of that sacrifice.
V. WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM
I. WAR WITH AMERICA[28]
I will not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. I cannot
concur in a blind and servile address, which approves and endeavors to
sanctify the monstrous measures which have heaped disgrace and
misfortune upon us. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment!
It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery cannot now
avail; cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now
necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must
dispel the illusion and the darkness which envelop it, and display, in
its full danger and true colors, the ruin that is brought to our doors.
Can the minister of the day now presume to expect a continuance of
support in this ruinous infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its
dignity and its duty as to be thus deluded into the loss of the one and
the violation of the other? To give an unlimited credit and support for
the steady perseverance in measures not proposed for our parliamentary
advice, but dictated and forced upon us--in measures which have reduced
this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt! "But yesterday and
England might have stood against the world; now none so poor to do her
reverence." It is a shameful truth that not only the power and strength
of this country are wasting away and expiring, but her well-earned
glories, her true honor and substantial dignity, are sacrificed.
My lords, this ruinous and ignominious situation, where we cannot act
with success, nor suffer with honor, calls upon us to remonstrate in the
strongest and loudest language of truth, to rescue the ear of Majesty
from the delusions which surround it. The desperate state of our arms
abroad is in part known. No man thinks more highly of them than I do. I
love and honor the English troops. I know their virtues and their valor.
I know they can achieve anything except impossibilities; and I know that
the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I
venture to say it, you cannot conquer America. Your armies in the last
war effected everything that could be effected; and what was it? It cost
a numerous army, under the command of a most able general, a long and
laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from French
America. My lords, you cannot conquer America.
What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we
know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much.
Besides the sufferings, perhaps total loss, of the northern force, the
best-appointed army that ever took the field, commanded by Sir William
Howe, has retired from the American lines. As to conquest, I repeat, it
is impossible. You may swell every expense and every effort still more
extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or
borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that
sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince; your
efforts are forever vain and impotent--doubly so from this mercenary aid
on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds
of your enemies, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and
plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling
cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign
troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my
arms--never--never--never.
FOOTNOTE:
[28] Delivered in the House of Lords, Nov. 18, 1777.
II. ATTEMPT TO SUBJUGATE AMERICA
My lords, no man wishes for the due dependence of America on this
country more than I do. To preserve it, and not confirm that state of
independence into which your measures hitherto have driven them, is the
object which we ought to unite in attaining. The Americans, contending
for their rights against arbitrary exactions, I love and admire. It is
the struggle of free and virtuous patriots. America was indeed the
fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength, the nursery and basis
of our naval power. It is our duty, therefore, my lords, if we wish to
save our country, most seriously to endeavor the recovery of these most
beneficial subjects; and in this perilous crisis, perhaps the present
moment may be the only one in which we can hope for success.
I would impart to them every enjoyment and freedom which the colonizing
subjects of a free state can possess, or wish to possess; and I do not
see why they should not enjoy every fundamental right in their property,
and every original substantial liberty, which Devonshire or Surrey, or
the county I live in, or any other county in England, can claim;
reserving always as the sacred right of the mother country the due
constitutional dependency of the colonies. The inherent supremacy of the
state in regulating and protecting the navigation and commerce of all
her subjects is necessary for the mutual benefit and preservation of
every part, to constitute and preserve the prosperous arrangement of the
whole empire.
You cannot conciliate America by your present measures. You cannot
subdue her by your present, or by any measures. What, then, can you do?
You cannot conquer, you cannot gain, but you can address; you can lull
the fears and anxieties of the moment into an ignorance of the danger
that should produce them. But, my lords, the time demands the language
of truth. We must not now apply the flattering unction of servile
compliance or blind complaisance. In a just and necessary war to
maintain the rights or honor of my country, I would strip the shirt from
my back to support it. But in such a war as this, unjust in principle,
impracticable in its means, and ruinous in its consequences, I would not
contribute a single effort, nor a single shilling. I do not call for
vengeance on the heads of those who have been guilty; I only recommend
to them to make their retreat; and let them make haste, or they may be
assured that speedy and condign punishment will overtake them.
My lords, I have submitted to you, with the freedom and truth which I
think my duty, my sentiments on this awful situation. I have laid before
you the ruin of your power, the disgrace of your reputation, the
pollution of your discipline, the contamination of your morals, the
complication of calamities, foreign and domestic, that overwhelm your
sinking country. Your dearest interests, your own liberties, the
constitution itself, totters to the foundation. All this disgraceful
danger, this multitude of misery, is the monstrous offspring of this
unnatural war. We have been deceived and deluded too long. Let us now
stop short. This is the crisis, the only crisis of time and situation,
to give us a possibility of escape from the fatal effects of our
delusions. But if, in an obstinate and infatuated perseverance in folly,
we slavishly echo the peremptory words this day presented to us, nothing
can save this devoted country from complete and final ruin.
Is it possible, can it be believed, that ministers are yet blind to this
impending destruction? I did hope that instead of this false and empty
vanity, this overweening pride, that ministers would have humbled
themselves in their errors, would have confessed and retracted them, and
by an active though a late repentance, have endeavored to redeem them.
But, my lords, since they had neither sagacity to foresee, nor justice
nor humanity to shun, these oppressive calamities; since not even severe
experience can make them feel, nor the imminent ruin of their country
awaken them from their stupefaction, the guardian care of Parliament
must interpose. I shall, therefore, my lords, propose an amendment to
the address to his Majesty, to recommend an immediate cessation of
hostilities and the commencement of a treaty to restore peace and
liberty to America, strength and happiness to England, security and
permanent prosperity to both countries.
VI. EDMUND BURKE
I. IMPEACHMENT OF HASTINGS[29]
My lords, you have now heard the principles on which Mr. Hastings
governs the part of Asia subjected to the British empire. Here he has
declared his opinion, that he is a despotic prince; that he is to use
arbitrary power; and, of course, all his acts are covered with that
shield. "I know," says he, "the Constitution of Asia only from its
practice." Will your lordships submit to hear the corrupt practices of
mankind made the principles of Government?
He have arbitrary power! My lords, the East India Company have not
arbitrary power to give him; the King has no arbitrary power to give
him; your lordships have not; nor the Commons; nor the whole
Legislature. We have no arbitrary power to give, because arbitrary power
is a thing which neither any man can hold nor any man can give. No man
can lawfully govern himself according to his own will, much less can one
person be governed by the will of another. We are all born in
subjection, all born equally, high and low, governors and governed, in
subjection to one great, immutable, preexistent law, prior to all our
devices, and prior to all our contrivances, paramount to all our ideas,
and all our sensations, antecedent to our very existence, by which we
are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe, out of
which we cannot stir.
This great law does not arise from our conventions or compacts; on the
contrary, it gives to our conventions and compacts all the force and
sanction they can have;--it does not arise from our vain institutions.
Every good gift is of God; all power is of God;--and He, who has given
the power, and from whom alone it originates, will never suffer the
exercise of it to be practiced upon any less solid foundation than the
power itself. If then all dominion of man over man is the effect of the
divine disposition, it is bound by the eternal laws of Him that gave it,
with which no human authority can dispense; neither he that exercises
it, nor even those who are subject to it. And if they were mad enough to
make an express compact that should release their magistrate from his
duty, and should declare their lives, liberties, and properties
dependent upon, not rules and laws, but his mere capricious will, that
covenant would be void.
This arbitrary power is not to be had by conquest. Nor can any
sovereign have it by succession; for no man can succeed to fraud,
rapine, and violence. Those who give and those who receive arbitrary
power are alike criminal; and there is no man but is bound to resist it
to the best of his power, wherever it shall show its face to the world.
Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. Name me a magistrate, and
I will name property; name me power, and I will name protection. It is a
contradiction in terms; it is blasphemy in religion, it is wickedness in
politics, to say that any man can have arbitrary power. In every patent
of office the duty is included. For what else does a magistrate exist?
To suppose for power, is an absurdity in idea. Judges are guided and
governed by the eternal laws of justice, to which we are all subject. We
may bite our chains, if we will; but we shall be made to know ourselves,
and be taught that man is born to be governed by law; and he that will
substitute will in the place of it, is an enemy to God.
My lords, I do not mean to go further than just to remind your lordships
of this,--that Mr. Hastings' government was one whole system of
oppression, of robbery of individuals, of spoliation of the public, and
of supersession of the whole system of the English Government, in order
to vest in the worst of the natives all the power that could possibly
exist in any government; in order to defeat the ends which all
governments ought, in common, to have in view. In the name of the
Commons of England, I charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings in
this last moment of my application to you.
My lords, what is it that we want here to a great act of national
justice? Do we want a cause, my lords? You have the cause of oppressed
princes, of desolated provinces, and of wasted kingdoms. Do you want a
criminal, my lords? When was there so much iniquity ever laid to the
charge of any one? No, my lords, you must not look to punish any other
such delinquent from India. Warren Hastings has not left substance
enough in India to nourish such another delinquent.
Therefore, it is with confidence that, ordered by the Commons of Great
Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I
impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament
assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has abused. I impeach him in the
name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has
dishonored. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose
laws, rights and liberties he has subverted. I impeach him in the name
of the people of India, whose property he has destroyed, whose country
he has laid waste and desolate. I impeach him in the name of human
nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured and oppressed, in
both sexes. And I impeach him in the name and by the virtue of those
eternal laws of justice, which ought equally to pervade every age,
condition, rank, and situation in the world.
FOOTNOTE:
[29] On the 15th of February, 1788, Edmund Burke began a four days'
speech in the impeachment of Warren Hastings.
II. CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA[30]
Sir, I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper
government; nor of any politics in which the plan is to be wholly
separated from the execution. But when I saw that anger and violence
prevailed every day more and more, and that things were hastening
towards an incurable alienation of our colonies, I confess my caution
gave way. I felt this as one of those few moments in which decorum
yields to a higher duty. Public calamity is a mighty leveler; and there
are occasions when any chance of doing good must be laid hold on, even
by the most inconsiderable person. To restore order and repose to an
empire so great and so distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an
undertaking that would ennoble the flights of the highest genius, and
obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding.
The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war; not
peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless
negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord fomented, from
principle, in all parts of the empire. It is simple peace; sought in its
natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the
spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. I propose, by
removing the ground of the difference, and by restoring the former
unsuspecting confidence of the colonies in the Mother Country, to give
permanent satisfaction to your people; and to reconcile them to each
other in the same act and by the bond of the very same interest which
reconciles them to British government.
The principle of this proceeding is large enough for my purpose. I mean
to give peace. Peace implies reconciliation; and where there has been a
material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner always imply
concession on the one part or on the other. In this state of things I
make no difficulty in affirming that the proposal ought to originate
from us. Great and acknowledged force is not impaired, either in effect
or in opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself. The superior power
may offer peace with honor and with safety. Such an offer from such a
power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the concessions of the weak
are the concessions of fear. When such an one is disarmed, he is wholly
at the mercy of his superior; and he loses forever that time and those
chances, which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and
resources of all inferior power.
The leading questions on which you must this day decide, are these two:
First, whether you ought to concede; and secondly, what your concession
ought to be. On the first of these questions we have gained some ground.
But I am sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed,
Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the other of these
great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be
necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiar
circumstances of the object which we have before us; because after all
our struggle, whether we will or not, we must govern America according
to that nature and to those circumstances, and not according to our own
imaginations, nor according to abstract ideas of right.
America, gentlemen say, is a noble object. It is an object well worth
fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of
gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice of
means by their complexions and their habits. Those who understand the
military art will of course have some predilection for it. Those who
wield the thunder of the state may have more confidence in the efficacy
of arms. But I confess my opinion is much more in favor of prudent
management than of force. The use of force alone is but temporary. It
may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of
subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be
conquered.
My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of
force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are
without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force
failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority
are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms
by an impoverished and defeated violence. Nothing less will content me
than whole America. I do not choose to consume its strength along with
our own, because in all parts it is the British strength that I consume.
I do not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this
exhausting conflict; and still less in the midst of it. I may escape;
but I can make no insurance against such an event. Let me add, that I do
not choose to break the American spirit; because it is the spirit that
has made the country.
In the character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the
predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole; and as
an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become
suspicious, restive, and untractable whenever they see the least attempt
to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicanery, what
they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of
liberty is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any other
people of the earth.
Sir, from these six sources--of descent, of form of government, of
religion in the northern provinces, of manners in the southern, of
education, of the remoteness of situation from the first mover of
government--from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown
up. It has grown with the growth of the people in your colonies, and
increased with the increase of their wealth; a spirit that unhappily
meeting with an exercise of power in England which, however lawful, is
not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, has kindled this flame that is
ready to consume us.
