Beside the King rode the King's Favorite, a very goodly man, one who was closest of all to the King's ear and heart. Plainly enough could the Fool see, even though he was only dreamily a-looking, a bright golden figure seated upon the saddle with the King's Favorite. This, as all men know, was Preferment, and a sudden wistful longing seized upon the Fool's heart, that he had never known the like of since the time he had cried for the moon. His jaw dropped, and his eyes grew misty. In a little while the troop was by, gone around the hill, but the Fool could not forget them, and many new desires tugged at his heart.

"Why," he wondered, "doth not Preferment live with me? Am I not as fit a man as the King's Favorite?" And he stretched out his long legs and looked at them.

As long as the Fool was occupied with dreaming and laying the sods on his house, or hunting for the dun deer of a moonlit night, he was company enough for himself, turning his fancies over and over in his mind, as the wind bundles the clouds about the sky; then when he had arranged his conceptions to his taste, he was free to admire them undisturbed, until a new fancy happened along to displace them; just as the wind leaves off driving the clouds at sunset, and in the west there is a sweet tableau for men to look at, till night blots out the scene. So the Fool was usually well content to be alone. But when, as now, he was perplexed by any problem that disturbed his simple cheerfulness, he had to seek some other and wiser man for counsel, not being one of those men, more mind than heart, who unravel problems with as much accuracy and equanimity as a skilful weaver plies his loom.

So that evening, with the moon sending his shadow out ahead of him, the Fool walked overfield to the cave of the Wise Man. Timidly approaching, he peered through the entrance and found the Wise Man sitting still and alone, gazing into the ashes of a flickering fire.

"Please," said the Fool anxiously, "why does Preferment ride with the King's Favorite and never with me?"

The other did not stir for a long while, but after the Fool had shifted several times from one foot to the other, beginning to despair of an answer, the Wise Man spoke.

"Because," he said slowly, still looking into the fire, "thou hast never desired him to." And, having spoken, he kept silent, and after a little the Fool turned away.

"I never desired him to?" he muttered over and over to himself. "What does that mean?" And he stood stock still and looked about for explanation; but none was vouchsafed by the moon, or the bushes, or night itself, the customary adviser of the Fool's doubts and queries.

"How is this?" he said again. "Did the King's Favorite, then, desire him? And will Preferment come if he be wanted? And how does one ask him?"

All this was inexplicable to the Fool and he took courage to return to the cave.

"Tell me," he asked of the Wise Man, "did the King's Favorite want Preferment more than I? And how does Preferment come if he is wanted?"

The Wise Man nodded gently to himself. "Aye," he muttered, "so it is, so it is." The Fool gazed in amazement at this, but because he thought all Wise Men are somewhat mad, he waited and did not run away, as his heels advised.

"Listen," the Wise Man began again, "this man has so wanted Preferment all his life that he has given up everything that is dear to him. He has crushed underfoot every dream and vision save this alone, to be seen in the company of Preferment." The Wise Man turned and looked about at the Fool. "He has no sod house,—no days afield and by the brook. He never heard the night-song of the wind or the winter-rune of the pine. Nothing of all these things that you love has he had."

The Fool's eyes were round with amazement. "No sod house?" But the other was sunk into a reverie and gave no answer. The Fool stood first on one foot, then on the other, then with his old smile he turned and skipped away. As he returned through the night, walking, hopping, or running, as the need came to him, he crooned to himself a song he had once made up.

"My lips are a-tremble with a grave little song. I care not if the wide world hear.' Its words happened forth as I dreamed and trudged along. I care not if the wide world hear.

"It has not worth nor weight, it is neither sweet nor strong. I care not if the wide world hear. For I sing it to myself when the great doubts throng And I care not if the wide world hear."

That was all, but he hummed it with great content, beating time with one hand; and as for the King's Favorite, for all that Preferment rideth on the pommel of his saddle, I doubt not he never sang such a song to himself, or took such pleasure in the singing.

Literary Monthly, 1907.



THE IMMIGRANTS

HORACE HOLLEY ex-'10

Upon mine ear a deep, unbroken roar Thunders and rolls, as when the moving sea, Too long asleep, pours on th' resisting shore Full half his cohorts, tramping audibly.

Yet here's no rushing of exasperate wind, Booming revolt amidst a factious tide; Nor hateful shock on toothed reef and blind, Of foaming waves that with a sob subside.

No! but more fateful than the restless deep, Whose crested hosts rise high but fall again, I hear, in solemn and portentous sweep, The slow, deliberate marshalling of men.

No monarch moves them, pawns to gain a goal; They felt a fever rising in the soul.

Literary Monthly, 1909.



PROPHECY

HORACE HOLLEY ex-'10

All verse, all music; artistry Of cunning hand and feeling heart, All loveliness, whate'er it be, Is but the hint and broken part

Of that vast beauty and delight Which man shall know when he is free; When in his soul the alien night Folds up like darkness from the sea.

For e'en in song man still reveals His ancient fear, a mournful knell; Like one who dreams of home, but feels The bonds of an old prison cell.

Literary Monthly, 1909.



ASHES OF DREAMS

PHILO CLARKE CALHOUN '10

Jane always called him the professor, a name which that individual accepted without comment, as he did everything else. In fact, since he had been possessed of titular rights, but two people had ignored them—his mother and Mary. His mother had been dead—oh, a very long time, and it was nineteen years and some months since Mary had followed her. When Mary had died people said that Jane was coming to live with the professor; Jane came, and now people said quite unthinkingly that the professor lived with his sister. Jane was high-minded, also strong-minded; her hair was very thin and very straight, a fact for which she was sternly and devoutly thankful. Jane was stern and devout in everything—even in cooking preserves. To the professor, Jane had been surrounded by a sort of halo of preserves, ever since he had recovered from his awe of her unapproachable angularity as to allude to her before admiring play-mates as the "old maid."

When the professor had married, Jane had strongly disapproved—Mary's cheeks were much too pink, her hands much too soft, and her ways of life led her into the flowery meadows of the world and the flesh, if not the devil. The professor had been infatuated, and the year or so of married life seemed only to augment such infatuation, and incidentally Jane's ire. Well, the golden year was over, and the little butterfly had gone to its rest, fretfully, fearfully. And then Jane wrote; wrote that the professor needed somebody to superintend him, to see that he did not take cold, and to cook his preserves; so she was coming. The professor did not wish to be superintended, he wanted to take cold in comfort without being asked how he took it, and he abominated preserves; to all of which Jane was supremely indifferent. Jane came; the professor wore overshoes and ate preserves—meekly.

So the professor lived with his sister. At first the direful system which ruled everything from the time of the cat's entrance to the date when the furnace fire should be started, chafed on him. His declarations of independence were received pityingly, as the prattles of a tired child. Gradually he resigned himself, and the germs of discontent followed the wake of the other germs which Jane had promptly and forcefully annihilated.

So the years went on; in time the professor grew tired of ranting and mild objections gave way to sighs of resignation. There had been bones to pick in plenty. The professor had a sneaking fondness for dirt—not mud, but historic dust, so to speak; Jane decreed all foreign matter as damned eternally. The professor liked fiction; he had once in the first years of Jane's rule started a novel, which having been inadvertently left in the living-room, was consigned to the flames; Jane had intimated, moreover, that the authors of such monstrosities would probably end in the embrace of the same element. Whereupon the professor's wrath was great; but his house was built on the sand; so was his novel; and five years afterwards he knew it.

Although Jane's fanatical cleanliness had been far-reaching, the professor's study was nearly immune. In the first place the door was usually locked and the key discreetly lost; and in the next place the professor had mildly but very obstinately insisted, through all the twenty years, that his desk, which is the sanctum sanctorum of the man with a past, remain untouched. Jane sniffed copiously over this stipulation, and, as she liked to do a thing thoroughly or not at all, the study remained as a whole comfortably mussy. Sometimes, however, Jane had twinges of conscience, resulting in the disappearance of all old, unbound, and destructible matter which presented itself. So the professor painstakingly replaced equally old and disreputable matter around the study when the whirlwind had passed, and waited till the dust settled.

Of late the professor had been ill with a chronic rheumatism. He grumbled a good deal about the "positively senile" character of his affliction and finally agreed to take to his bed for a few days in the hope of luring nature to a hasty cure. The professor was rather helpless when he was ill; Jane was painfully and triumphantly energetic. One memorable day, when the invalid had fallen into a restless sleep, he was awakened by the vigorous ministrations of Jane, who was creaking around the room in an ostentatious effort, to be quiet. The professor looked and wondered what she would do if he were to yell. Seeing he was awake, she stepped over briskly and began to arrange his bedclothes and pillows. Her hand touched his sore leg. He winced and groaned inwardly.

