But the majestic river floated on, Out of the mist and hum of that low land, Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste, Under the solitary moon;—he flow'd Right for the polar star, past Orgunje, Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin



To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcel'd Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles— Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, A foil'd circuitous wanderer—till at last The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.[204-27]

Matthew Arnold was one of England's purest and greatest men. As scholar, teacher, poet and critic he labored zealously for the betterment of his race and sought to bring them back to a clearer, lovelier spiritual life and to win them from the base and sordid schemes that make only for material success.

He was born in 1822 and was the son of Doctor Thomas Arnold, the great teacher who was so long headmaster of the famous Rugby school, and whose scholarly and Christian influence is so faithfully brought out in Hughes's ever popular story Tom Brown's School Days.

Matthew Arnold received his preparatory education in his father's school at Rugby, and his college training at Oxford. He was always a student and always active in educational work, as an inspector of schools, and for ten years as professor of poetry at Oxford. He twice visited the United States and both times lectured here. His criticisms of America and Americans were severe, for he saw predominant the spirit of money-getting, the thirst for material prosperity and the absence of spiritual interests. In 1888, while at the house of a friend in Liverpool, he died suddenly and peacefully from an attack of heart disease.

Arnold was one of the most exacting and critical of English writers, a man who applied to his own works the same severe standards that he set up for others. As a result his writings have become one of the standards of purity and taste in style.



The story of Sohrab and Rustum pleased him, and he enjoyed writing the poem, as may be seen from a letter to his mother, written in 1853. He says:

"All my spare time has been spent on a poem which I have just finished, and which I think by far the best thing I have yet done, and I think it will be generally liked; though one can never be sure of this. I have had the greatest pleasure in composing it, a rare thing with me, and, as I think, a good test of the pleasure what you write is likely to afford to others. But the story is a very noble and excellent one."

Two men, both competent to judge, have given at length their opinion of Matthew Arnold's character. So admirable a man deserves to be known by the young, although most of his writings will be understood and appreciated only by persons of some maturity in years. Mr. John Morley says:

"He was incapable of sacrificing the smallest interest of anybody to his own; he had not a spark of envy or jealousy; he stood well aloof from all the hustlings and jostlings by which selfish men push on; he bore life's disappointments—and he was disappointed in some reasonable hopes—with good nature and fortitude; he cast no burden upon others, and never shrank from bearing his own share of the daily load to the last ounce of it; he took the deepest, sincerest, and most active interest in the well-being of his country and his countrymen."

Mr. George E. Woodbury in an essay on Arnold remarks concerning the man as shown in his private letters:

"A nature warm to its own, kindly to all, cheerful, fond of sport and fun, and always fed from pure fountains, and with it a character so founded upon the rock, so humbly serviceable, so continuing in power and grace, must wake in all the responses of happy appreciation and leave the charm of memory."

FOOTNOTES:

[173-1] The Oxus, 1300 miles long, is the chief river of Central Asia, and one of the boundaries of Persia.

[173-2] Peran-Wisa was the commander of King Afrasiab's troops, a Turanian chief who ruled over the many wild Tartar tribes whose men composed his army.

[173-3] Pamir or Pamere is a high tableland called by the natives "the roof of the world." In it lies the source of the Oxus. Arnold has named many places for the purpose of giving an air of reality to the poem. It is not necessary to locate them accurately in order to understand the poem, and so the notes will refer to them only as the story is made clearer by the explanation.

[174-4] Samarcand is a city of Turkistan, now a center of learning and of commerce.

[175-5] Common here means general. The idea is that little fame comes to him who fights in a general combat in which numbers take part. What is the real reason for Sohrab's desire to fight in single combat? Arnold gives a different reason from that in the Shah Nameh. In the latter case it is that by defeating their champion Sohrab may frighten the Persians into submission.

[176-6] Seistan was the province in which Rustum and his father Zal had ruled for many years, subjects of the King of Persia.

[176-7] Whether that and Or in beginning the second line below may be understood to read Either because and Or because of.

[177-8] Frore means frozen.

[177-9] From mares' milk is made koumiss, a favorite fermented drink of Tartar tribes.

[178-10] Fix'd means halted. He caused his army to remain stationary while he rode forward.

[178-11] The corn is grain of some kind, not our maize or Indian corn.

[181-12] Kai Khosroo was one of the Persian kings who lived in the sixth century B. C., and is now understood to be Cyrus. He was the grandson of Kai Kaoos, in whose reign the Shah Nameh places the episode of Sohrab and Rustum. Here as elsewhere Arnold alters the legend to suit his convenience and to make the poem more effective. For instance, he compresses the combat into a single day, while in the Persian epic, the battle lasts three days. This change gives greater vitality and more rapid action to the poem.

[181-13] Zal was born with snowy hair, a most unusual thing among the black-haired Persians. His father was so angered by the appearance of his son that he abandoned the innocent babe in the Elburz mountains, where, however, a great bird or griffin miraculously preserved the infant and in time returned it to its father, who had repented of his hasty action.

[183-14] Ruksh, also spelled Raksh.

[183-15] Tale means count or reckoning. The diver had gathered all the pearls required from him for the day.

[184-16] This description by Arnold scarcely tallies with the idea we have obtained of the powerful Sohrab from reading the accounts taken from the Shah Nameh. Arnold's is the more poetic idea, and increases the reader's sympathy for Sohrab.

[185-17] Be governed, that is, take my advice.

[189-18] It is not natural for father and son to fight thus.

[191-19] In the Shah Nameh Rustum overpowers Sohrab and slays him by his superior power and skill. Arnold takes the more poetic view that Sohrab's arm is powerless when he hears his father's name.

[193-20] Sole means solitary, alone.

[193-21] Glass her means reflect her as in a mirror.

[195-22] He sees that this young men, as far as age and appearance are concerned, might be a son of his.

[196-23] Again Arnold departs from the Persian tale, in which Sohrab wears a bracelet or amulet on his arm. Arnold's work gives a more certain identification.

[196-24] The griffin spoken of in note 13.

[200-25] The Persian tradition is that over the spot where Sohrab was buried a huge mound, shaped like the hoof of a horse, was erected.

[201-26] It is said that shortly after the death of Sohrab the king himself died while on a visit to a famous spring far in the north, and as the nobles were returning with his corpse all were lost in a great tempest. Unfortunately for Sohrab's prophecy, Persian traditions do not include Rustum among the lost.

