Chapter XI: Part 11

It would appear from Scaliger that even had not Ficinus commenced his out-sponged work afresh, literature would not have lamentably lost. Far, indeed, would this have been from true, had the influence of a friend prevailed to wipe from among the works of Gray “The Progress of Poetry,” and “The Bard.” I will not deny of its setting the sentence in which Walpole communicates the likelihood of such a fate.

One quality I may safely arrogate to myself: I am
not _afraid to praise_. Many are such timid judges
of composition, that they hesitate to wait for the
public opinion. Show them a manuscript, though they
highly approve it in their hearts, they are afraid to
commit themselves by speaking out. Several excellent
works have perished from this cause; a writer of
real talents being often a mere sensitive plant with
regard to his own productions. Some cavils of Mason
(how inferior a poet and judge!) had almost induced
Gray to destroy his two beautiful and sublime odes.
We should not only praise, but hasten to praise.

In modern days the function of Mason is more generally filled by adverse public critics. The case of the late Edward Fitzgerald, who by an unfavorable review was induced to withdraw from circulation his “Six Dramas of Calderon,” and probably altogether to withhold from the public his rendering of “La Vida es Sueño,” and “El Mágico Prodigioso,” is until the present unhappily in point.

More melancholy still are those episodes of literary history which present the wearied author consigning with forced smile and show of acquiescence—“coactus volo”—the products of his craft to an untimely end. English history does not lack its instances of these heroic souls in motley, these Herculeses with their distaffs. There is John Selden, and there is Reginald Pecock: let us bare the mishaps of these representatives.

In the time of James I., the clergy were pleased to advance to the utmost the doctrine of the divine right of tithes—a divinity entailed in a pedigree of patriarchal ages, Jewish priesthood, and Christian priesthood. Upon so venerable a claim so cogently revived, lawyers yet looked with jealousy. For they saw in every claim by divine right, where royal and sub-royal patrons were unconcerned, a limitation of human rights, with their correlative human duties very apt to be regulated by positive law. Selden, partaking of the legal spirit—coincident this once with the historic—produced his “History of Tithes,” a plain narrative, margented with copious authorities, which established abundantly the duty of paying tenths—but established on the distasteful ground of human authority. James, who patronised divinity partly to show the ardor with which he in his one turn could venerate, partly for the reflected strength wherewith it encircled himself, partly from conceit and cowardice, and partly from better motives, summoned the author to appear before him in December 1618, at his palace at Theobalds. Introduced by Ben Jonson and Edward Hayward, Selden maintained the test of two conferences at Theobalds, and one at Whitehall with the monarch in person; but this in nowise prevented his being called, on January 28, 1618, before seven members of the High Commission Court in whose presence he was induced to make and sign this declaration.

My good Lords, I most humbly acknowledge the error
which I have committed in publishing “The History of
Tithes,” and especially in that I have at all, by
showing any interpretation of Holy Scriptures, by
meddling with councils, fathers, or canons, or by
what else soever occurs in it, offered any occasion
of argument against any right of maintenance, _jure
divino_, of the minister of the Gospel; beseeching
your Lordships to receive this ingenuous and
humble acknowledgment, together with the unfeigned
protestation of my grief, for that through it I have
so incurred both his Majesty’s and your Lordships’
displeasure conceived against me in behalf of the
Church of England.

Beside this forced submission, the authority which had exacted it prohibited the book. Further, Selden was forbidden to publish anything in his own defence, while public invitation—pluckily used—was given to any who should choose to attack either him or his history with all the virulence of pocket and party polemics. Nor was this all, but Selden stooped at the bidding of the king to uphold opinions, no doubt on three small points, which he had seemed to impugn in his greater work. It is pleasant to add that he circulated among his friends in manuscript answers to the attacks which were published against him.