"I am going to sit here and read to you," she announced with the stern cheerfulness which gave the recipient of her benefits a fitting sense of the self-sacrifice which prompted them. Jane usually read tracts, and the professor did not feel religious; in fact he was conscious of an emotion of most unchristian belligerence.

"Aren't you neglecting your house-work to attend to me?" remarked the victim with clumsy and obvious intent.

"My house is always in order, professor," answered the supremely ignorant one tartly.

"How fortunate; my study, too,—I suppose that is in order?" The professor felt most out of place as an inquisitor but he was desperate.

Jane looked at him, with as near a quizzical expression as her very unquizzical nature would permit.

"You know I'd do it if you weren't so stubborn about using a wastebasket instead of that desk," she said.

"Better clean it out, Jane—clean it all out—anything, anything,—" but she was gone. He took the tract which she had left on his table and carefully tore it in four pieces, and hid them under the mattress. Then he went to sleep. The professor was in distinctly a rebellious mood.

In the natural course of time, which, when one has numerous queer pains in most unexpected places, is short,—the professor awoke and lay on his back watching a fly walking around the edge of a rosebud. Pretty soon the fly flew away—then the professor thought of something else—something he had not thought of for some years. Strange how inactivity of the body affects one. The professor raised himself in bed with some effort and drew on his dressing gown and slippers. Then he hobbled across the room, out of the door, and down the hallway towards his study.

At the turn of the narrow corridor the odor of long-hidden dust met him,—and he hobbled faster. His lips were set in a manner that was strange to him, and a fear was in his heart—a fear of the cleanliness which may be akin to godliness, but to which a pressed flower is as the dust upon the walls. At the door he hesitated, bewildered. On his desk was heaped a pile of papers, in which letters, lecture notes, old pamphlets, were scattered in contemptuous disorder. Jane had just dropped an armful into the fire which blazed with that comfortless instability common to paper fires in the daytime. She had gathered another armful and was advancing toward the hearth, when she saw the apparition in the door-way and stopped. The professor was paler than usual, and his hands shook a little.

"Do you know what you're doing, Jane?" he asked, quietly enough.

"Yes," she answered defiantly, "I do. You've had 'em hanging around long enough."

"You know whose letters they are?"

"Yes," she said. "Why, what—"

The professor, forgetting his rheumatism, had advanced in two strides, and with one blow knocked the papers from her arms, so that they lay scattered on the floor.

There are wrongs committed against the sacredness of sentiment which cannot be put in words. The professor checked the torrent which rose to his lips: Jane would never understand. The only thing which she did comprehend was a strength in her brother of which she had never dreamed—not the strength of the worm which turns, but of the man who had endured because he wished to, and whose endurance was at an end.

"You never had a heart, did you, Jane?" he said finally. "The past is not sacred to you, and the present—-well, the present does not count for much when one has no dreams—or visions.... I think, Jane, you had better go."

"Where?" she questioned vaguely. There was no asperity in her voice now, only puzzled helplessness. It was the inevitable surrender of the commonplace in the light of a greater understanding—in the realization of an unknown law to the significance of which some never attain. She had come inadvertently to a marriage feast for which she had no wedding garment; and she was naked and ashamed.

"Anywhere—anywhere; only go," said the professor. His thoughts were far away now.

"I shall not come back, professor—perhaps it is better," she said.

There was a new tone in her voice, and the professor turned sharply. Jane hesitated. Then he caught sight of a photograph lying among the letters on the floor.

"That, too," he murmured. He stood and looked at it; Jane passed out of the room.

Slowly and painfully the professor stooped down and gathered up his wife's letters and his wife's photograph. He sat down in the big plush chair by the fireside and thought for a long time. He was thinking of an old quotation from some Sanskrit poem—"Every yesterday a dream of happiness, every to-morrow a vision of hope—" That was all he could remember, but his mind said it over and over. Well, his yesterdays—the yesterdays of long ago—were dreams of happiness—he had no visions; to-morrow offered him nothing. After a while he took Mary's picture and looked at it. His dreams slowly settled to earth—and he began to adjust his perspective. It was a long, long time since he had even remembered—since the dream had been more than a vague light shining through the mist. Now he wondered, as he stared at the pictured eyes, so laughingly helpless, at the chin, so characterless, at the pretty mouth from which no word worth listening to had ever proceeded—wondered whether the light was other than a reflection from Youth's glamour. Then he took up the letters and read them one by one. He wondered why they seemed so shallow—why he had never noticed their irresponsible dancing from light to shade, from light affection to unreasonable and trifling fretfulness. The last letter he held in his hand for some time after he had read it. It was written from a summer resort. "You had better not come down," it read, "you would just spoil the delightful little time I am having with Mr. Sanders—so stay at home with your books like the dear old bore you are. Please send me ..." He remembered how it had hurt. He remembered shortly afterwards how she had been taken ill, and how she had chafed and feared, and how the dark had taken her while she cried in terror. He remembered—so much. He wished that he had not tried to remember.

It began to grow dark. The professor lifted the bundle of letters and the photograph, and placed them in the fire-place as carefully as if they had been burnt-offerings. Well, they were—to a dead Romance. The charred paper crumbled where he had laid the letters—a few black pieces floated drunkenly up the chimney. The fire had gone out long before. The professor fumbled in his pocket for a match. When he had found it he struck it on the brick hearth, but his hand trembled so that it burnt his fingers and he dropped it. He lit another, carefully, deliberately, and held it to the pile of papers. They caught, the edges blackened and curled; finally the whole mass blazed viciously. The photograph had fallen to one side and remained unburnt. He stooped over and placed it on top of the blazing papers; then it, too, burned.

A light flared from the gas jet, and the professor looked up. Jane stood there in her black travelling dress. Her eyes were red with tears.

"Good-bye, professor," she said. "I thought you wouldn't mind if ..." She hesitated. The professor thought she looked rather pitiful and thin and tired.

"No, Jane," he answered quietly. "You are not to go. I don't suppose you will understand, but my dreams have all gone—and the vision has come. And I need you, Jane."

"Then you forgive me?" she said tremulously. "I did not know ..."

"There is nothing to forgive, Jane. I did not know, either."

Jane broke down and the professor rose and put his arms around her, awkwardly, and kissed her. He had not kissed her in years. They sat down together before the hearth and gazed into the blackened ashes. He held her hand in his. Finally she spoke. She almost understood—

"Shall we have apple dumplings for supper, professor? The kind you used to like?" She was smiling now.

"No, Jane," he said gravely, "we'll have peach preserves."

Literary Monthly, 1909.



THE GOOD GREY POET

SONNET

EDWIN PARTRIDGE LEHMAN '10

All men must feel the beauty of a star That rides in the illimitable space Of heav'n; the beauty of an Helen's face; Or of a woodland water, glimpsed afar, Where haze-empurpled meadows, undefined And slumbrous, intervene; of quiet, cool, Sequester'd glades, where in the level pool The long green rushes dip before the wind.

These all men feel. But three times blessed he Whose eye and ear, of finer fibre spun, Sense the elusive thread of beauty, where The common man hath deemed that none can be. The beauty of the commonplace is one In substance with the beauty of the rare.

Literary Monthly, 1910.



A MINOR POET TO HIMSELF

SONNET

EDWIN PARTRIDGE LEHMAN '10

We lesser poets clothe in garb ornate, In words of dizzy fire, in awkward phrase, In humble thunderings, that only daze, Though meant to rouse in flames of love or hate, The thoughts that those brave souls of stuff divine, Whose words breathe inspiration, have long since In jewelled lines set forth. Where we bear hints Of grape, they bear the ruddy full-pressed wine.

And yet the fire that thrills us is no less, Nor coarser, than the fire that they, the great, Have felt. Our pens are feebler; but the play Of deep emotions, the fine stir and stress That mark the soul's rare movements, are, in state, Equal to those of lines that make men pray.

Literary Monthly, 1909.



HEARTS AND TARTS

AN OLD TALE RETOLD

DURR FRIEDLEY ex-'10

There was shouting and hand-clapping from all the gay company, and a shower of gay words for me when I had done with my singing; and my lord, greatly pleased, and prophesying that some day when I should be riper in years I might win the crown of peacock's feathers from the hands of the Princess Eleanor herself, bade me come on the morrow dawn to sing an alba under the casement of the bridal chamber. The bride, too, this new wife that had taken my own lady's place by my lord's side, she, come but yesterday from her thick-witted Bohemia, and whom, never loving, I might always truly pity, spoke me fair and besought me to make verses thenceforth in praise of none save her. I answered as best I might, but I fear me my speech came but falteringly, what with my heart beating against my ribs like the armor-smith's hammer, and the thought uppermost in my mind of the dark business yet to come that night, before the shame and wrong of it all might be righted—a black business that none but I in all that company wotted of.

