Chapter VI: Part 6

"Aye. This love, my love, is a wonderful thing. For I forgot to tie them, and they are gone. Yet what matter? For the king--yes, sweet, I think now it is the king--will not be here for some minutes yet, and those minutes I have still for love and life."

"He will kill you!" she said.

"Yes," said he.

She looked long in his eyes; then she threw her arms about his neck, and, for the first time unasked, covered his face with kisses.

"Kiss me, kiss me," said she; and he kissed her. Then she drew back a little, but took his arm and set it round her waist. And she drew a little knife from her girdle, and showed it him.

"If the king will not pardon us and let us love one another, I also will die," said she; and her voice was quiet and happy. "Indeed, my love, I should not grieve. Ah, do not tell me to live without you!"

"Would you obey?" he asked.

"Not in that," said she.

And thus they stood silent, while the sound of the hoofs drew very near. But she looked up at him, and he looked at her; then she looked at the point of the little dagger, and she whispered:

"Keep your arm round me till I die."

He bent his head, and kissed her once again, saying:

"My princess, it is enough."

And she, though she did not know why he smiled, yet smiled back at him. For although life was sweet that day, yet such a death, with him and to prove her love for him, seemed well-nigh as sweet. And thus they awaited the coming of the king.

II.

King Rudolf and his guards far out-stripped the people who pursued them from the city; and when they came to the skirts of the wood, they divided themselves into four parties, since, if they went all together, they might easily miss the fugitives whom they sought. Of these four parties, one found nothing; another found the two horses which the student himself, who had hidden them, failed to find; the third party had not gone far before they caught sight of the lovers, though the lovers did not see them; and two of them remained to watch and, if need be, to intercept any attempted flight, while the third rode off to find the king and bring him where Osra and the student were, as he had commanded.

But the fourth party, with which the king was, though it did not find the fugitives, found the embassy from the Grand Duke of Mittenheim; and the ambassador, with all his train, was resting by the roadside, seeming in no haste at all to reach Strelsau. When the king suddenly rode up at great speed and came upon the embassy, an officer that stood by the ambassador--whose name was Count Sergius of Antheim--stooped down and whispered in his excellency's ear, upon which he rose and advanced towards the king, uncovering his head and bowing profoundly. For he chose to assume that the king had ridden to meet him out of excessive graciousness and courtesy towards the Grand Duke; so that he began, to the impatient king's infinite annoyance, to make a very long and stately speech, assuring his majesty of the great hope and joy with which his master awaited the result of the embassy; for, said he, since the king was so zealous in his cause, his master could not bring himself to doubt of success, and therefore most confidently looked to win for his bride the most exalted and lovely lady in the world, the peerless Princess Osra, the glory of the court of Strelsau, and the brightest jewel in the crown of the king, her brother. And having brought this period to a prosperous conclusion, Count Sergius took breath, and began another that promised to be fully as magnificent and not a whit less long. So that, before it was well started, the king smote his hand on his thigh and roared:

"Heavens, man, while you're making speeches, that rascal is carrying off my sister!"

Count Sergius, who was an elderly man of handsome presence and great dignity, being thus rudely and strangely interrupted, showed great astonishment and offence; but the officer by him covered his mouth with his hand to hide a smile. For the moment that the king had spoken these impetuous words he was himself overwhelmed with confusion; for the last thing that he wished the Grand Duke's ambassador to know was that the princess whom his master courted had run away that morning with a student of the University of Strelsau. Accordingly he began, very hastily, and with more regard for prudence than for truth, to tell Count Sergius how a noted and bold criminal had that morning swooped down on the princess as she rode unattended outside the city, and carried her off--which seemed to the ambassador a very strange story. But the king told it with great fervor, and he besought the count to scatter his attendants all through the wood, and seek the robber. Yet he charged them not to kill the man themselves, but to keep him till he came. "For I have sworn to kill him with my own hand," he cried.

Now Count Sergius, however much astonished he might be, could do nothing but accede to the king's request, and he sent off all his men to scour the woods, and, mounting his horse, himself set off with them, showing great zeal in the king's service, but still thinking the king's story a very strange one. Thus the king was left alone with his two guards and with the officer who had smiled.

"Will you not go also, sir?" asked the king.

But at this moment a man galloped up at furious speed, crying:

"We have found them, sire, we have found them!"

"Then he hasn't five minutes to live!" cried the king in fierce joy; and he lugged out his sword, adding: "The moment I set my eyes on him, I will kill him. There is no need for words between me and him."

At this speech the face of the officer grew suddenly grave and alarmed; and he put spurs to his horse, and hastened after the king, who had at once dashed away in the direction in which the man had pointed. But the king had got a start and kept it; so that the officer seemed terribly frightened, and muttered to himself:

"Heaven send that he does not kill him before he knows!" And he added some very impatient words concerning the follies of princes, and, above all, of princes in love.