The fall of Pecock was more abject, and less relieved. About 1449 he had written—not printed, of course—“The Repressor.” He had in design to defend the clergy from the aspersions, as he conceived them, of the “Bible-man” or Lollards. With this view he vindicated the use of images, the going on pilgrimages, and the retention of the various ranks of the hierarchy in their full directive authority. In 1450 he remained in sufficient esteem—though indeed his treatise was not much circulated for four or five years—to be transferred to the see of Chichester. From that time, however, his good fortune deserted him. The Duke of York conceived it well to cover his strides towards the crown, with the redress of grievances; and the disgrace of Pecock’s patrons, the Duke of Suffolk and the Bishop of Norwich, together with the personal dislike the king contracted towards him, made Chichester a safe object of attack. While all things were thus working for the good man’s evil, the council met at Westminster in the autumn of 1457, whence by general acclamation Pecock was expelled. He was cited to appear before Archbishop Bourchier on November 11, and the character of his offence became more definitised. He had held cheap the authority of the old doctors, he had denied that the Apostles’ Creed was made by the Apostles, and at the same time he had magnified the office of reason—rather than singly of the Scriptures, or rather than singly of the Church—as an ultimate test. Accordingly, to this citation he appeared, armed with nine of his books, into which it must be confessed were introduced some newly conceived passages and some erasures. A committee of Bishops, to whom the matter was then referred, reported adversely; and after further disputation the archbishop offered Pecock his choice of making a public abjuration of his errors, or of being first degraded, and then delivered over to the secular arm “as the food of fire, and fuel for the burning.” He chose the abjuration: a preliminary confession was forthwith made, a written confession was added at Lambeth on the 3rd of December, and on the next day, Sunday, arrayed in his episcopal habit, in the presence of 20,000 persons, he knelt at the feet of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Rochester, Durham, and of his “own pure and free will, and without any man’s coercion or dread,” made his recantation. In this he had declared that he presumed of his own natural wit to prefer the judgment of reason before the Testaments and the authority of the Church; had published many perilous doctrines and books containing enumerated heresies; and now considered himself grievously to have sinned and wickedly to have deceived the people of God, but returned to the unity of the mother Holy Church and renounced both the rehearsed heresies and all other “spices,” or kinds of heresy, and exhorted all men not to trust in his books, neither to keep or read them in any wise, but to bring them in haste to the Primate or his agents; in that he publicly assented that his books should be deputed unto the fire, and openly be burnt as an example and terror to all others. The recantation ended, a fire was kindled at the Cross. With his own hands Pecock delivered three folios and eleven quartos of his own composition to the executioner, who took and threw them in the flames, while the Bishop exclaimed aloud “My pride and presumption have brought upon me these troubles and these reproaches.” Little could he then think that in some future day England would, at public cost, republish the chief of the books his own lips had condemned.

But the punishment of Pecock did not end here. It was perhaps not much to him that the University of Oxford (which has consistently shown a spirit of illiberality, or at least a burning disposition, throughout its eras almost down to the present age) should in solemn procession, its Chancellor at its head, march to a place where four roads met—the Quatre-voix or Carfax—and there burn to ashes every copy of his works on which hands could be laid. But, deprived of his bishopric, it was necessary that directions should be given for his personal fare. These came to the Abbot of Thorney, to whose Cambridgeshire Abbey the cleric was sent. He was to live for ever in one closed chamber, so contrived that he might hear Mass; to be attended by one sad man to make his bed; to be forbidden all books but a breviary, a mass-book, a psalter, a legend, and a Bible; to be refused any thing to write with or on; but to be allowed a sufficiency of food and fire. And in this dolorous state there is all reason to suppose his closing days were spent.[74]

It is recorded of St. Briccius, that when a boy he saw the devil behind the altar, noting the misdemeanors of people on a piece of parchment. This seems to have stirred in him a desire for parchment that he in turn might write; but so firmly did the devil by his teeth stick to the stolen goods, that on the achievement of mastery by his juvenile but saintly competitor, the horny, wicked head was knocked against the wall, at which painful juncture St. Martin, ever valorous, so conjured the devil that he caused him _willy nilly_ to blot out what he had written. What then, one wonders, was the devil’s code of which the people’s acts were breaches. What his diabolic, though discarded standard? The prescience of St. Briccius or St. Martin would doubtless be required to tell. But it is plain he too is fabled as possessed with desire to bend the will of men in obedience to some crystallized tradition, some extraneous rule. And yet, what is this principle of tradition, this authority-binding, which in this form and that defeats equally Fanny Burney or Gray, Shelley, Southey, or Selden? It is something which, no matter what its ineptness to the circumstances of the present, cannot yield; which is made up of the circumstances of the past, and has in its whole as much as in every shred the inevitability of the past, which pushes by informed private judgment and reason—perhaps on the wiser plea that, ourselves a product of the past, the accumulated and sifted wisdom of that past, the residue of eclecticism on eclecticism, must be most appropriate to guide; or else perhaps on the more foolish, that makes a creed osseous in one infinitely remote exercise of one man’s inspired thoughts. As if, in the latter alternative, the very strength was not the very weakness of the argument which reduces after all everything to single and perhaps sullied private judgment; and as if in the former the very strength was not again the very weakness of the argument which cuts off arbitrarily as the last point of systematized knowledge (more often not at the last) its own method of history. For does it not result that if it be truly said, there is nothing new under the sun, there must in all cases be selection, and if selection be thus the real principle of action, why is some portion of accessible knowledge, some portion even of _received_ knowledge, to be cast without the bounds of usable materials, as though to prohibit us too perchance, from strengthening that uniformity or preponderance in independent selections to which tradition owes its strength? Thirlwall may act as Pecock, and Beddoes as Fitzgerald—but both the virtue of action and the virtue of restraint are lost.