[204-27] This beautiful stanza makes a peculiarly artistic termination to the poem. After the storm and stress of the combat and the heart-breaking pathos of Sohrab's death, the reader willingly rests his thought on the majestic Oxus that still flows on, unchangeable, but ever changing. The suggestion is that after all nature is triumphant, that our pains and losses, our most grievous disappointments and greatest griefs are but incidents in the great drama of life, and that, though like the river Oxus, we for a time become "foiled, circuitous wanderers," we at last see before us the luminous home, bright and tranquil under the shining stars.



THE POET AND THE PEASANT

FROM THE FRENCH OF EMILE SOUVESTRE

A young man was walking through a forest, and in spite of the approach of night, in spite of the mist that grew denser every moment, he was walking slowly, paying no heed either to the weather or to the hour.

His dress of green cloth, his buckskin gaiters, and the gun slung across his shoulder might have caused him to be taken for a sportsman, had not the book that half protruded from his game-bag betrayed the dreamer, and proved that Arnold de Munster was less occupied with observing the track of wild game than in communing with himself.

For some moments his mind had been filled with thoughts of his family and of the friends he had left in Paris. He remembered the studio that he had adorned with fantastic engravings, strange paintings, curious statuettes; the German songs that his sister had sung, the melancholy verses that he had repeated in the subdued light of the evening lamps, and the long talks in which every one confessed his inmost feelings, in which all the mysteries of thought were discussed and translated into impassioned or graceful words! Why had he abandoned these choice pleasures to bury himself in the country?

He was aroused at last from his meditations by the consciousness that the mist had changed into rain and was beginning to penetrate his shooting-coat. He was about to quicken his steps, but in looking around him he saw that he had lost his way, and he tried vainly to determine the direction he must take. A first attempt only succeeded in bewildering him still more. The daylight faded, the rain fell more heavily, and he continued to plunge at random into unknown paths.

He had begun to be discouraged, when the sound of bells reached him through the leafless trees. A cart driven by a big man in a blouse had appeared at an intersecting road and was coming toward the one that Arnold had just reached.

Arnold stopped to wait for the man and asked him if he were far from Sersberg.

"Sersberg!" repeated the carter; "you don't expect to sleep there to-night?"

"Pardon me, but I do," answered the young man.

"At Sersberg?" went on his interlocutor; "you'll have to go by train, then! It is six good leagues from here to the gate; and considering the weather and the roads, they are equal to twelve."

The young man uttered an exclamation. He had left the chateau that morning and did not think that he had wandered so far; but he had been on the wrong path for hours, and in thinking to take the road to Sersberg he had continued to turn his back upon it. It was too late to make good such an error; so he was forced to accept the shelter offered by his new companion, whose farm was fortunately within gunshot.

He accordingly regulated his pace to the carter's and attempted to enter into conversation with him; but Moser was not a talkative man and was apparently a complete stranger to the young man's usual sensations. When, on issuing from the forest, Arnold pointed to the magnificent horizon purpled by the last rays of the setting sun, the farmer contented himself with a grimace.

"Bad weather for to-morrow," he muttered, drawing his cloak about his shoulders.

"One ought to be able to see the entire valley from here," went on Arnold, striving to pierce the gloom that already clothed the foot of the mountain.

"Yes, yes," said Moser, shaking his head; "the ridge is high enough for that. There's an invention for you that isn't good for much."

"What invention?"

"The mountains."

"You would rather have everything level?"

"What a question!" cried the farmer, laughing. "You might as well ask me if I would not rather ruin my horses."

"True," said Arnold in a tone of somewhat contemptuous irony. "I had forgotten the horses! It is clear that God should have thought principally of them when he created the world."

"I don't know as to God," answered Moser quietly, "but the engineers certainly made a mistake in forgetting them when they made the roads. The horse is the laborer's best friend, monsieur—without disrespect to the oxen, which have their value too."

Arnold looked at the peasant. "So you see in your surroundings only the advantages you can derive from them?" he asked gravely. "The forest, the mountains, the clouds, all say nothing to you? You have never paused before the setting sun or at the sight of the woods lighted by the stars?"

"I?" cried the farmer. "Do you take me for a maker of almanacs? What should I get out of your starlight and the setting sun? The main thing is to earn enough for three meals a day and to keep one's stomach warm. Would monsieur like a drink of cognac? It comes from the other side of the Rhine."

He held out a little wicker-covered bottle to Arnold, who refused by a gesture. The positive coarseness of the peasant had rekindled his regret and his contempt. Were they really men such as he was, these unfortunates, doomed to unceasing labor, who lived in the bosom of nature without heeding it and whose souls never rose above the most material sensations? Was there one point of resemblance which could attest their original brotherhood to such as he? Arnold doubted this more and more each moment.

These thoughts had the effect of communicating to his manner a sort of contemptuous indifference toward his conductor, to whom he ceased to talk. Moser showed neither surprise nor pain and set to whistling an air, interrupted from time to time by some brief word of encouragement to his horses.

Thus they arrived at the farm, where the noise of the bells announced their coming. A young boy and a woman of middle age appeared on the threshold.

"Ah, it is the father!" cried the woman, looking back into the house, where could be heard the voices of several children, who came running to the door with shouts of joy and pressed around the peasant.

"Wait a moment, youngsters," interrupted the father in his big voice as he rummaged in the cart and brought forth a covered basket. "Let Fritz unharness."

But the children continued to besiege the farmer, all talking at once. He bent to kiss them, one after another; then rising suddenly:

"Where is Jean?" he asked with a quickness that had something of uneasiness in it.

"Here, father, here," answered a shrill little voice from the farm-house door; "mother doesn't want me to go out in the rain."

"Stay where you are," said Moser, throwing the traces on the backs of the horses; "I will go to you, little son. Go in, the rest of you, so as not to tempt him to come out."

The three children went back to the doorway, where little Jean was standing beside his mother, who was protecting him from the weather.

He was a poor little creature, so cruelly deformed that at the first glance one could not have told his age or the nature of his infirmity. His whole body, distorted by sickness, formed a curved, not to say a broken line. His disproportionately large head was sunken between two unequally rounded shoulders, while his body was sustained by two little crutches; these took the place of the shrunken legs, which could not support him.

At the farmer's approach he held out his thin arms with an expression of love that made Moser's furrowed face brighten. The father lifted him in his strong arms with an exclamation of tender delight.