Thus, while the ambassador and his men searched high and low for the noted robber, and the king's men hunted for the student of the University, the king, followed by two of his guard at a distance of about fifty yards (for his horse was better than theirs), came straight to where Osra and her lover stood together. And a few yards behind the guards came the officer; and he also had by now drawn his sword. But he rode so eagerly that he overtook and passed the king's guards, and got within thirty yards of the king by the time that the king was within twenty of the lovers. But the king let him get no nearer, for he dug his spurs again into his horse's side, and the horse bounded forward, while the king cried furiously to his sister, "Stand away from him!" The princess did not heed, but stood in front of her lover (for the student was wholly unarmed), holding up the little dagger in her hand. The king laughed scornfully and angrily, thinking that Osra menaced him with the weapon, and not supposing that it was herself for whom she destined it. And, having reached them, the king leaped from his horse and ran at them, with his sword raised to strike. Osra gave a cry of terror. "Mercy!" she cried. "Mercy!" But the king had no thought of mercy, and he would certainly then and there have killed her lover had not the officer, gaining a moment's time by the king's dismounting, at this very instant come galloping up; and, there being no time for any explanation, he leaned from his saddle as he dashed by, and, putting out his hand, snatched the king's sword away from him, just as the king was about to thrust it through his sister's lover.

But the officer's horse was going so furiously that he could not stop it for hard on forty yards, and he narrowly escaped splitting his head against a great bough that hung low across the grassy path; and he dropped first his own sword and then the king's; but at last he brought the horse to a standstill, and, leaping down, ran back towards where the swords lay. But at the moment the king also ran towards them; for the fury that he had been in before was as nothing to that which now possessed him. After his sword was snatched from him he stood in speechless anger for a full minute, but then had turned to pursue the man who had dared to treat him with such insult. And now, in his desire to be at the officer, he had come very near to forgetting the student. Just as the officer came to where the king's sword lay, and picked it up, the king, in his turn, reached the officer's sword and picked up that. The king came with a rush at the officer, who, seeing that the king was likely to kill him, or he the king, if he stood his ground, turned tail and sped away at the top of his speed through the forest. But as he went, thinking that the time had come for plain speaking, he looked back over his shoulder and shouted:

"Sire, it's the Grand Duke himself!"

The king stopped short in sudden amazement.

"Is the man mad?" he asked. "Who is the Grand Duke?"

"It's the Grand Duke, sir, who is with the princess. And you would have killed him if I had not snatched your sword," said the officer; and he also came to a halt, but he kept a very wary eye on King Rudolf.

"I should certainly have killed him, let him be who he will," said the king. "But why do you call him the Grand Duke?"

The officer very cautiously approached the king, and, seeing that the king made no threatening motion, he at last trusted himself so close that he could speak to the king in a very low voice; and what he said seemed to astonish, please, and amuse the king immensely. For he clapped the officer on the back, laughed heartily, and cried:

"A pretty trick! On my life, a pretty trick!"

Now Osra and her lover had not heard what the officer had shouted to the king, and when Osra saw her brother returning from among the trees alone and with his sword, she still supposed that her lover must die; and she turned and flung her arms round his neck, and clung to him for a moment, kissing him. Then she faced the king, with a smile on her face and the little dagger in her hand. But the king came up, wearing a scornful smile, and he asked her:

"What is the dagger for, my wilful sister?"

"For me, if you kill him," said she.

"You would kill yourself, then, if I killed him?"

"I would not live a moment after he was dead."

"Faith, it is wonderful!" said the king with a shrug. "Then plainly, if you cannot live without him, you must live with him. He is to be your husband, not mine. Therefore, take him, if you will."

When Osra heard this, which indeed for joy and wonder she could hardly believe, she dropped her knife, and, running forward, fell on her knees before her brother, and, catching his hand, she covered it with kisses, and her tears mingled with her kisses. But the king let her go on, and stood over her, laughing and looking at the student. Presently the student began to laugh also, and he had just advanced a step towards King Rudolf, when Count Sergius of Antheim, the Grand Duke's ambassador, came out from among the trees, riding hotly and with great zeal after the noted robber. But no sooner did the count see the student than he stopped his horse, leaped down with a cry of wonder, and, running up to the student, bowed very low and kissed his hand. So that when Osra looked round from her kissing of her brother's hand, she beheld the Grand Duke's ambassador kissing the hand of her lover. She sprang to her feet in wonder.

"Who are you?" she cried to the student, running in between him and the ambassador.

"Your lover and servant," said he.

"And besides?" she said.

"Why, in a month, your husband," laughed the king, taking her lover by the hand.

He clasped the king's hand, but turned at once to her, and said humbly:

"Alas, I have no cottage!"

"Who are you?" she whispered to him.

"The man for whom you were ready to die, my princess. Is it not enough?"

"Yes, it is enough," said she; and she did not repeat her question. But the king, with a short laugh, turned on his heel, and took Count Sergius by the arm and walked off with him; and presently they met the officer and learned fully how the Grand Duke had come to Strelsau, and how he had contrived to woo and win the Princess Osra, and finally to carry her off from the palace.

