Chapter M: Loyal (1)

Ah no,--some cynic wits;
And called (I think)--
(_Placing his hat upon his breast_),
"The Cap that Fits."

ENIGMA [Sidenote: _Mark Twain_]

Not wishing to be outdone in literary enterprise by those magazines which have attractions especially designed for the pleasing of the fancy and the strengthening of the intellect of youth, we have contrived and builded the following enigma, at great expense of time and labour:

I am a word of 13 letters.

My 7, 9, 4, 4 is a village in Europe.

My 7, 14, 5, 7 is a kind of dog.

My 11, 13, 13, 9, 2, 7, 2, 3, 6, 1, 13 is a peculiar kind of stuff.

My 2, 6, 12, 8, 9, 4 is the name of a great general of ancient times (have spelt it to best of ability, though may have missed the bull's-eye on a letter or two, but not enough to signify).

My 3, 11, 1, 9, 15, 2, 2, 6, 2, 9, 13, 2, 6, 15, 4, 11, 2, 3, 5, 1, 10, 4, 8 is the middle name of a Russian philosopher, up whose full cognomen fame is slowly but surely climbing.

My 7, 11, 4, 12, 3, 1, 1, 9 is an obscure but very proper kind of bug.

My whole is--but perhaps a reasonable amount of diligence and ingenuity will reveal that.

We take a just pride in offering the customary gold pen or cheap sewing-machine for correct solutions of the above.

THE HAPPINESS OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE [Sidenote: _Religio Medici_]

In my solitary and retired imagination (Neque enim cum porticus, aut me lectulus accepit, desum mihi) I remember I am not alone, and therefore forget not to contemplate Him and His Attributes who is ever with me, especially those two mighty ones, His Wisdom and Eternity; with the one I recreate, with the other I confound, my understanding; for who can speak of Eternity without a soloecism, or think thereof without an Extasie? Time we may comprehend; 'tis but five days elder than ourselves, and hath the same Horoscope with the World; but to retire so far back as to apprehend a beginning, to give such an infinite start forwards as to conceive an end in an essence that we affirm hath neither the one nor the other, it puts my Reason to _St. Paul's_ Sanctuary: my Philosophy dares not say the angels can do it; God hath not made a Creature that can comprehend Him; 'tis a privilege of His own nature....

[Sidenote: _Religio Medici_]

Art is the perfection of Nature: were the World now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a Chaos: Nature hath made one World, and Art another. In brief, all things are artificial; for Nature is the Art of God.

[Sidenote: _Religio Medici_]

There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun. Nature tells me I am the Image of God, as well as Scripture: he that understands not thus much, hath not his introduction or first lesson, and is yet to begin the Alphabet of man. Let me not injure the felicity of others, if I say I am as happy as any: _Ruat coelum, Fiat voluntas tua_, salveth all; so that whatsoever happens, it is but what our daily prayers desire. In brief, I am content, and what should providence add more? Surely this is it we call Happiness, and this do I enjoy; with this I am happy in a dream, and as content to enjoy a happiness in a fancy, as others in a more apparent truth and reality. There is surely a nearer apprehension of anything that delights us in our dreams, than in our waked senses; without this I were unhappy: for my awaked judgment discontents me, ever whispering unto me, that I am from my friend; but my friendly dreams in night requite me, and make me think I am within his arms. I thank God for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest, for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happiness. And surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this World, and that the conceits of this life are as near dreams to those of the next, as the Phantasms of the night, to the conceits of the day. There is an equal delusion in both, and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other; we are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason, and our waking conceptions do not match the Fancies of our sleeps. At my Nativity, my Ascendant was the watery sign of _Scorpius_; I was born in the Planetary hour of _Saturn_, and I think I have a piece of that Leaden Planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof: were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams; and this time also would I chuse for my devotions: but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls, a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed.