I am much against any further experiments which tend to put to the proof
any more of these allowed opinions which contribute so much to the
public tranquillity. In effect, we suffer as much at home by this
loosening of all ties, and this concussion of all established opinions,
as we do abroad; for in order to prove that the Americans have no right
to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims
which preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove that the Americans
ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom
itself; and we never seem to gain a paltry advantage over them in debate
without attacking some of those principles, or deriding some of those
feelings, for which our ancestors have shed their blood.
The temper and character which prevail in our colonies are, I am afraid,
unalterable by any human art. We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of
this fierce people, and persuade them that they are not sprung from a
nation in whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language in
which they would hear you tell them this tale would detect the
imposition; your speech would betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest
person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.
But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got over. The ocean
remains. You cannot pump this dry; and as long as it continues in its
present bed, so long all the causes which weaken authority by distance
will continue. If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of
American liberty be for the greater part, or rather entirely,
impracticable; if the ideas of criminal process be inapplicable--or, if
applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient--what way yet remains?
No way is open but to comply with the American spirit as necessary; or,
if you please, to submit to it as a necessary evil.
FOOTNOTE:
[30] Delivered in the House of Commons, March 22, 1775.
III. ENGLISH PRIVILEGES IN AMERICA
Reflect, sirs, that when you have fixed a quota of taxation for every
colony, you have not provided for prompt and punctual payment. You must
make new Boston Port Bills, new restraining laws, new acts for dragging
men to England for trial. You must send out new fleets, new armies. All
is to begin again. From this day forward the empire is never to know an
hour's tranquillity. An intestine fire will be kept alive in the bowels
of the colonies, which one time or other must consume this whole empire.
Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore have a perpetual
quarrel. Indeed, the noble lord who proposed this project seems himself
to be of that opinion. His project was rather designed for breaking the
union of the colonies than for establishing a revenue. But whatever his
views may be, as I propose the peace and union of the colonies as the
very foundation of my plan, it cannot accord with one whose foundation
is perpetual discord.
Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and simple; the other
full of perplexed and intricate mazes. This is mild; that harsh. This
is found by experience effectual for its purposes; the other is a new
project. This is universal; the other calculated for certain colonies
only. This is immediate in its conciliatory operation; the other remote,
contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes the dignity of a ruling
people--gratuitous, unconditional, and not held out as a matter of
bargain and sale. I have done my duty in proposing it to you. I have
indeed tired you by a long discourse; but this is the misfortune of
those to whose influence nothing will be conceded, and who must win
every inch of their ground by argument. You have heard me with goodness.
May you decide with wisdom! For my part, I feel my mind greatly
disburdened by what I have done to-day. I have been the less fearful of
trying your patience, because, on this subject, I mean to spare it
altogether in future. I have this comfort, that in every stage of the
American affairs I have steadily opposed the measures that have produced
the confusion, and may bring on the destruction, of this empire. I now
go so far as to risk a proposal of my own. If I cannot give peace to my
country, I give it to my conscience.
My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from
common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal
protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as
links of iron. Let the colonists always keep the idea of their civil
rights associated with your government,--they will cling and grapple to
you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their
allegiance. But let it be once understood that your government may be
one thing, and their privileges another, that these two things may exist
without any mutual relation, the cement is gone--the cohesion is
loosened--and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as
you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as
the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common
faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom,
they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more
friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more
perfect will be their obedience. Until you become lost to all feeling of
your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from
none but you.
This is the commodity of price of which you have the monopoly. This is
the true Act of Navigation which binds to you the commerce of the
colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny
them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which
originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire. Do
not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your
bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, are what form the great
securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office,
and your instructions, are the things that hold together the great
contexture of the mysterious whole. These things do not make your
government. Dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the
spirit of the English communion that gives all their life and efficacy
to them. It is the spirit of the English Constitution which, infused
through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies
every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. Is it not
the same virtue which does everything for us here in England? It is the
love of the people; it is the attachment to their government, from the
sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which
gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal
obedience without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy
nothing but rotten timber.
All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the
profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no
place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what
is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to
be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a
wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught,
these ruling and master principles which, in the opinion of such men as
I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth
everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is the truest
wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. We ought to
elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of
providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high
calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious
empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable
conquests--not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number,
the happiness, of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we
have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it
is; English privileges alone will make it all it can be.
VII. DANIEL WEBSTER
I. BUNKER HILL MONUMENT
This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling
which the occasion has excited. These thousands of human faces, glowing
with sympathy and joy, and from the impulses of a common gratitude
turned reverently to heaven in this spacious temple of the firmament,
proclaim that the day, the place and the purpose of our assembling have
made a deep impression on our hearts.
If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to affect the
mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate us
here. We are among the sepulchers of our fathers. We are on ground,
distinguished by their valor, their constancy and the shedding of their
blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, nor draw
into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble purpose had never
been conceived, if we ourselves had never been born, the 17th of June,
1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent history would have
poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a point of attraction
to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans. We live in
what may be called the early age of this great continent; and we know
that our posterity, through all time, are here to enjoy and suffer the
allotments of humanity. We see before us a probable train of great
events; we know that our own fortunes have been happily cast; and it is
natural, therefore, that we should be moved by the contemplation of
occurrences which have guided our destiny before many of us were born,
and settled the condition in which we should pass that portion of our
existence which God allows to men on earth.
But the great event in the history of the continent, which we are now
met here to commemorate, that prodigy of modern times, at once the
wonder and the blessing of the world, is the American Revolution. In a
day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honor,
distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our
love of country, by our admiration of exalted character, by our
gratitude for signal services and patriotic devotion.
The Society whose organ I am was formed for the purpose of rearing some
honorable and durable monument to the memory of the early friends of
American Independence. They have thought, that for this object no time
could be more propitious than the present prosperous and peaceful
period; that no place could claim preference over this memorable spot;
and that no day could be more auspicious to the undertaking, than the
anniversary of the battle which was here fought. The foundation of that
monument we have now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, with
prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst of this cloud
of witnesses, we have begun the work. We trust it will be prosecuted,
and that, springing from a broad foundation, rising high in massive
solidity and unadorned grandeur, it may remain as long as heaven permits
the works of man to last, a fit emblem, both of the events in memory of
which it is raised, and of the gratitude of those who have reared it.
We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most safely
deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We know, that if we
could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the
skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces could still contain
but part of that which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been spread
over the earth, and which history charges itself with making known to
all future times. We know that no inscription on entablatures less broad
than the earth itself can carry information of the events we commemorate
where it has not already gone; and that no structure, which shall not
outlive the duration of letters and knowledge among men, can prolong the
memorial. But our object is, by this edifice, to show our own deep sense
of the value and importance of the achievements of our ancestors; and,
by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive similar
sentiments, and to foster a constant regard for the principles of the
Revolution. Human beings are composed, not of reason only, but of
imagination also, and sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor
misapplied which is appropriated to the purpose of giving right
direction to sentiments, and opening proper springs of feeling in the
heart.
Let it not be supposed that our object is to perpetuate national
hostility, or even to cherish a mere military spirit. It is higher,
purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to the spirit of national
independence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest upon it
forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of that unmeasured benefit
which has been conferred on our own land, and of the happy influences
which have been produced, by the same events, on the general interests
of mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must forever be
dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in all coming
time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not
undistinguished where the first great battle of the Revolution was
fought. We wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and
importance of that event to every class and every age. We wish that
infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal lips, and
that weary and withered age may behold it, and be solaced by the
recollections which it suggests. We wish that labor may look up here,
and be proud, in the midst of its toil. We wish that, in those days of
disaster, which, as they come upon all nations, must be expected to come
upon us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be
assured that the foundations of our national power are still strong. We
wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of
so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all
minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally,
that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore,
and the first to gladden him who revisits it, may be something which
shall remind him of the liberty and glory of his country. Let it rise!
let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light
of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its
summit.[31]
FOOTNOTE:
[31] This and the following extract taken from an address delivered at
the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, June 17,
1825.
II. REVOLUTIONARY PATRIOTS
Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven
has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this
joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour,
with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the
strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are
indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else
how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed
volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground
strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady
and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning
of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely
and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in
war and death;--all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no
more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and
roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen
in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the
issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of the
whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with a
universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position
appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to
cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's
own means of distinction and defense. All is peace; and God has granted
you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the
grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your
patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to
meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of
your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you!
But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your
ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes
seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your
fathers, and live only to your own country in her grateful remembrance
and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve, that you
have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know
that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived
to see your country's independence established, and to sheathe your
swords from war. On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of
peace, like
"another morn,
Risen on mid-noon;"
and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless.
But, ah! Him! the first great martyr in this great cause! Him! the
premature victim of his own self-devoting heart! Him! the head of our
civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom
nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit! Him!
cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick
gloom; falling ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his
generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a
land of freedom or of bondage!--how shall I struggle with the emotions
that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but
thine shall endure! This monument may molder away; the solid ground it
rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall
not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the
transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim
kindred with thy spirit.
Veterans! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring
with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown,
Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. Veterans of half a century! when in
your youthful days you put everything at hazard in your country's cause,
good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest
hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this! At a period to which
you could not reasonably have expected to arrive, at a moment of
national prosperity such as you could never have foreseen, you are now
met here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the
overflowings of a universal gratitude.
But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that
even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending
feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons
of the living, present themselves before you. The scene overwhelms you,
and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your
declining years, and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged
your embraces, when you shall once more have pressed the hands which
have been so often extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in
the exultation of victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land which
your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is
filled; yea, look abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a name you
have contributed to give your country, and what a praise you have added
to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam
upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind!
III. CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON[32]
America has furnished to the world the character of Washington! And if
our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have
entitled them to the respect of mankind. Washington! "First in war,
first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen!" Washington
is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the
people of the United States hold him, prove them to be worthy of such a
countryman; while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor on
his country. I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the
intelligence of Europe and the world, what character of the century,
upon the whole, stands out in the relief of history, most pure, most
respectable, most sublime; and I doubt not, that, by a suffrage
approaching to unanimity, the answer would be Washington!
The structure now standing before us, by its uprightness, its solidity,
its durability, is no unfit emblem of his character. His public virtues
and public principles were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his
personal motives, as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is
lost. But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering
high above the column which our hands have builded, beheld, not by the
inhabitants of a single city or a single State, but by all the families
of man, ascends the colossal grandeur of the character and life of
Washington. In all the constituents of the one, in all the acts of the
other, in all its titles to immortal love, admiration, and renown, it is
an American production. It is the embodiment and vindication of our
transatlantic liberty. Born upon our soil, of parents also born upon it;
never for a moment having had sight of the Old World; instructed,
according to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, but
wholesome elementary knowledge which our institutions provide for the
children of the people; growing up beneath and penetrated by the genuine
influences of American society; living from infancy to manhood and age
amidst our expanding, but not luxurious civilization; partaking in our
great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed nature and
uncivilized man, our agony of glory, the war of Independence, our great
victory of peace, the formation of the Union, and the establishment of
the Constitution,--he is all, all our own! Washington is ours.
I claim him for America. In all the perils, in every darkened moment of
the state, in the midst of the reproaches of enemies and the misgivings
of friends, I turn to that transcendent name for courage and for
consolation. To him who denies or doubts whether our fervid liberty can
be combined with law, with order, with the security of property, with
the pursuits and advancement of happiness; to him who denies that our
forms of government are capable of producing exaltation of soul, and the
passion of true glory; to him who denies that we have contributed
anything to the stock of great lessons and great examples;--to all these
I reply by pointing to Washington!
FOOTNOTE:
[32] From the Second Bunker Hill Oration, delivered June 17, 1843.
SIX GREAT TRIUMPHS IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN ORATORY
The selections under this division are taken from speeches which
represent six of the greatest victories in the history of American
eloquence: (1) Patrick Henry before the Virginia Convention, (2)
Alexander Hamilton before the New York Convention, (3) Daniel Webster in
Reply to Hayne in the Senate, (4) Wendell Phillips on the Murder of
Lovejoy, (5) Abraham Lincoln in his debates with Douglas, and (6) Henry
Ward Beecher in his speeches in England in defence of the American
Union.
I. THE CALL TO ARMS
PATRICK HENRY
This speech was delivered March 20, 1775, in the Virginia
Convention. Although the measures he advocated sent a shock of
consternation through the conservative assembly and caused them to
oppose the resolutions with all their power, yet all objections
were swept away and the measures were adopted.
Mr. President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of
hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to
the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the
part of wise men engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?
Are we disposed to be of the number of those who having eyes see not,
and having ears hear not, the things which so nearly concern their
temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost,
I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and to provide
for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
And, judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the
conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those
hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and
the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been
lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet.
Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how
this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike
preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and
armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown
ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to
win back our love?
Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and
subjugation, the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen,
sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to
submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has
Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for all
this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are
meant for us. They can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind
and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so
long forging. And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument?
Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything
new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in
every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall
we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find
which have not been already exhausted?
Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have
done everything that could be done to avert the storm that is now coming
on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we
have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its
interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and
Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have
produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been
disregarded; and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the
throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of
peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we
wish to be free; if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable
privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not
basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long
engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the
glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I
repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts
is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary; but when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a
British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather
strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of
effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the
delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and
foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which
the God of Nature hath placed in our power.
Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such
a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which
our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our
battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of
nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The
battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the
active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base
enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest.
There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are
forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is
inevitable, and let it come! I repeat, it, sir, let it come!
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace,
peace! but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale
that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we
here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life
so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains
and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
II. COERCION OF DELINQUENT STATES
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
In the summer of 1788 the New York Convention assembled at
Poughkeepsie to consider the question of the ratification of the
Constitution of the United States. Forty-six of the sixty-five
delegates at first stoutly opposed ratification. Hamilton in a
series of speeches upheld the Constitution, and when the vote was
taken a majority of three sustained his position. The following is
an extract from one of those speeches:
The honorable member who spoke yesterday went into an explanation of a
variety of circumstances, to prove the expediency of a change in our
National Government, and the necessity of a firm Union. At the same time
he described the great advantages which this state, in particular,
receives from the Confederacy, and its peculiar weaknesses when
abstracted from the Union. In doing this he advanced a variety of
arguments which deserve serious consideration.
Sir, it appears to me extraordinary, that while the gentlemen in one
breath acknowledge that the old Confederation requires many material
amendments, they should in the next deny that its defects have been the
cause of our political weakness and the consequent calamities of our
country. We contend that the radical vice in the old Confederation is
that the laws of the Union apply only to States in their corporate
capacity. Has not every man who has been in our Legislature experienced
the truth of this position? It is inseparable from the disposition of
bodies who have a constitutional power of resistance to examine the
merits of a law. The States have almost uniformly weighed the
requisitions by their own local interests, and have only executed them
so far as answered their particular convenience or advantage. Hence
there have ever been thirteen different bodies to judge of the measures
of Congress, and the operations of Government have been distracted by
their taking different courses. Those which were to be benefited have
complied with the requisitions; others have totally disregarded them.
Have not all of us been witnesses to the unhappy embarrassments which
resulted from these proceedings? Even during the late war, while the
pressure of common danger connected strongly the bond of our union, and
incited to vigorous exertion, we have felt many distressing effects of
the important system. How have we seen this State, though most exposed
to the calamities of the war, complying in an unexampled manner with the
federal requisitions, and compelled by the delinquency of others to bear
most unusual burdens! Our misfortunes in a great degree proceeded from
the want of vigor in the Continental Government.
From the delinquency of those States which have suffered little by the
war, we naturally conclude that they have made no efforts; and a
knowledge of human nature will teach us that their ease and security
have been a principal cause of their want of exertion. While danger is
distant its impression is weak, and while it affects only our neighbors
we have few motives to provide against it. Sir, if we have national
objects to pursue we must have national revenues. If you make
requisitions and they are not complied with what is to be done? It has
been observed to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that
was ever devised. A failure of compliance will never be confined to a
single State. This being the case can we suppose it wise to hazard a
civil war? Suppose Massachusetts, or any large State, should refuse and
Congress should attempt to compel them, would they not have influence to
procure assistance, especially from those States which are in the same
situation as themselves? What picture does this idea present to our
view? A complying State at war with a non-complying State; Congress
marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another; this State
collecting auxiliaries and forming, perhaps, a majority against its
federal head. Here is a nation at war with itself. Can any reasonable
man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the
only means of supporting itself--a government that can exist only by the
sword? Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty. This
single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable
citizen against such a government.
But can we believe that one State will ever suffer itself to be used as
an instrument of coercion? The thing is a dream; it is impossible. Then
we are brought to this dilemma--either a federal standing army is to
enforce the requisitions, or the federal treasury is left without
supplies, and the Government without support. What, sir, is the cure for
this great evil? Nothing, but to enable the national laws to operate on
individuals in the same manner as those of the States do. This is the
true reasoning upon the subject, sir. The gentlemen appear to
acknowledge its force; and yet, while they yield to the principle, they
seem to fear its application to the government.
What, then, shall we do? Shall we take the old Confederation as a basis
of a new system? Can this be the object of the gentlemen? Certainly not.
Will any man who entertains a wish for the safety of his country trust
the sword and purse with a single assembly organized on principles so
defective, so rotten? Though we might give to such a government certain
powers with safety, yet to give them the full and unlimited powers of
taxation and the national forces would be to establish a despotism, the
definition of which is, a government in which all power is concentrated
in a single body. To take the old Confederation and fashion it upon
these principles would be establishing a power which would destroy the
liberties of the people. These considerations show clearly that a
government totally different must be instituted. They had weight in the
convention who formed the new system. It was seen that the necessary
powers were too great to be trusted to a single body; they therefore
formed two branches and divided the powers that each might be a check
upon the other. This was the result of their wisdom and I presume every
reasonable man will agree to it. The more this subject is explained the
more clear and convincing it will appear to every member of this body.
The fundamental principle of the old Confederation is defective; we must
totally eradicate and discard this principle before we can expect an
efficient government.
III. THE REPLY TO HAYNE
DANIEL WEBSTER
This speech was delivered in the Senate, January 26, 1830. The
doctrine of Nullification and State Rights had been set forth with
great zeal and ability by Senator Hayne of South Carolina. The
arguments were overthrown by the masterly speech of Webster.
If anything be found in the national Constitution, either by original
provision or subsequent interpretation, which ought not to be in it, the
people know how to get rid of it. If any construction unacceptable to
them be established, so as to become practically a part of the
Constitution, they will amend it at their own sovereign pleasure. But
while the people choose to maintain it as it is, while they are
satisfied with it, and refuse to change it, who has given, or who can
give, to the State legislatures a right to alter it either by
interference, construction, or otherwise? Gentlemen do not seem to
recollect that the people have any power to do anything for themselves.
They imagine there is no safety for them, any longer than they are under
the close guardianship of the State legislatures. Sir, the people have
not trusted their safety, in regard to the general Constitution, to
these hands. They have required other security, and taken other bonds.
They have chosen to trust themselves, first, to the plain words of the
instrument, and to such construction as the government itself, in
doubtful cases, should put on its own powers, under its oaths of office,
and subject to its responsibility to them; just as the people of a State
trust their own State governments with a similar power. Secondly, they
have reposed their trust in the efficacy of frequent elections, and in
their own power to remove their own servants and agents whenever they
see cause. Thirdly, they have reposed trust in the judicial power,
which, in order that it might be trustworthy, they have made as
respectable, as disinterested, and as independent as was practicable.
Fourthly, they have seen fit to rely, in case of necessity or high
expediency, on their known and admitted power to alter or amend the
Constitution peaceably and quietly, whenever experience shall point out
defects or imperfections. And, finally, the people of the United States
have at no time, in no way, directly or indirectly, authorized any State
legislature to construe or interpret their high instrument of
government; much less to interfere by their own power to arrest its
course and operation.
I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent to the doctrines which have
been advanced and maintained. I am conscious of having detained you and
the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate with no previous
deliberation, such as is suited to the discussion of so grave and
important a subject. But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and
I have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous
sentiments. I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it,
without expressing once more my deep conviction that, since it respects
nothing less than the union of the states, it is of most vital and
essential importance to public happiness.
I profess, sir, in my career hitherto to have kept steadily in view the
prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our
Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our
consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are
chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That
Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe
school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered
finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign
influences, these great interests immediately awoke as from the dead,
and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has
teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and although
our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population
spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its
benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social,
and personal happiness.
I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union to see what
might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed
the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together
shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the
precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom
the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe
counsellor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be
mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best preserved,
but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be
broken up and destroyed.
While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects
spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to
penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may
not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies
behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the
Sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored
fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant,
belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in
fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather
behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored
throughout the Earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies
streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor
a single star obscured; bearing for its motto, no such miserable
interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of
delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and Union afterwards;" but
everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on
all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and
in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to
every true American heart,--Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and
inseparable!
IV. THE MURDER OF LOVEJOY
WENDELL PHILLIPS
On November 7, 1837, Elijah P. Lovejoy, an anti-slavery editor, was
shot by a mob at Alton, Ill., while defending his printing-press
from destruction. Prominent citizens of Boston called a meeting, on
December 8, to condemn the act of the mob. The Attorney-General of
Massachusetts opposed the resolutions of condemnation, defended the
mob, and declared that "Lovejoy died as the fool dieth." Wendell
Phillips said to a friend, "Such a speech made in Faneuil Hall must
be answered in Faneuil Hall." He made his way to the platform and
spoke in part as follows:
Mr. Chairman, We have met for the freest discussion of these
resolutions, and the events which gave rise to them. I hope I shall be
permitted to express my surprise at the sentiments of the last speaker,
surprise not only at such sentiments from such a man, but at the
applause they have received within these walls. A comparison has been
drawn between the events of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We
have heard it asserted here, in Faneuil Hall, that Great Britain had a
right to tax the colonies, and we have heard the mob at Alton, the
drunken murderers of Lovejoy, compared to those patriot fathers who
threw the tea overboard. Fellow-citizens, is this Fanueil Hall doctrine?
The mob at Alton were met to wrest from a citizen his just rights, met
to resist the laws. We have been told that our fathers did the same, and
the glorious mantle of Revolutionary precedent has been thrown over the
mobs of our day. To make out their title to such defense the gentleman
says that the British Parliament had a right to tax these colonies. It
is manifest that without this his parallel falls to the ground, for
Lovejoy had stationed himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not
only defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof
in arms with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed
him went against and over the laws. The mob as the gentleman terms
it,--mob, forsooth! certainly we sons of the tea spillers are a
marvelously patient generation!--the "orderly mob" which assembled in
the Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws,--but
illegal exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea-tax and
stamp-act laws! Our fathers resisted, not the king's prerogative, but
the king's usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our
Revolutionary history upside down. Our State archives are loaded with
arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British
Parliament unconstitutional, beyond its power. It was not till this was
made out that the men of New England rushed to arms.
The arguments of the Council Chamber and the House of Representatives
preceded and sanctioned the contest. To draw the argument of our
ancestors into a precedent for mobs, for a right to resist laws we
ourselves have enacted, is an insult to their memory. The difference
between the excitements of those days and our own, which the gentleman
in kindness to the latter has overlooked, is simply this: the men of our
day went for the right as secured by the laws. They were the people
rising to sustain the laws and constitution of the Province. The rioters
of our day go for their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the
gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by
side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those
pictured lips[33] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant
American, the slanderer of the dead. The gentleman said that he should
sink into insignificance if he dared to gainsay the principles of these
resolutions. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered on soil consecrated
by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should
have yawned and swallowed him up.
The gentleman says Lovejoy was presumptuous and imprudent, he "died as
the fool dieth." And a reverend clergyman of the city tells us that no
citizen has a right to publish opinions disagreeable to the community!
If any mob follows such publication on him rests the guilt. He must wait
forsooth till the people come up to it and agree with him. This libel on
liberty goes on to say that the want of right to speak as we think is an
evil inseparable from republican institutions. If this be so what are
they worth? Welcome the despotism of the Sultan where one knows what he
may publish and what he may not, rather than the tyranny of this
many-headed monster the mob, where we know not what we may do or say
till some fellow-citizen has tried it and paid for the lesson with his
life. This clerical absurdity chooses as a check for the abuses of the
press, not the law but the dread of the mob. By so doing it deprives not
only the individual and the minority of their rights, but the majority
also, since the expression of their opinion may sometimes provoke
disturbance from the minority. A few men may make a mob as well as many.
The majority then have no right as Christian men, to utter their
sentiments if by any possibility it may lead to a mob. Shades of Hugh
Peters and John Cotton, save us from such pulpits!
Imprudent to defend the liberty of the press! Why? Because the defense
was unsuccessful? Does success gild crime into patriotism, and the want
of it change heroic self-devotion into imprudence? Was Hampden imprudent
when he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard? Yet he, judged by
that single hour, was unsuccessful. After a short exile the race he
hated sat again upon the throne.
Imagine yourself present when the first news of Bunker Hill battle
reached a New England town. The tale would have run thus, "The patriots
are routed, the redcoats victorious, Warren lies dead upon the field."
With what scorn would that Tory have been received who should have
charged Warren with imprudence, who should have said that, bred as a
physician, he was "out of place" in the battle, and "died as the fool
dieth!" How would the intimation have been received that Warren and his
associates should have waited a better time?
Presumptuous to assert the freedom of the press on American ground! Is
the assertion of such freedom before the age? So much before the age as
to leave one no right to make it because it displeases the community?