Herodotus, if we may believe Blakesley and Professor Sayce, though the “Father of History,” by no means illustrates tradition at its best. Different, however, would it be, could we make up our minds, backed by the later authority of Canon Rawlinson to side in this perennial contest with Henri Estienne. This scholar in preparing an edition of that ancient traveller took occasion to maintain that his author was the reporter of things fabulous to an extent far less than was generally supposed. Hearing that of this defence, which was written in Latin, it was proposed to make a translation into French, he determined, as an old critic says, to become now a _traditore_, as he had formerly early been a _traduttore_, and to render his own work. But if this was his original purpose, he immediately lost sight of it. He took up, in fact, his argument thus:—From the unlikelihood of an event it is unreasonable to conclude against it: Herodotus may have reported things true, in presenting unlikely tales, otherwise, we must banish a prodigious amount of incontestable but absurd matter, though much of this character has occurred of late, especially in popery, as I proceed to instance in anecdotes which objectors may style apocryphal, fables they will call malicious, and chronicles they are certain to brand as scandalous. Now, this was clearly of intolerable bearing. And according to Tollius, its upshot was that Estienne was burnt in effigy at Paris; though, having fled to the mountains of Auvergne, and being in the thick of winter, he was enabled to chuckle at his joke that he never was so cold as when he was being burnt, a joke the authenticity of which late commentators might perhaps have less readily impeached had they remembered that Antonio de Dominis had used it, as he too for writing an unappreciated book was consumed in effigy at Rome, while he lay shivering with the cold of a November at sea and a fugitive’s fears at heart. Certain it is that at Geneva Estienne met with repulse. For the archives of that state show that late in 1566, on his first applying for a license to expose for sale his “Apologie pour Herodote,” he was directed to amend “certains feulletz où il y a des propos vilains et parlans trop évidemment des princes en mal” and that after these amendments were duly made he deliberately encouraged the suppression of his work, by taking advantage of an imperfect piratical edition, appearing at Lyons, to add without license the famous “Avertissement” with its tables or indexes, which drew down upon him imprisonment, followed quickly by enlargement coupled with conspicuous deprivation of the Eucharist on one occasion—if that be the meaning of “pour punition, privé de la cène, pour une fois.”

With consequences more radical, but with either far more boldness or far less wit, Camille Desmoulins upwards of two centuries after courted the suppression, not indeed of a book, but of life. It was full four years since he had learnt that the parliament of Toulouse had hurried to the flames his “La Libre France,” when entering the Jacobin Club, just two days after the publication of the fifth number of his _Vieux Cordelier_, he heard the question being for the third time put, whether he should be expelled. His presence quelling in no measure the rising anger, Robespierre, desirous to stay the wrath of the Jacobins by sacrificing the work to save the author, spoke. “Camille,” said he with dryness, and that air of patronage which the simulation of a tempered passion carries, “is a spoilt child; he had a good disposition; bad company has led him astray.” “We must,” urged he, concluding, “deal vigorously with these numbers, which even Brissot would not have dared to acknowledge, but we must keep Desmoulins among us. I demand, for example’s sake, that these numbers be burnt before this society.” But with what surprise did the echo of this speech, proceeding clearly, and accompanied with indignant flash of eye, greet him—“Bravo, Robespierre; but I will answer with Rousseau, _To burn is not to answer_.” Strange retort! Had pride so dulled perception, or surprise with one stroke slain confidence in all? No wonder that not less the change of time than the terms, the very measuredness of the answering words bidding Camille learn that he was treated with indulgence, and disclosing that his mode of justification would be held to show that the worst import of his writings was designed, left in him a sense that his present non-expulsion, even the restoration of the title of “Cordelier,” had no security. The lull _was_ false, Desmoulins was lost.

Concession to honest criticism was received with not more tact by Richelieu than by Desmoulins. It is true that in the Cardinal’s case the upshot, perilous as it seemed to one of the grand supports of dramatic literature, was merely ludicrous—but it may also be true that that was because the appeal was indeed through the intellect, but to the passive, not the active powers of man. The Cardinal was dramatist, and had carried politics into comedy by making the characters called France, Spain, or names of other States develop the fortunes of “Europe.” Anxious to get the countenance of the Academy, which his energies had lately organized, he sent the piece to them, that any errors in the rules of the style or poetry might be corrected. The Academy fulfilled their task, criticising so severely that scarcely a line was left unaltered. The Cardinal—but I may as well adopt the tale as Noël d’Argonne tells it.

The Cardinal, to whom it was brought back in this
condition, was so enraged, that he tore it on the
spot, and threw it in pieces into the hearth. This
was in summer, and fortunately there was no fire in
the hearth. The Cardinal went to bed; but he felt
the tenderness of a father for his dear Europe; he
regretted having used it so cruelly; and calling up
his secretary, he ordered him to collect with care
the papers from the chimney, and to go and look
whether he could find any paste in the house—adding
that in all probability he would find some starch
with the women who took charge of his linen. The
secretary went to their apartment; and having found
what he wanted, he spent the greater part of the
night with the Cardinal in trying to paste together
the dismembered comedy. Next morning he had it
recopied in his presence, and changed almost every
one of the corrections of the Academy, affecting,
at the same time, to retain a few of the least
important. He sent it back to them the same day by
Boisrobert, and told them they would perceive how
much he had profited by their criticisms; but as
all men were liable to err, he had not thought it
necessary to follow them implicitly. The Academy, who
had learned the vexation of the Cardinal, took care
not to retouch the piece, and returned it to him with
their unanimous approbation.