It was an hour later when the whole of the two companies, that of the king and that of the ambassador, were all gathered together again, and had heard the story; so that when the king went to where Osra and the Grand Duke walked together among the trees, and, taking each by a hand, led them out, they were greeted with a great cheer; and they mounted their horses, which the Grand Duke now found without any difficulty--although when the need of them seemed far greater the student could not contrive to come upon them--and the whole company rode together out of the wood and along the road towards Strelsau, the king being full of jokes and hugely delighted with a trick that suited his merry fancy. But before they had ridden far, they met the great crowd which had come out from Strelsau to learn what had happened to the Princess Osra. And the king cried out that the Grand Duke was to marry the princess, while his guards who had been with him and the ambassador's people spread themselves among the crowd and told the story. And when they heard it, the Strelsau folk were nearly beside themselves with amusement and delight, and thronged round Osra, kissing her hands and blessing her. But the king drew back, and let her and the Grand Duke ride alone together, while he followed with Count Sergius. Thus, moving at a very slow pace, they came in the forenoon to Strelsau; but some one had galloped on ahead with the news, and the cathedral bells had been set ringing, the streets were full, and the whole city given over to excitement and rejoicing. All the men were that day in love with Princess Osra; and, what is more, they told their sweethearts so, and these found no other revenge than to blow kisses and fling flowers at the Grand Duke as he rode past with Osra by his side. Thus they came back to the palace whence they had fled in the early gleams of that morning's light.

It was evening, and the moon rose, fair and clear, over Strelsau. In the streets there were sounds of merriment and rejoicing; for every house was bright with light, and the king had sent out meat and wine for every soul in the city, that none might be sad or hungry or thirsty in all the city that night; so that there was no small uproar. The king himself sat in his armchair, toasting the bride and bride-groom in company with Count Sergius of Antheim, whose dignity, somewhat wounded by the trick his master had played upon him, was healing quickly under the balm of King Rudolf's graciousness. And the king said to Count Sergius:

"My lord, were you ever in love?"

"I was, sire," said the count.

"So was I," said the king. "Was it with the countess, my lord?"

Count Sergius's eyes twinkled demurely; but he answered:

"I take it, sire, that it must have been with the countess."

"And I take it," said the king, "that it must have been with the queen."

Then they both laughed, and then they both sighed; and the king, touching the count's elbow, pointed out to the terrace of the palace, on to which the room where they were opened. For Princess Osra and her lover were walking up and down together on this terrace. And the two shrugged their shoulders, smiling.

"With him," remarked the king, "it will have been with--"

"The countess, sire," discreetly interrupted Count Sergius of Antheim.

"Why, yes, the countess," said the king; and, with a laugh, they turned bank to their wine.

But the two on the terrace also talked.

"I do not yet understand it," said Princess Osra. "For on the first day I loved you, and on the second I loved you, and on the third, and the fourth, and every day I loved you. Yet the first day was not like the second, nor the second like the third, nor any day like any other. And to-day, again, is unlike them all. Is love so various and full of changes?"

"Is it not?" he asked with a smile. "For while you were with the queen, talking of I know not what--"

"Nor I, indeed," said Osra hastily.

"I was with the king, and he, saying that forewarned was forearmed, told me very strange and pretty stories. Of some a report had reached me before--"

"And yet you came to Strelsau?"

"While of others, I had not heard."

"Or you would not have come to Strelsau?"

The Grand Duke, not heeding these questions, proceeded to his conclusion:

"Love, therefore," said he, "is very various. For M. de Mérosailles--"

"These are old stories," cried Osra, pretending to stop her ears.

"Loved in one way, and Stephen the Smith in another, and--the Miller of Hofbau in a third."

"I think," said Osra, "that I have forgotten the Miller of Hofbau. But can one heart love in many different ways? I know that different men love differently."

"But cannot one heart love in different ways?" he smiled.

"May be," said Osra thoughtfully, "one heart can have loved." But then she suddenly looked up at him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "No, no," she cried; "it was not love. It was--"

"What was it?"

"The courtiers entertained me till the king came," she said with a blushing laugh. And looking up at him again, she whispered: "Yet I am glad that you lingered for a little."

At this moment she saw the king come out on to the terrace, and with him was the Bishop of Modenstein; and after the bishop had been presented to the Grand Duke, the king began to talk with the Grand Duke, while the bishop kissed Osra's hand and wished her joy.

"Madam," said he, "once you asked me if I could make you understand what love was. I take it you have no need for my lessons now. Your teacher has come."

"Yes, he has come," she said gently, looking on the bishop with great friendliness. "But tell me, will he always love me?"

"Surely he will," answered the bishop.

"And tell me," said Osra, "shall I always love him?"

"Surely," said the bishop again, most courteously. "Yet, indeed, madam," he continued, "it would seem almost enough to ask of Heaven to love now and now to be loved. For the years roll on, and youth goes, and even the most incomparable beauty will yield its blossoms when the season wanes; yet that sweet memory may ever be fresh and young, a thing a man can carry to his grave and raise as her best monument on his lady's tomb."

