Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 01 by Elbert Hubbard

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Title: Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14
Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great

Author: Elbert Hubbard

Release Date: July 18, 2004 [EBook #12933]

Language: English

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LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF THE GREAT

Elbert Hubbard

Memorial Edition

Printed and made into a Book by The Roycrofters,
who are in East Aurora, Erie County, New York

Wm. H. Wise & Co.

New York

1916




PUBLISHER'S PREFACE


Elbert Hubbard is dead, or should we say, has gone on his last Little
Journey to the Great Beyond. But the children of his fertile brain still
live and will continue to live and keep fresh the memory of their
illustrious forebear.

Fourteen years were consumed in the preparation of the work that ranks
today as Elbert Hubbard's masterpiece. In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-four,
the series of Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great was begun, and
once a month for fourteen years, without a break, one of these little
pilgrimages was given to the world. These little gems have been accepted
as classics and will live. In all there are one hundred eighty Little
Journeys that take us to the homes of the men and women who transformed
the thought of their time, changed the course of empire, and marked the
destiny of civilization. Through him, the ideas, the deeds, the
achievements of these immortals have been given to the living present and
will be sent echoing down the centuries.

Hubbard's Little Journeys to the homes of these men and women have not
been equaled since Plutarch wrote his forty-six parallel lives of the
Greeks and Romans. And these were given to the world before the first
rosy dawn of modern civilization had risen to the horizon. Without
dwelling upon their achievements, Plutarch, with a trifling incident, a
simple word or an innocent jest, showed the virtues and failings of his
subject. As a result, no other books from classical literature have come
down through the ages to us with so great an influence upon the lives of
the leading men of the world. Who can recount the innumerable biographies
that begin thus: "In his youth, our subject had for his constant reading,
Plutarch's Lives, etc."? Emerson must have had in mind this silent,
irresistible force that shaped the lives of the great men of these twenty
centuries when he declared, "All history resolves itself very easily into
the biography of a few stout and earnest persons."

Plutarch lived in the time of Saint Paul, and wrote of the early Greeks
and Romans. After two thousand years Hubbard appeared, to bridge the
centuries from Athens, in the golden age of Pericles, to America, in the
wondrous age of Edison. With the magic wand of genius he touched the
buried mummies of all time, and from each tomb gushed forth a geyser of
inspiration.

Hugh Chalmers once remarked that, if he were getting out a Blue Book of
America, he would publish Elbert Hubbard's subscription-lists. Whether we
accept this authoritative statement or not, there is no doubt that the
pen of this immortal did more to stimulate the best minds of the country
than any other American writer, living or dead. Eminent writers study
Hubbard for style, while at the same time thousands of the tired men and
women who do the world's work read him for inspiration. Truly, this man
wielded his pen like an archangel.

Not only as a writer does this many-sided genius command our admiration,
but in many chosen fields, in all of which he excelled. As an
institution, the Roycroft Shops would reflect credit upon the business
acumen of the ablest men that America has produced in the field of
achievement. The industry, it would seem, was launched to demonstrate the
practicality of the high principles and philosophy preached by its
founder, not only by the printed page, but from the platform. Right here
let it be noted that, as a public speaker, Hubbard appeared before more
audiences than any other lecturer of his time who gave the platform his
undivided attention. Where, one asks in amazement, did this remarkable
man find the inspiration for carrying forward his great work? It is no
secret. It was drawn from his own little pilgrimages to the haunts of the
great. Again like Plutarch, these miniature biographies were composed for
the personal benefit of the writer. It was his own satisfaction and moral
improvement that inspired the work.

Following Hubbard's tragic death, the announcement was made from East
Aurora that "The Philistine" Magazine would be discontinued--Hubbard had
gone on a long journey and might need his "Philistine." Besides, who was
there to take up his pen? It was also a beautiful tribute to the father
from the son.

The same spirit of devotion has prompted The Roycrofters to issue their
Memorial Edition of the "Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great." In
no other way could they so fittingly perpetuate the memory of the founder
of their institution as to liberate the influence that was such an
important factor in molding the career of his genius. If he should cast a
backward glance, he would nod his approval. If there is to be a memorial,
certainly let it be a service to mankind. He would have us all tap the
same source from which he drew his inspiration.




AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL


The mintage of wisdom is to know that
rest is rust, and that real life is in love,
laughter and work.
--_Elbert Hubbard_


I have been asked to write an article about myself and the
work in which I am engaged. I think I am honest enough to sink self, to
stand outside my own personality, and answer the proposition.

Let me begin by telling what I am not, and thus reach the vital issue by
elimination.

First, I am not popular in "Society," and those who champion _my cause in
my own town_ are plain, unpretentious people.

Second, I am not a popular writer, since my name has never been mentioned
in the "Atlantic," "Scribner's," "Harper's," "The Century" or the
"Ladies' Home Journal." But as a matter of truth, it may not be amiss for
me to say that I have waited long hours in the entryway of each of the
magazines just named, in days agone, and then been handed the frappe.

Third, I am not rich, as the world counts wealth.

Fourth, as an orator I am without the graces, and do scant justice to the
double-breasted Prince Albert.

Fifth, the Roycroft Shop, to the welfare of which my life is dedicated,
is not so large as to be conspicuous on account of size.

Sixth, personally, I am no ten-thousand-dollar beauty: the glass of
fashion and the mold of form are far from mine.

Then what have I done concerning which the public wishes to know? Simply
this:

In one obscure country village I have had something to do with stopping
the mad desire on the part of the young people to get out of the country
and flock to the cities. In this town and vicinity the tide has been
turned from city to country. We have made one country village an
attractive place for growing youth by supplying congenial employment,
opportunity for education and healthful recreation, and an outlook into
the world of art and beauty.

All boys and girls want to make things with their hands, and they want to
make beautiful things, they want to "get along," and I've simply given
them a chance to get along here, instead of seeking their fortunes in
Buffalo, New York or Chicago. They have helped me and I have helped them;
and through this mutual help we have made head, gained ground upon the
whole.

By myself I could have done nothing, and if I have succeeded, it is
simply because I have had the aid and co-operation of cheerful, willing,
loyal and loving helpers. Even now as I am writing this in my cabin in
the woods, four miles from the village, they are down there at the Shop,
quietly, patiently, cheerfully doing my work--which work is also theirs.

No man liveth unto himself alone: our interests are all bound up
together, and there is no such thing as a man going off by himself and
corraling the good.

When I came to this town there was not a house in the place that had a
lavatory with hot and cold water attachments. Those who bathed, swam in
the creek in the Summer or used the family wash tub in the kitchen in
Winter. My good old partner, Ali Baba, has always prided himself on his
personal cleanliness He is arrayed in rags, but underneath, his hide is
clean, and better still, his heart is right. Yet when he first became a
member of my household, he was obliged to take his Saturday-night tub out
in the orchard, from Spring until Autumn came with withered leaves.

He used to make quite an ado in the kitchen, heating the water in the
wash-boiler. Six pails of cistern-water, a gourd of soft soap, and a
gunny-sack for friction were required in the operation. Of course, the
Baba waited until after dark before performing his ablutions. But finally
his plans were more or less disturbed by certain rising youth, who timed
his habits and awaited his disrobing with o'erripe tomatoes. The
bombardment, and the inability to pursue the enemy, turned the genial
current of the Baba's life awry until I put a bathroom in my house, with
a lock on the door.

This bit of history I have mentioned for the dual purpose of shedding
light on former bathing facilities in East Aurora, and more especially to
show that once we had the hoodlum with us.

Hoodlumism is born of idleness; it is useful energy gone to seed. In
small towns hoodlumism is rife, and the hoodlums are usually the children
of the best citizens. Hoodlumism is the first step in the direction of
crime. The hoodlum is very often a good boy who does not know what to do;
and so he does the wrong thing. He bombards with tomatoes a good man
taking a bath, puts ticktacks on windows, ties a tin can to the dog's
tail, takes the burs off your carriage-wheels, steals your chickens,
annexes your horse-blankets, and scares old ladies into fits by appearing
at windows wrapped in a white sheet. To wear a mask, walk in and demand
the money in the family ginger-jar is the next and natural evolution.

To a great degree the Roycroft Shop has done away with hoodlumism in this
village, and a stranger wearing a silk hat, or an artist with a white
umbrella, is now quite safe upon our streets. Very naturally, the Oldest
Inhabitant will deny what I have said about East Aurora--he will tell you
that the order, cleanliness and beauty of the place have always existed.
The change has come about so naturally, and so entirely without his
assistance, that he knows nothing about it.

Truth when first presented is always denied, but later there comes a
stage when the man says, "I always believed it." And so the good old
citizens are induced to say that these things have always been, or else
they gently pooh-pooh them. However, the truth remains that I introduced
the first heating-furnace into the town; bought the first lawn-mower; was
among the first to use electricity for lights and natural gas for fuel;
and so far, am the only one in town to use natural gas for power.

Until the starting of the Roycroft Shop, there were no industries here,
aside from the regulation country store, grocery, tavern, blacksmith-shop
and sawmill--none of which enterprises attempted to supply more than
local wants.

There was Hamlin's stock-farm, devoted to raising trotting-horses, that
gave employment to some of the boys; but for the girls there was nothing.
They got married at the first chance; some became "hired girls," or, if
they had ambitions, fixed their hearts on the Buffalo Normal School,
raised turkeys, picked berries, and turned every honest penny towards the
desire to get an education so as to become teachers. Comparatively, this
class was small in number. Most of the others simply followed that
undefined desire to get away out of the dull, monotonous, gossiping
village; and so, craving excitement, they went away to the cities, and
the cities swallowed them. A wise man has said that God made the country,
man the city, and the devil the small towns.

The country supplies the city its best and its worst. We hear of the few
who succeed, but of the many who are lost in the maelstrom we know
nothing. Sometimes in country homes it is even forbidden to mention
certain names. "She went to the city," you are told--and there the
history abruptly stops.

And so, to swing back to the place of beginning, I think the chief reason
many good folks are interested in the Roycroft Shop is because here
country boys and girls are given work at which they not only earn their
living, but can get an education while doing it. Next to this is the
natural curiosity to know how a large and successful business can be
built up in a plain, humdrum village by simply using the talent and
materials that are at hand, and so I am going to tell now how the
Roycroft Shop came to start; a little about what it has done; what it is
trying to do; and what it hopes to become. And since modesty is only
egotism turned wrong side out, I will make no special endeavor to conceal
the fact that I have had something to do with the venture.

In London, from about Sixteen Hundred Fifty to Sixteen Hundred Ninety,
Samuel and Thomas Roycroft printed and made very beautiful books. In
choosing the name "Roycroft" for our Shop we had these men in mind, but
beyond this the word has a special significance, meaning King's
Craft--King's craftsmen being a term used in the Guilds of the olden
times for men who had achieved a high degree of skill--men who made
things for the King. So a Roycrofter is a person who makes beautiful
things, and makes them as well as he can. "The Roycrofters" is the legal
name of our institution. It is a corporation, and the shares are
distributed among the workers. No shares are held by any one but
Roycrofters, and it is agreed that any worker who quits the Shop shall
sell his shares back to the concern. This co-operative plan, it has been
found, begets a high degree of personal diligence, a loyalty to the
institution, a sentiment of fraternity and a feeling of permanency among
the workers that is very beneficial to all concerned. Each worker, even
the most humble, calls it "Our Shop," and feels that he is an integral
and necessary part of the Whole. Possibly there are a few who consider
themselves more than necessary. Ali Baba, for instance, it is said, has
referred to himself, at times, as the Whole Thing. And this is all right,
too--I would never chide an excess of zeal: the pride of a worker in his
worth and work is a thing to foster.

It's the man who "doesn't give a damn" who is really troublesome. The
artistic big-head is not half so bad as apathy.

* * * * *

In the month of December, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-four, I
printed the first "Little Journeys" in booklet form, at the local
printing-office, having become discouraged in trying to find a publisher.
But before offering the publication to the public, I decided to lay the
matter again before G.P. Putnam's Sons, although they had declined the
matter in manuscript form. Mr. George H. Putnam rather liked the matter,
and was induced to issue the periodical as a venture for one year. The
scheme seemed to meet with success, the novel form of the publication
being in its favor. The subscription reached nearly a thousand in six
months; the newspapers were kind, and the success of the plan suggested
printing a pamphlet modeled on similar lines, telling what we thought
about things in general, and publishers and magazine-editors in
particular.

There was no intention at first of issuing more than one number of this
pamphlet, but to get it through the mails at magazine rates we made up a
little subscription list and asked that it be entered at the post office
at East Aurora as second-class matter. The postmaster adjusted his
brass-rimmed spectacles, read the pamphlet, and decided that it surely
was second class matter.

We called it "The Philistine" because we were going after the "Chosen
People" in literature. It was Leslie Stephen who said, "The term
Philistine is a word used by prigs to designate people they do not
like." When you call a man a bad name, you are that thing--not he. The
Smug and Snugly Ensconced Denizens of Union Square called me a
Philistine, and I said, "Yes, I am one, if a Philistine is something
different from you."

My helpers, the printers, were about to go away to pastures new; they
were in debt, the town was small, they could not make a living. So they
offered me their outfit for a thousand dollars. I accepted the
proposition.

I decided to run "The Philistine" Magazine for a year--to keep faith with
the misguided and hopeful parties who had subscribed--and then quit. To
fill in the time, we printed a book: we printed it like a William Morris
book--printed it just as well as we could. It was cold in the old barn
where we first set up "The Philistine," so I built a little building like
an old English chapel right alongside of my house. There was one basement
and a room upstairs. I wanted it to be comfortable and pretty, and so we
furnished our little shop cozily. We had four girls and three boys
working for us then. The Shop was never locked, and the boys and girls
used to come around evenings. It was really more pleasant than at home.

I brought over a shelf of books from the library. Then I brought the
piano, because the youngsters wanted to dance.

The girls brought flowers and birds, and the boys put up curtains at the
windows. We were having a lot o' fun, with new subscriptions coming in
almost every day, and once in a while an order for a book.

The place got too small when we began to bind books, so we built a wing
on one side; then a wing on the other side. To keep the three carpenters
busy who had been building the wings, I set them to making furniture for
the place. They made the furniture as good as they could--folks came
along and bought it.

The boys picked up field-stones and built a great, splendid fireplace and
chimney at one end of the Shop. The work came out so well that I said,
"Boys, here is a great scheme--these hardheads are splendid building
material." So I advertised we would pay a dollar a load for niggerheads.
The farmers began to haul stones; they hauled more stones, and at last
they had hauled four thousand loads. We bought all the stone in the
dollar limit, bulling the market on boulders.

Three stone buildings have been built, another is in progress, and our
plans are made to build an art-gallery of the same material--the stones
that the builders rejected.

An artist blew in on the way to Nowhere, his baggage a tomato-can. He
thought he would stop over for a day or two--he is with us yet, and three
years have gone by since he came, and now we could not do without him.
Then we have a few Remittance-Men, sent to us from a distance, without
return-tickets. Some of these men were willing to do anything but
work--they offered to run things, to preach, to advise, to make love to
the girls.

We bought them tickets to Chicago, and without violence conducted them to
the Four-o'Clock train.

We have boys who have been expelled from school, blind people, deaf
people, old people, jailbirds and mental defectives, and have managed to
set them all at useful work; but the Remittance-Man of Good Family who
smokes cigarettes in bed has proved too much for us--so we have given him
the Four-o'Clock without ruth.

We do not encourage people from a distance who want work to come on--they
are apt to expect too much. They look for Utopia, when work is work, here
as elsewhere. There is just as much need for patience, gentleness,
loyalty and love here as anywhere. Application, desire to do the right
thing, a willingness to help, and a well-curbed tongue are as necessary
in East Aurora as in Tuskegee.

We do our work as well as we can, live one day at a time, and try to be
kind.

* * * * *

The village of East Aurora, Erie County, New York, the
home of The Roycrofters, is eighteen miles southeast of the city of
Buffalo. The place has a population of about three thousand people.

There is no wealth in the town and no poverty. In East Aurora there are
six churches, with pastors' salaries varying from three hundred to one
thousand dollars a year; and we have a most excellent school. The place
is not especially picturesque or attractive, being simply a
representative New York State village. Lake Erie is ten miles distant,
and Cazenovia Creek winds its lazy way along by the village.

The land around East Aurora is poor, and so reduced in purse are the
farmers that no insurance-company will insure farm property in Erie
County under any conditions unless the farmer has some business outside
of agriculture--the experience of the underwriters being that when a man
is poor enough, he is also dishonest; insure a farmer's barn in New York
State, and there is a strong probability that he will soon invest in
kerosene.

However, there is no real destitution, for a farmer can always raise
enough produce to feed his family, and in a wooded country he can get
fuel, even if he has to lift it between the dawn and the day.

Most of the workers in the Roycroft Shop are children of farming folk,
and it is needless to add that they are not college-bred, nor have they
had the advantages of foreign travel. One of our best helpers, Uncle
Billy Bushnell, has never been to Niagara Falls, and does not care to go.
Uncle Billy says if you stay at home and do your work well enough, the
world will come to you; which aphorism the old man backs up with another,
probably derived from experience, to the effect that a man is a fool to
chase after women, because, if he doesn't, the women will chase after
him.

The wisdom of this hard-headed old son of the soil--who abandoned
agriculture for art at seventy--is exemplified in the fact that during
the year just past, over twenty-eight thousand pilgrims have visited the
Roycroft Shop--representing every State and Territory of the Union and
every civilized country on the globe, even far-off Iceland, New Zealand
and the Isle of Guam.

Three hundred ten people are on the payroll at the present writing. The
principal work is printing, illuminating and binding books. We also have
a furniture shop, where Mission furniture of the highest grade is made; a
modeled-leather shop, where the most wonderful creations in calfskin are
to be seen; and a smithy, where copper utensils of great beauty are
hammered out by hand.

Quite as important as the printing and binding is the illuminating of
initials and title-pages. This is a revival of a lost art, gone with so
much of the artistic work done by the monks of the olden time. Yet there
is a demand for such work; and so far as I know, we are the first
concern in America to take up the hand-illumination of books as a
business. Of course we have had to train our helpers, and from very crude
attempts at decoration we have attained to a point where the British
Museum and the "Bibliotheke" at The Hague have deigned to order and pay
good golden guineas for specimens of our handicraft. Very naturally we
want to do the best work possible, and so self-interest prompts us to be
on the lookout for budding genius. The Roycroft is a quest for talent.

There is a market for the best, and the surest way, we think, to get away
from competition is to do your work a little better than the other
fellow. The old tendency to make things cheaper, instead of better, in
the book line is a fallacy, as shown in the fact that within ten years
there have been a dozen failures of big publishing-houses in the United
States. The liabilities of these bankrupt concerns footed the fine total
of fourteen million dollars. The man who made more books and cheaper
books than any one concern ever made, had the felicity to fail very
shortly, with liabilities of something over a million dollars. He overdid
the thing in matter of cheapness--mistook his market. Our motto is, "Not
How Cheap, But How Good."

This is the richest country the world has ever known, far richer per
capita than England--lending money to Europe. Once Americans were all
shoddy--pioneers have to be, I'm told--but now only a part of us are
shoddy. As men and women increase in culture and refinement, they want
fewer things, and they want better things. The cheap article, I will
admit, ministers to a certain grade of intellect; but if the man grows,
there will come a time when, instead of a great many cheap and shoddy
things, he will want a few good things. He will want things that symbol
solidity, truth, genuineness and beauty.

The Roycrofters have many opportunities for improvement not the least of
which is the seeing, hearing and meeting distinguished people. We have a
public dining-room, and not a day passes but men and women of note sit at
meat with us. At the evening meal, if our visitors are so inclined, and
are of the right fiber, I ask them to talk. And if there is no one else
to speak, I sometimes read a little from William Morris, Shakespeare,
Walt Whitman or Ruskin. David Bispham has sung for us. Maude Adams and
Minnie Maddern Fiske have also favored us with a taste of their quality.
Judge Lindsey, Alfred Henry Lewis, Richard Le Gallienne, Robert Barr,
have visited us; but to give a list of all the eminent men and women who
have spoken, sung or played for us would lay me liable for infringement
in printing "Who's Who." However, let me name one typical incident. The
Boston Ideal Opera Company was playing in Buffalo, and Henry Clay
Barnabee and half a dozen of his players took a run out to East Aurora.
They were shown through the Shop by one of the girls whose work it is to
receive visitors. A young woman of the company sat down at one of the
pianos and played. I chanced to be near and asked Mr. Barnabee if he
would not sing, and graciously he answered, "Fra Elbertus, I'll do
anything that you say." I gave the signal that all the workers should
quit their tasks and meet at the Chapel. In five minutes we had an
audience of three hundred--men in blouses and overalls, girls in big
aprons--a very jolly, kindly, receptive company.

Mr. Barnabee was at his best--I never saw him so funny. He sang, danced,
recited, and told stories for forty minutes. The Roycrofters were, of
course, delighted.

One girl whispered to me as she went out, "I wonder what great sorrow is
gnawing at Barnabee's heart, that he is so wondrous gay!" Need I say that
the girl who made the remark just quoted had drunk of life's cup to the
very lees? We have a few such with us--and several of them are among our
most loyal helpers.

* * * * *

One fortuitous event that has worked to our decided
advantage was "A Message to Garcia."

This article, not much more than a paragraph, covering only fifteen
hundred words, was written one evening after supper in a single hour. It
was the Twenty-second of February, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-Nine,
Washington's Birthday, and we were just going to press with the March
"Philistine." The thing leaped hot from my heart, written after a rather
trying day, when I had been endeavoring to train some rather delinquent
helpers in the way they should go.

The immediate suggestion, though, came from a little argument over the
teacups when my son Bert suggested that Rowan was the real hero of the
Cuban war. Rowan had gone alone and done the thing--carried the message
to Garcia.

It came to me like a flash! Yes, the boy is right, the hero is the man
who does the thing--does his work--carries the message.

I got up from the table and wrote "A Message to Garcia."

I thought so little of it that we ran it in without a heading. The
edition went out, and soon orders began to come for extra March
"Philistines," a dozen, fifty, a hundred; and when the American News
Company ordered a thousand I asked one of my helpers which article it was
that had stirred things up.

"It's that stuff about Garcia," he said.

The next day a telegram came from George H. Daniels, of the New York
Central Railroad, thus: "Give price on one hundred thousand Rowan article
in pamphlet form--Empire State Express advertisement on back--also state
how soon can ship."

I replied giving price and stated we could supply the pamphlets in two
years. Our facilities were small, and a hundred thousand pamphlets looked
like an awful undertaking.

The result was that I gave Mr. Daniels permission to reprint the article
in his own way. He issued it in booklet form in editions of one hundred
thousand each. Five editions were sent out, and then he got out an
edition of half a million. Two or three of these half-million lots were
sent out by Mr. Daniels, and in addition the article was reprinted in
over two hundred magazines and newspapers. It has been translated into
eleven languages, and been given a total circulation of over twenty-two
million copies. It has attained, I believe, a larger circulation in the
same length of time than any written article has ever before reached.

Of course, we can not tell just how much good "A Message to Garcia" has
done the Shop, but it probably doubled the circulation of "The
Philistine." I do not consider it by any means my best piece of writing;
but it was opportune--the time was ripe. Truth demands a certain
expression, and too much had been said on the other side about the
downtrodden, honest man, looking for work and not being able to find it.
The article in question states the other side. Men are needed--loyal,
honest men who will do their work. "The world cries out for him--the man
who can carry a message to Garcia."

The man who sent the message and the man who received it are dead. The
man who carried it is still carrying other messages. The combination of
theme, condition of the country, and method of circulation was so
favorable that their conjunction will probably never occur again. Other
men will write better articles, but they may go a-begging for lack of a
Daniels to bring them to judgment.

* * * * *

Concerning my own personal history, I'll not tarry long to
tell. It has been too much like the career of many another born in the
semi-pioneer times of the Middle West, to attract much attention, unless
one should go into the psychology of the thing with intent to show the
evolution of a soul. But that will require a book--and some day I'll
write it, after the manner of Saint Augustine or Jean Jacques.

But just now I 'll only say that I was born in Illinois, June Nineteenth,
Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six. My father was a country doctor, whose income
never exceeded five hundred dollars a year. I left school at fifteen,
with a fair hold on the three R's, and beyond this my education in
"manual training" had been good. I knew all the forest-trees, all wild
animals thereabout, every kind of fish, frog, fowl or bird that swam, ran
or flew. I knew every kind of grain or vegetable, and its comparative
value. I knew the different breeds of cattle, horses, sheep and swine.

I could teach wild cows to stand while being milked; break horses to
saddle or harness; could sow, plow and reap; knew the mysteries of
apple-butter, pumpkin pie pickled beef, smoked side-meat, and could make
lye at a leach and formulate soft soap.

That is to say, I was a bright, strong, active country boy who had been
brought up to help his father and mother get a living for a large
family.

I was not so densely ignorant--don't feel sorry for country boys: God is
often on their side.

At fifteen I worked on a farm and did a man's work for a boy's pay. I did
not like it and told the man so. He replied, "You know what you can do."

And I replied, "Yes." I went westward like the course of empire and
became a cowboy; tired of this and went to Chicago; worked in a
printing-office; peddled soap from house to house; shoved lumber on the
docks; read all the books I could find; wrote letters back to country
newspapers and became a reporter; next got a job as traveling salesman;
taught in a district school; read Emerson, Carlyle and Macaulay; worked
in a soap factory; read Shakespeare and committed most of "Hamlet" to
memory with an eye on the stage; became manager of the soap-factory, then
partner; evolved an Idea for the concern and put it on the track of
making millions--knew it was going to make millions--did not want them;
sold out my interest for seventy-five thousand dollars and went to
Harvard College; tramped through Europe; wrote for sundry newspapers;
penned two books (couldn't find a publisher); taught night school in
Buffalo; tramped through Europe some more and met William Morris (caught
it); came back to East Aurora and started "Chautauqua Circles"; studied
Greek and Latin with a local clergyman; raised trotting-horses; wrote
"Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great."

So that is how I got my education, such as it is. I am a graduate of the
University of Hard Knocks, and I've taken several postgraduate courses. I
have worked at five different trades enough to be familiar with the
tools. In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-nine, Tufts College bestowed on me the
degree of Master of Arts; but since I did not earn the degree, it really
does not count.

I have never been sick a day, never lost a meal through disinclination to
eat, never consulted a doctor, never used tobacco or intoxicants. My work
has never been regulated by the eight-hour clause.

Horses have been my only extravagance, and I ride horseback daily now: a
horse that I broke myself, that has never been saddled by another, and
that has never been harnessed.

My best friends have been workingmen, homely women and children. My
father and mother are members of my household, and they work in the Shop
when they are so inclined. My mother's business now is mostly to care for
the flowers, and my father we call "Physician to The Roycrofters," as he
gives free advice and attendance to all who desire his services. Needless
to say, his medicine is mostly a matter of the mind. Unfortunately for
him, we do not enjoy poor health, so there is very seldom any one sick to
be cured. Fresh air is free, and outdoor exercise is not discouraged.

* * * * *

The Roycroft Shop and belongings represent an investment
of about three hundred thousand dollars. We have no liabilities, making
it a strict business policy to sign no notes or other instruments of debt
that may in the future prove inopportune and tend to disturb digestion.
Fortune has favored us.

First, the country has grown tired of soft platitude, silly truism and
undisputed things said in such a solemn way. So when "The Philistine"
stepped into the ring and voiced in no uncertain tones what its editor
thought, thinking men and women stopped and listened. Editors of
magazines refused my manuscript because they said it was too plain, too
blunt, sometimes indelicate--it would give offense, subscribers would
cancel, et cetera. To get my thoughts published I had to publish them
myself; and people bought for the very reason for which the editors said
they would cancel. The readers wanted brevity and plain statement--the
editors said they didn't.

The editors were wrong. They failed to properly diagnose a demand. I saw
the demand and supplied it--for a consideration.

Next I believed the American public. A portion of it, at least, wanted a
few good and beautiful books instead of a great many cheap books. The
truth came to me in the early Nineties, when John B. Alden and half a
dozen other publishers of cheap books went to the wall. I read the R.G.
Dun & Company bulletin and I said, "The publishers have mistaken their
public--we want better books, not cheaper." In Eighteen Hundred
Ninety-two, I met William Morris, and after that I was sure I was right.

Again I had gauged the public correctly--the publishers were wrong, as
wrong as the editors. There was a market for the best, and the problem
was to supply it. At first I bound my books in paper covers and simple
boards. Men wrote to me wanting fine bindings. I said, "There is a market
in America for the best--cheap boards, covered with cloth, stamped by
machinery in gaudy tinsel and gilt, are not enough." I discovered that
nearly all the bookbinders were dead. I found five hundred people in a
book-factory in Chicago binding books, but not a bookbinder among them.
They simply fed the books into hoppers and shot them out of chutes, and
said they were bound.

Next the public wanted to know about this thing--"What are you folks
doing out there in that buckwheat town?" Since my twentieth year I have
had one eye on the histrionic stage. I could talk in public a bit, had
made political speeches, given entertainments in crossroads schoolhouses,
made temperance harangues, was always called upon to introduce the
speaker of the evening, and several times had given readings from my own
amusing works for the modest stipend of ten dollars and keep. I would
have taken the lecture platform had it not been nailed down.

In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-eight, my friend Major Pond wanted to book me
on a partnership deal at the Waldorf-Astoria. I didn't want to speak
there--I had been saying unkind things in "The Philistine" about the
Waldorf-Astoria folks. But the Major went ahead and made arrangements. I
expected to be mobbed.

But Mr. Boldt, the manager of the hotel, had placed a suite of rooms at
my disposal without money and without price. He treated me most
cordially; never referred to the outrageous things I had said about his
tavern; assured me that he enjoyed my writings, and told me of the
pleasure he had in welcoming me.

Thus did he heap hot cinders upon my occiput. The Astor gallery seats
eight hundred people. Major Pond had packed in nine hundred at one dollar
each--three hundred were turned away. After the lecture the Major awaited
me in the anteroom, fell on my neck and rained Pond's Extract down my
back, crying: "Oh! Oh! Oh! Why didn't we charge them two dollars apiece!"

The next move was to make a tour of the principal cities under Major
Pond's management. Neither of us lost money--the Major surely did not.

Last season I gave eighty-one lectures, with a net profit to myself of a
little over ten thousand dollars. I spoke at Tremont Temple in Boston, to
twenty-two hundred people; at Carnegie Hall, New York; at Central Music
Hall, Chicago. I spoke to all the house would hold; at Chautauqua, my
audience was five thousand people. It will be noted by the Discerning
that my lectures have been of double importance, in that they have given
an income and at the same time advertised the Roycroft Wares.

The success of the Roycroft Shop has not been brought about by any one
scheme or plan. The business is really a combination of several ideas,
any one of which would make a paying enterprise in itself. So it stands
about thus:

First, the printing and publication of three magazines.

Second, the printing of books (it being well known that some of the
largest publishers in America--Scribner and Appleton, for instance--have
no printing-plants, but have the work done for them).

Third, the publication of books.

Fourth, the artistic binding of books.

Fifth, authorship. Since I began printing my own manuscript, there is
quite an eager demand for my writing, so I do a little of Class B for
various publishers and editors.

Sixth, the Lecture Lyceum.

Seventh, blacksmithing, carpenter-work and basket-weaving. These
industries have sprung up under the Roycroft care as a necessity. Men and
women in the village came to us and wanted work, and we simply gave them
opportunity to do the things they could do best. We have found a market
for all our wares, so no line of work has ever been a bill of expense.

I want no better clothing, no better food, no more comforts and
conveniences than my helpers and fellow-workers have. I would be ashamed
to monopolize a luxury--to take a beautiful work of art, say a painting
or a marble statue, and keep it for my own pleasure and for the select
few I might invite to see my beautiful things. Art is for all--beauty is
for all. Harmony in all of its manifold forms should be like a
sunset--free to all who can drink it in. The Roycroft Shop is for The
Roycrofters, and each is limited only by his capacity to absorb.

* * * * *

Art is the expression of man's joy in his work, and all
the joy and love that you can weave into a fabric comes out again and
belongs to the individual who has the soul to appreciate it. Art is
beauty; and beauty is a gratification, a peace and a solace to every
normal man and woman. Beautiful sounds, beautiful colors, beautiful
proportions, beautiful thoughts--how our souls hunger for them! Matter is
only mind in an opaque condition; and all beauty is but a symbol of
spirit. You can not get joy from feeding things all day into a machine.
You must let the man work with hand and brain, and then out of the joy of
this marriage of hand and brain, beauty will be born. It tells of a
desire for harmony, peace, beauty, wholeness--holiness.

Art is the expression of man's joy in his work.

When you read a beautiful poem that makes your heart throb with gladness
and gratitude, you are simply partaking of the emotion that the author
felt when he wrote it. To possess a piece of work that the workman made
in joyous animation is a source of joy to the possessor.

And this love of the work done by the marriage of hand and brain can
never quite go out of fashion--for we are men and women, and our hopes
and aims and final destiny are at last one. Where one enjoys, all enjoy;
where one suffers, all suffer.

Say what you will of the coldness and selfishness of men, at the last we
long for companionship and the fellowship of our kind. We are lost
children, and when alone and the darkness gathers, we long for the close
relationship of the brothers and sisters we knew in our childhood, and
cry for the gentle arms that once rocked us to sleep. Men are homesick
amid this sad, mad rush for wealth and place and power. The calm of the
country invites, and we would fain do with less things, and go back to
simplicity, and rest our tired heads in the lap of Mother Nature.

Life is expression. Life is a movement outward, an unfolding, a
development. To be tied down, pinned to a task that is repugnant, and to
have the shrill voice of Necessity whistling eternally in your ears, "Do
this or starve," is to starve; for it starves the heart, the soul, and
all the higher aspirations of your being pine away and die.

At the Roycroft Shop the workers are getting an education by doing
things. Work should be the spontaneous expression of a man's best
impulses. We grow only through exercise, and every faculty that is
exercised becomes strong, and those not used atrophy and die. Thus how
necessary it is that we should exercise our highest and best! To develop
the brain we have to exercise the body. Every muscle, every organ, has
its corresponding convolution in the brain. To develop the mind, we must
use the body. Manual training is essentially moral training; and physical
work is, at its best, mental, moral and spiritual--and these are truths
so great and yet so simple that until yesterday many wise men did not
recognize them.

At the Roycroft Shop we are reaching out for an all-round development
through work and right living.

And we have found it a good expedient--a wise business policy. Sweat-shop
methods can never succeed in producing beautiful things. And so the
management of the Roycroft Shop surrounds the workers with beauty, allows
many liberties, encourages cheerfulness and tries to promote kind
thoughts, simply because it has been found that these things are
transmuted into good, and come out again at the finger-tips of the
workers in beautiful results. So we have pictures, statuary, flowers,
ferns, palms, birds, and a piano in every room. We have the best sanitary
appliances that money can buy; we have bathrooms, shower-baths, library,
rest-rooms. Every week we have concerts, dances, lectures.

Besides being a workshop, the Roycroft is a School. We are following out
a dozen distinct lines of study, and every worker in the place is
enrolled as a member of one or more classes. There are no fees to pupils,
but each pupil purchases his own books--the care of his books and
belongings being considered a part of one's education. All the teachers
are workers in the Shop, and are volunteers, teaching without pay, beyond
what each receives for his regular labor.

The idea of teaching we have found is a great benefit--to the teacher.
The teacher gets most out of the lessons. Once a week there is a faculty
meeting, when each teacher gives in a verbal report of his stewardship.
It is responsibility that develops one, and to know that your pupils
expect you to know is a great incentive to study. Then teaching demands
that you shall give--give yourself--and he who gives most receives most.
We deepen our impressions by recounting them, and he who teaches others
teaches himself. I am never quite so proud as when some one addresses me
as "teacher." We try to find out what each person can do best, what he
wants to do, and then we encourage him to put his best into it--also to
do something else besides his specialty, finding rest in change.

The thing that pays should be the expedient thing, and the expedient
thing should be the proper and right thing. That which began with us as a
matter of expediency is often referred to as a "philanthropy." I do not
like the word, and wish to state here that the Roycroft is in no sense a
charity--I do not believe in giving any man something for nothing. You
give a man a dollar and the man will think less of you because he thinks
less of himself; but if you give him a chance to earn a dollar, he will
think more of himself and more of you. The only way to help people is to
give them a chance to help themselves. So the Roycroft Idea is one of
reciprocity--you help me and I'll help you. We will not be here forever,
anyway; soon Death, the kind old Nurse, will come and rock us all to
sleep, and we had better help one another while we may: we are going the
same way--let's go hand in hand!




CONTENTS

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE v
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL xi
GEORGE ELIOT 47
THOMAS CARLYLE 65
JOHN RUSKIN 85
WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE 101
J.M.W. TURNER 121
JONATHAN SWIFT 141
WALT WHITMAN 161
VICTOR HUGO 183
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 209
WILLIAM M. THACKERAY 227
CHARLES DICKENS 245
OLIVER GOLDSMITH 271
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 299
THOMAS A. EDISON 319




GEORGE ELIOT


"May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty--
Be the good presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world."

[Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT]


Warwickshire gave to the world William Shakespeare. It
also gave Mary Ann Evans. No one will question that Shakespeare's is the
greatest name in English literature; and among writers living or dead, in
England or out of it, no woman has ever shown us power equal to that of
George Eliot, in the subtle clairvoyance which divines the inmost play of
passions, the experience that shows human capacity for contradiction, and
the indulgence that is merciful because it understands.

Shakespeare lived three hundred years ago. According to the records, his
father, in Fifteen Hundred Sixty-three, owned a certain house in Henley
Street, Stratford-on-Avon. Hence we infer that William Shakespeare was
born there. And in all our knowledge of Shakespeare's early life (or
later) we prefix the words, "Hence we infer."

That the man knew all the sciences of his day, and had such a knowledge
of each of the learned professions that all have claimed him as their
own, we realize.

He evidently was acquainted with five different languages, and the range
of his intellect was worldwide; but where did he get this vast erudition?
We do not know, and we excuse ourselves by saying that he lived three
hundred years ago.

George Eliot lived--yesterday, and we know no more about her youthful
days than we do of that other child of Warwickshire.

