Chapter XXI: Act V: Scene II (3)

In one corner of his sensual mouth rested the stump of a cigar. Once during the proceedings he had produced another, lighted it, and continued quietly smoking. If he took to himself any shame as the central figure of this ignoble performance, no one knew it. There was something almost royal in his unconcern. The humor, the badinage, the open contempt, of which he was the public target, fell thick and fast upon him, but as harmlessly as would balls of pith upon a coat of mail. In truth, there was that in his great, lazy, gentle, good-humored bulk and bearing which made the gibes seem all but despicable. He shuffled from one foot to the other as though he found it a trial to stand up so long, but all the while looking the spectators full in the eyes without the least impatience. He suffered the man of the factory to walk round him and push and pinch his muscles as calmly as though he had been the show bull at a country fair. Once only, when the sheriff had pointed across the street at the figure of Mr. Clay, he had looked quickly in that direction with a kindling light in his eye and a passing flush on his face. For the rest, he seemed like a man who has drained his cup of human life and has nothing left him but to fill again and drink without the least surprise or eagerness.

The bidding between the man of the factory and the student had gone slowly on. The price had reached ten dollars. The heat was intense, the sheriff tired. Then something occurred to revivify the scene. Across the market place and toward the steps of the court-house there suddenly came trundling along in breathless haste a huge old negress, carrying on one arm a large shallow basket containing apple-crab lanterns and fresh gingerbread. With a series of half-articulate grunts and snorts she approached the edge of the crowd and tried to force her way through. She coaxed, she begged, she elbowed and pushed and scolded, now laughing, and now with the passion of tears in her thick, excited voice. All at once, catching sight of the sheriff, she lifted one ponderous brown arm, naked to the elbow, and waved her hand to him above the heads of those in front.

"Hole on marster! hole on!" she cried in a tone of humorous entreaty. "Don' knock 'im off till I come! Gim _me_ a bid at 'im!"

The sheriff paused and smiled. The crowd made way tumultuously, with broad laughter and comment.

"Stan' aside theah an' let Aun' Charlotte in!"

"_Now_ you'll see biddin'!"

"Get out of the way foh Aun' Charlotte!"

"Up, my free niggah! Hurrah foh Kentucky."

A moment more and she stood inside the ring of spectators, her basket on the pavement at her feet, her hands plumped akimbo into her fathomless sides, her head up, and her soft, motherly eyes turned eagerly upon the sheriff. Of the crowd she seemed unconscious, and on the vagrant before her she had not cast a single glance.

She was dressed with perfect neatness. A red and yellow Madras kerchief was bound about her head in a high coil, and another over the bosom of her stiffly starched and smoothly ironed blue cottonade dress. Rivulets of perspiration ran down over her nose, her temples, and around her ears, and disappeared mysteriously in the creases of her brown neck. A single drop accidentally hung glistening like a diamond on the circlet of one of her large brass earrings.

The sheriff looked at her a moment, smiling but a little disconcerted. The spectacle was unprecedented.

"What do you want heah, Aun' Charlotte?" he asked kindly. "You can't sell yo' pies an' gingerbread heah."

"I don' _wan_' sell no pies en gingerbread," she replied, contemptuously. "I wan' bid on _him_," and she nodded sidewise at the vagrant. "White folks allers sellin' niggahs to wuk fuh _dem_; I gwine to buy a white man to wuk fuh _me_. En he gwine t' git a mighty hard mistiss, you heah _me_!"

The eyes of the sheriff twinkled with delight.

"Ten dollahs is offahed foh ole King Sol'mon. Is theah any othah bid. Are you all done?"

"Leben," she said.

Two young ragamuffins crawled among the legs of the crowd up to her basket and filched pies and cake beneath her very nose.

"Twelve!" cried the student, laughing.

"Thirteen!" she laughed, too, but her eyes flashed.

"_You are bidding against a niggah_" whispered the student's companion in his ear.

"So I am; let's be off," answered the other, with a hot flush on his proud face.

Thus the sale was ended, and the crowd variously dispersed. In a distant corner of the courtyard the ragged urchins were devouring their unexpected booty. The old negress drew a red handkerchief out of her bosom, untied a knot in a corner of it, and counted out the money to the sheriff. Only she and the vagrant were now left on the spot.

"You have bought me. What do you want me to do?" he asked quietly.

"Lohd, honey!" she answered, in a low tone of affectionate chiding, "I don' wan' you to do _no thin_'! I wuzn' gwine t' 'low dem white folks to buy you. Dey'd wuk you till you dropped dead. You go 'long en do ez you please."

She gave a cunning chuckle of triumph in thus setting at naught the ends of justice, and in a voice rich and musical with affection, she said, as she gave him a little push:

"You bettah be gittin' out o' dis blazin' sun. G' on home! I be 'long by-en-by."

He turned and moved slowly away in the direction of Water Street, where she lived; and she, taking up her basket, shuffled across the market place toward Cheapside, muttering to herself the while:

"I come mighty nigh gittin' dar too late, foolin' long wid dese pies. Sellin' _him_ 'ca'se he don' wuk! Umph! if all de men in dis town dat don' wuk wuz to be tuk up en sole, d' wouldn' be 'nough money in de town to buy em! Don' I see 'em settin' 'roun' dese taverns f'om mohnin' till night?"

Nature soon smiles upon her own ravages and strews our graves with flowers, not as memories, but for other flowers when the spring returns.

