Chapter C: F. Birdseye Believes They Bring Undergraduates More Under Influence (8)

Captain Nix and six others were set adrift early in the year 1689, in
an open boat, and left to their fate. After incredible hardships they
reached land, only to be captured by savages. Toward spring they
escaped in a canoe, and finally landed on Green Island, June 1, 1689.
They contrived to reach Boston Town, and there they found the Dolphin
and Fitzvassal, too, who had assumed the name of Captain Nix.
Fitzvassal was tried for piracy, convicted, and sentenced to be
executed on Green Island on June 5. But for some service which he had
rendered to the colony while bearing his assumed name he was pardoned
by the governor (Bradstreet). Before the news of the pardon reached
him, however, he took a fatal dose of poison.

He was buried on Green Island, and his sole mourner was an Indian maid
and sibyl who had loved him. She prophesied that the island would wash
away, and her prediction was fulfilled: little by little, the earth
slid off the rock into the sea, and now nothing remains but a
dangerous ledge upon which stands the curious beacon—Nix’s Mate.

Achievements of Famous Invalids.

Some of the Most Distinguished Workers in the Fields of Literature and
Music Have Won Their Triumphs While Defying Disease—Many Examples of
Extraordinary Longevity.

_An original article written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

Ill health and infirmity do not always prevent the accomplishment of great things, and the list of invalids who have been famous for excelling in their chosen field is long and brilliant. Naturally such persons usually have been restricted to the quieter pursuits. Literature seems to have been the field wherein most of them have found congenial occupation, though there have been great invalids in other professions, also.

The long battle of Robert Louis Stevenson against the malady which finally conquered him, is well known to every one. He traveled about, from place to place, searching for the spot where he could hope to live at least long enough to do some of the work which it lay in him to do, until, at last, in the Samoan Islands, in the South Seas, he found the haven for which he had been searching. There the heroic struggle went on for the four last years of his life, and there he was buried high on the peak of Mount Væa, above his island home.

Probably no famous writer suffered for a longer period than did Alexander Pope, who was stricken, when only a child of ten, with a malady which deformed his body and robbed him of health and comeliness, leaving him to forty-six years of invalidism. His constant study and work, combined with this physical infirmity, made his life “one long disease.”

Carlyle, Heine, and Keats.

Thomas Carlyle was a chronic dyspeptic, and suffered, all his life, the torments which only those unfortunates, who are victims of this disease, can comprehend. The bitterness of some of his writings which were published after his death may surely be excused when this is considered, for the chronic dyspeptic is generally understood to develop, in spite of himself, a gloomy view of life.

Heinrich Heine, the great German lyric poet, was the victim, during the last twelve years of his life, of relentless disease. He bore his dreadful sufferings so patiently that he appears in a nobler light than ever before during his life. His hearing was bad, his sight was dim, and his legs were paralyzed, yet he wrote some of his most wonderful songs during the long watches of sleepless nights, lying on his “mattress-grave.” He described his condition as “a grave without rest, death without the privileges of the departed,” yet he was never so many-sided as during this period. He produced humorous pieces, political songs, and the tenderest poems. He kept at his work as long as he could hear and speak, his last words being “paper and pencil.”

John Keats, while on a tour of the English Lakes, contracted a throat trouble which developed into consumption. He continued to write, though he failed rapidly in health, and his last volume contains some of his best poems.

Mrs. Browning and the Brontës.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was confined to her room for seven years, but was restored to something like a normal state of health before her marriage. The long period of illness was partly caused by the death of her brother, of whom she was extremely fond, and many times her life was despaired of. She wrote in spite of sickness, however, and produced some excellent verse. All her life she struggled against a naturally weak constitution and she worked under difficulties.

Count Giacomo Leopardi, an Italian poet, was another whose life from childhood was made melancholy by impaired health. In his case it was largely the result of the energy with which he gave himself up to study, when he was only a child, thus undermining an already delicate constitution. He was the victim of a perpetual melancholy, and he wandered to and fro in Italy, always the prey of ceaseless physical tortures, which prevented him from accepting any permanent position that might have relieved the constant and pressing need of money. He attained distinction as a philologist and was offered a university professorship in Germany by Bunsen, but was unable to accept it because of his infirmity.

The three gifted Brontë sisters were all in wretched health. Emily and Anne died within a year of each other, leaving Charlotte to a lonely life of sorrow and heartache. She worked on, in spite of all, with indomitable energy and courage, and the genius of the woman is all the more remarkable when one realizes that her sufferings were both physical and mental. Her work came from an aching heart as well as from a weak and ill body. One short year of happiness was hers at the end, when she became the wife of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, curate under her father, who had long loved her.

Parkman and Prescott.

Francis Parkman, the American historian, is an illustrious example of heroic perseverance in the face of great difficulties. He selected as his life work the writing of the history of the rise and fall of the French power in America. He began a most exhaustive research which carried him west into the Black Hills, where the hardships he endured broke down his health and left him a semi-invalid for the rest of his life.

He kept at his appointed task, though fourteen years elapsed between the first part of his work and the second. To occupy the time which his health would not permit him to devote to the greater work, he took up the study of horticulture, in which he grew so proficient that he published a book on roses and was made professor of horticulture in the Harvard Agricultural School.

From 1865 to 1892 he brought out the various parts necessary to complete his great work. During all of this time, however, his health was so precarious that he depended almost entirely upon dictation instead of his pen, and his material was collected for him by hired copyists. The story of his struggle is regarded as one of the most heroic in the history of literature.