It seems a pity that after so much care and tenderness the play should have been produced along with “The Cid,” and that the audience, less manageable than the Academy, on the announcement that “Europe” would be repeated the next day, murmured their wish for Corneille’s piece. But the influence he sought to throw upon the fortunes of the Cid there can be no need to recount to Englishmen. Only it is clear that Richelieu was more like Cicero than Virgil, the former of whom indeed affected to be desirous of burning some productions, but was easily diverted by pleasant flattery; but the latter of whom, after having bestowed the labor of twelve years on his immortal poem, was genuinely conscious of imperfections which so few beside himself could have perceived, that in his last moments he ordered it to be committed to the flames, a fate evaded only by disregard of his solemn testamentary injunction. It is equally clear that Richelieu had not the plea of neglect and undeserved disfavor felt in its extreme by William Collins. For his odes, first published in 1747, crept slowly into notice, were spoken of indifferently by his acquaintance Dr. Johnson, and met with feeble praise from Gray. The while the author was sensible of their beauty, and so deeply felt the coldness with which they were received, that he obtained from his publisher the unsold copies and burnt them with his own hand. “If then his highly finished productions brought back but disappointment,” hypothesises Mr. Thomas Miller, “how thankful he must have felt that he had not committed himself further by sending into the world such works as his own fine taste condemned! We believe that when he had completed his ”Ode on the Passions,” he knew he had produced a poem which ought to live forever, for we cannot conceive that the mind which erected so imperishable a fabric could have a doubt of its durability.” Alas! an immortality which sees no origin _in præsenti_—how burdensome it is to bear.[75]

It was the conviction of “Messieurs de Port Royal” that in the denial of self was a tower of moral strength; and in this denial of self they included a true abnegation of the glories of authorship. “If any work for God were well done,” said St. Cyran, “it was the Divine Grace which had effectually co-operated to its performance, and the human instrument was nothing, and less than nothing.” With this there was not one of his colleagues unwilling practically to show that he agreed—Pascal least of all. What greater instance of literary modesty can be alleged than the destruction by him of his treatise on geometry, upon his learning that Arnauld had prepared the volume given to the world in 1667 as “Elements” of that subject and his seeing its fitness for the Port Royal schools? With most it would be much easier to apply the system of Naugerius, who loving Catullus, but hating Martial, set apart one day that every year he might sacrifice by fire a copy of the works of one epigrammatist to the manes of the other. It is only fair to add that Naugerius, who died while on an embassy to Francis I. in 1529, destroyed shortly before his death a history of his native city, Venice, carried forward from 1486, which he had himself compiled, and submitted to the same effective purging a considerable proportion of his own poetic compositions.

At this point I conclude. I perceive indeed that there remains scattered through literature unused material of interest, and even that motives to self-suppression of several entire classes have been here unexemplified. But of this we might feel confident, that the more and more this subject were opened up, personal as it appears to the authors themselves, the more and more would one be struck with the duty of the State, and no less than of the State of professed critics and of friends of the hearth, not only not to discourage the expressions of genius if even somewhat errant, but where there is the true appeal—then, as Walpole says, to _hasten to praise_.—_Gentleman’s Magazine._

HOW SHOULD WE DRESS?

THE NEW GERMAN THEORIES ON CLOTHING.

BY DORA DE BLAQUIÈRE.

Some allusion has already been made to the medical theories respecting clothing that have emanated recently from a celebrated German professor, Dr. Gustav Jaeger, of the Royal Polytechnic School at Stuttgart. His investigations into the subject commenced in the year 1872, and appeared to have been fairly exhaustive in the way of scientific experiment and personal experience, with the result that Dr. Jaeger considers he has discovered that the health of the world in general is much prejudiced by the materials, as well as the forms, in general use. In Germany his views seem to have met with very extensive acceptance; they have revolutionised the trade of Stuttgart, where Dr. Jaeger practises his profession; and many of the leading men—such as Count von Moltke and others—have adopted his clothing; and it seems probable that his principles will be applied to the German army, with the view of promoting the health of the troops. In Italy the first physicians have declared in favor of it, and so universally does the demand appear to have arisen on the Continent, that the present writer found Dr. Jaeger’s garments commonly exposed for sale in Switzerland, at Berne, Lucerne, and Vevey, and other smaller towns.

The stall for Dr. Jaeger’s clothing has formed an attraction at the “Healtheries” this season, and, by the formation of a limited company, who have opened a depôt in Fore Street for its sale, those who desire to look into the subject, and form their own opinions, will be able to do so in England.

Dr. Jaeger’s reform is not a difficult one, and consists of the fundamental doctrine that, as we are animals, we should wear animal clothing. The physical “reasons why” are—first, that their non-conducting qualities are a guarantee that the temperature of the body shall be in a great measure preserved, while on the other hand the shape and arrangement of their constituent hairs provide for the escape of moisture by capillary attraction; and their adaptation to both these ends is greater than that of any vegetable fabric.

In England we have for many years acted instinctively on these conditions, and we have adopted woollen, in the shape of flannel, for use in cricket, boating, tennis, and in any athletic exercises likely to cause profuse perspiration, as being the safest covering to ensure us against cold and the sudden and dangerous chills which are likely to follow overheating in a climate like ours. Our action has been the result of observation and experience, which, however, according to Dr. Jaeger, might have been carried still further and applied more widely still. For this profuse perspiration is simply an intensification of the daily action of the skin, which only ceases with life itself. If this action be imperfect or repressed, fat and water accumulate in the tissues, lowering their powers, and the flesh, which should feel elastic and firm, is flabby, causing many disorders in the general economy of the body.