So presently, when all the people made a noisy procession to see the bridegroom and the bride to their high chamber, I did not go among them, but stole apart in the shadow and tarried there until the serving-folk had ceased their scurrying about and the house had grown quiet in its besotted sleep. Then I crept back to a dark corner by the great hearth where the stone was warm to the touch and whence I might see if any passed along the hall. I was all alone there with the drained goblets, the withering garlands, and the gutted torches, not a soul abroad, and not a sound save the breathing of the dormant stag-hounds by the hearth, or the faint disputes of the rats over the pasty fragments on the table.

Sitting thus, I would go hot of a flash and then cold just as sudden. Fear? No, by Our Lady, but this was the first time I had ever had a finger in such a pie as this now baking, and the strangeness of it made me tremble. But fear, pah! Besides I was in the right, and does that not make the just hand steady and the pious eye true? I took up my lute and touching the strings so gently that I myself could scarce hear, I sang, soft as summer wind at even, so softly that none, not even the great hounds heard.

Sang I:

The vision tender Which thy love giveth me, Still bids me render My vows in song to thee; Gracious and slender, Thine image I can see, Wherever I wend, or What eyes do look on me.

Yea, in the frowning face Of uttermost disgrace Proud would I take my place Before thy feet, Lady whose aspect sweet Doth my poor soul efface Leaving but joy and grace In me to meet.

Who shall deny me The memory of thine eyes? Evermore by me Thy lithe white form doth rise, If God were nigh me Still, in so sure a wise Quick might I hie me Into His paradise.

Thus I sang to the memory of my true lady, for it was the last song our brave Renaud had made for her before he rode away to Terre Sainte. So when the song was finished I sat a long time still, taking counsel with my sad heart over the black past: how, four May-times ago, I had ridden blithely forth as singing page in my lady's train, when she left her own fair land of Aragon to be wedded to this grim Count Fael of the North; how from that time forth I had dwelt here in his castle, vassal to him only because he was lord to my liege lady, but fearing alway his stern face, that froze the laugh on the lips and made joyousness die, stillborn; how my sole happiness had been to serve my lady and sing her such songs as I made, and my grief to see her fair face fade and her grey eyes grow less laughing day by day. Then one morning had come this brave Renaud, Chatelain of far-off Coucy, seeming to bring in his eyes, his voice, his lute, all the merry Spring times we had missed. So he came often and often, teaching me the great art of song he knew so well; and we were all very happy. But bye-and-bye he came only when my lord was out a-hawking or to tourney, and then very quietly, but always with his lute and with song to my lady. I guessed well which way the wind was blowing, but surely the pitiful Virgin granted my lady, and justly, this one little hour of happiness. So it went on and on for a long time and it seemed that my lord was always away to hunt or to battle, and that when he came back the songs of Renaud of Coucy never ceased, but only changed their place, coming now by night under my lady's casement.

Then there was spread abroad through the land this great fire in all hearts to go to Terre Sainte and to deliver the holy Jerusalem of Our Lord from the curse of the Saracen hand, and our poor Renaud must feel himself among the first to go. So one sad morning at early dawn he had come under my lady's window and sung her that farewell which so filled my heart, and I had heard from my post in my lady's antechamber. But oh, Mother of God! so had my lord, who, being at home and sleepless, had risen betimes and was walking in the cool of the morning on a little pleasaunce next my lady's tower, and hearing the song, had looked unseen at the singer, had guessed the bitter truth, but had held his peace till a riper time.

From then we went on much as before Renaud had come to us, except that I sang his songs to my lady with all the art he had taught me, while she sat pale and fair, her hands idle on the tambour frame and her eyes looking on something far, far off. So for a long time there was no ill-hap, only my lady's eyes grew dreamier and dreamier and her thoughts dwelt less and less in this dark Castle of Fael, and she cared no longer to go a-maying in the pleasant meadows with her women. Then, one twilight, when my lord had been back from the hunt three days, and when there had been deep wassailing in the hall, and my lady had kept to her chamber the whole time—one twilight I stumbled over a dead man at the foot of the little-used stair to my lady's tower and, dragging the body to the light, found it to be Jaufr that had been aforetime esquire to Renaud. But why he should be lying here scarce an hour dead, here in fair France in this Castle of Fael under my lady's tower, when he might have been serving his master in all the blithe fighting in Terre Sainte,—I could not guess. But I raised not hue nor cry for, certes, there was some black mystery here; only wept silently and prayed mercy on his soul that had been so brave and so merry a fellow. After a while, when my eyes were less red, I went and mingled among the folk in the hall, where there was talk of how my lord had passed through to his chamber an hour ago, very pale and with the wine-fumes all cleared away, it would seem, and had let call the cook, who came back with something under his apron and looking as if he had seen a spirit, but dumb as a stone. Also, said they, my lord had commanded that he and my lady would sup alone in her great chamber, and that I only should serve them.

So presently I went up and served my lord and my lady where they sat at a little table alight with many tapers, like the shrine in the great church at Soissons, with the goblets and the silver dishes making a brave show among them. There was a strange air over it all, like the breathless moment in a tourney when the tucket has blown and the knights pause before giving spur. My lady, when she spoke at all, spoke in a voice as of some one stifling, but my lord said never a word and ate and drank but little, his eyes always on my lady's face. Bye-and-bye up came two little meat pasties, borne by the fat cook himself, who charged me with a certain one for my lady and another for my lord. I thought nothing whatever on this, for often there was special pasty made for my lady without hare's meat, which she disliked. So I served the pasties, and I remember the faint sweetness of her garments, like wind from apple-blossoms, and how yellow was her hair and how clear her face in the light of the many tapers. That course, too, they ate in silence, but before I could take away the dishes, my lord broke the stillness.

"Lady," quoth he, "is the flavor of this pasty pleasing to thy palate?"

"Ay, sir," spake my lady, "it hath a piquant savor I have not met before."

"Lady," said he, "it is fashioned of passing good meat and rare, so rare that I doubt thou wilt ever enjoy its like again. For far countries have contributed to its making, with spices from Araby and Cathay, and corn from Egypt, and citron from Spain, and from the Terre Sainte there is, minced into very little pieces, the heart of that noble sieur Renaud, the worshipful Chatelain of Coucy. His esquire I haply intercepted with a dagger on his way to thy chamber with his dead lord's heart in a silver casket as a gift for thee."

For a while my lady did not move, the gold chalice closed in her delicate fingers half-way to her lips; then with one little breathless sob such as the hare gives when the fangs of the hound are about to close upon her, she, very slowly, set down the goblet, and, just as slowly, rose to her feet, her face the grey-white of the pearls at her throat.

"Messire," said she, and her voice was clear and steadfast, but very faint, like a bell tolling afar off in the deep forest, "messire, thou hast done me great honor in this feast, and on none daintier, I wot well, sup the Blessed Saints in Paradise. But since such viand has consecrated these my lips, it is only seemly in me to take vow never to let other pass them, the which I swear by the blood of Holy Jesu."

Then, swift as thought, she fled from the great chamber into her closet, where she was wont to pray, swung the door to behind her, and slid the bolt. At that sound up sprang my lord and let cry a great shout, so that all the serving-folk rushed in with great hubbub and stood stricken and panting, while my lord called thrice at the door. But no answer came therefrom, and the great room was very, very still; until at last the people were commanded to beat down the door. Then all the folk crowded close together to peer within, spoiling the table of its waxen tapers to cast light into the darkness, and there, O Kind Mother of God, lay my lady all in a little huddled heap before the shrine, an empty vial in her hand, and the breath departing from her body. Then came her women with low sobbing and laid her on her bridal bed and began to make ready the grave clothes.

From that time I had lived on here in the castle of the black shadow, the better that I might do honor to my lady's memory and bring surer retribution on him that had been my lord, for, certes, I, vassal to my lady alone, no longer owed allegiance to her murderer. Now at last was come my chance on this night when he had brought him home a new wife to take the place of her that was but a little while in earth. Poor ladies, both! and if the thought that the blessed Jesu was merciful sometimes made me falter, the thought that Messire God was just, and that I might be the unworthy instrument of His justice, made my purpose burn within me like a new torch. Thus the long night drew near its ending, and the great logs in the fire had turned to coals when the appointed hour came. I stole in shadow from the hall, my heart pounding, but my purpose very steady, and passed silently through passages and corridors where here and there lay one in besotted sleep, until at last I came out in a little court by the postern. The warders were long since guzzled to a torpor in their quarters, so there was neither let nor hindrance when I slid the bolt and welcomed in Avenging Justice in the shape of him who stood without, my old lord of Aragon, uncle and protector to my lady. We met with silent greeting as his picked men of arms filed in after him till the little court was full; then some were despatched to possess the guard quarters and the drunken soldiery, others to stand watch over the serving-folk.