William Hickling Prescott was another historian whose labors were made difficult by infirmity. While he was at Harvard he lost the sight of one eye by an accident, and the other was so affected that he was obliged to pass several months in a darkened room. The sight was partly restored, but he could never use it in any trying work, nor more than a little while each day, and he suffered constantly with it and from the apprehension which it occasioned.

With the aid of secretaries and readers he set to work, determined to prepare himself for literature, as more active fields were closed to him. He wrote some himself, in spite of his affliction, using a writing frame designed especially for the blind—and he produced work which placed him in the ranks with the most brilliant historians.

Famous Musicians and Poets.

Chopin, the great modern master of pianoforte composition, was unable, because of lack of physical strength, to play some of his own works as he would have them played. A trip to England, of only eleven days’ duration, was enough to develop the latent consumption which was in his family, and from this time on he worked under the advancing ravages of the disease, though he lived twelve years before finally succumbing to its onslaught. Many times during this period he was reported at death’s door.

Handel became blind seven years before his death, yet continued his work and accompanied one of his oratorios upon the organ only eight days before his death.

Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott both were lame from a deformed foot, but suffered no inconvenience from the infirmity. Milton became blind and Beethoven was deaf from about his thirtieth year. He faced the pathetic situation with the brave resolve: “I will grapple with fate; it shall never drag me down.” His life was lived along these lines, and never did his courage falter or his fortitude give way, though the affliction to a musician was almost the greatest he could suffer.

Methuselahs Laughed at Doctors.

Some of the modern Methuselahs have been persons who were given up by the doctors to fill an early grave. Surely this fact, taken in connection with the many examples that there are of the great things which invalids have accomplished, ought to bring the champions of euthanasia up short. Perhaps it is too much to expect that anything will stop the man who is once thoroughly launched on this delusive line of thought, but for the sake of the timorous who are not, perhaps, as rugged in health as the men who advocate this “simple and humane” reform, the following examples of men and women, not famous, who have attained to a “green old age” in spite of being in an apparently hopeless condition, are quoted. They are taken from a paper written by E. H. Von den Eynden, of Antwerp, and published there in 1882, under the title “Singularités Macrobiologiques”—(Curiosities of Long Life).

Adèle Lambotte died at Liege in 1763, aged one hundred and one years.
She was scarcely thirty-two inches in height, and so crippled in her
legs and feet that from infancy she was compelled to walk on crutches.

In 1774 there lived at Château Neuf, in Thimerais, France, a certain
demoiselle Thierree. At the time, she was over forty years old, and an
invalid, forever taking medicines. A contemporary describes her
graphically thus:

“A few tufts of grisly hair, two squinting eyes, lost in the multitude
of wrinkles and hanging folds of skin that stood for nose and cheeks,
and with a head in perpetual oscillation.”

She lived in the open air, strolling from point to point in all sorts
of wind and weather. She enjoyed an income amounting to about one
thousand dollars, and some of her friends made her a proposition to
transfer their property to her providing she would pay them a certain
annuity and devise the property back to them at her death.

The bargain was made, and faithfully kept, as far as the annuity was
concerned, yet so skilfully did she manage affairs that she soon had
an income of two thousand dollars over and above all expenditures. Her
friends meanwhile imagined that they had made a good bargain, as her
physician had assured them that she “could never see the return of the
swallows next spring.”

The swallows came and went, and came and went again, and they got
impatient, and in some way the “old mamselle” found it out. Then she
set herself to live in earnest. She wept for Louis XVI, lived through
and detested the Revolution, saw the funerals of Bonaparte and Charles
X, and lived through the barricades of 1830.

Finally, in 1835, she died, aged one hundred and five years, lacking
part of a month. On making an inventory of her affairs her executor
found upward of four hundred linen chemises, each made with her own
hands, not one of which had ever been worn. Her revenue, at the time
of her death, was two hundred thousand dollars.

The people who made the bargain had died one after another, the last
one more than forty years before her demise.

Remarkable Centenarians.

In 1699 the Mémoires of the Academy of Sciences recorded the death of
a man, aged one hundred years, whose spinal column consisted of one
single bone, the intermediate cartilages having ossified.

About the middle of the seventeenth century there was carried in
solemn procession and hung up before the shrine of Notre Dame de
Liesse an enormous vesical calculus, on which was engraved the
following legend:

“This stone was removed from François Annibal d’Etrées, duke and peer,
Grand Marshal of France, by the grace of God through the intercession
of the Blessed Virgin, September 15, 1654.”

The grand marshal was eighty-two years old when the terrible operation
was performed. It gave him a new lease of life, as he did not die
until 1675, more than twenty years afterward, aged one hundred and two
years and a few months.

A poor girl, daughter of a retainer of the Château de Colemberg, near
Boulogne, named Nicole Mare, was born deformed, and, besides having a
withered forearm, was so humpbacked that she stood less than four feet
high. With all this, she lived to the age of one hundred and ten
years. Her occupation was herding cattle, and it is said that the only
food she ever tasted was bread and milk.

Sick for One Hundred Years.

The celebrated Fontanelle, who, it is said, never enjoyed a well day
in his life, and whose constitution was so frail that the least
exposure made him ill, yet lived within less than one month of one
hundred years.