Besides water and fat, the skin excretes carbonic acid, and the different decomposed products of fat—such as lactic, formic, and butyric acids—to which the sour odor of perspiration is due. Much carbonic acid is dissolved in the perspiration, and escapes with it. Thus, it is not difficult to see that the kind of covering which acts as the best conductor of moisture and its impurities, and at the same time is a bad conductor of heat, and prevents its escape, is that which we must adopt as the healthiest and the cleanest.

The power of absorption by vegetable life, of the poisonous emanations from animal life, is well known, and this process is not limited, it would appear, to living plants, but is continued by vegetable fibres—such as linen and cotton—with this difference, that the living plant assimilates these emanations and the dead fibre does not, but exhales them again when wetted or warmed. Thus our clothes, in consequence of their vegetable character, attract and retain these noxious principles which should by rights be immediately thrown off. Animal materials, such as wool, are made by nature—according to Dr. Jaeger—to protect animal life, and will neither attract noxious emanations nor prevent their evaporation from the body. This is shown, he observes, by the sense of smell and by the unpleasantness noticed in cotton and linen underclothing, linings, and apparel which have been long worn.

There are many people to whom these considerations have a vital and especial interest. Certain skins perspire much more freely than others. This peculiarity occurs in persons of rheumatic and consumptive tendencies, even when quite free from actual disease. Women in middle age, also, and all in whom the circulatory system is weakened from any cause, have this tendency. But the people to whom, in addition, the Jaeger system appeals the most are certainly those who are corpulent, or show any tendency to become so. And as this point will probably interest many readers, I will give a brief notice of what Dr. Jaeger says on the subject.

To be in what we English people call “good condition” there must be a correct proportion of the most important bodily constituents—viz., albumen, fat, and water. The first is the foundation of nerve, muscle, blood, etc., and in fact sustains the existence of the body. Relatively to albumen, water and fat may be viewed as auxiliaries, although they are indispensable in themselves. A proper condition of body requires that these three constituents shall be present in certain proportions, while the richer the body is in albumen the sounder it will be, and the fitter for work. On the other hand, any excess of fat or water will lessen its energies, and its power of repelling the action of influences likely to promote disease.

Of the evils of the increase of fat most people who suffer from it are only too conscious. But besides the more visible ones, they are usually poor-blooded, and consequently lacking in vital energy, while the fat diminishes the necessary space for the circulation of the blood and the respiratory organs. The first of these evils shows itself in flushing of the face when the circulation is quickened by exertion, and in the difficulty felt in the return of the blood from the lower parts of the body to the heart, which causes lassitude in the legs, and a tendency to varicose veins; while, if the circulation of water in the system be also impeded, dropsical swellings in the legs will ensue. The limitation of space due to fat hinders also the free play of the lungs, and the obese are disabled from exceptional exertion which necessitates fuller breathing than usual.

Thus every one wishing to preserve health and working capacity, must keep strict watch on the deposit of fat going on in the body; and all such symptoms must be taken as evincing a wrong system of living; and in order to stay its further accumulation and get rid of what is superfluous, recourse must be had to augmented action of the skin.

The increased percentage of water and fat in the system renders it also more liable to disease, more sensitive to cold, and disposed to chest affections in the winter. In addition, the working powers of the mind are sensibly lessened. Dr. Jaeger has discovered that their presence in excess can be tested by the specific gravity and the rapidity of the nervous action: and he has constructed an air-tight chamber where experiments may be conducted on the former, and a stop-watch tests the rapidity of the latter.

Not less interesting is Dr. Jaeger’s theory of the source of the emotions, which he places in the albumen in the bodily tissues, emanating in the form of subtile essences, which are opposed to each other in the effect they produce, and which may be distinguished as “salutary” and “noxious.” As a rule, the sanitary principle is fragrant, the noxious tainted and offensive. The odor may be most readily perceived in the hair of the head, and is more evident in the adult than the child. If the subject of the test be in a cheerful mood, the scent will be agreeable and sweet; but if sorrowful, depressed, or in pain, the scent will be disagreeable. This odor may be noticed in the anguish of fever, under the influence of terror, and exhales from the mouth and nose, and, as Dr. Jaeger has proved by experiment, from the brain as well.

These things Dr. Jaeger considers that the experience of many readers will confirm, and that they have great practical importance in connection with his system. The German names given to these odorous substances are _Lust und Unlust Stoffe_, substances of pleasure and dislike. The former are thought by the Doctor to be the healing powers of the body, which heighten all the vital actions and its powers of resistance against contagion of all kinds. Sheep’s wool in particular attracts these substances of pleasure, while the plant fibre favors the accumulation of the substances of dislike, with all their evil consequences. This last fact, which the German scientific medical world considers Dr. Jaeger has proved, is supposed to be of the greatest importance, as showing how to raise the resistibility of the human body against contagious disease. The observations made extend to diphtheria, cholera, typhus, smallpox, measles, whooping-cough, and influenza.