It was one cool, brilliant morning late in that autumn. The air blew fresh and invigorating, as though on the earth there were no corruption, no death. Far southward had flown the plague. A spectator in the open court square might have seen many signs of life returning to the town. Students hurried along, talking eagerly. Merchants met for the first time and spoke of the winter trade. An old negress, gayly and neatly dressed, came into the market place, and sitting down on a sidewalk displayed her yellow and red apples and fragrant gingerbread. She hummed to herself an old cradle-song, and in her soft, motherly black eyes shone a mild, happy radiance. A group of young ragamuffins eyed her longingly from a distance. Court was to open for the first time since the spring. The hour was early, and one by one the lawyers passed slowly in. On the steps of the court-house three men were standing: Thomas Brown, the sheriff; old Peter Leuba, who had just walked over from his music store on Main Street; and little M. Giron, the French confectioner. Each wore mourning on his hat, and their voices were low and grave.

"Gentlemen," the sheriff was saying, "it was on this very spot the day befoah the cholera broke out that I sole 'im as a vagrant. An' I did the meanes' thing a man can evah do. I hel' 'im up to public ridicule foh his weakness an' made spoht of 'is infirmities. I laughed at 'is povahty an' 'is ole clo'es. I delivahed on 'im as complete an oration of sarcastic detraction as I could prepare on the spot, out of my own meanness an' with the vulgah sympathies of the crowd. Gentlemen, if I only had that crowd heah now, an' ole King Sol'mon standin' in the midst of it, that I might ask 'im to accept a humble public apology, offahed from the heaht of one who feels himself unworthy to shake 'is han'! But gentlemen, that crowd will nevah reassemble. Neahly ev'ry man of them is dead, an' ole King Sol'mon buried them."

"He buried my friend Adolphe Xaupi," said François Giron, touching his eyes with his handkerchief.

"There is a case of my best Jamaica rum for him whenever he comes for it," said old Leuba, clearing his throat.

"But, gentlemen, while we are speakin' of ole King Sol'mon we ought not to forget who it is that has suppohted 'im. Yondah she sits on the sidewalk, sellin' 'er apples an' gingerbread."

The three men looked in the direction indicated.

"Heah comes ole King Sol'mon now," exclaimed the sheriff.

Across the open square the vagrant was seen walking slowly along with his habitual air of quiet, unobtrusive preoccupation. A minute more and he had come over and passed into the court-house by a side door.

"Is Mr. Clay to be in court to-day?"

"He is expected, I think."

"Then let's go in: there will be a crowd."

"I don't know: so many are dead."

They turned and entered and found seats as quietly as possible; for a strange and sorrowful hush brooded over the court-room. Until the bar assembled, it had not been realized how many were gone. The silence was that of a common overwhelming disaster. No one spoke with his neighbor; no one observed the vagrant as he entered and made his way to a seat on one of the meanest benches, a little apart from the others. He had not sat there since the day of his indictment for vagrancy. The judge took his seat, and making a great effort to control himself, passed his eyes slowly over the court-room. All at once he caught sight of old King Solomon sitting against the wall in an obscure corner; and before any one could know what he was doing, he had hurried down and walked up to the vagrant and grasped his hand. He tried to speak, but could not. Old King Solomon had buried his wife and daughter,--buried them one clouded midnight, with no one present but himself.

Then the oldest member of the bar started up and followed the example; and then the other members, rising by a common impulse, filed slowly back and one by one wrung that hard and powerful hand. After them came the other persons in the court-room. The vagrant, the gravedigger, had risen and stood against the wall, at first with a white face and a dazed expression, not knowing what it meant; afterwards, when he understood it, his head dropped suddenly forward and his tears fell thick and hot upon the hands that he could not see. And his were not the only tears. Not a man in the long file but paid his tribute of emotion as he stepped forward to honor that image of sadly eclipsed but still effulgent humanity. It was not grief, it was not gratitude, nor any sense of making reparation for the past. It was the softening influence of an act of heroism, which makes every man feel himself a brother hand in hand with every other;--such power has a single act of moral greatness to reverse the relations of men, lifting up one, and bringing all others to do him homage.

It was the coronation scene in the life of 'Ole' King Solomon of Kentucky.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM

(1828-1889)

Each form of verse has, in addition to its laws of structure, a subtle quality as difficult to define as the perfume of a flower. The poem, 'An Evening,' given below, may be classified both as a song and as a lyric; yet it needs no music other than its own rhythms, and the full close to each verse which falls upon the ear like a soft and final chord ending a musical composition. A light touch and a feeling for shades of meaning are required to execute such dainty verse. In 'St. Margaret's Eve,' and in many other ballads, Allingham expresses the broader, more dramatic sweep of the ballad, and reveals his Celtic ancestry.

The lovable Irishman, William Allingham, worked hard to enter the brotherhood of poets. When he was only fourteen his father took him from school to become clerk in the town bank of which he himself was manager. "The books which he had to keep for the next seven years were not those on which his heart was set," says Mr. George Birkbeck Hill. But this fortune is almost an inevitable part, and probably not the worst part, of the training for a literary vocation; and he justified his ambitions by pluckily studying alone till he had mastered Greek, Latin, French, and German.