After I had pointed them out the way to the high chamber where Fael lodged that night, I stood watching as they went in silent file up the stone stair. Then I turned and passed out by the postern and down the hill to the encampment of my countrymen. I knew that behind me Justice was taking her relentless course and that I had been her minister.

Literary Monthly, 1908.



TO KEATS

SONNET[1]

JULIAN PARK '10

Where, where is Ganymede? Where are the fair That graced the tales of Ilium years agone? Where are the visions of earth's aureate dawn, When the wing'd bearer bore Jove's nectar rare, When Naiads laughed and wept and sunned their hair At sun-kissed pools, deep-recessed, where the fawn And satyr sought the sloping cool-cropped lawn, And glimpsed the gods and lurking maidens there? Where now is Ganymede, and where is Pan? Where is fair Psyche, where Apollo brave? Are they all fled, affrighted at the span Of centuries? Or sunk beneath the wave Of solemn Lethe? No, rare poet; when I scan thy pages they all live again.

Literary Monthly, 1907.

[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1908, by Julian Park.]



MORTAL VERSE

WILLIAM HUTCHESON WINDOM '11

The muse of poetry is a lady of many whims. Fancy, not reason, seems to determine her actions. She loads the untutored ploughman with the most lavish gifts, while the scholar sits neglected in his study. She places a golden crown on the brow of the slave and flings a tasselled cap at the master. And yet the fool's raiment is worn with as serious and dignified mien as is the kingly crown. She is a malicious person, and while she keeps a straight face before you, it is a hundred to one that she winks behind your back. To be most trusted when she is most deceitful, that is her role.

Very few of us have not at some time come under her spell. The most guiltless-looking has somewhere in the lower drawer of his desk or at the bottom of the tin box where he keeps his old papers, a manuscript, which he at times, half tenderly, half contemptuously, lifts out, after making sure that no prying eye is near. He has caught the muse winking. Were he still illusioned, that poem would never have wasted its aesthetic fragrance within such close confines. It would have been most neatly printed in calendar form and sent to appreciative friends.

But though the majority of us have become chary of the muse, there are some who have never seen through her trickery. To this unfortunate class belonged a certain Mrs. Simons—her real name is charitably withheld—who found that she could gratify a moody disposition, of which she was the unhappy possessor, by writing verses. No one appreciated them, but, far from dampening her enthusiasm, it afforded her a sort of bitter joy, that considerably increased her already large number of available themes. Her poems now proclaimed that she, Mrs. Simons, was singing to stocks and stones; no one would listen, and her tender nature would soon succumb to this unwarranted neglect. But triumph would come, when, as a cold corpse, she would lie in an open grave, with all her formerly unsympathetic friends and relatives weeping and wringing their hands at the sad spectacle. Alas, their grief and contriteness of heart would be too late. The little word which might have saved her from this early death, now spoken, would fall on deaf ears. At last her verses would be read and their gloomy prophecy would fill the world, ever afterwards, with remorse. But Mrs. Simons did not wilt away and die like a flower deprived of water and sunshine. She could not overcome her naturally sound constitution, and, in spite of her wishes to the contrary, she lived to a ripe old age.

Verse demands, as a rule, serious, if not exalted, themes. It is strange how ambitious they sometimes are. I knew a young man who had never been especially fond of poetry and had never attempted to write it, until, one day, he had an imperative desire to test his powers in that line. And what was the modest subject that the tyro chose? A history of the earth from its birth "amidst the crash of worlds," through the countless centuries until, cold and dry, it affords no sustenance to life, and becomes a vast desert like the moon. The poem came to an abrupt end after "monsters huge" had appeared upon the scene, and, to my knowledge, was never resumed.

Among the many who have advertised their bigotry or their ignorance by publishing original compositions, for which it would be hard to find any suitable descriptive term, are two women, one of whom is well known. They are Julia A. Moore, self-styled "The Sweet Singer of Michigan," whose works are included by Dr. Crothers in The Hundred Worst Books, and a Mrs. L., a native of Rhode Island, but "by adoption a westerner," as she explains in her introduction. If it were a question of which had the less poetic merit it would be hard indeed to decide between them, but as to the sincerity of the one and the pomposity of the other, there can be no doubt. The Sweet Singer plays upon the strings of her own heart in a way that makes your eyes grow dim. She has moments of modesty, too, about her work that are very gratifying. But Mrs. L. is cold and egotistical; lifted so high above the ordinary plane of life, in her estimation, that no arrows of criticism can possibly reach her. The introduction to her book Mariamne, Queen of the Jews, and Other Poems, is concise and statistical. One can see that she has perfect self-confidence in her abilities.

"The authoress is a native of Rhode Island, but by adoption a westerner.

"Graduated from the Female College, Oxford, Ohio, when under the control of the Rev. John Walter Scott, D.D.

"Married and lived thirteen wedded years in Covington, Kentucky. Then, urged by her only brother, Levi L., a lawyer residing at M., Illinois, she removed (1870) to that city. Here she engaged in arduous and unremitting study, laboring to deserve the esteem of the gifted and cultured people with whom she had cast her lot. With the same laudable ambition that moves the man of business to be identified as successful in his life career, the writer, whose only wealth is the acquisition of knowledge and the cultivation of an inherited gift, comes before the public in a pursuit that has ever proved the animating ally of education and good breeding and the strong cordon of social refinement."

Her first poem, Mariamne, Queen of the Jews, has a footnote which contains this interesting, if rather incomprehensible, sentence:

"The reader must take the production with its stamp of originality, which is the plainer synonym of afflatus or inspiration."

Undoubtedly she successfully diagnosed the case.

Two passages from this remarkable poem, which is her most ambitious effort, will bear quoting:

"The swooping winds across the spicery snare, The aromatic smells of redolent wood, Camphor, cinnamon, cassia, are incense there, And the tall aloe soaring into the flood Of pearlaceous moonlight stimulates the air Which scarcely soughs, so heavy with vesper scents; The calamus growing by the pond, did spare A spicey breath, with sweet sebaceous drents Of nard, and Jiled's balsamic tree, balm sweet, Were all which filled this estival retreat."

The other:

"The problem of Existence here when tried, God remains God though matter returns to dust; The fool can read this truth; but, if denied, Does spirit return to be from what it came? Is there reunition of love with God as at first? The Brahmin trusts his soul even higher, its flame Refines in th' Nirvana that absorbs its load, Though this divine psychism seems lotus flowed, Seems spirit inane as that on flowers bestowed; Islamism prepictures the voluptuary's abode Of Love unending: It is 'Love, love, love,' Which souls have cried since eons began to move."

Now it is an infinite relief to turn from this inflated but would-be stately style to the homely diction of the Sweet Singer, as found in the Sentimental Song Book. Her book of verse is small and insignificant, and has not the prosperous, self-satisfied appearance of Mrs. L.'s volume, with its gold letters shining from a green cloth background. At the top of its paper cover the price is modestly given: 25 cents. Then is printed: "The Sweet Singer of Michigan Salutes the Public," with a likeness of the author directly beneath. She is depicted as a strong, masculine woman with heavy, black eyebrows, large, black eyes, and a mass of coarse, black hair tumbling over her shoulders in a way that makes one think that she has washed and sunned it, and has forgotten to put it up again. She wears a sort of crown or band at the top of her head. There is nothing in the homely face, with the squat nose and thick lips, that would betray sentimentalism, and yet those honest eyes were probably continually suffused with the tears for which her ultra-sensitive nature was responsible. Below her picture follows this simple introduction, without reference to any "laudable ambition," "acquisition of knowledge," or "cultivation of inherited gifts."

* * * * *

"Dear Friends: This little book is composed of truthful pieces. All those which speak of being killed, died or drowned, are truthful songs; others are 'more truth than poetry.' They are all composed by the author.

"I was born in Plainfield, and lived there until I was ten years of age. Then my parents moved to Algoma, where they have lived until the present day, and I live near them, one mile west of Edgerton.

"JULIA A. MOORE."