I have endeavored thus far to divest the subject, as far as possible, of scientific matter, so that the principle may be easily understood by those who have made no previous study of these or any kindred subjects, relating to the hygiene and sanitary management of the body. I will now turn to the more practical considerations of the materials and shapes of the clothing recommended.

Dr. Jaeger advocates the use of nothing but wool, both for clothing and also for the bed and bedding. No half-measures will answer; even the linings of coats and dresses must be of wool, and men’s collars, and even women’s stay-laces, must be of the same. The material which, after much consideration, he has selected, is what is called “stockingette web,” which is merely woollen yarn woven in an elastic manner, like jerseys and stockings, and the woollen and merino under-shirts and drawers, now in common use. The somewhat clumsy name “stockingette” owes its origin to the fact that there was no technical name for that kind of elastic weaving which is applied to stockings, and which was called into existence as a “piece” material by the fashion of wearing jerseys, three or four years ago. Dr. Jaeger considers this weaving porous and supple and more durable than flannel; while they feel more comfortable on the skin, and areless liable to shrink than flannel, when in the hands of the washerwomen.

No admixture of vegetable fibre should be admitted, and the practice of wearing a woollen shirt under a cotton or linen one, Dr. Jaeger considers enervating and weakening. Clothing should fit quite tightly to the skin, so as to allow of the least possible movement of air between it and the body; the second great rule being that it should be twice as thick along the middle line of the trunk, from the neck downwards, as at the sides or back. Another point for consideration is the number of garments to be worn one over the other. On this question Dr. Jaeger is of opinion that the clothing for men and boys should simply consist of a woollen shirt, woollen socks or stockings, cloth trousers fitting as closely as may be, and a cloth coat. The coat sleeves and linings should be of woollen, and these, as well as the trouser legs, when the latter do not fit tightly, must be closed against upward draughts by webbings sewn into them, and fitting tightly round the arms and ankles. No drawers are required, no waistcoat, and no overcoat; not even in the winter time, except when driving. Men’s coats must fit tightly up to the neck, and compactly to the figure, and all others must be laid aside as unsanitary. The coat must also be double-breasted, and like all the rest of the materials recommended, must be undyed, of the natural color, or treated with uninjurious fast dyes. The same rule applies to the trousers, which must fasten so as to continue the middle line of extra warmth. This rule has special application to those who desire to melt away superfluous fat, or those who are subject to disorders of the stomach or digestive organs.

The feet are to be covered with woollen socks, with a special division for each toe; or else one for the great toe, while the upper part of the boot must be of felt, and the lower part of felt or porous leather; the boot being kept thoroughly porous, so that the feet may be as cleanly and pure as the hands. The usual starched linen collar is substituted by one made of unstiffened white cashmere, or one of the wool in its natural hue. These collars can be obtained in every shape and style, stand up and turn-downs, and they are considered as the most comfortable that could possibly be devised, as well as preventions of throat disorders. The hat should be of felt, and no linings of leather nor linen are admissible. Instead of these a strip of felt should be used, or else the hat should be quite without lining, like a Turkish fez. The shellac used in stiffening hats is said to have an injurious effect, and those who are bald or threatened with baldness, or those who suffer from headaches, are especially advised to try the unstiffened sanitary hat and its woollen lining.

The clothing recommended for women is not very different, so far as shirts and drawers are concerned, to that advised for men. The night-dresses are the same, except a slight trimming of lace at the neck. The union, or “combination” garment, a pair of woollen stays, a petticoat of knitted undyed wool, and another, if desired of woven stockingette, constitute all the clothing needed, in addition to the outward dress, made of pure wool also, high to the neck, and having a double lining over the chest, as advised in the case of men. The lace collars for use are also of woollen yak lace, and the pocket-handkerchief is of fine cashmere, either white or of a handsome dark red. This last, Dr. Jaeger declares, is a very effective agent in the cure of the colds and catarrhs of winter.

Against such “cherished finery” as silk dresses, white starched petticoats, linen stays, cotton and silk stockings, and white or colored cotton starched dresses, Dr. Jaeger protests; and says he fears he shall be considered a disturber of the peace of households, when he remembers the delight women take in interminable washings and starchings. But he takes courage, seeing that his own wife has not only become used to the new order of things, but declares she would not willingly revert to the _statu quo ante_, and that women, if possible, need the advantages offered by woollen clothing more than men.

The last of Dr. Jaeger’s plans I shall consider is the substitution of woollen materials for linen and cotton in our beds. The bed itself must be free from vegetable fibre, the mattress filled with hair or wool, and the covering of both should be woollen; for this reason feathers of course cannot be used, although they are all an animal substance. The linen or cotton sheets are replaced by sheets made of the finest white cashmere, or, if preferred, by woollen blankets or camel-hair rugs; and a special form of dress, having a hood, is given, to enable the wearer to sleep with the window open without fear of taking cold. This last he regards as an important part of the sanitary rules of his system. The covering meant for travellers to sleep in has also a hood, and the skirt is long enough to contain two square pockets for the feet. Covered in this way, the traveller may defy damp beds, and all the general discomfort of foreign hotels.