"Come!" he cried, "hug your father—with both arms—hard! How has he been since yesterday?"

The mother shook her head.

"Always the cough," she answered in a low tone.

"It's nothing, father," the child answered in his shrill voice. "Louis had drawn me too fast in my wheeled chair; but I am well, very well; I feel as strong as a man."

The peasant placed him carefully on the ground, set him upon his little crutches, which had fallen, and looked at him with an air of satisfaction.

"Don't you think he's growing, wife?" he asked in the tone of a man who wishes to be encouraged. "Walk a bit, Jean; walk, boy! He walks more quickly and more strongly. It'll all come right, wife; we must only be patient."

The farmer's wife made no reply, but her eyes turned toward the feeble child with a look of despair so deep that Arnold trembled; fortunately Moser paid no heed.

"Come, the whole brood of you," he went on, opening the basket he had taken from the cart; "here is something for every one! In line and hold out your hands."

The peasant had displayed three small white rolls glazed in the baking; three cries of joy burst forth simultaneously and six hands advanced to seize the rolls, but they all paused at the word of command.

"And Jean?" asked the childish voices.

"To the devil with Jean," answered Moser gayly; "there is nothing for him to-night. Jean shall have his share another time."

But the child smiled and tried to get up to look into the basket. The farmer stepped back a pace, took off the cover carefully, and lifting his arm with an air of solemnity, displayed before the eyes of all a cake of gingerbread garnished with almonds and pink and white sugar-plums.

There was a general shout of admiration. Jean himself could not restrain a cry of delight; a slight flush rose to his pale face and he held out his hands with an air of joyful expectancy.

"Ah, you like it, little mole!" cried the peasant, whose face was radiant at the sight of the child's pleasure; "take it, old man, take it; it is nothing but sugar and honey."

He placed the gingerbread in the hands of the little hunchback, who trembled with happiness, watched him hobble off, and turning to Arnold when the sound of the crutches was lost in the house, said with a slight break in his voice:

"He is my eldest. Sickness has deformed him a little, but he's a shrewd fellow and it only depends upon us to make a gentleman of him."

While speaking he had crossed the first room on the ground-floor and led his guest into a species of dining-room, the whitewashed walls of which were decorated only with a few rudely colored prints. As he entered, Arnold saw Jean seated on the floor and surrounded by his brothers, among whom he was dividing the cake given him by his father. But each one objected to the size of his portion and wished to lessen it; it required all the little hunchback's eloquence to make them accept what he had given them. For some time the young sportsman watched this dispute with singular interest, and when the children had gone out again he expressed his admiration to the farmer's wife.

"It is quite true," she said with a smile and a sigh, "that there are times when it seems as though it were a good thing for them to see Jean's infirmity. It is hard for them to give up to each other, but not one of them can refuse Jean anything; it is a constant exercise in kindness and devotion."

"Great virtue, that!" interrupted Moser. "Who could refuse anything to such a poor, afflicted little innocent? It's a silly thing for a man to say; but, look you, monsieur, that child there always makes me want to cry. Often when I am at work in the fields, I begin all at once to think about him. I say to myself Jean is ill! or Jean is dead! and then I have to find some excuse for coming home to see how it is. Then he is so weak and so ailing! If we did not love him more than the others, he would be too unhappy."

"Yes," said the mother gently, "the poor child is our cross and our joy at the same time. I love all my children, monsieur, but whenever I hear the sound of Jean's crutches on the floor, I always feel a rush of happiness. It is a sign that the good God has not yet taken our darling away from us. It seems to me as though Jean brought happiness to the house just like swallows' nests fastened to the windows. If I hadn't him to take care of, I should think there was nothing for me to do."

Arnold listened to these naive expressions of tenderness with an interest that was mingled with astonishment. The farmer's wife called a servant to help set the table; and at Moser's invitation, the young man approached the brushwood fire which had been rekindled.

As he was leaning against the smoky mantelpiece, his eye fell upon a small black frame that inclosed a withered leaf. Moser noticed it.

"Ah! you are looking at my relic. It's a leaf of the weeping-willow that grows down there on the tomb of Napoleon! I got it from a Strasbourg merchant who had served in the Old Guard. I wouldn't part with it for a hundred crowns."

"Then there is some particular sentiment attached to it?"

"Sentiment, no," answered the peasant; "but I too was discharged from the Fourth Regiment of Hussars, a brave regiment, monsieur. There were only eight men left of our squadron, so when the Little Corporal passed in front of the line he saluted us—yes, monsieur, raised his hat to us! That was something to make us ready to die to the last man, look you. Ah! he was the father of the soldier!"

Here the peasant began to fill his pipe, looking the while at the black frame and the withered leaf. In this reminder of a marvelous destiny there was evidently for him a whole romance of youth, emotion, and regret. He recalled the last struggles of the Empire, in which he had taken part, the reviews held by the emperor, when his mere presence aroused confidence in victory; the passing successes of France's famous campaign, so soon expiated by the disaster at Waterloo; the departure of the vanquished general and his long agony on the rock of Saint Helena.

Arnold respected the old soldier's silent preoccupation and waited until he should resume the conversation.

The arrival of supper roused him from his reverie; he drew up a chair for his guest and took his place at the opposite side of the table.

"Come! fall to on the soup," he cried brusquely. "I have had nothing since morning but two swallows of cognac. I should eat an ox whole to-night."

To prove his words, he began to empty the huge porringer of soup before him.

For several moments nothing was heard but the clatter of spoons followed by that of the knives cutting up the side of bacon served by the farmer's wife. His walk and the fresh air had given Arnold himself an appetite that made him forget his Parisian daintiness. The supper grew gayer and gayer, when all at once the peasant raised his head.

"And Farraut?" he asked. "I have not seen him since my return."

His wife and the children looked at each other without answering.

"Well, what is it?" went on Moser, who saw their embarrassment. "Where is the dog? What has happened to him? Why don't you answer, Dorothee?"

"Don't be angry, father," interrupted Jean; "we didn't dare tell you, but Farraut went away and has not come back."

"A thousand devils! You should have told me!" cried the peasant, striking the table with his fist. "What road did he take?"

"The road to Garennes."

"When was it?"

"After dinner: we saw him go up the little path."

"Something must have happened to him," said Moser, getting up. "The poor animal is almost blind and there are sand pits all along the road! Go fetch my sheepskin and the lantern, wife. I must find Farraut, dead or alive."

