Chapter M: De Blowitz at His Summer Home (1)

This reticence is superb, and one of its practical results has been the remarkable physical vigor of this man who is after all no longer young. One should see him in his country home. M. de Blowitz went up and down the north coast of France, hunting for an eyry. He found it on the wooded top of one of the side slopes of the thousand and one ravines in which fishermen along that coast had fixed their cabins, at the small hamlet of _Les Petites Dalles_. Like Alphonse Karr at Etretat, he made the fame of this spot. Your guide-book will tell you the fact. "M. de Blowitz, correspondent of the English newspaper the 'Times,' has a villa here." I defy you to find any other distinction special to this place. The high Normandy coast is always charming, but it is equally so at a hundred other points. And of what charm there is here simply as village, M. Blowitz's presence would seem to threaten the partial extinction. For this very presence is rendering the spot famous and crowded. Sit in the afternoon listening to the three violins that provide the music, and, taking your absinthe on one of those hard benches within the narrow limits of the space there called Casino, you will run the risk of overhearing a conversation like this:

"This is your first summer here?"

"Yes, came last night. I am tired of Pau, and thought I could bury myself here. But there's too much world."

"Yes, but what a world it is!"

"Oh, I don't mind that! They say there's enough society in the villas. Since de Blowitz built the _Lampottes_ and has brought his friends down, there are some people _tres bien de la meilleure societe_ on the cliffs. That's the place up there, the house with the flag above all the others. I walked up there this morning. He has a tennis court. Looking up the gravel walk, I saw him sitting on the veranda. That's M. Ernest Daudet's place just under him in the trees--_mais voila_; there he is."

Towards three o'clock in the afternoon, indeed, almost daily, M. de Blowitz has an amiable habit. He walks down with members of his family, and the guests who are staying with him, to the pretty bathing-cabins, in front of which stretches an improvised awning, and, picturesque in his colored flannels, he sits himself down with a cigar to watch the bathers. He, the most distinguished of European critics, is here and now the object of many curious and admiring observations. He holds here a little court on the shingle beach. Brightly dressed women gather to him from every point of the compass; while he who has his emissaries in every quarter of the world, and whose subtle influence is felt at each episode of the European movement, gives himself up with pardonable indulgence--under the ample umbrella--to the pretty trifles of glib women's charm and chatter. Before he has enjoyed enough, and obedient to one of those harmless devices in which well-taught men of the world often indulge, he retires from this charmed and, as I can affirm, charming circle, and climbs to the great villa on the cliff. There are letters to be written and telegrams to be sent to Paris, and perhaps an article meditated during the afternoon.

The doors of the _Lampottes_ are wide open upon the great veranda, and the winds of the channel enter there, warmed from blowing over the upland grass. The life within is the ideally tranquil existence of an English country gentleman. Where did this cosmopolite, who really has no English roots, learn the system? For the hospitality of England can scarcely be translated with full flavor into any other idiom. The _schloss_ of Germany or of the Tyrol, the _chateau_ of France, have never, within my experience of lazy summers, afforded just the same delightful background as the country house of England. Yet to the _Lampottes_ the peculiar air has somehow been conjured. All the country round about this house is Norman, and therefore English--that is, dense, rich, familiar--so that the English illusion is complete. But no reader of M. de Blowitz's correspondence in the "Times" would ever have thought of placing the author in these surroundings. The _raconteur_ of the reminiscences in "Harper's Magazine" must appeal to the American reader as a sort of bustling incarnation of the ubiquitous telegraph, unwearied, and knowing not even in his dreams the first soothing tremor of the sound of the word "rest." On the contrary, M. de Blowitz rests frequently and smiles quietly. Large himself, he likes large air, large rooms, large landscapes, large and general ideas. And what contributes to all this more than rest, which gives time to think? It is a generous and natural temper, and that is why the great doors from the veranda are open to the channel winds.

Although M. de Blowitz wears in his buttonhole, in bright contrast to the famous flowing tie, the rosette of the French Legion of Honor, he is not in race a Frenchman; yet he is sufficiently French in two conspicuous characteristics. The French strike me as being, with the Americans, the most naturally intelligent people on the western part of the planet. But the Frenchman is also _bon enfant_, and for the moment I do not stop to consider that he always remains _enfant_. To be intelligent and _bon enfant_ at once is to promise all kinds of successes in life, and to be both is to make success charming. M. de Blowitz is both. He has been, therefore, a charming success. The nature of this success defies analysis, but as a result can be described.

THE BEGINNING OF A CAREER.