"Ah, you speak well of love," said she. "I marvel that you speak so well of love. For it is as you say; and to-day in the wood it seemed to me that I had lived enough, and that even Death was but Love's servant as Life is, both purposed solely for his better ornament."

"Men have died because they loved you, madam, and some yet live who love you," said the bishop.

"And shall I grieve for both, my lord--or for which?"

"For neither, madam; for the dead have gained peace, and they who live have escaped forgetfulness."

"But would they not be happier for forgetting?"

"I do not think so," said the bishop; and, bowing low to her again, he stood back, for he saw the king approaching with the Grand Duke; and the king took him by the arm, and walked on with him; but Osra's face lost the brief pensiveness that had come upon it as she talked with the bishop, and, turning to her lover, she stretched out her hands to him, saying:

"I wish there was a cottage, and that you worked for bread, while I made ready for you at the cottage, and then ran far, far, far, down the road to watch and wait for your coming."

"Since a cottage was not too small, a palace will not be too large," said he, catching her in his arms.

Thus the heart of Princess Osra found its haven and its rest; for a month later she was married to the Grand Duke of Mittenheim in the cathedral of Strelsau, having utterly refused to take any other place for her wedding. And again she and he rode forth together through the western gate; and the king rode with them on their way till they came to the woods. Here he paused, and all the crowd that accompanied him stopped also; and they all waited till the sombre depths of the glades hid Osra and her lover from their sight. Then, leaving them thus riding together to their happiness, the people returned home, sad for the loss of their darling princess. But, for consolation, and that their minds might less feel her loss, they had her name often on their lips; and the poets and story-tellers composed many stories about her, not always grounded on fact, but the fabric of idle imaginings, wrought to please the fancy of lovers or to wake the memories of older folk. So that, if a stranger goes now to Strelsau, he may be pardoned if it seem to him that all mankind was in love with Princess Osra. Nay, and those stories so pass all fair bounds that, if you listened to them, you would come near to believing that the princess also had found some love for all the men who had given her their love. Thus to many she is less a woman that once lived and breathed than some sweet image under whose name they fondly group all the virtues and the charms of her whom they love best, each man fashioning for himself from his own chosen model her whom he calls his princess. Yet it may be that for some of them who so truly loved her, her heart had a moment's tenderness. Who shall tell all the short-lived dreams that come and go, the promptings and stirrings of a vagrant inclination? And who would pry too closely into these secret matters? May we not more properly give thanks to heaven that the thing is as it is? For surely it makes greatly for the increase of joy and entertainment in the world, and of courtesy and true tenderness, that the heart of Princess Osra--or of what lady you may choose, sir, to call by her name--should flutter in pretty hesitation here and there and to and fro a little, before it flies on a straight swift wing to its destined and desired home. And if you be not the prince for your princess, why, sir, your case is a sad one.

CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE.

BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS,

Author of "The Gates Ajar," "The Madonna of the Tubs," etc

EMERSON IN ANDOVER.--RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY RELIGIOUS TRAINING.--THE STUDIES OF A PROFESSOR'S DAUGHTER.--THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR.

Perhaps no one has ever denied, or more definitely, has ever wished to deny, that Andover society consisted largely of people with obvious religious convictions; and that her visitors were chiefly of the Orthodox Congregational turn of mind. I do not remember that we ever saw any reason for regret in this "feature" of the Hill. It is true, however, that a dash of the world's people made their way among us.

I remember certain appearances of Ralph Waldo Emerson. If I am correct about it, he had been persuaded by some emancipated and daring mind to give us several lectures.

He was my father's guest on one of these occasions, and I met him for the first time then. Emerson was--not to speak disrespectfully--in a much muddled state of his distinguished mind, on Andover Hill. His blazing seer's gaze took us all in, politely; it burned straight on, with its own philosophic fire; but it wore, at moments, a puzzled softness.

His clear-cut, sarcastic lips sought to assume the well-bred curves of conformity to the environment of entertainers who valued him so far as to demand a series of his own lectures; but the cynic of his temperamental revolt from us, or, to be exact, from the thing which he supposed us to be, lurked in every line of his memorable face.

By the way, what a look of the eagle it had!

The poet--I was about to say the pagan poet--quickly recognized, to a degree, that he was not among a group of barbarians; and I remember the marked respect with which he observed my father's noble head and countenance, and the attention with which he listened to the low, perfectly modulated voice of his host. But Mr. Emerson was accustomed to do the talking himself; this occasion proved no exception; and here his social divination or experience failed him a little. Quite promptly, I remember, he set adrift upon the sea of Alcott.