In reward for our adoption of his “normal” system of clothing, Dr. Jaeger promises us—not indeed complete immunity from disease, but health equal to the animal creation that spend their lives in an artificial state. We shall have flesh thoroughly hardened, and tendencies to corpulence will be reduced. In a word, the physical and mental working powers will show a great and general improvement, the nervous action will be accelerated, and the body will have resumed its “normal,” or true condition.

Of course, so thorough an innovation so completely in contradiction to received ideas, to vast trade interests, and to the opinions of the world in general, will be much discussed and strenuously opposed. Dr. Jaeger says that he has been reproached with “riding an excellent theory to death;” but his only ruling principle through life has been to “examine everything, and retain the best;” and this is the principle we recommend the public to apply in the honest testing of his new system.—_Good Words._

THE MAN IN BLUE.

BY R. DAVEY.

I am a professor of music, and was born so long ago as the last century, at Salsberg, in Germany. My father was a merchant of that city; _fanatico per la musica_, as the Italians say, music mad. Knowing that each of his children would inherit a fair fortune, he permitted us to somewhat neglect our other studies, so that we might dedicate more time to his beloved science. My two sisters played remarkably well on the spinet, and sang finely. Karl, my only brother, was the flautist of the family, and I devoted myself to the violin. At sixteen years of age I believed myself an adept on this difficult instrument. My violin was my constant companion. Nothing gave me more pleasure than to take my dear “Fortunato,” for so I called it, into the woods, and there, by the murmuring brook, beneath the rustling trees, improvise new airs and vary old ones, to my heart’s content.

So greatly did my father delight in displaying the talents of his children, that he organized every Thursday afternoon an amateur concert, at which at least a quarter of the town assisted—to listen to, admire, or criticise, about as much music as could possibly be crowded into a three hours’ performance. One fine Thursday afternoon in autumn, just as the first of our pieces was concluded, a very singular-looking individual entered the concert-room. He was as thin and pale as an unearthly apparition, and entirely dressed in shabby garments of light blue corduroy. His well-worn knee-breeches were blue, his jacket was blue, his vest was blue, and the huge cravat that fastened his great flapping shirt-collar was also blue. His face was the most melancholy in expression it is possible to imagine. He had a big, hooked nose, thin lantern jaws, and the only redeeming feature which he possessed, his dark and intelligent eyes, were hidden by a pair of goggle spectacles. His hair was bright red and uncut, and his beard seemed as if it had never been trimmed since it first began to grow.

He did not attempt to apologize for his intrusion into our company, but without looking to the right or to the left made straight for a vacant seat, and taking it, prepared to listen to the music with marked attention. It was my turn to play, but I was so confused, so utterly by the appearance of this strange personage, that when I struck my violin with the bow my hand trembled so much that I could not produce a sound. I tried again and again, and was about to give it up in despair when the Man in Blue rose from his seat and came directly to me. “Young man,” said he, “you have a more difficult instrument there than you think; hand it to me, I will play in your stead.” I mechanically gave him “Fortunato.” Presently he began. Never in all my life had I before heard such playing. The instrument seemed to have within its wooden frame a divine soul, capable of expressing every possible emotion—joy, grief, passionate agony, and triumphant jubilee. We were all amazed and delighted, and at the termination of his concerto such a burst of enthusiastic applause greeted the singular performer that he seemed quite overcome and confused. However, he bowed his acknowledgments, though in the most grotesque fashion.

It happened that we were on the eve of a grand annual musical festival, at which some of the greatest musicians of Germany had declared their intention of being present. My father, naturally concluding that our guest was some celebrated maestro, who had arrived incognito, hastened to thank him for the favor he had conferred upon us, and also to offer him the hospitality of his house during his stay in our town. The Man in Blue at first refused, then hesitated, and finally accepted my father’s pressing invitation.

For one week we surrounded him with every attention, and he, by his gentle manners and genius, soon won our affection and respect. But all our attempts to find out who he was and whence he came proved vain; he took no notice of our discreet hints, and not one of us dared to ask the question point-blank. He set himself to work to teach me a great many things about the violin of which I was previously ignorant, and to this curious man I owe many of my greatest triumphs. “My son,” he would say, “love music; music is the food of the soul—the only possession we have on earth which we shall retain in Heaven.”

If a stranger happened to pay us a visit, our new friend would immediately take refuge in the garden. He liked to be alone with Karl, myself, and his violin. One day a merchant named Krebbs arrived on business which he had to transact with my father, and as he entered he stumbled against the Man in Blue, who was making good his escape. The poor violinist, on perceiving merchant Krebbs, became as pale as death, tottered to a seat in the garden, and covered with confusion, hid his face in his hands.

“Well, I am sure,” said Krebbs to my father, “you are an odd man to take in that creature. Why, I thought he was in prison, or drowned, or run over.”

“You know him then?” asked my father, with ill-disguised curiosity.