One biographer tells us that she was born in Eighteen Hundred Nineteen,
another in Eighteen Hundred Twenty, and neither state the day; whereas a
recent writer in the "Pall Mall Budget" graciously bestows on us the
useful information that "William Shakespeare was born on the Twenty-first
day of April, Fifteen Hundred Sixty-three, at fifteen minutes of two on a
stormy morning."

Concise statements of facts are always valuable, but we have none such
concerning the early life of George Eliot. There is even a shadow over
her parentage, for no less an authority than the "American Cyclopedia
Annual," for Eighteen Hundred Eighty, boldly proclaims that she was not a
foundling and, moreover, that she was not adopted by a rich retired
clergyman who gave her a splendid schooling. Then the writer dives into
obscurity, but presently reappears and adds that he does not know where
she got her education. For all of which we are very grateful.

Shakespeare left five signatures, each written in a different way, and
now there is a goodly crew who spell it "Bacon."

And likewise we do not know whether it is Mary Ann Evans, Mary Anne Evans
or Marian Evans, for she herself is said to have used each form at
various times. William Winter--gentle critic, poet, scholar--tells us
that the Sonnets show a dark spot in Shakespeare's moral record. And if I
remember rightly, similar things have been hinted at in sewing-circles
concerning George Eliot. Then they each found the dew and sunshine in
London that caused the flowers of genius to blossom. The early
productions of both were published anonymously, and lastly they both knew
how to transmute thought into gold, for they died rich.

Lady Godiva rode through the streets of Coventry, but I walked--walked
all the way from Stratford, by way of Warwick (call it Warrick, please)
and Kenilworth Castle.

I stopped overnight at that quaint and curious little inn just across
from the castle entrance. The good landlady gave me the same apartment
that was occupied by Sir Walter Scott when he came here and wrote the
first chapter of "Kenilworth."

The little room had pretty, white chintz curtains tied with blue ribbon,
and similar stuff draped the mirror. The bed was a big canopy affair--I
had to stand on a chair in order to dive off into its feathery
depths--everything was very neat and clean, and the dainty linen had a
sweet smell of lavender. I took one parting look out through the open
window at the ivy-mantled towers of the old castle, which were all
sprinkled with silver by the rising moon, and then I fell into gentlest
sleep.

I dreamed of playing "I-spy" through Kenilworth Castle with Shakespeare,
Walter Scott, Mary Ann Evans and a youth I used to know in boyhood by the
name of Bill Hursey. We chased each other across the drawbridge, through
the portcullis, down the slippery stones into the donjon-keep, around the
moat, and up the stone steps to the topmost turret of the towers. Finally
Shakespeare was "it," but he got mad and refused to play. Walter Scott
said it was "no fair," and Bill Hursey thrust out the knuckle of one
middle finger in a very threatening way and offered to "do" the boy from
Stratford. Then Mary Ann rushed in to still the tempest. There's no
telling what would have happened had not the landlady just then rapped at
my door and asked if I had called. I awoke with a start and with the
guilty feeling that I had been shouting in my sleep. I saw it was
morning. "No--that is, yes; my shaving-water, please."

After breakfast the landlady's boy offered for five shillings to take me
in his donkey-cart to the birthplace of George Eliot. He explained that
the house was just seven miles north; but Baalam's express is always
slow, so I concluded to walk. At Coventry a cab-owner proposed to show me
the house, which he declared was near Kenilworth, for twelve shillings.
The advantages of seeing Kenilworth at the same time were dwelt upon at
great length by cabby, but I harkened not to the voice of the siren. I
got a good lunch at the hotel, and asked the innkeeper if he could tell
me where George Eliot was born. He did not know, but said he could show
me a house around the corner where a family of Eliots lived.

Then I walked on to Nuneaton. A charming walk it was; past quaint old
houses, some with straw-thatched roofs, others tile--roses clambering
over the doors and flowering hedgerows white with hawthorn-flowers.

Occasionally, I met a farmer's cart drawn by one of those great, fat,
gentle Shire horses that George Eliot has described so well. All spoke of
peace and plenty, quiet and rest. The green fields and the flowers, the
lark-song and the sunshine, the dipping willows by the stream, and the
arch of the old stone bridge as I approached the village--all these I had
seen and known and felt before from "Mill on the Floss."

I found the house where they say the novelist was born. A plain,
whitewashed, stone structure, built two hundred years ago; two stories,
the upper chambers low, with gable-windows; a little garden at the side
bright with flowers, where sweet marjoram vied with onions and beets; all
spoke of humble thrift and homely cares. In front was a great
chestnut-tree, and in the roadway near were two ancient elms where saucy
crows were building a nest.

Here, after her mother died, Mary Ann Evans was housekeeper. Little more
than a child--tall, timid, and far from strong--she cooked and scrubbed
and washed, and was herself the mother to brothers and sisters. Her
father was a carpenter by trade and agent for a rich landowner. He was a
stern man--orderly, earnest, industrious, studious. On rides about the
country he would take the tall, hollow-eyed girl with him, and at such
times he would talk to her of the great outside world where wondrous
things were done. The child toiled hard, but found time to read and
question--and there is always time to think. Soon she had outgrown some
of her good father's beliefs, and this grieved him greatly; so much,
indeed, that her extra-loving attention to his needs, in a hope to
neutralize his displeasure, only irritated him the more. And if there is
soft, subdued sadness in much of George Eliot's writing we can guess the
reason. The onward and upward march ever means sad separation.

When Mary Ann was blossoming into womanhood her father moved over near
Coventry, and here the ambitious girl first found companionship in her
intellectual desires. Here she met men and women, older than herself, who
were animated, earnest thinkers. They read and then they discussed, and
then they spoke the things that they felt were true. Those eight years at
Coventry transformed the awkward country girl into a woman of intellect
and purpose. She knew somewhat of all sciences, all philosophies, and she
had become a proficient scholar in German and French. How did she acquire
this knowledge? How is any education acquired if not through effort
prompted by desire?

She had already translated Strauss's "Life of Jesus" in a manner that was
acceptable to the author. When Ralph Waldo Emerson came to Coventry to
lecture, he was entertained at the same house where Miss Evans was
stopping. Her brilliant conversation pleased him, and when she questioned
the wisdom of a certain passage in one of his essays the gentle
philosopher turned, smiled, and said that he had not seen it in that
light before; perhaps she was right.

"What is your favorite book?" asked Emerson.

"Rousseau's 'Confessions,'" answered Mary instantly.

It was Emerson's favorite, too; but such honesty from a young woman! It
was queer.

Mr. Emerson never forgot Miss Evans of Coventry, and ten years after,
when a zealous reviewer proclaimed her the greatest novelist in England,
the sage of Concord said something that sounded like "I told you so."

Miss Evans had made visits to London from time to time with her Coventry
friends. When twenty-eight years old, after one such visit to London, she
came back to the country tired and weary, and wrote this most womanly
wish: "My only ardent desire is to find some feminine task to discharge;
some possibility of devoting myself to some one and making that one
purely and calmly happy."

But now her father was dead and her income was very scanty. She did
translating, and tried the magazines with articles that generally came
back respectfully declined.

Then an offer came as sub-editor of the "Westminster Review." It was
steady work and plenty of it, and this was what she desired. She went to
London and lived in the household of her employer, Mr. Chapman. Here she
had the opportunity of meeting many brilliant people: Carlyle and his
"Jeannie Welsh," the Martineaus, Grote, Mr. and Mrs. Mill, Huxley,
Mazzini, Louis Blanc. Besides these were two young men who must not be
left out when we sum up the influences that evolved this woman's genius.

She was attracted to Herbert Spencer at once. He was about her age, and
their admiration for each other was mutual. Miss Evans, writing to a
friend in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-two, says, "Spencer is kind, he is
delightful, and I always feel better after being with him, and we have
agreed together that there is no reason why we should not see each other
as often as we wish." And then later she again writes: "The bright side
of my life, after the affection for my old friends, is the new and
delightful friendship which I have found in Herbert Spencer. We see each
other every day, and in everything we enjoy a delightful comradeship. If
it were not for him my life would be singularly arid."

But about this time another man appeared on the scene, and were it not
for this other man, who was introduced to Miss Evans by Spencer, the
author of "Synthetic Philosophy" might not now be spoken of in the
biographical dictionaries as having been "wedded to science."

It was not love at first sight, for George Henry Lewes made a decidedly
unfavorable impression on Miss Evans at their first meeting. He was
small, his features were insignificant, he had whiskers like an anarchist
and a mouthful of crooked teeth; his personal habits were far from
pleasant. It was this sort of thing, Dickens said, that caused his first
wife to desert him and finally drove her into insanity.

But Lewes had a brilliant mind. He was a linguist, a scientist, a
novelist, a poet and a wit. He had written biography, philosophy and a
play. He had been a journalist, a lecturer and even an actor. Thackeray
declared that if he should see Lewes perched on a white elephant in
Piccadilly he should not be in the least surprised.

After having met Miss Evans several times, Mr. Lewes saw the calm depths
of her mind and he asked her to correct proofs for him. She did so and
discovered that there was merit in his work. She corrected more proofs,
and when a woman begins to assist a man the danger-line is being
approached. Close observers noted that a change was coming over the
bohemian Lewes. He had his whiskers trimmed, his hair was combed, and the
bright yellow necktie had been discarded for a clean one of modest brown,
and, sometimes, his boots were blacked. In July, Eighteen Hundred
Fifty-four, Mr. Chapman received a letter from his sub-editor resigning
her position, and Miss Evans notified some of her closest friends that
hereafter she wished to be considered the wife of Mr. Lewes. She was then
in her thirty-sixth year.

The couple disappeared, having gone to Germany.

Many people were shocked. Some said, "We knew it all the time," and when
Herbert Spencer was informed of the fact he exclaimed, "Goodness me!" and
said--nothing.

After six months spent at Weimar and other literary centers, Mr. and Mrs.
Lewes returned to England and began housekeeping at Richmond. Any one who
views their old quarters there will see how very plainly and economically
they were forced to live. But they worked hard, and at this time the
future novelist's desire seemed only to assist her husband. That she
developed the manly side of his nature none can deny. They were very
happy, these two, as they wrote, and copied, and studied, and toiled.

Three years passed, and Mrs. Lewes wrote to a friend:

"I am very happy; happy with the greatest happiness that life can
give--the complete sympathy and affection of a man whose mind stimulates
mine and keeps up in me a wholesome activity."

Mr. Lewes knew the greatness of his helpmeet. She herself did not. He
urged her to write a story; she hesitated, and at last attempted it.
They read the first chapter together and cried over it. Then she wrote
more and always read her husband the chapters as they were turned off. He
corrected, encouraged, and found a publisher. But why should I tell about
it here? It's all in the "Britannica"--how the gentle beauty and
sympathetic insight of her work touched the hearts of great and lowly
alike, and of how riches began flowing in upon her. For one book she
received forty thousand dollars, and her income after fortune smiled upon
her was never less than ten thousand dollars a year.

Lewes was her secretary, her protector, her slave and her inspiration. He
kept at bay the public that would steal her time, and put out of her
reach, at her request, all reviews, good or bad, and shielded her from
the interviewer, the curiosity-seeker, and the greedy financier.

The reason why she at first wrote under a nom de plume is plain. To the
great, wallowing world she was neither Miss Evans nor Mrs. Lewes, so she
dropped both names as far as title-pages were concerned and used a man's
name instead--hoping better to elude the pack.

When "Adam Bede" came out, a resident of Nuneaton purchased a copy and at
once discovered local earmarks. The scenes described, the flowers, the
stone walls, the bridges, the barns, the people--all was Nuneaton. Who
wrote it? No one knew, but it was surely some one in Nuneaton. So they
picked out a Mr. Liggins, a solemn-faced preacher, who was always about
to do something great, and they said "Liggins." Soon all London said
"Liggins." As for Liggins, he looked wise and smiled knowingly. Then
articles began to appear in the periodicals purporting to have been
written by the author of "Adam Bede." A book came out called "Adam Bede,
Jr.," and to protect her publisher, the public and herself, George Eliot
had to reveal her identity.

Many men have written good books and never tasted fame; but few, like
Liggins of Nuneaton, have become famous by doing nothing. It only proves
that some things can be done as well as others. This breed of men has
long dwelt in Warwickshire; Shakespeare had them in mind when he wrote,
"There be men who do a wilful stillness entertain with purpose to be
dressed in an opinion of wisdom, gravity and profound conceit."

Lord Acton in an able article in the "Nineteenth Century" makes this
statement:

"George Eliot paid high for happiness with Lewes. She forfeited freedom
of speech, the first place among English women, and a tomb in Westminster
Abbey."

The original dedication in "Adam Bede" reads thus:

"To my dear husband, George Henry Lewes, I give the manuscript of a work
which would never have been written but for the happiness which his love
has conferred on my life."

Lord Acton of course assumes that this book would have been written,
dedication and all, just the same had Miss Evans never met Mr. Lewes.

Once there was a child called Romola. She said to her father one day, as
she sat on his knee: "Papa, who would take care of me--give me my bath
and put me to bed nights--if you had never happened to meet Mamma?"

* * * * *

The days I spent in Warwickshire were very pleasant.

The serene beauty of the country and the kindly courtesy of the people
impressed me greatly. Having beheld the scenes of George Eliot's
childhood, I desired to view the place where her last days were spent. It
was a fine May day when I took the little steamer from London Bridge for
Chelsea.

A bird-call from the dingy brick building where Turner died, and two
blocks from the old home of Carlyle, is Cheyne Walk--a broad avenue
facing the river. The houses are old, but they have a look of gracious
gentility that speaks of ease and plenty. High iron fences are in front,
but they do not shut off from view the climbing clematis and clusters of
roses that gather over the windows and doors.

I stood at the gate of Number 4 Cheyne Walk and admired the pretty
flowers, planted in such artistic carelessness as to beds and rows; then
I rang the bell--an old pull-out affair with polished knob.

Presently a butler opened the door--a pompous, tall and awful butler in
serious black and with side-whiskers. He approached; came down the walk
swinging a bunch of keys, looking me over as he came, to see what sort
of wares I had to sell.

"Did George Eliot live here?" I asked through the bars.

"Mrs. Cross lived 'ere and died 'ere, sir," came the solemn and rebuking
answer.

"I mean Mrs. Cross," I added meekly; "I only wished to see the little
garden where she worked."

Jeemes was softened. As he unlocked the gate he said:

"We 'ave many wisiters, sir; a great bother, sir; still, I always knows a
gentleman when I sees one. P'r'aps you would like to see the 'ouse, too,
sir. The missus does not like it much, but I will take 'er your card,
sir."

I gave him the card and slipped a shilling into his hand as he gave me a
seat in the hallway.

He disappeared upstairs and soon returned with the pleasing information
that I was to be shown the whole house and garden. So I pardoned him the
myth about the missus, happening to know that at that particular moment
she was at Brighton, sixty miles away.

A goodly, comfortable house, four stories, well kept, and much fine old
carved oak in the dining-room and hallways; fantastic ancient balusters,
and a peculiar bay window in the second-story rear that looked out over
the little garden. Off to the north could be seen the green of Kensington
Gardens and wavy suggestions of Hyde Park. This was George Eliot's
workshop. There was a table in the center of the room and three low
bookcases with pretty ornaments above. In the bay window was the most
conspicuous object in the room--a fine marble bust of Goethe. This, I was
assured, had been the property of Mrs. Cross, as well as all the books
and furniture in the room. In one corner was a revolving case containing
a set of the "Century Dictionary" which Jeemes assured me had been
purchased by Mr. Cross as a present for his wife a short time before she
died. This caused my faith to waver a trifle and put to flight a fine bit
of literary frenzy that might have found form soon in a sonnet.

In the front parlor, I saw a portrait of the former occupant that showed
"the face that looked like a horse." But that is better than to have the
face of any other animal of which I know. Surely one would not want to
look like a dog! Shakespeare hated dogs, but spoke forty-eight times in
his plays in terms of respect and affection for a horse. Who would not
resent the imputation that one's face was like that of a sheep or a goat
or an ox, and much gore has been shed because men have referred to other
men as asses--but a horse! God bless you, yes!

No one has ever accused George Eliot of being handsome, but this portrait
tells of a woman of fifty: calm, gentle, and the strong features speak of
a soul in which to confide.

At Highgate, by the side of the grave of Lewes, rests the dust of this
great and loving woman. As the pilgrim enters that famous old cemetery,
the first imposing monument seen is a pyramid of rare, costly porphyry.
As you draw near, you read this inscription:

To the memory of
ANN JEWSON CRISP
Who departed this life
Deeply lamented, Jan. 20, 1889.
Also,
Her dog, Emperor.

Beneath these tender lines is a bas-relief of as vicious-looking a cur as
ever evaded the dog-tax.

Continuing up the avenue, past this monument just noted, the kind old
gardener will show you another that stands amid others much more
pretentious--a small gray-granite column, and on it, carved in small
letters, you read:

"Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence."

Here rests the body of
"GEORGE ELIOT"
(MARY ANN CROSS)
Born 22 November, 1819.
Died 22 December, 1880.




THOMAS CARLYLE


One comfort is that great men taken up in any way are profitable
company. We can not look, however imperfectly, upon a great man
without gaining something by it. He is the living fountain of
life, which it is pleasant to be near. On any terms whatsoever
you will not grudge to wander in his neighborhood for a while.

--_Heroes and Hero-Worship_

[Illustration: THOMAS CARLYLE]


While on my way to Dumfries I stopped overnight at Gretna
Green, which, as all fair maidens know, is in Scotland just over the
border from England.

To my delight I found that the coming of runaway couples to Gretna Green
was not entirely a matter of the past, for the very evening I arrived a
blushing pair came to the inn and inquired for a "meenister." The ladye
faire was a little stout and the worthy swain several years older than my
fancy might have wished, but still I did not complain.

The landlord's boy was dispatched to the rectory around the corner and
soon returned with the reverend gentleman.

I was an uninvited guest in the little parlor, but no one observed that
my wedding-garment was only a cycling costume, and I was not challenged.

After the ceremony, the several other witnesses filed past the happy
couple, congratulating them and kissing the bride.

I did likewise, and was greeted with a resounding smack which surprised
me a bit, but I managed to ask, "Did you run away?"

"Noo," said the groom; "noo, her was a widdie--we just coom over fram
Ecclefechan"; then, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, "We're
goin' baack on the morrow. It's cheaper thaan to ha' a big, spread
weddin'."

This answer banished all tender sentiment from me and made useless my
plans for a dainty love-story, but I seized upon the name of the place
whence they came.

"Ecclefechan! Ecclefechan! Why that's where Carlyle was born!"

"Aye, sir, and he's buried there; a great mon he was--but an infideel."

Ten miles beyond Gretna Green is Ecclefechan--a little village of stucco
houses all stretched out on one street. Plain, homely, rocky and
unromantic is the country round about, and plain, homely and unromantic
is the little house where Carlyle was born. The place is shown the
visitor by a good old dame who takes one from room to room, giving a
little lecture meanwhile in a mixture of Gaelic and English which was
quite beyond my ken. Several relics of interest are shown, and although
the house is almost precisely like all others in the vicinity,
imagination throws round it all a roseate wreath of fancies.

It has been left on record that up to the year when Carlyle was married,
his "most pleasurable times were those when he enjoyed a quiet pipe with
his mother."

To few men indeed is this felicity vouchsafed. But for those who have
eaten oatmeal porridge in the wayside cottages of bonny Scotland, or who
love to linger over "The Cotter's Saturday Night," there is a touch of
tender pathos in the picture. The stone floor, the bare, whitewashed
walls, the peat smoldering on the hearth, sending out long, fitful
streaks that dance among the rafters overhead, and the mother and son
sitting there watching the coal--silent. The woman takes a small twig
from a bundle of sticks, reaches over, lights it, applies it to her pipe,
takes a few whiffs and passes the light to her son. Then they talk in
low, earnest tones of man's duty to man and man's duty to God.

And it was this mother who first applied the spark that fired Carlyle's
ambition; it was from her that he got the germ of those talents which
have made his name illustrious.

Yet this woman could barely read and did not learn to write until her
firstborn had gone away from the home nest. Then it was that she
sharpened a gray goose-quill and labored long and patiently, practising
with this instrument (said to be mightier than the sword) and with ink
she herself had mixed--all that she might write a letter to her boy; and
how sweetly, tenderly homely, and loving are these letters as we read
them today!

James Carlyle with his own hands built, in Seventeen Hundred Ninety, this
house at Ecclefechan. The same year he married an excellent woman, a
second cousin, by name Janet Carlyle. She lived but a year. The poor
husband was heartbroken, and declared, as many men under like conditions
had done before and have done since, that his sorrow was inconsolable.
And he vowed that he would walk through life and down to his death alone.

But it is a matter for congratulation that he broke his vow.

In two years he married Margaret Aitken--a serving-woman. She bore nine
children. Thomas was the eldest and the only one who proved recreant to
the religious faith of his fathers.

One of the brothers moved to Shiawassee County, Michigan, where I had the
pleasure of calling on him, some years ago. A hard-headed man, he was:
sensible, earnest, honest, with a stubby beard and a rich brogue. He held
the office of school trustee, also that of pound-master, and I was told
that he served his township loyally and well.

This worthy man looked with small favor on the literary pretensions of
his brother Tammas, and twice wrote him long letters expostulating with
him on his religious vagaries. "I knew no good could come of it,"
sorrowfully said he, and so I left him.

But I inquired of several of the neighbors what they thought of Thomas
Carlyle, and I found that they did not think of him at all. And I mounted
my beast and rode away.

Thomas Carlyle was educated for the Kirk, and it was a cause of much
sorrow to his parents that he could not accept its beliefs. He has been
spoken of as England's chief philosopher, yet he subscribed to no creed,
nor did he formulate one. However, in "Latter-Day Pamphlets" he partially
prepares a catechism for a part of the brute creation. He supposes that
all swine of superior logical powers have a "belief," and as they are
unable to express it he essays the task for them.

The following are a few of the postulates in this creed of The
Brotherhood of Latter-Day Swine:

"Question. Who made the Pig?

"Answer. The Pork-Butcher.

"Question. What is the Whole Duty of Pigs?

"Answer. It is the mission of Universal Pighood; and the duty of
all Pigs, at all times, is to diminish the quantity of attainable
swill and increase the unattainable. This is the Whole Duty of
Pigs.

"Question. What is Pig Poetry?

"Answer. It is the universal recognition of Pig's wash and ground
barley, and the felicity of Pigs whose trough has been set in
order and who have enough.

"Question, What is justice in Pigdom?

"Answer. It is the sentiment in Pig nature sometimes called
revenge, indignation, etc., which if one Pig provoke, another
comes out in more or less destructive manner; hence laws are
necessary--amazing quantities of laws--defining what Pigs shall
not do.

"Question. What do you mean by equity?

"Answer. Equity consists in getting your share from the
Universal Swine-Trough, and part of another's.

"Question. What is meant by 'your share'?"

"Answer. My share is getting whatever I can contrive to seize
without being made up into Side-Meat."

I have slightly abridged this little extract and inserted it here to show
the sympathy which Mr. Carlyle had for the dumb brute.

One of America's great men, in a speech delivered not long ago, said,
"From Scotch manners, Scotch religion and Scotch whisky, good Lord
deliver us!"

My experience with these three articles has been somewhat limited; but
Scotch manners remind me of chestnut-burs--not handsome without, but good
within. For when you have gotten beyond the rough exterior of Sandy you
generally find a heart warm, tender and generous.

Scotch religion is only another chestnut-bur, but then you need not eat
the shuck if you fear it will not agree with your inward state.
Nevertheless, if the example of royalty is of value, the fact can be
stated that Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India, is a
Presbyterian. That is, she is a Presbyterian about one-half the
time--when she is in Scotland, for she is the head of the Scottish Kirk.
When in England, of course she is an Episcopalian. We have often been
told that religion is largely a matter of geography, and here is a bit of
something that looks like proof.

Of Scotch whisky I am not competent to speak, so that subject must be
left to the experts. But a Kentucky colonel at my elbow declares that it
can not be compared with the Blue-Grass article; though I trust that no
one will be prejudiced against it on that account.

Scotch intellect, however, is worthy of our serious consideration. It is
a bold, rocky headland, standing out into the tossing sea of the Unknown.
Assertive? Yes. Stubborn? Most surely. Proud? By all means. Twice as many
pilgrims visit the grave of Burns as that of Shakespeare. Buckle declares
Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" has had a greater influence on
civilization than any other book ever writ--save none; and the average
Scotchman knows his Carlyle a deal better than the average American knows
his Emerson: in fact, four times as many of Carlyle's books have been
printed.

When Carlyle took time to bring the ponderous machinery of his intellect
to bear on a theme, he saw it through and through. The vividness of his
imagination gives us a true insight into times long since gone by; it
shows virtue her own feature, vice her own image, and the very age and
body of the time his form and pressure. In history he goes beyond the
political and conventional--showing us the thought, the hope, the fear,
the passion of the soul.

His was the masculine mind. The divination and subtle intuitions which
are to be found scattered through his pages, like violets growing among
the rank swale of the prairies--all these sweet, odorous things came from
his wife. She gave him of her best thought, and he greedily absorbed it
and unconsciously wrote it down as his own.

There are those who blame and berate; volumes have been written to show
the inconsiderateness of this man toward the gentle lady who was his
intellectual comrade. But they know not life who do this thing.

It is a fact that Carlyle never rushed to pick up Jeannie's handkerchief.
I admit that he could not bow gracefully; that he could not sing tenor,
nor waltz, nor tell funny stories, nor play the mandolin; and if I had
been his neighbor I would not have attempted to teach him any of these
accomplishments.

Once he took his wife to the theater; and after the performance he
accidentally became separated from her in the crowd and trudged off home
alone and went to bed forgetting all about her---but even for this I do
not indict him. Mrs. Carlyle never upbraided him for this forgetfulness,
neither did she relate the incident to any one, and for these things I to
her now reverently lift my hat.

Jeannie Welsh Carlyle had capacity for pain, as it seems all great souls
have. She suffered--but then suffering is not all suffering and pain is
not all pain.

Life is often dark, but then there are rifts in the clouds when we behold
the glorious deep blue of the sky. Not a day passes but that the birds
sing in the branches, and the tree-tops poise backward and forward in
restful, rhythmic harmony, and never an hour goes by but that hope bears
us up on her wings as the eagle does her young. And ever just before the
year dies and the frost comes, the leaves take on a gorgeous hue and the
color of the flowers then puts to shame for brilliancy all the plainer
petals of Springtime.

And I know Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle were happy, so happy, at times, that they
laughed and cried for joy. Jeannie gave all, and she saw her best thought
used--carried further, written out and given to the world as that of
another--but she uttered no protest.

Xantippe lives in history only because she sought to worry a great
philosopher; we remember the daughter of Herodias because she demanded
the head (not the heart) of a good man; Goneril and Regan because they
trod upon the withered soul of their sire; Lady Macbeth because she lured
her liege to murder; Charlotte Corday for her dagger-thrust; Lucrezia
Borgia for her poison; Sapphira for her untruth; Jael because she pierced
the brain of Sisera with a rusty nail (instead of an idea); Delilah for
the reason that she deprived Samson of his source of strength; and in the
"Westminster Review" for May, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-four, Ouida makes
the flat statement that for every man of genius who has been helped by a
woman, ten have been dragged down.

But Jeannie Welsh Carlyle lives in the hearts of all who reverence the
sweet, the gentle, the patient, the earnest, the loving spirit of the
womanly woman: lives because she ministered to the needs of a great man.

She was ever a frail body. Several long illnesses kept her to her bed for
weeks, but she recovered from these, even in spite of the doctors, who
thoroughly impressed both herself and her husband with the thought of her
frailty.

On April the Twenty-first, Eighteen Hundred Sixty-six, she called her
carriage, as was her custom, and directed the driver to go through the
park. She carried a book in her hands, and smiled a greeting to a friend
as the brougham moved away from the little street where they lived. The
driver drove slowly--drove for an hour--two. He got down from his box to
receive the orders of his mistress, touched his hat as he opened the
carriage-door, but no kindly eyes looked into his. She sat back in the
corner as if resting; the shapely head a little thrown forward, the book
held gently in the delicate hands, but the fingers were cold and
stiff--Jeannie Welsh was dead--and Thomas Carlyle was alone.

* * * * *

Along the Thames, at Chelsea, opposite the rows of quiet
and well-kept houses of Cheyne Walk, is the "Embankment." A parkway it is
of narrow green, with graveled walks, bushes and trees, that here and
there grow lush and lusty as if to hide the unsightly river from the good
people who live across the street.

Following this pleasant bit of breathing space, with its walks that wind
in and out among the bushes, one comes unexpectedly upon a bronze statue.
You need not read the inscription: a glance at that shaggy head, the
grave, sober, earnest look, and you exclaim under your breath, "Carlyle!"

In this statue the artist has caught with rare skill the look of reverie
and repose. One can imagine that on a certain night, as the mists and
shadows of evening were gathering along the dark river, the gaunt form,
wrapped in its accustomed cloak, came stalking down the little street to
the park, just as he did thousands of times, and taking his seat in the
big chair fell asleep. In the morning the children that came to play
along the river found the form in cold, enduring bronze.

At the play we have seen the marble transformed by love into beauteous
life. How much easier the reverse--here where souls stay only a day!

Cheyne Row is a little, alley-like street, running only a block, with
fifteen houses on one side, and twelve on the other.

These houses are all brick and built right up to the sidewalk. On the
north side they are all in one block, and one at first sees no touch of
individuality in any of them.

They are old, and solid, and plain--built for revenue only. On closer
view I thought one or two had been painted, and on one there was a
cornice that set it off from the rest. As I stood on the opposite side
and looked at this row of houses, I observed that Number Five was the
dingiest and plainest of them all. For there were dark shutters instead
of blinds, and these shutters were closed, all save one rebel that swung
and creaked in the breeze. Over the doorway, sparrows had made their
nests and were fighting and scolding. Swallows hovered above the chimney;
dust, cobwebs, neglect were all about.

And as I looked there came to me the words of Ursa Thomas:

"Brief, brawling day, with its noisy phantoms, its paper crowns,
tinsel-gilt, is gone; and divine, everlasting night, with her
star diadems, with her silences and her verities, is come."

Here walked Thomas and Jeannie one fair May morning in Eighteen Hundred
Thirty-four. Thomas was thirty-nine, tall and swarthy, strong; with set
mouth and three wrinkles on his forehead that told of care and dyspepsia.
Jeannie was younger; her face winsome, just a trifle anxious, with
luminous, gentle eyes, suggestive of patience, truth and loyalty. They
looked like country folks, did these two. They examined the
surroundings, consulted together--sixty pounds rent a year seemed very
high! But they took the house, and T. Carlyle, son of James Carlyle,
stone-mason, paid rent for it every month for half a century, lacking
three years.

I walked across the street and read the inscription on the marble tablet
inserted in the front of the house above the lower windows. It informs
the stranger that Thomas Carlyle lived here from Eighteen Hundred
Thirty-four to Eighteen Hundred Eighty-one, and that the tablet was
erected by the Carlyle Society of London.

I ascended the stone steps and scraped my boots on the well-worn scraper,
made long, long ago by a blacksmith who is now dust, and who must have
been a very awkward mechanic, for I saw where he had made a misstroke
with his hammer, probably as he discussed theology with a caller. Then I
rang the bell and plied the knocker and waited there on the steps for
Jeannie Welsh to come bid me welcome, just as she did Emerson when he,
too, used the scraper and plied the knocker and stood where I did then.

And my knock was answered--answered by a very sour and peevish woman next
door, who thrust her head out of the window, and exclaimed in a shrill
voice:

"Look 'ere, sir, you might as well go rap on the curb-stone, don't you
know; there's nobody livin' there, sir, don't you know!"

"Yes, madam, that is why I knocked!"

"Beggin' your pardon, sir, if you use your heyes you'll see there's
nobody livin' there, don't you know!"

"I knocked lest offense be given. How can I get in?"

"You might go in through the keyhole, sir, or down the chimney. You seem
to be a little daft, sir, don't you know! But if you must get in, perhaps
it would be as well to go over to Mrs. Brown's and brang the key," and
she slammed down the window.

Across the street Mrs. Brown's sign smiled at me.

Mrs. Brown keeps a little grocery and bakeshop and was very willing to
show me the house. She fumbled in a black bag for the keys, all the time
telling me of three Americans who came last week to see Carlyle's house,
and "as how" they each gave her a shilling. I took the hint.

"Only Americans care now for Mr. Carlyle," plaintively added the old lady
as she fished out the keys; "soon we will all be forgot."

We walked across the street and after several ineffectual attempts the
rusty lock was made to turn. I entered. Cold, bare and bleak was the
sight of those empty rooms. The old lady had a touch of rheumatism, so
she waited for me on the doorstep as I climbed the stairs to the third
floor. The noise-proof back room where "The French Revolution" was writ,
twice over, was so dark that I had to grope my way across to the window.
The sash stuck and seemed to have a will of its own, like him who so
often had raised it. But at last it gave way and I flung wide the
shutter and looked down at the little arbor where Teufelsdrockh sat so
often and wooed wisdom with the weed brought from Virginia.

Then I stood before the fireplace, where he of the Eternities had so
often sat and watched the flickering embers. Here he lived in his
loneliness and cursed curses that were prayers, and here for near five
decades he read and thought and dreamed and wrote. Here the spirits of
Cromwell and Frederick hovered; here that pitiful and pitiable long line
of ghostly partakers in the Revolution answered to his roll-call.

The wind whistled down the chimney gruesomely as my footfalls echoed
through the silent chambers, and I thought I heard a sepulchral voice
say:

"Thy future life! Thy fate is it, indeed! Whilst thou makest that thy
chief question, thy life to me and to thyself and to thy God is
worthless. What is incredible to thee thou shalt not, at thy soul's
peril, pretend to believe. Elsewhither for a refuge! Away! Go to
perdition if thou wilt, but not with a lie in thy mouth--by the Eternal
Maker, No!!"

I was startled at first, but stood still listening; then I thought I saw
a faint blue cloud of mist curling up in the fireplace. Watching this
smoke and sitting before it in gloomy abstraction was the form of an old
man. I swept my hand through the apparition, but still it stayed. My lips
moved in spite of myself and I said:

"Hail! hard-headed man of granite outcrop and heather, of fen and crag,
of moor and mountain, and of bleak East wind, hail! Eighty-six years
didst thou live. One hundred years lacking fourteen didst thou suffer,
enjoy, weep, dream, groan, pray and strike thy rugged breast! And yet
methinks that in those years there was much quiet peace and sweet
content; for constant pain benumbs, and worry destroys, and vain unrest
summons the grim messenger of death. But thou didst live and work and
love; howbeit, thy touch was not always gentle, nor thy voice low; but on
thy lips was no lie, in thy thought no concealment, in thy heart no
pollution. But mark! thou didst come out of poverty and obscurity: on thy
battered shield there was no crest and thou didst leave all to follow
truth. And verily she did lead thee a merry chase!

"Thou hadst no Past, but thou hast a Future. Thou didst say: 'Bury me in
Westminster, never! where the mob surges, cursed with idle curiosity to
see the graves of kings and nobodies? No! Take me back to rugged Scotland
and lay my tired form to rest by the side of an honest man--my father.'

"Thou didst refuse the Knighthood offered thee by royalty, saying, 'I am
not the founder of the house of Carlyle and I have no sons to be
pauperized by a title,' True, thou didst leave no sons after the flesh to
mourn thy loss, nor fair daughters to bedeck thy grave with garlands, but
thou didst reproduce thyself in thought, and on the minds of men thou
didst leave thy impress. And thy ten thousand sons will keep thy memory
green so long as men shall work, and toil, and strive, and hope."

The wind still howled. I looked out and saw watery clouds scudding
athwart the face of the murky sky. The shutters banged, and shut me in
the dark. I made haste to find the door, reached the stairway--slid down
the banisters to where Mrs. Brown was waiting for me at the threshold.

We locked the door. She went across to her little bakeshop and I stopped
a passing policeman to ask the way to Westminster. He told me.

"Did you visit Carlyle's 'ouse?" he asked.

"Yes."

"With old Mrs. Brown?"

"Yes, she waited for me in the doorway--she had the rheumatism so she
could not climb the stairs."

"Rheumatism? Huh!--you couldn't 'ire 'er to go inside. Why, don't you
know? They say the 'ouse is 'aunted!"




JOHN RUSKIN


Put roses in their hair, put precious stones on their breasts;
see that they are clothed in purple and scarlet, with other
delights; that they also learn to read the gilded heraldry of the
sky; and upon the earth be taught not only the labors of it but
the loveliness.

--_Deucalion_

[Illustration: JOHN RUSKIN]


At Windermere, a good friend, told me that I must abandon
all hope of seeing Mr. Ruskin; for I had no special business with him, no
letters of introduction, and then the fact that I am an American made it
final. Americans in England are supposed to pick flowers in private
gardens, cut their names on trees, laugh boisterously at trifles, and
often to make invidious comparisons. Very properly, Mr. Ruskin does not
admire these things.

Then Mr. Ruskin is a very busy man. Occasionally he issues a printed
manifesto to his friends requesting them to give him peace. A copy of one
such circular was shown to me. It runs, "Mr. J. Ruskin is about to begin
a work of great importance, and therefore begs that in reference to calls
and correspondence you will consider him dead for the next two months." A
similar notice is reproduced in "Arrows of the Chace," and this one
thing, I think, illustrates as forcibly as anything in Mr. Ruskin's work
the self-contained characteristics of the man himself.

Surely if a man is pleased to be considered "dead" occasionally, even to
his kinsmen and friends, he should not be expected to receive with open
arms an enemy to steal away his time. This is assuming, of course, that
all individuals who pick flowers in other folks' gardens, cut their
names on trees, and laugh boisterously at trifles, are enemies. I
therefore decided that I would simply walk over to Brantwood, view it
from a distance, tramp over its hills, row across the lake, and at
nightfall take a swim in its waters. Then I would rest at the Inn for a
space and go my way.

Lake Coniston is ten miles from Grasmere, and even alone the walk is not
long. If, however, you are delightfully attended by "King's Daughters"
with whom you sit and commune now and then on the bankside, the distance
will seem to be much less. Then there is a pleasant little break in the
journey at Hawkshead. Here one may see the quaint old schoolhouse where
Wordsworth when a boy dangled his feet from a bench and proved his
humanity by carving his initials on the seat.

The Inn at the head of Coniston Water appeared very inviting and restful
when I saw it that afternoon. Built in sections from generation to
generation, half-covered with ivy and embowered in climbing roses, it is
an institution entirely different from the "Grand Palace Hotel" at
Oshkosh. In America we have gongs that are fiercely beaten at stated
times by gentlemen of color, just as they are supposed to do in their
native Congo jungles. This din proclaims to the "guests" and to the
public at large that it is time to come in and be fed. But this
refinement of civilization is not yet in Coniston, and the Inn is quiet
and homelike. You may go to bed when you are tired, get up when you
choose, and eat when you are hungry.

There were no visitors about when I arrived, and I thought I would have
the coffeeroom all to myself at luncheon-time; but presently there came
in a pleasant-faced old gentleman in knickerbockers. He bowed to me and
then took a place at the table. He said that it was a fine day and I
agreed with him, adding that the mountains were very beautiful. He
assented, putting in a codicil to the effect that the lake was very
pretty.

Then the waiter came for our orders.

"Together, I s'pose?" remarked Thomas, inquiringly, as he halted at the
door and balanced the tray on his finger-tips.

"Yes, serve lunch for us together," said the ruddy old gentleman as he
looked at me and smiled; "to eat alone is bad for the digestion."

I nodded assent.

"Can you tell me how far it is to Brantwood?" I asked.

"Oh, not far--just across the lake."

He arose and flung the shutter open so I could see the old, yellow house
about a mile across the water, nestling in its wealth of green on the
hillside. Soon the waiter brought our lunch, and while we discussed the
chops and new potatoes we talked Ruskiniana.

The old gentleman knew a deal more of "Stones of Venice" and "Modern
Painters" than I; but I told him how Thoreau introduced Ruskin to America
and how Concord was the first place in the New World to recognize this
star in the East. And upon my saying this, the old gentleman brought his
knife-handle down on the table, declaring that Thoreau and Whitman were
the only two men of genius that America had produced. I begged him to
make it three and include Emerson, which he finally consented to do.

By and by the waiter cleared the table preparatory to bringing in the
coffee. The old gentleman pushed his chair back, took the napkin from
under his double chin, brushed the crumbs from his goodly front, and
remarked:

"I'm going over to Brantwood this afternoon to call on Mr. Ruskin--just
to pay my respects to him, as I always do when I come here. Can't you go
with me?"

I think this was about the most pleasing question I ever had asked me. I
was going to request him to "come again" just for the joy of hearing the
words, but I pulled my dignity together, straightened up, swallowed my
coffee red-hot, pushed my chair back, flourished my napkin, and said, "I
shall be very pleased to go."

So we went--we two--he in his knickerbockers and I in my checks and
outing-shirt. I congratulated myself on looking no worse than he, and as
for him, he never seemed to think that our costumes were not exactly what
they should be; and after all it matters little how you dress when you
call on one of Nature's noblemen--they demand no livery.

We walked around the northern end of Coniston Water, along the eastern
edge, past Tent House, where Tennyson once lived (and found it
"outrageous quiet"), and a mile farther on we came to Brantwood.

The road curves in to the back of the house--which, by the way, is the
front--and the driveway is lined with great trees that form a complete
archway. There is no lodge-keeper, no flowerbeds laid out with square and
compass, no trees trimmed to appear like elephants, no cast-iron dogs,
nor terra-cotta deer, and, strangest of all, no sign of the lawn-mower.
There is nothing, in fact, to give forth a sign that the great Apostle of
Beauty lives in this very old-fashioned spot. Big boulders are to be seen
here and there where Nature left them, tangles of vines running over old
stumps, part of the meadow cut close with a scythe, and part growing up
as if the owner knew the price of hay. Then there are flowerbeds, where
grow clusters of poppies and hollyhocks (purple, and scarlet, and white),
prosaic gooseberry-bushes, plain Yankee pieplant (from which the English
make tarts), rue and sweet marjoram, with patches of fennel, sage, thyme
and catnip, all lined off with boxwood, making me think of my
grandmother's garden at Roxbury.

On the hillside above the garden we saw the entrance to the cave that Mr.
Ruskin once filled with ice, just to show the world how to keep its head
cool at small expense. He even wrote a letter to the papers giving the
bright idea to humanity--that the way to utilize caves was to fill them
with ice. Then he forgot all about the matter. But the following June,
when the cook, wishing to make some ice-cream as a glad surprise for the
Sunday dinner, opened the natural ice-chest, she found only a pool of
muddy water, and exclaimed, "Botheration!" Then they had custard instead
of ice-cream.

We walked up the steps, and my friend let the brass knocker drop just
once, for only Americans give a rat-a-tat-tat, and the door was opened by
a white-whiskered butler, who took our cards and ushered us into the
library. My heart beat a trifle fast as I took inventory of the room; for
I never before had called on a man who was believed to have refused the
poet-laureateship. A dimly lighted room was this library--walls painted
brown, running up to mellow yellow at the ceiling, high bookshelves, with
a stepladder, and only five pictures on the walls, and of these three
were etchings, and two water-colors of a very simple sort;
leather-covered chairs; a long table in the center, on which were strewn
sundry magazines and papers, also several photographs; and at one end of
the room a big fireplace, where a yew log smoldered. Here my inventory
was cut short by a cheery voice behind:

"Ah! now, gentlemen, I am glad to see you."

There was no time nor necessity for a formal introduction. The great man
took my hand as if he had always known me, as perhaps he thought he had.
Then he greeted my friend in the same way, stirred up the fire, for it
was a North of England summer day, and took a seat by the table. We were
all silent for a space--a silence without embarrassment.

"You are looking at the etching over the fireplace--it was sent to me by
a young lady in America," said Mr. Ruskin, "and I placed it there to get
acquainted with it. I like it more and more. Do you know the scene?" I
knew the scene and explained somewhat about it.

Mr. Ruskin has the faculty of making his interviewer do most of the
talking. He is a rare listener, and leans forward, putting a hand behind
his right ear to get each word you say. He was particularly interested in
the industrial conditions of America, and I soon found myself "occupying
the time," while an occasional word of interrogation from Mr. Ruskin gave
me no chance to stop. I came to hear him, not to defend our "republican
experiment," as he was pleased to call the United States of America. Yet
Mr. Ruskin was so gentle and respectful in his manner, and so
complimentary in his attitude of listener, that my impatience at his want
of sympathy for our "experiment" only caused me to feel a little heated.

"The fact of women being elected to mayoralties in Kansas makes me think
of certain African tribes that exalt their women into warriors--you want
your women to fight your political battles!"

"You evidently hold the same opinion on the subject of equal rights that
you expressed some years ago," interposed my companion.

"What did I say--really I have forgotten?"

"You replied to a correspondent, saying: 'You are certainly right as to
my views respecting the female franchise. So far from wishing to give
votes to women, I would fain take them away from most men.'"

"Surely that was a sensible answer. My respect for woman is too great to
force on her increased responsibilities. Then as for restricting the
franchise with men, I am of the firm conviction that no man should be
allowed to vote who does not own property, or who can not do considerably
more than read and write. The voter makes the laws, and why should the
laws regulating the holding of property be made by a man who has no
interest in property beyond a covetous desire; or why should he legislate
on education when he possesses none! Then again, women do not bear arms
to protect the State."

"But what do you say to Mrs. Carlock, who answers that inasmuch as men do
not bear children, they have no right to vote: going to war possibly
being necessary and possibly not, but the perpetuity of the State
demanding that some one bear children?"

"The lady's argument is ingenious, but lacks force when we consider that
the bearing of arms is a matter relating to statecraft, while the baby
question is Dame Nature's own, and is not to be regulated even by the
sovereign."

Then Mr. Ruskin talked for nearly fifteen minutes on the duty of the
State to the individual--talked very deliberately, but with the clearness
and force of a man who believes what he says and says what he believes.

Thus, my friend, by a gentle thrust under the fifth rib of Mr. Ruskin's
logic, caused him to come to the rescue of his previously expressed
opinions, and we had the satisfaction of hearing him discourse earnestly
and eloquently.

Maiden ladies usually have an opinion ready on the subject of masculine
methods, and, conversely, much of the world's logic on the "woman
question" has come from the bachelor brain.

Mr. Ruskin went quite out of his way on several occasions in times past
to attack John Stuart Mill for heresy "in opening up careers for women
other than that of wife and mother."

When Mill did not answer Mr. Ruskin's newspaper letters, the author of
"Sesame and Lilies" called him a "cretinous wretch" and referred to him
as "the man of no imagination." Mr. Mill may have been a cretinous wretch
(I do not exactly understand the phrase), but the preface to "On Liberty"
is at once the tenderest, highest and most sincere compliment paid to a
woman, of which I know.

The life of Mr. and Mrs. John Stuart Mill shows that perfect mating is
possible; yet Mr. Ruskin has only scorn for the opinions of Mr. Mill on a
subject which Mill came as near personally solving in a matrimonial
"experiment" as any other public man of modern times, not excepting even
Robert Browning. Therefore we might suppose Mr. Mill entitled to speak on
the woman question, and I intimated as much to Mr. Ruskin.

"He might know all about one woman, and if he should regard her as a
sample of all womankind, would he not make a great mistake?"

I was silenced.

In "Fors Clavigera," Letter LIX, the author says: "I never wrote a letter
in my life which all the world is not welcome to read." From this one
might imagine that Mr. Ruskin never loved--no pressed flowers in books;
no passages of poetry double-marked and scored; no bundles of letters
faded and yellow, sacred for his own eye, tied with white or dainty blue
ribbon; no little nothings hidden away in the bottom of a trunk. And yet
Mr. Ruskin has his ideas on the woman question, and very positive ideas
they are too--often sweetly sympathetic and wisely helpful.

I see that one of the encyclopedias mentions Ruskin as a bachelor, which
is giving rather an extended meaning to the word, for although Mr. Ruskin
married, he was not mated. According to Collingwood's account, this
marriage was a quiet arrangement between parents. Anyway, the genius is
like the profligate in this: when he marries he generally makes a woman
miserable. And misery is reactionary as well as infectious. Ruskin is a
genius.

Genius is unique. No satisfactory analysis of it has yet been given. We
know a few of its indications--that's all. First among these is ability
to concentrate.

No seed can sow genius; no soil can grow it: its quality is inborn and
defies both cultivation and extermination. To be surpassed is never
pleasant; to feel your inferiority is to feel a pang. Seldom is there a
person great enough to find satisfaction in the success of a friend. The
pleasure that excellence gives is oft tainted by resentment; and so the
woman who marries a genius is usually unhappy.

Genius is excess: it is obstructive to little plans. It is difficult to
warm yourself at a conflagration; the tempest may blow you away; the sun
dazzles; lightning seldom strikes gently; the Nile overflows. Genius has
its times of straying off into the infinite--and then what is the good
wife to do for companionship? Does she protest, and find fault? It could
not be otherwise, for genius is dictatorial without knowing it,
obstructive without wishing to be, intolerant unawares, and unsocial
because it can not help it.

The wife of a genius sometimes takes his fits of abstraction for
stupidity, and having the man's interests at heart she endeavors to
arouse him from his lethargy by chiding him. Occasionally he arouses
enough to chide back; and so it has become an axiom that genius is not
domestic.

A short period of mismated life told the wife of Ruskin their mistake,
and she told him. But Mrs. Grundy was at the keyhole, ready to tell the
world, and so Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin sought to deceive society by pretending
to live together. They kept up this appearance for six sorrowful years,
and then the lady simplified the situation by packing her trunks and
deliberately leaving her genius to his chimeras; her soul doubtless
softened by the knowledge that she was bestowing a benefit on him by
going away. The lady afterwards became the happy wife and helpmeet of a
great artist.

Ruskin's father was a prosperous importer of wines. He left his son a
fortune equal to a little more than one million dollars. But that vast
fortune has gone---principal and interest--gone in bequests, gifts and
experiments; and today Mr. Ruskin has no income save that derived from
the sale of his books. Talk about "Distribution of Wealth"! Here we have
it.

The bread-and-butter question has never troubled John Ruskin except in
his ever-ardent desire that others should be fed. His days have been
given to study and writing from his very boyhood; he has made money, but
he has had no time to save it.

He has expressed himself on every theme that interests mankind, except
perhaps "housemaid's knee." He has written more letters to the newspapers
than "Old Subscriber," "Fiat Justitia," "Indignant Reader" and "Veritas"
combined. His opinions have carried much weight and directed attention
into necessary lines; but perhaps his success as an inspirer of thought
lies in the fact that his sense of humor exists only as a trace, as the
chemist might say. Men who perceive the ridiculous would never have
voiced many of the things which he has said.

Surely those Sioux Indians who stretched a hay lariat across the Union
Pacific Railroad in order to stop the running of trains had small sense
of the ridiculous. But it looks as if they were apostles of Ruskin, every
one.

Some one has said that no man can appreciate the beautiful who has not a
keen sense of humor. For the beautiful is the harmonious, and the
laughable is the absence of fit adjustment.

Mr. Ruskin disproves the maxim.

But let no hasty soul imagine that John Ruskin's opinions on practical
themes are not useful. He brings to bear an energy on every subject he
touches (and what subject has he not touched?) that is sure to make the
sparks of thought fly. His independent and fearless attitude awakens from
slumber a deal of dozing intellect, and out of this strife of opinion
comes truth.

On account of Mr. Ruskin's refusing at times to see visitors, reports
have gone abroad that his mind was giving way. Not so, for although he is
seventy-four he is as serenely stubborn as he ever was. His opposition to
new inventions in machinery has not relaxed a single pulley's turn. You
grant his premises and in his conclusions you will find that his belt
never slips, and that his logic never jumps a cog. His life is as
regular and exact as the trains on the Great Western, and his days are
more peaceful than ever before. He has regular hours for writing, study,
walking, reading, eating, and working out of doors, superintending the
cultivation of his hundred acres. He told me that he had not varied a
half-hour in two years from a certain time of going to bed or getting up
in the morning. Although his form is bowed, this regularity of life has
borne fruit in the rich russet of his complexion, the mild, clear eye,
and the pleasure in living in spite of occasional pain, which you know
the man feels. His hair is thick and nearly white; the beard is now worn
quite long and gives a patriarchal appearance to the fine face.

When we arose to take our leave, Mr. Ruskin took a white felt hat from
the elk-antlers in the hallway and a stout stick from the corner, and
offered to show us a nearer way back to the village. We walked down a
footpath through the tall grass to the lake, where he called our
attention to various varieties of ferns that he had transplanted there.

We shook hands with the old gentleman and thanked him for the pleasure he
had given us. He was still examining the ferns when we lifted our hats
and bade him good-day.

He evidently did not hear us, for I heard him mutter: "I verily believe
those miserable Cook's tourists that were down here yesterday picked some
of my ferns."




WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE


As the aloe is said to flower only once in a hundred years, so it
seems to be but once in a thousand years that Nature blossoms
into this unrivaled product and produces such a man as we have
here.

--_Gladstone, "Lecture on Homer_"

[Illustration: WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE]


American travelers in England are said to accumulate
sometimes large and unique assortments of lisps, drawls and other very
peculiar things. Of the value of these acquirements as regards their use
and beauty, I have not room here to speak. But there is one adjunct which
England has that we positively need, and that is "Boots." It may be that
Boots is indigenous to England's soil, and that when transplanted he
withers and dies; perhaps there is a quality in our atmosphere that kills
him. Anyway, we have no Boots.

When trouble, adversity or bewilderment comes to the homesick traveler in
an American hotel, to whom can he turn for consolation? Alas, the porter
is afraid of the "guest," and all guests are afraid of the clerk, and the
proprietor is never seen, and the Afro-Americans in the dining-room are
stupid, and the chambermaid does not answer the ring, and at last the
weary wanderer hies him to the barroom and soon discovers that the worthy
"barkeep" has nothing to recommend him but his diamond-pin. How
different, yes, how different, this would all be if Boots were only here!
At the quaint old city of Chester I was met at the "sti-shun" by the
Boots of that excellent though modest hotel which stands only a block
away. Boots picked out my baggage without my looking for it, took me
across to the Inn, and showed me to the daintiest, most homelike little
room I had seen for weeks. On the table was a tastefully decorated "jug,"
evidently just placed there in anticipation of my arrival, and in this
jug was a large bunch of gorgeous roses, the morning dew still on them.

When Boots had brought me hot water for shaving he disappeared and did
not come back until, by the use of telepathy (for Boots is always
psychic), I had sent him a message that he was needed. In the afternoon
he went with me to get a draft cashed, then he identified me at the
post-office, and introduced me to a dignitary at the cathedral whose
courtesy added greatly to my enjoyment of the visit.

The next morning after breakfast, when I returned to my room, everything
was put to rights and a fresh bouquet of cut flowers was on the mantel. A
good breakfast adds much to one's inward peace: I sat down before the
open window and looked out at the great oaks dotting the green meadows
that stretched away to the north, and listened to the drowsy tinkle of
sheep-bells as the sound came floating in on the perfumed breeze. I was
thinking how good it was to be here, when the step of Boots was heard in
the doorway. I turned and saw that mine own familiar friend had lost a
little of his calm self-reliance--in fact, he was a bit agitated, but he
soon recovered his breath.

"Mr. Gladstone and 'is Lady 'ave just arrived, sir--they will be 'ere for
an hour before taking the train for Lunnon, sir. I told 'is clark there
was a party of Americans 'ere that were very anxious to meet 'im, and he
will receive you in the parlor in fifteen minutes, sir."

Then it was my turn to be agitated. But Boots reassured me by explaining
that the Grand Old Man was just the plainest, most unpretentious
gentleman one could imagine; that it was not at all necessary that I
should change my suit; that I should pronounce it Gladstun, not
Glad-stone, and that it was Harden, not Ha-war-den. Then he stood me up,
looked me over, and declared that I was all right.

On going downstairs I found that Boots had gotten together five Americans
who happened to be in the hotel. He introduced us to a bright little man
who seemed to be the companion or secretary of the Prime Minister; he, in
turn, took us into the parlor where Mr. Gladstone sat reading the morning
paper, and presented us one by one to the great man. We were each greeted
with a pleasant word and a firm grasp of the hand, and then the old
gentleman turned and with a courtly flourish said, "Gentlemen, allow me
to present you to Mrs. Gladstone."

Mr. Gladstone was wise: he remained standing; this was sure to shorten
the interview. A clergyman in our party who had an impressive cough and
bushy whiskers, acted as spokesman, and said several pleasant things,
closing his little speech by informing Mr. Gladstone that Americans held
him in great esteem, and that we only regretted that Fate had not decreed
that he should have been born in the United States.

Mr. Gladstone replied, "Fate is often unkind." Then he asked if we were
going to London. On being told that we were, he spoke for five minutes
about the things we should see in the Metropolis. His style was not
conversational, but after the manner of a man who was much used to
speaking in public or to receiving delegations. The sentences were
stately, the voice rather loud and declamatory. His closing words were:
"Yes, gentlemen, the way to see London is from the top of a 'bus--from
the top of a 'bus, gentlemen." Then there was an almost imperceptible
wave of the hand, and we knew that the interview was ended. In a moment
we were outside and the door was closed.

The five Americans who made up our little company had never met before,
but now we were as brothers; we adjourned to a side-room to talk it over
and tell of the things we intended to say but didn't. We all talked and
talked at once, just as people do who have recently preserved an enforced
silence.

"How ill-fitting was that gray suit!"

"Yes, the sleeves too long."

"Did you notice the absence of the forefinger of his left hand--shot off
in Eighteen Hundred Forty-five while hunting, they say."

"But how strong his voice is!"

"He looks like a farmer."

"Eighty-five years of age! Think of it, and how vigorous!"

Then the preacher spoke and his voice was sorrowful:

"Oh, but I made a botch of it--was it sarcasm or was it not?"

"Was what sarcasm?"

"When Mr. Gladstone said that Fate was unkind in not having him born in
the United States!"

And we were all silent. Then Boots came in, and we put the question to
Boots, who decided it was not sarcasm.

The next day, when we went away, we rewarded Boots bountifully.

* * * * *

William Gladstone is England's glory. Yet there is no
English blood in his veins; his parents were Scotch. Aside from Lord
Brougham, he is the only Scotchman who has ever taken a prominent part in
British statecraft. The name as we first find it is Gled-stane, "gled"
being a hawk--literally, a hawk that lives among the stones. Surely the
hawk is fully as respectable a bird as the eagle, and a goodly amount of
granite in the clay that is used to make a man is no disadvantage. The
name fits.

There are deep-rooted theories in the minds of many men (and still more
women) that bad boys make good men, and that a dash of the pirate, even
in a prelate, does not disqualify. But I wish to come to the defense of
the Sunday-school story-books and show that their very prominent moral is
right after all: it pays to be "good."

William Ewart Gladstone was sent to Eton when twelve years of age. From
the first, his conduct was a model of propriety. He attended every chapel
service, and said his prayers in the morning and before going to bed at
night; he could repeat the catechism backwards or forwards, and recite
more verses of Scripture than any other boy in school.

He always spoke the truth. He never played "hookey"; nor, as he grew
older, would he tell stories of doubtful flavor, or allow others to
relate such in his presence. His influence was for good, and Cardinal
Manning has said that there was less wine drunk at Oxford during the
Forties than would have been the case if Gladstone had not been there in
the Thirties.

He graduated from Christchurch with the highest possible honors the
college could bestow, and at twenty-two he seemed like one who had sprung
into life full-armed.

At that time he had magnificent health, a fine form, vast and varied
knowledge, and a command of language so great that he was a master of
forensics. His speeches were fully equal to his later splendid efforts.
In feature he was handsome: the face bold and masculine; eyes of piercing
luster; and hair, which he tossed when in debate, like a lion's mane. He
could speak five languages, sing tenor, dance gracefully, and was on more
than speaking terms with many of the best and greatest men in England.
Besides all this he was rich in British gold.

Now, here is a combination of good things that would send most young men
straight to perdition--not so Gladstone. He took the best care of his
health, systematized his time as a miser might, listened not to the
flatterers, and used his money only for good purposes. His intention was
to enter the Church, but his father said, "Not yet," and half-forced him
into politics. So, at this early age of twenty-two, he ran for
Parliament, was elected, and has practically never been out of the shadow
of Westminster Palace during these sixty-odd years.

At thirty-three, he was a member of the Cabinet. At thirty-six, his
absolute honesty compelled him for conscience' sake to resign from the
Ministry. His opponents then said, "Gladstone is an extinct volcano," and
they have said this again and again; but somehow the volcano always
breaks out in a new place, stronger and brighter than ever. It is
difficult to subdue a volcano.

When twenty-nine, he married Catherine Glynne, sister and heir of Sir
Stephen Glynne, Baronet. The marriage was most fortunate in every way.
For over fifty years this most excellent woman has been his comrade,
counselor, consolation, friend--his wife.

"How can any adversity come to him who hath a wife?" said Chaucer.

If this splendid woman had died, then his opponents might truthfully have
said, "Gladstone is an extinct volcano"; but she is still with him, and a
short time ago, when he had to undergo an operation for cataract, this
woman of eighty was his only nurse.

The influence of Gladstone has been of untold value to England. His
ideals for national action have been high. To the material prosperity of
the country he has added millions upon millions; he has made education
popular, and schooling easy; his policy in the main has been such as to
command the admiration of the good and great. But there are spots on the
sun.

On reading Mr. Gladstone's books I find he has vigorously defended
certain measures that seem unworthy of his genius. He has palliated
human slavery as a "necessary evil"; has maintained the visibility and
divine authority of the Church; has asserted the mathematical certainty
of the historic episcopate, the mystical efficacy of the sacraments; and
has vindicated the Church of England as the God-appointed guardian of
truth.

He has fought bitterly any attempt to improve the divorce-laws of
England. Much has been done in this line, even in spite of his earnest
opposition, but we now owe it to Mr. Gladstone that there is on England's
law-books a statute providing that if a wife leaves her husband he can
invoke a magistrate, whose duty it will then be to issue a writ and give
it to an officer, who will bring her back. More than this, when the
officer has returned the woman, the loving husband has the legal right to
"reprove" her. Just what reprove means the courts have not yet
determined; for, in a recent decision, when a costermonger admitted
having given his lady "a taste of the cat," the prisoner was discharged
on the ground that it was only needed reproof.

I would not complain of this law if it worked both ways; but no wife can
demand that the State shall return her "man" willy-nilly. And if she
administers reproof to her mate, she does it without the sanction of the
Sovereign.

However, in justice to Englishmen, it should be stated that while this
unique law still stands on the statute-books, it is very seldom that a
man in recent years has stooped to invoke it.

On all the questions I have named, from slavery to divorce, Mr. Gladstone
has used the "Bible argument." But as the years have gone by, his mind
has become liberalized, and on many points where he was before zealous he
is now silent. In Eighteen Hundred Forty-one, he argued with much skill
and ingenuity that Jews were not entitled to full rights of citizenship,
but in Eighteen Hundred Forty-seven, acknowledging his error, he took the
other side.

During the War of Secession the sympathies of England's Chancellor of the
Exchequer were with the South. Speaking at Newcastle on October Ninth,
Eighteen Hundred Sixty-two, he said, "Jefferson Davis has undoubtedly
founded a new nation." But five years passed, and he publicly confessed
that he was wrong.

Here is a man who, if he should err deeply, is yet so great that, like
Cotton Mather, he might not hesitate to stand uncovered on the
street-corners and ask the forgiveness of mankind. Such men are saved by
their enemies. Their own good and the good of humanity require that their
balance of power shall not be too great. Had the North gone down,
Gladstone might never have seen his mistake. In this instance and in many
others, he has not been the leader of progress, but its echo: truth has
been forced upon him. His passionate earnestness, his intense volition,
his insensibility to moral perspective, his blindness to the sense of
proportion, might have led him into dangerous excess and frightful
fanatical error, if it were not for the fact that such men create an
opposition that is their salvation.

To analyze a character so complex as Mr. Gladstone's requires the grasp
of genius. We speak of "the duality of the human mind," but here are half
a dozen spirits in one. They rule in turn, and occasionally several of
them struggle for the mastery.

When the Fisk Jubilee Singers visited England, we find Gladstone dropping
the affairs of State to hear their music. He invited them to Hawarden,
where he sang with them. So impressed was he with the negro melodies that
he anticipated that idea which has since been materialized: the founding
of a national school of music that would seek to perfect in a scientific
way these soul-stirring strains.

He might have made a poet of no mean order; for his devotion to spiritual
and physical beauty has made him a lifelong admirer of Homer and Dante.
Those who have met him when the mood was upon him have heard him recite
by the hour from the "Iliad" in the original. And yet the theology of
Homer belongs to the realm of natural religion with which Mr. Gladstone
has little patience.

A prominent member of the House of Commons once said, "The only two
things that the Prime Minister really cares for are religion and
finance." The statement comes near truth; for the chief element in Mr.
Gladstone's character is his devotion to religion; and his signal
successes have been in the line of economics. He believes in Free Trade
as the gospel of social salvation. He revels in figures; he has price,
value, consumption, distribution, import, export, fluctuation, all at his
tongue's end, ready to hurl at any one who ventures on a hasty
generalization.

And it is a significant fact that in his strong appeal for the
disestablishment of the Irish Church, the stress of his argument was put
on the point that the Irish Church was not in the line of the apostolic
succession.

Mr. Gladstone is grave, sober, earnest, proud, passionate, and at times
romantic to a rare degree. He rebukes, refutes, contradicts, defies, and
has a magnificent capacity for indignation. He will roar you like a lion,
his eyes will flash, and his clenched fist will shake as he denounces
that which he believes to be error. And yet among inferiors he will
consult, defer, inquire, and show a humility, a forced suavity, that has
given the caricaturist excuse.

In his home he is gentle, amiable, always kind, social and hospitable. He
loves deeply, and his friends revere him to a point that is but little
this side of idolatry. And surely their affection is not misplaced.

Some day a Plutarch without a Plutarch's prejudice will arise, and with
malice toward none, but with charity for all, he will write the life of
the statesman, Gladstone. Over against this he will write the life of an
American statesman. The name he will choose will be that of one born in a
log hut in the forest; who was rocked by the foot of a mother whose
hands meanwhile were busy at her wheel; who had no schooling, no wise and
influential friends; who had few books and little time to read; who knew
no formal religion; who never traveled out of his own country; who had no
helpmeet, but who walked solitary--alone, a man of sorrows; down whose
homely, furrowed face the tears of pity often ran, and yet whose name,
strange paradox! stands in many minds as a symbol of mirth.

And when the master comes, who has the power to portray with absolute
fidelity the greatness of these two men, will it be to the disadvantage
of the American?

* * * * *

The village of Hawarden is in Flintshire, North Wales. It
is seven miles from Chester. I walked the distance one fine June
morning--out across the battlefield where Cromwell's army crushed that of
Charles; and on past old stone walls and stately elms.

There had been a shower the night before, but the morning sun came out
bright and warm and made the raindrops glisten like beads as they clung
to each leaf and flower. Larks sang and soared, and great flocks of crows
called and cawed as they flew lazily across the sky. It was a time for
silent peace, and quiet joy, and serene thankfulness for life and health.

I walked leisurely, and in a little over two hours reached Hawarden--a
cluster of plain stone houses with climbing vines and flowers and
gardens, which told of homely thrift and simple tastes. I went straight
to the old stone church, which is always open, and rested for half an
hour, listening to the organ on which a young girl was practising,
instructed by a white-haired old gentleman.

The church is dingy and stained inside and out by time. The pews are
irregular, some curiously carved, and all stiff and uncomfortable. I
walked around and read the inscriptions on the walls, and all the time
the young girl played and the old gentleman beat time, and neither
noticed my presence. One brass tablet I saw was to a woman "who for long
years was a faithful servant at Hawarden Castle--erected in gratitude by
W.E.G."

Near this was a memorial to W.H. Gladstone, son of the Premier, who died
in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-one. Then there were inscriptions to various
Glynnes and several others whose names appear in English history. I stood
at the reading-desk, where the great man has so often read, and marked
the spot where William Ewart Gladstone and Catherine Glynne knelt when
they were married here in July, Eighteen Hundred Thirty-nine.

A short distance from the church is the entrance to Hawarden Park. This
fine property was the inheritance of Mrs. Gladstone; the park itself
seems to belong to the public. If Mr. Gladstone were a plain citizen,
people, of course, would not come by hundreds and picnic on his preserve,
but serving the State, he and his possessions belong to the people, and
this democratic familiarity is rather pleasing than otherwise. So great
has been the throng in times past, that an iron fence had to be placed
about the ivy-covered ruins of the ancient castle, to protect it from
those who threatened to carry it away by the pocketful. A wall has also
been put around the present "castle" (more properly, house). This was
done some years ago, I was told by the butler, after a torchlight
procession of a thousand enthusiastic admirers had come down from
Liverpool and trampled Mrs. Gladstone's flowers into "smithereens."

The park contains many hundred acres, and is as beautiful as an English
park can be, and this is praise superlative. Flocks of sheep wander over
the soft, green turf, and beneath the spreading trees are sleek cows
which seem used to visitors, and with big, open eyes come up to be
petted.

Occasional signs are seen: "Please spare the trees." Some people suppose
that this is an injunction which Mr. Gladstone himself has never
observed. But when in his tree-cutting days, no monarch of the forest was
ever felled without its case being fully tried by the entire household.
Ruskin, once, visiting at Hawarden, sat as judge, and after listening to
the evidence gave sentence against several trees that were rotten at the
core or overshadowing their betters. Then the Prime Minister shouldered
his faithful "snickersnee" and went forth as executioner.

I looked in vain for stumps, and on inquiry was told that they were all
dug out, and the ground leveled so no trace was left of the offender.

The "lady of the house" at Hawarden is the second daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Gladstone. All accounts agree that she is a most capable and
excellent woman. She is her father's "home secretary" and confidante, and
in his absence takes full charge of the mail and looks after important
business affairs. Her husband, the Reverend Harry Drew, is rector of
Hawarden Church. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Drew and found him
very cordial and perfectly willing to talk about the great man who is
grandfather to his baby. We also talked of America, and I soon surmised
that Mr. Drew's ideas of "The States" were largely derived from a visit
to the Wild West Show. So I put the question to him direct:

"Did you see Buffalo Bill?"

"Oh, yes."

"And did Mr. Gladstone go?"

"Not only once, but three times, and he cheered as loudly as any boy."

The Gladstone residence is a great, rambling, stone structure to which
additions have been made from one generation to another. The towers and
battlements are merely architectural appendiculæ, but the effect of the
whole, when viewed from a distance, rising out of its wealth of green and
backed by the forest, is very imposing.

I entered only the spacious front hallway and one room--the library.
Bookshelves and books and more books were everywhere; several desks of
different designs (one an American roll-top), as if the owner transacted
business at one, translated Homer at another, and wrote social letters
from a third. Then there were several large Japanese vases, a tiger-skin,
beautiful rugs, a few large paintings, and in a rack a full dozen axes
and twice as many "sticks."

The whole place has an air of easy luxury that speaks of peace and
plenty, of quiet and rest, of gentle thoughts and calm desires.

As I walked across toward the village, the church-bell slowly pealed the
hour; over the distant valley, night hovered; a streak of white mist,
trailing like a thin veil, marked the passage of the murmuring brook. I
thought of the grand old man over whose domain I was now treading, and my
wonder was, not that one should live so long and still be vigorous, but
that a man should live in such an idyllic spot, with love and books to
keep him company, and yet grow old.




J.M.W. TURNER


I believe that these works of Turner's are at their first
appearing as perfect as those of Phidias or Leonardo, that is to
say, incapable of any improvement conceivable by human mind.

--_John Ruskin_

[Illustration: J.M.W. TURNER]


The beauty of the upper Thames with its fairy house-boats
and green banks has been sung by poets, but rash is the minstrel who
tunes his lyre to sound the praises of this muddy stream in the vicinity
of Chelsea. As yellow as the Tiber and thick as the Missouri after a
flood, it comes twice a day bearing upon its tossing tide a unique
assortment of uncanny sights and sickening smells from the swarming city
of men below.

Chelsea was once a country village six miles from London Bridge. Now the
far-reaching arms of the metropolis have taken it as her own.

Chelsea may be likened to some rare spinster, grown old with years and
good works, and now having a safe home with a rich and powerful
benefactress. Yet Chelsea is not handsome in her old age, and Chelsea was
not pretty in youth, nor fair to view in middle life; but Chelsea has
been the foster-mother of several of the rarest and fairest souls who
have ever made the earth pilgrimage.

And the greatness of genius still rests upon Chelsea. As we walk slowly
through its winding ways, by the edge of its troubled waters, among dark
and crooked turns, through curious courts, by old gateways and piles of
steepled stone, where flocks of pigeons wheel, and bells chime, and
organs peal, and winds sigh, we know that all has been sanctified by
their presence. And their spirits abide with us, and the splendid beauty
of their visions is about us. For the stones beneath our feet have been
hallowed by their tread, and the walls have borne their shadows; so all
mean things are transfigured and over all these plain and narrow streets
their glory gleams.

And it is the great men and they alone that can render a place sacred.
Chelsea is now to the lovers of the Beautiful a sacred name, a sacred
soil; a place of pilgrimage where certain gods of Art once lived, and
loved, and worked, and died.

Sir Thomas More lived here and had for a frequent guest Erasmus. Hans
Sloane began in Chelsea the collection of curiosities which has now
developed into the British Museum. Bishop Atterbury (who claimed that
Dryden was a greater poet than Shakespeare), Dean Swift and Doctor
Arbuthnot, all lived in Church Street; Richard Steele just around the
corner and Leigh Hunt in Cheyne Row; but it was from another name that
the little street was to be immortalized.

If France constantly has forty Immortals in the flesh, surely it is a
modest claim to say that Chelsea has three for all time: Thomas Carlyle,
George Eliot and Joseph Mallord William Turner.

Turner's father was a barber. His youth was passed in poverty and his
advantages for education were very slight. And all this in the crowded
city of London, where merit may knock long and still not be heard, and in
a country where wealth and title count for much.

When a boy, barefoot and ragged, he would wander away alone on the banks
of the river and dream dreams about wonderful palaces and beautiful
scenes; and then he would trace with a stick in the sands, endeavoring,
with mud, to make plain to the eye the things that his soul saw.

His mother was quite sure that no good could come from this vagabondish
nature, and she did not spare the rod, for she feared that the desire to
scrawl and daub would spoil the child. But he was a stubborn lad, with a
pug-nose and big, dreamy, wondering eyes, and a heavy jaw; and when
parents see that they have such a son, they had better hang up the rod
behind the kitchen-door and lay aside force and cease scolding. For love
is better than a cat-o'-nine-tails, and sympathy saves more souls than
threats.

The elder Turner considered that the proper use of a brush was to lather
chins. But the boy thought differently, and once surreptitiously took one
of his father's brushes to paint a picture; the brush on being returned
to its cup was used the next day upon a worthy haberdasher, whose cheeks
were shortly colored a vermilion that matched his nose. This lost the
barber a customer and secured the boy a thrashing.

Young Turner did not always wash his father's shop-windows well, nor
sweep off the sidewalk properly. Like all boys he would rather work for
some one else than for "his folks."

He used to run errands for an engraver by the name of Smith--John Raphael
Smith. Once, when Smith sent the barber's boy with a letter to a certain
art-gallery with orders to "get the answer and hurry back, mind you!" the
boy forgot to get the answer and to hurry back. Then another boy was
dispatched after the first, and boy Number Two found boy Number One
sitting, with staring eyes and open mouth, in the art-gallery before a
painting of Claude Lorraine's. When boy Number One was at last forcibly
dragged away, and reached the shop of his master, he got his ears well
cuffed for his forgetfulness. But from that day forth he was not the same
being that he had been before his eyes fell on that Claude Lorraine.

He was transformed, as much so as was Lazarus after he was called from
beyond the portals of death and had come back to earth, bearing in his
heart the secrets of the grave.

From that time Turner thought of Claude Lorraine during the day and
dreamed of him at night, and he stole his way into every exhibition where
a Claude was to be seen. And now I wish that Claude Lorraine was the
subject of this sketch, as well as Turner, for his life is a picture full
of sweetest poetry, framed in a world of dullest prose.

The eyes of this boy, whom they had thought dreamy, dull and listless,
now shone with a different light. He thirsted to achieve, to do, to
become--yes, to become a greater painter than Claude Lorraine. His
employer saw the change and smiled at it, but he allowed the lad to put
in backgrounds and add the skies to cheap prints, just because the
youngster teased to do it.

Then one day a certain patron of the shop came and looked over the
shoulder of the Turner boy, and he said, "He has skill--perhaps talent."

And I think the recording angel should give this man a separate page in
the Book of Remembrance and write his name in illuminated colors, for he
gave young Turner access to his own collection and to his library, and he
never cuffed him nor kicked him nor called him dunce--whereat the boy was
much surprised. But he encouraged the youth to sketch a picture in
water-colors and then he bought the picture and paid him ten shillings
for it; and the name of this man was Doctor Munro.

The next year, when young Turner was fourteen, Doctor Munro had him
admitted to the Royal Academy as a student, and in Seventeen Hundred
Ninety he exhibited a water-color of the Archbishop's palace at Lambeth.

The picture took no prize, and doubtless was not worthy of one, but from
now on Joseph M.W. Turner was an artist, and other hands had to sweep the
barber-shop.

But he sold few pictures--they were not popular. Other artists scorned
him, possibly intuitively fearing him, for mediocrity always fears when
the ghost of genius does not down at its bidding.

Then Turner was accounted unsociable; besides, he was ragged, uncouth,
independent, and did not conform to the ways of society; so the select
circle cast him out--more properly speaking, did not let him in.

Still he worked on, and exhibited at every Academy Exhibition, yet he was
often hungry, and the London fog crept cold and damp through his
threadbare clothes. But he toiled on, for Claude Lorraine was ever before
him.

In Eighteen Hundred Two, when twenty-seven years of age, he visited
France and made a tour through Switzerland, tramping over many long miles
with his painting-kit on his back, and he brought back rich treasures in
way of sketches and quickened imagination.

In the years following he took many such trips, and came to know Venice,
Rome, Florence and Paris as perfectly as his own London.

When thirty-three years of age he was still worshiping at the shrine of
Claude Lorraine. His pictures painted at this time are evidence of his
ideal, and his book, "Liber Studiorum," issued in Eighteen Hundred Eight,
is modeled after the "Liber Veritatis." But the book surpasses Claude's,
and Turner knew it, and this may have led him to burst his shackles and
cast loose from his idol. For, in Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, we find him
working according to his own ideas, showing an originality and audacity
in conception and execution that made him the butt of the critics, and
caused consternation to rage through the studios of competitors.

Gradually, it dawned upon a few scattered collectors that things so
strongly condemned must have merit, for why should the pack bay so loudly
if there were no quarry! So to have a Turner was at least something for
your friends to discuss.

Then carriages began to stop before the dingy building at Forty-seven
Queen Anne Street, and broadcloth and satin mounted the creaking stairs
to the studio. It happened about this time that Turner's prices began to
increase. Like the sibyl of old, if a customer said, "I do not want it,"
the painter put an extra ten pounds on the price. For "Dido Building
Carthage," Turner's original price was five hundred pounds. People came
to see the picture and they said, "The price is too high." Next day
Turner's price for the "Carthage" was one thousand pounds. Finally, Sir
Robert Peel offered the painter five thousand pounds for the picture, but
Turner said he had decided to keep it for himself, and he did.

In the forepart of his career he sold few pictures--for the simple reason
that no one wanted them. And he sold few pictures during the latter years
of his life, for the reason that his prices were so high that none but
the very rich could buy. First, the public scorned Turner. Next, Turner
scorned the public. In the beginning it would not buy his pictures, and
later it could not.

A frivolous public and a shallow press, from his first exhibition, when
fifteen years of age, to his last, when seventy, made sport of his
originalities. But for merit there is a recompense in sneers, and a
benefit in sarcasms, and a compensation in hate; for when these things
get too pronounced a champion appears. And so it was with Turner. Next to
having a Boswell write one's life, what is better than a Ruskin to uphold
one's cause!

Success came slowly; his wants were few, but his ambition never
slackened, and finally the dreams of his youth became the realities of
his manhood.

At twenty, Turner loved a beautiful girl--they became engaged. He went
away on a tramp sketching-tour and wrote his ladylove just one short
letter each month. He believed that "absence only makes the heart grow
fonder," not knowing that this statement is only the vagary of a poet.
When he returned the lady was betrothed to another. He gave the pair his
blessing, and remained a bachelor--a very confirmed bachelor.

Perhaps, however, the reason his fiancee proved untrue was not through
lack of the epistles he wrote her, but on account of them. In the British
Museum I examined several letters written by Turner. They appeared very
much like copy for a Josh Billings Almanac. Such originality in spelling,
punctuation and use of capitals! It was admirable in its uniqueness.
Turner did not think in words--he could only think in paint. But the
young lady did not know this, and when a letter came from her homely
little lover she was shocked, then she laughed, then she showed these
letters to a nice young man who was clerk to a fishmonger and he laughed,
then they both laughed. Then this nice young man and this beautiful young
lady became engaged, and they were married at Saint Andrew's on a lovely
May morning. And they lived happily ever afterward.

Turner was small, and in appearance plain. Yet he was big enough to paint
a big picture, and he was not so homely as to frighten away all beautiful
women. But Philip Gilbert Hamerton tells us, "Fortunate in many things,
Turner was lamentably unfortunate in this: that throughout his whole life
he never came under the ennobling and refining influence of a good
woman."

Like Plato, Michelangelo, Sir Isaac Newton and his own Claude Lorraine,
he was wedded to his art. But at sixty-five his genius suddenly burst
forth afresh, and his work, Mr. Ruskin says, at that time exceeded in
daring brilliancy and in the rich flowering of imagination, anything that
he had previously done. Mr. Ruskin could give no reason, but rumor says,
"A woman."

The one weakness of our hero, that hung to him for life, was the idea
that he could write poetry. The tragedian always thinks he can succeed in
comedy; the comedian spends hours in his garret rehearsing tragedy; most
preachers have an idea that they could have made a quick fortune in
business, and many businessmen are very sure that if they had taken to
the pulpit there would now be fewer empty pews. So the greatest
landscape-painter of recent times imagined himself a poet. Hamerton says
that for remarkable specimens of grammar, spelling and construction
Turner's verse would serve well to be given to little boys to correct.

One spot in Turner's life over which I like to linger is his friendship
with Sir Walter Scott. They collaborated in the production of "Provincial
Antiquities," and spent many happy hours together tramping over Scottish
moors and mountains. Sir Walter lived out his days in happy ignorance
concerning the art of painting, and although he liked the society of
Turner, he confessed that it was quite beyond his ken why people bought
his pictures.

"And as for your books," said Turner, "the covers of some are certainly
very pretty."

Yet these men took a satisfaction in each other's society, such as
brothers might enjoy, but without either man appreciating the greatness
of the other.

Turner's temperament was audacious, self-centered, self-reliant, eager
for success and fame, yet at the same time scorning public opinion--a
paradox often found in the artistic mind of the first class; silent
always--with a bitter silence, disdaining to tell his meaning when the
critics could not perceive it.

He was above all things always the artist, never the realist. The realist
pictures the things he sees; the artist expresses that which he feels.
Children, and all simple folk who use pen, pencil or brush, describe the
things they behold. As intellect develops and goes more in partnership
with hand, imagination soars, and things are outlined that no man can see
except he be able to perceive the invisible. To appreciate a work of art
you must feel as the artist felt.

Now, it is very plain that the vast majority of people are not capable of
this high sense of sublimity which the creative artist feels; and
therefore they do not understand, and not understanding, they wax merry,
or cynical, or sarcastic, or wrathful, or envious; or they pass by
unmoved. And I maintain that those who pass by unmoved are more righteous
than they who scoff.

If I should attempt to explain to my little girl the awe I feel when I
contemplate the miracle of maternity, she would probably change the
subject by prattling to me about a kitten she saw lapping milk from a
blue saucer. If I should attempt to explain to some men what I feel when
I contemplate the miracle of maternity, they would smile and turn it all
into an unspeakable jest. Is not the child nearer to God than the man?

We thus see why to many Browning is only a joke, Whitman an eccentric,
Dante insane and Turner a pretender. These have all sought to express
things which the many can not feel, and consequently they have been, and
are, the butt of jokes and jibes innumerable. "Except ye become as little
children," etc.--and yet the scoffers are often people of worth. Nothing
so shows the limitation of humanity as this: genius often does not
appreciate genius. The inspired, strangely enough, are like the fools,
they do not recognize inspiration.

An Englishman called on Voltaire and found him in bed reading
Shakespeare.

"What are you reading?" asked the visitor.

"Your Shakespeare!" said the philosopher; and as he answered he flung the
book across the room.

"He's not my Shakespeare," said the Englishman.

Greene, Rymer, Dryden, Warburton and Doctor Johnson used collectively or
individually the following expressions in describing the work of the
author of "Hamlet": conceit, overreach, word-play, extravagance,
overdone, absurdity, obscurity, puerility, bombast, idiocy, untruth,
improbability, drivel.

Byron wrote from Florence to Murray:

"I know nothing of painting, and I abhor and spit upon all saints and
so-called spiritual subjects that I see portrayed in these churches."

But the past is so crowded with vituperation that it is difficult to
select--besides that, we do not wish to--but let us take a sample of
arrogance from yesterday to prove our point, and then drop the theme for
something pleasanter.

Pew and pulpit have fallen over each other for the privilege of hitting
Darwin; a Bishop warns his congregation that Emerson is "dangerous";
Spurgeon calls Shelley a sensualist; Doctor Buckley speaks of Susan B.
Anthony as the leader of "the short-haired"; Talmage cracks jokes about
evolution, referring feelingly to "monkey ancestry"; and a prominent
divine of England writes the World's Congress of Religions down as "pious
waxworks." These things being true, and all the sentiments quoted coming
from "good" but blindly zealous men, is it a wonder that the Artist is
not understood?

A brilliant picture, called "Cologne--Evening," attracted much attention
at the Academy Exhibition of Eighteen Hundred Twenty-six. One day the
people who so often collected around Turner's work were shocked to see
that the beautiful canvas had lost its brilliancy, and evidently had been
tampered with by some miscreant. A friend ran to inform Turner of the bad
news. "Don't say anything. I only smirched it with lampblack. It was
spoiling the effect of Laurence's picture that hung next to it. The black
will all wash off after the Exhibition."

And his tender treatment of his aged father shows the gentle side of his
nature. The old barber, whose trembling hand could no longer hold a
razor, wished to remain under his son's roof in guise of a servant; but
the son said, "No; we fought the world together, and now that it seeks to
do me honor, you shall share all the benefits." And Turner never smiled
when the little, wizened, old man would whisper to some visitor, "Yes,
yes; Joseph is the greatest artist in England, and I am his father."

Turner had a way of sending ten-pound notes in blank envelopes to artists
in distress, and he did this so frequently that the news got out finally,
but never through Turner's telling, and then he had to adopt other
methods of doing good by stealth.

I do not contend that Turner's character was immaculate, but still it is
very probable that worldlings do not appreciate what a small part of this
great genius touched the mire.

To prove the sordidness of the man, one critic tells, with visage awfully
solemn, how Turner once gave an engraving to a friend and then, after a
year, sent demanding it back. But to a person with a groat's worth of wit
the matter is plain: the dreamy, abstracted artist, who bumped into his
next-door neighbors on the street and never knew them, forgot he had
given the picture and believed he had only loaned it. This is made still
more apparent by the fact that, when he sent for the engraving in
question, he administered a rebuke to the man for keeping it so long. The
poor dullard who received the note flew into a rage--returned the
picture--sent his compliments and begged the great artist to "take your
picture and go to the devil."

Then certain scribblers, who through mental disease had lost the capacity
for mirth, dipped their pen in aqua fortis and wrote of the "innate
meanness," the "malice prepense" and the "Old Adam" which dwelt in the
heart of Turner. No one laughed except a few Irishmen, and an American
or two, who chanced to hear of the story.

Of Turner's many pictures I will mention in detail but two, both of which
are to be seen on the walls of the National Gallery. First, "The Old
Temeraire." This warship had been sold out of service and was being towed
away to be broken up. The scene was photographed on Turner's brain, and
he immortalized it on canvas. We can not do better than borrow the words
of Mr. Ruskin:

"Of all pictures not visibly involving human pain, this is the most
pathetic ever painted.

"The utmost pensiveness which can ordinarily be given to a landscape
depends on adjuncts of ruin, but no ruin was ever so affecting as the
gliding of this ship to her grave. This particular ship, crowned in the
Trafalgar hour of trial with chief victory--surely, if ever anything
without a soul deserved honor or affection we owe them here. Surely, some
sacred care might have been left in our thoughts for her; some quiet
space amid the lapse of English waters! Nay, not so. We have stern
keepers to trust her glory to--the fire and the worm. Nevermore shall
sunset lay golden robe upon her, nor starlight tremble on the waves that
part at her gliding. Perhaps where the low gate opens to some cottage
garden, the tired traveler may ask, idly, why the moss grows so green on
the rugged wood; and even the sailor's child may not know that the night
dew lies deep in the warrents of the old Temeraire."

"The Burial of Sir David Wilkie at Sea" has brought tears to many eyes.
Yet there is no burial. The ship is far away in the gloom of the offing;
you can not distinguish a single figure on her decks; but you behold her
great sails standing out against the leaden blackness of the night and
you feel that out there a certain scene is being enacted. And if you
listen closely you can hear the solemn voice of the captain as he reads
the burial service. Then there is a pause--a swift, sliding sound--a
splash, and all is over.

Turner left to the British Nation by his will nineteen thousand pencil
and water-color sketches and one hundred large canvases. These pictures
are now to be seen in the National Gallery in rooms set apart and sacred
to Turner's work. For fear it may be thought that the number of sketches
mentioned above is a misprint, let us say that if he had produced one
picture a day for fifty years it would not equal the number of pieces
bestowed by his will on the Nation.

This of course takes no account of the pictures sold during his lifetime,
and, as he left a fortune of one hundred forty-four thousand pounds
(seven hundred twenty thousand dollars), we may infer that not all his
pictures were given away.

At Chelsea I stood in the little room where he breathed his last, that
bleak day in Eighteen-Hundred Fifty-one. The unlettered but motherly old
woman who took care of him in those last days never guessed his
greatness; none in the house or the neighborhood knew.

To them he was only Mr. Booth, an eccentric old man of moderate means,
who liked to muse, read, and play with children. He had no callers, no
friends; he went to the city every day and came back at night. He talked
but little, he was absent-minded, he smoked and thought and smiled and
muttered to himself. He never went to church; but once one of the lodgers
asked him what he thought of God.

"God, God--what do I know of God, what does any one! He is our life--He
is the All, but we need not fear Him--all we can do is to speak the truth
and do our work. Tomorrow we go--where? I know not, but I am not afraid."

Of art, to these strangers he would never speak. Once they urged him to
go with them to an exhibition at Kensington, but he smiled feebly as he
lit his pipe and said, "An Art Exhibition? No, no; a man can show on a
canvas so little of what he feels, it is not worth the while."

At last he died--passed peacefully away--and his attorney came and took
charge of his remains.

Many are the hard words that have been flung off by heedless tongues
about Turner's taking an assumed name and living in obscurity, but "what
you call fault I call accent." Surely, if a great man and world-famous
desires to escape the flatterers and the silken mesh of so-called society
and live the life of simplicity, he has a right to do so. Again, Turner
was a very rich man in his old age; he did much for struggling artists
and assisted aspiring merit in many ways. So it came about that his mail
was burdened with begging letters, and his life made miserable by appeals
from impecunious persons, good and bad, and from churches, societies and
associations without number. He decided to flee them all; and he did.

The "Carthage" already mentioned is one of his finest works, and he
esteemed it so highly that he requested that when death came, his body
should be buried, wrapped in its magnificent folds. But the wish was
disregarded.

His remains rest in the crypt of Saint Paul's, beside the dust of
Reynolds. His statue, in marble, adorns a niche in the great cathedral,
and his name is secure high on the roll of honor.

And if for no other reason, the name and fame of Chelsea should be
deathless as the home of Turner.




JONATHAN SWIFT


They are but few and meanspirited that live in peace with all
men.

--_Tale of a Tub_

[Illustration: JONATHAN SWIFT]


Birrell, the great English essayist, remarks that, "Of
writing books about Dean Swift there is no end." The reason is plain: of
no other prominent writer who has lived during the past two hundred years
do we know so much. His life lies open to us in many books. Boswell did
not write his biography, but Johnson did. Then followed whole schools of
little fishes, some of whom wrote like whales. But among the works of
genuine worth and merit, with Swift for a subject, we have Sir Walter
Scott's nineteen volumes, and lives by Craik, Mitford, Forster, Collins
and Leslie Stephen.

The positive elements in Swift's character make him a most interesting
subject to men and women who are yet on earth, for he was essentially of
the earth, earthy. And until we are shown that the earth is wholly bad,
we shall find much to amuse, much to instruct, much to admire--aye, much
to pity--in the life of Jonathan Swift.

His father married at twenty. His income matched his years--it was just
twenty pounds per annum. His wife was a young girl, bright, animated,
intelligent.

In a few short months this girl carried in her arms a baby. This baby was
wrapped in a tattered shawl and cried piteously from hunger, for the
mother had not enough to eat. She was cold, and sick, and in disgrace.
Her husband, too, was ill, and sorely in debt. It was Midwinter.

When Spring came, and the flowers blossomed, and the birds mated, and
warm breezes came whispering softly from the South, and all the earth was
glad, the husband of this child-wife was in his grave, and she was alone.
Alone? No; she carried in her tired arms the hungry babe, and beneath her
heart she felt the faint flutter of another life.

But to be in trouble and in Ireland is not so bad after all, for the
Irish people have great and tender hearts; and even if they have not much
to bestow in a material way, they can give sympathy, and they do.

So the girl was cared for by kind kindred, and on November Thirtieth,
Sixteen Hundred Sixty-seven, at Number Seven, Hoey's Court, Dublin, the
second baby was born.

Only a little way from Hoey's Court is Saint Patrick's Cathedral. On that
November day, as the tones from the clanging chimes fell on the weary
senses of the young mother, there in her darkened room, little did she
think that the puny bantling she held to her breast would yet be the Dean
of the great church whose bells she heard; and how could she anticipate a
whisper coming to her from the far-off future: "Of writing books about
your babe there is no end!"

* * * * *

The man-child was given to an old woman to care for, and
he had the ability, even then, it seems, to win affection. The
foster-mother loved him and she stole him away, carrying him off to
England.

Charity ministered to his needs; charity gave him his education. When
Swift was twenty-one years old he went to see his mother. Her means were
scanty to the point of hardship, but so buoyant was her mind that she
used to declare that she was both rich and happy--and being happy she was
certainly rich. She was a rare woman. Her spirit was independent, her
mind cultivated, her manner gentle and refined, and she was endowed with
a keen sense of humor.

From her, the son derived those qualities which have made him famous. No
man is greater than his mother; but the sons of brave women do not always
make brave men. In one quality Swift was lamentably inferior to his
mother--he did not have her capacity for happiness. He had wit; she had
humor.

We have seen how Swift's father sickened and died. The world was too
severe for him, its buffets too abrupt, its burden too heavy, and he gave
up the fight before the battle had really begun. This lack of courage and
extreme sensitiveness are seen in the son. But so peculiar, complex and
wonderful is this web of life, that our very blunders, weaknesses and
mistakes are woven in and make the fabric stronger. If Swift had
possessed only his mother's merits, without his father's faults, he
would never have shaken the world with laughter, and we should never have
heard of him.

In her lowliness and simplicity the mother of Swift was content. She did
her work in her own little way. She smiled at folly, and each day she
thanked Heaven that her lot was no worse. Not so her son. He brooded in
sullen silence; he cursed Fate for making him a dependent, and even in
his youth he scorned those who benefited him. This was a very human
proceeding.

Many hate, but few have a fine capacity for scorn. Their hate is so
vehement that when hurled it falls short. Swift's scorn was a beautifully
winged arrow, with a poisoned tip. Some who were struck did not at the
time know it.

His misanthropy defeated his purpose, thwarted his ambition, ruined his
aims, and--made his name illustrious.

Swift wished for churchly preferment, but he had not the patience to
wait. He imagined that others were standing in his way, and of course
they were; for under the calm exterior of things ecclesiastic, there is
often a strife, a jealousy and a competition more rabid than in commerce.
To succeed in winning a bishopric requires a sagacity as keen as that
required to become a Senator of Massachusetts or the Governor of New
York. The man bides his time, makes himself popular, secures advocates,
lubricates the way, pulls the wires, and slides noiselessly into place.

Swift lacked diplomacy. When matters did not seem to progress he grew
wrathful, seized his pen and stabbed with it. But as he wrote, the
ludicrousness of the whole situation came over him and, instead of
cursing plain curses, he held his adversary up to ridicule! And this
ridicule is so active, the scorn so mixed with wit, the shafts so finely
feathered with truth, that it is the admiration of mankind. Vitriol mixed
with ink is volatile. Then what? We just run Swift through a coarse sieve
to take out the lumps of Seventeenth Century refuse, and then we give him
to children to make them laugh. Surely no better use can be made of
pessimists. Verily, the author of Gulliver wrote for one purpose, and we
use his work for another. He wished for office, he got contempt; he tried
to subdue his enemies, they subdued him; he worked for the present, and
he won immortality.

Said Heinrich Heine, prone on his bed in Paris: "The wittiest sarcasms of
mortals are only an attempt at jesting when compared with those of the
great Author of the Universe--the Aristophanes of Heaven!"

Wise men over and over have wasted good ink and paper in bewailing
Swift's malice and coarseness. But without these very elements which the
wise men bemoan, Swift would be for us a cipher. Yet love is life and
hate is death, so how can spite benefit? The answer is that, in certain
forms of germination, frost is as necessary as sunshine: so some men have
qualities that lie dormant until the coldness of hate bursts the coarse
husk of indifference.

But while hate may animate, only love inspires. Swift might have stood at
the head of the Church of England; but even so, he would be only a unit
in a long list of names, and as it is, there is only one Swift. Mr.
Talmage averred that not ten men in America knew the name of the
Archbishop of Canterbury until his son wrote a certain book entitled
"Dodo." In putting out this volume, young Benson not only gave us the
strongest possible argument favoring the celibacy of the clergy, but at
the same time, if Talmage's statement is correct, he made known his
father's name.

In all Swift's work, save "The Journal to Stella," the animating motive
seems to have been to confound his enemies; and according to the
well-known line in that hymn sung wherever the Union Jack flies, we must
believe this to be a perfectly justifiable ambition. But occasionally on
his pages we find gentle words of wisdom that were meant evidently for
love's eyes alone. There is much that is pure boyish frolic, and again
and again there are clever strokes directed at folly. He has shot certain
superstitions through with doubt, and in his manner of dealing with error
he has proved to us a thing it were well not to forget: that pleasantry
is more efficacious than vehemence.

Let me name one incident by way of proof--the well-known one of
Partridge, the almanac-maker. This worthy cobbler was an astrologer of
no mean repute. He foretold events with much discretion. The ignorant
bought his almanacs, and many believed in them as a Bible--in fact,
astrology was enjoying a "boom."

Swift came to London and found that Partridge's predictions were the
theme at the coffeehouses. He saw men argue and wax wroth, grow red in
the face as they talked loud and long about nothing--just nothing. The
whole thing struck Swift as being very funny; and he wrote an
announcement of his intention to publish a rival almanac. He explained
that he, too, was an astrologer, but an honest one, while Partridge was
an impostor and a cheat; in fact, Partridge foretold only things which
every one knew would come true. As for himself, he could discern the
future with absolute certainty, and to prove to the world his power he
would now make a prophecy. In substance, it was as follows: "My first
prediction is but a trifle; it relates to Partridge, the almanac-maker. I
have consulted the star of his nativity, and find that he will die on the
Twenty-ninth day of March, next." This was signed, "Isaac Bickerstaff,"
and duly issued in pamphlet form. It had such an air of sincerity that
both the believers and the scoffers read it with interest.

The Thirtieth of March came, and another pamphlet from "Isaac
Bickerstaff" appeared, announcing the fulfilment of the prophecy. It
related how toward the end of March Partridge began to languish; how he
grew ill and at last took to his bed, and, his conscience then smiting
him, he confessed to the world that he was a fraud and a rogue, that all
his prophecies were impositions; he then passed away.

Partridge was wild with rage, and immediately replied in a manifesto
declaring that he was alive and well, and moreover was alive on March
Twenty-ninth.

To this "Bickerstaff" replied in a pamphlet more seriously humorous than
ever, reaffirming that Partridge was dead, and closing with the statement
that, "If an uninformed carcass still walks about calling itself
Partridge, I do not in any way consider myself responsible for that."

The joke set all London on a grin. Wherever Partridge went he was met
with smiles and jeers, and astrology became only a jest to a vast number
of people who had formerly believed in it seriously.

When Benjamin Franklin started his "Poor Richard's Almanac," twenty-five
years later, in the first issue he prophesied the death of one Dart who
set the pace at that time as almanac-maker in America. The man was to
expire on the afternoon of October Seventeenth, Seventeen Hundred
Thirty-eight, at three twenty-nine o'clock.

Dart, being somewhat of a joker himself, came out with an announcement
that he, too, had consulted the oracle, and found he would live until
October Twenty-sixth, and possibly longer.

On October Eighteenth, Franklin announced Dart's death, and explained
that it occurred promptly on time, all as prophesied.

Yet Dart lived to publish many almanacs; but Poor Richard got his
advertisement, and many staid, broad-brimmed Philadelphians smiled who
had never smiled before--not only smiled but subscribed.

Benjamin Franklin was a great and good man, as any man must be who
fathers another's jokes, introducing these orphaned children to the world
as his own.

Perhaps no one who has written of Swift knew him so well as Delany. And
this writer, who seems to have possessed a judicial quality far beyond
most men, has told us that Swift was moral in conduct to the point of
asceticism. His deportment was grave and dignified, and his duties as a
priest were always performed with exemplary diligence. He visited the
sick, regularly administered the sacraments, and was never known to
absent himself from morning prayers.

When Harley was Lord Treasurer, Swift seems to have been on the topmost
crest of the wave of popularity. Invitations from nobility flowed in upon
him, beautiful women deigned to go in search of his society, royalty
recognized him. And yet all this time he was only a country priest with a
liking for literature.

Collins tells us that the reason for his popularity is plain: "Swift was
one of the kings of the earth. Like Pope Innocent the Third, like
Chatham, he was one to whom the world involuntarily pays tribute."

His will was a will of adamant; his intellect so keen that it impressed
every one who approached him; his temper singularly stern, dauntless and
haughty. But his wit was never filled with gaiety: he was never known to
laugh. Amid the wildest uproar that his sallies caused, he would sit with
face austere--unmoved.

Personally, Swift was a gentleman. When he was scurrilous, abusive,
ribald, malicious, it was anonymously. Is this to his credit? I should
not say so, but if a man is indecent and he hides behind a "nom de
plume," it is at least presumptive proof that he is not dead to shame.

Leslie Stephen tells us that Swift was a Churchman to the backbone. No
man who is a "Churchman to the backbone" is ever very pious: the spirit
maketh alive, but the letter killeth. One looks in vain for traces of
spirituality in the Dean. His sermons are models of churchly commonplace
and full of the stock phrases of a formal religion. He never bursts into
flame. Yet he most thoroughly and sincerely believed in religion. "I
believe in religion, it keeps the masses in check. And then I uphold
Christianity because if it is abolished the stability of the Church might
be endangered," he said.

Philip asked the eunuch a needless question when he inquired,
"Understandest thou what thou readest?" No one so poorly sexed as Swift
can comprehend spiritual truth: spirituality and sexuality are elements
that are never separated. Swift was as incapable of spirituality as he
was of the "grand passion."

The Dean had affection; he was a warm friend; he was capable even of a
degree of love, but his sexual and spiritual nature was so cold and
calculating that he did not hesitate to sacrifice love to churchly
ambition.

He argued that the celibacy of the Catholic clergy is a wise expediency.
The bachelor physician and the unmarried priest have an influence among
gentle womankind, young or old, married or single, that a benedict can
never hope for. Why this is so might be difficult to explain, but
discerning men know the fact. In truth, when a priest marries he should
at once take a new charge, for if he remains with his old flock a goodly
number of his "lady parishioners," in ages varying from seventeen to
seventy, will with fierce indignation rend his reputation.

Swift was as wise as a serpent, but not always as harmless as a dove. He
was making every effort to secure his miter and crosier: he had many
women friends in London and elsewhere who had influence. Rather than run
the risk of losing this influence he never acknowledged Stella as his
wife. Choosing fame rather than love, he withered at the heart, then died
at the top.

The life of every man is a seamless garment--its woof his thoughts, its
warp his deeds. When for him the roaring loom of time stops and the
thread is broken, foolish people sometimes point to certain spots in the
robe and say, "Oh, why did he not leave that out!" not knowing that
every action of man is a sequence from off Fate's spindle.

Let us accept the work of genius as we find it; not bemoaning because it
is not better, but giving thanks because it is so good.

* * * * *

Well-fed, rollicking priest is Father O'Toole of Dublin,
with a big, round face, a double chin, and a brogue that you can cut with
a knife.

My letter of introduction from Monseigneur Satolli caused him at once to
bring in a large, suspicious, black bottle and two glasses. Then we
talked--talked of Ireland's wrongs and woman's rights, and of all the
Irishmen in America whom I was supposed to know. We spoke of the
illustrious Irishmen who had passed on, and I mentioned a name that
caused the holy father to spring from his chair in indignation.

"Shwift is it! Shwift! No, me lad, don't go near him! He was the divil's
own, the very worsht that ever followed the swish of a petticoat. No, no;
if ye go to his grave it'll bring ye bad luck for a year. It's Tom Moore
ye want--Tom was the bye. Arrah! now, and it's meself phat'll go wid ye."

And so the reverend father put on a long, black coat and his Saint
Patrick's Day hat, and we started. We were met at the gate by a
delegation of "shpalpeens" that had located me on the inside of the house
and were lying in wait.

All American travelers in Ireland are supposed to be millionaires, and
this may possibly explain the lavish attention that is often tendered
them. At any rate, various members of the delegation wished "long life to
the iligant 'merican gintleman," and hinted in terms unmistakable that
pence would be acceptable. The holy father applied his cane vigorously to
the ragged rears of the more presumptuous, and bade them begone, but
still they followed and pressed close about.

"Here, I'll show you how to get rid of the dirty gang," said his
holiness. "Have ye a penny, I don't know?"

I produced a handful of small change, which the father immediately took
and tossed into the street. Instantly there was a heterogeneous mass of
young Hibernians piled up in the dirt in a grand struggle for spoils. It
reminded me of football incidents I had seen at fair Harvard. In the
meantime, we escaped down a convenient alley and crossed the River Liffey
to Old Dublin; inside the walls of the old city, through crooked lanes
and winding streets that here and there showed signs of departed
gentility, where now was only squalor, want and vice, until we came to
Number Twelve Angier Street, a quaint, three-story brick building now
used as a "public." In the wall above the door is a marble slab with this
inscription: "Here was born Thomas Moore, on the Twenty-eighth day of
May, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-eight." Above this in a niche is a bust of
the poet.

Tom's father was a worthy greengrocer who, according to the author of
"Lalla Rookh," always gave good measure and full count. It was ever a
cause of regret to the elder Moore that his son did not show sufficient
capacity to be trusted safely with the business.

The upper rooms of the house were shown to us by an obliging landlady.
Father O'Toole had been here before, and led the way to a snug little
chamber and explained that in this room the future poet of Ireland was
found under one of his father's cabbage-leaves.

We descended to the neat little barroom with its sanded floor and
polished glassware and shining brass. The holy father ordered
'arf-and-'arf at my expense and recited one of Moore's ballads. The
landlady then gave us Byron's "Here's a Health to Thee, Tom Moore." A
neighbor came in. Then we had more ballads, more 'arf-and-'arf, a
selection from "Lalla Rookh," and various tales of the poet's early life,
which possibly would be hard to verify.

And as the tumult raged, the smoke of battle gave me opportunity to slip
away. I crossed the street, turned down one block, and entered Saint
Patrick's Cathedral.

Great, roomy, gloomy, solemn temple, where the rumble of city traffic is
deadened to a faint hum:

"Without, the world's unceasing noises rise,
Turmoil, disquietude and busy fears;
Within, there are the sounds of other years,
Thoughts full of prayer and solemn harmonies
Which imitate on earth the peaceful skies."

Other worshipers were there. Standing beside a great stone pillar I could
make them out kneeling on the tiled floor. Gradually, my eyes became
accustomed to the subdued light, and right at my feet I saw a large
brass plate set in the floor and on it only this:

Swift
Died Oct. 19, 1745
Aged 78

On the wall near is a bronze tablet, the inscription of which, in Latin,
was dictated by Swift himself:

"Here lies the body of Jonathan Swift, Dean of this Cathedral, where
fierce indignation can no longer rend his heart. Go! wayfarer, and
imitate, if thou canst, one who, as far as in him lay, was an earnest
champion of liberty----"

Above this is a fine bust of the Dean, and to the right is another
tablet:

"Underneath lie interred the mortal remains of Mrs. Hester Johnson,
better known to the world as 'Stella,' under which she is celebrated in
the writings of Doctor Jonathan Swift, Dean of this Cathedral. She was a
person of extraordinary endowments and accomplishments, in body, mind and
behavior; justly admired and respected by all who knew her, on account of
her eminent virtues as well as for her great natural and acquired
perfections."

These were suffering souls and great. Would they have been so great had
they not suffered? Who can tell? Were the waters troubled in order that
they might heal the people?

Did Swift misuse this excellent woman, is a question that has been asked
and answered again and again.

A great author has written:

"A woman, a tender, noble, excellent woman, has a dog's heart. She licks
the hand that strikes her. And wrong nor cruelty nor injustice nor
disloyalty can cause her to turn."

Death in pity took Stella first; took her in the loyalty of love and the
fulness of faith from a world which for love has little recompense, and
for faith small fulfilment.

Stella was buried by torchlight, at midnight, on the Thirtieth day of
January, Seventeen Hundred Twenty-eight. Swift was sick at the time, and
wrote in his journal: "This is the night of her funeral, and I am removed
to another apartment that I may not see the light in the church which is
just over against my window." But in his imagination he saw the gleaming
torches as their dull light shone through the colored windows, and he
said, "They will soon do as much for me."

But seventeen years came crawling by before the torches flared, smoked
and gleamed as the mourners chanted a requiem, and the clods fell on the
coffin, and their echoes intermingled with the solemn voice of the priest
as he said, "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes."

In Eighteen Hundred Thirty-five, the graves were opened and casts taken
of the skulls. The top of Swift's skull had been sawed off at the
autopsy, and a bottle in which was a parchment setting forth the facts
was inserted in the head that had conceived "Gulliver's Travels."

I examined the casts. The woman's head is square and shapely. Swift's
head is a refutation of phrenology, being small, sloping and ordinary.

The bones of Swift and Stella were placed in one coffin, and now rest
under three feet of concrete, beneath the floor of Saint Patrick's.

So sleep the lovers joined in death.




WALT WHITMAN


All seems beautiful to me.
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done
such good to me I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go.
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them.
--_Song of the Open Road_

[Illustration: WALT WHITMAN]


Max Nordau wrote a book--wrote it with his tongue in his
cheek, a dash of vitriol in the ink, and with a pen that scratched.

And the first critic who seemed to place a just estimate on the work was
Mr. Zangwill (he who has no Christian name). Mr. Zangwill made an attempt
to swear out a "writ de lunatico inquirendo" against his Jewish brother,
on the ground that the first symptom of insanity is often the delusion
that others are insane; and this being so, Doctor Nordau was not a safe
subject to be at large. But the Assize of Public Opinion denied the
petition, and the dear people bought the book at from three to five
dollars a copy. Printed in several languages, its sales have mounted to a
hundred thousand volumes, and the author's net profit is full forty
thousand dollars. No wonder is it that, with pockets full to bursting,
Doctor Nordau goes out behind the house and laughs uproariously whenever
he thinks of how he has worked the world!

If Doctor Talmage is the Barnum of Theology, surely we may call Doctor
Nordau the Barnum of Science. His agility in manipulating facts is equal
to Hermann's now-you-see-it and now-you-don't, with pocket-handkerchiefs.
Yet Hermann's exhibition is worth the admittance fee, and Nordau's book
(seemingly written in collaboration with Jules Verne and Mark Twain)
would be cheap for a dollar. But what I object to is Professor Hermann's
disciples posing as Sure-Enough Materializing Mediums, and Professor
Lombroso's followers calling themselves Scientists, when each goes forth
without scrip or purse with no other purpose than to supply themselves
with both.

Yet it was Barnum himself who said that the public delights in being
humbugged, and strange it is that we will not allow ourselves to be
thimblerigged without paying for the privilege.

Nordau's success hinged on his audacious assumption that the public knew
nothing of the Law of Antithesis. Yet Plato explained that the opposites
of things look alike, and sometimes are alike--and that was quite a while
ago.

The multitude answered, "Thou hast a devil." Many of them said, "He hath
a devil and is mad." Festus said with a loud voice, "Paul, thou art
beside thyself." And Nordau shouts in a voice more heady than that of
Pilate, more throaty than that of Festus, "Mad--Whitman was--mad beyond
the cavil of a doubt!"

In Eighteen Hundred Sixty-two, Lincoln, looking out of a window (before
lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed) on one of the streets of Washington,
saw a workingman in shirt-sleeves go by. Turning to a friend, the
President said, "There goes a MAN!" The exclamation sounds singularly
like that of Napoleon on meeting Goethe. But the Corsican's remark was
intended for the poet's ear, while Lincoln did not know who his man was,
although he came to know him afterward.

Lincoln in his early days was a workingman and an athlete, and he never
quite got the idea out of his head (