* * * * *

Among those pieces "which speak of being killed, died or drowned,"—and it was on these melancholy topics that she was at her best—are four poems which deal with the sad history of the House family. They seemed to have had the most abominable luck. When they couldn't get shot or induce the small-pox to hasten their departure from this world of care, they passed away for no reason at all. Somehow they just could not keep alive. Martin House is the first of whom she speaks. He enlisted with a friend in the federal army at Grand Rapids. The final stanza of "The Two Brave Soldiers" discloses their fate—

"It was down in old Virginia Those noble soldiers fell, In the battle of Hanover town, As many a one can tell. They fought through many a battle And obeyed their captain's call, Till, alas, the bullets struck them That caused them to fall."

Hattie House had no reasonable excuse for dying, but she managed to fool her mother:

"Hattie had blue eyes and light flaxen hair, Her little heart was light and gay, And she said to her mother that morning fair, 'Mother, can I go out and play?'

"Her mother tied her little bonnet on, Not thinking it would be the last She would ever see her dear little one In this world, little Hattie House.

"She left the house, this merry little girl, That bright and pleasant day— She went out to play with two little girls That were about her age.

"She was not gone but a little while When they heard her playmates call— Her friends hastened there to save the child, But, alas, she was dead and gone.

"Those little girls will not forget The day little Hattie died, For she was with them when she fell in a fit, While playing by their side."

Lois House, however, did not have to resort to any subterfuge. The divine Providence spared her the trouble. She had just married an exemplary young man, who "had courted her a long time in triumph and glee," and

"They loved each other dearly and never deceived, But God he did part them, one which he laid low, The other He left with his heart full of woe."

The last verse almost has a touch of poetry in it:

"They placed her fair form in the coffin so cold, And placed there Joy's picture as they had been told; They bore her to her grave, all were in sad gloom, And gently laid her down to rest in her tomb."

In "William House and Family" she disposes of them collectively:

"They once did live at Edgerton, They once did live at Muskegon, From there they went to Chicago, Which proved their fatal overthrow."

Pathos evidently appealed to Julia A. Moore in a way that was not to be resisted. She was also very careful about facts. For instance, what could be more explicit than these lines from "The Brave Page Boys"?

"John S. Page was the eldest son— Edward C. Fish was his brother-in-law; They both enlisted in the Mechanic, And served their time in the war. Fernand O. Page was the second son; He served in the Third Infantry; He was wounded and lost both his feet On duty at Yorktown siege."

Enos Page was rather unfortunate:

"In the Eighth Michigan Cavalry This boy he did enlist; His life was almost despaired of, On account of his numerous fits, Caused by drinking water poisoned— The effect cannot outgrow; In Northern Alabama, I hear, Came this dreadful blow."

In "The Grand Rapids Cricket Club," one of the few poems that deal only with minor misfortunes, a certain player, Mr. Follet, tried a good remedy for a novel accident.

"And Mr. Follet is very brave, A lighter player than the rest, He got struck severe at the fair grounds, For which he took a rest."

I could quote from the Sentimental Song Book until I had entirely exhausted the material, and each verse would create a surprise. And yet, in spite of the grammatical distortions, in spite of the sentimentality, there is something pleasing in the absolute unaffectedness of the little book. That Mrs. Moore has been appreciated is borne out by the fact that when she travelled from town to town she used to be met at the station by a brass band or by a delegation of prominent citizens. Wherever she went she was humored, and her numerous friends vied with each other in showing her attentions. All this she took as a natural recognition of her genius, and happily was never undeceived. However innocent the Sentimental Song Book may be of any literary value, the writer's sincere attempt to express her ideas are as plain as the face which embellishes the cover of the book. She was an ignorant woman, and her utter disregard of grammatical and poetic principles can be easily forgiven. But what can be said in behalf of Mrs. L., a graduate of the Oxford Female College, Ohio, when, in a piece entitled "Genesis," occurs this passage?

"Once, the stars the Lord has scattered Bountifully on the sky, Some soul thought they there were spattered For an ornamental dye; The huge Opalescent Concave Wore the polish of a stone Which the fracturing fires engrave With a thunder-splitting tone; And the things they claimed as sponsors For the young religious thought Were the things that were the monsters Recently from chaos brought. Then the tree inlaced in corsets Laced some maiden in its arms, 'Twas a lover's trick, to toss its Purgatories at her charms, And the lilies in the shallows, And the echoes 'mong the hills, And the torrents in their wallows, And the wind's great organ mills, And the waters of the fountain, And the mists upon the river Had the gods who made a mountain Of our cosmographic sliver."

Evidently they did not give as thorough a course in the pronunciation of French at the Oxford Female College as they do here at Williams. At least this deplorable fact is indicated by the first stanza of "La Fille du Regiment":

"Proudly marches on the nation Which its patriots will defend, But remains a loyal station With its daughters to commend, Cheerfully to send the heroes Who are called to field and tent, Cheers for those who hold the vetoes, Vive la Fille du Regiment."

Shall we attribute it to a coincidence that Mrs. L.'s best poem strikes a very familiar chord? It is called the "River of Tears":

"The world is swept by a sorrowful flood, The flood of a river of tears, Poured from the exhaustless human heart For thousands and thousands of years. It is sweeping thousands and thousands of lives On its currents, swift and strong, O the river of tears for thousands of years Has swept like a flood along."

Perhaps its poetic merit may be explained by the first few lines of Bryant's "Flood of Years":

"A mighty hand from an exhaustless urn Pours forth the never ending flood of years Among the nations. How the rushing waves Bear all before them!"

—and so on. There is no need of continuing.

But why disturb the bones of poor Mrs. L., who is but one of the many thousands of contributors to mortal verse? May they rest in peace. She had her dream, and never woke out of it. Undoubtedly she was all the happier as it was. And now let the Sweet Singer raise her harmonious voice once more, and close this paper with the last stanza of her poem, "The Author's Early Life," which I think is the most beautifully extraordinary—since I cannot say extraordinarily beautiful—of the entire collection.

"My childhood days have passed and gone, And it fills my heart with pain To think that they will nevermore Return to me again. And now kind friends, what I have wrote, I hope you will pass o'er, And not criticise as some have done, Hitherto herebefore."

Literary Monthly, 1910.



IN THE DONJON KEEP

GILBERT W. GABRIEL 1912

At first the darkness was impenetrable, black and choking. There was no sound, except for the occasional soft spatter of water that dripped to the stone floor from the mouldy ceiling. Then through a narrow, barred window came the moonlight in a mottled shaft of phosphorescent green, and licked its way across the floor, to the edge of the bier. It shone on two kneeling, crouching figures, and full on the face of the corpse.

The eunuch, a great, gaunt negro, lifted his head and showed his red, rolling eyes and his skin, gleaming like bronze in the moonlight. "He was my friend," he whimpered, bending over the loathsome dead. "He was my friend."

"Aye, aye," mused the jester, fingering the mildewed shroud, "and sooth, he was the finest mute that ever crooked a back in the Bohemian court. Famous he was, all hereabouts, to the marches of the northern sea."

"And so high was he in the king's favor and graces!" snivelled the eunuch. "They shall never find another such as he."

"True, true; and yet hast heard another must be found? The king has thus ordered: another mute must now be gotten to take his place—another just so strange." The jester bent over the face and shuddered. A few swift clouds sped across the moon, and caused the greenish shadows under the misshapen features to flicker and melt grotesquely. Then the light shone clear again and he saw the broken, twisted nose; and the eyes that stared obstinately from their split lids; and the gaping, grinning mouth that, years ago, the torturers had cut wide upon each seared and tattooed cheek; and the swollen, split lips that could not hide where once had been a tongue. He passed his hand along the shroud and lightly touched the ugly hump where the spine had been pressed and snapped, and the slanted shoulders and the twisted hips and legs. "Thou wast so laughable to all the court," he cried. "Thy bones were so comically broken. And now, another must be made for the court's delight, just so comical as thou. Aye, aye," and he sighed heavily, "Jesu have pity on the child's face of some young page or squire."

The iron door behind them swung suddenly open, and a captain of the palace guard clanked into the donjon. The flare of a spluttering flambeau, which he held in his hand, caused them to blink and shrink away, beyond its yellow circle. But he thrust it close to their faces with a cross oath. "Silence," he growled, "cease thy shrill chatterings. What dost thou here, foul black? By what right hast thou left thy post before the ladies' hall—before the chamber of the king's favorite?"

"He was my friend," the eunuch faltered. "I wished to pray for him that was my friend."

"Pray? To thy heathen gods?" Upon his coat of mail the captain thumped a vigorous sign of the cross. "Go, get thee back, lest aught should happen in thy absence. Thou knowest the penalty, both for thee and any gallant that dare pass the Lady Suelva's portal. Thou know'st the penalty," and he slapped his thigh with the flat of the halberd that hung from his girdle.