M. Le Fermy, a peasant of the village of Saint-Justin, near
Mont-de-Marsan, France, died in his native village September 13, 1714,
aged one hundred and ten years and two months. All his life he was
regarded as a feeble man. The note recording his death says:

“He was married five times, _although_ he lived soberly and was
regarded as weakly.”

In 1760, at Graessans, in the diocese of Saint-Papoul, France, died a
woman whose age is recorded as one hundred and thirteen years and one
month. She died of asthma, with which she had suffered for forty-five
years.

The Benedictine monk, Brother N. Graillet, of the Abbey of Calvary, at
La Fère, France, died in the abbey in 1763, aged one hundred and two
years. He had entered the abbey in his thirtieth year, in ill-health
and disappointed in life. “For seventy-two years, although always
feeble, he obeyed every rule of the abbey, and was always first in
filling the functions of the community,” is his record.

Pierre Foucault, a native of Abbéville, died in that place in 1766,
aged one hundred and fifteen years. Up to the age of fifty his health
had been very precarious, and during the years between fifty and sixty
“he suffered many maladies.” After that he recovered his usual health
and lived fifty-five years. His father died aged one hundred and two,
and his grandfather was accidentally killed while hunting, at the age
of eighty-seven.

Had Many Diseases.

Madame Ristori, probably an ancestress of the celebrated artiste, died
at Empoi—a village in Tuscany—in 1767, aged one hundred and ten years.
Her whole life was passed in frightful poverty and hardship. She was
an invalid nearly her whole life, and had, besides, almost every
disease that can be named, at one or another period of her existence.

Marguerite Couppéc, widow of Richard Couppéc, died at Rouen in 1769.
The baptismal register at Caux, where she was born in 1654, shows
conclusively that she was one hundred and fifteen years old at death.
“All her life,” says her tombstone, “she lived in poverty and illness,
having had many most violent diseases, notwithstanding which she was
most laborious, being always occupied as long as her hands could
work.”

A REQUIEM.

By Robert Louis Stevenson.

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
_Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill._

WHAT THEY LAUGH AT ABROAD.

Wit and Humor of the Foreign Jokesmiths, Culled from French, German, and
Italian Periodicals, and Translated for “THE SCRAP BOOK.”

NO CAUSE FOR ALARM.

Young Doctor—Do you think the visitor is really a patient? I am afraid
that he is a creditor.

Servant—Well, I heard him groaning. If he isn’t ill he must have a
very big bill to collect.—_Fliegende Blätter._

A WELL REGULATED LIFE.

Reporter (to old man)—How come you to be so hale and hearty at ninety?

Old Man—Regularity, sir. I have gone on a spree regularly
every Sunday, since I was twenty. There is nothing like
regularity.—_Fliegende Blätter._

ON THEIR HONEYMOON.

She—Oh, George, I want all these people to know that I am married to
you.

He—Well, my dear, you had better carry the dress-suit case and the
umbrellas.—_Le Rire._

LOVE OF COUNTRY.

Several men were chatting together. One of them, a Greek, was praising
his country.

“Greece,” said he, “is the most beautiful land in the world. The blue
heavens laugh perennially over Greece.”

“Why, that’s nothing,” said a Hungarian, “the whole world laughs over
Hungary.”—_Jugend._

THE CASE AND THE EXCEPTION.

Doctor (to maid)—I am Dr. Curewell. They have just telephoned me to
come here immediately. How is the patient?

Maid—Oh, doctor, you have arrived too late! My master died not five
minutes ago.

Doctor—Well, never mind. In this case, at least, nobody can say that I
was the cause of death.—_Le Rire._

AT THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE.

The Lady—Now, remember, please, I want a very good maid and one that
is absolutely discreet.

The Proprietor—You can be perfectly sure of the maid I am going to
send you. She has been five years at a telephone switch-board.—_Le
Sourire._

AT THE DUMA.

The Delegates—We demand equal rights, liberty, and absolute pardon for
political offenders.

The Czar—Peace, peace, my people! All of you that are not executed
will be pardoned.

The Delegates—Huzzah! Long live the Little Father.—_Il Fischietto._

IMPUDENCE.

Peggy—Only to think of it, my dear, we were entirely alone, and he had
the audacity to kiss me.

Lucy—I suppose you were furious; weren’t you?

Peggy—I should say so! I was furious every single time he did it.—_Le
Sourire._

KEPT HIS PROMISE.

She (weeping)—Five years ago, as a bride, you promised to love me for
an eternity, and here we are on the verge of divorce.

He—Well, the past five years have seemed like an eternity.—_Fliegende
Blätter._

GREAT PRESS OF BUSINESS.

Father—Do you know, sir, that I actually _saw_ you embrace my
daughter?

Suitor—I beg your pardon, sir. The truth is, I was so frightfully busy
at the time that I failed to notice you. I sincerely hope you will
forgive me.—_Le Sourire._

FISHING.

She—You don’t love me any more. I know it. I feel it.

He—But, pet, I assure you, I adore you.

She—No, no, no! No man can love a woman with such old clothes as
mine.—_Le Rire._

The Bell of Kuang Sai.

BY EDWARD W. GILBERT.

_An original story written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

“They are ghouls, and their king it is who tolls.”

“Heaven born, forbear anger; in one little half-hour, or an hour at most, the bearers shall be here, and we will go forward with the speed of dragons. In the meantime, I will place a rug for the Presence to sit upon, and give him fire that he may drink tobacco.”