It is now more than twenty years since a young man appeared before the enthusiast, Laurence Oliphant, then correspondent of the English "Times," and rendered himself so indispensable to Oliphant that the latter, with the quixotic temper peculiar to him, felt it, I believe, a moral duty to abdicate. This young man had already so distinguished himself at Marseilles, during Communal riots there, as to attract the attention and merit the gratitude of Thiers. Justly rating his powers as a diplomatist, and knowing himself to be an indefatigable worker, he conceived the notion of becoming a sort of general self-accredited representative to every European Court, and of inducing the "Times" to afford him an organ of communication with his diplomatic rivals everywhere. The "Times" is the secluded pool into which England loves to gaze when it plays the _role_ of Narcissus. And when Narcissus-England admires itself therein, that is, once a day the year round, it not only sees the healthy, beaming, determined visage of John Bull, but notes with approval his quiet expression of patience and caution, his willingness to wait. The "Times" kept M. de Blowitz waiting for some time before it found him as relatively indispensable as he really was, and always has been since; but finally the moment came when M. de Blowitz, seated before his desk, could feel himself more than the equal of his diplomatist _confreres_. Statesman he was not, nor ambassador; for these words imply limitations, a condition of responsibility to this or that state. But diplomatist he was, and in this entire class of men he was the most powerful of all; for he found himself in the position of critic, unattached, of the European movement, owing allegiance to no country, although sought out by the representatives of all. What position save that of the Pope afforded a more enviable outlook? The chances were undoubtedly all on the side of his playing the great _role_ which the happy coincidence of an unusually exciting time in Europe, and his own activity, tact and perception, combined to create for him. He has himself lately been telling us in an American magazine some of the episodes in which he played his part. I will not dilute the flavor of the original by any individual essence of my own. The reminiscences are accessible and are not to be imitated. But to the reader of them one fact above all others will be evident: M. de Blowitz was and is a diplomatist of the first order. Seek to explain the eternal hatred felt towards him by a Prince Bismarck on any other ground. The attempt is impossible.

IDEALS OF A GREAT JOURNALIST.

Whatever M. de Blowitz's loyalty to the "Times," he has been loyal above all to his own ideal. This ideal has always been to get at the most political truth possible as a condition of exerting an individual influence on European states in the interest of European peace. To me, individually, this ideal seems rather too generous. Everybody now-a-days wants to take a part in affairs, when only to look on is surely the one wise part to take. But generous M. de Blowitz is, and he is demonstrating now, in a series of "recollections," that his ideal can be carried out in a striking way. I do not deny for a moment that the point is proven. I doubt very much, however, if any other similar series of facts will ever be marshalled to the same end. But all the more reason for being belongs, just for this cause, to the "Blowitziana."

The "Blowitziana"! This, however, is just what some of us feel more inspired, than at liberty, to give. I recall here, over this paper, too many things at once; and all the impressions, seeing M. de Blowitz as I do continually, fortunately lack perspective. But to note this and that about him seems in a way as much a duty as a pleasure, for I remember well that my original notion of this remarkable man was widely different from that which began to form in my mind once I knew him. I don't think that people who hear about him, people who read his name in the newspapers, the average citizen of the world who doesn't know him personally, have quite the right idea about him. During the last twenty years he has obtained a reputation for being the most persistent ferreter of news in existence; but in many minds there is distrust whenever, over his signature, some unexpected revelation comes to change the key in the European concert. Perhaps an unlooked-for document is published, interrupting the plans of European statesmen, bringing to nothing all their most elaborate scheming; and on the morrow, by some official source, comes a denial that any such document was ever dreamed of. It is obviously impracticable for M. de Blowitz to give his proofs, and this or that unthinking reader, used to a thousand irresponsible writers who care only for what is sensational, and who never verify their information, hurriedly relegates the disclosure of the "Times" correspondent to the same category. This is natural enough, of course. But let there be no mistake. The revelation was worthy of the name; of this you may be sure. M. de Blowitz has done all that he intended to do. He has nipped in the bud this or that diplomatic scheme; he has anticipated some subsequent further revelation; or it may be he has laid the net for some other and less wary diplomatist. The diplomatists themselves are not so incredulous. They listen to what M. de Blowitz is saying with a more respectful attention, and, thinking discretion the better part of valor, they usually end in bringing their mite to his universal diplomatic bureau. Upon his discretion they know they can count.

Here is a fact in point. Breakfasting once in Paris with an amiable lady and a very distinguished diplomatist who was also a poet, the conversation fell on the subject of M. de Blowitz and Count Munster who had recently been the object of a long-resounding letter in the "Times." The diplomatist who sat opposite me spoke freely of the Munster episode, which was then entertaining the whole of Europe, save the person most concerned.

"M. de Blowitz," said he, "is our only peer. But there should be honor even among thieves. He has 'cooked Count Munster's goose.'"

"Yes," I replied, "but with fuel of Count Munster's own providing."

"Quite so," he continued; "but of course we are paid to deny just such things as this. And I have heard of licensed jesters, but the world has come to a pretty pass if we are to be at the mercy of licensed truth-tellers. What will become, this side of the Orient, of our profession?"

"I agree with you," interrupted our host; "but what does it matter so only diplomacy may be the bay-leaves of poets, and you may have time to take the world into your confidence in verse?"

This estimate, implied in the ambassador's somewhat cynical words, has always been shared by all M. de Blowitz's _confreres_. It would be more than amusing, it would be curiously instructive, to corroborate this anecdote by comparison with the hundred others that tremble in the ink of my pen. But fortunately it is many years before "Blowitziana" will be written, while now there are Hawaii and Panama and the Papal ambassador to the United States to occupy our attention. Yet because of the existence of just this assurance in the foreign offices of all the European powers, it seems necessary to set the average reader on his guard against a natural error. What it all comes to is this--M. Jules Simon has said it--"Newspapers are better served than kings and peoples."

Everybody has been recently talking of an extraordinary scheme of M. de Blowitz for the reformation of journalism. That article, crackling with anathema against the ignorance and irresponsibility of most modern journalism, and warm with generous and high notions of what constitutes the duty and privilege of the journalist, had about it a surprising flavor of detachment and idealism which recalled the famous Utopian schemes familiar in the pedantic idiom of scholars. It was a dream, a warning--a vision of a kind of journalistic "City of God." But the air of that city is, after all, the air of the world in which M. de Blowitz, the most surprisingly unprofessional of men, seems eternally to live.

Not that he is always an idealist. He was not, for instance, when, jumping the wall at Versailles after a dinner to the Shah of Persia, he outwitted every journalist in the palace garden, and, as he says, "made five enemies in a single well-employed evening." No, even the most ubiquitous of American reporters would admit that he may be practical enough when need be. But after all, and above all, he is an idealist, marked by a distinguished imagination and an amiable and generous sympathy. No journalistic tag is on him. He is simply a gentleman with the widest interests and uncommon capacities who succeeded in convincing the "Times" (this, of itself, is surely by way of being a _vrai coup de maitre_), and then every other intelligent observer, of his power and usefulness. He has his own philanthropic ends, for the propagation of which it pleases him to have so esteemed a medium as the "Times."

IN HIS PARIS HOME.

The people who come to see him--the deputies, the ministers, the ambassadors, the writers, the artists, the simple _gens du monde_--come more often not to his office, but to his warm and hospitable home. Here, in one of the streets that wind about the Star Arch at the head of the Champs Elysees, he receives all the world, rather as the charming gentleman than the historic journalist de Blowitz. The centre--I must add the admired centre--of a devoted family circle, he discourses at his dinner-table of the serious events of the day, volubly, picturesquely, and with conviction. Yet he is always ready to listen, and even to alter his opinions at a moment's notice, though that notice must be good. While he himself makes the coffee, the talk becomes less exacting and more general. Often he tells you of his pictures, and points out to you the panels set into the wall of the room, works of his friends, great canvases by M. Clairin or Mme. Sarah Bernhardt; and one, a sunny view of the Norman house on the cliff, by M. Duphot. After dinner in the private study, with its high walls covered with paintings and souvenirs and autograph photographs of the greatest names of France, you smoke in the arms of your easy-chair, the wood fire burning brightly in an ample chimney; while your host, propped by divan cushions, and with one leg curled under him, drops grandly into pleasant reminiscences. One has visions of Bagdad. After an hour like this, you wonder when M. de Blowitz works. But he has been working all the time. He has been thinking in one half of a very capacious brain and talking from another. The chances are that he will have planned a column article for the "Times" newspaper, left you for a half hour to rummage in his books while he dictates the article, telephoned for his carriage to await him at nine o'clock in the court below, and asked you to accompany him to the opera--all before he has finished his cigar. But then the cigar is a remarkably good one, and knows not, as is the case with ambassadorial nicotine, the protective customs of France.

Life means to M. de Blowitz a mental activity and alertness that never sleep. Yet he is always amiable, tolerating everything except stupidity. He is a journalist by "natural selection." But that, in the Europe of his time, and given the accidents of his fortune, made him the diplomatist that he has been and is. He can keep a secret as well as tell one. I repeat, he disproves that masterly theory of Taine, who drove facts like wild horses into a corral in order, having lassoed them, to tame them to his own uses; for, like Taine himself, he has made his own _milieu_, created his own series of facts, far more truly even than he is himself the striking and delightful resultant of others that have gone before.

ON THE TRACK OF THE REVIEWER.

A TRUE STORY OF REVENGE, CONNECTED WITH THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF "JANE EYRE."

BY DOCTOR WILLIAM WRIGHT.

The Bronte novels were first read and admired in the Ballynaskeagh manse. This statement I am able to make with fulness of knowledge. "Jane Eyre" was read, cried over, laughed over, argued over, condemned, exalted, by the Reverend David McKee, his brilliant children and numerous pupils, before the author was known publicly in England, or a single review of the work had appeared.

The Reverend W. J. McCracken, an old pupil of the Ballynaskeagh manse, writes me on this point:

"You have no doubt heard Mr. McKee's[2] opinion as to the source of Charlotte's genius. When Charlotte Bronte published one of her books, there was always an early copy sent to the uncles and aunts in Ballynaskeagh. As they had little taste for such literature, the book was sent straight over to our dear old friend Mr. McKee. If it pleased him, the Brontes would be in raptures with their niece, and triumphantly say to their neighbors, 'Mr. McKee thinks her very _cliver_.'

"I well remember Mr. McKee reading one of Charlotte's novels, and, in his own inimitable way, making the remark: 'She is just her Uncle Jamie over the world. Just Jamie's strong, powerful, direct way of putting a thing.'"

Mrs. McKee, now living in New Zealand, writes me: "My husband had early copies of the novels from the Brontes, and he pronounced them to be Bronte in warp and woof, before 'Currer Bell' was publicly known to be Charlotte Bronte. He held that the stories not only showed the Bronte genius and style, but that the facts were largely reminiscences of the Bronte family. He recognized many of the characters as founded largely on old Hugh's yarns, polished into literature. When 'Jane Eyre' came into the hands of the uncles they were troubled as to its character, but they were very grateful to my husband for his good opinion of its ability. He pronounced it a remarkable and brilliant work, before any of the reviews appeared."

In addition to the five hundred pounds that Smith, Elder & Co. paid Charlotte Bronte for the copyright of each of her novels, they sent half a dozen copies direct to herself. The book was published on October 16th, and ten days later Charlotte thus acknowledged receipt of the copies:

_October 26, 1847._

"MESSRS. SMITH, ELDER & CO.:

"_Gentlemen_: The six copies of 'Jane Eyre' reached me this
morning. You have given the work every advantage which good paper,
clear type and a seemly outside can supply; if it fails, the fault
will lie with the author--you are exempt. I now await the judgment
of the press and the public. I am, gentlemen,

"Yours respectfully,

"C. BELL."

Charlotte Bronte's friends were not numerous, and she was most anxious that none of the few should find out that she was the author. In the distribution of even her six copies, she would most likely send one to her friends in Ireland. When the volumes arrived in Ireland, there was no room for doubt as to the authorship of "Jane Eyre." The Brontes had no other friend in England to send them books. They themselves neither wrote nor read romances. They lived them.

It was well known to the family that the clever brother in England had very clever daughters. Patrick was a constant correspondent with the home circle, and a not infrequent visitor. Their habits of study, their wonderful compositions, their education in Brussels, were steps in the ascending gradation of the girls, minutely communicated by the vicar to his only relatives, and fairly well understood in Ballynaskeagh. Something was expected.

That something caused blank disappointment. C(urrer) B(ell) was a thin disguise for C(harlotte) B(ronte), but it did not deceive the relatives. Why concealment if there was nothing discreditable to conceal? A very little reading convinced the uncles and aunts that concealment was necessary.

The book was not good like Willison's "Balm of Gilead," or like Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." It was neither history like Goldsmith, nor biography like Johnson, nor philosophy like Locke, nor theology like Edwards; but "a parcel of lies, the fruit of living among foreigners."

The Irish Brontes had never before seen a book like "Jane Eyre"--three volumes of babble that would take a whole winter to read. They laid the work down in despair; but after a little, Hugh resolved to show it to Mr. McKee, the one man in the district whom he could trust.

The reputation of his nieces in England was dearer to Hugh Bronte than his own.

He tied up the three volumes in a red handkerchief, and called with them at the manse. Contrary to his usual custom, he asked if he could see Mr. McKee alone. The interview, of which my information comes from an eye-witness, took place in a large parlor, which contained a bed, and a central table on which Mr. McKee's tea was spread.

Hugh Bronte began in a mysterious whisper to unfold his sad tale to Mr. McKee, as if his niece had been guilty of some serious indiscretion. Mr. McKee comforted him by suggesting that the book might not have been written by his niece at all. At this point Hugh Bronte was prevailed upon to draw up to the table to partake of the abundant tea that had been prepared for Mr. McKee, while the latter proceeded to examine the book. Bronte settled down in the most self-denying manner to dispose of the heap of bread and butter, and the pot of tea, while McKee went galloping over the pages of the first volume of "Jane Eyre," oblivious to all but the fascinating story.

The afternoon wore on; Bronte sat at the table, watching the features of the reader as they changed from somber to gay, and from flinty fierceness to melting pathos.

When the servant went in to remove the tea things and light the candles, both men were sitting silent in the gloaming. McKee, roused from his state of abstraction, observed Bronte sitting at the _debris_ and empty plates.

"Hughey," he said, breaking the silence, "the book bears the Bronte stamp on every sentence and idea, and it is the grandest novel that has been produced in my time;" and then he added: "The child 'Jane Eyre' is your father in petticoats, and Mrs. Reed is the wicked uncle by the Boyne."

The cloud passed from Hugh Bronte's brow, and the apologetic tone from his voice. He started up as if he had received new life, wrung Mr. McKee's hand, and hurried away comforted, to comfort others. Mr. McKee had said the novel was "_gran_" and that was enough for the Irish Brontes.

There was joy in the Bronte house when Hugh returned and reported to his brothers and sisters what Mr. McKee had said. They needed no further commendation, for they knew no higher court on such a matter. They had all been alarmed lest Charlotte had done something to be ashamed of; but on Mr. McKee's approval, pride and elation of spirit succeeded depression and sinking of heart.

Mr. McKee's opinion did not long remain unconfirmed. Reviews from the English magazines were quoted in the Newry paper, probably by Mr. McKee, and found their way quickly into the uncles' and aunts' hands.

The publication of the book created a profound impression generally. It was felt in literary circles that a strong nature had broken through conventional restraints, that a fresh voice had delivered a new message. Men and women paused in the perusal of the pretty, the artificial, the inane, to listen to the wild story that had come to them with the breeze of the moorland and the bloom of the heather. And so exquisite was the gift of thought blended with the art of artless expression, that only the facts appeared in the transparent narrative.

"The Times" declared: "Freshness and originality, truth and passion, singular felicity in the description of natural scenery, and in the analyzation of human thought, enable this tale to stand boldly out from the mass."

"The Edinburgh Review" said: "For many years there has been no work of such power, piquancy, and originality."

"Blackwood's Magazine" spoke thus: "'Jane Eyre' is an episode in this work-a-day world; most interesting, and touched at once by a daring and delicate hand."

In "Frazer's Magazine" Mr. G. H. Lewes said: "Reality--deep, significant reality--is the characteristic of the book. It is autobiography, not perhaps in the naked facts and circumstances, but in the actual suffering and experience."

"Tait's Magazine," "The Examiner," the "Athenaeum," and the "Literary Gazette," followed in the same strain; while the "Daily News" spoke with qualified praise, and only the "Spectator," according to Charlotte, was "flat."

The club coteries paused, the literary log-rollers were nonplussed, and Thackeray sat reading instead of writing.

The interest in the story was intensified, inasmuch as no one knew whence had come the voice that had stirred all hearts. Nor did the interest diminish when the mystery was dispelled. On the contrary, it was much increased when it became known that the author was a little, shy, bright-eyed Yorkshire maiden, of Irish origin, who could scarcely reach up to great Thackeray's arm, or reply unmoved to his simplest remark.

The Irish Brontes read the reviews of their niece's book with intense delight. To them the paeans of praise were successive whiffs of pure incense. They had never doubted that they themselves were superior to their neighbors, and they felt quite sure that their niece Charlotte was superior to every other writer.

But the Brontes were not content to enjoy silently their niece's triumph and fame. Their hearts were full, and overflowed from the lips. They had reached the period of decadence, and were often heard boasting of the illustrious Charlotte. Sometimes even they would read to uninterested and unappreciative listeners scraps of praise cut from the Newry papers, or supplied to them from English sources by Mr. McKee. The whole heaven of Bronte fame was bright and cloudless; suddenly the proverbial bolt fell from the blue.

"The Quarterly"[3] onslaught on "Jane Eyre" appeared, and all the good things that had been said were forgotten. The news travelled fast, and reached Ballynaskeagh. The neighbors, who cared little for what "The Times," "Frazer," "Blackwood," and such periodicals said, had got hold of the "Quarterly" verdict in a very direct and simple form. The report went round the district like wild-fire that the "Quarterly Review" had said Charlotte Bronte, the vicar's daughter, was a bad woman, and an outcast from her kind. The neighbors of the Brontes had very vague ideas as to what "The Quarterly" might be, but I am afraid the one bad review gave them more piquant pleasure than all the good ones put together. In the changed atmosphere the uncles and aunts assumed their old unsocial and taciturn ways. When their acquaintances came, with simpering smiles, to sympathize with them, their gossip was cut short by the Brontes, who judged rightly that the sense of humiliation pressed lightly on their comforters.

In their sore distress they went to Mr. McKee. He was able to show them the "Review" itself. The reviewer had been speculating on the sex of Currer Bell, and, for effect, assumed that the author was a man, but he added:

"Whoever it be, it is a person who, with great mental power,
combines a total ignorance of the habits of society, a great
coarseness of taste, a heathenish doctrine of religion. For if we
ascribe the work to a woman at all, we have no alternative but to
ascribe it to one who has, from some sufficient reason, long
forfeited the society of her sex."

Mr. McKee's reading of the review and words of comment gave no comfort to the Brontes. I am afraid his indignation at the cowardly attack only served to fan the flames of their wrath. The sun of his sympathy, however, touched their hearts, and their pent-up passion flowed down like a torrent of lava.

The uncles of Charlotte Bronte always expressed themselves, when roused, in language which combined simplicity of diction with depth of significance. Hugh was the spokesman. White with passion, the words hissing from his lips, he vowed to take vengeance on the traducer of his niece. The language of malediction rushed from him, hot and pestiferous, as if it had come from the bottomless pit, reeking with sulphur and brimstone.

Mr. McKee did not attempt to stem the wrathful torrent. He hoped that the storm would exhaust itself by its own fury. But in the case of Hugh Bronte the anger was not a mere thing of the passing storm. The scoundrel who had spoken of his niece as if she were a strumpet must die. Hugh's oath was pledged, and he meant to perform it. The brothers recognized the work of vengeance as a family duty. Hugh had simply taken in hand its execution.

He set about his preparation with the calm deliberation befitting such a tremendous enterprise. Like Thothmes the Great, his first concern was with regard to his arms. Irishmen at that time had one national weapon. What the blood mare is to the Bedawi, or his sling was to King David, that was the _shillelagh_ to Hugh Bronte as avenger. Irishmen have proved their superiority as marksmen, with long-range rifles; they have always had a reputation for expertness at "the long bow;" but the blackthorn cudgel has always been the beloved hereditary weapon.

The shillelagh was not a mere stick picked up for a few pence, or cut casually out of the common hedge. Like the Arab mare, it grew to maturity under the fostering care of its owner.

The shillelagh, like the poet, is born, not made. Like the poet, too, it is a choice plant, and its growth is slow. Among ten thousand blackthorn shoots, perhaps not more than one is destined to become famous, but one of the ten thousand appears of singular fitness. As soon as discovered, it is marked, and dedicated for future service. Everything that might hinder its development is removed, and any off-shoot of the main stem is skilfully cut off. With constant care it grows thick and strong, upon a bulbous root that can be shaped into a handle.

Hugh had for many years been watching over the growth of a young blackthorn sapling. It had arrived at maturity about the time the diabolical article appeared in "The Quarterly." The supreme moment of his life came just when the weapon on which he depended was ready.

Returning from the manse, his whole heart and soul set on avenging his niece, his first act was to dig up the blackthorn so carefully that he might have enough of the thick root to form a lethal club. Having pruned it roughly, he placed the butt end in warm ashes, night after night, to season. Then when it had become sapless and hard, he cut it to shape, then "put it to pickle," as the saying goes. After a sufficient time in the salt water, he took it out and rubbed it with chamois and train-oil for hours. Then he shot a magpie, drained its blood into a cup, and with it polished the blackthorn till it became a glossy black with a mahogany tint.

The shillelagh was then a beautiful, tough, formidable weapon, and when tipped with an iron ferrule was quite ready for action. It became Hugh's trusty companion. No Sir Galahad ever cherished his shield or trusted his spear as Hugh Bronte cherished and loved his shillelagh.

When the shillelagh was ready, other preparations were quickly completed. Hugh made his will by the aid of a local school-master, leaving all he possessed to his maligned niece, and then, decked out in a new suit of broadcloth, in which he felt stiff and awkward, he departed on his mission of vengeance.

He set sail from Warrenpoint for Liverpool by a vessel called the "Sea Nymph," and walked from Liverpool to Haworth. His brother James had been over the route a short time previously, and from him he had received all necessary directions as to the way. He reached the vicarage on a Sunday, when all, except Martha the old servant, were at church. At first she looked upon him as a tramp, and refused to admit him into the house; but when he turned to go to the church, road-stained as he was, she saw that the honor of the house was involved, and agreed to let him remain till the family returned. Under the conditions of the truce he was able to satisfy Martha as to his identity, and then she rated him soundly for journeying on the Sabbath day.

Hugh's reception at the vicarage was at first chilling, but soon the girls gathered round him and inquired about the Glen, the Knock Hill, Emdale Fort, and the Mourne Mountains, but especially with reference to the local ghosts and haunted houses.

Hugh was greatly disappointed to find his niece so small and frail. His pride in the Bronte superiority had rested mainly on the thews and comeliness of the family, and he found it difficult to associate mental greatness with physical littleness. On his return home he spoke of the vicar's family to Mr. McKee as "a poor _frachther_" a term applied to a brood of young chickens. From his brother Jamie, Hugh had heard that Branwell had something of the _spunk_ he had expected from the family on English soil; but he was too small, fantastic, and a chatterer, and could not drink more than two glasses of whiskey at the Black Bull without making a fool of himself. In fact, Jamie, during a visit, had to carry Branwell home, more than once, from that refuge of the thirsty, and as he had to lie in the same bed with his nephew he found him a most exasperating bed-fellow. He would toss about and rave and spout poetry in such a way as to make sleep impossible.

The declaration of Hugh's mission of revenge was received by Charlotte with incredulous astonishment, but gentle Anne sympathized with him, and wished him success; but for her, Hugh would have returned straight home from Haworth in disgust.

Patrick, as befitted a clergyman, condemned the undertaking, and did what he could to amuse Hughy. Careful that Hugh's entertainments should be to his taste, he took him to see a prize fight. His object was to show him "a battle that would take the conceit out of him." It had the contrary effect. Hugh thought that the combatants were too fat and lazy to fight, and he always asserted that he could have "licked them both."

The vicar also took him to Sir John Armitage's, where he saw a collection of arms, some of which were exceedingly unwieldy. Hugh was greatly impressed with the heaviness of the armor, and especially with Robin Hood's helmet, which he was allowed to place on his head. Hugh admitted that he could not have worn the helmet or wielded the sword, but he maintained at the same time that he "could have eaten half a dozen of the men he saw in England"--in fact, taken them like a dish of whitebait.

When Hugh Bronte had exhausted the wonders of Yorkshire, to which the vicar looked for moral effect, he started on his mission to London. A full and complete account of his search for the reviewer would be most interesting, though somewhat ludicrous, but the reader must be content with the scrappy information at my disposal.

Through an introduction from a friend of Branwell's he found cheap lodgings with a working family from Haworth. As soon as Hugh had got fairly settled, he went direct to John Murray's publishing house and asked to see the reviewer. He declared himself an uncle of Currer Bell, and said he wished to give the reviewer some specific information.

He had a short interview at Murray's with a man who said he was the editor of "The Quarterly," and who may have been Lockhart, but Hugh told him that he could only communicate to the reviewer his secret message.

He continued to visit Murray's under a promise of seeing the reviewer, but he always saw the same man who at first had said that he was editor, but afterwards assured him he was the reviewer, and pressed him greatly to say who Currer Bell was.

Hugh declined to make any statement except into the ear of the reviewer; but as the truculent character of the avenger was probably very apparent, his direct and bold move did not succeed, and at last they ceased to admit him at Murray's.

Having failed there, he went to the publishers of "Jane Eyre," and told them plainly he was the author's uncle, and that he had come to London to chastise the "Quarterly Review" critic. They treated him civilly without furthering his quest, but he got from them, I believe, an introduction to the reading-room of the British Museum, and to some other reading-rooms.

In the reading-room he was greatly disgusted to find how little interest was taken in the matter that absorbed his whole attention. He met, however, one kind old gentleman in the British Museum who thoroughly sympathized with him, and took him home with him several times. On one occasion he invited a number of people to meet him at dinner. The house had signs of wealth such as he had never before seen or dreamt of. Everybody was kind to him. After dinner he was called on for a speech, and when he sat down they cheered him and drank his health.

They all examined his shillelagh, and, before parting, promised to do their best to aid him in discovering the reviewer; but his friend afterwards told him, at the Museum, that all had failed, and considered Hugh's undertaking hopeless.

He tried other plans of getting on the reviewer's track. He would step into a book-shop, and buy a sheet of paper on which to write home, or some other trifling object. While paying for his small purchase he would lift "The Quarterly Review," and casually ask the book-seller who wrote the attack on "Jane Eyre."

He always found the book-sellers communicative, if not well informed. Many told him that "Jane Eyre" was a well-known mistress of Thackeray's. None of them seemed able to bear the thought of appearing ignorant of anything. It was quite well known, others assured him, that Thackeray had written the review--"in fact, he admitted that he was the author of the review." Some declared that Mr. George Henry Lewes was the author, others said it was Harriet Martineau, and some ventured to say that Bulwer Lytton or Dickens was the critic. These names were given with confidence, and with details of circumstances which seemed to create a probability; but his friend, whom he met daily at the Museum, assured him that they were only wild and absurd guesses. Thus ended one of the strangest adventures within the whole range of literary adventure.

Hugh Bronte failed to find the reviewer of his niece's novel, but explored London thoroughly. He saw the queen, but was better pleased to see her horses and talk with her grooms.

He saw reviews of troops, and public demonstrations, and cattle shows, and the Houses of Parliament, and ships of many nations that lay near his lodging; and he visited the Crystal Palace and the Tower, and other objects of interest; and when his patience was exhausted and his money spent, he returned to Haworth on his homeward journey.

His stay at the vicarage was brief. During his absence, consumption had been rapidly sapping the life of the youngest girl, yet the gentle Anne received him with the warmest welcome, and talked of accompanying him to Ireland, which she spoke of as "home." At parting she threw her long, slender arms round his neck, and called him her noble uncle. Charlotte took him for a walk on the moor, asked a thousand questions, told him about Emily and Branwell, and, slipping a few sovereigns into his hand, advised him to hasten home. On the following day he parted forever from the family that he would have given his life to befriend.

No welcome awaited him at home, because he had failed in his mission. He gave to Mr. McKee a detailed account of his adventures in England, but I do not think anyone else ever heard from him a single word regarding the sad home at Haworth. But as long as he lived he regretted his helplessness to avenge the slight put upon his niece, and seemed to look on the miscarriage of his plans as the great failure of his life.

Since the foregoing article was put in type Doctor Wright has written to the editor of this magazine announcing that he has discovered the author of the "Quarterly" review. He says:

"Assuming the editor's responsibility for the incriminated
interpolations, who wrote the article itself? Secrets have a bad
time of it in our day, and the authorship of the article is no
longer a secret. As has been generally suspected, the writer was a
woman, and that woman was Miss Rigby, the daughter of a Norwich
doctor, and was better known as Lady Eastlake.

"The well-kept secret has been brought to light by Doctor
Robertson Nicoll in the 'Bookman' of September, 1892. Doctor
Nicoll found the key to the mystery in a letter written on March
31, 1849, by Sara Coleridge to Edward Quillman, and published in
the 'Memoirs and Letters of Sara Coleridge.' The following is the
passage referred to:

"'Miss Rigby's article on "Vanity Fair" was brilliant, as all her
productions are. But I could not agree to the concluding remark
about governesses. How could it benefit that uneasy class to
reduce the number of their employers, which, if high salaries were
considered in all cases indispensable, must necessarily be the
result of such a state of opinion?'

"The 'Quarterly' article on 'Vanity Fair' dealt also with 'Jane
Eyre,' and with the 'Report of the Governesses' Benevolent
Institution for 1847,' and it is without doubt the article
referred to by Sara Coleridge.

"On this matter Sara Coleridge was not likely to be under any
mistake. Miss Rigby was her intimate friend, and not likely to
conceal from her so important a literary event as the production
of a 'Quarterly' review.

"I am also informed that Mr. George Smith, the publisher of 'Jane
Eyre,' declares without hesitation or doubt that he had always
known that Lady Eastlake was the author of the 'Quarterly'
article, and that he had declined to meet her at dinner on account
of it.

"The fact that the brilliant Miss Rigby was the writer of the
review greatly strengthens my interpolation theory. To me it seems
beyond the range of things probable, that the pharisaic part of
the article could have come from the same source as 'Livonian
Tales' and the 'Letters from the Shores of the Baltic.'

"The article is therefore of a composite character. It was written
by Miss Rigby the year before her marriage with Sir Charles Lock
Eastlake, and heavily edited during the reign of Lockhart. I know
it will be said that the genial Lockhart would not have added the
objectionable fustian to the superior material supplied by Miss
Rigby; but I must repeat that it was his duty, as a mere matter of
business, and a purely editorial affair, to maintain the
traditional tone of the 'Review.'"

[2] The Reverend David McKee of Ballynaskeagh, a very successful
school teacher, who prepared hundreds of boys for college. Among
them was Captain Mayne Reid, who afterwards dedicated his book,
"The White Chief," to Mr. McKee. Ballynaskeagh, was the centre
of mental activity for the country round about. Its master was
the friend and neighbor of the Irish Brontes. He himself wrote
several books, one of which led to the beginning of a temperance
movement in Ireland. The writer of this article was his pupil at
the time of the publication of "Jane Eyre," and tells whereof he
knows personally, as well as some things of which he was
informed by Mr. McKee.

[3] The December number of the "Quarterly Review" of 1848 is perhaps
the most famous of the entire series. Its fame rests on a
mystery which has baffled literary curiosity for close on half a
century. "Who wrote the review of 'Jane Eyre'?" is a question
that has been asked by every contributor to English literature
since the critique appeared. But thus far the question has been
asked in vain.

The descendant and namesake of the eminent projector and
proprietor of "The Quarterly" does not feel at liberty to solve
the mystery by revealing the writer. I admire the loyalty of
John Murray to a servant whose work has attained an evil
pre-eminence. It is interesting to know, in these prying and
babbling times, that in the house of Murray the secret of even a
supposed ruffian is safe to the third generation.

ANNOUNCEMENT.

ROMANTIC STORIES FROM THE FAMILY HISTORY OF THE BRONTES.

The August and succeeding issues of McCLURE'S MAGAZINE will contain a series of papers giving the dramatic and hitherto unknown history of the Brontes in Ireland. They will throw a vivid light upon the origin of the Bronte novels, and upon the ancestors of the Brontes. As Doctor Wright says:

"Hugh Bronte, the father of Patrick, and grandfather of the famous
novelists, first makes his appearance as if he had stepped out of
a Bronte novel. His early experiences qualified him to take a
permanent place beside the child 'Jane Eyre' at Mrs. Reed's. The
treatment that embittered his childhood is never referred to by
the grand-daughters in their correspondence, but it is quite
evident that the knowledge of his hardships dominated their minds,
and gave a bent to their imaginations, when depicting the misery
of young lives dependent on charity."

All the existing biographies of the Bronte sisters are confined to the Brontes in England. There were but two people competent to give the story of the Bronte ancestors: one, Captain Mayne Reid; and the other, Doctor William Wright, who has spent many years preparing this history.

Doctor Wright had exceptional advantages for his labor of love. In his childhood his nurse told him the traditions of the Brontes; his tutor was full of recollections of the father, uncles, and grandfather of the novelists. As a student he wrote screeds of the Bronte novels in place of essays, having first been told the incidents and events by his tutor. His recollections, extending back to the early part of this century, have been strengthened by years of patient investigation. During different years Doctor Wright has spent several months at a time in Ireland, following up obscure traces of the family, hunting down traditions connected with the Brontes, or carefully verifying minute points derived from his own recollections or the reports of others. The result of these painstaking researches, which have extended over a lifetime, is an authentic narrative of great human interest.

The unadorned history of the family reads like a Bronte novel. The adventures, the hairbreadth escapes, the struggles, the kidnapping, the abuse, which figure in these chapters are stranger than fiction. The courtship, elopement, and marriage of Hugh Bronte with Alice McGlory form one of the most extraordinary narratives of love and adventure that has ever been penned.

The half-humorous, half-pathetic, but always intensely interesting, descriptions of the ancestors of the Bronte sisters, their peculiarities, the superstition with which some of them were regarded as masters of the black art, the respect that they commanded as fighters and singers and workmen, the side-lights thrown upon the early and bitter contest over tenant rights, the exposition of strange religious beliefs--all of this, and more that cannot here even be hinted at, serve to present a curious and vivid picture of everyday life in a corner of Ireland one hundred years ago.

These articles bring out the hereditary and surrounding influences which helped to shape the genius of Charlotte Bronte. Aside from the value which they have because they furnish a remarkable commentary on the work of the great novelist, they are pages of real life of fascination and remarkable interest.

The first article will give a glimpse of the early Brontes and the singular weird story of that dark foundling who brought ruin to his benefactors, and whose machinations resulted in the absolute separation of Hugh Bronte, the grandfather of the novelists, from his parents--a separation so complete that he was never able to learn in what part of Ireland his father's family lived. Hugh Bronte was kidnapped when he was six years old. The strange narrative of his abduction will be given in the August number of McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.

A STRANGE STORY: THE LOST YEARS

LIZZIE HYER NEFF.

I.

Whether or not to relate the history that I now commence has been to me a seriously debated question.

But after due reflection I decide that, being the only witness to the events that have lately been so startling to at least one community, it is my duty to state as clearly and exactly as possible, while yet fresh in my memory, the occurrences that came under my observation. I am satisfied in so doing that the contingencies which might arise from my silence would be much more serious in their effect upon my friends than their aversion to the publicity to which they may be subjected; but, of course, when completed, my statement will be subject to their wish in its disposal.

Regarding myself, it is only necessary to state that last winter--I think it was the last week of January--my health became so alarming as to induce me to accept my son's urgent invitation to visit him in a far Western territory, hoping that the brighter sky and milder air would more than compensate for the long and lonely journey to one who is neither young nor adventurous.

And the effect of the change was almost magical. My son is a civil and mining engineer, and, being unmarried, boards at the largest of the three hotels in the busy mining town upon the Southern Pacific road, which I shall call Brownville.

I reached the place on the afternoon of a bright, balmy day--a May day it seemed to me--but being an unaccustomed traveller, the motion of the cars and the strangeness of the transition gave everything such a dreamlike unreality that I cannot recall the impressions of the first few days with as much distinctness as later ones. I was continually expecting my son to vanish, and myself to wake up in my room at home. This soon wore off, however. I think it was on the second day after my arrival, as we were starting down stairs to dinner, my son suddenly drew me back into my room as if to avoid some one who was passing.