"Hush!" Faint from across the courtyard came a voice singing, a high fresh tenor voice. The black sprang to his feet and stood rooted in trembling horror. "From what corner of the yard comes that serenading?" thundered the captain. The jester rose to the window; he looked first out into the courtyard, then back at the eunuch, who stood picking nervously at his tunic; then out of the window again. "From below the Lady Suelva's chambers. See! Someone is climbing the winding steps of her balcony!"

"And Lady Suelva? Has she come out on the balcony?"

"I cannot see; a tilting-post stands directly in the way." In the furthest corner of the donjon, a dim black square disclosed an ugly trap leading down to the torture-room. To the trap-door the captain bounded, and from above, they could hear the thump of his feet on the creaking ladder. He was up again in an instant, chuckling viciously. "I found them all asleep, the old torturer and his two sons. But ho! they are awake now—I kicked them hard awake. They have much to do to-night." He stopped for a moment at the big iron door. "Wait here till I return," he commanded, and ran stealthily into the courtyard.

The eunuch fell to his knees again, and prayed jabberingly—this time for his own soul. The jester softly trod the length and breadth of the stone flaggings, and stopped to peer at the corpse and its face. "Jesu ha' mercy," he repeated ofttimes; "Jesu ha' mercy!"

The pulsating suspense broke with the reentrance of the captain. Over his shoulder was slung a dark, limp burden which he swung down and held out in the crook of his thick arms, as if it were a doll.

"Twas a tussle the young peacock gave me," he said thickly. "Look ye—I have lost my flambeau, but come to the window and take a squint at him." He held the figure up to the grating, to where the moon shone pale on its face and tumbled locks and over its gay-colored tunic, and lustered its silken hose.

"By St. Godfrey, what a handsome lad! Who is he?"

"Methinks he is a squire but lately come to court, so there'll be few to miss him, when the night's work is done."

The jester sighed. "So young he is and fair. See that great purple welt across his forehead."

"'Twas where I clubbed him senseless."

"And must thou torture him to death? Must he so surely die?"

"Aye, so run my orders. He will die—and thou too, black. Hold thou my burden, fool, whilst I undo my halberd!"

From the kneeling eunuch came a shriek and moan and incoherent jabbering. The captain cursed and stayed his uplifted arm.

"It is too dark to strike," he growled. "Wait till the moon is from behind that cloud. Ugh! It is black here, pitchy black." A full, heavy minute elapsed, disturbed by the scuffle of the negro's feet as he ran and cowered in the furthest corner, and the soft creaking of the iron door, and a sudden suck and soughing of the night air. Then the moon slipped slyly from its frayed woolly covers, and relit the donjon keep. "Holy God and Father," and the halberd clanked noisily to the floor. In the half open doorway stood the king's favorite, the Lady Suelva. Against the frosted green background of the moonlit courtyard her shimmering robe, her white face and throat, and her long hair of flaming copper stood out gloriously. She did not move, but stayed peering through the unaccustomed gloom, as if to recognize the dark figures before her. The eunuch flung himself at her feet, and squirmed and grovelled. "Save me, lady save me!" But she thrust him from her with a sharp push of her foot.

The captain turned to the jester. "Take down thy burden," he whispered. "Down to the torture room with him."

But the lady heard and came forward. "No," she said imperiously, "lay him down upon the floor, and let me see what has been done with him."

The captain grumbled and swore under his heavy mustache. "Take him away, fool. Do as I bid!"

But the lady stepped between. "Stop! Let me see him." Her voice rose high and shaking; she was fast losing her stately calmness.

The captain sneered. "See him! And why? Have you not seen enough of him this night?"

"No, no! he was but singing to me!"

"Yet I found you with him on the balcony."

"I swear it," she repeated, "he was but singing to me."

The captain heaved his shoulders with so great a shrug that the ringlets of his coat of mail jangled and clinked. "I have my orders," he said, "which come from the king himself."

"The king?" She snapped her fingers. "And who orders the king? He would obey my slightest wish."

"No use, dame. Nor heaven nor hell could save this squire from his death. As for the eunuch, he will mayhap be spared, if thou so wish it. He is thy servant—and his life at thy command." The negro whined and moaned and crept to kiss her feet.

But Suelva flung herself back. "What care I for his foul black hide? 'Tis the young squire's life I crave."

"Then both must die."

"Mother Mary! But let me hold him in my arms." She tore the jester's burden from him, and staggering under its weight, turned to the middle of the room. Then she saw, for the first time, the bier and what it bore. She gasped, and let the squire's body sink in a huddled heap on the floor. "Who is it?" she asked, crossing herself. She looked closer. "Yes, I remember thee, fond old mute. Pha! but thou smellest of the grave. And why have they left thee lying here, this fortnight?"

From the dark corner came a stifled cry and piping gurgle. "My lady, oh, my lady!"

"How now, black; let go my skirt."

"Mistress, let me whisper close. He need not die, thy lover."

"Hast thou some scheme? Quick, tell it to me."

"First speak the word to let me live."

"Aye, we spare thy life—but haste!"

"He is but a young stripling; his bones are not yet set and hardened. Let him be made the king's mute."

The jester heard the words. He flung himself upon the eunuch, and grasping his throat, throttled him until his black face ran with shiny sweat and his great white eyes hung nearly from their sockets. "I feared that thou wouldst dare to speak of that—squealing coward—I might have known it." Again he whacked the woolly head against the pavement.

The captain dragged them apart. "Why so wroth, fool?" he asked. "Sooth, 'tis a wise plan, and one to save me a deal of trouble. For it was my special commission from the king to furnish a new mute. And since the lad must suffer, lady—come, by the Holy Tokens, I'll make a bond with thee. I'll spare his life, an' ye say nought of it to the king. I'll keep intact his pulse and true heart's beat; and thou, in turn, give me his lower limbs to twist and his doll's face to alter—only to alter slightly," and he laughed lewdly.

Lady Suelva moved to look at the dead mute; but the wily black had thrust himself before the face and hid its loathsomeness. "Do as he bids, mistress," he whispered. "Let thy lover live and love thee. Let him have life."

"And what a life!" cried the jester. "Oh, noble lady, be merciful and let him die."

"Would not the king or some one recognize him?" she asked.

"No," answered the captain; "he is but lately come to court—and anyway, there's none would recognize him after—"

"Might he not some day blurt out the truth?"

"Ho, you forget: mutes make safe lovers, for they have no tongues."

She recoiled. "True. And so, may he love me fearlessly in such a guise?"

"Aye, and thou him—that we promise thee."

She dropped to her knees, beside the unconscious squire. She took his head in her lap, and with her warm hands brushed back the locks from his bruised forehead. "He is so beautiful," she sighed, wavering. "It were a shame—"

"He would never be beautiful again," said the jester.

"Rather an ugly lover than a dead one," retorted the captain.

Lady Suelva fell to sobbing. "Canst thou not spare him altogether?"

"Nay! nay!" He stamped his foot impatiently. "And it were best to hurry."

"Only wait till he awakes from the hard blow thou gavest him. He will decide for himself."

"'Twill be by far less painful if done now."

"Then take him."

"Think well and long," said the jester. "'Tis a life of hell thou wouldst prolong him to. The jeers, the coarse and ribald laughter of the court, the scorn and teasing—aye—God! I know the life, for I too suffer as a courtier's play-thing—and yet, I have a straight body and a human face and a tongue to answer with. What canst thou offer him to compensate for all his loss and misery?"

She looked up proudly. "My love. Is it not enough?"

The fool bowed. "It must be, when kings crave for it. Yet beauty such as thine can only love the beautiful."

"Then I shall pity him—with all my heart's strength; I'll comfort his poor life with sweetest pity."

"Lady, pity is the meanest gate of love."

The captain growled and swung his halberd viciously. "Keep thy wit for the king's ear," he said. "The lady Suelva hath spoken her decision. We dally no longer." He bent down and lifted the squire's body over his back. Then he turned to the eunuch. "Take thou the old mute's corpse. I have kept his carcass these seven days; to serve as a pattern. So carry it down."

The black's eyes dilated again, and he shrank back. "I dare not touch it. He was my friend."

"Bah. Then take thou my load," and in exchange the captain slung the corpse across his own shoulders. As he crossed the room, the loose head showed upside-down over his back, bobbing and flabbily wagging its grin-split face.

The lady stared at it rigidly. She seized the jester's arm. "And is his face to be a counterpart of that one?"

"Aye—every feature exactly."

The captain threw open the trap-door and went down the ladder. The eunuch, staggering a little under the squire's weight, followed him and disappeared from view. Suelva ran forward a few steps as if to call them back; then she stopped short, hand at breast.

"'Tis too late," said the jester bitterly, and shut down the trap-door.