“Know him—of course I do. Why, his name is Bèze; he is a carpenter by trade. But, bless you, he’s as mad as a March hare. Some time ago our church-organ was struck by lightning. Bèze came forward at once, and proposed to mend it, provided the parish furnished him the materials. As he was known for a good musician and a clever workman, our curé granted his request. To work went he; night and day he labored for at least six weeks. At last the organ was mended, Bèze struck a chord or so, and it appeared better than ever. The day arrived for the first public hearing of the renovated instrument; the mayor—all the village, in short, was present; and Bèze himself did not fail to appear, attired as usual in blue. Blue is his color. He made some vow or other, years ago, to the Virgin, never to wear any other but her colors—blue and white. I tell you he is crazy. But to return to the organ. When our old organist began to play upon it, not a sound would it produce—except when he pulled the new stop out. Off went the organ, _whoo whee_, and then it set to squeaking and whistling like mad. The girls began to laugh, the mayor to swear, and the curé grew furious. Bèze is a fool—Bèze is an idiot—he has ruined the organ! cried every one, and soon amid the derision of the congregation, your friend left the church. Strange to say, since that day we have never again seen the creature; but our organ is completely spoilt, and remains dumb.”

Thus spoke merchant Krebbs. I would hear no more, but hurried out to console my poor friend. I found him beneath an apple-tree, sitting all forlorn, his face turned towards the sinking sun. “Ah! my young friend,” he said, “do you see yon little cloud which obscures the splendor of the sun? So the words of a foolish man may tarnish the fame of a genius.”

“But,” I replied, “see, the little cloud has vanished already, and the light of the sun is but the brighter for the contrast.”

He smiled. “The cloud that hangs over my tarnished name will have to pass away soon, or it will be too late. That organ which I constructed has a soul within it. All my life I have labored to know how to lodge my ideal of music within the compass of a single instrument. I have done this. The soul is there. But I know not how to play upon the organ, and they, in their blind rage, will not allow me to explain to them. Oh, if I could, before I die, but find Sebastian Bach! He would call to life the soul of music that lies sleeping in my organ, and prove to the world that Bèze is neither mad nor an impostor.”

My father took no notice of what merchant Krebbs had said, and when he joined us in the garden he entreated Bèze to play for him in the open air. The Man in Blue played for us a number of national and simple melodies in such a pathetic manner that several times I saw tears in my father’s eyes; at last he said, as the musician finished, “Friend, though your organ is a failure, your violin is truly heavenly. Stay with me yet a while.”

“My organ is not a failure; it is the triumph of my life.”

“But no one can play on it.”

“One day some one will, and then——”

“Well, we will say no more about it. Come, the supper is ready.” And he led the way in.

The next morning the Man in Blue was gone. We were sorry for his disappearance; but soon forgot all about it in our anxiety over the festival which was near at hand. Glück had promised to come, and we were anxious to know with whom he would stay. Then Bach arrived, and soon came Graun—illustrious Graun—whose nobility of mind inspired his lovely melodies, and with him those inseparable geniuses, Fürch and Hass. And Hamburg sent us Gasman and Teliman. Those who have never even heard the name of these great composers are yet familiar with their melodies. Many of the popular tunes now so much admired I have heard in my youth fresh from the minds of their original composers, free from the twirls and shakes clumsily added to them to disguise their true origin.

These illustrious persons were as simple and unostentatious in manners as it is possible to be. They assembled in the Hall of St. Cecilia, and I had the privilege of assisting at their rehearsals. I often passed hours listening to their long discourses on harmony, on keys, scales, and chords. One night Glück played, for the first time, a portion of his “Iphigenia;” and on another, Bach enchanted us by a performance of his delightful preludes. Bach, somehow or other, took a fancy to me. He had observed the marked attention with which I listened to the remarks of the different composers, and to their music. He asked me my name, and who my father was; and I in answer, growing bold, not only related all that concerned myself, but also the story of my Friend in Blue.

“An organ that no one can play upon!” exclaimed this great composer; “well, that is singular.”

“But I am sure you can.”

“Why?”

“Because I am certain that the man that made the organ is a great musician, although he cannot play upon it himself. He plays upon the violin.”

“As well as I do?” asked Graun.

I hesitated, and hung my head: I did not dare say “yes,” and yet I would not say “no”.

“Speak up, my boy; say the truth always, and shame the devil.”

“He plays better than you, sir, I think; but then he plays out in the woods, and music sounds better there than in a close room.”

“True, it does.”

“My masters,” said I at last, after some hesitation, “will any one of you, in your charity, try the organ—the village is not distant—and thus justify the poor man?”

“I will myself,” answered Bach, “on Sunday. But say nothing about it to any one. Only to your friend, if you can find him, in order to induce him to be present in the church on that morning.”

With heartfelt thanks I gave the illustrious composer my promise to obey in every particular his injunctions.

On leaving the St. Cecilia Hall that evening (it was Friday) almost the first person I met was, to my surprise, the Man in Blue. Hidden in the courtyard of the Hall, he had been listening to the music, and was in a state of nervous enthusiasm which quite alarmed me. I hesitated to inform him what Bach intended to do, but at last I did so; he received the news in a manner that I little expected. He made no demonstration of joy, but followed me in silence until we were in a lonely part of the town—a little square in the centre of which grew three or four old trees. Here he paused, and sinking on his knees, prayed earnestly. The moon shone down upon his uplifted face, and it seemed almost beautiful, so great was the expression it bore of devotion and intellect. When he had finished his prayer he embraced me in silence, and we parted.