Who invents this libel on his country? It is this very thing that
entitles Lovejoy to greater praise. The disputed right which provoked
the revolution--taxation without representation--is far beneath that for
which he died. As much as thought is better than money, so much is the
cause in which Lovejoy died nobler than a mere question of taxes. James
Otis thundered in this hall when the king did but touch his pocket.
Imagine if you can his indignant eloquence had England offered to put a
gag upon his lips.
FOOTNOTE:
[33] Phillips points to portraits in the hall.
V. THE SLAVERY ISSUE
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
An extract from a speech delivered at Alton, Ill., October 15,
1858. It is taken from one of a series of seven speeches delivered
in joint debate with Douglas in the Senatorial campaign in
Illinois. Lincoln lost the Senatorship but won the Presidency by
this series of speeches.
Fellow-citizens, I have not only made the declaration that I do not mean
to produce a conflict between the states, but I have tried to show by
fair reasoning that I propose nothing but what has a most peaceful
tendency. The quotation that "a house divided against itself cannot
stand," and which has proved so offensive to Judge Douglas, was part of
the same thing. He tries to show that variety in the domestic
institutions of the different states is necessary and indispensable. I
do not dispute it. I very readily agree with him that it would be
foolish for us to insist upon having a cranberry law here in Illinois
where we have no cranberries, because they have a cranberry law in
Indiana where they have cranberries. I should insist that it would be
exceedingly wrong in us to deny to Virginia the right to enact oyster
laws, where they have oysters, because we want no such laws here. If we
here raise a barrel of flour more than we want and the Louisianians
raise a barrel of sugar more than they want, it is of mutual advantage
to exchange. That produces commerce, brings us together and makes us
better friends. These mutual accommodations bind together the different
parts of this Union. Instead of being a thing to "divide the house" they
tend to sustain it, they are the props of the house tending always to
hold it up.
But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard
to this institution of slavery springs from office seeking, from the
mere ambition of politicians? Is that the truth? How many times have we
had danger from this question? Go back to the days of the Missouri
Compromise. Go back to the Nullification question, at the bottom of
which lay this same slavery question. Go back to the time of the
annexation of Texas. Go back to the troubles that led to the Compromise
of 1850. You will find that every time, with the single exception of the
Nullification question, they sprung from an endeavor to spread this
institution. There never was a party in the history of this country, and
there probably never will be, of sufficient strength to disturb the
general peace of the country. Parties themselves may be divided and
quarrel on minor questions. Yet it extends not beyond the parties
themselves.
The Judge alludes very often in the course of his remarks to the
exclusive right which the states have to decide for themselves. I agree
with him very readily that the different states have the right. Our
controversy with him is in regard to the new territories. We agree that
when the states come in as states they have the right and the power to
do as they please. We have no power as citizens of the free states or in
our federal capacity as members of the federal Union through the general
government to disturb slavery in the states where it exists. What I
insist upon is that the new territories shall be kept free from it while
in the territorial condition. Judge Douglas assumes that we have no
interest in them, that we have no right whatever to interfere. I think
we have some interest. I think that as white men we have. Do we not wish
for an outlet for our surplus population, if I may so express myself? Do
we not feel an interest in getting to that outlet with such institutions
as we would like to have prevail there? If you go to the territory
opposed to slavery and another man comes to the same ground with his
slave, upon the assumption that the things are equal, it turns out that
he has the equal right all his way and you have no part of it your way.
The real issue in this controversy is the sentiment on the part of one
class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of
another class that does not look upon it as wrong. It is the sentiment
around which all their actions, all their arguments circle, from which
all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as being a moral,
social, and political wrong. Has anything ever threatened the existence
of this Union save this very institution of slavery? What is it that we
hold most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever
threatened our liberty and prosperity except this institution of
slavery? If this be true, how do you propose to improve the condition of
things by enlarging it? You may have a cancer upon your person and not
be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death, but surely it is no way
to cure it to graft it and spread it over your body. That is no proper
way of treating what you regard as wrong.
That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself are silent.
It is the eternal struggle between these two principles, right and
wrong, throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood
face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to
struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other is the
divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it
develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and
earn bread and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether
from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own
nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as
an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical
principle.
VI. MORAL ASPECT OF THE AMERICAN WAR
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Taken from a speech delivered in London, October 20, 1863. In a
series of five speeches in order at Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh,
Liverpool, and London, Henry Ward Beecher changed the attitude of
the English nation from one of open hostility to the Union to
neutrality and even to favor. It is doubtful if there ever was a
greater triumph in the history of eloquence.
This war began by the act of the South, firing at the old flag that had
covered both sections with glory and protection. The attack made upon us
was under circumstances which inflicted immediate humiliation and
threatened us with final subjugation. The Southerners held all the keys
of the country. They had robbed our arsenals. They had made our treasury
bankrupt. They had possession of the most important offices in the army
and navy. They had the advantage of having long anticipated and prepared
for the conflict. We knew not whom to trust. One man failed and another
man failed. Men, pensioned by the Government, lived on the salary of the
Government only to have better opportunity to stab and betray it. And
for the North to have lain down like a spaniel, to have given up the
land that every child in America is taught, as every child in Britain is
taught, to regard as his sacred right and his trust, to have given up
the mouths of our own rivers and our mountain citadels without a blow,
would have marked the North in all future history as craven and mean.
Second, the honor and safety of that grand experiment, self-government
by free institutions, demanded that so flagitious a violation of the
first principles of legality should not carry off impunity and reward,
thereafter enabling the minority in every party conflict to turn and say
to the majority, "If you don't give us our way we will make war." Oh,
Englishmen, would you let a minority dictate in such a way to you? The
principle thus introduced would literally have no end, would carry the
nation back to its original elements of isolated states. Nor is there
any reason why it should stop with states. If every treaty may be
overthrown by which states have been settled into a nation, what form of
political union may not on like grounds be severed? There is the same
force in the doctrine of secession in the application of counties as in
the application to states, and if it be right for a state or a county to
secede, it is equally right for a town or a city. This doctrine of
secession is a huge revolving millstone that grinds the national life to
powder. It is anarchy in velvet, and national destruction clothed in
soft phrases. No people with patriotism and honor will give up territory
without a struggle for it. Would you give it up? It is said that the
states are owners of their territory! It is theirs to use not theirs to
run away with. We have equal right with them to enter it. I would like
to ask those English gentlemen who hold that it is right for a state to
secede when it pleases, how they would like it if the county of Kent
would try the experiment. The men who cry out for secession of the
Southern States in America would say, "Kent seceding? Ah, circumstances
alter cases."
One more reason why we will not let this people go is because we do not
want to become a military people. A great many say America is becoming
too strong, she is dangerous to the peace of the world. But if you
permit or favor this division, the South becomes a military nation and
the North is compelled to become a military nation. Along a line of 1500
miles she must have forts and men to garrison them. Now any nation that
has a large standing army is in great danger of losing its liberties.
Before this war the legal size of the national army was 25,000. If the
country were divided then we should have two great military nations
taking its place. And if America by this ill-advised disruption is
forced to have a standing army, like a boy with a knife she will always
want to whittle with it. It is the interest then of the world, that the
nation should be united, and that it should be under the control of that
part of America that has always been for peace.
The religious minded among our people feel that in the territory
committed to us there is a high and solemn trust, a national trust. We
are taught that in some sense the world itself is a field, and every
Christian nation acknowledges a certain responsibility for the moral
condition of the globe. But how much nearer does it come when it is
one's own country! And the church of America is coming to feel more and
more that God gave us this country not merely for material
aggrandizement, but for a glorious triumph of the church of Christ.
Therefore we undertook to rid the territory of slavery. Since slavery
has divested itself of its municipal protection and has become a
declared public enemy, it is our duty to strike down slavery which would
blight this territory. These truths are not exaggerated, they are
diminished rather than magnified in my statement, and you cannot tell
how powerfully they are influencing us unless you are standing in our
midst in America; you cannot understand how firm that national feeling
is which God has bred in the North on this subject. It is deeper than
the sea, it is firmer than the hills, it is serene as the sky over our
head where God dwells.
We believe that the war is a test of our institutions, that it is a
life-and-death struggle between the two principles of liberty and
slavery, that it is the cause of the common people the world over. We
believe that every struggling nationality on the globe will be stronger
if we conquer this odious oligarchy of slavery and that every oppressed
people in the world will be weaker if we fail. The sober American
regards the war as part of that awful yet glorious struggle which has
been going on for hundreds of years in every nation between right and
wrong, between virtue and vice, between liberty and despotism, between
freedom and bondage. It carries with it the whole future condition of
our vast continent, its laws, its policy, its fate. And standing in view
of these tremendous realities we have consecrated all that we have, our
children, our wealth, our national strength, and we lay them all on the
altar and say, "It is better that they should all perish than that the
North should falter and betray this trust of God, this hope of the
oppressed, this western civilization." If we say this of ourselves,
shall we say less of the slave-holders? If we are willing to do these
things, shall we say, "Stop the war for their sakes!" If we say this of
ourselves, shall we have more pity for the rebellious, for slavery
seeking to blacken a continent with its awful evil, desecrating the
social phrase, "National Independence," by seeking only an independence
that shall enable them to treat four millions of human beings as
chattels? Shall we be tenderer over them than over ourselves? Standing
by my cradle, standing by my hearth, standing by the altar of the
church, standing by all the places that mark the name and memory of
heroic men who poured out their lives for principle, I declare that in
ten or twenty years of war we will sacrifice everything we have for
principle. If the love of popular liberty is dead in Great Britain you
will not understand us, but if the love of liberty lives as it once
lived, and has worthy successors of those renowned men that were our
ancestors as much as yours, and whose example and principles we inherit
as so much seed corn in a new and fertile land, then you will understand
our firm invincible determination to fight this war through at all
hazards and at every cost.
ABOLITION OF WAR[34]
CHARLES SUMNER
Can there be in our age any peace that is not honorable, any war that is
not dishonorable? The true honor of a nation is conspicuous only in
deeds of justice and beneficence, securing and advancing human
happiness. In the clear eye of that Christian judgment which must yet
prevail, vain are the victories of war, infamous its spoils. He is the
benefactor, and worthy of honor, who carries comfort to wretchedness,
dries the tear of sorrow, relieves the unfortunate, feeds the hungry,
clothes the naked, does justice, enlightens the ignorant, unfastens the
fetters of the slave, and finally, by virtuous genius, in art,
literature, science, enlivens and exalts the hours of life, or by
generous example, inspires a love for God and man. This is the Christian
hero; this is the man of honor in a Christian land. He is no benefactor,
nor worthy of honor, whatever his worldly renown, whose life is absorbed
in feats of brute force, who renounces the great law of Christian
brotherhood, whose vocation is blood.
Fellow-citizens, this criminal and impious custom of war, which all
condemn in the case of individuals, is openly avowed by our own country,
and by other countries of the great Christian Federation, nay, that it
is expressly established by international law, as the proper mode of
determining justice between nations,--while the feats of hardihood by
which it is waged, and the triumphs of its fields, are exalted beyond
all other labors, whether of learning, industry, or benevolence, as the
wellspring of glory. Alas! upon our own heads be the judgment of
barbarism which we pronounce upon those who have gone before!
Who has taught you, O man! thus to find glory in an act, performed by a
nation, which you condemn as a crime or a barbarism, when committed by
an individual? In what vain conceit of wisdom and virtue do you find
this incongruous morality? Where is it declared that God, who is no
respecter of persons, is a respecter of multitudes? Whence do you draw
these partial laws of an impartial God? Man is immortal; but nations are
mortal. Man has a higher destiny than nations. Can nations be less
amenable to the supreme moral law? Each individual is an atom of the
mass. Must not the mass, in its conscience, be like the individuals of
which it is composed? Shall the mass, in relation with other masses, do
what individuals in relation with each other may not do? As in the
physical creation, so in the moral, there is but one rule for the
individual and the mass. It was the lofty discovery of Newton, that the
simple law which determines the fall of an apple prevails everywhere
throughout the universe, reaching from earth to heaven, and controlling
the infinite motions of the spheres. So, with equal scope, another
simple law, the law of right, which binds the individual, binds also two
or three when gathered together, binds conventions and congregations of
men, binds villages, towns, and cities, binds states, nations, and
races, clasps the whole human family in its embrace, and binds in
self-imposed bonds, a just and omnipotent God.