Mr. Hill, in his 'Letters of D.G. Rossetti' (Atlantic Monthly, May, 1896), thus quotes Allingham's own delightful description of his early home at Ballyshannon, County Donegal:--

"The little old town where I was born has a voice of its own,
low, solemn, persistent, humming through the air day and
night, summer and winter. Whenever I think of that town I
seem to hear the voice. The river which makes it rolls over
rocky ledges into the tide. Before spreads a great ocean in
sunshine or storm; behind stretches a many-islanded lake. On
the south runs a wavy line of blue mountains; and on the
north, over green rocky hills rise peaks of a more distant
range. The trees hide in glens or cluster near the river;
gray rocks and bowlders lie scattered about the windy
pastures. The sky arches wide over all, giving room to
multitudes of stars by night, and long processions of clouds
blown from the sea; but also, in the childish memory where
these pictures live, to deeps of celestial blue in the
endless days of summer. An odd, out-of-the-way little town,
ours, on the extreme western edge of Europe; our next
neighbors, sunset way, being citizens of the great new
republic, which indeed, to our imagination, seemed little if
at all farther off than England in the opposite direction."

Of the cottage in which he spent most of his childhood and youth he writes:--

"Opposite the hall door a good-sized walnut-tree leaned its
wrinkled stem towards the house, and brushed some of the
second-story panes with its broad, fragrant leaves. To sit at
that little upper window when it was open to a summer
twilight, and the great tree rustled gently, and sent one
leafy spray so far that it even touched my face, was an
enchantment beyond all telling. Killarney, Switzerland,
Venice, could not, in later life, come near it. On three
sides the cottage looked on flowers and branches, which I
count as one of the fortunate chances of my childhood; the
sense of natural beauty thus receiving its due share of
nourishment, and of a kind suitable to those early years."

At last a position in the Customs presented itself:--

"In the spring of 1846 I gladly took leave forever of
discount ledgers and current accounts, and went to Belfast
for two months' instruction in the duties of Principal Coast
Officer of Customs; a tolerably well-sounding title, but
which carried with it a salary of but £80 a year. I trudged
daily about the docks and timber-yards, learning to measure
logs, piles of planks, and, more troublesome, ships for
tonnage; indoors, part of the time practiced customs
book-keeping, and talked to the clerks about literature and
poetry in a way that excited some astonishment, but on the
whole, as I found at parting, a certain degree of curiosity
and respect. I preached Tennyson to them. My spare time was
mostly spent in reading and haunting booksellers' shops
where, I venture to say, I laid out a good deal more than
most people, in proportion to my income, and managed to get
glimpses of many books which I could not afford or did not
care to buy. I enjoyed my new position, on the whole, without
analysis, as a great improvement on the bank; and for the
rest, my inner mind was brimful of love and poetry, and
usually all external things appeared trivial save in their
relation to it."

Of Allingham's early song-writing, his friend Arthur Hughes says:--

"Rossetti, and I think Allingham himself, told me, in the
early days of our acquaintance, how in remote Ballyshannon,
where he was a clerk in the Customs, in evening walks he
would hear the Irish girls at their cottage doors singing old
ballads, which he would pick up. If they were broken or
incomplete, he would add to them or finish them; if they were
improper he would refine them. He could not get them sung
till he got the Dublin Catnach of that day to print them, on
long strips of blue paper, like old songs, and if about the
sea, with the old rough woodcut of a ship on the top. He
either gave them away or they were sold in the neighborhood.
Then, in his evening walks, he had at last the pleasure of
hearing some of his own ballads sung at the cottage doors by
the blooming lasses, who were quite unaware that it was the
author who was passing by."

In 1850 Allingham published a small volume of lyrics whose freshness and delicacy seemed to announce a new singer, and four years later his 'Day and Night Songs' strengthened this impression. Stationed as revenue officer in various parts of England, he wrote much verse, and published also the 'The Rambles of Patricius Walker,' a collection of essays upon his walks through England; 'Lawrence Bloomfield in Ireland,' the tale of a young landlord's efforts to improve the condition of his tenantry; an anthology, 'Nightingale Valley' (1862), and an excellent collection of English ballads, 'The Ballad Book' (1865).

In 1870 he gladly embraced an opportunity to leave the Customs for the position of assistant editor of Fraser's Magazine under Froude, whom he afterward succeeded as editor. He was now a member of a brilliant literary circle, knew Tennyson, Ruskin, and Carlyle, and was admitted into the warm friendship of the Pre-Raphaelites. But in no way does he reflect the Pre-Raphaelite spirit by which he was surrounded; nor does he write his lyrics in the metres and rhythms of mediaeval France. He is as oblivious of rondeaux, ballades, and roundels, as he is of fair damosels with cygnet necks and full pomegranate lips. He is a child of nature, whose verse is free from all artificial inspiration or expression, and seems to flow easily, clearly, and tenderly from his pen. Some of it errs in being too fanciful. In the Flower-Songs, indeed, he sometimes becomes trivial in his comparison of each English poet to a special flower; but his poetry is usually sincere with an undercurrent of pathos, as in 'The Ruined Chapel,' 'The Winter Pear,' and the 'Song.' For lightness of touch and aerial grace, 'The Bubble' will bear comparison with any verse of its own _genre_. 'Robin Redbreast' has many delightful lines; and in 'The Fairies' one is taken into the realm of Celtic folklore, which is Allingham's inheritance, where the Brownies, the Pixies, and the Leprechauns trip over the dew-spangled meadows, or dance on the yellow sands, and then vanish away in fantastic mists. Quite different is 'Lovely Mary Donnelly,' which is a sample of the popular songs that made him a favorite in his own country.