Dorothee went out without making any remark either about the hour or the weather, and soon reappeared with what her husband had asked for.

"You must think a great deal of this dog," said Arnold, surprised at such zeal.

"It is not I," answered Moser, lighting his pipe; "but he did good service to Dorothee's father. One day when the old man was on his way home from market with the price of his oxen in his pocket, four men tried to murder him for his money, and they would have done it if it had not been for Farraut; so when the good man died two years ago, he called me to his bedside and asked me to care for the dog as for one of his children—those were his words. I promised, and it would be a crime not to keep one's promise to the dead. Fritz, give me my iron-shod stick. I wouldn't have anything happen to Farraut for a pint of my blood. The animal has been in the family for twenty years—he knows us all by our voices—and he recalls the grandfather. I shall see you again, monsieur, and good-night until to-morrow."

Moser wrapped himself in his sheepskin and went out. They could hear the sound of his iron-shod stick die away in the soughing of the wind and the falling of the rain.

After awhile the farmer's wife offered to conduct Arnold to his quarters for the night, but Arnold asked permission to await the return of the master of the house, if his return were not delayed too long. His interest in the man who had at first seemed to him so vulgar, and in the humble family whose existence he had thought to be so valueless, continued to increase.

The vigil was prolonged, however, and Moser did not return. The children had fallen asleep one after another, and even Jean, who had held out the longest, had to seek his bed at last. Dorothee, uneasy, went incessantly from the fireside to the door and from the door to the fireside. Arnold strove to reassure her, but her mind was excited by suspense. She accused Moser of never thinking of his health or of his safety; of always being ready to sacrifice himself for others; of being unable to see a human being or an animal suffer without risking all to relieve it. As she went on with her complaint, which sounded strangely like a glorification, her fears grew more vivid; she had a thousand gloomy forebodings. The dog had howled all through the previous night; an owl had perched upon the roof of the house; it was a Wednesday, always an unfortunate day in the family. Her fears reached such a pitch at last that the young man volunteered to go in search of her husband, and she was about to awaken Fritz to accompany him, when the sound of footsteps was heard outside.

"It is Moser!" said the woman, stopping short.

"Oho, there, open quickly, wife," cried the farmer from without.

She ran to draw the bolt, and Moser appeared, carrying in his arms the old blind dog.

"Here he is," he said gayly. "God help me! I thought I should never find him: the poor brute had rolled to the bottom of the big stone quarry."

"And you went there to get him?" asked Dorothee, horror-stricken.

"Should I have left him at the bottom to find him drowned to-morrow?" asked the old soldier. "I slid down the length of the big mountain and I carried him up in my arms like a child: the lantern was left behind, though."

"But you risked your life, you foolhardy man!" cried Dorothee, who was shuddering at her husband's explanation.

The latter shrugged his shoulders.

"Ah, bah!" he said with careless gayety; "who risks nothing has nothing; I have found Farraut—that's the principal thing. If the grandfather sees us from up there, he ought to be satisfied."

This reflection, made in an almost indifferent tone, touched Arnold, who held out his hand impetuously to the peasant.

"What you have done was prompted by a good heart," he said with feeling.

"What? Because I have kept a dog from drowning?" answered Moser. "Dogs and men—thank God I have helped more than one out of a hole since I was born; but I have sometimes had better weather than to-night to do it in. Say, wife, there must be a glass of cognac left; bring the bottle here; there is nothing that dries you better when you're wet."

Dorothee brought the bottle to the farmer, who drank to his guest's health, and then each sought his bed.

The next morning the weather was fine again; the sky was clear, and the birds, shaking their feathers, sang on the still dripping trees.

When he descended from the garret, where a bed had been prepared for him, Arnold found near the door Farraut, who was warming himself in the sun, while little Jean, seated on his crutches, was making him a collar of eglantine berries. A little further on, in the first room, the farmer was clinking glasses with a beggar who had come to collect his weekly tithe; Dorothee was holding his wallet, which she was filling.

"Come, old Henri, one more draught," said the peasant, refilling the beggar's glass; "if you mean to finish your round you must take courage."

"That one always finds here," said the beggar with a smile; "there are not many houses in the parish where they give more, but there is not one where they give with such good will."

"Be quiet, will you, Pere Henri?" interrupted Moser; "do people talk of such things? Drink and let the good God judge each man's actions. You, too, have served; we are old comrades."

The old man contented himself with a shake of the head and touched his glass to the farmer's; but one could see that he was more moved by the heartiness that accompanied the alms than the alms itself.

When he had taken up his wallet again and bade them good-by, Moser watched him go until he had disappeared around a bend in the road. Then drawing a breath, he said, turning to his guest:

"One more poor old man without a home. You may believe me or not, monsieur, but when I see men with shaking heads going about like that, begging their bread from door to door, it turns my blood. I should like to set the table for them all and touch glasses with them all as I did just now with Pere Henri. To keep your heart from breaking at such a sight, you must believe that there is a world up there where those who have not been summoned to the ordinary here will receive double rations and double pay."

"You must hold to that belief," said Arnold; "it will support and console you. It will be long before I shall forget the hours I have passed in your house, and I trust they will not be the last."

"Whenever you choose," said the old soldier; "if you don't find the bed up there too hard and if you can digest our bacon, come at your pleasure, and we shall always be under obligations to you."

He shook the hand that the young man had extended, pointed out the way that he must take, and did not leave the threshold until he had seen his guest disappear in the turn of the road.

For some time Arnold walked with lowered head, but upon reaching the summit of the hill he turned to take a last backward look, and seeing the farm-house chimney, above which curled a light wreath of smoke, he felt a tear of tenderness rise to his eye.

"May God always protect those who live under that roof!" he murmured; "for where pride made me see creatures incapable of understanding the finer qualities of the soul, I have found models for myself. I judged the depths by the surface and thought poetry absent because, instead of showing itself without, it hid itself in the heart of the things themselves; ignorant observer that I was, I pushed aside with my foot what I thought were pebbles, not guessing that in these rude stones were hidden diamonds."



JOHN HOWARD PAYNE AND "HOME, SWEET HOME"

About a hundred years ago, a young man, little more than a boy, was drawing large audiences to the theaters of our eastern cities. New York received him with enthusiasm, cultured Boston was charmed by his person and his graceful bearing, while warm-hearted Baltimore fairly outdid herself in hospitality. Until this time five hundred dollars was a large sum for a theater to yield in a single night in Baltimore, but people paid high premiums to hear the boy actor, and a one-evening audience brought in more than a thousand dollars.