[Sidenote: _Religio Medici_]

He is rich, who hath enough to be charitable; and it is hard to be so poor that a noble mind may not find a way to this piece of goodness. _He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord;_ there is more Rhetorick in that one sentence, than in a Library of Sermons; and indeed if those Sentences were understood by the Reader, with the same Emphasis as they are delivered by the Author, we needed not those Volumes of instructions, but might be honest by an Epitome. Upon this motive only I cannot behold a Beggar without relieving his Necessities with my Purse, or his Soul with my Prayers; those _scenical_ and accidental _differences_ between us, cannot make me forget that common and untoucht part of us both; there is under these _Cantoes_ and miserable outsides, these mutilate and semi-bodies, a soul of the same alloy with our own, whose Genealogy is God as well as ours, and in as fair a way to Salvation as our selves.

"PLEASE TO RING THE BELLE" [Sidenote: _Hood_]

I'll tell you a story that's not in Tom Moore:--
Young Love likes to knock at a pretty girl's door:
So he call'd upon Lucy--'twas just ten o'clock--
Like a spruce single man, with a smart double knock.

Now, a handmaid, whatever her fingers be at,
Will run like a puss when she hears a _rat_-tat:
So Lucy ran up--and in two seconds more
Had questioned the stranger and answered the door.

The meeting was bliss; but the parting was woe;
For the moment will come when such comers must go:
So she kissed him, and whispered--poor innocent thing!--
"The next time you come, love, pray come with a ring."

THE HAPPY DEAN [Sidenote: _Dean Hole_]

My dear Hall,--I don't like the writing of this letter. I feel as I felt in childhood when they were measuring out the castor-oil in a spoon; or when, in boyhood, it was suggested "that kind Mr. Crackjaw should _just look_ at my teeth."

But the gulp and the "scrawnsh" must come.

My Master, the Archbishop, wishes me to speak at the Annual Meeting of the Church Defence Society in London, on the 9th of July, and as this is his first invitation to duty since I became his Chaplain, I cannot plead pleasure as an excuse.

Regarding the Fete des Roses at Larchwood, as the _most joyful holiday_ of my year, from my first entrance into that pleasant home until you chaperon me to the Omnibus at the gate of the Show-ground, I need not enlarge on my disappointment. The less said the better.

When Dido found Æneas did not come,
She mourned in silence, and was Di do dum.

Roses are improving here, but they will be very late. May you add to the victories which your zeal and care have so well deserved. Shall you be at Sheffield? If so, you might return with me and have a quiet day's talk and ramble. With kindest regards and most obnoxious regrets, I remain yours most sincerely,

* * * * *

When the Church Conference was held at Newcastle, Hole told a story of a young curate who was preaching in a strange church from which the rector was away. He preached a very short sermon, and in the vestry afterwards the churchwarden remarked upon its shortness, and the curate told him that a pup at his lodgings got into his room and ate half his sermon, whereupon the churchwarden said: "I should be much obliged if you could get our rector one of the breed." Reading this story, Mr. Boultbee wrote to ask Hole if he could say what happened to the dog after eating the sermon, and the reply was:

Dear Sir,--You will be pleased to hear that when the dog had inwardly digested the sermon which he had torn, he turned over a new leaf. He had been sullen and morose; he became "a very jolly dog." He had been selfish and exclusive in his manger; he generously gave it up to an aged poodle. He had been noisy and vulgar; he became a quiet, gentlemanly dog; he never growled again; and when he was bitten he always requested the cur who had torn his flesh to be so good, as a particular favour, to bite him again. He has established a Reformatory in the Isle of Dogs for perverse puppies, and an Infirmary for Mangy Mastiffs in Houndsditch. He has won twenty-six medals from the Humane Society for rescuing children who have fallen into the canal. He spends six days of the week in conducting his brothers and sisters, who have lost their ways, to the Dog's Home, and it is a most touching sight to see him leading the blind to church from morning to night on Sundays.

[Sidenote: _Dean Hole_]

My dear Lord Bishop,--I have a strong suspicion that the inundation of the Nave at Rochester was a knavish conspiracy of the Tee-totallers to submerge the Cathedral during the absence of the Dean. The vergers have had Water-on-the-Brain, but Messrs. Bishop and Sons from London have assured Mr. Luard Selby that there is no organic disease.

I have regarded it as my duty, in anticipation of your lordship's visit to North Wales on Wednesday next, to see that all due preparations are made to receive you. I have been to ----, and found that the new chancel is making satisfactory progress. The new altar frontal is beautiful, the tea and bread and butter at the Rectory are excellent, the roses in the garden are making extra efforts, the school-mistress is in good health, the mountains are drawn up in saluting order, the mines are smoking peacefully, there will be cold lamb at the luncheon, weather permitting, and all frivolous persons will be banished to England, including yours ever.

THE ANSWER OF LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE [Sidenote: _Henry S. Leigh_]

The Lady Clara V. de V.
Presents her very best regards
To that misguided Alfred T.
(With one of her enamell'd cards).
Though uninclin'd to give offence,
The Lady Clara begs to hint
That Master Alfred's common sense
Deserts him utterly in print.

The Lady Clara can but say,
That always from the very first
She snubb'd in her decisive way
The hopes that silly Alfred nurs'd.
The fondest words that ever fell
From Lady Clara, when they met,
Were, "How d'ye do? I hope you're well!"
Or else, "The weather's very wet."

Her Ladyship needs no advice
How time and money should be spent,
And can't pursue at any price
The plan that Alfred T. has sent.
She does not in the least object
To let the "foolish yeoman" go,
But wishes--let him recollect--
That he should move to Jericho.

THE WOODCRAFT OF JONSON [Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]

Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or meats, that they be nourishing; for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some men may receive a courtesy and not know it; but never any man received it from him that knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by accident; but they were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of an ague by falling into a water; another whipped out of a fever; but no man would ever use these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the event, that distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may offend the judge with his pride and impertinences, and I win my cause; but he meant it not to me as a courtesy. I 'scaped pirates by being ship-wracked; was the wrack a benefit therefore? No; the doing of courtesies aright is the mixing of the respects for his own sake and for mine. He that doeth them merely for his own sake is like one that feeds his cattle to sell them; he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield.

[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]

Many might go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way; but "The devil take all!" quoth he that was choked i' the mill-dam, with his four last words in his mouth.

[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]

A good man will avoid the spot of any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life as he would in his journey. The ill man rides through all confidently; he is coated and booted for it. The oftener he offends, the more openly, and the fouler, the fitter in fashion. His modesty, like a riding-coat, the more it is worn is the less cared for. It is good enough for the dirt still, and the ways he travels in.

[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]

Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself to the law of Nature is not only without the sense but the fear of poverty. O, but to strike blind the people with our wealth and pomp is the thing! What a wretchedness is this, to thrust all our riches outward, and be beggars within; to contemplate nothing but the little, vile, and sordid things of the world; not the great, noble, and precious! We serve our avarice, and, not content with the good of the earth that is offered us, we search and dig for the evil that is hidden. God offered us those things, and placed them at hand, and near us, that He knew were profitable for us, but the hurtful He laid deep and hid. Yet do we seek only the things whereby we may perish, and bring them forth, when God and Nature hath buried them. We covet superfluous things, when it were more honour for us if we could contemn necessary. What need hath Nature of silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins? She requires meat only, and hunger is not ambitious. Can we think no wealth enough but such a state for which a man may be brought into a præmunire, begged, proscribed, or poisoned? O! if a man could restrain the fury of his gullet and groin, and think how many fires, how many kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews, ponds and parks, coops and garners, he could spare; what velvets, tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how short and uncertain his life is; he were in a better way to happiness than to live the emperor of these delights, and be the dictator of fashions. But we make ourselves slaves to our pleasures, and we serve fame and ambition, which is an equal slavery.

[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]

I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted out a thousand," which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. "Sufflaminandus erat," as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so, too! Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, "Caesar, thou dost me wrong." He replied, "Caesar did never wrong but with just cause"; and such-like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.

[Sidenote: _Ben Johnson_]

Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. And therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten; which cannot be but by living well. A good life is a main argument.