Stripped of all delusive apology and tried by that comprehensive law
under which nations are set to the bar like common men, war falls from
glory into barbarous guilt, taking its place among bloody
transgressions, while its flaming honors are turned into shame. Painful
to existing prejudice as this may be, we must learn to abhor it, as we
abhor similar transgressions by vulgar offenders. Every word of
reprobation which the enlightened conscience now fastens upon the savage
combatant in trial by battle, or which it applies to the unhappy being
who in murderous duel takes the life of his fellow-man, belongs also to
the nation that appeals to war. Amidst the thunders of Sinai God
declared, "Thou shalt not kill"; and the voice of these thunders, with
this commandment, is prolonged to our own day in the echoes of Christian
churches. What mortal shall restrict the application of these words? Who
on earth is empowered to vary or abridge the commandments of God? Who
shall presume to declare that this injunction was directed, not to
nations, but to individuals only; not to many, but to one only; that one
man shall not kill but that many may; that one man shall not slay in
duel, but that a nation may slay a multitude in the duel of war; that
each individual is forbidden to destroy the life of a single human
being, but that a nation is not forbidden to cut off by the sword a
whole people? We are struck with horror and our hair stands on end, at
the report of a single murder; we think of the soul hurried to final
account; we hunt the murderer; and Government puts forth its energies
to secure his punishment. Viewed in the unclouded light of truth, what
is war but organized murder, murder of malice aforethought, in cold
blood, under sanction of impious law, through the operation of extensive
machinery of crime, with innumerable hands, at incalculable cost of
money, by subtle contrivances of cunning and skill, or amidst the
fiendish atrocities of the savage, brutal assault. The outrages, which,
under most solemn sanction, it permits and invokes for professed
purposes of justice, cannot be authorized by any human power; and they
must rise in overwhelming judgment, not only against those who wield the
weapons of battle, but more still against all who uphold its monstrous
arbitrament.
Oh, when shall the St. Louis of the nations arise, and in the spirit of
true greatness, proclaim that henceforward forever the great trial by
battle shall cease, that war shall be abolished throughout the
commonwealth of civilization, that a spectacle so degrading shall never
be allowed again to take place, and that it is the duty of nations,
involving the highest and wisest policy, to establish love between each
other, and, in all respects, at all times, with all persons, whether
their own people or the people of other lands, to be governed by the
sacred law of right, as between man and man.
FOOTNOTE:
[34] From the "True Grandeur of Nations," delivered in Boston, July 4,
1845.
THE AMERICAN FLAG[35]
HENRY WARD BEECHER
A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag only,
but the nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he
reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths,
the history, which belong to the nation which sets it forth.
When the French tricolor rolls out to the wind, we see France. When the
new-found Italian flag is unfurled, we see resurrected Italy. When the
other three-cornered Hungarian flag shall be lifted to the wind, we
shall see in it the long-buried but never dead principles of Hungarian
liberty. When the united crosses of St. Andrew and St. George on a fiery
ground set forth the banner of Old England, we see not the cloth merely;
there rises up before the mind the noble aspect of that monarchy, which,
more than any other on the globe, has advanced its banner for liberty,
law, and national prosperity. This nation has a banner, too; and
wherever it streamed abroad, men saw daybreak bursting on their eyes,
for the American flag has been the symbol of liberty, and men rejoiced
in it. Not another flag on the globe had such an errand, or went forth
upon the sea carrying everywhere, the world around, such hope for the
captive, and such glorious tidings.
The stars upon it were to the pining nations like the morning stars of
God, and the stripes upon it were beams of morning light. As at early
dawn the stars stand first, and then it grows light, and then as the sun
advances, that light breaks into banks and streaming lines of color, the
glowing red and intense white striving together and ribbing the horizon
with bars effulgent, so on the American flag, stars and beams of
many-colored light shine out together. And wherever the flag comes, and
men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry no rampant lion and
fierce eagle, but only light, and every fold significant of liberty.
The history of this banner is all on one side. Under it rode Washington
and his armies; before it Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on the
highlands at West Point; it floated over old Fort Montgomery. When
Arnold would have surrendered these valuable fortresses and precious
legacies, his night was turned into day, and his treachery was driven
away by the beams of light from this starry banner. It cheered our army,
driven from New York, in their solitary pilgrimage through New Jersey.
It streamed in light over Valley Forge and Morristown. It crossed the
waters rolling with ice at Trenton; and when its stars gleamed in the
cold morning with victory, a new day of hope dawned on the despondency
of the nation. And when, at length, the long years of war were drawing
to a close, underneath the folds of this immortal banner sat Washington
while Yorktown surrendered its hosts and our Revolutionary struggles
ended with victory.
Let us, then, twine each thread of the glorious tissue of our country's
flag about our heartstrings; and looking upon our homes and catching the
spirit that breathes upon us from the battle-fields of our fathers, let
us resolve, come weal or woe, we will, in life and in death, now and
forever, stand by the Stars and Stripes. They have been unfurled from
the snows of Canada to the plains of New Orleans, in the halls of the
Montezumas and amid the solitude of every sea; and everywhere, as the
luminous symbol of resistless and beneficent power, they have led the
brave to victory and to glory. They have floated over our cradles; let
it be our prayer and our struggle that they shall float over our graves.
FOOTNOTE:
[35] By permission of the publishers, Fords, Howard & Hulbert.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE[36]
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
The day for the provincial and the transient has passed in American
statesmanship. To-day our destiny is brooding over every sea. We are
dealing with the world and with the unborn years. We are dealing with
the larger duties that ever crowned and burdened human brows. American
statesmanship must be as broad as American destiny and as brave as
American duty. And American statesmanship will be all this if it draws
its inspiration from the masterful American people and their imperial
history.
For the American people have never taken fear for a counselor. They
have never taken doubt for a guide. They have obeyed the impulses of
their blood. They have hearkened to the voice of our God. They have
surmounted insuperable obstacles on the wings of a mighty faith; they
have solved insoluble problems by the sovereign rule of liberty; they
have made the bosom of the ocean and the heart of the wilderness their
home; they have subdued nature and told history a new tale. Let American
statesmanship listen to the heart-beats of the American people in the
present hour and there will be no confusion, no hesitation, no craven
doubt. The faith of the Mayflower, as it sailed into the storm-fringed
horizon, is with us yet. The courage of Lexington and Bunker Hill is
with us yet. The spirit of Hamilton and Jefferson and Jackson and Seward
and Grant is with us yet. The unconquerable heart of the pioneer still
beats within American breasts, and the American flag advances still in
its ceaseless and imperial progress, with law and order and Christian
civilization trooping beneath its sacred folds.
The American people are the propagandists and not the misers of liberty.
He who no longer believes in the vitality of the American people, in the
immortality and saving grace of free institutions, in the imperial
greatness of American destiny, belongs not in the councils of the
American Nation, but in the somber Cabinets of the decaying races of the
world. The American people are not perishing; they are just beginning
their real career. The full sunrise of the day which peculiarly belongs
to the American people in the progress of human events has flooded all
the world at last; and we will live each golden moment of our mighty day
in a way as great as the day itself.
FOOTNOTE:
[36] By permission of the author.
THE AMERICAN QUESTION
JOHN BRIGHT
Now let me ask you, what is this people about which so many men in
England at this moment are writing and speaking and thinking with
harshness? Two centuries ago multitudes of the people of this country
found a refuge on the North American Continent, escaping from the
tyranny of the Stuarts, and from the bigotry of Laud. Many noble spirits
from our country made great experiments in favor of human freedom on
that continent. Bancroft, the great historian of his country, has said,
"The history of the colonization of America is the history of the crimes
of Europe."
From that time down to our own period America has admitted the wanderers
from every clime. Since 1815, a time which many here remember, and which
is within my lifetime, more than three millions of persons have
emigrated from the United Kingdom to the United States. During the
fifteen years from 1845 to 1860 more than two million persons left the
shores of the United Kingdom as emigrants to North America.
At this very moment, then, there are millions in the United States who
personally have been citizens of this country. They found a home in the
far West, they subdued the wilderness, they met with plenty there and
became a great people. There may be men in England who dislike democracy
and who hate a republic. But of this I am certain that only
misrepresentation the most gross or calumny the most wicked can sever
the tie which unites the great mass of the people of this country with
their friends and relatives beyond the Atlantic.
Now whether the Union will be restored I know not. But this I think I
know, that in a few years, a very few years, the twenty millions of
freemen in the North will be thirty or even fifty millions, a population
equal to that of this kingdom. When that time comes I pray that it may
not be said amongst them that, in the darkest hour of their country's
trials, England, the land of their fathers, looked on with icy coldness
and saw unmoved the perils and calamities of their children. As for me I
have but this to say, if all other tongues are silent, mine shall speak
for that policy which gives hope to the bondsmen of the South and which
tends to generous thoughts and generous words and generous deeds between
the two great nations who speak the English language, and from their
origin are alike entitled to the English name.
AMERICA'S RELATION TO MISSIONS
JAMES B. ANGELL
The government which breaks treaties with respect to missionaries and
takes no steps to protect them will easily yield to the temptation to
infringe on the rights of other citizens. Is it not possible that
because our government has allowed outrages against our missionaries to
go on since 1883 in Turkey,--highway robbery, brutal assault,
destruction of buildings,--without any demonstration beyond peaceful and
patient argument, the Ottoman government is now proceeding in so
highhanded a manner to prevent by false allegations the importation of
our flour and our pork? A nation which allows one class of citizens, who
are of the purest character and most unselfish spirit, to be insulted
and outraged with impunity in a foreign land must not be surprised if
other classes of its citizens are also imposed upon and wronged in that
land, wherever selfish interests are invoked against them.
Careful observation will show that our large mercantile interests are
likely to be imperiled by our neglect to insist on the rights which
citizens of any honorable calling are entitled to under treaties of
international law. A display of force does not necessarily mean war. It
is certainly an emphatic mode of making a demand. It often insures a
prompt settlement of difficulties, which, if allowed to drag on and
accumulate, would end in war. Therefore, wisely and opportunely made, a
proper demonstration in support of a just demand may obviate the
ultimate necessity of war.
The problem is not a simple one for the government. If it does nothing
but register requests for justice, injustice may be done, not only to
missionaries, but also to other citizens. Those dilatory, oriental
governments, embarrassed by so many difficult problems of internal
administration, do not willingly act except under some pressure. And
pressure which is not war and which will probably not lead to war, can
be brought to bear by diplomatic and naval agencies.
Our government was never in so good a condition to pursue such a policy.
It has a prestige among oriental nations before unknown. Its voice, when
it speaks with an imperative tone, will now be heard. The question for
it is far larger than a missionary question. An influential American
citizen has lately written me from an oriental country where our
requests have received little attention, saying: "If our government
proposes to do nothing for American citizens they should say so and turn
us over to the care of the British embassy."
Such language as that makes one's blood tingle and stirs us to ask
afresh, not alone as friends of missionaries, but as American citizens,
what policy will our nation adopt to secure the rights of all our
countrymen of whatever pursuit who are dwelling under treaty guarantees
in China and Turkey? The friends of missions ask no exceptional favors
from the government. They simply seek for such protection as their
fellow-citizens need.
It is, of course, for our government to say at what time and by what
methods it shall act. It is sometimes wise and even necessary for a
government to postpone seeking a settlement of difficulties with a
foreign power, even when it is clear that a settlement is highly
desirable. Great exigencies may require delays. We must exercise the
patience which patriotism calls for. But we may be permitted without
impropriety to express our desire and our opinion that our government
should find some way to make it absolutely clear to oriental countries
that it intends to secure the protection for all our citizens, including
missionaries, to which they are entitled by treaties and by
international law.
AMERICAN SLAVERY
JOHN BRIGHT
Slavery has been as we all know the huge, foul blot upon the fame of the
American Republic. It is an outrage against human right and against
divine law, but the pride, the passion of man, will not permit its
peaceable extinction. Is not this war the penalty which inexorable
justice exacts from America, North and South, for the enormous guilt of
cherishing that frightful iniquity of slavery for the last eighty years?
The leaders of this revolt propose this monstrous thing,--that over a
territory forty times as large as England the blight and curse of
slavery shall be forever perpetuated.
I cannot believe that such a fate can befall that fair land, stricken as
it now is with the ravages of war. I cannot believe that civilization in
its journey with the sun will sink into endless night to gratify the
ambition of leaders of this revolt, who seek to
"Wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind."
I have a far other and brighter vision before my gaze. It may be but a
vision, but I will cherish it. I see one vast confederation stretching
from the frozen North in unbroken line to the glowing South, and from
the wild billows of the Atlantic, westward to the calmer waters of the
Pacific main,--and I see one people, and one law, and one language, and
one faith, and over all that wide continent the home of freedom and a
refuge for the oppressed of every race and of every clime.
THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES
WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE
Ladies and Gentlemen, Before I come to the resolution which I have
undertaken to move, there are certain subjects which I wish to clear out
of the way. There are most important distinctions to be drawn on the
ground that the sufferers under the present misrule and the horribly
accumulated outrages of the last two years are our own
fellow-Christians. But we do not prosecute the cause we have in hand
upon the ground that they are our fellow-Christians. This is no crusade
against Mohammedanism. This is no declaration of an altered policy or
sentiment as regards our Mohammedan fellow-subjects in India. Nay, more;
I will say that it is no declaration of universal condemnation of the
Mohammedans of the Turkish Empire. On the contrary, amid the dismal and
heartrending reports of which we have had to read and hear so much, one
of the rare touches of comfort and relief has been that in spite of the
perpetration of massacres by the agents of the Government, in spite of
the countenance given to massacre by the highest authority, there have
been good and generous Mohammedans who have resisted these misdeeds to
the uttermost of their power, who have established for themselves a
claim to our sympathy and our admiration.
Although it is true that those persons are Christians on whose behalf we
move, I confidently affirm, and you will back me in my affirmation, that
if instead of being Christians they were themselves Mohammedans, Hindus,
Buddhists, or Confucianists--they would have precisely the same claims
upon our support; and the motives which have brought us here to-day
would be incumbent upon us with the same force and with the same
sacredness that we recognize at the present moment.
There is another distinction, gentlemen, less conspicuous, that I would
wish to draw your attention to. You have been discouraged by the
attitude or by the tone of several of the Continental Governments. Do
not too hastily assume that in that attitude and tone they are faithful
representatives of the people whom they rule. The ground on which we
stand here is not British nor European, but human. Nothing narrower than
humanity could pretend for a moment justly to represent it.
It may have occurred to some that atrocities which it is hardly possible
to exaggerate have been boldly denied; and we are told by the Government
of Turkey that the destruction of life which has taken place is not the
work of either the Sultan or his agents, but is the work of
revolutionaries and agitators.
In answer to this we may say that we do not rely upon the reports of
revolutionaries or agitators. We rely upon the responsible reports of
our public men. Nay, more; while we know that there are those among the
six Powers who have shown every disposition to treat the case of the
Sultan with all the leniency, with all the friendship that they could,
yet every one of them concurs in the statements upon which we stand, and
in giving an entire denial to counter-statements of the Turkish
Government. The guilt of massacre, and not of massacre only but of every
other horror that has been transacted, rests upon that Government. And
to the guilt of massacre is added the impudence of denial, and this
process will continue--how long? Just as long as you, as Europe, are
contented to hear it. Recollect that eighteen months or more have passed
since the first of those gigantic massacres was perpetrated, and when
that occurrence took place it was thought to be so extraordinary that it
was without precedent in the past; for Bulgaria becomes pale by the side
of Armenia. But alas! that massacre, gigantic as it was, has been
followed up so that one has grown into a series. To the work of murder
was added the work of lust, the work of torture, the work of pillage,
the work of starvation, and every accessory that it was possible for
human wickedness to devise. To all other manifestations which had
formerly been displayed in the face of the world there was added
consummate insolence.
Come what may, let us extract ourselves from an ambiguous position. Let
us have nothing to do with countenance of, and so renounce and condemn,
neutrality; and let us present ourselves to Her Majesty's Ministers,
promising them in good faith our ungrudging and our enthusiastic
support in every effort which they may make to express by word and by
deed their detestation of acts, not yet perhaps having reached their
consummation, but which already have come to such a magnitude and such a
depth of atrocity that they constitute the most terrible and most
monstrous series of proceedings that have ever been recorded in the
dismal and deplorable history of human crime.
BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC[37]
JULIA WARD HOWE
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are
stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal,
Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."
He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat,
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat.
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
FOOTNOTE:
[37] By special permission of the author.
THE BLUE AND THE GRAY
HENRY CABOT LODGE
I was a boy ten years old when the troops marched away to defend
Washington. I saw the troops, month after month, pour through the
streets of Boston. I saw Shaw go forth at the head of his black
regiment, and Bartlett, shattered in body but dauntless in soul, ride by
to carry what was left of him once more to the battlefields of the
Republic. I saw Andrew, standing bareheaded on the steps of the State
House, bid the men godspeed. I cannot remember the words he said, but I
can never forget the fervid eloquence which brought tears to the eyes
and fire to the hearts of all who listened. To my boyish mind one thing
alone was clear, that the soldiers, as they marched past, were all, in
that supreme hour, heroes and patriots. Other feelings have, in the
progress of time, altered much, but amid many changes that simple belief
of boyhood has never altered.
And you, brave men who wore the gray, would be the first to hold me or
any other son of the North in just contempt if I should say that now it
was all over I thought the North was wrong and the result of the war a
mistake. To the men who fought the battles of the Confederacy we hold
out our hands freely, frankly and gladly. We have no bitter memories to
revive, no reproaches to utter. Differ in politics and in a thousand
other ways we must and shall in all good nature, but never let us differ
with each other on sectional or state lines, by race or creed.
We welcome you, soldiers of Virginia, as others more eloquent than I
have said, to New England. We welcome you to old Massachusetts. We
welcome you to Boston and to Faneuil Hall. In your presence here, and at
the sound of your voices beneath this historic roof, the years roll
back, and we see the figure and hear again the ringing tones of your
great orator, Patrick Henry, declaring to the first Continental
Congress, "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New
Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an
American."
A distinguished Frenchman, as he stood among the graves at Arlington,
said: "Only a great people is capable of a great civil war." Let us add
with thankful hearts that only a great people is capable of a great
reconciliation. Side by side, Virginia and Massachusetts led the
colonies into the War for Independence. Side by side, they founded the
government of the United States. Morgan and Greene, Lee and Knox,
Moultrie and Prescott, men of the South and men of the North, fought
shoulder to shoulder, and wore the same uniform of buff and blue,--the
uniform of Washington.
Mere sentiment all this, some may say. But it is sentiment, true
sentiment, that has moved the world. Sentiment fought the war, and
sentiment has reunited us. When the war was closed it was proposed to
give Governor Andrew, who had sacrificed health and strength and
property in his public duties, some immediately lucrative office. A
friend asked him if he would take such a place. "No," said he; "I have
stood as high priest between the horns of the altar, and I have poured
out upon it the best blood of Massachusetts, and I cannot take money for
that." Mere sentiment truly, but the sentiment which ennobles and
uplifts mankind.
So I say that the sentiment manifested by your presence here, brethren
of Virginia, sitting side by side with those who wore the blue, tells
us that if war should break again upon the country, the sons of Virginia
and Massachusetts would, as in the olden days, stand once more shoulder
to shoulder, with no distinction in the colors that they wear. It is
fraught with tidings of peace on earth, and you may read its meaning in
the words on yonder picture, "Liberty and union, now and forever, one
and inseparable!"
CORRUPTION OF PRELATES
GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA
When the demon sees that man is weak he gives him a blow with a hatchet,
to make him fall into sin, but when he sees him strong he strikes him
down with an axe. If there be a young woman, honest and well brought up,
he sets an immoral youth near her, and with all kinds of flattery
deceives her, and makes her fall into sin. Here the devil has dealt a
blow with an axe. Here is an honorable citizen, he enters the courts of
the great lords; there is the axe, and so well sharpened, that no
strength of virtue can resist it. But we are in these days in a sadder
plight; the demon has called his followers for the harvest, and has
struck terrible blows upon the doors of the temple. The doors are those
which lead into the house, and the prelates are those who should lead
the faithful into the church of Christ. It is because of this that the
devil has dealt his great blows, and broken the doors to pieces. It is
for this that good pastors are no longer to be found in the church. Do
ye not perceive that they are bringing everything to ruin? They have no
judgment. They can make no distinction between good and evil, between
truth and falsehood, between sweet and bitter. Things good appear to
them evil, things true to them false, the sweet are to them bitter, the
bitter sweet. Ye see prelates prostrating themselves before earthly
affections and earthly things; they no longer lay to heart the care of
souls; it is enough for them if they receive their incomes; the sermons
of their preachers are composed to please princes, and be magnified by
them. But something worse yet remains; not only have they destroyed the
church of God, but have erected one according to a fashion of their own.
This is the modern church, no longer built with living stones, that is,
by Christians established in a living faith, and so formed of love. Go
to Rome and through all Christendom, in the houses of the great prelates
and the great lords, nothing is thought of but poetry and the art of
oratory.
Go and see, and you will find them with books of the humanities in their
hands, and giving themselves up to the belief that they know how to lead
the souls of men aright by Virgil, Horace, and Cicero. Do you wish to
see the church guided by the hand of the astrologer? Ye will not find
either prelate or great lord who is not in confidential intercourse with
some astrologer, who predicts to him the hour when he must ride or
engage in some other affair. These same great lords do not dare to move
a step contrary to what their astrologer tells them. There are only two
things in that temple in which they find delight, and these are the
paintings, and the gilding with which it is covered.
It is thus that in our church there are many beautiful external
ceremonies in the solemnization of the holy offices, splendid vestments
and draperies, with gold and silver candlesticks, and many chalices, all
of which have a majestic effect. There you see great prelates, wearing
golden miters, set with precious stones, on their heads, and with silver
crosiers, standing before the altar with copes of brocade, slowly
intoning vespers and other masses with much ceremony, accompanied by an
organ and singers, until ye become quite stupefied; and these men appear
to you to be men of great gravity and holiness, and ye believe that they
are incapable of error, and they themselves believe that all they say
and do is commanded by the gospel to be observed.
Men feed upon those vanities, and rejoice in those ceremonies, and say
that the church of Christ was never in so flourishing a state, and that
divine worship was never so well conducted as in this day; and that the
first prelates were very contemptible preachers in comparison with those
of modern times. They certainly had not so many golden miters, nor so
many chalices; and they parted with those they had to relieve the
necessities of the poor; our prelates get their chalices by taking that
from the poor which is their support. But dost thou know what I would
say? In the primitive church there were wooden chalices and golden
prelates; but now the church has golden chalices and wooden prelates.
They have established amongst us the festivals of the devil, they
believe not in God, and make a mockery of the mysteries of our religion.
What doest thou, O Lord? Why slumberest thou? Arise and take the church
out of the hands of the devil, out of the hands of tyrants, out of the
hands of wicked prelates. Hast thou forgotten thy church? Dost thou not
love her? Hast thou no care for her? We are become, O Lord, the
opprobrium of the nations; Turks are masters of Constantinople; we have
lost Asia, we have lost Greece, we are become tributaries of infidels. O
Lord God, thou hast dealt with us as an angry father, thou hast banished
us from before thee! Hasten the punishment and the scourge that there
may be a speedy return to thee! Pour out thy wrath upon the nations!
Be not scandalized, my brethren, by these words; rather consider that
when the good wish for punishment, it is because they wish to see evil
driven away and the blessed reign of Jesus Christ triumphant throughout
the world. We have no other hope left us, unless the sword of the Lord
threatens the earth.
THE CROSS OF GOLD[38]
W. J. BRYAN
I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the
distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were a mere
measuring of abilities; but this is not a contest between persons. The
humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous
cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you
in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty--the cause of
humanity. We object to bringing this question down to the level of
persons. The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies;
but principles are eternal; and this has been a contest over a
principle.
When you come before us and tell us that we are about to disturb your
business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business
interests by your course. We say to you that you have made the
definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who
is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the
attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation
counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is
as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes
forth in the morning and toils all day, who begins in spring and toils
all summer, and who by the application of brain and muscle to the
natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business
man as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price
of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or
climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their
hiding-places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of
trade are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a
back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak of this
broader class of business men.
Ah, my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the
Atlantic Coast, but the hardy pioneers who have braved all the dangers
of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose--the
pioneers away out there, who rear their children near to Nature's heart,
where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds--out
there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their
young, churches where they praise their Creator, and cemeteries where
rest the ashes of their dead--these people, we say, are as deserving of
the consideration of our party as any people in this country. It is for
these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war
of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families,
and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned;
we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have
begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer;
we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!
We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin and issue
money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe that it is
a part of sovereignty, and can no more with safety be delegated to
private individuals than we could afford to delegate to private
individuals the power to make penal statutes or levy taxes. Mr.
Jefferson seems to have differed in opinion from the gentleman who has
addressed us on the part of the minority. Those who are opposed to this
proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the
bank, and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I
stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did,
that the issue of money is a function of government, and that the banks
ought to go out of the governing business.
And now, my friends, let me come to the paramount issue. If they ask us
why it is that we say more on the money question than we say upon the
tariff question, I reply that, if protection has slain its thousands,
the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands. If they ask us why we
do not embody in our platform all the things that we believe in, we
reply that when we have restored the money of the Constitution all other
necessary reforms will be possible; but that until this is done there is
no other reform that can be accomplished.
Why is it that within three months such a change has come over the
country? Three months ago when it was confidently asserted that those
who believe in the gold standard would frame our platform and nominate
our candidates, even the advocates of the gold standard did not think
that we could elect a President. Why this change? Ah, my friends, is not
the reason for the change evident to any one who will look at the
matter? No private character, however pure, no personal popularity,
however great, can protect from the avenging wrath of an indignant
people a man who will declare that he is in favor of fastening the gold
standard upon this country, or who is willing to surrender the right of
self-government and place the legislative control of our affairs in the
hands of foreign potentates and powers.
We go forth confident that we shall win. Why? Because upon the paramount
issue of this campaign there is not a spot of ground upon which the
enemy will dare to challenge battle. If they tell us that the gold
standard is a good thing, we shall point to their platform and tell them
that their platform pledges the party to get rid of the gold standard
and substitute bimetallism. If the gold standard is a good thing, why
try to get rid of it? If the gold standard is a bad thing, why should we
wait until other nations are willing to help us to let go? Here is the
line of battle, and we care not upon which issue they force the fight;
we are prepared to meet them on either issue or on both. If they tell
us that the gold standard is the standard of civilization, we reply to
them that this, the most enlightened of all the nations of the earth,
has never declared for a gold standard and that both the great parties
this year are declaring against it. If the gold standard is the standard
of civilization, why should we not have it? If they come to meet us on
that issue, we can present the history of our nation.
More than that; we can tell them that they will search the pages of
history in vain to find a single instance where the common people of any
land have ever declared themselves in favor of the gold standard. They
can find where the holders of fixed investments have declared for a gold
standard, but not where the masses have. There are two ideas of
government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate
to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on
those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you
legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its
way up through every class which rests upon them. You come to us and
tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we
reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies.
Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring
up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow
in the streets of every city in the country.
My friends, we declare that this nation is able to legislate for its own
people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent of any
other nation on earth; and upon that issue we expect to carry every
state in the Union. I shall not slander the inhabitants of the fair
State of Massachusetts nor the inhabitants of the State of New York by
saying that, when they are confronted with the proposition, they will
declare that this nation is not able to attend to its own business. It
is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but three millions
in number, had the courage to declare their political independence of
every other nation; shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to
seventy millions, declare that we are less independent than our
forefathers?
No, my friends, that will never be the verdict of our people. Therefore,
we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say
bimetallism is good, but that we cannot have it until other nations help
us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England
has, we will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism
because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in the open
field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them
to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation
and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring
interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a
gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow
of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a
cross of gold.
FOOTNOTE:
[38] From a speech delivered in the city of Chicago before the
Democratic National Convention of 1896.
DEATH OF CONGRESSMAN BURNES
J. J. INGALLS
At this crisis and juncture, when every instant is priceless, the Senate
proceeds by unanimous consent to consider resolutions of the highest
privilege, and reverently pauses in obedience to the holiest impulses of
human nature to contemplate the profoundest mystery of human
destiny--the mystery of death. In the democracy of death all men at
least are equal. There is neither rank, nor station, nor prerogative in
the republic of the grave.
At that fatal threshold the philosopher ceases to be wise and the song
of the poet is silent. At that fatal threshold Dives relinquishes his
millions and Lazarus his rags. The poor man is as rich as the richest
and the rich man is as poor as the pauper. The creditor loses his usury
and the debtor is acquitted of his obligation. The proud man surrenders
his dignity, the politician his honors, the worldling his pleasures.
James Nelson Burnes, whose life and virtues we commemorate to-day, was a
man whom Plutarch might have described and Vandyke portrayed. Massive,
rugged and robust, in motion slow, in speech serious and deliberate,
grave in aspect, serious in demeanor, of antique and heroic mold, the
incarnation of force. As I looked for the last time upon that
countenance, from which no glance of friendly recognition nor word of
welcome came, I reflected upon the impenetrable and insoluble mystery of
death.
If death be the end, if the life of Burnes terminated upon "this bank
and shoal of time," if no morning is to dawn upon the night in which he
sleeps, then sorrow has no consolation, and this impressive and solemn
ceremony which we observe to-day has no more significance than the
painted pageant of the stage. If the existence of Burnes was but a
troubled dream, his death oblivion, what avails it that the Senate
should pause to recount his virtues? Neither veneration nor reverence is
due the dead if they are but dust; no cenotaph should be reared to
preserve for posterity the memory of their achievements if those who
come after them are to be only their successors in annihilation and
extinction. If in this world only we have hope and consciousness duty
must be a chimera; our pleasures and our passions should be the guides
of conduct, and virtue is indeed a superstition if life ends at the
grave. This is the conclusion which the philosophy of negation must
accept at last. Such is the felicity of those degrading precepts which
make the epitaph the end. If the life of Burnes is as a taper that is
burned out then we treasure his memory and his example in vain, and the
latest prayer of his departing spirit has no more sanctity to us, who
soon or late must follow him, than the whisper of winds that stir the
leaves of the protesting forest, or the murmur of the waves that break
upon the complaining shore.
THE DEATH OF GARFIELD[39]
JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE
On the morning of Saturday, July second, the President was a contented
and happy man--not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly,
happy. On his way to the railroad-station, to which he drove slowly, in
conscious enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of
leisure and a keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in the
grateful and gratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial
his administration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in popular
favor and destined to grow stronger; that grave difficulties confronting
him at his inauguration had been safely passed; that trouble lay behind
him, and not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he
loved, now recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted
and at times almost unnerved him; that he was going to his alma mater to
renew the most cherished associations of his young manhood, and to
exchange greetings with those whose deepening interest had followed
every step of his upward progress from the day he entered upon his
college course until he had attained the loftiest elevation in the gift
of his countrymen.
Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this
world, on that quiet July morning James A. Garfield may well have been a
happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him, no slightest premonition
of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant.
One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching
peacefully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless,
doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence and the grave.
Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the
very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of Murder he
was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes,
its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death. And
he did not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned
and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment,
but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony that was not
less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage he
looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes,
whose lips may tell? What brilliant broken plans, what baffled high
ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood's friendships, what
bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him a proud, expectant
nation; a great host of sustaining friends; a cherished and happy mother
wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of
his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged
from childhood's day of frolic; the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons
just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day, and every
day rewarding, a father's love and care; and in his heart the eager,
rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation and great
darkness! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with
instant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal
weakness, he became the center of a nation's love, enshrined in the
prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not
share with him his suffering. He trod the winepress alone. With
unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took
leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard
the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the divine decree.
As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The
stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of
pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison-walls, from its
oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness.
Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to
the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should
will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold
voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze he
looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders, on its far sails
whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves rolling shoreward
to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening
arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the
stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only
the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence
of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther
shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal
morning.
FOOTNOTE:
[39] From a memorial oration delivered in the House of Representatives,
February 27, 1882, published by Henry Bill Publishing Co., Norwich,
Conn.
DEATH OF TOUSSAINT L'OVERTURE[40]
WENDELL PHILLIPS
Returning to the hills, Toussaint issued the only proclamation which
bears his name, and breathes vengeance: "My children, France comes to
make us slaves. God gave us liberty. France has no right to take it
away. Burn the cities, destroy the harvests, tear up the roads with
cannon, poison the wells. Show the white man the hell he comes to make";
and he was obeyed.
When the great William of Orange saw Louis XIV. cover Holland with
troops, he said: "Break down the dikes, give Holland back to ocean"; and
Europe said, "Sublime!" When Alexander saw the armies of France descend
upon Russia, he said: "Burn Moscow, starve back the invaders!" and
Europe said, "Sublime!" This black saw all Europe come to crush him,
and gave to his people the same heroic example of defiance.
Holland lent sixty ships. England promised by special message to be
neutral; and you know neutrality means sneering at freedom, and sending
arms to tyrants. England promised neutrality, and the black looked out
and saw the whole civilized world marshaled against him. America, full
of slaves, was of course hostile. Only the Yankee sold him poor muskets
at a very high price. Mounting his horse, and riding to the eastern end
of the island, he looked out on a sight such as no native had ever seen
before. Sixty ships of the line, crowded by the best soldiers of Europe,
rounded the point. They were soldiers who had never yet met an equal,
whose tread, like Caesar's, had shaken Europe: soldiers who had scaled
the Pyramids, and planted the French banners on the walls of Rome. He
looked a moment, counted the flotilla, let the reins fall on the neck of
his horse, and turning to Christophe, exclaimed: "All France is come to
Hayti; they can only come to make us slaves; and we are lost!"
Toussaint was too dangerous to be left at large. So they summoned him to
attend a council; he went, and the moment he entered the room the
officers drew their swords and told him he was a prisoner. They put him
on shipboard and weighed anchor for France. As the island faded from his
sight he turned to the captain and said, "You think you have rooted up
the tree of liberty, but I am only a branch; I have planted the tree so
deep that all France can never root it up."
He was sent to a dungeon twelve feet by twenty, built wholly of stone,
with a narrow window, high up on one side, looking out on the snows of
Switzerland. In this living tomb the child of the sunny tropics was left
to die. But he did not die fast enough. Napoleon ordered the commandant
to go into Switzerland, to carry the keys of the dungeon with him and
stay four days. When he returned, Toussaint was found starved to death.
Napoleon, that imperial assassin, was taken, twelve years later, to his
prison at St. Helena, planned for a tomb, as he had planned that of
Toussaint, and there he whined away his dying hours in pitiful
complaints. God grant that when some future Plutarch shall weigh the
great men of our epoch, he do not put that whining child of St. Helena
into one scale, and into the other the negro, meeting death like a
Roman, without a murmur, in the solitude of his icy dungeon.
FOOTNOTE:
[40] By permission of the publishers, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
THE DEDICATION OF GETTYSBURG CEMETERY
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated, can long endure.
We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have met to dedicate
a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their
lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper
that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we
cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living
and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far beyond our power to
add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we
say here; but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work
that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be
here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation
shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of
the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the
earth.
THE FALLEN HEROES OF JAPAN
ADMIRAL HEIHAICHIRO TOGO
This speech was a part of a very impressive Shinto ceremony in
which the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese fleets addressed the
spirits of the officers and sailors who lost their lives during the
war with Russia. For simple eloquence it has seldom been surpassed.
The clouds of war have disappeared from sea and from shore, and the
whole city, with a peaceful, placid heart like that of a child, goes out
to meet the men who shared life and death with you, and who now return
triumphant under the imperial standard, while their families wait for
them at the gates of their homes.
Looking back, we recall how, bearing the bitter cold and enduring the
fierce heat, you fought again and again with our strong foe, and while
the issue of the contest was still uncertain you went before us to the
grave, leaving us to envy the glory you had won by your loyal deaths. We
longed to imitate you in paying the debt to sovereign and country. Your
valiant and vehement fighting always achieved success. In no combat did
you fail to conquer. Throughout ten months the attack on Port Arthur
continued and the result was determined. In the Sea of Japan a single
annihilating effort decided the issue. Thenceforth the enemy's shadow
disappeared from the face of the ocean. This success had its origin in
the infinite virtues of the emperor, but it could not have been achieved
had not you, forgetting yourselves, sacrificed your lives in the public
service. The war is over. We who return in triumph see signs of joy
everywhere. But we remember that we cannot share it with you, and
mingled feelings of sadness and rejoicing struggle painfully for
expression. The triumph of to-day has been purchased by your glorious
deaths, and your loyalty and valor will inspire our navy, guarding the
imperial land for all time.
We here perform this rite of worship to your spirits, and speaking
something of our sad thoughts, pray you to come and receive the
offerings we make.
SECESSION[41]
ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS
Mr. President: This step of secession, once taken, can never be
recalled; and all the baleful and withering consequences that must
follow, will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our
posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war,
which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth; when our
green fields of waving harvest shall be trodden down by the murderous
soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of
justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolation of war upon us;
who but this Convention will be held responsible for it? And who but him
who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as
I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this
suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and
execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating
ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate?
Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you can
give, that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments--what reason
you can give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will bring
upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to
justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in the case; and
what cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest the
plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest
of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? And what
claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you
to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely
done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to
complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the other hand, let me show
the facts, of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts
which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic
in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the
slave-trade, or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our
lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we asked a
three-fifths representation in Congress for our slaves, was it not
granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from
justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was
it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again ratified and
strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850? But do you reply that in
many instances they have violated this compact, and have not been
faithful to their engagements? As individual and local communities, they
may have done so; but not by the sanction of government; for that has
always been true to Southern interests. Again, gentlemen, look at
another act; when we have asked that more territory should be added,
that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded
to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida, and Texas? From these,
four States have been carved, and ample territory for four more is to be
added in due time, if you, by this unwise and impolitic act, do not
destroy this hope, and, perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last
slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America and
Mexico were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation
which may reasonably be expected to follow.
But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of
our relation to the general government? We have always had the control
of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have
been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South, as
well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the
North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their
twenty-four, thus controlling the executive department. So of the judges
of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South and but eleven
from the North; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has
arisen in the free states, yet a majority of the Court has always been
from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any
interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we
have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the legislative
branch of government. In choosing the presidents of the Senate, we have
had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House we have had
twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the
representatives, from their greater population, have always been from
the North, yet we have generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a
great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor
have we had less control in every other department of the general
government. Attorney-generals we have had fourteen, while the North have
had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six and they but
fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic
agents abroad is clearly from the free states, from their greater
commercial interest, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to
secure the world-markets for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar on the best
possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of
both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and
sailors were drawn from the North. Again, from official documents, we
learn that a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for
the support of the government has uniformly been raised from the North.
Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars
you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your
sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as sacrifices upon the
altar of your ambition--and for what, we ask again? Is it for the
overthrow of the American government, established by our common
ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on
the broad principles of right, justice, and humanity? And as such, I
must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been
repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots, in this
and other lands, that it is the best and freest government--the most
equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in
its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles, to elevate the
race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to
attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have
lived for more than three-quarters of a century--in which we have gained
our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety, while the
elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied
with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed--is the height of
madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I neither lend my sanction nor
my vote.
FOOTNOTE:
[41] Delivered at the Georgia State Convention, January, 1861.
THE DEATH OF GRADY
JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES
Oh, brilliant and incomparable Grady! We lay for a season thy precious
dust beneath the soil that bore and cherished thee, but we fling back
against all our brightening skies the thoughtless speech that calls thee
dead! God reigns and His purpose lives, and although these brave lips
are silent here, the seeds sown in his incarnate eloquence will sprinkle
patriots through the years to come, and perpetuate thy living in a race
of nobler men!
But all our words are empty, and they mock the air. If we should speak
the eulogy that fills this day, let us build within the city that he
loved, a monument tall as his services, and noble as the place he
filled. Let every Georgian lend a hand, and as it rises to confront in
majesty his darkened home, let the widow who weeps there be told that
every stone that makes it has been sawn from the sound prosperity that
he builded, and that the light which plays upon its summit is, in
afterglow, the sunshine that he brought into the world.
And for the rest--silence. The sweetest thing about his funeral was that
no sound broke the stillness save the reading of the Scriptures, and the
melody of music. No fire that can be kindled upon the altar of speech
can relume the radiant spark that perished yesterday. No blaze born in
all our eulogy can burn beside the sunlight of his useful life. After
all, there is nothing grander than such living.
I have seen the light that gleamed from the headlight of some giant
engine rushing onward through the darkness, heedless of opposition,
fearless of danger, and I thought it was grand. I have seen the light
come over the eastern hills in glory, driving the hazy darkness like
mist before a sea-born gale, till leaf and tree and blade of grass
glittered in the myriad diamonds of the morning ray, and I thought it
was grand. I have seen the light that leaped at midnight athwart the
storm-swept sky, shivering over chaotic clouds, mid howling winds, till
cloud and darkness and the shadow-haunted earth flashed into mid-day
splendor, and I knew it was grand. But the grandest thing next to the
radiance that flows from the Almighty Throne is the light of a noble
and beautiful life, wrapping itself in benediction round the destinies
of men, and finding its home in the blessed bosom of the Everlasting
God!
THE GLORY OF PEACE
CHARLES SUMNER
The art of war is yet held even among Christians to be an honorable
pursuit. It shall be for another age to appreciate the more exalted
character of the art of benevolence which, in blessed contrast with the
misery, the degradation, the wickedness of war, shall shine resplendent
in the true grandeur of peace. Then shall the soul thrill with a nobler
heroism than that of battle. Peaceful industry, with untold multitudes
of cheerful and beneficent laborers, shall be its gladsome token.
Literature, full of sympathy and comfort for the heart of man, shall
appear in garments of purer glory than she has yet assumed. Science
shall extend the bounds of knowledge and power, adding unimaginable
strength to the hands of men, opening innumerable resources in the earth
and revealing new secrets and harmonies in the skies.
The increasing beneficence and intelligence of our own day, the
broad-spread sympathy with suffering, the widening thoughts of men, the
longings of the heart for a higher condition on earth, the unfulfilled
promises of Christian progress are the auspicious auguries of this happy
future. As early voyagers over untried realms of waste we have already
observed the signs of land. The green and fresh red berries have floated
by our bark, the odors of the shore fan our faces, nay, we may seem to
descry the distant gleam of light, and hear from the more earnest
observers, as Columbus heard, after midnight from the masthead of the
Pinta, the joyful cry of "Land! Land!" and lo! a new world broke upon
his early morning gaze.
THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC
H. W. GRADY
I went to Washington the other day and I stood on the Capitol hill, and
my heart beat quick as I looked at the towering marble of my country's
Capitol, and a mist gathered in my eyes as I thought of its tremendous
significance, of the armies and the treasury, and the judges and the
President, and the Congress and the courts, and all that was gathered
there; and I felt that the sun in all its course could not look down on
a better sight than that majestic home of a Republic that had taught the
world its best lessons of liberty. And I felt that if honor and wisdom
and justice dwelt therein, the world would at last owe that great house,
in which the ark of the covenant of my country is lodged, its final
uplifting and its regeneration.
But a few days afterwards I went to visit a friend in the country, a
modest man, with a quiet country home. It was just a simple,
unpretentious house, set about with great trees and encircled in meadow
and field rich with the promise of harvest; the fragrance of the pink
and the hollyhock in the front yard was mingled with the aroma of the
orchard and the garden, and the resonant clucking of poultry and the hum
of bees. Inside was quiet, cleanliness, thrift and comfort.
Outside there stood my friend, the master, a simple, independent,
upright man, with no mortgage on his roof, no lien on his growing
crops--master of his land and master of himself. There was the old
father, an aged and trembling man, but happy in the heart and home of
his son. And, as he started to enter his home, the hand of the old man
went down on the young man's shoulder, laying there the unspeakable
blessing of an honored and honorable father, and ennobling it with the
knighthood of the fifth commandment. And as we approached the door the
mother came, a happy smile lighting up her face, while with the rich
music of her heart she bade her husband and her son welcome to their
home. Beyond was the housewife, busy with her domestic affairs, the
loving helpmate of her husband. Down the lane came the children after
the cows, singing sweetly, as like birds they sought the quiet of their
nest.
So the night came down on that house, falling gently as the wing of an
unseen dove. And the old man, while a startled bird called from the
forest and the trees thrilled with the cricket's cry, and the stars were
falling from the sky, called the family around him and took the Bible
from the table and called them to their knees. The little baby hid in
the folds of its mother's dress while he closed the record of that day
by calling down God's blessing on that simple home. While I gazed, the
vision of the marble Capitol faded; forgotten were its treasuries and
its majesty; and I said, "Surely here in the house of the people lodge
at last the strength and the responsibility of this government, the hope
and the promise of this Republic."
HUNGARIAN HEROISM
LOUIS KOSSUTH
Gentlemen have said that it was I who inspired the Hungarian people. I
cannot accept the praise. No, it was not I who inspired the Hungarian
people, it was the Hungarian people who inspired me. Whatever I thought
and still think, whatever I felt and still feel, is but the pulsation of
that heart which in the breast of my people beats. The glory of battle
is for the historic leaders. Theirs are the laurels of immortality. And
yet in encountering the danger, they knew that, alive or dead, their
names would, on the lips of people, forever live.
How different the fortune, how nobler, how purer the heroism of those
children of the people who went forth freely to meet death in their
country's cause, knowing that where they fell they would lie
undistinguished and unknown, their names unhonored and unsung.
Animated, nevertheless, by the love of freedom and the fatherland, they
went forth calmly singing their national anthems till, rushing upon the
batteries whose cross fires vomited upon them death and destruction,
they took them without firing a shot,--those who fell falling with the
shout, "Hurrah for Hungary!" And so they died by thousands--the unnamed
demigods! Such is the people of Hungary. Still it is said it is I who
have inspired them. No! a thousand times, no! It is they who have
inspired me.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS[42]
WILLIAM MCKINLEY
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am glad to be again in the City of Buffalo and
exchange greetings with her people, to whose generous hospitality I am
not a stranger, and with whose good will I have been repeatedly and
signally honored. Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. They
record the world's advancement. They stimulate the energy, enterprise
and intellect of the people and quicken human genius. They go into the
home. They broaden and brighten the daily life of the people. They open
mighty storehouses of information to the student.
The wisdom and energy of all the nations are none too great for the
world's work. The success of art, science, industry and invention is an
international asset and a common glory. After all, how near one to the
other is every part of the world. Modern inventions have brought into
close relation widely separated peoples, and made them better
acquainted. Geographic and political divisions will continue to exist,
but distances have been effaced.
Swift ships and fast trains are becoming cosmopolitan. They invade
fields which a few years ago were impenetrable. The world's products are
exchanged as never before, and with increasing transportation facilities
come increasing knowledge and trade. Prices are fixed with mathematical
precision by supply and demand. The world's selling prices are regulated
by market and crop reports. We travel greater distances in a shorter
space of time, and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by the
fathers.
Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. The same important news is
read, though in different languages, the same day in all Christendom.
The telegraph keeps us advised of what is occurring everywhere, and the
press foreshadows, with more or less accuracy, the plans and purposes of
the nations. Market prices of products and of securities are hourly
known in every commercial mart, and the investments of the people extend
beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the
earth. Vast transactions are conducted and international exchanges are
made by the tick of the cable. Every event of interest is immediately
bulletined.
The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid transit, are of
recent origin, and are only made possible by the genius of the inventor
and the courage of the investor. It took a special messenger of the
government, with every facility known at the time for rapid travel,
nineteen days to go from the City of Washington to New Orleans with a
message to General Jackson that the war with England had ceased and a
treaty of peace had been signed.
How different now! We reached General Miles in Porto Rico by cable, and
he was able through the military telegraph to stop his army on the
firing line with the message that the United States and Spain had signed
a protocol suspending hostilities. We knew almost instantly of the first
shots fired at Santiago, and the subsequent surrender of the Spanish
forces was known at Washington within less than an hour of its
consummation. The first ship of Cervera's fleet had hardly emerged from
that historic harbor when the fact was flashed to our capital and the
swift destruction that followed was announced immediately through the
wonderful medium of telegraphy.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not a mile of steam
railroad on the globe. Now there are enough miles to make its circuit
many times. Then there was not a line of electric telegraph; now we have
vast mileage traversing all lands and all seas. God and man have linked
the nations together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other.
And as we are brought more and more in touch with each other the less
occasion there is for misunderstandings and the stronger the
disposition, when we have differences, to adjust them in the court of
arbitration, which is the noblest forum for the settlement of
international disputes.
The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and
commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A
policy of good will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals.
Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times;
measures of retaliation are not. If perchance some of our tariffs are no
longer needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at
home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets
abroad?
Then, too, we have inadequate steamship service. New lines of steamers
have already been put in commission between the Pacific coast ports of
the United States and those on the western coasts of Mexico and Central
and South America. These should be followed up with direct steamship
lines between the eastern coast of the United States and South American
ports. One of the needs of the times is direct commercial lines from our
vast fields of production to the fields of consumption that we have but
barely touched.
Next in advantage to having the thing to sell is to have the convenience
to carry it to the buyer. We must encourage our merchant marine. We must
have more ships. They must be under the American flag, built and manned
and owned by Americans. These will not be profitable in a commercial
sense; they will be messengers of peace and amity wherever they go.
We must build the isthmian canal, which will unite the two oceans and
give a straight line of water communication with the western coasts of
Central America, South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific
cable cannot be longer postponed.
In the furtherance of these objects of national interest and concern you
are performing an important part. This exposition would have touched the
heart of that American statesman whose mind was ever alert and thought
ever constant for a larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the
republics of the new world. His broad American spirit is felt and
manifested here. He needs no identification to an assemblage of
Americans anywhere, for the name of Blaine is inseparably associated
with the pan-American movement, which finds this practical and
substantial expression and which we all hope will be firmly advanced by
the pan-American congress that assembles this autumn in the capital of
Mexico.
The good work will go on. It cannot be stopped. These buildings will
disappear, this creation of art and beauty and industry will perish from
sight, but their influence will remain to
"Make it live beyond its too short living
With praises and thanksgiving."
Who can tell the new thoughts that have been awakened, and ambitions
fired, and the high achievements that will be wrought through this
Exposition?
Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not
conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace,
not those of war. We hope that all who are represented here may be moved
to higher and nobler effort for their own and the world's good, and that
out of this city may come not only greater commerce and trade for us
all, but, more essential than these, relations of mutual respect,
confidence and friendship which will deepen and endure. Our earnest
prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness and
peace to all our neighbors and like blessings to all the peoples and
powers of earth.
FOOTNOTE:
[42] His last speech, delivered at the Buffalo Exposition, September 5,
1901.
IRISH HOME RULE[43]
WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE
I may without impropriety remind the House that the voices which usually
pleaded the cause of Irish self-government in Irish affairs have within
these walls during the last seven years been almost entirely mute. I
return therefore to the period of 1886, when a proposition of this kind
was submitted on the part of the government, and I beg to remind the
House of the position then taken up by all the promoters of these
measures. We said that we had arrived at a point in our transactions
with Ireland where the two roads parted. "You have," we said, "to choose
one or the other." One is the way o |