Now, we had heard of Mr. Alcott in Andover, it is true, but we did not look upon him exactly through Mr. Emerson's marine-glass; and, though the Professor did his hospitable best to sustain his end of the conversation, it swayed off gracefully into monologue. We listened deferentially while the philosopher pronounced Bronson Alcott the greatest mind of our day--I think he said the greatest since Plato. He was capable of it, in moments of his own exaltation. I thought I detected a twinkle in my father's blue eye; but the fine curve of his lips remained politely closed; and our distinguished guest spoke on.

There was something noble about this ardent way of appreciating his friends, and Emerson was distinguished for it, among those who knew him well.

Publishers understood that his literary judgment was touchingly warped by his personal admirations. He would offer some impossible MS. as the work of dawning genius; it would be politely received, and filed in the rejected pigeon-holes. Who knows what the great man thought when his friend's poem failed to see the light of the market?

On this particular occasion, the conversation changed to Browning. Now, the Professor, although as familiar as he thought it necessary to be with the latest poetic idol, was not a member of a Browning class; and here, again, his attitude towards the subject was one of well-mannered respect, rather than of abandoned enthusiasm. (Had it only been Wordsworth!) A lady was present, young, and of the Browningesque temperament. Mr. Emerson expressed himself finely to the effect that there was something outside of ourselves about Browning--that we might not always grasp him--that he seemed, at times, to require an extra sense.

"Is it not because he touches our extra moods?" asked the lady. The poet's face turned towards her quickly; he had not noticed her before; a subtle change touched his expression, as if he would have liked to say: For the first time since this subject was introduced in this Calvinistic drawing-room, I find myself understood.

It chanced that we had a Chaucer Club in Andover at that time; a small company, severely selected, not to flirt or to chat, but to work. We had studied hard for a year, and most of us had gone Chaucer mad. This present writer was the unfortunate exception to that idolatrous enthusiasm, and--meeting Mr. Emerson at another time--took modest occasion in answer to a remark of his to say something of the sort.

"Chaucer interests me, certainly, but I cannot make myself feel as the others do. He does not take hold of my nature. He is too far back. I am afraid I am too much of a modern. It is a pity, I know."

"It _is_ a pity," observed Mr. Emerson sarcastically. "What would you read? The 'Morning Advertiser'?" The Chaucer Club glared at me in what, I must say, I felt to be unholy triumph.

Not a glance of sympathy reached me, where I sat, demolished before the rebuke of the great man. I distinctly heard a chuckle from a feminine member. Yet, what had the dissenter done, or tried to do? To be quite honest, only, in a little matter where affectation would have been the flowery way; and I must say that I have never loved the Father of English Poetry any better for this episode.

The point, however, at which I am coming is the effect wrought upon Mr. Emerson's mind by the history of that club. It seemed to us disproportionate to the occasion that he should feel and manifest so much surprise at our existence. This he did, more than once, and with a genuineness not to be mistaken.

That an organization for the study of Chaucer could subsist on Andover Hill, he could not understand. What he thought us, or thought about us, who can say? He seemed as much taken aback as if he had found a tribe of Cherokees studying onomatopoeia in English verse.

"A _Chaucer_ club! In _Andover_?" he repeated. The seer was perplexed.

Of course, whenever we found ourselves in forms of society not in harmony with our religious views, we were accustomed, in various ways, to meet with a similar predisposition. As a psychological study this has always interested me, just as one is interested in the attitude of mind exhibited by the Old School physician towards the Homoeopathist with whom he graduated at the Harvard Medical School. Possibly that graduate may have distinguished himself with the honors of the school; but as soon as he prescribes on the principles of Hahnemann, he is not to be adjudged capable of setting a collar-bone. By virtue of his therapeutic views he has become disqualified for professional recognition. So, by virtue of one's religious views, the man or woman of orthodox convictions, whatever one's proportion of personal culture, is regarded with a gentle superiority, as being of a class still enslaved in superstition, and therefore _per se_ barbaric.

Put in undecorated language, this is about the sum and substance of a state of feeling which all intelligent evangelical Christians recognize perfectly in those who have preempted for themselves the claims belonging to what are called the liberal faiths.

On the other hand, one who is regarded as a little of a heretic from the sterner sects, may make the warmest friendships of a lifetime among "the world's people"--whom far be it from me to seem to dispossess of any of their manifold charms.

This brings me closely to a question which I am so often asked, either directly or indirectly, that I cannot easily pass this Andover chapter by without some recognition of it.

What was, in very truth, the effect of such a religious training as Andover gave her children?

Curious impressions used to be afloat about us among people of easier faiths; often, I think, we were supposed to spend our youth paddling about in a lake of blue fire, or in committing the genealogies to memory, or in gasping beneath the agonies of religious revivals.

To be quite honest, I should say that I have not retained _all_ the beliefs which I was taught--who does? But I have retained the profoundest respect for the way in which I was taught them; and I would rather have been taught what I was, _as_ I was, and run whatever risks were involved in the process, than to have been taught much less, little, or nothing.

An excess of religious education may have its unfortunate aspects. But a deficiency of it has worse.