MOTHERHOOD [Sidenote: _Calverley_]

She laid it where the sunbeams fall
Unscann'd upon the broken wall,
Without a tear, without a groan,
She laid it near a mighty stone
Which some rude swain had haply cast
Thither in sport, long ages past,
And Time with mosses had o'erlaid,
And fenced with many a tall grass-blade,
And all about bid roses bloom
And violets shed their soft perfume.
There, in its cool and quiet bed,
She set her burden down and fled:
Nor flung, all eager to escape,
One glance upon the perfect shape
That lay, still warm and fresh and fair,
But motionless and soundless there.

No human eye had mark'd her pass
Across the linden-shadow'd grass
Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven:
Only the innocent birds of heaven--
The magpie, and the rook whose nest
Swings as the elm-tree waves his crest--
And the lithe cricket, and the hoar
And huge-limb'd hound that guards the door,
Look'd on when, as a summer wind
That, passing, leaves no trace behind,
All unapparell'd, barefoot all,
She ran to that old ruin'd wall,
To leave upon the chill dank earth
(For ah! she never knew its worth)
'Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling,
And dews of night, that precious thing!

And there it might have lain forlorn
From morn till eve, from eve to morn:
But that, by some wild impulse led,
The mother, ere she turn'd and fled,
One moment stood erect and high;
Then pour'd into the silent sky
A cry so jubilant, so strange,
That Alice--as she strove to range
Her rebel ringlets at her glass--
Sprang up and gazed across the grass;
Shook back those curls so fair to see,
Clapp'd her soft hands in childish glee;
And shriek'd--her sweet face all aglow,
Her very limbs with rapture shaking--
"My hen has laid an egg, I know;
And only hear the noise she's making!"

THE JUMPING FROG [Sidenote: _Mark Twain_]

In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, _Leonidas W_. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that _Leonidas W_. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous _Jim_ Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat, and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood, named _Leonidas W_. Smiley--_Rev. Leonidas W_. Smiley, a young minister of the gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner, and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in _finesse_. To me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once:

There was a feller here once by the name of _Jim_ Smiley in the winter of '49--or maybe it was the spring of '50--I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp; but, anyway, he was the curiosest man about, always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Anyway that suited the other man would suit him--anyway, just so's he got a bet, _he_ was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush, or you'd find him busted at the end of it. If there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds sitting on a fence he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here--and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico, but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to _him_--he would bet on _any_ thing--the dangest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was considerable better--thank the Lord for his inf'nit mercy--and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't, anyway."

Thish-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that--and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose--and always fetch up at the stand, just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cypher it down.

And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he wan't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was upon him, he was a different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson--which was the name of the pup--Andrew Jackson would never let on but what _he_ was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else--and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been saw'd off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He gave Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was _his_ fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had genius--I know it, because he hadn't had no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.

Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken-cocks, and tom-cats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he _did_ learn him, too? He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut--see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and came down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most anything--and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog--and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies!" and quicker'n you could wink, he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any mor'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. An' when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had travelled and been everywhere, all said he laid over any frog that ever _they_ see.

Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller--a stranger in the camp, he was--come across him with his box, and says:

"What might it be that you've got in that box?"

And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, "It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't--it's only just a frog."

And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, "H'm--so 'tis. Well, what's _he_ good for?"

"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough for _one_ thing, I should judge--he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."

The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and gave it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."

"Maybe you don't," Smiley says. "Maybe you understand frogs, and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a amateur, as it were. Anyways, I've got _my_ opinion, and I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."

And the feller studies a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you."

And then Smiley says, "That's all right--that's all right--if you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller took the box and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait.

So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot--filled him pretty near up to the chin--and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and gave him to this feller, and says:

"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his forepaws just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says, "One--two--three--jump!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it wan't no use--he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course.