"God pity me," she sobbed. "I was too selfish of his life—and of his love."

"And now, be sure, he will do naught but hate thee!"

As if to spite her overwrought emotions, she turned on him sharply. "Thou art impertinent, fool."

He smiled sadly. "Unpleasant truths must ever seem impertinent—but they are no less true. An' I be the court fool, pray, noble lady, what art thou? We be all king's play-things—my wit and thy beauty and the mute's deformities. For all of us sweet life is slowly spoiled—for the mute and me by scorn and snickerings; for thee by the cold glitter of lavished finery and callous flattery. That squire, young and beautiful and bursting with ambition, was only a play-thing, too—thy toy, to dally with and break."

"Nay, nay! I loved him dearly and so shall for all time."

The jester laughed shortly. "I had not meant for thee to glance upon this scene," he said, "but if 'twere best, then look, lady, look!" and he threw open the trap. A great red light flared up into the donjon, and waved and danced along the moon-green walls. The empty bier seemed licked in ruddy flames, and on the moist mould of the ceiling, each little drop of water sparkled like a ruby.

"Look at him," repeated the jester. "Shrink not; they are only heating the irons."

She crept to the edge of the trap, and peered down, fascinated. "Who are those huge hairy men, with wild beasts' faces?" she asked.

"The torturers."

"Oh! what have they done to his hair—to all his long, pretty locks? How strange he looks with his head shaven thus! And see! what is the torturer to do with that glowing iron in his hand? Ugh!" and she fell back, near swooning.

There was a sudden sizzle of burnt flesh and stenching smoke.

"Look," commanded the jester. "Look again."

"I dare not—nay, I cannot," and she flung herself away from the trap, and lay at full length on the floor, with the moon and the furnace light reflecting a mad swirl of color over her upturned, staring face. For some moments she lay there, and above her stood the jester. Neither spoke nor moved; they could only listen and listen to the noises below them: the soft purring of the furnace-fire; the scuffle of the workers' feet; the deadened clank of instruments; the faint groans of the insensible youth; the binding, searing, ripping of flesh; the crack and crunch of bones.

"Quick," cried the jester, "before they bandage him; quick! look again," and when she shrank further back, he pushed her forward to the very edge of the trap, until she could not help but see. "And couldst thou love him now?" he asked, and keenly searched her face.

She said no word, but slightly swayed from side to side. She threw her hands before her eyes, and dug her fists deep into them, as if to blot the sight from her memory. She crouched, stunned and sickened. Her hands dropped back to her breast; and the jester saw the expression of her features.

There was no sign of love in her face; there was no tenderness or pity. Only black horror and disgust; only a sullen, disappointed rage, and a scowling disgust.

"They have made him as ugly as the king's gorillas," she sobbed. "Ugh! he is ugly!"

The jester nodded his head mockingly. "Thou art right. They have made him too foul for thee ever to love, have they not?"

"Love? God! I could not love a beast like that."

"Nor couldst thou even pity him—is he not too foul even for pity?"

"Nay, I'd never dare to pity such a thing. He is too horrible, too loathsome. I would swoon if he touched me."

"What, lady, neither love nor pity? Yet this may merely be a passing sickness of the humours. To-morrow thou mayest love him better than before."

"Love?" She was fast growing hysterical. "I could never bear the sight of such a mangled dwarf." Thrusting her hand inside her dress, she drew out a gleaming bodkin, and flung it at the fool's feet. "Kill him," she screamed, "kill him!" Then she rose unsteadily and staggered out the iron door.

"Kill him!" the jester echoed. "Merciful Mary, I thank thee!" and, concealing the bodkin in his blouse, he descended the ladder, to help the captain and the torturers in their work.

An hour later, the squire's corpse was thrown over the castle walls. "'Tis a shame," growled the captain; "he would have made so fine a mute. One of the torturers' knives must ha' slipped, whilst they were cutting out his tongue. For I noticed that the spinal cord was severed at the base of the mouth—and that is a sure death, you know."

"So? I had not known that," said the jester softly, and he smiled to himself.

The old dead mute was placed back on his bier and the trap-door shut down. "So now I must hunt for another page or squire," growled the captain, and he clanked wrathfully out of the donjon.

The jester stayed a little while, to pray for the mute's soul and for the squire's soul and for his own. Then he too rose and, swinging the iron door behind him, left the corpse alone. The moonlight shone dimly and more dimly through the grating, and soon had disappeared. It left the donjon keep in total darkness, and in a stillness broken only by the dripping of water from the mouldy ceiling.

Literary Monthly, 1910.



NINE WILLIAMS ALUMNI[1]

[Footnote 1: A series which ran through Vol. XXV. of the Lit., 1909-1910.]



I. JOHN BASCOM

JOHN ADAMS LOWE '06

Already long past the threescore years and ten allotted man, Dr. Bascom exerted a vital influence on the college when we first met him. On the shadowy side of the valley, and even then silvery haired, he moved beneath these classic shades like a patriarch, "the grand old doctor."

The facts of his life and of his achievements require volumes for the telling. They speak of his genius-like career at Williams, of his keen philosophical insight, and of how, after being graduated in 1849, he tried the law and theology before accepting a tutorship in his alma mater. A score of years from 1855 to 1874, he served the college as professor of rhetoric, although his desire was to give his attention to philosophy. The times were filled with conflict and struggle, and Dr. Bascom accepted the presidency of the University of Wisconsin, where he made a glorious record covering fourteen years. In 1887 he returned to Williamstown with unimpaired powers, and became lecturer in sociology and later professor of political economy, a position which he filled till 1903. They speak of his degrees of honor: Wisconsin, Amherst, and Williams conferred the LL.D., Iowa College the D.D.

It is in the evening of his life that it has been our good fortune to know him. As when, the day's work done and the worries of its earlier hours laid aside, we look forward to the rest that awaits us and live over in thought the events of the day that is gone, the conflicts lose their bitterness. Here is a man whose limitless energy built up a great university; whose straightforward counsel for many years shaped the policies of one of the political parties of the Commonwealth; whose earnest teaching pointed out to many a man his civic duty; and whose personal life is an incentive to high intellectual morality. By a score of books covering the various fields of rhetoric, aesthetics, political economy, philosophy, and religion, he has moulded public opinion in his generation. The same undaunted ambition keeps his eye bright now as then; the same keen brain grapples with vital problems; the same magnetic personality commands respect and love.



II. HENRY MILLS ALDEN

LEVERETT W. SPRING '62

Henry M. Alden has been the editor of Harper's Monthly since 1869, and is still in active service. He was transferred to this position from Harper's Weekly, of which he was the editor for the five years preceding. For this long and distinguished service he seems to have had little or no preliminary training. The first six years of his life—he was born in 1836—were spent in Mount Tabor, a Vermont hamlet with the rude life of a remote country town three quarters of a century ago. From Mount Tabor he removed in 1842 to Hoosick Falls, New York. Here, after some service as an operative in a cotton mill and other tentative vocations, he prepared for college, and, in the autumn of 1853, entered Williams, where he supported himself by teaching during the long winter vacations and by such miscellaneous work as fell in his way. "I remember among other things," said the late President Henry Hopkins to the writer, "that he took care of my father's horse."

In Mr. Alden's day the opportunities at Williams in the way of preparation for an editorial career were very slender. The only student publication was a quarterly magazine of less than a hundred pages, and by some oversight his class-mates failed to elect him as one of the five editors. At Andover Theological Seminary, where he was a student from 1857 to 1860, the opportunities for 'prentice work as an editor were wholly wanting. Hence the preparation which the college and seminary afforded for his life-work was of a very general and indirect sort. Yet his success has been one of the notable landmarks in the history of modern periodicals. In the conduct of Harper's Monthly with its wide range of attractive material, he has done the world a service, high and fine. For the first thirty years of this service Mr. Alden seems to have devoted himself to the task of securing and organizing the material to be printed. In 1900 he added to the departments of the magazine an "Editor's Study," and begged "an audience speaking in his own name." Here he discusses from month to month such topics as the shiftings of popular taste, the story with a purpose, the volunteer contributor, rejected manuscripts, the "dullards of the college world for whom a Jowett or a Mark Hopkins is superfluous," and the present outlook of literature.

That such a career was possible for Mr. Alden—the career of an indefatigable editor, keenly alive to the various needs of the reading public, with an office in a great New York business establishment, bethumped without by the roar of elevated trains and confused within by the noise of incessant printing presses—no one who knew him in Williamstown from 1853 to 1857 had the slightest conception. Then and there he was a dreamer, and showed relatively little interest in this present material, workaday world. Dr. Gladden says in his Recollections that he could never find out how he got down from cloudland to Franklin Square. But as a matter of fact, in whatever hostile regions he may have sojourned, he never quite lost his residence in the supersensual world. Somehow he succeeded in reaching Franklin Square and becoming an editor without ceasing to be a mystic.