About the same time in England another boy actor, Master Betty, was creating great excitement, and him they called the Young Roscius, a name that was quickly caught up by the admirers of the Yankee youth, who then became known as the Young American Roscius.

He was a wonderful boy in every way, was John Howard Payne. One of a large family of children, several of whom were remarkably bright, he had from his parents the most careful training, though they were not able always to give him the advantages they wished. John was born in New York City, but early moved with his parents to East Hampton, the most eastern town on the jutting southern point of Long Island. Here in the charming little village he passed his childhood, a leader among his playmates, and a favorite among his elders. His slight form, rounded face, beautiful features and graceful bearing combined to attract also the marked attention of every stranger who met him.

At thirteen years of age he was at work in New York, and soon was discovered to be the editor in secret of a paper called The Thespian Mirror. The merit of this juvenile sheet attracted the attention of many people, and among them of Mr. Seaman, a wealthy New Yorker who offered the talented boy an opportunity to go to college free of expense. Young Payne gladly accepted the invitation, and proceeded to Union College, where he soon became one of the most popular boys in the school. His handsome face, graceful manners and elegant delivery were met with applause whenever he spoke in public, and a natural taste led him to seek every chance for declamation and acting. Even as a child he had showed his dramatic ability, and more than once he was urged to go upon the stage. But his father refused all offers and kept the boy steadily at his work.

When he was seventeen, however, two events occurred which changed all his plans. First his mother died, and then his father failed in business, and the young man saw that he must himself take up the burdens of the family. Accordingly he left college before graduation and began his career as an actor.



His success was immediate and unusual, if we may judge from the words of contemporary critics. His first appearance in Boston was on February 24, 1809, as Douglas in Young Norval. In this play occurs the speech that countless American boys have declaimed, "On the Grampian Hills my father feeds his flocks." Of Payne's rendition a critic says, "He had all the skill of a finished artist combined with the freshness and simplicity of youth. Great praise, but there are few actors who can claim any competition with him." Six weeks later he was playing Hamlet there, and his elocution is spoken of as remarkable for its purity, his action as suited to the passion he represented, and his performance as an exquisite one that delighted his brilliant audience.

"Upon the stage, a glowing boy appeared Whom heavenly smiles and grateful thunders cheered; Then through the throng delighted murmurs ran. The boy enacts more wonders than a man."

Another, writing about this time, says, "Young Payne was a perfect Cupid in his beauty, and his sweet voice, self-possessed yet modest manners, wit, vivacity and premature wisdom, made him a most engaging prodigy."

And again, "A more engaging youth could not be imagined; he won all hearts by the beauty of his person and his captivating address, the premature richness of his mind and his chaste and flowing utterance."

His great successes here led him to go to England, where his popularity was not nearly so great, and where the critics pounced upon him unmercifully, hurting his feelings beyond repair. Still he succeeded moderately both in England and on the Continent, until he turned his attention to writing rather than to acting. Brutus, a tragedy, is the only one of the sixty works which he wrote, translated or adapted, that ever is played nowadays. In Clari, the Maid of Milan, one of his operas, however, appeared a little song that has made the name of John Howard Payne eternally famous throughout the world.

Home, Sweet Home had originally four stanzas, but by common consent the third and fourth have been dropped because of their inferiority. The two remaining ones are sung everywhere with heartfelt appreciation, and the air, whatever its origin, has now association only with the words of the old home song. Miss Ellen Tree, who sang it in the opera, charmed her audience instantly, and in the end won her husband through its melody.

In 1823, 100,000 copies were sold, and the publishers made 2,000 guineas from it in two years. In fact, it enriched everybody who had anything to do with it, except Payne, who sold it originally for L30.

Perhaps the most noteworthy incident connected with the public rendition of Home, Sweet Home occurred in Washington at one of the theaters where Jenny Lind was singing before an audience composed of the first people of our land. In one of the boxes sat the author, then on a visit to this country, and a favorite everywhere. The prima donna sang her greatest classical music and moved her audience to the wildest applause. Then in response to the renewed calls she stepped to the front of the stage, turned her face to the box where the poet sat, and in a voice of marvelous pathos and power sang:

"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home! A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. Home, Home! Sweet, sweet Home! There's no place like Home! There's no place like Home!



"An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain! O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again! The birds singing gaily that came at my call;— Give me them! and the peace of mind dearer than all! Home, Home! Sweet, sweet Home! There's no place like Home! There's no place like Home!"[226-1]

The audience were moved to tears. Even Daniel Webster, stern man of law, lost control of himself and wept like a child.

Payne's later life was not altogether a happy one, and he felt some resentment against the world, although it may not have been justified. He was unmarried, but was no more homeless than most bachelors. He exiled himself voluntarily from his own country, and so lost much of the delightful result of his own early popularity. He may have been reduced to privation and suffering, but it was not for long at a time. Some writers have sought to heighten effect by making the author of the greatest song of home a homeless wanderer. The truth is that Payne's unhappiness was largely the result of his own peculiarities. He was given to poetic exaggeration, for there is now known to be little stern fact in the following oft-quoted writing of himself:

"How often have I been in the heart of Paris, Berlin, London or some other city, and have heard persons singing or hand organs playing Sweet Home without having a shilling to buy myself the next meal or a place to lay my head! The world has literally sung my song until every heart is familiar with its melody, yet I have been a wanderer from my boyhood. My country has turned me ruthlessly from office and in my old age I have to submit to humiliation for my bread."

Upon his own request he was appointed United States consul at Tunis, and after being removed from that office continued to reside there until his death. He was buried in Saint George's Cemetery in Tunis, and there his body rested for more than thirty years, until W. W. Corcoran, a wealthy resident of Washington, had it disinterred, brought to this country and buried in the beautiful Oak Hill Cemetery near Washington. There a white marble shaft surmounted by a bust of the poet marks his last home. On one side of the shaft is the inscription:

John Howard Payne, Author of "Home, Sweet Home." Born June 9, 1792. Died April 9, 1852.

On the other side is chiseled this stanza:

"Sure when thy gentle spirit fled To realms above the azure dome, With outstretched arms God's angels said Welcome to Heaven's Home, Sweet Home."

Much sentiment has been wasted over Payne, who was really not a great poet and whose lack of stamina prevented him from grasping the power already in his hand. We should remember, too, that the astonishing popularity of Home, Sweet Home is doubtless due more to the glorious melody of the air, probably composed by some unknown Sicilian, than to the wording of the two stanzas.

When we study the verses themselves we see that the first three lines are rather fine, but the fourth line is clumsy and matter-of-fact compared with the others. In the second stanza "lowly thatched cottage" may be a poetic description, but the home longing is not confined to people who have lived in thatched cottages. Tame singing birds are interesting, but home stands for higher and holier things. All he asks for are a thatched cottage, singing birds and peace of mind: a curious group of things. The fourth line of that stanza is unmusical and inharmonious.

These facts make us see that what really has made the song so dear to us is its sweet music and the powerful emotion that seizes us all when we think of the home of our childhood.

FOOTNOTES:

[226-1] Capitals and punctuation as written by Payne.



AULD LANG SYNE[228-1]

By ROBERT BURNS

NOTE.—The song as we know it is not the first song to bear that title, nor is it entirely original with Robert Burns. It is said that the second and third stanzas were written by him, but that the others were merely revised. In a letter to a friend, written in 1793, Burns says, "The air (of Auld Lang Syne) is but mediocre; but the following song, the old song of the olden time, which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man's singing, is enough to recommend any air." This refers to the song as we know it, but the friend, a Mr. Thompson, set the words to an old Lowland air which is the one every one now uses.

At an earlier date Burns wrote to another friend: "Is not the Scottish phrase, auld lang syne, exceedingly expressive? There is an old song and tune that has often thrilled through my soul. Light be the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment."

We cannot be certain that this refers to the exact wording he subsequently set down, for there were at least three versions known at that time.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to min'? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o' lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne, We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,[229-2] For auld lang syne.

We twa[229-3] hae[229-4] run about the braes,[229-5] And pou'd[229-6] the gowans[229-7] fine; But we've wandered mony[229-8] a weary foot Sin'[229-9] auld lang syne. For auld, etc.

We twa hae paidl't[229-10] i' the burn,[229-11] Frae[229-12] mornin' sun till dine;[229-13] But seas between us braid[229-14] hae roared Sin' auld lang syne. For auld, etc.

And here's a hand, my trusty frere,[230-15] And gie's[230-16] a hand o' thine; And we'll tak a right guid[230-17] willie-waught[230-18] For auld lang syne. For auld, etc.



And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup,[230-19] And surely I'll be mine; And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet For auld lang syne. For auld, etc.

FOOTNOTES:

[228-1] Literally, Auld Lang Syne means Old Long-Since. It is difficult to bring out the meaning of the Scotch phrase by a single English word. Perhaps The Good Old Times comes as near to it as anything. The song gives so much meaning to the Scotch phrase that now every man and woman knows what Auld Lang Syne really stands for.

[229-2] That is, we will drink for the sake of old times.

[229-3] Twa means two.

[229-4] Hae is the Scotch for have.

[229-5] A brae is a sloping hillside.

[229-6] Pou'd is a contracted form of pulled.

[229-7] Dandelions, daisies and other yellow flowers are called gowans by the Scotch.

[229-8] Mony is many.

[229-9] Sin' is a contraction of since.

[229-10] Paidl't means paddled.

[229-11] A burn is a brook.

[229-12] Frae is the Scotch word for from.

[229-13] Dine means dinner-time, midday.

[229-14] Braid is the Scotch form of broad.

[230-15] Frere means friend.

[230-16] Gie's is a contracted form of give us.

[230-17] Guid is the Scottish spelling of good.

[230-18] A willie-waught is a hearty draught.

[230-19] A pint-stoup is a pint-cup or flagon.



HOME THEY BROUGHT HER WARRIOR DEAD

By ALFRED TENNYSON

Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry: All her maidens, watching, said, "She must weep or she will die."

Then they praised him, soft and low, Call'd him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe; Yet she never spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly to the warrior stept, Took a face-cloth from the face; Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years, Set his child upon her knee— Like summer tempest came her tears— "Sweet my child, I live for thee."



CHARLES DICKENS

"To begin my life with the beginning of my life," Dickens makes one of his heroes say, "I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night." Dickens was born on a Friday, the date the 7th of February, 1812, the place Landport in Portsea, England. The house was a comfortable one, and during Charles's early childhood his surroundings were prosperous; for his father, John Dickens, a clerk in the navy pay-office, was temporarily in easy circumstances. When Charles was but two, the family moved to London, taking lodgings for a time in Norfolk Street, Bloomsbury, and finally settling in Chatham. Here they lived in comfort, and here Charles gained more than the rudiments of an education, his earliest teacher being his mother, who instructed him not only in English, but in Latin also. Later he became the pupil of Mr. Giles, who seems to have taken in him an extraordinary interest.



Indeed, he was a child in whom it was difficult not to take an extraordinary interest. Small for his years, and attacked occasionally by a sort of spasm which was exceedingly painful, he was not fitted for much active exercise; but the aliveness which was apparent in him all his life distinguished him now. He was very fond of reading, and in David Copperfield he put into the mouth of his hero a description of his own delight in certain books. "My father had left a small collection of books in a little room upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own), and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas and Robinson Crusoe came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, ... they, and the Arabian Nights and the Tales of the Genii—and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me; I knew nothing of it.... I have been Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of Voyages and Travels—I forget what, now—that were on those shelves; and for days and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house, armed with the center piece out of an old set of boot-trees—the perfect realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price."

Not only did the little Charles read all he could lay hands upon; he made up stories, too, which he told to his small playmates, winning thereby their wondering admiration. Some of these tales he wrote down, and thus he became an author in a small way while he was yet a very small boy. His making believe to be the characters out of books shows another trait which clung to him all his life—his fondness for "play-acting." It was, in fact, often said of the mature Dickens that he would have made as good an actor as he was a novelist, and Dickens's father seems to have recognized in his little son decided traces of ability; for often, when there was company at the house, little Charles, with his face flushed and his eyes shining, would be placed on a table to sing a comic song, amid the applause of all present.

His early days were thus very happy; but when he was about eleven years old, money difficulties beset the family, and they were obliged to move to a poor part of London. Mrs. Dickens made persistent efforts to open a school for young ladies, but no one ever showed the slightest intention of coming. Matters went from bad to worse, and finally Mr. Dickens was arrested for debt and taken to the Marshalsea prison. The time that followed was a most painful one to the sensitive boy—far more painful, it would seem, than to the "Prodigal Father," as Dickens later called him. This father, whom Dickens long afterward described, in David Copperfield, as Mr. Micawber, was, as his son was always most willing to testify, a kind, generous man; but he was improvident to the last degree; and when in difficulties which would have made melancholy any other man, he was able, by the mere force of his rhetoric, to lift himself above circumstances or to make himself happy in them.

At length all the family except the oldest sister, who was at school, and Charles, went to live in the prison; and Charles was given work in a blacking-warehouse of which a relative of his mother's was manager. The sufferings which the boy endured at this time were intense. It was not only that the work was sordid, monotonous, uncongenial; it was not only that his pride was outraged; what hurt him most of all was that he should have been "so easily cast away at such an age," and that "no one made any sign." He had always yearned for an education; he had always felt that he must grow up to be worth something. And to see himself condemned, as he felt with the hopelessness of childhood, for life, to the society of such boys as he found in the blacking-warehouse, was almost more than he could endure. During his later life, prosperous and happy, he could scarcely bear to speak, even to his dearest friends, of this period of his life.

Though this period of his life seemed to him long, it was not really so, for he was not yet thirteen when he was taken from the warehouse and sent to school. Once given a chance, he learned rapidly and easily, although in all probability the schools to which he went were not of the best. After a year or two at school he again began work, but this time under more hopeful circumstances. He was, to be sure, but an under-clerk—little more than an office-boy in a solicitor's office; but at least the surroundings were less sordid and the companions more congenial. However, he had no intention of remaining an under-clerk, and he set to work to make himself a reporter.

Of his difficulties in mastering shorthand he has written feelingly in that novel which contains so much autobiographical material—David Copperfield. "I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography ... and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs, the tremendous effect of a curve in the wrong place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep."

When Dickens once made up his mind to do a thing, however, he always went through with it, and before so very long he had perfected himself in his "art and mystery," and was one of the most rapid and accurate reporters in London.

At nineteen he became a reporter of the speeches in Parliament. Before taking up his newspaper work, he made an attempt to go upon the stage; but it was not long before he found his true vocation, and abandoned all thought of the stage as a means of livelihood. In 1833 he published a sketch in the Old Monthly Magazine, and this was the first of those Sketches by Boz which were published at intervals for the next two years.

The year 1836 was a noteworthy one for Dickens, for in that year he married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of an associate on the Chronicle; and in that year began the publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. The publication of the first few numbers wakened no great enthusiasm, but with the appearance of the fifth number, in which Sam Weller is introduced, began that popularity which did not decline until Dickens's death. In fact, as one writer has said, "In dealing with Dickens, we are dealing with a man whose public success was a marvel and almost a monstrosity." Every one, old and young, serious and flippant, talked of Pickwick, and it was actually reported, by no less an authority than Thomas Carlyle, that a solemn clergyman, being told that he had not long to live, exclaimed, "Well, thank God, Pickwick will be out in ten days anyway!"

Oliver Twist followed, and then Nicholas Nickleby; and by this time Dickens began to get, what he did not receive from his first work, something like his fair share of the enormous profits, so that his growing family lived in comfort, if not in luxury. When the Old Curiosity Shop, and, later, Barnaby Rudge, appeared, the number of purchasers of the serials rose as high as seventy thousand.

Early in 1842 Dickens and his wife made a journey to America, leaving their children in the care of a friend. Shortly after arriving in the United States he wrote to a friend, "I can give you no conception of my welcome here. There was never a king or emperor upon the earth so cheered and followed by crowds, and entertained in public at splendid balls and dinners, and waited on by public bodies and deputations of all kinds;" and again, "In every town where we stay, though it be only for a day, we hold a regular levee or drawing-room, where I shake hands on an average with five or six hundred people."

Dickens had come prepared to like America and Americans—and in many ways he did like them. But in other ways he was disappointed. He ventured to object, in various speeches, to the pirating, in America, of English literature, and fierce were the denunciations which this course drew upon him. Having fancied that in the republic of America he might have at least free speech on a matter which so closely concerned him, Dickens resented this treatment, and the Americans resented his resentment. However, it was with the kindliest feelings toward the many friends he had made in the United States, and with the most out-spoken admiration for many American institutions that he left for England. The publication of his American Notes and of Martin Chuzzlewit did not tend to reconcile Americans to Dickens; but there seems to have been no falling off in the sale of his books in this country.

Dickens's life, like the lives of most literary men, was not particularly eventful. It was, however, a constantly busy life. Book followed book in rapid succession, and still their popularity grew. Sometimes in London, sometimes in Italy or Rome or Switzerland, he created those wonderful characters of his which will live as long as the English language. The first of the Christmas books, A Christmas Carol, appeared in 1843, and henceforward one of the things to which people looked forward at Yuletide was the publication of a new Dickens Christmas story.

One diversion—if diversion it can be called—Dickens allowed himself not infrequently, and enjoyed most thoroughly. This was the production, sometimes before a selected audience, sometimes in public, of plays, in which Dickens himself usually took the chief part. Often these plays were given not only in London, but in various parts of the country, as benefits for poor authors or actors, or for the widows and families of such; and always they were astonishingly successful. It is reported that an old stage prompter or property man said one time to Dickens "Lor, Mr. Dickens! If it hadn't been for them books, what an actor you would have made."

Naturally, a man of Dickens's eminence had as his friends and acquaintances many of the foremost men of his time, and a most affectionate and delightful friend he was. His letters fall no whit below the best of his writing in his novels in their power of observation, their brightness, their humorous manner of expression.

In 1849 was begun the publication of David Copperfield, Dickens's own favorite among his novels. It contains, as has already been said, much that is autobiographical, and one of the most interesting facts in connection with this phase of it is that there really was, in Dickens's young days, a "Dora" whom he worshiped. Years later he met her again, and what his feelings on that occasion must have been may be imagined when we know that this Dora-grown-older was the original of "Flora" in Little Dorrit.

The things that Dickens, writing constantly and copiously, found time to do are wonderful. One of the matters in which he took great interest and an active part was the children's theatricals. These were held each year during the Christmas holiday season at Dickens's home, and while his children and their friends were the principal actors, Dickens superintended the whole, introduced three-quarters of the fun, and played grown-up parts, adopting as his stage title the "Modern Garrick."

Though the story of these crowded years is quickly told, the years were far from being uneventful in their passing. Occasional sojourns, either with his family or with friends, in France and in Italy always made Dickens but the more glad to be in his beloved London, where he seemed most in his element and where his genius had freest play. This does not mean that he did not enjoy France and Italy, or appreciate their beauties, but simply that he was always an Englishman—a city Englishman. His observations, however, on what he saw in traveling were always most acute and entertaining.

His account of his well-nigh unsuccessful attempt to find the house of Mr. Lowther, English charge d'affaires at Naples, with whom he had been invited to dine, may be quoted here to show his power of humorous description:

"We had an exceedingly pleasant dinner of eight, preparatory to which I was near having the ridiculous adventure of not being able to find the house and coming back dinnerless. I went in an open carriage from the hotel in all state, and the coachman, to my surprise, pulled up at the end of the Chiaja.

"'Behold the house' says he, 'of Signor Larthoor!'—at the same time pointing with his whip into the seventh heaven, where the early stars were shining.

"'But the Signor Larthoor,' returns the Inimitable darling, 'lives at Pausilippo.'

"'It is true,' says the coachman (still pointing to the evening star), 'but he lives high up the Salita Sant' Antonio, where no carriage ever yet ascended, and that is the house' (evening star as aforesaid), 'and one must go on foot. Behold the Salita Sant' Antonio!'

"I went up it, a mile and a half I should think. I got into the strangest places, among the wildest Neapolitans—kitchens, washing-places, archways, stables, vineyards—was baited by dogs, answered in profoundly unintelligible Neapolitan, from behind lonely locked doors, in cracked female voices, quaking with fear; could hear of no such Englishman or any Englishman. By-and-by I came upon a Polenta-shop in the clouds, where an old Frenchman, with an umbrella like a faded tropical leaf (it had not rained for six weeks) was staring at nothing at all, with a snuff-box in his hand. To him I appealed concerning the Signor Larthoor.

"'Sir,' said he, with the sweetest politeness, 'can you speak French?'

"'Sir,' said I, 'a little.'

"'Sir,' said he, 'I presume the Signor Lootheere'—you will observe that he changed the name according to the custom of his country—'is an Englishman.'

"I admitted that he was the victim of circumstances and had that misfortune.

"'Sir,' said he, 'one word more. Has he a servant with a wooden leg?'

"'Great Heaven, sir,' said I, 'how do I know? I should think not, but it is possible.'

"'It is always,' said the Frenchman, 'possible. Almost all the things of the world are always possible.'

"'Sir,' said I—you may imagine my condition and dismal sense of my own absurdity by this time—'that is true.'

"He then took an immense pinch of snuff, wiped the dust off his umbrella, led me to an arch commanding a wonderful view of the Bay of Naples, and pointed deep into the earth from which I had mounted.

"'Below there, near the lamp, one finds an Englishman, with a servant with a wooden leg. It is always possible that he is the Signor Lootheere.'

"I had been asked at six, and it was now getting on for seven. I went down again in a state of perspiration and misery not to be described, and without the faintest hope of finding the place. But as I was going down to the lamp, I saw the strangest staircase up a dark corner, with a man in a white waistcoat (evidently hired) standing on the top of it fuming. I dashed in at a venture, found it was the place, made the most of the whole story, and was indescribably popular."

"Indescribably popular" Dickens was almost every place he went. And in 1858 there came to him increased popularity by reason of a new venture. In this year he began his public readings from his own works, which brought him in immense sums of money. Through England, Scotland, Ireland and the United States he journeyed, reading, as only he could read, scenes humorous and pathetic from his great novels, and everywhere the effect was the same.

Descriptive of an evening at Edinburgh, he wrote: "Such a pouring of hundreds into a place already full to the throat, such indescribable confusion, such a rending and tearing of dresses, and yet such a scene of good humor on the whole!... I read with the platform crammed with people. I got them to lie down upon it, and it was like some impossible tableau or gigantic picnic; one pretty girl in full dress hang on her side all night, holding on to one of the legs of my table. And yet from the moment I began to the moment of my leaving off, they never missed a point, and they ended with a burst of cheers."

Meanwhile Dickens's domestic life had not been happy. He and his wife were not entirely congenial in temper, and the incompatibility increased with the years, until in 1858 they agreed to live apart. Most of the children remained with their father, although they were given perfect freedom to visit their mother.

Among Dickens's later novels are the Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, which is one of his very best books, and Our Mutual Friend, which, while as a story it has many faults, yet abounds with the humor and fancy which are characteristic of Dickens. In October, 1869, was begun Edwin Drood, which was published like most of its predecessors, as a serial. Six numbers appeared, and there the story closed; for on June 9, 1870, Charles Dickens died, after an illness of but one day, during all of which he was unconscious.

His family desired to have him buried near his home, the Gad's Hill which he had admired from his childhood and had purchased in his manhood; but the general wish was that he should be laid in Westminster Abbey, and to this wish his family felt that it would be wrong to object. For days there were crowds of mourners about the grave, shedding tears, scattering flowers, testifying to the depth of affection they had felt for the man who had given them so many happy hours.



A CHRISTMAS CAROL

By CHARLES DICKENS

STAVE ONE

Marley's Ghost

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot—say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance—literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had even struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.

Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The City clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already: it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.[247-1]

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure."

"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough."

"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough."

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Humbug."

"Don't be cross, uncle," said the nephew.

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge, indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.

"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't keep it."

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew: "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded: becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.

"Let me hear another sound from you," said Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. You're quite a powerful speaker, Sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you don't go into Parliament."

"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow."

Scrooge said that he would see him—yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"

"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.

"Because I fell in love."

"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"

"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?"

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

"And A Happy New Year!"

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.

"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam."[251-2]

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"

"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very night."

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, Sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?"[252-3] demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill[252-4] and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, Sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when want is keenly felt, and abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don't know that."

"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in more facetious temper than was usual with him.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that the people ran about with flaring links,[253-5] proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shop where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.

Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan[254-6] had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of

"God bless you, merry gentlemen! May nothing you dismay!"[254-7]

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.



"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said Scrooge.

"If quite convenient, Sir."

"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"

The clerk smiled faintly.

"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work."

The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!" said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning!"

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's-buff.

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even including—which is a bold word—the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven-years' dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change, not a knocker, but Marley's face.

Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.