Jarvis assented with a sulky grunt, tossed Chen, his Chinese runner, a cigar, and lay on his back smoking and staring up into the dark hollow of the great bell suspended on a stone tripod.

“After labor it is good to lie at ease and smoke, especially when the Presence, who is my father and mother, bestows such tobacco. If the Heaven Born desires, I will tell him the tale of the great bell under which we lie. I have permission? Thus runs the tale:

“Kublai-Chan, Lord of the Earth, desired greatly to leave a memory such as no other king should ever equal, and after much thought he called Kuang Sai, the great artist in all metals, and commanded:

“‘Let there be cast for me a great bell, such as never earth or heaven saw, of the finest metal, bossed with angels and demons, and so great that the sound thereof shall reach to the utmost border of my kingdom, that all may hear, and, hearing, know that in Kambalu reigns the king, and, knowing, tremble and obey him.’

“And Kuang Sai prostrated himself nine times, and said: ‘My lord wills it, and it is done.’

“And he called his master metal-workers, journeymen and apprentices, and took from the king’s treasury gold and silver and copper and fine bronze for the casting, and he took clay and wax and modeled the bell—great, beautifully formed; round the lip of it, lilies and pomegranate; round the body of it, the angels and devils of air and sound, with waving hair and garments, like sound-made flesh; the loops by which it was to hang, two imperial dragons.

“And when all was ready he made the mold, and his men lit the fires, and for two days labored they at the melting, casting into the pot the gold and silver and copper and fine bronze. And when it was melted with fervent heat, his master founder, the strong man, struck out the plug from the crucible, and let the red hot metal flow into the mold. Four days waited the cooling; then they broke the mold—and the great bell was flawed.

“And again he made the mold and melted the metal, and again cast it, and again it was flawed. And again and again, and yet again, and always the great bell was flawed, and must be broken and re-melted.

“Then Kuang Sai offered sacrifice to his gods, and his master metal-workers, journeymen and apprentices, according to their several degree, also offered sacrifice to their gods; and again they cast it, and again it was flawed.

“Two score times they cast it—and always the flaw. Kuang Sai grew thin and pale; he ate not, nor slept; for his honor laid in that casting—and always the flaw.

“He offered sacrifice to the high gods, the middle, and the less; to the lords of earth, air, sea, and sky; to all demons and rulers of the upper and under worlds; to gods and godlings. He prayed in all temples; he gave food and garments to the poor; he consulted all priests; he leaked rice and silver to all. The priests grew fat and sleek; an innumerable multitude of beggars lay at the gate of Kuang Sai; and still, when he cast the bell—the flaw.

“And on a day he was summoned to the footstool of the great Chan. He made the nine prostrations according to ritual, and waited; and presently, soft and low, the great Kublai-Chan spoke thus:

“‘Kuang Sai, I have given thee all things to make my bell, yet still thou hast failed after three score trials, whereby I am lacking my bell, and my honor is diminished. If in three more trials I have not my bell, you shall die the death of a thousand slices, and your house and all therein perish by fire. I have said it. You have my permission to depart.’

“Kuang Sai departed full of fear. That night he went to the little Temple of Forbidden Things, and paid the blind priest of that temple to call up by name the powers of air, water, fire, and earth, and ask which of the lords of all things he had offended, that he might make his peace and cast his bell.

“He sat at the foot of the naked altar, while the priest cast dust upon his head and called upon the high gods, the middle, and the less, by name—each by his name, title, dignity, and degree. He called upon all gods of city and field, of trees and fountains, great and small; and they answered not. Then he called on the demons and lords of particular things, of metals and tools, of trades and crafts.

“And when he called on the Lord of Bells, came the runner of the Lord of Bells—a demon terrible to behold, red in color, bristling with hair, short and broad of stature, squat and paunchy of figure, long of arm, wide-mouthed, and having three eyes.

“‘Kuang Sai,’ said he (and his voice was like the rolling of a great bell), ‘you have made sacrifice to all gods, but you have forgotten the great Lord of Bells.’

“At the name all the temple gongs boomed without being struck of hands.

“‘Therefore is he mocked of his fellows; and therefore, before he will suffer you to cast the king’s bell, my lord demands your most precious treasure. At the next founding, when the metal leaps red hot for the casting, bring your daughter’ (here Kuang Sai cried aloud and fell down with his face in the dust of the temple floor) ‘arrayed as a bride, and before the metal flows give her to the Lord of Bells; so shall the casting be good. If not, remember that the death of a thousand slices is long, for without this sacrifice never will my lord suffer you to cast that bell.’

“And he disappeared, making noises like a bell.

“Kuang Sai went forth, staggering, and all night he walked and thought; and at morn he said ‘No,’ and went to the casting—and again the flaw. And he sat dumb and motionless and ground his teeth, and again said ‘No,’ and went to the casting—and again the flaw.

“Excellency, all that a man has, down to his skin, will he give for his life; and near to me is my shirt, but nearer my skin; and if the third casting failed he died in agony and his name was blotted out. There be men who would have died, but living among pictures and statues and singing men and women does not breed the courage that says ‘Then I can die.’

“On the day of the last casting, what time the pot bubbled full of red hot metal, over which floated light clouds of heat, came Kuang Sai, leading by the hand his little daughter, Fen Sai, blooming as a white water-lily, tripping on her little pearl-embroidered shoes, chattering and laughing in her father’s face.

“They came to the scaffold over the mouth of the great melting-pot, and as they came the master founder, the strong man, cried: ‘Master, behold the casting waits.’

“And Kuang Sai suddenly caught up his little daughter and cast her into the molten metal. Once she cried, very awful to hear—once, and no more; for or ever she touched the metal the fierce heat licked her up as a drop of wine is dried on a hot stone. And as she fell, one of her little shoes dropped off onto the scaffold.

“‘To the casting,’ said Kuang Sai, and the strong man struck out the plug of the crucible, and the metal, glowing red and green and golden, flowed into the mold. Four days waited they the cooling, and they broke the mold—and behold, the great bell, perfect, flawless, the wonder of the world for ages; the bell under which we now lie.

“And Kublai-Chan said:

“‘Let Kuang Sai be clothed in the imperial yellow; give to him the mandarin’s crystal button, and write on a tablet at my palace gate, in letters of vermilion: “Kuang Sai, the Incomparable Artificer, Whom the King Delights to Honor.”’

“And they clothed Kuang Sai and bowed down before him, giving him due honor according to command.

“Then masons built the stone pillars and hung the great bell, and on a day came Kublai-Chan to ring it for the first time, and with him, at his right hand, Kuang Sai, whom he delighted to honor.

“And when all things were prepared, Kublai-Chan, the great king, drew back the striking-beam with all force, and rang the great bell, and sound came forth, deep, sweet, and full as the voices of the gods.

“Far, far away spread the circles of sound, even to the edge of the kingdom. The multitudes gathered around and fell down before that voice in rows, as corn before the reaper. The farmer in the field heard and fell down before the voice of the king’s bell. At the edge of the kingdom the Tatar heard it, and checked his horse, wondering.

“And little by little the sound rippled down again to silence, but as the sound died there came a buzzing and whispering inside the bell, and it grew and grew sharper and louder, into a second peal—clear, sharp, cutting the heart like a knife—the scream of a woman in pain, fright, and horror beyond measure.

“Kublai-Chan covered his lips with his hand, for kings should not be seen to tremble. His guards, strong men, red-haired, tigers nourished by blood, looked on each other with white faces, and Kuang Sai, in his robes of honor, crouched and scrabbled in the dirt with his fingers and whispered and driveled.

“They led him away, and all his life long he had no more the light of reason, but sat and mowed and muttered and laughed foolishly, except when the king’s bell rang, and then he would fall and lie with his mouth in the dust.

“Behold! in an auspicious hour here come the bearers. Shall we walk to meet them? My tale has eaten up the waiting. But Heaven Born doubts its truth. Before we go, I will ring the great bell for him.”

Chen caught the suspended beam by which Chinese bells are rung, swung it, and struck the shining side of the bell, and the deep boom echoed over the flat plain. It was truly a tremendous sound, and justified the belief that it could be heard to the confines of the kingdom, and gradually the rippling circles of sound died down to silence.

Jarvis, standing with his hands in his belt, was forming his lips to say, ‘But where’s the scream?’ when Chen raised his hand for silence, and then, within the arch of the great bell, began a buzzing, like bees—a little sound, like trickling water or the roaring in a shell; and this thread of sound grew and gathered till suddenly there pealed out, full-throated, the cry of a woman in agony of body and soul—a sound to dream of and wake at night with your teeth on edge.

“That, excellency,” said Chen, “is Fen Sai crying for her shoe.”

Jarvis answered nothing, but he walked faster toward the coming bearers, and though the sun was hot on his back, his bones felt cold.

* * * * *

Man could direct his ways by plain reason and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavor, and brightness, and laughter, and performers, to enliven the days of man’s pilgrimage, and to charm his pained steps over the burning marl.—Sidney Smith. (1771–1845.)

HOHENLINDEN.

AN IMPRESSIVE POEM INSPIRED BY THE DEFEAT OF THE AUSTRIANS BY THE FRENCH
IN DECEMBER, 1800.

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) is one of those writers who composed many
elaborate works, yet whose fame rests wholly upon three or four short
poems which have become classic. Among these is “Hohenlinden,” written
immediately after the battle of that name, fought on December 3, 1800,
between the French, under Moreau, and the Archduke John, in command of
the Austrian army.

It was one of the most hotly contested battles of the Napoleonic wars,
and was decided by the valor of Marshal Ney, the Austrians being
routed with a loss of twenty thousand men. The battle made a profound
impression in England, and inspired Campbell to dash off these
stirring lines, which in the speed of their composition and their
martial spirit remind one of Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.”

BY THOMAS CAMPBELL.

On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay th’ untrodden snow;
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
And furious every charger neighed,
To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills with thunder riven,
Then rushed the steed to battle driven,
And louder than the bolts of heaven
Far flashed the red artillery.

But redder yet that light shall glow
On Linden’s hills of stainèd snow,
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

’Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
Shout in their sulph’rous canopy.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave!
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry!

Few, few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier’s sepulcher.

NEW FRIENDS ON OLD PLATES.

The Grist That Now Comes to the Breakfast Mill Indicates That Men Soon Will Be Able to Dine Sumptuously on Cereals Which Have Been Reduced to the Constituency of Mere Mental Suggestion.

THE NEW FOOD.

I hear the scientist in grief
With all the strength he has moan—
“Why will the public feed on beef?
Why don’t they take to plasmon?
Give up your pork and venison, too,
Give up your lamb and mutton;
There’s in a penn’orth—nay, it’s true—
Enough to gorge a glutton.

“Its natural organic salt,
Its nutritive albumen
Will make the sick sound, heal the halt,
And make the palsied new men.
And it fulfils my dearest wish—
O sing its praises louder!—
You need no knife or plate or dish,
You take it in a powder.

“Buy it, and see your means expand,
You’ll spend less and you’ll waste less—
It saves the cost of cooking—and
I guarantee it tasteless,
And think as it new strength instils
And with new health you throb, you’ll
Soon take your alcohol in pills
And breakfast in a globule.”

But though for food be plasmon fit,
Its praise in me quicken
Such cravings that the thought of it
Makes me feel famine-stricken.
And think you then my meal shall be
On plasmon?—Fiddle-faddle!
The simple sirloin still for me,
And now and then the saddle!
_St. James’s Gazette._

✷ ✷ ✷ ✷

THE HEALTH-FOOD MAN.

By Aloysius Coll.

His eyes are balls of polished steel;
His lungs are sponges dried;
His blood is bouillon-concentrate
In veins of leather hide.

His muscles creak like pulley ropes
When hurried into play;
His hair is like piano chords—
Some chords are lost, they say.

His heart’s a little globe of punk—
A house of constant gloom,
For love can never burn within,
Because there isn’t room.

His appetite has dwindled down
To fit his little food.
Till fruit is “water in a poke”
And bread is “so much wood.”

Hot apple-tarts and pumpkin-pies—
He reads of them aghast:
And waffles brown and chicken-stew
Are “terrors of the past.”

And, smiling, from his vest he slips
A tiny box of tin,
With capsules brown and pellets pink
All rattling within.

Then, with a gulp, he swallows down
His dinner from the can—
This product of the health-food school,
The Concentrated Man!
_What to Eat._

✷ ✷ ✷ ✷

’TWAS EXCELSIOR.

The shades of night were falling fast
As down the café aisle there passed
A girl who bore what looked like rice,
Yet called she it by this device—
“Excelsior!”

“’Tis not ‘Sawdusto,’ she explained,
“Nor ‘Mat in Middlings,’ hulled and grained,
Nor yet ‘Near-Fodder,’ nor ‘Chew-Chew’—
This breakfast food is something NEW—
“Excelsior!”
_Boston Post._

REMEDIES WORSE THAN DISEASE.

Many Freak Medicines Which Were Used By the Ancients Are Paralleled By Gruesome Compounds That Are Inflicted To-Day on Patients in China and Some Parts of Europe—A Wonderful Lotion for Bald Heads.

The most unsavory concoctions of the modern pharmacy are as the nectar of the gods when compared with the medicines of ancient times. It would seem that physicians in those days taxed their ingenuity to its utmost to invent the gruesome horrors which they prescribed.

Certainly the fiends who were usually supposed to be the cause of sickness must have been a courageous lot of chaps if they withstood the doses they were treated to.

What would one think nowadays of a doctor who prescribed the blood
from a black cat’s tail for skin troubles, live toads tied behind the
ear to stop bleeding, or powdered spiders as an unfailing remedy for
various diseases?

Mayerne, a French physician, who is said to have numbered among his
patients two French and three English sovereigns—Henry IV and Louis
XIII of France, and James I, Charles I, and Charles II of England—was
fond of dosing his patients with “pulverized human bones.”

A chief ingredient in his gout powder consisted of “raspings of a
human skull unburied.” In the composition of his celebrated “balsam of
bats” he employed “adders, bats, sucking whelps, earth-worms, hog’s
grease, the marrow of a stag, and the thigh-bone of an ox.”

Dr. Boleyn (of the same family as Queen Anne Boleyn), a physician in
the reign of Elizabeth, prescribed for a child suffering under a
certain nervous malady, “a small young mouse roasted.” The same doctor
stated that “snayles broken from the shelles and sodden in whyte wyne
with oyle and sugar are very holsome, because they be hoat and moist
for the straightness of the lungs and cold cough.”

Belief in the efficacy of charms and amulets was once universal with
the faculty, and precious stones were regarded as sovereign remedies.
The hyacinth and topaz hung about the neck or taken in drink were
certain “to resist sorrow and recreate the heart.” The sapphire was “a
great enemy to black choler,” and was believed to “free the mind and
mend manners.”

A certain kind of onyx was supposed to preserve the vigor and good
estate of the whole body. One physician went so far as to declare that
“in the body of a swallow there is a stone found called chelidonius,
which, if it be lapped in a fair cloth and tied to the right arm, will
cure lunatics, madmen, and make them amiable and merry.” Herbs were
also in great request, and daisy-tea was accounted a certain cure for
gout and rheumatism.

A formula for hair tonic which is given in the oldest book on medical
practise now known—a book written at Heliopolis, where Joseph once
served in the house of Potiphar—is described as a “means for
increasing the growth of the hair, prepared for Schesch, the mother of
Teta, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt.” Dogs’ teeth, overripe dates,
and asses’ hoofs were carefully cooked in oil and then grated.

As Teta lived before Cheops, this recipe for hair-oil is older than
the great pyramid at Gizeh, and is supposed to date back more than six
thousand years.

Three drops of the blood of an angry cat gave relief to the epileptic.

The heads of venomous serpents have held an important place in
medicine. A strong broth made from them and mixed with salt and spices
and one hundred other remedies was employed under the name of theriac
as a cure for every conceivable disease.

Curious survivals of this old belief in the efficacy of certain
reptiles and insects as cures for human ills occasionally come to
light, even in this advanced age. In New England, cobweb pills are
supposed to be good for the ague, and in the South a certain
knuckle-bone in a pig’s foot is a cure for rheumatism, if it be
carried in the pocket or worn suspended from a string around the neck.
The spider-web pill originated in China, where all species of insects
have certain positive or negative values in medicine.

Among the learned physicians of Pekin it is customary to give two or
three scorpions or spiders to a patient ill of fever.

In Ireland, the peasantry swallow small spiders alive to effect cures.
From these to the cobweb pill of the New England native was easy.

In Flanders, the live spider is fastened into the empty shell of a
walnut and worn around the neck of the patient. As the creature dies,
the fever decreases until it is gone entirely.

Among jewels, the ruby was considered good for derangements of the
liver, as well as for bad eyes.

The sapphire and emerald were credited with properties which rendered
them capable of influencing ophthalmic disorders, and there is a
superstitious belief that serpents are blinded by looking at the
latter stone.

Temperance advocates, if they have any regard for the beliefs of the
Greeks and Romans, might seriously consider the advisability of
distributing amethysts among drunkards, for it was supposed that these
stones prevented intoxication.

Most of our readers have no doubt heard of the precious jewel which
the toad carries in his brain-box, and so-called toad-stones, which
were in reality the teeth of fossil fish, were formerly worn in
finger-rings as a protection against poisons.

Although popularly supposed to be itself a deadly poison, the diamond
has from remote ages been credited with the power of protecting the
wearer from the evil effects of other poisons, a reputation which it
retained until comparatively recent times.

The superstitious use of jewels is not so intolerable to think of, and
certainly would be less offensive to practise, but it is evident that
the patient’s recovery during this period was owing to good luck
rather than to good management.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A KISS.

A German Lover’s Definition of the Contact of Lips Puts Modern
Lexicographers to Shame—How Monks Viewed It.

The dictionary informs the breathless seeker after truth that a kiss is “a form of salutation expressed by the contact, with pressure, of the lips”—which definition, though clear and concise, seems to leave something to be desired.

Jonathan Swift testily remarks: “Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing”—and many more are the disgruntled speeches which have been made by men and women ever since the art first became known on earth.

It is probable that every mother’s son of us—and daughter, too—has some sort of idea of what a kiss is, in spite of the reticence of the language Solons, but it is doubtful if any one ever clothed the idea more appropriately than the lover who in 1679 wrote the epistle from which the following extract is taken. It is translated from the German.

What is a kiss? A kiss is, as it were, a seal expressing our sincere
attachment: the pledge of our future union; a dumb, but at the same
time audible, language of a living heart; a present, which at the same
time it is given is taken from us; the impression of an ardent
attachment on an ivory coral press; the striking of two flints against
one another; a crimson balsam for a love-wounded heart; a sweet bite
of the lip; an affectionate pinching of the mouth; a delicious dish
which is eaten with scarlet spoons; a sweetmeat which does not satisfy
hunger; a fruit which is planted and gathered at the same time; the
quickest exchange of questions and answers of two lovers; the fourth
degree of love.

The monks of the Middle Ages divided the kiss into fifteen distinct and separate orders—the decorous, or modest kiss; the diplomatic, or kiss of policy; the spying kiss, to ascertain if a woman has drunk wine; the slave kiss; the kiss infamous—a church penance; the slipper kiss, practised toward tyrants; the judicial kiss; the feudal kiss; the religious kiss (kissing the cross); the academical kiss (or joining a solemn brotherhood), the hand kiss; the Judas kiss; the medical kiss—for the purpose of healing some sickness; the kiss of etiquette; the kiss of love—the only real kiss.

How They Got On In The World.[5]

Brief Biographies of Successful Men Who Have Passed Through the Crucible
of Small Beginnings and Won Out.

_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

Footnote 5:

Began March SCRAP BOOK. Single copies, 10 cents.

EIGHTH SERIES.

LONG REACH FOR A GAVEL.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Served Lengthy Apprenticeship Before He Was Called to Preside.

Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker of the House of Representatives, recently concluded a few words of advice to a writer investigating the condition of affairs in the national government by saying: “I don’t know but that I’d have you study twenty years before beginning to write.”

The advice was not given sarcastically. Cannon himself has gone about his work thoroughly, systematically, and, to all appearances, slowly. There has been nothing spectacular or hysterical about his progress, but the amount of ground covered has been enormous. Every new work undertaken has been based upon arduous and exhaustive preparation in other work leading to it. As a result he has come from a clerkship in a country store to the Speakership of Congress, and he has filled the office ably in a stirring and momentous period.

Joseph G. Cannon is descended from Massachusetts Quakers who migrated from the colony to North Carolina to escape persecution. His father was left a penniless orphan in infancy, and two maiden Quaker women adopted him and supported him until he was able to study medicine. The future statesman was born in Guilford, North Carolina, in 1836, and as the Quakers had protested persistently against slavery, the South became unsafe for them, and many, Dr. Cannon’s family included, moved North. The Cannons settled near the Wabash River, at Annapolis, Indiana.

Dr. Cannon was drowned when Joseph was fifteen years old. The doctor’s eldest boy was in college, and the family decided to allow him to finish his studies. The youngest was near-sighted, and was unable at that time to find employment. Joseph, the second son, had shown self-reliance, and had worked between school hours, so he was sent to work in the local general store. The first year’s pay amounted to one hundred dollars.

At the age of twenty Joseph had earned a thousand dollars and saved five hundred, and though his employers tried to persuade him to stay, and even offered him a partnership, he left them to begin the study of law. The trial of a slander suit he attended aroused in him a resistless ambition to become a lawyer. The privations he must undergo to realize his ambition were patiently endured. He took his five hundred dollars and went to Terre Haute, where he entered the office of John P. Usher.

Office work for two years, supplemented by six months’ study in a Cincinnati law school, fitted him for practise. Before he went to Cincinnati he had never been in a large city, had never seen a theater, and had heard but little music. The city broadened him, for there he heard Moncure D. Conway and Horace Mann, and received a newer and truer idea of the world. Practise in a large city was alluring, and for a time he thought of settling in Cincinnati. Then he turned from it and located at Tuscola, Illinois.

The first year he did not earn enough to pay his board bill. He could not afford to keep a horse to ride the circuit as most of the other lawyers did, so he tramped it over the prairies, picking up a little business that gave him much work and scarcely any money. Farm truck, grocery orders, and on one occasion a couple of cured hams, on another a side of veal, on still another a pair of trousers much too large for him, constituted some of his fees. Shortly after he started practise he had an appointment with a prospective client. He waited until late in the evening and the man did not come. Then, in desperation, he started after him.

“Why didn’t you come to see me?” asked Cannon when he had found him.

“Oh,” said the man easily, “I forgot to tell you. I find I can pay more than I expected, so I have hired another lawyer.”

The struggle Cannon underwent was a grim, hard one that called into play all the sturdy qualities of his nature. Instead of souring him as it has many other men, it increased in him a desire to help others who have the same fight to make, and many a young man battling for a practise, or facing the work of Congress for the first time, has received the benefit of it.

“Uncle Joe really knows how to help a fellow,” said one of the young lawyers to whom he had given a helping hand. “He’s been up against it himself.”

The hardships of the first year of practise gave way in the second year to better things, and Cannon was able to make a scant living and pay off his debts. He went into politics, too, and stumped the county, getting directly at the people, winning fame among them as well as winning the regard of his party managers. He had a fairly good practise when he decided to marry, and he built a four-room cottage at Tuscola.

His wife was an Ohio woman, and before going to their new home the two went to Chicago to buy furniture for it. They selected Potter Palmer’s department store as the best place, and were highly pleased with the intelligence and skill of the young clerk who waited on them. His name was Marshall Field. After spending part of the three hundred dollars Cannon had with him, he proudly brought his wife home to the little cottage.

“There, Mary,” he said as he walked her from one room to another, “I don’t think a young couple could ask for a better start in life.”

His wife did all her own housework, and as he was State’s Attorney for the district until 1868, and earned about fifteen hundred dollars a year, they considered themselves prosperous. From 1868 to 1872 he built up a private practise, and that paid him better. Besides, the short-sighted brother had gone into banking, had taken Joseph’s money for investment, and succeeded mightily.

In 1872 “Old Joe” Gillespie pushed Cannon forward for the Congressional nomination, and Cannon not only won it, but was elected after a brisk campaign. He has been in Congress, with the exception of one term, ever since then.

Altogether, Mr. Cannon has served thirty-two years, and, according to his own statement, it has cost him three hundred thousand dollars to live during that time. The government has paid him one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The rest came out of his private income. Nearly twenty years of the time has been spent as a member of the Committee on Appropriations. When the expenditures steadily increased Cannon was taxed with extravagance.

“You think,” he said in reply, “that because I am chairman of the Committee on Appropriations that it is my duty to make appropriations. I tell you it is rather my duty to prevent them being made.”

During the period of his service Congress has spent nearly twelve billion dollars. Since he has been Speaker it has spent nearly two billion dollars, and he has fought down expenses constantly. It is a staggering total, but the country that demanded such expenditures has reached a wealth never attained by another nation, and the leading men who ran the government and made the appropriations have been of giant size. Cannon stands among the foremost.

Speaker Cannon is a poor man, as far as personal wealth is concerned, and yet he is as happy as when he built the little four-room cottage for his wife and with her began the upward fight that has landed him in a supreme position in the national government.

A DEVELOPER OF CITIES.

Canadian Boundary Line Fails to Bisect the Sphere of Usefulness of a
Massachusetts Man.

Henry M. Whitney has crowded three or four great business careers into his life, and each of them has resulted in good to the community in which he operated. His father, General James S. Whitney, was fairly prosperous, though there were then no capitalists and no rich men, as rich men are reckoned to-day, in Conway, Massachusetts, where he lived.

Henry M. Whitney was born in Conway in 1839. He studied in the public schools and at Williston Seminary until he was sixteen years old; then he went to work in the Conway Savings Bank. When his father became collector of the port of Boston, he went with him as a clerk, and later, when the father entered the employ of the Metropolitan Steamship Company, the son again went with him, still as a clerk.

His rise was neither rapid nor spectacular, but it was steady, continuous, and solid. When General Whitney died in 1879 he was president of the Metropolitan, and his son succeeded him in the office.