The literary history of Mr. Alden the mystic, as distinguished from the editor, seems to have begun with the appearance of an essay on "The Philosophy of Art" in the Williams Quarterly for December, 1856. Then, three or four years later, came "The Eleusinia," two articles printed in the Atlantic Monthly. These papers led to the delivery in 1864 of a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute on "The Structure of Paganism." Some thirty years afterward two books appeared—God in His World in 1893 and The Study of Death in 1895—which may be regarded as the culmination of the mental and spiritual characteristics revealed in the Williams Quarterly essay and in the Atlantic papers. Both of these books abound in rhythmic, melodious pages of prose poetry like the rhapsody on "The Coming of the Bridegroom" or on "The Lesson of the Sea." Mr. Alden's prose is perhaps more poetic than his verse. Of the latter, scanty in amount, the best is his "Ancient Lady of Sorrows," before whom pass

"All shapes that come, or soon or late, Of this world's misery."

In general, the books may be described as an interpretation of the great problems of life by the mystic intuitions as distinguished from abstract intellectualism, which finds that many of these problems are hopelessly beyond its reach. If one cares for the philosophy of nature and history, of Christianity and other religions, brilliantly expounded by an idealizing, poetic optimist and seer, we commend him to "God in His World" and "The Study of Death."



III. WASHINGTON GLADDEN

STEPHEN T. LIVINGSTON '87

Washington Gladden, whose very name irradiates the nobility and wholesomeness of the man himself, has for years been a foremost interpreter of the perplexing problems of our time. His appeal is to honest intelligence in whatever concerns human welfare. He has done much to humanize theology and stimulate popular interest in modern scholarship. Moreover, in the region of industrial, social, and civic reform he stands out conspicuously as a bold champion of the Golden Rule in its application to every-day activities; and though sometimes charged with being a dreamer, he shows that the sky (to use his own figure) is less remote than is commonly supposed, and in fact adjoins the surface of the earth where human feet daily walk.

Dr. Gladden, who is now a little more than seventy, was born in Pennsylvania. He prepared for college in Owego, New York, and was graduated from Williams in 1859. After preaching in New York state for a few years, he came to Massachusetts, where he was settled first in North Adams, and then in Springfield. Since 1882 he has been minister of the First Congregational Church in Columbus, Ohio. As preacher, author, and lecturer he is famous throughout the English-speaking world, and all his recent books (the latest being his Recollections) are published simultaneously in England and the United States. The honorary degrees conferred on him are D.D. and LL.D.

The instructive and practical elements in Dr. Gladden's writings, the wide influence he exerts in the cause of aggressive righteousness, and his interesting personality, do not, however, measure the full extent of his gifts. One has only to read his well-known hymns to realize anew that here is lyric quality of the first order. Then, too, the Williams alumnus, whether he sings hymns or not, has the warmest place in his heart for "The Mountains," and when he comes back to the college with white hair will continue to thank Washington Gladden for that song. While serving as one of the trustees of Williams, Dr. Gladden was a familiar figure at commencement. His personal presence indicates the character of his thought, and the spirit which challenged him to high daring in the early days is still unflinching. During the present disintegration of old beliefs, this servant of the truth has always been eager to reconstruct the new with the clear and definite purpose of meeting the highest requirements of life.



IV. FRANKLIN CARTER

HENRY D. WILD '88

It was largely owing to her location that Williams College gained the son who was to become her sixth president. Born at Waterbury, Connecticut, and thus well within the centripetal sweep of Yale, Franklin Carter left New Haven at the close of his sophomore year for reasons of health, and later sought the more favorable climate of the Berkshire Hills. Thus, once a member of the class of 1859 at Yale, he was graduated from Williams in the class of 1862. There came a blending of these affiliations throughout his career. Williams was the first to claim him, as professor of French and Latin till 1868 and then as Massachusetts Professor of Latin until 1872, when Yale drew him to a professorship of German, to relinquish him in 1881 when he succeeded Dr. Chadbourne as president of Williams. For twenty years, the third longest administration in the history of the college, he stood at the head of her interests.

The history of education can show fewer periods more critical or more rapid in change than the last quarter of the nineteenth century in this country. Williams was in her own crisis when Dr. Carter came as president. How he met it, and how he guided the college in a steady movement toward larger things, a mere comparison of the catalogues marking the limits of his administration can tell the younger men of to-day, who enjoy the fruits without knowing the process. Such a comparison would show an increase of sixty per cent. in the number of students and over one hundred per cent. in the number of instructors. This period also saw an increase in real estate, buildings, and improvements of $600,000, and, in addition to this, of $900,000 in invested funds.

But educational realities go deeper than outward prosperity. A college reflects her president's personality in things of mind and of spirit. To business capacity Dr. Carter added distinguished scholarship and the genius of a teacher born. All this was made living effective by single-hearted loyalty to the best interests of the college as he saw them and by devotion to the highest moral and intellectual good of the students. He did not swerve from duty as he understood it to follow an easy popularity. The burdens that he bore and the labors that he accomplished, at personal cost in more ways than one, rested in the last analysis on this substratum of self-denying service.

His work has extended far beyond the college. His grace of expression in both speech and print, the keenness of his wit, his administrative power, and his command of educational resources have been recognized and made available beyond the limits of his presidency and apart from the demands of Williams alone. Honored in many spheres, he has thus brought added honor to the college. The solidarity of his achievements for Williams is revealed more clearly as time proceeds. More and more the alumni are coming to appreciate this as both historical fact and academic heritage. This shall be his reward as he continues, and may it be for long, to live close to the college and to the town that he has served and loved.



V. HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE

WILLIAM M. GROSVENOR '85

It would be easy enough for me to study critically Mr. Mabie's books, for he has written many and they are well known and widely read; I might give you a criticism of him as thinker and author. If criticism is, (as I believe Matthew Arnold once defined it) the discerning of the characteristic excellencies in things, I could easily show you the charm of Mr. Mabie's English, the wide range of his culture, the sweetness and light of his interpretations of nature and human life. But this is rather a brief tribute to the man himself whom we sons of Williams have known and admired these many years, and this or any like tribute, however inadequate, will serve to pay a little of the debt we owe him for all that he is and all that he has done.

Born in 1846, he graduated from college in 1867 and from the Columbia Law School in 1869. As I graduated eighteen years later, I never knew him in those earlier days. But the law did not claim him; almost at once he turned to literature, for that clearly was his God-given aptitude. For nearly thirty years he has been an editor of the Christian Union, which afterward became the Outlook.

... The boy is father to the man. The gentleness, the refinement, the generous outlook on life, the genial friendliness, have only grown into nobler forms through the strenuous years. But he is an editor as well as a litterateur. He has had his share in the fight to preserve our national ideals. The years have put iron into his soul and strength into his judgments, and the sweetness has become only the pleasing incasement of the strong medicine which our social and political life so often needs. So his personal influence has grown in weight and effectiveness. Mr. Mabie is serving the state, the church, human society, in all the wide range of its interests, with singular efficiency and is quietly achieving many very useful things; and withal it is done with methods that are constructive and with the gentle arts of a gracious persuasiveness and a winning courtesy.

May he have many years of rich and fruitful work, and a golden harvest of all the good deeds he has sown!



VI. HENRY LOOMIS NELSON

JULIAN PARK '10

To some of the college body the name of Henry Loomis Nelson is nothing more than a name, but the three upper classes, especially that considerable portion of them who at one time or another came under his influence, will not soon allow the memory of his personality to pass. The facts of his life are simple enough and as well known; the fruits of that life would take many pages to set forth. His power as educator, journalist, and man of public affairs reached infinitely further than most of us, who first saw in him the man of even, witty temperament, were used to realize.

Professor Nelson was graduated with the class of 1867, later taking the M.A. degree; the college further honored him and itself by conferring the degree of L.H.D. in 1902. Together with Mabie and Stetson of his class, he organized a little circle for literary discussion; and that group, each afterward to attain eminence, showed more vital interest in art and letters than can be found to-day. After taking his law degree at Columbia he went to Washington as newspaper correspondent and there began a great series of political and economic writings. Called to the editorial chair of Harper's Weekly in 1895, he resigned it after four years because, he said, he felt that he would be false to his own convictions if he wrote those of the publisher, false to the publisher if he used the magazine to voice his own. His writings include also a novel as well as treatises on political science. In 1902 he came back to his alma mater as head of the department of Government. He died on February 29, 1908.