After his death at Hampstead in 1889, his body was cremated according to his wish, when these lines of his own were read:--

"Body to purifying flame,
Soul to the Great Deep whence it came,
Leaving a song on earth below,
An urn of ashes white as snow."

THE RUINED CHAPEL

By the shore, a plot of ground
Clips a ruined chapel round,
Buttressed with a grassy mound;
Where Day and Night and Day go by
And bring no touch of human sound.

Washing of the lonely seas,
Shaking of the guardian trees,
Piping of the salted breeze;
Day and Night and Day go by
To the endless tune of these.

Or when, as winds and waters keep
A hush more dead than any sleep,
Still morns to stiller evenings creep,
And Day and Night and Day go by;
Here the silence is most deep.

The empty ruins, lapsed again
Into Nature's wide domain,
Sow themselves with seed and grain
As Day and Night and Day go by;
And hoard June's sun and April's rain.

Here fresh funeral tears were shed;
Now the graves are also dead;
And suckers from the ash-tree spread,
While Day and Night and Day go by;
And stars move calmly overhead.

From 'Day and Night Songs.'

THE WINTER PEAR

Is always Age severe?
Is never Youth austere?
Spring-fruits are sour to eat;
Autumn's the mellow time.
Nay, very late in the year,
Short day and frosty rime,
Thought, like a winter pear,
Stone-cold in summer's prime,
May turn from harsh to sweet.

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

SONG

O spirit of the Summer-time!
Bring back the roses to the dells;
The swallow from her distant clime,
The honey-bee from drowsy cells.

Bring back the friendship of the sun;
The gilded evenings calm and late,
When weary children homeward run,
And peeping stars bid lovers wait.

Bring back the singing; and the scent
Of meadow-lands at dewy prime;
Oh, bring again my heart's content,
Thou Spirit of the Summer-time!

From 'Day and Night Songs.'

THE BUBBLE

See the pretty planet!
Floating sphere!
Faintest breeze will fan it
Far or near;

World as light as feather;
Moonshine rays,
Rainbow tints together,
As it plays.

Drooping, sinking, failing,
Nigh to earth,
Mounting, whirling, sailing,
Full of mirth;

Life there, welling, flowing,
Waving round;
Pictures coming, going,
Without sound.

Quick now, be this airy
Globe repelled!
Never can the fairy
Star be held.

Touched--it in a twinkle
Disappears!
Leaving but a sprinkle,
As of tears.

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

ST. MARGARET'S EVE

I built my castle upon the seaside,
The waves roll so gayly O,
Half on the land and half in the tide,
Love me true!

Within was silk, without was stone,
The waves roll so gayly O,
It lacks a queen, and that alone,
Love me true!

The gray old harper sang to me,
The waves roll so gayly O,
"Beware of the Damsel of the Sea!"
Love me true!

Saint Margaret's Eve it did befall,
The waves roll so gayly O,
The tide came creeping up the wall,
Love me true!

I opened my gate; who there should stand--
The waves roll so gayly O,
But a fair lady, with a cup in her hand,
Love me true!

The cup was gold, and full of wine,
The waves roll so gayly O,
"Drink," said the lady, "and I will be thine,"
Love me true!

"Enter my castle, lady fair,"
The waves roll so gayly O,
"You shall be queen of all that's there,"
Love me true!

A gray old harper sang to me,
The waves roll so gayly O,
"Beware of the Damsel of the Sea!"
Love me true!

In hall he harpeth many a year,
The waves roll so gayly O,
And we will sit his song to hear,
Love me true!

"I love thee deep, I love thee true,"
The waves roll so gayly O,
"But ah! I know not how to woo,"
Love me true!

Down dashed the cup, with a sudden shock,
The waves roll so gayly O,
The wine like blood ran over the rock,
Love me true!

She said no word, but shrieked aloud,
The waves roll so gayly O,
And vanished away from where she stood,
Love me true!

I locked and barred my castle door,
The waves roll so gayly O,
Three summer days I grieved sore,
Love me true!

For myself a day, a night,
The waves roll so gayly O,
And two to moan that lady bright,
Love me true!

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

THE FAIRIES

(A CHILD'S SONG)

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a hunting
For fear of little men:
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather.

Down along the rocky shore
Some have made their home;
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow-tide foam.
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Sliveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay northern lights.

They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lakes,
On a bed of flag leaves
Watching till she wakes.

By the craggy hillside,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall feel their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a hunting
For fear of little men:
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather.

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

ROBIN REDBREAST

(A CHILD'S SONG)

Good-by, good-by, to Summer!
For Summer's nearly done;
The garden smiling faintly,
Cool breezes in the sun;
Our Thrushes now are silent,
Our Swallows flown away--
But Robin's here, in coat of brown,
With ruddy breast-knot gay.
Robin, Robin Redbreast,
Oh, Robin, dear!
Robin singing sweetly
In the falling of the year.

Bright yellow, red, and orange,
The leaves come down in hosts;
The trees are Indian Princes,
But soon they'll turn to Ghosts;
The scanty pears and apples
Hang russet on the bough,
It's Autumn, Autumn, Autumn late,
'Twill soon be winter now.
Robin, Robin Redbreast,
Oh, Robin, dear!
And welaway! my Robin,
For pinching times are near.

The fireside for the Cricket,
The wheatstack for the Mouse,
When trembling night-winds whistle
And moan all round the house.
The frosty ways like iron,
The branches plumed with snow--
Alas! in Winter, dead and dark,
Where can poor Robin go?
Robin, Robin Redbreast,
Oh, Robin, dear!
And a crumb of bread for Robin,
His little heart to cheer.

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

AN EVENING

Sunset's mounded cloud;
A diamond evening-star;
Sad blue hills afar:
Love in his shroud.

Scarcely a tear to shed;
Hardly a word to say;
The end of a summer's day;
Sweet Love is dead.

From 'Day and Night Songs.'

DAFFODIL

Gold tassel upon March's bugle-horn,
Whose blithe reveille blows from hill to hill
And every valley rings--O Daffodil!
What promise for the season newly born?
Shall wave on wave of flow'rs, full tide of corn,
O'erflow the world, then fruited Autumn fill
Hedgerow and garth? Shall tempest, blight, or chill
Turn all felicity to scathe and scorn?

Tantarrara! the joyous Book of Spring
Lies open, writ in blossoms; not a bird
Of evil augury is seen or heard:
Come now, like Pan's old crew, we'll dance and sing,
Or Oberon's: for hill and valley ring
To March's bugle-horn,--Earth's blood is stirred.

From 'Flower Pieces.'

LOVELY MARY DONNELLY

(To an Irish Tune)

O lovely Mary Donnelly, it's you I love the best!
If fifty girls were round you, I'd hardly see the rest.
Be what it may the time of day, the place be where it will,
Sweet looks of Mary Donnelly, they bloom before me still.

Her eyes like mountain water that's flowing on a rock,
How clear they are, how dark they are! and they give me many a shock.
Red rowans warm in sunshine and wetted with a shower,
Could ne'er express the charming lip that has me in its power.

Her nose is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up;
Her chin is very neat and pert, and smooth like a china cup;
Her hair's the brag of Ireland, so weighty and so fine,
It's rolling down upon her neck and gathered in a twine.

The dance o' last Whit Monday night exceeded all before;
No pretty girl for miles about was missing from the floor;
But Mary kept the belt of love, and oh, but she was gay!
She danced a jig, she sung a song, that took my heart away.

When she stood up for dancing, her steps were so complete,
The music nearly killed itself to listen to her feet;
The fiddler moaned his blindness, he heard her so much praised,
But blessed himself he wasn't deaf, when once her voice she raised.

And evermore I'm whistling or lilting what you sung,
Your smile is always in my heart, your name beside my tongue;
But you've as many sweethearts as you'd count on both your hands,
And for myself there's not a thumb or little finger stands.

Oh, you're the flower o' womankind in country or in town;
The higher I exalt you, the lower I'm cast down.
If some great lord should come this way, and see your beauty bright,
And you to be his lady, I'd own it was but right.

Oh, might we live together in a lofty palace hall,
Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall!
Oh, might we live together in a cottage mean and small,
With sods of grass the only roof, and mud the only wall!

O lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty's my distress:
It's far too beauteous to be mine, but I'll never wish it less.
The proudest place would fit your face, and I am poor and low;
But blessings be about you, dear, wherever you may go!

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

KARL JONAS LUDVIG ALMQUIST

(1793-1866)

Almquist, one of the most versatile writers of Sweden, was a man of strange contrasts, a genius as uncertain as a will-o'-the-wisp. His contemporary, the famous poet and critic Atterbom, writes:--

"What did the great poets of past times possess which upheld
them under even the bitterest worldly circumstances? Two
things: one a strong and conscientious will, the other a
single--not double, much less manifold--determination for
their work, oneness. They were not self-seekers; they sought,
they worshiped something better than themselves. The aim
which stood dimly before their inmost souls was not the
enjoyment of flattered vanity; it was a high, heroic symbol
of love of honor and love of country, of heavenly wisdom. For
this they thought it worth while to fight, for this they even
thought it worth while to suffer, without finding the
suffering in itself strange, or calling earth to witness
thereof.... The writer of 'Törnrosens Bok' [The Book of the
Rose] is one of these few; he does therefore already reign
over a number of youthful hearts, and out of them will rise
his time of honor, a time when many of the celebrities of the
present moment will have faded away."

Almquist was born in Stockholm in 1793. When still a very young man he obtained a good official position, but gave it up in 1823 to lead a colony of friends into the forests of Värmland, where they intended to return to a primitive life close to the heart of nature. He called this colony a "Man's-home Association," and ordained that in the primeval forest the members should live in turf-covered huts, wear homespun, eat porridge with a wooden spoon, and enact the ancient freeholder. The experiment was not successful, he tired of the manual work, and returning to Stockholm, became master of the new Elementary School, and began to write text-books and educational works. His publication of a number of epics, dramas, lyrics, and romances made him suddenly famous. Viewed as a whole, this collection is generally called 'The Book of the Rose,' but at times 'En Irrande Hind' (A Stray Deer). Of this, the two dramas, 'Signora Luna' and 'Ramido Marinesco,' contain some of the pearls of Swedish literature. Uneven in the plan and execution, they are yet masterly in dialogue, and their dramatic and tragic force is great. Almquist's imagination showed itself as individual as it is fantastic. Coming from a man hitherto known as the writer of text-books and the advocate of popular social ideas, the volumes aroused extraordinary interest. The author revealed himself as akin to Novalis and Victor Hugo, with a power of language like that of Atterbom, and a richness of color resembling Tegnèr's. Atterbom himself wrote of 'Törnrosens Bok' that it was a work whose "faults were exceedingly easy to overlook and whose beauties exceedingly difficult to match."

After this appeared in rapid succession, and written with equal ease, lyrical, dramatic, educational, poetical, aesthetical, philosophical, moral, and religious treatises, as well as lectures and studies in history and law; for Almquist now gave all his time to literary labors. His novels showed socialistic sympathies, and he put forth newspaper articles and pamphlets on Socialism which aroused considerable opposition. Moreover, he delighted in contradictions. One day he wrote as an avowed Christian, extolling virtue, piety, and Christian knowledge; the next, he abrogated religion as entirely unnecessary: and his own explanation of this variability was merely--"I paint so because it pleases me to paint so, and life is not otherwise."

In 1851 was heard the startling rumor that he was accused of forgery and charged with murder. He fled from Sweden and disappeared from the knowledge of men. Going to America, he earned under a fictitious name a scanty living, and became, it is said, the private secretary of Abraham Lincoln. In 1866 he found himself again under the ban of the law, his papers were destroyed, and he escaped with difficulty to Bremen, where he died.

One of his latest works was his excellent modern novel, 'Det Går An' (It's All Right), a forerunner of the "problem novel" of the day. It is an attack upon conventional marriage, and pictures the helplessness of a woman in the hands of a depraved man. Its extreme views called out violent criticism.

He was a romanticist through and through, with a strong leaning toward the French school. Among the best of his tales are 'Araminta May,' 'Skällnora Quarn' (Skällnora's Mill), and 'Grimstahamns Nybygge' (Grimstahamn's Settlement). His idyl 'Kapellet' (The Chapel) is wonderfully true to nature, and his novel 'Palatset' (The Palace) is rich in humor and true poesy. His literary fame will probably rest on his romances, which are the best of their kind in Swedish literature.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CATTLE

Any one with a taste for physiognomy should carefully observe the features of the ox and the cow; their demeanor and the expression of their eyes. They are figures which bear an extraordinary stamp of respectability. They look neither joyful nor melancholy. They are seldom evilly disposed, but never sportive. They are full of gravity, and always seem to be going about their business. They are not merely of great economic service, but their whole persons carry the look of it. They are the very models of earthly carefulness.

Nothing is ever to be seen more dignified, more official-looking, than the whole behavior of the ox; his way of carrying his head, and looking around him. If anybody thinks I mean these words for a sarcasm, he is mistaken: no slur on official life, or on what the world calls a man's vocation, is intended. I hold them all in as much respect as could be asked. And though I have an eye for contours, no feeling of ridicule is connected in my mind with any of these. On the contrary, I regard the ox and the cow with the warmest feelings of esteem. I admire in them a naïve and striking picture of one who minds his own business; who submits to the claims of duty, not using the word in its highest sense; who in the world's estimate is dignified, steady, conventional, and middle-aged,--that is to say, neither youthful nor stricken in years.

Look at that ox which stands before you, chewing his cud and gazing around him with such unspeakable thoughtfulness--but which you will find, when you look more closely into his eyes, is thinking about nothing at all. Look at that discreet, excellent Dutch cow, which, gifted with an inexhaustible udder, stands quietly and allows herself to be milked as a matter of course, while she gazes into space with a most sensible expression. Whatever she does, she does with the same imperturbable calmness, and as when a person leaves an important trust to his own time and to posterity. If the worth of this creature is thus great on the one side, yet on the other it must be confessed that she possesses not a single trait of grace, not a particle of vivacity, and none of that quick characteristic retreating from an object which indicates an internal buoyancy, an elastic temperament, such as we see in a bird or fish.... There is something very agreeable in the varied lowing of cattle when heard in the distant country, and when replied to by a large herd, especially toward evening and amid echoes. On the other hand, nothing is more unpleasant than to hear all at once, and just beside one, the bellowing of a bull, who thus authoritatively announces himself, as if nobody else had any right to utter a syllable in his presence.

A NEW UNDINE

From 'The Book of the Rose'

Miss Rudensköld and her companion sat in one of the pews in the cheerful and beautiful church of Normalm, which is all that is left of the once famous cloister of St. Clara, and still bears the saint's name. The sermon was finished, and the strong full tones of the organ, called out by the skillful hands of an excellent organist, hovered like the voices of unseen angel choirs in the high vaults of the church, floated down to the listeners, and sank deep into their hearts.

Azouras did not speak a single word; neither did she sing, for she did not know a whole hymn through. Nor did Miss Rudensköld sing, because it was not her custom to sing in church. During the organ solo, however, Miss Rudensköld ventured to make some remarks about Dr. Asplund's sermon which was so beautiful, and about the notices afterward which were so tiresome. But when her neighbor did not answer, but sat looking ahead with large, almost motionless eyes, as people stare without looking at anything in particular, she changed her subject.

At one of the organ tones which finished a cadence, Azouras started, and blinked quickly with her eyelids, and a light sigh showed that she came back to herself and her friend, from her vague contemplative state of mind. Something indescribable, very sad, shone in her eyes, and made them almost black; and with a childlike look at Miss Rudensköld she asked, "Tell me what that large painting over there represents."