The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--this way--at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well, _I_ don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in the nation that frog throwed off for--I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of his neck, and lifted him up and says, "Why, blame my cats, if he don't weigh five pounds!" and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was and he was the maddest man--he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him. And--

(Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was wanted.) And, turning to me as he moved away, he said: "Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy--I ain't going to be gone a second."

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond _Jim_ Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the _Rev. Leonidas W._ Smiley, and so I started away.

At the door I met the social Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me and recommenced:

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and--"

"Oh! hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered good-naturedly, and, bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.

THE CHARMING FRENCHMAN

BOSSUET [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

As for the happiness itself, of which he would give us a just idea, the purely spiritual and internal happiness of the soul in the other life, he sums it up in an expression which concludes a happy development of the subject, and he defines it: _Reason always attentive and always contented_. Take reason in its liveliest and most luminous sense, the pure flame disengaged from the senses.

ROUSSEAU [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

It is from him that the sentiment of nature is reckoned among us, in the eighteenth century. It is from him also that is dated, in our literature, _the sentiment of domestic life; of that homely, poor, quiet, hidden life, in which are accumulated so many treasures of virtue and affection_. Amid certain details, in bad taste, in which he speaks of robbery and of eatables, how one pardons him on account of that old song of childhood, of which he knows only the air and some words stitched together, but which he always wished to recover, and which he never recalls, old as he is, without a soothing charm!

JOUBERT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

Taste, for him, is the literary conscience of the soul....

M. Joubert was, in his day, the most delicate and the most original type of that class of honest people which the old society alone produced,--spectators, listeners who had neither ambition nor envy, who were curious, at leisure, attentive, and disinterested, who took an interest in everything, the true amateurs of beautiful things. "To converse and to know--it was in this, above all things, that consisted, according to Plato, the happiness of private life." This class of connoisseurs and of amateurs, so fitted to enlighten and to restrain talent, has almost disappeared in France since every one there has followed a profession. "We should always," said M. Joubert, "have a corner of the head open and free, that we may have a place for the opinions of our friends, where we may lodge them provisionally. It is really insupportable to converse with men who have, in their brains, only compartments which are wholly occupied, and into which nothing external can enter. Let us have _hospitable hearts and minds_."

* * * * *

Life is a duty; we must make a pleasure of it, so far as we can, as of all other duties. If the care of cherishing it is the only one with which it pleases Heaven to charge us, we must acquit ourselves gaily and with the best possible grace, and poke that sacred fire, while warming ourselves by it all we can, till the word comes to us: That will do.

MME D'HOUDETOT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

In the years to which we refer--that is, the years immediately preceding 1800--there were gathered in the salon of this charming old lady the remnants both of fashionable and philosophical society--never, indeed, entirely exiled thence. It may be said of Mme d'Houdetot that her ideal existence was always bounded by that Montmorency valley where the ardent devotion of Jean Jacques has engraved her memory, as it were, in immortal characters. There, again and again, her idyllic spring-time renewed its bloom, and the freshness of her impressions continued unimpaired until her dying day. She even remained in the country during the Reign of Terror, her retreat being respected, and her relatives flocking about her; and "I can readily believe," writes Mme de Rémusat, in a charming portrait of her venerable friend, "that she retains, of those frightful days, merely the memory of the increased tenderness and consideration which they procured for her."

MME DE RÉMUSAT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

O mothers, gather your children about you early. Dare to say, when they come into the world, that your youth is passing into theirs. O mothers, be mothers, and you will be wise and happy!

DIDEROT [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

If the _Encyclopedia_ was in Diderot's time considered his principal social work, his principal glory in the eyes of the men of to-day consists in his having been the first to create the emotional and eloquent style of criticism. It is through this that he has become immortal, through this that he will be for ever dear to us journalists of every sort and condition. Let us bow down to him as our father, and as the founder of this style of criticism.

Before Diderot's time, the French style of criticism had been, firstly, as offered by Bayle, of a precise, inquiring, and subtle tone. Fénelon represented criticism as an elegant and delicate art, while Rollin exhibited its most useful and honest side. From a due sense of decency, I refrain from mentioning the names of Fréron and Des Fontaines. But nowhere yet had criticism acquired anything like vividness, fertility, and penetration; it had not yet found its soul. Diderot was the first to find it. Naturally inclined to look over defects, and to admire good qualities, "I am more affected," he remarked, "by the charms of virtue than the deformity of vice; I quietly turn away from the wicked and _fly forward to meet the good_. If there happens to be a beautiful spot in a book, a character, a picture, or a statue, it is there that I let my eyes rest; I can only see this beautiful spot, I can only remember it, while the rest I nearly forget. What do I become when everything is beautiful!" This inclination to welcome everything with enthusiasm--this sort of universal admiration--undoubtedly had its danger. It is said of him that he was singularly happy "in never having encountered a wicked man nor a bad book." For, even if the book were bad, he would unconsciously impute to the author some of his own ideas. Like the alchemist, he found gold in the melting-pot, from the fact he had placed it there himself. However, it is to him that all honour is due for having introduced among us the fertile criticism of _beauties_, which he substituted for that of _defects_. Châteaubriand himself, in that portion of the _Genius of Christianity_ in which he eloquently discourses on literary criticism, only follows the path opened by Diderot....

"A pleasure that I enjoy alone affects me but slightly, and is of short duration. It is for my friends as well as myself that I read, that I reflect, that I write, that I meditate, that I listen, that I look, that I feel. In their absence I am still devoted to them; I am continually thinking of their happiness. If I am struck with a beautiful line, they must know it. If I meet with a fine passage, I promise myself to impart it to them. If I have before my eyes some enchanting spectacle, I unconsciously plan a description of it for their benefit. I have consecrated to them the use of all my senses and faculties; and it is perhaps for this reason that everything becomes somewhat enriched in my imagination and exaggerated in my discourse. Nevertheless, the ungrateful creatures sometimes reproach me."

LA BRUYÈRE [Sidenote: _Sainte-Beuve_]

That philosopher, always accessible, even in the deepest studies, who tells you to come in, for you bring him something more precious than gold or silver, _if it is the opportunity of obliging you._

SABBATH BELLS [Sidenote: _Anon._]

Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!
The church bells they du ring,
Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!
An' seems they bells du zing:
"O merry be! O merry be!
The work it all be done,
Zee, peas and brocoli du graw
Tremenjus in the zun;
An' hot it is, an' calm it is,
Bees buzz an' cattle doze;
Zo, laze about, an' talk about,
All in your Zunday clo's."
_Ding--ding-a-ding_! Ding--ding-a-ding_!

Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!
The church bells merry ring,
Ding--ding-a-ding! Ding--ding-a-ding!
An,' dang it! doan't they zing?--
"O rest awhile! O rest awhile!
Vor 'tis amazin' sweet
To watch the white-heart cabbages
All bustin' in the heat;
Zo, zit about, an' stand about,
Beside ov Early Rose,
An' puff a pipe, an' think ov things,
All in your Zunday clo's."
_Ding--ding-a-ding_! Ding--ding-a-ding_!

Dong! Dong! Dong!
There's a shadow on the marn,
Dong! Dong! Dong!
The one larst bell du warn:
"O fulish mun! O fulish mun!
Life be no more than grass,
It glitters in the shinin' zun--
Until the Reaper pass!
An', hark! I call 'ee up to prayer,
Wi' passen, clerk, an' schule,
Come up along, an' take thee seat
Thou ole pig-headed fule!"

_Dong_! _Dong_! _Dong_!

UNCLE TOBY AND THE FLY [Sidenote: _Sterne_]

My uncle _Toby_ was a man patient of injuries;--not from want of courage,--I have told you in a former chapter, "that he was a man of courage":--And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or called it forth,--know no man under whose arm I would have sooner taken shelter;--nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts;--for he felt this insult of my father's as feelingly as a man could do;--but he was of a peaceful, placid nature,--no jarring element in it,--all was mixed up so kindly within him; my uncle _Toby_ had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.

--Go--says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,--and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;--I'll not hurt thee, says my uncle _Toby_, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand,--I'll not hurt a hair of thy head;--Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;--go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?--This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable sensation;--or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards it;--or, in what degree, or by what secret magick,--a tone of voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, I know not;--this I know, that the lesson of universal good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle _Toby_ has never since been worn out of my mind: And tho' I would not depreciate what the study of the _Literæ humaniores,_ at the University, have done for me in that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since;--yet I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental expression.

HOBSON'S CHOICE [Sidenote: _William Hazlitt_]

One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but, out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone.

The fields his study, nature was his book.

I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for criticising hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this purpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I like more elbow-room and fewer encumbrances. I like solitude, when I give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for

A friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty to think, feel, do, just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind much more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little breathing-space to muse on indifferent matters, where Contemplation--

May plume her feathers and let grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd--

that I absent myself from the town for a while, without feeling at a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a postchaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road[8] before me and a three hours' march to dinner--and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the point of yonder rolling cloud I plunge into my past being, and revel there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten things, like "sunken wrack and sumless treasuries," burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull commonplaces, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence. No one likes puns, alliterations, antitheses, argument, and analysis better than I do; but I sometimes had rather be without them. "Leave, oh, leave me to my repose!" I have just now other business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but is with me "very stuff o' the conscience." Is not this wild rose sweet without a comment? Does not this daisy leap to my heart set in its coat of emerald? Yet if I were to explain to you the circumstance that has so endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I not better, then, keep it to myself, and let it serve me to brood over, from here to yonder craggy point, and from thence onward to the far-distant horizon? I should be but bad company all that way, and therefore prefer being alone. I have heard it said that you may, when the moody fit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself and indulge your reveries. But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect of others, and you are thinking all the time that you ought to rejoin your party. "Out upon such half-faced fellowship," say I. I like to be either entirely to myself, or entirely at the disposal of others; to talk or be silent, to walk or sit still, to be sociable or solitary. I was pleased with an observation of Mr. Cobbett's that he thought it a bad French custom to drink our wine with our meals, and that an Englishman ought to do only one thing at a time. So I cannot talk and think, or indulge in melancholy musing and lively conversation by fits and starts. "Let me have a companion of my way," says Sterne, "were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines." It is beautifully said; but, in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment. If you only hint what you feel in a kind of dumb-show, it is insipid: if you have to explain it, it is making a toil of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature without being perpetually put to the trouble of translating it for the benefit of others. I am for this synthetical method on a journey in preference to the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangled in the briars and thorns of controversy. For once, I like to have it all my own way; and this is impossible unless you are alone, or in such company as I do not covet. I have no objection to argue a point with any one for twenty miles of measured road, but not for pleasure. If you remark the scent of a bean-field crossing the road, perhaps your fellow-traveller has no smell. If you point to a distant object, perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his glass to look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the colour of a cloud, which hits your fancy, but the effect of which you are unable to account for. There is then no sympathy, but an uneasy craving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way, and in the end probably produces ill-humour. Now I never quarrel with myself, and take all my own conclusions for granted till I find it necessary to defend them against objections. It is not merely that you may not be of accord on the objects and circumstances that present themselves before you--these may recall a number of objects, and lead to associations too delicate and refined to be possibly communicated to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and sometimes still fondly clutch them, when I can escape from the throng to do so. To give way to our feelings before company seems extravagance or affectation; and, on the other hand, to have to unravel this mystery of our being at every turn, and to make others take an equal interest in it (otherwise the end is not answered), is a task to which few are competent. We must "give it an understanding, but no tongue." My old friend Coleridge, however, could do both. He could go on in the most delightful explanatory way over hill and dale a summer's day, and convert a landscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric ode. "He talked far above singing." If I could so clothe my ideas in sounding and flowing words, I might perhaps wish to have some one with me to admire the swelling theme; or I could be more content, were it possible for me still to hear his echoing voice in the woods of All-Foxden. They had "that fine madness in them which our first poets had"; and, if they could have been caught by some rare instrument, would have breathed such strains as the following: