Chapter XVI: By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them (2)

About half-past one o’clock, she usually falls on her knees, with her hands joined and her body bent forward, while her face wears an expression of the profoundest contemplation. She remains in this attitude about half an hour, then rises and resumes her seat. About two o’clock the scene changes. She first leans a little forward, then rises--slowly at first, then more quickly--and, as if by some sudden movement of projection, falls with her face to the ground. In this position she lies upon her chest, the head resting upon the left arm, her eyes closed, her mouth half-open, her lower limbs stretched out and covered to the heels by her dress. At three o’clock she makes a sudden movement: her arms are extended at right angles with the body in cross-like fashion, while the feet are crossed, the right instep resting on the sole of the left. She maintains this position until about five o’clock, when she suddenly starts up on her knees in the attitude of prayer. After a few minutes of profound absorption, she resumes her chair.

The ecstasy lasts until about six or seven o’clock, the attitude and expression of face varying according to the mental impressions, when it terminates in an appalling scene: The arms fall helpless alongside of the body, the head drops forward on the chest, the eyes close, the nose becomes pinched, while the face assumes the pallor of death: at the same time the hands become icy cold, the pulse is quite imperceptible, a cold sweat covers the body, and the death-rattle seems to be heard in the throat. This condition lasts about fifteen minutes, when she revives. The bodily heat rises, the pulse returns, the cheeks regain their color, but for some minutes more there hangs an indefinable expression of ecstasy about the face. Suddenly the eyelids open, the features relax, the eyes look familiarly at surrounding objects, and the ecstasy is over.

If the different phases of the paroxysm be carefully watched, it is evident that the intellect, far from being dormant, is very active; 179 although the girl is quite unconscious of what is passing around her, she remembers perfectly all her subjective sensations. Although extremely reluctant to discuss the subject, she was ordered by her spiritual directors to answer Dr. Lefebvre’s questions, which she did--briefly, but distinctly--to the following effect:

When her ecstasy begins, she says she finds herself suddenly plunged into a vast flood of light; figures more or less distinct soon appear, and several scenes of the Passion then pass successively before her. These she minutely but briefly describes--with the appearance of the Saviour, his garments, wounds, crown of thorns, and cross. He never addresses her a word or even looks at her. She describes with the same clearness and precision the characters that surround him--the apostles, the holy women, and the Jews.

Dr. Lefebvre has given a lucid exposition of the state of the different organs during the several stages of the ecstasy, as well as of the chief points of interest of the paroxysm. During the first period--from eight o’clock in the morning until two in the afternoon--Louise remains sitting in her chair, and her organic and functional condition changes but little. The skin is cool; the face retains its usual color; respiration is regular, and so calm that close attention is needed to note the chest movement; the pulse is soft and regular, beating about seventy-five in the minute. Occasionally the heart-beats are more rapid or slower than usual, and the face flushes or becomes suddenly pale: these functional modifications accord with the play of the features, and are evidently the result of the varying impressions of the mind.

From midday on Thursday, when she dines more sparingly than usual, until eight o’clock on the Saturday morning, she tastes absolutely no food or drink of any kind. She feels no need of either, and her stomach would not retain it if taken; for, several times, when ordered by her physician to take certain nourishment on Fridays, it has been swallowed without resistance, but at once rejected. In spite of this complete abstinence from drink, the tongue was always moist: the great excretions of the body were suspended. Careful attention was directed to the condition of the nervous system, and especially to sensation and motion. To the touch, no tension or spasmodic contraction is perceptible in any of the muscles, and the girl executes no movements but those required for the action of the scenes at which she assists. Thus, at times, she sits up straight, her hands either clasped or hanging loosely, her lips relaxing into a smile, or her face drawn into a frown. If her limbs be moved by a bystander, the result varies; sometimes they preserve the position given, as, when her arms are lifted up, they may retain the new position for nine or ten minutes, and then slowly relapse to their former place. But, if she is lifted to a standing position, great muscular relaxation is evident, and as soon as the support is withdrawn she falls back into her chair. One peculiarity should here be noted: if any effort be made to change her position during prosternation, when the arms are extended and the feet crossed upon each other, a decided resistance is perceptible, and the extremities immediately resume their position.

The exercise of the special senses is completely suspended, as was tested by experiment. The eyes are widely open, the pupils dilated, the lids quite immovable, except when the conjunctiva[51] is touched, 180 which produces a slight winking or contraction of the lids. A bright light or other object may be suddenly passed without effect before the eyes, which gaze vacantly into space.

The sense of hearing is equally blunted, and insensible to ordinary sounds. On several occasions, a person standing behind her has shouted loudly into her ears without exciting the least evidence of being heard. Except upon the conjunctiva, as mentioned, general sensibility seems to be completely in abeyance. Numerous experiments were made to test this fact.

For instance, the mucous membranes of the nose and ears were repeatedly tickled with a feather without exciting any reflex contraction; a strong solution of ammonia held under the nose produced no effect. The skin, being less sensitive than the mucous membranes, was pricked with a needle, and a pin thrust through a fold of skin on the hands and forearm; the point of a penknife was also driven into the skin until it bled freely, without producing the faintest muscular contraction or indication of sensibility.

A still more decisive test was made with an electro-magnetic battery,[52] the electrodes of which were placed on the front of the forearm where the skin is very thin and sensitive, and the strongest possible current passed through the muscles for more than a minute by the watch without eliciting the least evidence of pain, and the electric brush was equally powerless. The poles were likewise applied to different parts of the face, and violent and prolonged contractions of the facial muscles induced, but without the slightest winking or other sign of sensibility or suffering.

Such is the condition of the organic functions during the first part of the ecstasy, but some modifications are observed during the second. Thus, while lying prostrate on the floor, the pulse becomes almost imperceptible, and an ordinary observer would fail to detect it at all, although Dr. Lefebvre was sure it never ceased to beat fully. Its frequency was at the same time greatly increased; so that, when it could be counted, it often rose to 120 or 130 in the minute. The movements of respiration now become more and more feeble, and the closest attention is needed to make sure that they exist, the rhythmical motion of the little shawl that covers her shoulders being often the only appreciable evidence that they are not totally suspended.

Another remarkable fact, which is contrary to the general physical rule, is that the rate of the pulse and that of respiration are directly in an inverse proportion; both Dr. Lefebvre and Dr. Imbert-Goubeyre having proved that, while the pulse rose from 90 to 130 per minute, the respirations (normally averaging 20 to 25) sink to 18 or even 10 in the same period. In proportion as the pulse and breathing become feeble, the skin loses its natural temperature, and is bathed in a cold sweat. As was stated, reaction occurs in ten or fifteen minutes; the pulse regains its force and normal frequency, respiration increases, and the natural standard of bodily heat is restored. The ecstatic thus passes at once from her trance into her ordinary life without any intermediate stage of transition. No headache, stiffness of the joints, or other discomfort is complained of; the intellect is perfectly clear, the expression serene, the face 181 calm, and the body active. At this moment the pulse has been found regular, soft, and from 72 to 75 per minute; respiration of natural strength, and 22 per minute, and the skin perfectly natural.

III.--THE QUESTION OF CREDIBILITY.

The suspicion of fraud seems never to have been entertained by the people who surrounded Louise Lateau. Her straightforward character, her simple and unostentatious piety, and her heroic acts of charity to the poor seemed to them the antithesis of hypocrisy. Of the likelihood of intentional deception each reader will judge for himself from the sketch we have given of her history. Dr. Lefebvre, however, acknowledges without hesitation that when he first visited her he was sure a pious fraud was being attempted which the eye of science would at once detect. Considering that he knew nothing of her and her antecedents, this suspicion, he says, “was natural, legitimate, necessary even; but it soon disappeared in presence of the facts.”

If only the stigmatization be considered, the supposition is untenable, when it is remembered that she was constantly watched by her friends, neighbors, and visitors. How, under such circumstances, could she possibly buy and use the blisters, caustics, or other means of producing the bleeding wounds? But, granting she had all these at her command, how could the ignorant peasant girl--even though aided by two or three accomplices--produce a result which the physician with all the resources of science cannot effect? For it involved the necessity of causing a bloody discharge from nine or ten points of the body, and of sustaining this for a half-day or even longer under the very eyes of witnesses who prevented any repeated irritation of the bleeding surfaces. But when the ecstatic trance is borne in mind, the impossibility of imposture is still more evident. How can we conceive that a young girl, brought up in the hardships of manual work, deprived of all instruction, who has read nothing, and seen nothing, could each week, during an entire day, play the part of a consummate actress; that she could simulate not only the abolition of sight and hearing, but complete insensibility to the most exquisitely painful tests; that she could control functions which are essentially beyond the power of the will, as circulation, bodily temperature, respiration; or that she could suspend those excretions which are at once the most humiliating and the most irresistible evidence of human weakness!

If, then, the problem at Bois d’Haine presented only one difficulty--the stigmatization or the ecstasy--it would be next to impossible to explain it on the supposition of fraud. But this difficulty is incomparably greater when we consider these two extraordinary facts in association. To suppose that both the ecstasy and stigmatization were fraudulent would involve the manifest contradiction of admitting that the hæmorrhage, which required a frequent movement to sustain it for ten, fifteen, or twenty hours, could be maintained during the prolonged immobility of the trance. No one, however dextrous, could play this double _rôle_ for eighteen months[53] without detection, although constantly examined by all kinds of people--many of them filled with scientific distrust, and among them more than one hundred physicians. As an example of the 182 uncertainty of her privacy, Dr. Lefebvre states (in a note) that, on the 11th February, 1870, he was unexpectedly passing through the neighborhood, and, as it chanced to be on Friday, he thought he would stop and see Louise. He knocked at the door--was at once admitted, and went straight to her little room without stopping to speak to the family. It was a quarter to four in the afternoon, and she was completely alone, lying prostrate on the floor, with her arms extended as described, and insensible to all that was passing around her. The bleeding limbs were wrapped in the usual cloths, of which he counted nine. The blood which trickled from her forehead was dried; and, lifting up her little white cap, he noticed the circle of bleeding points on her forehead, which presented the usual appearance. The feet had not been bleeding; on the right hand the flow was just stopping, while on the left the blood was still distinctly flowing from both stigmata. Having ascertained these points, he quietly left the cottage without her having been aware of his visit.

As a general answer to the objection of insincerity, Dr. Lefebvre appeals to both moral and physical proofs. As the most convincing of the former class, he cites the general good repute of Louise, which was never doubted, even by those who most resolutely questioned the nature of the phenomena she presented: her brave and humble life, her contempt for presents or money, her simplicity and avoidance of all parade; her extreme anxiety to conceal the first evidence of the stigmata even from her own family. If, as occasionally happened, money or presents of any kind were offered to her mother or sisters, their wounded pride was unmistakable; and when the Archbishop of Malines, after a long examination of Louise, once asked the family if they had no request to make of him, they only entreated that they might be relieved of visitors and left undisturbed.

To meet the physical objections raised to the theory of the stigmata, he tried the effects produced by cupping, caustics, and various blistering agents. The first of these has little or no force; for, besides the difficulty of exhausting the air under a cup upon the hard and uneven surface of the back of the hand, it is necessary to cut the skin to make the blood flow, and, when the amount drawn to the surface flows out, the bleeding ceases at once.

Caustics produce a destruction of the skin at the point to which they are applied, and after five or six days an eschar is detached, leaving a sore but not a bleeding surface; or, if bleeding exceptionally occurs, it ceases very soon, and the healing process is slow and always followed by an indelible scar. This in no respect accorded with the facts observed.

The blistering hypothesis seems less improbable, as this class of irritants produce a special form of inflammation of the skin, during which the epidermis is raised from the derm by an exudation of serous fluid. As this process much more resembled the vesicles that preceded the stigmatic bleedings, it was examined with greater care. The characteristic odor of cantharides or ammonia was never perceived, nor could the peculiar spangles of the Spanish-fly ever be detected with a magnifying lens. Litmus paper, moistened and applied to the wounds, gave no evidence of the application of acids. In addition to this, there was no inflamed areola around the stigmata, as is common around the edge of blistered surfaces, and their development was not simultaneous, but successive; and more than once, in Dr. Lefebvre’s 183 presence, the ampulla or vesicle ruptured spontaneously, and the flow of blood instantly began in its usual quantity.

When, however, the vesicle produced by a blister is ruptured, the raw skin is exposed, but never under any circumstances emits a flow of blood. To prove this in the most conclusive manner, the following experiments were instituted:

On Friday, Nov. 27, 1868, Dr. Lefebvre, who usually adopted the wise precaution of taking with him two or three of his colleagues or other respectable physicians on his visits to Bois d’Haine, in the presence of Drs. Lecrinier and Séverin, applied strong aqua ammonia to a spot about half an inch in diameter upon the back of the left hand, alongside of the stigma, which was then bleeding freely. A narrow strip of sound skin was purposely left between the two. In about twelve minutes a well-developed circular vesicle was obtained, filled with transparent serum. On the hypothesis of fraud, this should have burst spontaneously; but, as it did not do so, it was ruptured and the cuticle torn off, thus exposing two raw surfaces side by side, upon the same hand, and involving the same tissues. The two spots were carefully watched; the stigma continued to bleed freely for two hours and a half longer, while the blistered surface during this period did not yield a single drop of blood. For a half hour it exuded a little colorless serum, after which its surface dried up; on rubbing it with a coarse towel, a little rose-colored serum escaped and soaked into the cloth, but ceased the instant the friction was stopped.

The second experiment, which was still more decisive, was by means of what he calls “the glove test” (_l’épreuve des gants_).

On Wednesday, February 3, 1869, Dr. Lecrinier, M. Niels, the curate of Bois d’Haine, and M. Bussin visited the cottage, and took with them a pair of thick, strong, well-stitched leather gauntlets. After carefully examining her hands, and satisfying themselves that no vesicle or abnormal redness existed, they asked Louise to put on the gloves, which fitted her exactly. A strong wristband being then wrapped five times around the wrist, so as not to leave the smallest interspace between the glove and the skin, it was tied in a double knot, the ends cut short, covered with melted sealing-wax, and impressed on each side with a special seal. To prevent the wax from scaling off from friction or any chance blow, the seals were enclosed in little bags (_bourses en toile_). The gloves were the same for both hands, except that on the right glove the thumb and forefinger were cut short to allow the girl to continue her usual sewing. On the next Friday morning, before seven o’clock, Dr. Lefebvre met by appointment at the cottage Mgr. Pouceur, vicar-general of the diocese of Tournay, and two well-known Belgian physicians, Drs. Moulaert, of Bruges, and Mussely, of Deguze. After each one had satisfied himself of the integrity of the seals, and that it was impossible to slip an instrument of any kind between the glove and the skin, the strings were cut and the gloves removed.

They were full of blood, which also covered the hands. When this was washed off, the stigmata were found just the same as on other Fridays; on the palm and back of each hand the epidermis had been detached; it was torn, and the surface of the skin left raw, and each of the stigmatic spots continued to bleed as usual. Of the feet, which had not been subjected to any test, the right was bleeding freely, while 184 the left was dry.

Lest some subtle doubter might object to this experiment that, by some indiscretion on the part of the examiners, the girl might perhaps have discovered their intention, and applied her secret irritant to the hands before their arrival, Dr. Lefebvre resolved to repeat the test with still more conclusive precautions.

The gloves were therefore again applied on a Tuesday with the same care as before, and the next day were removed for a few moments, and the hands found in a perfectly healthy and natural state; they were then re-applied as before. On Friday morning, they were taken off before a new set of witnesses, when the stigmata of both hands were found bleeding freely as usual.

In his appendix, Dr. Lefebvre states that this glove test was suggested by Mgr. Pouceur, who superintended the theological part of the inquiry at the request of the Bishop of Tournay, and to whose tact and intelligent liberality he pays the highest compliment.

These experiments, and the inferences that they logically involve, convinced Dr. Lefebvre that the hypothesis of fraud in the production of the stigmata was untenable.

It would be easy to show by similar proofs that the ecstatic trances could not have been feigned. But for our purpose it will suffice to recall the reader’s attention to the numerous trials that were made to test the subject’s sensibility to external impressions. Those made with the electric current alone are decisive upon this point, for it may fairly be said that the strongest and most resolute man could not possibly resist some exhibition of feeling while a powerful magnetic battery was contorting his muscles.

In a subsequent part of his volume, Dr. Lefebvre enters into an exhaustive medical study of the facts observed, the discussion of which would be out of place in this magazine. He shows conclusively that, although they have some points in common, the ecstatic trances essentially differ from hysteria, catalepsy, and other allied disorders of the nervous system; while animal magnetism in its various subdivisions of “Braidism,” hypnotism, and electro-biology is equally powerless with somnambulism or the theory of spiritualism to unravel the phenomena presented by this simple peasant girl of Bois d’Haine.

The reader who desires to pursue this inquiry is referred to Dr. Lefebvre’s work (pp. 162 _et seq._) and to Fournier’s article entitled “Cas rares” in the fourth volume of the _Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales_, which is replete with curious information upon the subject of the stigmata.

So convincing are the statements of Dr. Lefebvre, who never descends into the advocate or mistakes his own theories for facts, that the case he narrates has been accepted in good faith, and republished within the present year by two of the leading journals[54] of this country and England.

In one of these, Dr. Day, of London, discusses the probable cause of the phenomena with considerable liberality, while the learned Clymer contents himself with reporting the extraordinary facts.

[45] It is scarcely necessary to explain to Catholic readers
that this expression is applied to the marks of the five
wounds upon our Lord’s body, as described in the Gospel, and
illustrated in all representations of the crucifixion.

[46] Among others, White’s _Life and Writings of Emmanuel
Swedenborg_. 1867.

[47] _Observations, etc., upon Insanity._ London. 1806.
Cited by Clymer.

[48] See among others, Salvatori’s _Life of Veronico
Giuliani_, pp. 100-108, and the exhaustive _Christliche
Mystik_ of Görres, in which is given a full account of
Maria Mörl, the “Ecstatic of the Tyrol.”

[49] _Louise Lateau de Bois d’Haine: sa Vie; ses Extases; ses
Stigmates. Etude Médicale._ Par le Dr. F. Lefebvre,
Professeur de Pathologie Générale et de Thérapeutique.
Louvain. 1870. 12mo, pp. 360.

[50] For the unprofessional reader, it may be proper to state
that this point is just external to the usual position of
the apex of the heart.

[51] The thin, transparent membrane that covers the eyeball, and
is reflected upon the inner surface of the lids. It is one
of the most delicate and sensitive portions of the body.

[52] This test is often applied for the detection of feigned
convulsions, etc., by criminals and other malingerers; its
efficacy will be appreciated by any one who has tried to
hold the poles of a powerful battery.

[53] That is, from July, 1868, to April, 1870, when Dr.
Lefebvre’s book was published. In a subsequent letter dated
January 13, 1871, to Dr. Day, of London, he states that her
condition is in all respects unchanged.

[54] _The Journal of Psychological Medicine_, New York,
Oct., 1870. _Macmillan’s Magazine_, London, April, 1871.

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THE LEGENDS OF OISIN, BARD OF ERIN. 185

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

INTRODUCTORY.

Among the mountains and on the wild shores of Western Ireland are still recited, in the Gaelic, to eager listeners legends relating to Fionn Mac Cumbal and his son Oisin, known to the English reader chiefly under the names of Fingal and Ossian. Some of these “rhapsodies” have been recently published, with an English version, by the Irish “Ossianic Society,” and others by Mr. Hawkins Simpson, in a valuable volume called _Oisin, the Bard of Ireland_. Many poems on the same subject are included also in _The Dean of Lismore’s Book_, a work consisting of ancient Gaelic poetry, selected from a MS. collection made about A.D. 1514, by Sir James MacGregor, Dean of Lismore, an island in Argyllshire. The early Irish settlements in Western Scotland are largely referred to by the chroniclers and archæologists of Scotland. W. F. Skene, Esq., in his learned Introduction to the Dean’s book, informs us (though for Scotland, also, he claims Ossianic poetry) that, during the four centuries in which the great Celtic house of the “Lord of the Isles” held sway, there existed “not only a close political connection between the Western Highlands and Islands and Ireland, but the literary influence was equally close and strong; the Irish sennachies and bards were heads of a school which included the Western Highlands, and the Highland sennachies were either of Irish descent, or, if of native origin, resorted to bardic schools in Ireland for instruction in the language and accomplishments of their art.” ... “The oldest of the Gaelic MSS. preserved in the library of the Faculty of Advocates belongs to this period. They are all written in the Irish character; the language is the written language of Ireland; and they contain numerous specimens of the poetry of these Irish masters.”

Among the Ossianic poems still chanted in Ireland, not a few consist of dialogues between Oisin and Saint Patrick. They descend from a very remote antiquity, though they have been much modified in the course of ages. The bard, last of his race and clan, is represented as the guest of Saint Patrick in one of his convents. He accepts the Christian faith, though with misgivings, for he fears that he is thus false to the friends of his youth, and now and then his wrath blazes out against the monks, who have no faith in the chiefs of Inisfail. The saint beguiles his outbreaks by praying him to sing the old glories of the land.

Fionn, the father of Oisin, was the great commander of the Irish Feine, a standing army elected from all parts of the country, and invested with privileges which made it almost a kingdom within a kingdom. Individually, he belonged to the Feine of Leinster, the celebrated “Baoigne Clan.” Alarmed by the regal attributes assumed by Fionn, all the provincial kings of Ireland banded themselves together against him, and the battle of Gahbra, near Tara, in Meath, was fought, A.D. 286. In that battle almost all the chiefs of both sides perished, including Oscar, Oisin’s son, who commanded the Feine. Oscar is always represented as the gentlest, not less than the bravest of the Feine--the Hector of the Irish Troy.

Fionn and Oisin flourished, despite these poetic disputations, nearly two centuries before the time of Saint Patrick! Some have supposed, accordingly, that the Patrick of the Ossianic poems was some precursor of the Irish apostle. But the chronological discrepancy would probably have proved no counterweight to the strength of that instinct which made the national imagination insist on connecting the heroic with the saintly period of Ireland. A theme full of pathos and interest was presented by the blind old warrior bard, divided between his devotion to his father and his son on the one hand, and his reverence, on the other, for the teachers of the better faith--between old affections and new convictions--patriotic recollections and religious hopes.

I.

THE CONTENTION OF OISIN WITH PATRICK.[55]

[FROM ANCIENT IRISH SOURCES.]

When Patrick the faith to Oisin had preached,
He believed, and in just ways trod;
Yet oft for old days he grieved, and thus
Stormed oft at the saint of God.

“Woe, woe, for the priestly tribe this hour 186
On the Feine Hill have sway!
Glad am I that scarce their shapes I see;
Half-blind am I this day.

“Woe, woe, thou Palace of Cruachan!
Thy sceptre is down and thy sword,
The chase goes over thy grassy roof,
And the monk in thy courts is lord!

“Thou man with the mitre and vestments broad,
And the bearing of grave command,
Rejoice that Diarmid this day is dust!
Right heavy was his clinched hand!

“Thou man with the bell! I rede thee well,
Were Diorraing living this day,
Thy book he would take, and thy bell would break
On the base of yon pillar gray!

“Thou man with miraculous crosier-staff,
Though puissant thou art, and tall,
Were Goll but here, he would dash thy gear
In twain on thy convent wall!

“Were Conan living, the bald-head shrill,
With the flail of his scoff and gibe,
He would break thy neck, and thy convent wreck,
And lash from the land thy tribe!

“But one of our chiefs thy head had spared--
My Oscar--my son--my child:
He was storm in the foray, and fire in the fight,
But in peace he was maiden-mild.”

Then Patrick answered: “Old man, old man,
That pagan realm lies low.
This day Christ ruleth. Forget thy chiefs,
And thy deeds gone by forego!

“High feast thou hast on the festal days,
And cakes on the days of fast--”
“Thou liest, thou priest, for in wrath and scorn
Thy cakes to the dogs I cast!”

“Old man, thou hearest our Christian hymns: 187
Such strains thou hadst never heard--”
“Thou liest, thou priest! for in Letter Lee wood
I have listened its famed blackbird!

“I have heard the music of meeting swords,
And the grating of barks on the strand,
And the shout from the breasts of the men of help
That leaped from the decks to land.

“Twelve hounds had my sire, with throats like bells,
Loud echoed on lake and bay:
By this hand, they lacked but the baptism rite
To chant with thy monks this day!”

Oisin’s white head on his breast dropt down,
Till his hair and his beard, made one,
Shone out like the spine of a frosty hill
Far seen in the wintry sun.

“One question, O Patrick! I ask of thee,
Thou king of the saved and the shriven:
My sire, and his chiefs, have they their place
In thy city, star-built, of heaven?”

“Oisin, old chief of the shining sword,
That questionest of the soul,
That city they tread not who lived for war:
Their realm is a realm of dole.”

“By this head, thou liest, thou son of Calphurn!
In heaven I would scorn to bide,
If my father and Oscar were exiled men,
And no friend at my side.”

“That city, old man, is the city of peace:
Loud anthems, not widows’ wail--”
“It is not in bellowings chiefs take joy,
But in songs of the wars of Fail!

“Are the men in the streets like Baoigne’s chiefs?
Great-hearted like us are they?
Do they stretch to the poor the ungrudging hand,
Or turn they their heads away?

“Thou man with the chant, and thou man with the creed, 188
This thing I demand of thee:
My dog, may he pass through the gates of heaven?
May my wolf-hound enter free?”

“Old man, not the buzzing gnat may pass,
Nor sunbeam look in unbidden:
The King there sceptred knows all, sees all:
From him there is nothing hidden.”

“It never was thus with Fionn, our king!
In largess our Fionn delighted:
The hosts of the earth came in, and went forth
Unquestioned, and uninvited!”

“Thy words are the words of madness, old man,
Thy chieftains had might one day;
Yet a moment of heaven is three times worth
The warriors of Eire for aye!”

Then Oisin uplifted his old white head:
Like lightning from the hoary skies
A flash went forth ‘neath the shaggy roofs
Low-bent o’er his sightless eyes:

“Though my life sinks down, and I sit in the dust,
Blind warrior and gray-haired man,
Mine were they of old, thou priest overbold,
Those chiefs of Baoigne’s clan!”

And he cried, while a spasm his huge frame shook,
“Dim shadows like men before me,
My father was Fionn, and Oscar my son,
Though to-day ye stand vaunting it o’er me!”

Thus raged Oisin--’mid the fold of Christ,
Still roaming old deserts wide
In the storm of thought, like a lion old,
Though lamblike at last he died.

[55] The substance of this poem will be found among the
translations of the Irish Ossianic Society.

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LUCAS GARCIA. 189

FROM THE SPANISH OF FERNAN CABALLERO.

III.

Lucas, who could neither do nor remedy anything, suffered fearfully from the presence of his sister so near him. Happily, in two days the general left for Sevilla.

But from the hour when she met her brother and he refused to recognize her, Lucia’s existence was changed. To her, in the flowery butterfly life into which, at seventeen, she had been almost forced by circumstances, the encounter with Lucas had been like the striking of a bark indolently voyaging, without patron and without compass, to the breath of light and laughing breezes, against the first rock of firm land: the shock had been terrible. In perplexity she asked herself, “Where am I? Whither am I going? Who is this that flatters and shelters me? Who he that rejects me?” In terror she gazed around her: all seemed new and strange, all odious and reprehensible. In her memory--oh! that she had consulted it before!--she found the words her brother had said to her at parting: “Never turn from the right path, though it be steep and sown with thorns. Always look straight before you, for he that does not do this never knows where he will stop.” Lucia’s wretchedness was augmented by the seeming impossibility of escape from the position in which she found herself. Could she turn back without either encouragement and support, while, by continuing in sin, she would have both? Her natural want of energy made it the more difficult for her to return to the right path, with no help but his who never fails those who seek him with faith and without fear or faltering. The tears she shed tarnished her beauty, and the sorrow that preyed on her heart robbed her manners--hitherto so gay and caressing--of their charm. All this at first annoyed Gallardo, then offended, and finished by exasperating him. Violent scenes took place between the lovers; these introduced discord; and discord, when once it has burst its primitive embankments, filters through whatever others may be raised to contain it.

When the general was recalled to Madrid, expecting to be employed, and thinking that his stay would not be long, he resolved to leave Lucia in Sevilla. She allowed him to go without opposition, for so weary was she of the life she led that any change seemed preferable. She was, besides, very far from possessing the brazen and insolent courage that women of her condition are wont to acquire, and that causes so many of them, when they have ceased to be objects of passion, to be dreaded by the men around whom they have coiled themselves like horrible snakes; making miserable Laocoons of the victims, who often marry them through fear, where before they would not do it for love, and thus render the latter part of their career as ridiculous as the beginning was scandalous.

A worthy manner, truly, in which to fill up a man’s existence!

The stay at court, however, of the _young_ general, as the papers styled Gallardo, was prolonged. He alternated in various combinations 190 of second-class political intrigues, and allowed himself to be made the conceited tool of one of them, under the full persuasion that he had become the imposing leader of a party.

The general now began to think, with excellent reason, very sound judgment, and profound calculation, that it was time for him to be more considerate. The reader will pardon us the expression, which, in his case, meant to enter upon a life of usefulness and devotion to the interests of the country--without sacrificing his own, it will be understood. Influenced by these grave considerations, our young leader subscribed to newspapers, bought books and read some of them, though he soon forgot precisely which he had read and which not; wrote a memorial on river navigation, and another upon the _Renta del Excusado_;[56] made short speeches as a preparation for longer ones, which succeeded very well and met with the entire approbation of his hearers; and, in the time it takes to say a devout _amen_, exchanged the rakish air of the young blood for the pompous tone of the prominent and influential citizen.

Our friend, as may be seen, had reached his apogee: in confirmation of which--among other sacrifices made to seriousness--he had procured a good cook, and loosened the lacings of his stays.

Nevertheless--since there is a difference between a serious man and a moral one--our hero maintained a sort of toned-down dissoluteness behind the scenes, where he and his intimates entertained themselves in conversations tissued with a variety of subjects, such as the discourse _A_ and the scandal _B_; the concordat and the theatre royal; the ministry and the _danseuse_; the bishop and the prima donna; the crown and cards; erected a throne to Tauromaquia; proposed an apotheosis of industry; and passed a vote of censure upon the luxury of novenas.

“Look here, _little one_!” said to him just such another “_little one_” at a breakfast party--where champagne was made to represent the tone of good society that the greater part of the guests lacked--“what has become of _La Lucia_?”

“She was not very well, and I left her in Sevilla,” responded the hero.

“Doesn’t it strike you that she is losing her varnish?”

“At twenty-one, man?”

“It is not singular,” remarked the elegant son of a capitalist (the youth had been educated in France). “At that age, one who lives fast is _sur le retour_.”[57]

“The existence of _camellias_ is like that of roses,” quickly added another, whose Christian name of Bonifacio they were in the habit of contracting into _Boni_.

Having constituted himself an inseparable copy of the engrafted Parisian, and not wishing to fall behind his model in anything, _Boni_ never allowed the capitalist to express an idea without instantly reproducing it in different words, always endeavoring to surpass the original in elegant Gallicisms; in scepticism of the most material, and cynicism of the most approved kind, and in extreme affectation of the fashionable foreign mannerism.

“You ought to place this Lucia _dis_-lucent among the number of the thousand-and-one Didos,” said the would-be Gaul.

“Lay her aside with last year’s _modes fanées_,”[58] the copy hastened to add.

“I cannot do that,” said the general. 191

“Stale Spanish morality!’” exclaimed the capitalist, bursting into a laugh. “Does the fair creature expect to find an Amadeus of Gaul in a general of the age of enlightenment?”

“Or a Pastor Fido in one who aspires to become a father to his country?” put in _Boni_.

“The fact is,” replied our friend, “that in my connection with Lucia there have been exceptional circumstances.”

“Tell them to us, little one,” said his intimate. “The romantic tale will flavor the coffee.”

The general related all the preliminaries and particulars of his relations with Lucia.

“Don’t you see, general,” said the imitator of the tone Parisian, “that it was all a farce, very well got up, by those _fourbes rustics_ to set you on; alarm you; interest you in the girl, and oblige you to take her?”

“That it was all an intrigue of _las étage_?” added the copy of the copy.

“_Apropos_ of impositions,” said the capitalist, “I must tell you what happened to me yesterday. A fellow came into my office--”

“Don’t omit,” said _Boni_, “that you were counting an immense sum of money at the time, for that is what heightens the joke.”

“He asked me,” continued Creseus, “if I would lend him two doubloons. I told him that it cost me the greatest pain to be obliged to refuse, but that I had not sixpence by me.”

“If I had not wished to give, I would have sought another reply,” said an old general--uncle to ours--who had lost a leg in the battle of Bailen.

“General,” replied the narrator, “among us, _I have not_ is synonymous with _I will not_; even sucking-babes understand it.”

“A synonym which Huertas has omitted, but which is known in these days, even in the Batuecas,” chimed the repeater.

“It could not have existed when he composed his work,” said the general.

“The fellow,” proceeded the narrator, “begged and implored, lowering his demand to the most insignificant sum. I was as inexorable as destiny.” And the millionaire cast around him a look worthy of Cato.

“He was, then, in real need, and not an impostor?” questioned the old general.

“O sir!--general rule--every one that asks is an impostor.”

“Unless he is an intimate friend,” said _Boni_, speaking this time with unaccustomed personality.

“_Ma foi_,”[59] answered the Gaul_ish_ Spaniard, “I except no one. Seeing that he was not going to desist, and always with the amiability and delicacy that must be used in such cases--”

“_Sans doute_, the same as in affairs of honor,” said the bad copy of a worse original.

“I told him that, since his necessity was so extreme, I would venture to lend him--not money, for I had none--but something that would be of more use to him in his circumstances. The imbecile thought, perhaps, that it was going to be my signature.”

“Your signature! What one might call the only and unique _sanctum sanctorum_ of the disciples of Mercury. A thing so sacred!”

“My dear _Boni_,” said his friend, “_veuillez ne pas m’interrompre_?[60] The fellow’s countenance lighted up. I believe, upon my word, that he had not eaten in three days. Laughing within myself, although my face 192 denoted the gravest sympathy for his situation, I led him to a closet, took out a case of pistols, which I opened, and, handing him a weapon, said, as I bowed his dismissal, ‘Here is a remedy for all your troubles.’ My mendicant turned upon his heel and left; and you may be sure that I have rid myself of him, _une bonne fois pour toutes_.”[61]

Boni’s mirth was overpowering.

Gallardo and the rest of the Spaniards were silent.

“You must positively put this joke into some paper,” said the capitalist’s admirer, between his paroxysms of laughter.

“_Mon cher, à quoi bon?_”[62] responded the hero of the anecdote, with an air of modesty.

“To show people how to get rid of impostors,” answered Boni; “to furnish a specimen of your humor--to let it be seen that you are as richly endowed by nature as by fortune--to give circulation to an entertaining item--and to--”

“And could a paper be found that would print such an iniquity as an entertaining item!” shouted the old general, no longer able to contain his wrath. “Is it the mission of the press to propagate such ideas and sentiments? God help us, sirs, if there is no one left in Spain capable of a blush! Can the press parade infamy shamelessly, and no one be found to repudiate the impudence that relates such a scandal in terms of laudation; or appeal from it to the noble and generous instincts, and sense of public decorum, of good and true Spaniards? Have we become as positive as the written law? In former times, gentlemen, not all gave, but the few that denied did not boast of their refusal. Charity made men sorry to say no, even to impostors, and, having said it, they would have been silent about it for shame. Avarice was looked upon as one of the disgraceful vices which respect for public opinion required to be kept out of sight.”

“Uncle, for God’s sake!” entreated Gallardo.

“For God’s sake what, nephew?”

“Speak with more moderation.”

“When I do, look towards Antequera for sunrise.”

“Don’t feel apprehensive, general,” said the capitalist, “_Je sais vivre_.[63] I respect your family, and know how to make allowance for gray hairs and the ill-humor of advanced age.”

“Yes,” instantly added the speaking shadow, “_carte blanche_ belongs to ladies, children, and--”

He was going to add _old men_, but a look from the general silenced him.

“No, nephew, don’t be apprehensive,” said the latter. “The weapons of a gentleman are for nobler uses than the punishment of insults.”

“Come, let us talk of something else,” said Gallardo’s intimate, anxious to change the subject, but glad in his heart, as were all the other guests, of the lesson the braggart had received from so worthy and authorized an antagonist.

“It is not possible, Gallardo, that you will allow Lucia to be an irredeemable lien upon you. Let me tell you, my boy, that it would be a pretty piece of folly on your part to create an obstacle to your future establishment.”

“I don’t see that--in order to be a deputy, senator, or--”

“Oh! you’re on the wrong tack. Your political ideas absorb all your thoughts; but I have been told--by one of her friends--that the daughter of Don Juan de Moneda,[64] the banker, is quite smitten with 193 your person.”

Gallardo straightened himself, and caressed his curled locks.

“Her mother is completely taken with the title of Marquis de Monte Gallardo, which they say you are about to receive, and her father with your capacity.”

“We are even there,” said the general, “for I am as much impressed with his. To buy--”

“But,” proceeded the friend, “he is equally so with your sash and rent-roll. Here, boy, is an opportunity to settle in life.”

“Really, I hardly know the kind and amiable young lady who has been so condescending as to think of me!” drawled the extremely flattered Gallardo, privately resolving to tighten his stays again.

“She is very beautiful,” affirmed his friend, “and you must know that she rides like a Cossack.”

“Oh! Athenaïs la Moneda has the most elegant figure and complexion--so pale!--and the fiercest glances” (he meant haughtiest) “of all the belles of Madrid. She is delicious!” exclaimed the Parisian.

“She has the neck of a swan, with such _serpentine undulating_,” said Bonifacio, quite at a loss for another comparison.

“The most desirable _parte, ma foi_! Her father is worth forty millions, and she is the only daughter,” continued the capitalist, who did not allow his appreciation of beauty to interfere with his devotion to dollars.

“You ought to improve your opportunity, and marry at once,” advised the friend. “These girls with forty millions are more capricious than the wind. They change oftener than weather-cocks, and do just as they please; for millionaire fathers who know only the Castilian have the highest consideration for daughters who have learned French from Sue’s novels, and Italian at the opera.”

“An heiress’s whim is like a flash of lightning. In losing time, you expose yourself to a--”

“To a deception,” said the capitalist, concluding the sentence.

“To a _disabusement_,” said the copy, thinking, with profound satisfaction, that he had, for once, surpassed the original.

“What is your opinion of all this?” asked Gallardo of his uncle, with a laugh, intended to appear jesting, but which betrayed his interior satisfaction.

“Yes, give us the benefit of your wisdom,” said the capitalist, covering his ill-humor with a tone of light irony. “In matrimonial as well as martial councils, the Nestors should be heard.

‘_La face des vieillards est pleine de majesti:
Leur voix sur l’existence a des secrets intimes._’”[65]

“_Une vieux de la vieille_,”[66] confirmed _Boni_, “is a California of experience; a barometrical and chronometrical counsellor; a universal grammar bound in gold; a--”

“Hush, _Boni_!” whispered the capitalist in the ear of his friend, who, less accustomed to champagne than the others, began to feel its emancipating influence.

Meantime, the old officer stroked his gray moustache in silence.

“Well, what do you think, general!” questioned Gallardo.

“I think that you ought to marry.”

“_C’est clair_,” said the Parisian.

“It is clear,” repeated _Boni_--“as clear as detestable water; and they think of bringing it into Madrid! Will spend millions to do it!”

“_Taisez vous, mon cher_,” entreated the model, in a low tone. 194

“I am not in the humor,” replied the copy, in excellent Spanish.

“Of course he ought to marry,” said all the rest.

“Let us understand each other, gentlemen,” said the old general. “I think, Gallardo, that you ought to marry, not the mushroom of the millions, but Lucia.”

These words were received with clamorous disapprobation.

“You take advantage of your _rôle_ of Nestor, general,” exclaimed the capitalist.

“The hero of former times dotes--I would say _radote_. I propose a vote of censure!” hiccoughed the copy.

“S-s-s, Boni. _Le vous en prie!_[67] Do you want to get another broadside from the disabled old pontoon? Don’t provoke him, for the next time neither prudence nor contempt will enable me to keep my temper,” murmured his patron.

“The general is jesting. A gentleman of his fine delicacy cannot mean to counsel one, in Gallardo’s position, to marry a woman of light reputation,” said Gallardo’s friend.

“I do it because I have delicacy--a plant that strikes so deep when once it has taken root, that neither the silver plough nor the golden spade which cultivates the field of ideas of the present day can turn it out. I counsel a man who has done a wrong to repair it. I advise one who has been the ruin of an honest girl to become her defender. And the more public he has made her position, the more he is bound to set her right in the eyes of others. If the future looks smiling, I counsel it all the more earnestly, that the past may not reproach him. In my days, gentlemen, marriages were not discussed in semi-public meetings. The only counsellors were, according to the circumstances, the heart, the honor, and the conscience. But,” added the old man, rising, “my sentiments are as much out of harmony with yours, as my person is out of place in a reunion of gay young men. Gentlemen, I salute you. Nephew, good-by. Do not ask me to your brilliant wedding if you marry with the million-heiress of the caprices. If with Lucia, I will be your groomsman.”

With these words the noble veteran took his leave.

“Style of an epic poem,” said the pseudo-Parisian.

“Tone of an _elegiac lyric_,” stammered the copy. “One would think the governor had been drinking some kind of palate-skinning Catalan wine, instead of the excellent, exquisite, delectable, delicious--”

“Enough, _Boni_,” interrupted his friend, indicating to him with his foot the urgent necessity of more discretion.

“The general has, so to speak, one foot in the grave, and, naturally, all looks to him _de profundis_ color,” observed Gallardo’s intimate. “But we live in a positive age, and must conform to the step of its march; to do otherwise would be to make ourselves antiquated and ridiculous.”

Days followed days, each one bringing to our hero its business, novelty, interest, and forgetfulness of those that had preceded it. Lucia, in the meantime, saw her means of subsistence failing without informing him; for, with the reawakened sentiments of duty and shame, came the comprehension of her guilty dependence, and sense of the double humiliation of soliciting and receiving. She had lived for some time by the sale of her valuables, but this resource was almost exhausted.

“What is to become of me?” she questioned, with more of weakness than 195 inquietude, more inertia than anguish, as she sat one day alone, her head drooping upon her breast. “In forgetting how to work, I have been like the sailor that forgets in a calm how to handle the ropes. What shall I do when all is gone? What can he who has brought me to this be thinking of?”

Her questionings were interrupted by the entrance of the woman of the house with a letter.

“It is from Madrid,” she said, with a fawning smile. “I’ll bet that the general tells when he is coming, and confirms the report of his appointment as captain-general of this province.”

Lucia opened and read the following epistle:

“DEAR LUCIA: Nothing can last for ever. Mature age brings serious ideas; the life of a man, obligations, circumstances, compromises, and position, duties, which force us to make, in favor of reason and morality, sacrifices that are not the less painful because they are necessary.

“My family has undertaken to negotiate a marriage for me, which will assure me a certain and brilliant future; and matters have proceeded so far that I cannot oppose myself to the arrangement without offending a powerful and respectable family, compromising my own, and causing grave inconveniences, inconveniences which you would be the first to deplore.

“I believe that you will understand the necessity of my establishing myself in life, and will feel neither surprised nor pained. I am equally persuaded, having noticed for a long time how unhappy you seemed at my side, and how little pleasure my presence gave you, that you will not miss me. It may be that another already occupies in your heart the place that once was mine. If you will be happier with him than you have been with me, I trust that I have enough philanthropy to rejoice in your good fortune.