"The altar-piece? Don't you know? The altar-piece in Clara is one of the most beautiful we possess."

"What is going on there?" asked Azouras.

Miss Rudensköld gave her a side glance; she did not know that her neighbor in the pew was a girl without baptism, without Christianity, without the slightest knowledge of holy religion, a heathen--and knew less than a heathen, for such a one has his teachings, although they are not Christian. Miss Rudensköld thought the girl's question came of a momentary forgetfulness, and answered, to remind her:--

"Well, you see, it is one of the usual subjects, but unusually well painted, that is all. High up among the other figures in the painting you will see the half-reclining figure of one that is dead--see what an expression the painter has put into the face!--That is the Saviour."

"The Saviour?"

"Yes, God's son, you know; or God Himself."

"And he is dead?" repeated Azouras to herself with wondering eyes. "Yes, I believe that; it must be so: it is godlike to die!"

Miss Rudensköld looked at her neighbor with wide-opened eyes. "You must not misunderstand this subject," she said. "It is human to live and want to live; you can see that, too, in the altar-piece, for all the persons who are human beings, like ourselves, are alive."

"Let us go out! I feel oppressed by fear--no, I will tarry here until my fear passes away. Go, dearest, I will send you word."

Miss Rudensköld took leave of her; went out of the church and over the churchyard to the Eastern Gate, which faces Oden's lane....

The girl meanwhile stayed inside; came to a corner in the organ stairs; saw people go out little by little; remained unobserved, and finally heard the sexton and the church-keeper go away. When the last door was closed, Azouras stepped out of her hiding-place. Shut out from the entire world, severed from all human beings, she found herself the only occupant of the large, light building, into which the sun lavishly poured his gold.

Although she was entirely ignorant of our holy church customs and the meaning of the things she saw around her, she had nevertheless, sometimes in the past, when her mother was in better health, been present at the church service as a pastime, and so remembered one thing and another. The persons with whom she lived, in the halls and corridors of the opera, hardly ever went to God's house; and generally speaking, church-going was not practiced much during this time. No wonder, then, that a child who was not a member of any religious body, and who had never received an enlightening word from any minister, should neglect what the initiated themselves did not attend to assiduously.

She walked up the aisle, and never had the sad, strange feeling of utter loneliness taken hold of her as it did now; it was coupled with the apprehension of a great, overhanging danger. Her heart beat wildly; she longed unspeakably--but for what? for her wild free forest out there, where she ran around quick as a deer? or for what?

She walked up toward the choir and approached the altar railing. "Here at least--I remember that once--but that was long ago, and it stands like a shadow before my memory--I saw many people kneel here: it must have been of some use to them? Suppose I did likewise?"

Nevertheless she thought it would be improper for her to kneel down on the decorated cushions around the chancel. She folded her hands and knelt outside of the choir on the bare stone floor. But what more was she to do or say now? Of what use was it all? Where was she to turn?

She knew nothing. She looked down into her own thoughts as into an immense, silent dwelling. Feelings of sorrow and a sense of transiency moved in slow swells, like shining, breaking waves, through her consciousness. "Oh--something to lean on--a help--where? where? where?"

She looked quietly about her; she saw nobody. She was sure to meet the most awful danger when the door was opened, if help did not come first.

She turned her eyes back toward the organ, and in her thoughts she besought grace of the straight, long, shining pipes. But all their mouths were silent now.

She looked up to the pulpit; nobody was standing there. In the pews nobody. She had sent everybody away from here and from herself.

She turned her head again toward the choir. She remembered that when she had seen so many gathered here, two ministers in vestments had moved about inside of the railing and had offered the kneeling worshipers something. No doubt to help them! But now--there was nobody inside there. To be sure she was kneeling here with folded hands and praying eyes; but there was nobody, nobody, nobody who offered her the least little thing. She wept.

She looked out of the great church windows to the clear noonday sky; her eyes beheld the delicate azure light which spread itself over everything far, far away, but on nothing could her eyes rest. There were no stars to be seen now, and the sun itself was hidden by the window post, although its mild golden light flooded the world.

She looked away again, and her eyes sank to the ground. Her knees were resting on a tombstone, and she saw many of the same kind about her. She read the names engraven on the stones; they were all Swedish, correct and well-known. "Oh," she said to herself with a sigh, "I have not a name like others! My names have been many, borrowed,--and oh, often changed. I did not get one to be my very own! If only I had one like other people! Nobody has written me down in a book as I have heard it said others are written down. Nobody asks about me. I have nothing to do with anybody! Poor Azouras," she whispered low to herself. She wept much.

There was no one else who said "poor Azouras Tintomara!" but it was as if an inner, higher, invisible being felt sorry for the outer, bodily, visible being, both one and the same person in her. She wept bitterly over herself.

"God is dead," she thought, and looked up at the large altar-piece again. "But I am a human being; I must live." And she wept more heartily, more bitterly....

The afternoon passed, and the hour for vespers struck. The bells in the tower began to lift their solemn voices, and keys rattled in the lock. Then the heathen girl sprang up, and, much like a thin vanishing mist, disappeared from the altar. She hid in her corner again. It seemed to her that she had been forward, and had taken liberties in the choir of the church to which she had no right; and that in the congregation coming in now, she saw persons who had a right to everything.

Nevertheless, when the harmonious tones of the organ began to mix with the fragrant summer air in the church, Azouras stood radiant, and she felt quickly how the weight lifted from her breast. Was it because of the tears she had shed? Or did an unknown helper at this moment scatter the fear in her heart?

She felt no more that it would be dangerous to leave the church; she stole away, before vespers were over, came out into the churchyard and turned off to the northern gate.

GOD'S WAR

His mighty weapon drawing,
God smites the world he loves;
Thus, worthy of him growing,
She his reflection proves.
God's war like lightning striking,
The heart's deep core lays bare,
Which fair grows to his liking
Who is supremely fair.

Escapes no weakness shame,
No hid, ignoble feeling;
But when his thunder pealing
Enkindles life's deep flame,
And water clear upwelleth,
Flowing unto its goal,
God's grand cross standing, telleth
His truth unto the soul.
Sing, God's war, earth that shakes!
Sing, sing the peace he makes!

JOHANNA AMBROSIUS

(1854-)

Before the year 1895 the name of the German peasant, Johanna Ambrosius, was hardly known, even within her own country. Now her melodious verse has made her one of the most popular writers in Germany. Her genius found its way from the humble farm in Eastern Prussia, where she worked in the field beside her husband, to the very heart of the great literary circles. She was born in Lengwethen, a parish village in Eastern Prussia, on the 3d of August, 1854. She received only the commonest education, and every day was filled with the coarsest toil. But her mind and soul were uplifted by the gift of poetry, to which she gave voice in her rare moments of leisure. A delicate, middle-aged woman, whose simplicity is undisturbed by the lavish praises of literary men, she leads the most unpretending of lives. Her work became known by the merest chance. She sent a poem to a German weekly, where it attracted the attention of a Viennese gentleman, Dr. Schrattenthal, who collected her verses and sent the little volume into the world with a preface by himself. This work has already gone through twenty-six editions. The short sketch cited, written some years ago, is the only prose of hers that has been published.

The distinguishing characteristics of the poetry of this singularly gifted woman are the deep, almost painfully intense earnestness pervading its every line, the fine sense of harmony and rhythmic felicity attending the comparatively few attempts she has thus far made, and her tender touch when dwelling upon themes of the heart and home. One cannot predict what her success will be when she attempts more ambitious flights, but thus far she seems to have probed the aesthetic heart of Germany to its centre.

A PEASANT'S THOUGHTS

The first snow, in large and thick flakes, fell gently and silently on the barren branches of the ancient pear-tree, standing like a sentinel at my house door. The first snow of the year speaks both of joy and sadness. It is so comfortable to sit in a warm room and watch the falling flakes, eternally pure and lovely. There are neither flowers nor birds about, to make you see and hear the beautiful great world. Now the busy peasant has time to read the stories in his calendar. And I, too, stopped my spinning-wheel, the holy Christ-child's gift on my thirteenth birthday, to fold my hands and to look through the calendar of my thoughts.

I did not hear a knock at the door, but a little man came in with a cordial "Good morning, little sister!" I knew him well enough, though we were not acquaintances. Half familiar, half strange, this little time-worn figure looked. His queer face seemed stamped out of rubber, the upper part sad, the lower full of laughing wrinkles. But his address surprised me, for we were not in the least related. I shook his horny hand, responding, "Hearty thanks, little brother." "I call this good luck," began little brother: "a room freshly scoured, apples roasting in the chimney, half a cold duck in the cupboard; and you all alone with cat and clock. It is easier talking when there are two, for the third is always in the way."

The old man amused me immensely. I sat down on the bench beside him and asked after his wife and family. "Thanks, thanks," he nodded, "all well and happy except our nestling Ille. She leaves home to-morrow, to eat her bread as a dress-maker in B--."--"And the other children, where are they?" "Flown away, long ago! Do you suppose, little sister, that I want to keep all fifteen at home like so many cabbages in a single bed?" Fifteen children! Almost triumphantly, little brother watched me. I owned almost as many brothers and sisters myself, and fifteen children were no marvel to me. So I asked if he were a grandfather too.

"Of course," he answered gravely. "But I am going to tell you how I came by fifteen children. You know how we peasant folk give house and land to the eldest son, and only a few coppers to the youngest children. A bad custom, that leads to quarrels, and ends sometimes in murder. Fathers and mothers can't bring themselves to part with the property, and so they live with the eldest son, who doles out food and shelter, and gets the farm in the end. So, in time, a family has some rich members and more paupers. Now, we'd better sell the land and let the children share alike; but then that way breaks estates too. I was a younger child, and I received four hundred thalers;--a large sum forty years ago. I didn't know anything but field work. The saying that 'The peasant must be kept stupid or he will not obey' was still printed in all the books. So I had to look about for a family where a son was needed. One day, with my four hundred thalers in my pocket, I went to a farm where there was an unmarried daughter. When you go a-courting among us, you pretend to mean to buy a horse. That's the fashion. With us, a lie doesn't wear French rouge. The parents of Marianne (that was her name) made me welcome. Brown Bess was brought from the stable, and her neck, legs, and teeth examined. I showed my willingness to buy her, which meant as much as to say, 'Your daughter pleases me.' As proud as you please, I walked through the buildings. Everything in plenty, all right, not a nail wanting on the harrow, nor a cord missing from the harness. How I strutted! I saw myself master, and I was tickled to death to be as rich as my brother.