It is true that, for little people, our little souls were a good deal agitated on the question of eternal salvation. We were taught that heaven and hell followed life and death; that the one place was "a desirable location," and the other too dreadful to be mentioned in ears polite; and that what Matthew Arnold calls "conduct" was the deciding thing. Not that we heard much, until we grew old enough to read for ourselves, about Matthew Arnold; but we did hear a great deal about plain behaviour--unselfishness, integrity, honor, sweet temper--the simple good morals of childhood.

We were taught, too, to respect prayer and the Christian Bible. In this last particular we never had at all an oppressive education.

My Sunday-school reminiscences are few and comfortable, and left me, chiefly, with the impression that Sunday-schools always studied Acts; for I do not recall any lessons given me by strolling theologues in any other--certainly none in any severer--portions of the Bible.

It was all very easy and pleasant, if not feverishly stimulating; and I am quite willing to match my Andover Sunday-school experiences with that of a Boston free-thinker's little daughter who came home and complained to her mother:

"There is a dreadful girl put into our Sunday-school. I think, mamma, she is bad society for me. She says the Bible is exaggerated, and then she tickles my legs!"

I have said that we were taught to think something about our own "salvation;" and so we were, but not in a manner calculated to burden the good spirits of any but a very sensitive or introspective child. Personally, I may have dwelt on the idea, at times, more than was good for my happiness; but certainly no more than was good for my character. The idea of character was at the basis of everything we did, or dreamed, or learned.

There is a scarecrow which "liberal" beliefs put together, hang in the field of public terror or ridicule, and call it Orthodoxy. Of this misshapen creature we knew nothing in Andover.

Of hell we heard sometimes, it is true, for Andover Seminary believed in it--though, be it said, much more comfortably in the days before this iron doctrine became the bridge of contention in the recent serious, theological battle which has devastated Andover. In my own case, I do not remember to have been shocked or threatened by this woful doctrine. I knew that my father believed in the everlasting misery of wicked people who could be good if they wanted to, but would not; and I was, of course, accustomed to accept the beliefs of a parent who represented everything that was tender, unselfish, pure, and noble, to my mind--in fact, who sustained to me the ideal of a fatherhood which gave me the best conception I shall ever get, in this world, of the Fatherhood of God. My father presented the interesting anomaly of a man holding, in one dark particular, a severe faith, but displaying in his private character rare tenderness and sweetness of heart. He would go out of his way to save a crawling thing from death, or any sentient thing from pain. He took more trouble to give comfort or to prevent distress to every breathing creature that came within his reach, than any other person whom I have ever known. He had not the heart to witness heartache. It was impossible for him to endure the sight of a child's suffering. His sympathy was an extra sense, finer than eyesight, more exquisite than touch.

Yet, he did believe that absolute perversion of moral character went to its "own place," and bore the consequence of its own choice.

Once I told a lie (I was seven years old), and my father was a broken-hearted man. He told me _then_ that liars went to hell. I do not remember to have heard any such personal application of the doctrine of eternal punishment before or since; and the fact made a life-long impression, to which I largely owe a personal preference for veracity. Yet, to analyze the scene strictly, I must say that it was not fear of torment which so moved me; it was the sight of that broken face. For my father wept--only when death visited the household did I ever see him cry again--and I stood melted and miserable before his anguish and his love. The devil and all his angels could not have punished into me the noble shame of that moment.

I have often been aware of being pitied by outsiders for the theological discipline which I was supposed to have received in Andover; but I must truthfully say that I have never been conscious of needing compassion in this respect. I was taught that God is Love, and Christ His Son is our Saviour; that the important thing in life was to be that kind of woman for which there is really, I find, no better word than Christian, and that the only road to this end was to be trodden by way of character. The ancient Persians (as we all know) were taught to hurl a javelin, ride a horse, and speak the truth.

I was taught that I should speak the truth, say my prayers, and consider other people; it was a wholesome, right-minded, invigorating training that we had, born of tenderness, educated conscience, and good sense, and I have lived to bless it in many troubled years.

What if we did lend a little too much romance now and then to our religious "experience"? It was better for us than some other kinds of romance to which we were quite as liable. What if I did "join the church" (entirely of my own urgent will, not of my father's preference or guiding) at the age of twelve, when the great dogmas to which I was expected to subscribe could not possibly have any rational meaning for me? I remember how my father took me apart, and gently explained to me beforehand the clauses of the rather simple and truly beautiful chapel creed which he himself, I believe, had written to modernize and clarify the old one--I wonder if it were done at that very time? And I remember that it all seemed to me very easy and happy--signifying chiefly, that one meant to be a good girl, if possible. What if one did conduct a voluminous religious correspondence with the other Professor's daughter, who put notes under the fence which divided our homes? We were none the worse girls for that. And we outgrew it, when the time came.

Professor M. Stuart Phelps died in 1883, at the age of 34. He was professor of philosophy in Smith College, was called by those entitled to judge, the most promising young psychologist in this country, and a brilliant future was prophesied for him. The above portrait is from a photograph by Pach Brothers, New York.]

One thing, supremely, I may say that I learned from the Andover life, or, at least, from the Andover home. That was an everlasting scorn of worldliness--I do not mean in the religious sense of the word. That tendency to seek the lower motive, to do the secondary thing, to confuse sounds or appearances with values, which is covered by the word as we commonly use it, very early came to seem to me a way of looking at life for which I know no other term than underbred.

There is no better training for a young person than to live in the atmosphere of a study--we did not call it a library, in my father's home. People of leisure who read might have libraries. People who worked among their books had studies.

The life of a student, with its gracious peace, its beauty, its dignity, seemed to me, as the life of social preoccupation or success may seem to children born to that penumbra, the inevitable thing.

As one grew to think out life for one's self, one came to perceive a width and sanctity in the choice of work--whether rhetoric or art, theology or sculpture, hydraulics or manufacture--but to _work_, to work hard, to see work steadily, and see it whole, was the way to be reputable. I think I always respected a good blacksmith more than a lady of leisure.

I know it took me a while to recover from a very youthful and amusing disinclination to rich people, which was surely never trained into me, but grew like the fruit of the horse-chestnut trees, ruggedly, of nature, and of Andover Hill; and which dropped away when its time came--just about as useless as the big brown nuts which we cut into baskets and carved into Trustees' faces for a mild November day, and then threw away.

When I came in due time to observe that property and a hardened character were not identical, and that families of ease in which one might happen to visit were not deficient in education because their incomes were large--I think it was at first with a certain sense of surprise. It is impossible to convey to one differently reared the delicious _naïveté_ of this state of mind.

Whatever the "personal peculiarities" of our youthful conceptions of life, as acquired at Andover, one thing is sure--that we grew into love of reality as naturally as the Seminary elms shook out their long, green plumes in May, and shed their delicate, yellow leaves in October.

I can remember no time when we did not instinctively despise a sham, and honor a genuine person, thing, or claim. In mere social pretension not built upon character, intelligence, education, or gentle birth, we felt no interest. I do not remember having been taught this, in so many words. It came without teaching.

My father taught me most things without text-books or lessons. By far the most important portion of what one calls education, I owe to him; yet he never preached, or prosed, or played the pedagogue. He talked a great deal, not to us, but with us; we began to have conversation while we were still playing marbles and dolls. I remember hours of discussion with him on some subject so large that the littleness of his interlocutor must have tried him sorely. Time and eternity, theology and science, literature and art, invention and discovery came each in its turn; and, while I was still making burr baskets, or walking fences, or coasting (standing up) on what I was proud to claim as the biggest sled in town, down the longest hills, and on the fastest local record--I was fascinated with the wealth and variety which seem to have been the conditions of thought with him. I have never been more _interested_ by anything in later life than I was in my father's conversation.

I never attended a public school of any kind--unless we except the Sunday-school that studied Acts--and when it came time for me to pass from the small to the large private schools of Andover, the same paternal comradeship continued to keep step with me. There was no college diploma for girls of my kind in my day; but we came as near to it as we could.

There was a private school in Andover, of wide reputation in its time, known to the irreverent as the "Nunnery," but bearing in professional circles the more stately name of Mrs. Edwards's School for Young Ladies. Two day-scholars, as a marked favor to their parents, were admitted with the boarders elect; and of these two I was one. If I remember correctly, Professor Park and my father were among the advisers whose opinions had weight with the selection of our course of study, and I often wonder how, with their rather feudal views of women, these two wise men of Andover managed to approve so broad a curriculum.

Possibly the quiet and modest learned lady, our principal, had ideas of her own which no one could have suspected her of obtruding against the current of her times and environment; like other strong and gentle women she may have had her "way" when nobody thought so. At all events, we were taught wisely and well, in directions to which the fashionable girls' schools of the day did not lift an eye-lash.

I was an out-of-door girl, always into every little mischief of snow or rainfall, flower, field, or woods or ice; but in spite of skates and sleds and tramps and all the west winds from Wachusett that blew through me, soul and body, I was not strong; and my father found it necessary to oversee my methods of studying. Incidentally, I think, he influenced the choice of some of our text-books, and I remember that, with the exception of Greek and trigonometry--thought, in those days, to be beyond the scope of the feminine intellect--we pursued the same curriculum that our brothers did at college. In some cases we had teachers who were then, or afterwards, college professors in their specialties; in all departments I think we were faithfully taught, and that our tastes and abilities were electively recognized.

I was not allowed, I remember, to inflict my musical talents upon the piano for more than one hour a day; my father taking the ground that, as there was only so much of a girl, if she had not unusual musical gift and had less than usual physical vigor, she had better give the best of herself to her studies. I have often blessed him for this daring individualism; for, while the school "practice" went on about me, in the ordinary way, so many precious hours out of a day that was all too short for better things--I was learning my lessons quite comfortably, and getting plenty of fresh air and exercise between whiles.

I hasten to say that I was not at all a remarkable scholar. I cherished a taste for standing near the top of the class, somewhere, and always preferred rather to answer a question than to miss it; but this, I think, was pure pride, rather than an absorbing, intellectual passion. It was a wholesome pride, however, and served me a good turn.

At one epoch of history, so far back that I cannot date it, I remember to have been a scholar at Abbott Academy long enough to learn how to spell. Perhaps one ought to give the honor of this achievement where honor is due. When I observe the manner in which the superior sex is often turned out by masculine diplomas upon the world with the life-long need of a vest-pocket dictionary or a spelling-book, I cherish a respect for the method in which I was compelled to spell the English language. It was severe, no doubt. We stood in a class of forty, and lost our places for the misfit of a syllable, a letter, a definition, or even a stumble in elocution. I remember once losing the head of the class for saying: L-u-ux--Lux. It was a terrible blow, and I think of it yet with burning mortification on my cheeks.

In the "Nunnery" we were supposed to have learned how to spell. We studied what we called Mental Philosophy, to my unmitigated delight; and Butler's Analogy, which I considered a luxury; and Shakespeare, whom I distantly but never intimately adored; Latin, to which dead language we gave seven years apiece, out of our live girlhood; Picciola and Undine we dreamed over, in the grove and the orchard; English literature is associated with the summer-house and the grape arbor, with flecks of shade and glints of light, and a sense of unmistakable privilege. There was physiology, which was scarcely work, and astronomy, which I found so exhilarating that I fell ill over it. Alas, truth compels me to add that Mathematics, with a big _M_ and stretching on through the books of Euclid, darkened my young horizon with dull despair; and that chemistry--but the facts are too humiliating to relate. My father used to say that all he ever got out of the pursuit of this useful science in his college days--and he was facile valedictorian--was the impression that there was a sub-acetate of something dissolved in a powder at the bottom.

All that I am able to recall of the study of "my brother's text-books," in this department, is that there was once a frightful odor in the laboratory for which Professor Hitchcock and a glass jar and a chemical were responsible, and that I said, "At least, the name of _this_ will remain with me to my dying hour." But what _was_ the name of it? "Ask me no more."

In the department of history I can claim no results more calculated to reflect credit upon the little student who hated a poor recitation much, but facts and figures more. To the best of my belief, I can be said to have retained but two out of the long list of historic dates with which my quivering memory was duly and properly crowded.

I _do_ know when America was discovered; because the year is inscribed over a spring in the seaside town where I have spent twenty summers, and I have driven past it on an average once a day, for that period of time. And I can tell when Queen Elizabeth left this world, because Macaulay wrote a stately sentence:

"In 1603 the Great Queen died."

It must have been the year when my father read De Quincey and Wordsworth to me on winter evenings that I happened for myself on Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The first little event opened for me, as distinctly as if I had never heard of it before, the world of letters as a Paradise from which no flaming sword could ever exile me; but the second revealed to me my own nature.

The Andover sunsets blazed behind Wachusett, and between the one window of my little room and the fine head of the mountain nothing intervened. The Andover elms held above lifted eyes arch upon arch of exquisite tracery, through which the far sky looked down like some noble thing that one could spend all one's life in trying to reach, and be happy just because it existed, whether one reached it or not. The paths in my father's great gardens burned white in the summer moonlights, and their shape was the shape of a mighty cross. The June lilies, yellow and sweet, lighted their soft lamps beside the cross--I was sixteen, and I read Aurora Leigh.

A grown person may smile--but, no; no gentle-minded man or woman smiles at the dream of a girl. What has life to offer that is nobler in enthusiasm, more delicate, more ardent, more true to the unseen and the unsaid realities which govern our souls, or leave us sadder forever because they do not? There may be greater poems in our language than Aurora Leigh, but it was many years before it was possible for me to suppose it; and none that ever saw the hospitality of fame could have done for that girl what that poem did at that time. I had never a good memory--but I think I could have repeated a large portion of it; and know that I often stood the test of hap-hazard examinations on the poem from half-scoffing friends, sometimes of the masculine persuasion. Each to his own; and what Shakespeare or the Latin Fathers might have done for some other impressionable girl, Mrs. Browning--forever bless her strong and gentle name!--did for me.

I owe to her, distinctly, the first visible aspiration (ambition is too low a word) to do some honest, hard work of my own, in the World Beautiful, and for it.

It is April, and it is the year 1861. It is a dull morning at school. The sky is gray. The girls are not in spirits--no one knows just why. The morning mail is late, and the Boston papers are tardily distributed. The older girls get them, and are reading the head-lines lazily, as girls do; not, in truth, caring much about a newspaper, but aware that one must be well-informed.

Suddenly, in the recitation room, where I am refreshing my accomplishments in some threatening lesson, I hear low murmurs and exclamations. Then a girl, very young and very pretty, catches the paper and whirls it overhead. With a laugh which tinkles through my ears to this day, she dances through the room and cries: