One of the dangers of our civilization may be seen in the light of these considerations. We are developing so much strength founded on popular intelligence, and this intelligence and the incitements to it are developing such large property interests, that if the principle of elective affinity shall sort men out and classify them, we are steering to the not very remote danger of the disintegration of human society. I can tell you that the classes of men who by their knowledge, refinement, and wealth think they are justified in separating themselves, and in making a great void between them and the myriads of men below them, are courting their own destruction. I look with very great interest on the process of change going on in Great Britain, where the top of society had all the "blood," but the circulation is growing larger and larger, and a change is gradually taking place in their institutions. The old nobility of Great Britain is the lordliest of aristocracies existing in the world. Happily, on the whole, a very noble class of men occupy the high positions: but the spirit of suffrage, this angel of God that so many hate, is coming in on them; and when every man in Great Britain can vote, no matter whether he is poor or rich, whether he has knowledge or no knowledge, there must be a very great change. Before the great day of the Lord shall come, the valleys are to go up and the mountains are to come down; and the mountains have started already in Great Britain and must come down. There may be an aristocracy in any nation,—that is to say, there may be "best men"; there ought to be an aristocracy in every community,—that is, an aristocracy of men who speak the truth, who are just, who are intelligent: but that aristocracy will be like a wave of the sea; it has to be reconstituted in every generation, and the men who are the best in the State become the aristocracy of that State. But where rank is hereditary, if political suffrage becomes free and universal, aristocracy cannot live. The spirit of the gospel is democratic. The tendency of the gospel is leveling; leveling up, not down. It is carrying the poor and the multitude onward and upward.

It is said that democracies have no great men, no heroic men. Why is it so? When you raise the average of intelligence and power in the community it is very hard to be a great man. That is to say, when the great mass of citizens are only ankle-high, when among the Lilliputians a Brobdingnagian walks, he is a great man. But when the Lilliputians grow until they get up to his shoulder, he is not so great a man as he was by the whole length of his body. So, make the common people grow, and there is nobody tall enough to be much higher.

* * * * *

The remarkable people of this world are useful in their way; but the common people, after all, represent the nation, the age, and the civilization. Go into any town or city: do not ask who lives in that splendid house; do not say, This is a fine town, here are streets of houses with gardens and yards, and everything that is beautiful the whole way through. Go into the lanes, go into the back streets, go where the mechanic lives; go where the day-laborer lives. See what is the condition of the streets there. See what they do with the poor, with the helpless, and the mean. If the top of society bends perpetually over the bottom with tenderness, if the rich and strong are the best friends of the poor and needy, that is a civilized and a Christian community; but if the rich and the wise are the cream and the great bulk of the population skim-milk, that is not a prosperous community.

There is a great deal of irreligion in men, there is a great deal of wickedness and depravity in men, but there are times when it is true that the church is more dissipated than the dissipated classes of the community. If there is one thing that stood out more strongly than any other in the ministry of our Lord, it is the severity with which he treated the exclusiveness of men with knowledge, position, and a certain sort of religion, a religion of particularity and carefulness; if there is one class of the community against which he hurled his thunderbolts without mercy and predicted woes, it was the scribes, Pharisees, scholars, and priests of the temples. He told them in so many words, "The publican and the harlot will enter the kingdom of God before you." The worst dissipation in this world is the dry-rot of morality, and of the so-called piety that separates men of prosperity and of power from the poor and ignoble. They are our wards....

I am not a socialist. I do not preach riot. I do not preach the destruction of property. I regard property as one of the sacred things. The real property established by a man's own intelligence and labor is the crystallized man himself. It is the fruit of what his life-work has done; and not in vain, society makes crime against it amongst the most punishable. But nevertheless, I warn these men in a country like ours, where every man votes, whether he came from Hungary, or from Russia, or from Germany, or from France or Italy, or Spain or Portugal, or from the Orient,—from Japan and China, because they too are going to vote! On the Niagara River, logs come floating down and strike an island, and there they lodge and accumulate for a little while, and won't go over. But the rains come, the snows melt, the river rises, and the logs are lifted up and down, and they go swinging over the falls. The stream of suffrage of free men, having all the privileges of the State, is this great stream. The figure is defective in this, that the log goes over the Niagara Falls, but that is not the way the country is going or will go.... There is a certain river of political life, and everything has to go into it first or last; and if, in days to come, a man separates himself from his fellows without sympathy, if his wealth and power make poverty feel itself more poor and men's misery more miserable, and set against him the whole stream of popular feeling, that man is in danger. He may not know who dynamites him, but there is danger; and let him take heed who is in peril. There is nothing easier in the world than for rich men to ingratiate themselves with the whole community in which they live, and so secure themselves. It is not selfishness that will do it; it is not by increasing the load of misfortune, it is not by wasting substance in riotous living upon appetites and passions. It is by recognizing that every man is a brother. It is by recognizing the essential spirit of the gospel, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." It is by using some of their vast power and riches so as to diffuse joy in every section of the community.

Here then I close this discourse. How much it enrolls! How very simple it is! It is the whole gospel. When you make an application of it to all the phases of organization and classification of human interests and developments, it seems as though it were as big as the universe. Yet when you condense it, it all comes back to the one simple creed: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Who is my neighbor? A certain man went down to Jericho, and so on. That tells you who your neighbor is. Whosoever has been attacked by robbers, has been beaten, has been thrown down—by liquor, by gambling, or by any form of wickedness; whosoever has been cast into distress, and you are called on to raise him up—that is your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. That is the gospel.

A NEW ENGLAND SUNDAY

From 'Norwood'

It is worth all the inconveniences arising from the occasional over-action of New England Sabbath observance, to obtain the full flavor of a New England Sunday. But for this, one should have been born there; should have found Sunday already waiting for him, and accepted it with implicit and absolute conviction, as if it were a law of nature, in the same way that night and day, summer and winter, are parts of nature. He should have been brought up by parents who had done the same thing, as they were by parents even more strict, if that were possible; until not religious persons peculiarly, but everybody—not churches alone, but society itself, and all its population, those who broke it as much as those who kept it—were stained through with the color of Sunday. Nay, until Nature had adopted it, and laid its commands on all birds and beasts, on the sun and winds, and upon the whole atmosphere; so that without much imagination one might imagine, in a genuine New England Sunday of the Connecticut River Valley stamp, that God was still on that day resting from all the work which he had created and made, and that all his work rested with him!

Over all the town rested the Lord's peace! The saw was ripping away yesterday in the carpenter's shop, and the hammer was noisy enough. Today there is not a sign of life there. The anvil makes no music to-day. Tommy Taft's buckets and barrels give forth no hollow, thumping sound. The mill is silent—only the brook continues noisy. Listen! In yonder pine woods what a cawing of crows! Like an echo, in a wood still more remote other crows are answering. But even a crow's throat to-day is musical. Do they think, because they have black coats on, that they are parsons, and have a right to play pulpit with all the pine-trees? Nay. The birds will not have any such monopoly,—they are all singing, and singing all together, and no one cares whether his song rushes across another's or not. Larks and robins, blackbirds and orioles, sparrows and bluebirds, mocking cat-birds and wrens, were furrowing the air with such mixtures as no other day but Sunday, when all artificial and human sounds cease, could ever hear. Every now and then a bobolink seemed impressed with the duty of bringing these jangling birds into more regularity; and like a country singing-master, he flew down the ranks, singing all the parts himself in snatches, as if to stimulate and help the laggards. In vain! Sunday is the birds' day, and they will have their own democratic worship.

There was no sound in the village street. Look either way—not a vehicle, not a human being. The smoke rose up soberly and quietly, as if it said—It is Sunday! The leaves on the great elms hung motionless, glittering in dew, as if they too, like the people who dwelt under their shadow, were waiting for the bell to ring for meeting. Bees sung and flew as usual; but honey-bees have a Sunday way with them all the week, and could scarcely change for the better on the seventh day.

But oh, the Sun! It had sent before and cleared every stain out of the sky. The blue heaven was not dim and low, as on secular days, but curved and deep, as if on Sunday it shook off all incumbrance which during the week had lowered and flattened it, and sprang back to the arch and symmetry of a dome. All ordinary sounds caught the spirit of the day. The shutting of a door sounded twice as far as usual. The rattle of a bucket in a neighbor's yard, no longer mixed with heterogeneous noises, seemed a new sound. The hens went silently about, and roosters crowed in psalm-tunes. And when the first bell rung, Nature seemed overjoyed to find something that it might do without breaking Sunday, and rolled the sound over and over, and pushed it through the air, and raced with it over field and hill, twice as far as on week-days. There were no less than seven steeples in sight from the belfry, and the sexton said:—"On still Sundays I've heard the bell, at one time and another, when the day was fair, and the air moving in the right way, from every one of them steeples, and I guess likely they've all heard our'n."

"Come, Rose!" said Agate Bissell, at an even earlier hour than when Rose usually awakened—"Come, Rose, it is the Sabbath. We must not be late Sunday morning, of all days in the week. It is the Lord's day."

There was little preparation required for the day. Saturday night, in some parts of New England, was considered almost as sacred as Sunday itself. After sundown on Saturday night no play, and no work except such as is immediately preparatory to the Sabbath, were deemed becoming in good Christians. The clothes had been laid out the night before. Nothing was forgotten. The best frock was ready; the hose and shoes were waiting. Every article of linen, every ruffle and ribbon, were selected on Saturday night. Every one in the house walked mildly. Every one spoke in a low tone. Yet all were cheerful. The mother had on her kindest face, and nobody laughed, but everybody made it up in smiling. The nurse smiled, and the children held on to keep down a giggle within the lawful bounds of a smile; and the doctor looked rounder and calmer than ever; and the dog flapped his tail on the floor with a softened sound, as if he had fresh wrapped it in hair for that very day. Aunt Toodie, the cook (so the children had changed Mrs. Sarah Good's name), was blacker than ever and shinier than ever, and the coffee better, and the cream richer, and the broiled chickens juicier and more tender, and the biscuit whiter, and the corn-bread more brittle and sweet.

When the good doctor read the Scriptures at family prayer, the infection of silence had subdued everything except the clock. Out of the wide hall could be heard in the stillness the old clock, that now lifted up its voice with unwonted emphasis, as if, unnoticed through the bustling week, Sunday was its vantage ground, to proclaim to mortals the swift flight of time. And if the old pedant performed the task with something of an ostentatious precision, it was because in that house nothing else put on official airs, and the clock felt the responsibility of doing it for the whole mansion.

And now came mother and catechism; for Mrs. Wentworth followed the old custom, and declared that no child of hers should grow up without catechism. Secretly, the doctor was quite willing, though openly he played off upon the practice a world of good-natured discouragement, and declared that there should be an opposition set up—a catechism of Nature, with natural laws for decrees, and seasons for Providence, and flowers for graces! The younger children were taught in simple catechism. But Rose, having reached the mature age of twelve, was now manifesting her power over the Westminster Shorter Catechism; and as it was simply an achievement of memory and not of the understanding, she had the book at great advantage, and soon subdued every question and answer in it. As much as possible, the doctor was kept aloof on such occasions. His grave questions were not to edification, and often they caused Rose to stumble, and brought down sorely the exultation with which she rolled forth, "They that are effectually called do in this life partake of justification, adoption, sanctification, and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them."

"What do those words mean, Rose?"

"Which words, pa?"

"Adoption, sanctification, and justification?"

Rose hesitated, and looked at her mother for rescue.

"Doctor, why do you trouble the child? Of course she don't know yet all the meaning. But that will come to her when she grows older."

"You make a nest of her memory, then, and put words there, like eggs, for future hatching?"

"Yes, that is it exactly: birds do not hatch their eggs the minute they lay them. They wait."

"Laying eggs at twelve to be hatched at twenty is subjecting them to some risk, is it not?"

"It might be so with eggs, but not with the catechism. That will keep without spoiling a hundred years!"

"Because it is so dry?"

"Because it is so good. But do, dear husband, go away, and not put notions in the children's heads. It's hard enough already to get them through their tasks. Here's poor Arthur, who has been two Sundays on one question, and has not got it yet."

Arthur, aforesaid, was sharp and bright in anything addressed to his reason, but he had no verbal memory, and he was therefore wading painfully through the catechism like a man in a deep-muddy road; with this difference, that the man carries too much clay with him, while nothing stuck to poor Arthur.

* * * * *

The beauty of the day, the genial season of the year, brought forth every one; old men and their feebler old wives, young and hearty men and their plump and ruddy companions,—young men and girls and children, thick as punctuation points in Hebrew text, filled the street. In a low voice, they spoke to each other in single sentences.

"A fine day! There'll be a good congregation out to-day."

"Yes; we may expect a house full. How is Widow Cheney—have you heard?"

"Well, not much better; can't hold out many days. It will be a great loss to the children."

"Yes; but we must all die—nobody can skip his turn. Does she still talk about them that's gone?"

"They say not. I believe she's sunk into a quiet way; and it looks as if she'd go off easy."

"Sunday is a good day for dying—it's about the only journey that speeds well on this day!"

There was something striking in the outflow of people into the street, that till now had seemed utterly deserted. There was no fevered hurry; no negligent or poorly dressed people. Every family came in groups—old folks and young children; and every member blossomed forth in his best apparel, like a rose-bush in June. Do you know that man in a silk hat and new black coat? Probably it is some stranger. No; it is the carpenter, Mr. Baggs, who was racing about yesterday with his sleeves rolled up, and a dust-and-business look in his face! I knew you would not know him. Adams Gardner, the blacksmith,—does he not look every inch a judge, now that he is clean-washed, shaved, and dressed? His eyes are as bright as the sparks that fly from his anvil!

Are not the folks proud of their children? See what groups of them! How ruddy and plump are most! Some are roguish, and cut clandestine capers at every chance. Others seem like wax figures, so perfectly proper are they. Little hands go slyly through the pickets to pluck a tempting flower. Other hands carry hymn-books or Bibles. But, carry what they may, dressed as each parent can afford, is there anything the sun shines upon more beautiful than these troops of Sunday children?

The old bell had it all its own way up in the steeple. It was the licensed noise of the day. In a long shed behind the church stood a score and half-score of wagons and chaises and carryalls,—the horses already beginning the forenoon's work of stamping and whisking the flies. More were coming. Hiram Beers had "hitched up," and brought two loads with his new hack; and now, having secured the team, he stood with a few admiring young fellows about him, remarking on the people as they came up.

"There's Trowbridge—he'll git asleep afore the first prayer's over. I don't b'lieve he's heerd a sermon in ten years. I've seen him sleep standin' up in singin'.

"Here comes Deacon Marble,—smart old feller, ain't he?—wouldn't think it, jest to look at him! Face looks like an ear of last summer's sweet corn, all dried up; but I tell ye he's got the juice in him yit! Aunt Polly's gittin' old, ain't she? They say she can't walk half the time—lost the use of her limbs; but it's all gone to her tongue. That's as good as a razor, and a sight better 'n mine, for it never needs sharpenin'.

"Stand away, boys, there's 'Biah Cathcart. Good horses—not fast, but mighty strong, just like the owner."

And with that Hiram touched his new Sunday hat to Mrs. Cathcart and Alice; and as he took the horses by the bits, he dropped his head and gave the Cathcart boys a look of such awful solemnity, all except one eye, that they lost their sobriety. Barton alone remained sober as a judge.

"Here comes 'Dot-and-Go-One' and his wife. They're my kind o' Christians. She is a saint, at any rate."

"How is it with you, Tommy Taft?"

"Fair to middlin', thank'e. Such weather would make a hand-spike blossom, Hiram."

"Don't you think that's a leetle strong, Tommy, for Sunday? P'raps you mean afore it's cut?"

"Sartin; that's what I mean. But you mustn't stop me, Hiram. Parson Buell 'll be lookin' for me. He never begins till I git there."

"You mean you always git there 'fore he begins."

Next, Hiram's prying eyes saw Mr. Turfmould, the sexton and undertaker, who seemed to be in a pensive meditation upon all the dead that he had ever buried. He looked upon men in a mild and pitying manner, as if he forgave them for being in good health. You could not help feeling that he gazed upon you with a professional eye, and saw just how you would look in the condition which was to him the most interesting period of a man's earthly state. He walked with a soft tread, as if he was always at a funeral; and when he shook your hand, his left hand half followed his right, as if he were about beginning to lay you out. He was one of the few men absorbed by his business, and who unconsciously measured all things from its standpoint.

"Good-morning, Mr. Turfmould! How's your health? How is business with you?"

"Good—the Lord be praised! I've no reason to complain."

And he glided silently and smoothly into the church.

"There comes Judge Bacon, white and ugly," said the critical Hiram. "I wonder what he comes to meetin' for. Lord knows he needs it, sly, slippery old sinner! Face's as white as a lily; his heart's as black as a chimney flue afore it's cleaned. He'll get his flue burned out if he don't repent, that's certain. He don't believe the Bible. They say he don't believe in God. Wal, I guess it's pretty even between 'em. Shouldn't wonder if God didn't believe in him neither."

As soon as the afternoon service was over, every horse on the green knew that it was time for him to go home. Some grew restless and whinnied for their masters. Nimble hands soon put them into the shafts or repaired any irregularity of harness. Then came such a scramble of vehicles to the church door for the older persons; while young women and children, venturing further out upon the green, were taken up hastily, that the impatient horses might as soon as possible turn their heads homeward. Clouds of dust began to arise along every outward-going road. In less than ten minutes not a wagon or chaise was seen upon the village green. They were whirling homeward at the very best pace that the horses could raise. Stiff old steeds vainly essayed a nimbler gait, but gave it up in a few rods, and fell back to the steady jog. Young horses, tired of long standing, and with a strong yearning for evening oats, shot along the level ground, rushed up the little hills, or down upon the other side, in the most un-Sunday-like haste. The scene was not altogether unlike the return from a military funeral, to which men march with sad music and slow, but from which they return nimbly marching to the most brilliant quick-step.

In half an hour Norwood was quiet again. The dinner, on Sunday, when for the sake of the outlying population the two services are brought near together in the middle of the day, was usually deferred till the ordinary supper hour. It was evident that the tone of the day was changed. Children were not so strictly held in. There was no loud talking, nor was laughing allowed, but a general feeling sprung up around the table that the severer tasks of the day were ended.

Devout and age-sobered people sat in a kind of golden twilight of meditation. The minister, in his well-ordered house, tired with a double service, mingled thoughts both glad and sad. His tasks were ended. He was conscious that he had manfully done his best. But that best doing, as he reflected upon it, seemed so poor, so unworthy of the nobleness of the theme, and so relatively powerless upon the stubborn stuff of which his people's dispositions were made, that there remained a vague, unquiet sense of blame upon his conscience.

It was Dr. Wentworth's habit to walk with his family in the garden, early in the morning and late in the afternoon. If early, Rose was usually his company; in the afternoon the whole family, Agate Bissell always excepted. She had in full measure that peculiar New England feeling that Sunday is to be kept by staying in the house, except such time as is spent at church. And though she never, impliedly even, rebuked the doctor's resort to his garden, it was plain that deep down in her heart she thought it an improper way of spending Sunday; and in that view she had the secret sympathy of almost all the noteworthy villagers. Had any one, upon that day, made Agate a visit, unless for some plain end of necessity or mercy, she would have deemed it a personal affront.

Sunday was the Lord's day. Agate acted as if any use of it for her own pleasure would be literal and downright stealing.

"We have six days for our own work. We ought not to begrudge the Lord one whole day."

Two circumstances distressed honest Agate's conscience. The one was that the incursion of summer visitors from the city was tending manifestly to relax the Sabbath, especially after the church services. The other was that Dr. Wentworth would occasionally allow Judge Bacon to call in and discuss with him topics suggested by the sermons. She once expressed herself in this wise:—

"Either Sunday is worth keeping, or it is not. If you do keep it, it ought to be strictly done. But lately Sunday is raveling out at the end. We take it on like a summer dress, which in the morning is clean and sweet, but at night it is soiled at the bottom and much rumpled all over."

Dr. Wentworth sat with Rose on one side and her mother on the other, in the honeysuckle corner, where the west could be seen, great trees lying athwart the horizon and checkering the golden light with their dark masses. Judge Bacon had turned the conversation upon this very topic.

"I think our Sundays in New England are Puritan and Jewish more than Christian. They are days of restriction rather than of joyousness. They are fast days, not feast days."

"Do you say that as a mere matter of historical criticism, or do you think that they could be improved practically?"

"Both. It is susceptible of proof that the early Christian Sunday was a day of triumph and of much social joy. It would be well if we could follow primitive example."

"Judge, I am hardly of your opinion. I should be unwilling to see our New England Sunday changed, except perhaps by a larger social liberty in each family. Much might be done to make it attractive to children, and relieve older persons from ennui. But after all, we must judge things by their fruits. If you bring me good apples, it is in vain to abuse the tree as craggy, rude, or homely. The fruit redeems the tree."

"A very comely figure, Doctor, but not very good reasoning. New England has had something at work upon her beside her Sundays. What you call the 'fruit' grew, a good deal of it at any rate, on other trees than Sunday trees."

"You are only partly right. New England character and history are the result of a wide-spread system of influences of which the Sabbath day was the type—and not only so, but the grand motive power. Almost every cause which has worked benignly among us has received its inspiration and impulse largely from this One Solitary Day of the week.

"It is true that all the vegetable growths that we see about us here depend upon a great variety of causes; but there is one cause that is the condition of power in every other, and that is the Sun! And so, many as have been the influences working at New England character, Sunday has been a generic and multiplex force, inspiring and directing all others. It is indeed the Sun's day.

"It is a little singular that, borrowing the name from the heathen calendar, it should have tallied so well with the Scripture name, the Lord's day—that Lord who was the Morning Star in early day, and at length the Sun of Righteousness!

"The Jews called it the Sabbath—a day of rest. Modern Christians call it the Sun's day, or the day of light, warmth, and growth. If this seems fanciful so far as the names of the day are concerned, it is strikingly characteristic of the real spirit of the two days, in the ancient and modern dispensation. I doubt if the old Jews ever kept a Sabbath religiously, as we understand that term. Indeed, I suspect there was not yet a religious strength in that national character that could hold up religious feeling without the help of social and even physical adjuvants. Their religious days were either fasts or like our Thanksgiving days. But the higher and richer moral nature which has been developed by Christianity enables communities to sustain one day in seven upon a high spiritual plane, with the need of but very little social help, and without the feasting element at all."

"That may be very well for a few saints like you and me, Doctor, but it is too high for the majority of men. Common people find the strict Sundays a great annoyance, and clandestinely set them aside."

"I doubt it. There are a few in every society that live by their sensuous nature. Sunday must be a dead day to them—a dark room. No wonder they break through. But it is not so with the sturdy, unsophisticated laboring class in New England. If it came to a vote, you would find that the farmers of New England would be the defenders of the day, even if screwed up to the old strictness. Their instinct is right. It is an observance that has always worked its best effects upon the common people, and if I were to change the name, I should call Sunday THE POOR MAN'S DAY.

"Men do not yet perceive that the base of the brain is full of despotism, and the coronal brain is radiant with liberty. I mean that the laws and relations which grow out of men's relations in physical things are the sternest and hardest, and at every step in the assent toward reason and spirituality, the relations grow more kindly and free.

"Now, it is natural for men to prefer an animal life. By-and-by they will learn that such a life necessitates force, absolutism. It is natural for unreflecting men to complain when custom or institutions hold them up to some higher degree. But that higher degree has in it an element of emancipation from the necessary despotisms of physical life. If it were possible to bring the whole community up to a plane of spirituality, it would be found that there and there only could be the highest measure of liberty. And this is my answer to those who grumble at the restriction of Sunday liberty. It is only the liberty of the senses that suffers. A higher and nobler civil liberty, moral liberty, social liberty, will work out of it. Sunday is the common people's Magna Charta."

"Well done, Doctor! I give up. Hereafter you shall see me radiant on Sunday. I must not get my hay in if storms do threaten to spoil it; but I shall give my conscience a hitch up, and take it out in that. I must not ride out; but then I shall regard every virtuous self-denial as a moral investment with good dividends coming in by-and-by. I can't let the children frolic in the front dooryard; but then, while they sit waiting for the sun to go down, and your Sun-day to be over, I shall console myself that they are one notch nearer an angelic condition every week. But good-night, good-night, Mrs. Wentworth. I hope you may not become so spiritual as quite to disdain the body. I really think, for this world, the body has some respectable uses yet. Good-night, Rose. The angels take care of you, if there is one of them good enough."

And so the judge left.

They sat silently looking at the sun, now but just above the horizon. A few scarfs of cloud, brilliant with flame-color, and every moment changing forms, seemed like winged spirits, half revealed, that hovered round the retiring orb.

Mrs. Wentworth at length broke the silence.

"I always thought, Doctor, that you believed Sunday over-strictly kept, and that you were in favor of relaxation."

"I am. Just as fast as you can make it a day of real religious enjoyment, it will relax itself. True and deep spiritual feeling is the freest of all experiences. And it reconciles in itself the most perfect consciousness of liberty with the most thorough observance of outward rules and proprieties. Liberty is not an outward condition. It is an inward attribute, or rather a name for the quality of life produced by the highest moral attributes. When communities come to that condition, we shall see fewer laws and higher morality.

"The one great poem of New England is her Sunday! Through that she has escaped materialism. That has been a crystal dome overhead, through which Imagination has been kept alive. New England's imagination is to be found, not in art and literature, but in her inventions, her social organism, and above all in her religious life. The Sabbath has been the nurse of that. When she ceases to have a Sunday, she will be as this landscape is:—now growing dark, all its lines blurred, its distances and gradations fast merging into sheeted darkness and night. Come, let us go in!"

Copyrighted by Fords, Howard and Hulbert.



LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

(1770-1827)

BY E. IRENAEUS STEVENSON

We are warned on high authority that no man can serve two masters. The caution should obtain in aesthetics as well as in ethics. As a general rule, the painter must stick to his easel, the sculptor must carve, the musician must score or play or sing, the actor must act,—each with no more than the merest coquettings with sister arts. Otherwise his genius is apt to suffer from what are side-issues for temperament. To many minds a taste, and even a singular capacity, for an avocation has injured the work done in the real vocation.



Of course there are exceptions. The versatility has not always been fatal. We recall Leonardo, Angelo, Rossetti, and Blake among painters; in the ranks of musicians we note Hoffmann, Berlioz, Schumann, Wagner, Boito. In other art-paths, such personal pages as those of Cellini, and the critical writings of Story, of to-day, may add their evidence. The essentially autobiographic in such a connection must be accepted with reserve. So must be taken much admirable writing as to the art in which the critic or teacher has labored. Didactics are not necessarily literature. Perhaps the best basis of determining the right to literary recognition of men and women who have written and printed more or less without actually professing letters, will be the interest of the matter they have left to the kind of reader who does not care a pin about their real life-work, or about their self-expression as it really comes down to us.

In painting, the dual capacity—for the brush and for letters—has more shining examples than in music. But with Beethoven, Schumann, Boito, and Wagner, comes a striking succession of men who, as to autobiography or criticism or verse, present a high quality of interest to the general reader. In the instance of Beethoven the critical or essayistic side is limited. It is by his letters and diary that we study (only less vividly than in his music) a character of profound depth and imposing nobility; a nature of exquisite sensitiveness. In them we follow, if fragmentarily, the battle of personality against environment, the secrets of strong but high passion, the artist temperament,—endowed with a dignity and a moral majesty seldom equaled in an art indeed called divine, but with children who frequently remind us that Pan absorbed in playing his syrinx has a goat's hoof.

Beethoven in all his correspondence wrote himself down as what he was,—a superior man, a mighty soul in many traits, as well as a supreme creative musician. His letters are absorbing, whether they breathe love or anger, discouragement or joy, rebellion against untoward conditions of daily life or solemn resignation. The religious quality, too, is strong in them; that element more in touch with Deism than with one or another orthodoxy. Withal, he is as sincere in every line of such matter as he was in the spoken word. His correspondence holds up the mirror to his own nature, with its extremes of impulse and reserve, of affection and austerity, of confidence and suspicion. It abounds, too, in that brusque yet seldom coarse humor which leaps up in the Finale of the Seventh Symphony, in the Eighth Symphony's waggery, the last movement of the Concerto in E flat. They offer likewise verbal admissions of such depression of heart as we recognize in the sternest episodes of the later Sonatas and of the Galitzin Quartets, and in the awful Allegretto of the Symphony in A. They hint at the amorous passion of the slow movements of the Fourth and Ninth Symphonies, at the moral heroism of the Fifth, at the more human courage of the 'Heroic,' at the mysticism of the Ninth's tremendous opening. In interesting relation to the group, and merely of superficial interest, are his hasty notes, his occasional efforts to write in English or in French, his touches of musical allusiveness.



It is not in the purpose of these prefatory paragraphs to a too-brief group of Beethoven's letters to enter upon his biography. That is essentially a musician's life; albeit the life of a musician who, as Mr. Edward Dannreuther suggests, leaves behind him the domain of mere art and enters upon that of the seer and the prophet. He was born in Bonn in 1770, on a day the date of which is not certain (though we know that his baptism was December 17th). His youth was not a sunshiny period. Poverty, neglect, a drunken father, violin lessons under compulsion, were the circumstances ushering him into his career. He was for a brief time a pupil of Mozart; just enough so to preserve that succession of royal geniuses expressed in linking Mozart to Haydn, and in remembering that Liszt played for Beethoven and that Schubert stood beside Beethoven's last sick-bed. High patronage and interest gradually took the composer under its care. Austria and Germany recognized him, England accepted him early, universal intelligence became enthusiastic over utterances in art that seemed as much innovations as Wagneristic writing seemed to the next generation. In Vienna, Beethoven may be said to have passed his life. There were the friends to whom he wrote—who understood and loved him. Afflicted early with a deafness that became total,—the irony of fate,—the majority of his master-works were evolved from a mind shut away from the pleasures and disturbances of earthly sounds, and beset by invalidism and suffering. Naturally genial, he grew morbidly sensitive. Infirmities of temper as well as of body marked him for their own. But underneath all superficial shortcomings of his intensely human nature was a Shakespearean dignity of moral and intellectual individuality.

It is not necessary here even to touch on the works that follow him. They stand now as firmly as ever—perhaps more firmly—in the honor and the affection of all the world of auditors in touch with the highest expressions in the tone-world. The mere mention of such monuments as the sonatas, the nine symphonies, the Mass in D minor, the magnificent chain of overtures, the dramatic concert-arias, does not exhaust the list. They are the vivid self-expressions of one who learned in suffering what he taught in song: a man whose personality impressed itself into almost everything that he wrote, upon almost every one whom he met, and who towers up as impressively as the author of 'Hamlet,' the sculptor of 'Moses,' the painter of 'The Last Supper.'

It is perhaps interesting to mention that the very chirography of Beethoven's letters is eloquent of the man. Handwriting is apt to be. Mendelssohn, the well-balanced, the precise, wrote like copper-plate. Wagner wrote a fine strong hand, seldom with erasures. Spontini, the soldier-like, wrote with the decision of a soldier. Beethoven's letters and notes are in a large, open, dashing hand, often scrawls, always with the blackest of ink, full of changes, and not a flourish to spare—the handwriting of impulse and carelessness as to form, compared with a writer's desire of making his meaning clear.



FROM LETTER TO DR. WEGELER, VIENNA

In what an odious light have you exhibited me to myself! Oh! I acknowledge it, I do not deserve your friendship. It was no intentional or deliberate malice that induced me to act towards you as I did—but inexcusable thoughtlessness alone.

I say no more. I am coming to throw myself into your arms, and to entreat you to restore me my lost friend; and you will give him back to me, to your penitent, loving, and ever grateful

BEETHOVEN.

TO THE SAME

VIENNA, June 29th, 1800.

My dear and valued Wegeler:

How much I thank you for your remembrance of me, little as I deserve it or have sought to deserve it; and yet you are so kind that you allow nothing, not even my unpardonable neglect, to discourage you, always remaining the same true, good, and faithful friend. That I can ever forget you or yours, once so dear and precious to me, do not for a moment believe. There are times when I find myself longing to see you again, and wishing that I could go to stay with you. My fatherland, that lovely region where I first saw the light, is still as distinct and beauteous in my eyes as when I quitted you; in short, I shall esteem the time when I once more see you, and again greet Father Rhine, as one of the happiest periods of my life. When this may be I cannot yet tell, but at all events I may say that you shall not see me again till I have become not only eminent as an artist, but better and more perfect as a man; and if the condition of our fatherland be then more prosperous, my art shall be entirely devoted to the benefit of the poor. Oh, blissful moment!—how happy do I esteem myself that I can expedite it and bring it to pass!

You desire to know something of my position: well! it is by no means bad. However incredible it may appear, I must tell you that Lichnowsky has been, and still is, my warmest friend (slight dissensions occurred occasionally between us, and yet they only served to strengthen our friendship). He settled on me last year the sum of six hundred florins, for which I am to draw on him till I can procure some suitable situation. My compositions are very profitable, and I may really say that I have almost more commissions than it is possible for me to execute. I can have six or seven publishers or more for every piece if I choose: they no longer bargain with me—I demand, and they pay—so you see this is a very good thing. For instance, I have a friend in distress, and my purse does not admit of my assisting him at once, but I have only to sit down and write, and in a short time he is relieved. I am also become more economical than formerly....

To give you some idea of my extraordinary deafness, I must tell you that in the theatre I am obliged to lean close up against the orchestra in order to understand the actors, and when a little way off I hear none of the high notes of instruments or singers. It is most astonishing that in conversation some people never seem to observe this; as I am subject to fits of absence, they attribute it to that cause. Often I can scarcely hear a person if he speaks low; I can distinguish the tones but not the words, and yet I feel it intolerable if any one shouts to me. Heaven alone knows how it is to end! Vering declares that I shall certainly improve, even if I be not entirely restored. How often have I cursed my existence! Plutarch led me to resignation. I shall strive if possible to set Fate at defiance, although there must be moments in my life when I cannot fail to be the most unhappy of God's creatures. I entreat you to say nothing of my affliction to any one, not even to Lorchen. I confide the secret to you alone, and entreat you some day to correspond with Vering on the subject. If I continue in the same state, I shall come to you in the ensuing spring, when you must engage a house for me somewhere in the country, amid beautiful scenery, and I shall then become a rustic for a year, which may perhaps effect a change. Resignation!—what a miserable refuge! and yet it is my sole remaining one. You will forgive my thus appealing to your kindly sympathies at a time when your own position is sad enough.

Farewell, my kind, faithful Wegeler! Rest assured of the love and friendship of your

BEETHOVEN.

FROM THE LETTERS TO BETTINA BRENTANO

Never was there a lovelier spring than this year; I say so, and feel it too, because it was then I first knew you. You have yourself seen that in society I am like a fish on the sand, which writhes and writhes, but cannot get away till some benevolent Galatea casts it back into the mighty ocean. I was indeed fairly stranded, dearest friend, when surprised by you at a moment in which moroseness had entirely mastered me; but how quickly it vanished at your aspect! I was at once conscious that you came from another sphere than this absurd world, where, with the best inclinations, I cannot open my ears. I am a wretched creature, and yet I complain of others!! You will forgive this from the goodness of heart that beams in your eyes, and the good sense manifested by your ears; at least they understand how to flatter, by the mode in which they listen. My ears are, alas! a partition-wall, through which I can with difficulty hold any intercourse with my fellow-creatures. Otherwise perhaps I might have felt more assured with you; but I was only conscious of the full, intelligent glance from your eyes, which affected me so deeply that never can I forget it. My dear friend! dearest girl!—Art! who comprehends it? with whom can I discuss this mighty goddess? How precious to me were the few days when we talked together, or, I should rather say, corresponded! I have carefully preserved the little notes with your clever, charming, most charming answers; so I have to thank my defective hearing for the greater part of our fugitive intercourse being written down. Since you left this I have had some unhappy hours,—hours of the deepest gloom, when I could do nothing. I wandered for three hours in the Schoenbrunn Allee after you left us, but no angel met me there to take possession of me as you did. Pray forgive, my dear friend, this deviation from the original key, but I must have such intervals as a relief to my heart. You have no doubt written to Goethe about me? I would gladly bury my head in a sack, so that I might neither see nor hear what goes on in the world, because I shall meet you there no more; but I shall get a letter from you? Hope sustains me, as it does half the world; through life she has been my close companion, or what would have become of me? I send you 'Kennst Du das Land,' written with my own hand, as a remembrance of the hour when I first knew you....

If you mention me when you write to Goethe, strive to find words expressive of my deep reverence and admiration. I am about to write to him myself with regard to 'Egmont,' for which I have written some music solely from my love for his poetry, which always delights me. Who can be sufficiently grateful to a great poet,—the most precious jewel of a nation!

Kings and princes can indeed create professors and privy-councillors, and confer titles and decorations, but they cannot make great men,—spirits that soar above the base turmoil of this world. There their powers fail, and this it is that forces them to respect us. When two persons like Goethe and myself meet, these grandees cannot fail to perceive what such as we consider great. Yesterday on our way home we met the whole Imperial family; we saw them coming some way off, when Goethe withdrew his arm from mine, in order to stand aside; and say what I would, I could not prevail on him to make another step in advance. I pressed down my hat more firmly on my head, buttoned up my great-coat, and crossing my arms behind me, I made my way through the thickest portion of the crowd. Princes and courtiers formed a lane for me; Archduke Rudolph took off his hat, and the Empress bowed to me first. These great ones of the earth know me. To my infinite amusement, I saw the procession defile past Goethe, who stood aside with his hat off, bowing profoundly. I afterwards took him sharply to task for this; I gave him no quarter and upbraided him with all his sins.

TO COUNTESS GIULIETTA GUICCIARDI

MONDAY EVENING, July 6th.

You grieve! dearest of all beings! I have just heard that the letters must be sent off very early. Mondays and Thursdays are the only days when the post goes to K—— from here. You grieve! Ah! where I am, there you are ever with me: how earnestly shall I strive to pass my life with you, and what a life will it be!!! Whereas now!! without you!! and persecuted by the kindness of others, which I neither deserve nor try to deserve! The servility of man towards his fellow-man pains me, and when I regard myself as a component part of the universe, what am I, what is he who is called the greatest?—and yet herein are displayed the godlike feelings of humanity!—I weep in thinking that you will receive no intelligence from me till probably Saturday. However dearly you may love me, I love you more fondly still. Never conceal your feelings from me. Good-night! As a patient at these baths, I must now go to rest. [A few words are here effaced by Beethoven himself.] Oh, heavens! so near, and yet so far! Is not our love a truly celestial mansion, but firm as the vault of heaven itself?

JULY 7th.

Good morning!

Even before I rise, my thoughts throng to you, my immortal beloved!—sometimes full of joy, and yet again sad, waiting to see whether Fate will hear us. I must live either wholly with you, or not at all. Indeed, I have resolved to wander far from you till the moment arrives when I can fly into your arms, and feel that they are my home, and send forth my soul in unison with yours into the realm of spirits. Alas! it must be so! You will take courage, for you know my fidelity. Never can another possess my heart—never, never! Oh, heavens! Why must I fly from her I so fondly love? and yet my existence in W—was as miserable as here. Your love made me the most happy and yet the most unhappy of men. At my age, life requires a uniform equality; can this be found in our mutual relations? My angel! I have this moment heard that the post goes every day, so I must conclude that you may get this letter the sooner. Be calm! for we can only attain our object of living together by the calm contemplation of our existence. Continue to love me. Yesterday, to-day, what longings for you, what tears for you! for you! for you! my life! my all! Farewell! Oh, love me for ever, and never doubt the faithful heart of your lover, L.

Ever thine.

Ever mine.

Ever each other's.

TO MY BROTHERS CARL AND JOHANN BEETHOVEN

HEILIGENSTADT, Oct. 6th, 1802.

Oh! Ye who think or declare me to be hostile, morose, and misanthropical, how unjust you are, and how little you know the secret cause of what appears thus to you! My heart and mind were ever from childhood prone to the most tender feelings of affection, and I was always disposed to accomplish something great. But you must remember that six years ago I was attacked by an incurable malady, aggravated by unskillful physicians, deluded from year to year, too, by the hope of relief, and at length forced to the conviction of a lasting affliction (the cure of which may go on for years, and perhaps after all prove impracticable).

Born with a passionate and excitable temperament, keenly susceptible to the pleasures of society, I was yet obliged early in life to isolate myself, and to pass my existence in solitude. If I at any time resolved to surmount all this, oh! how cruelly was I again repelled by the experience, sadder than ever, of my defective hearing!—and yet I found it impossible to say to others: Speak louder, shout! for I am deaf! Alas! how could I proclaim the deficiency of a sense which ought to have been more perfect with me than with other men—a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, to an extent indeed that few of my profession ever enjoyed! Alas! I cannot do this! Forgive me therefore when you see me withdraw from you with whom I would so gladly mingle. My misfortune is doubly severe from causing me to be misunderstood. No longer can I enjoy recreation in social intercourse, refined conversation, or mutual outpourings of thought. Completely isolated, I only enter society when compelled to do so. I must live like an exile. In company I am assailed by the most painful apprehensions, from the dread of being exposed to the risk of my condition being observed. It was the same during the last six months I spent in the country. My intelligent physician recommended me to spare my hearing as much as possible, which was quite in accordance with my present disposition, though sometimes, tempted by my natural inclination for society, I allowed myself to be beguiled into it. But what humiliation when any one beside me heard a flute in the far distance, while I heard nothing, or when others heard a shepherd singing, and I still heard nothing! Such things brought me to the verge of desperation, and well-nigh caused me to put an end to my life. Art! art alone, deterred me. Ah! how could I possibly quit the world before bringing forth all that I felt it was my vocation to produce? And thus I spared this miserable life—so utterly miserable that any sudden change may reduce me at any moment from my best condition into the worst. It is decreed that I must now choose Patience for my guide! This I have done. I hope the resolve will not fail me, steadfastly to persevere till it may please the inexorable Fates to cut the thread of my life. Perhaps I may get better, perhaps not. I am prepared for either. Constrained to become a philosopher in my twenty-eighth year! This is no slight trial, and more severe on an artist than on any one else. God looks into my heart, he searches it, and knows that love for man and feelings of benevolence have their abode there! Oh! ye who may one day read this, think that you have done me injustice; and let any one similarly afflicted be consoled by finding one like himself, who, in defiance of all the obstacles of nature, has done all in his power to be included in the ranks of estimable artists and men. My brothers Carl and Johann, as soon as I am no more, if Professor Schmidt be still alive, beg him in my name to describe my malady, and to add these pages to the analysis of my disease, that at least, so far as possible, the world may be reconciled to me after my death. I also hereby declare you both heirs of my small fortune (if so it may be called). Share it fairly, agree together and assist each other. You know that anything you did to give me pain has been long forgiven. I thank you, my brother Carl in particular, for the attachment you have shown me of late. My wish is that you may enjoy a happier life, and one more free from care than mine has been. Recommend Virtue to your children; that alone, and not wealth, can insure happiness. I speak from experience. It was Virtue alone which sustained me in my misery; I have to thank her and Art for not having ended my life by suicide. Farewell! Love each other. I gratefully thank all my friends, especially Prince Lichnowsky and Professor Schmidt. I wish one of you to keep Prince L—'s instruments; but I trust this will give rise to no dissension between you. If you think it more beneficial, however, you have only to dispose of them. How much I shall rejoice if I can serve you even in the grave! So be it then! I joyfully hasten to meet Death. If he comes before I have had the opportunity of developing all my artistic powers, then, notwithstanding my cruel fate, he will come too early for me, and I should wish for him at a more distant period; but even then I shall be content, for his advent will release me from a state of endless suffering. Come when he may, I shall meet him with courage. Farewell! Do not quite forget me, even in death: I deserve this from you, because during my life I so often thought of you, and wished to make you happy. Amen!

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.

[Written on the outside.]

Thus, then, I take leave of you, and with sadness too. The fond hope I brought with me here, of being to a certain degree cured, now utterly forsakes me. As autumn leaves fall and wither, so are my hopes blighted. Almost as I came, I depart. Even the lofty courage that so often animated me in the lovely days of summer is gone forever. O Providence! vouchsafe me one day of pure felicity! How long have I been estranged from the glad echo of true joy! When! O my God! when shall I again feel it in the temple of nature and of man?—never? Ah! that would be too hard!

To be read and fulfilled after my death by my brothers Carl and Johann.

TO THE ROYAL AND IMPERIAL HIGH COURT OF APPEAL

JANUARY 7th, 1820.

The welfare of my nephew is dearer to my heart than it can be to any one else. I am myself childless, and have no relations except this boy, who is full of talent, and I have good grounds to hope the best for him, if properly trained.

* * * * *

My efforts and wishes have no other aim than to give the boy the best possible education—his abilities justifying the brightest hopes—and to fulfill the trust placed in my brotherly love by his father. The shoot is still flexible; but if longer neglected it will become crooked and outgrow the gardener's training hand, and upright bearing, intellect, and character be destroyed for ever....

I know no duty more sacred than the education and training of a child. The chief duties of a guardian consist in knowing how to appreciate what is good, and in adopting a right course; then alone has proper attention been devoted to the welfare of his ward, whereas in opposing what is good he neglects his duty.

Indeed, keeping in view what is most for the benefit of the boy, I do not object to the mother in so far sharing in the duties of a guardian, that she may visit her son, and see him, and be apprised of all the measures adopted for his education; but to intrust her with his sole guardianship without a strict guardian by her side would cause the irretrievable ruin of her son.

On these cogent grounds I reiterate my well-founded solicitation, and feel the more confident of a favorable answer, as the welfare of my nephew alone guides my steps in this affair.

TO BARONESS VON DROSSDICK

I live in entire quiet and solitude; and even though occasional flashes of light arouse me, still since you all left, I feel a hopeless void which even my art, usually so faithful to me, has not yet triumphed over. Your pianoforte is ordered, and you shall soon have it. What a difference you must have discovered between the treatment of the Theme I extemporized on the other evening, and the mode in which I have recently written it out for you! You must explain this yourself, only do not find the solution in the punch! How happy you are to get away so soon to the country! I cannot enjoy this luxury till the 8th. I look forward to it with the delight of a child. What happiness I shall feel in wandering among groves and woods, and among trees and plants and rocks! No man on earth can love the country as I do! Thickets, trees, and rocks supply the echo man longs for!

TO ZMESKALL

1811.

Most high-born of men!

We beg you to confer some goose-quills on us; we will in return send you a whole bunch of the same sort, that you may not be obliged to pluck out your own. It is just possible that you may yet receive the Grand Cross of the Order of the Violoncello. We remain your gracious and most friendly of all friends, BEETHOVEN.

TO ZMESKALL

FEBRUARY 2d, 1812.

Most wonderful of men!

We beg that your servant will engage a person to fit up my apartment; as he is acquainted with the lodgings, he can fix the proper price at once. Do this soon, you Carnival scamp!!!!!!!

The inclosed note is at least a week old.

TO HIS BROTHER JOHANN

BADEN, May 6th, 1825.

The bell and bell-pulls, etc., etc., are on no account whatever to be left in my former lodging. No proposal was ever made to these people to take any of my things. Indisposition prevented my sending for it, and the locksmith had not come during my stay to take down the bell; otherwise it might have been at once removed and sent to me in town, as they have no right whatever to retain it. Be this as it may, I am quite determined not to leave the bell there, for I require one here, and therefore intend to use the one in question for my purpose, as a similar one would cost me twice as much as in Vienna, bell-pulls being the most expensive things locksmiths have. If necessary, apply at once to the police. The window in my room is precisely in the same state as when I took possession, but I am willing to pay for it, and also for the one in the kitchen, 2 florins 12 kreuzers, for the two. The key I will not pay for, as I found none; on the contrary, the door was fastened or nailed up when I came, and remained in the same condition till I left; there never was a key, so of course neither I myself, nor those who preceded me, could make use of one. Perhaps it is intended to make a collection, in which case I am willing to put my hand in my pocket.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.

TO STEPHAN V. BREUNING

My dear and much loved Stephan:

May our temporary estrangement be for ever effaced by the portrait I now send. I know that I have rent your heart. The emotion which you cannot fail now to see in mine has sufficiently punished me for it. There was no malice towards you in my heart, for then I should be no longer worthy of your friendship. It was passion both on your part and on mine; but mistrust was rife within me, for people had come between us, unworthy both of you and of me.

My portrait was long ago intended for you; you knew that it was destined for some one—and to whom could I give it with such warmth of heart, as to you, my faithful, good, and noble Stephan?

Forgive me for having grieved you, but I did not myself suffer less when I no longer saw you near me. I then first keenly felt how dear you were, and ever will be to my heart. Surely you will once more fly to my arms as you formerly did.



CARL MICHAEL BELLMAN

(1740-1795)

BY OLGA FLINCH

Carl Michael Bellman was born in Stockholm on the 4th of February, 1740. His father, son of a professor at Upsala University, held a government office; of his mother he wrote that she was "fair as day, unspeakably good, dressed prettily, was kind to everybody, of a refined nature, and had an excellent voice." From her he undoubtedly inherited the warm, genial heart which beats in every one of his songs. His father's house was the rendezvous of many of the noted men of the day, among them the poet Dalin, who was then at the zenith of his popularity. The boy's unusual gifts were early recognized, and everything was done to give him the best instruction, especially after an attack of fever, during which he not only spoke in rhyme, but sang his first improvised songs in a clear, true voice. The tutor who was then chosen taught him, "besides the art of making verse," English, French, German, and Italian; and he progressed far enough in these studies to translate several German hymns and religious and philosophic essays, no doubt influenced in this choice of subjects by the religious atmosphere of his home. Moreover, he taught himself to play the zither, and very soon began to pick out his own melodies as an accompaniment to his songs. The instrument he used had been brought home from Italy by his grandfather, became his closest companion throughout life, and is now kept at the Royal Academy of Arts at Stockholm.

At eighteen he entered the University of Upsala, and while there wrote a satirical poem, "The Moon," which he submitted to the criticism of Dalin, who however made but a single correction. It was written in the manner of Dalin, and he continued to be influenced by the latter until his twenty-fifth year. At this time, and within the same year, his father and mother died, and seeking among his friends the social stimulus which his nature craved, he became a frequent guest at the inns in the company of Hallman and Krexel, who were making their mark by their poetic and dramatic writings. It was then that his peculiar talent came to its own; he threw away all foreign influence and began to sing his songs, born of the impression of the moment and full of the charm of spontaneity. Some of them he jotted down quickly, most of them he sang to the sound of his zither, often fashioning them to suit well-known melodies, and again creating the melody with the words, for the greater part set in a form of verse not previously used. And so inseparably linked are words and melody, that it has not occurred to any one to set any other music to Bellman's songs than what he originally chose. He took all his characters out of the life he saw around him; and with the appreciation of the man to whom the present is everything, he seized the charm of the fleeting moment and expressed it with such simplicity and truth, and deep feeling withal, that it stands forth immortally fresh and young. A number of these songs have probably been lost; he had no thirst for fame, and took no pains to circulate them, but they found their way to the public in written copies and cheap prints, and his name was soon known throughout the country.

This way of living and singing like the birds of the air was, however, not very conducive to the satisfaction of material wants. He had made two attempts to go into business, but the more he was seen at the inns, the less he was seen at his business.

Fortunately for him, Gustavus III., who was himself a poet, became at this time king of Sweden. He was an adherent of the French school of poetry, and Bellman's muse could hardly be said to belong to this: but with considerable talent as a dramatic writer, Gustavus appreciated the dramatic quality in Bellman's songs; and when Bellman sent him a rhymed petition, still kept, in which he wrote that "if his Majesty would not most graciously give him an office, he would most obediently be obliged to starve to death before Christmas," the king made him secretary of the lottery, with the title of court secretary, and a yearly income of three thousand dollars. Bellman promptly gave half of this to an assistant, who did the work, and continued his troubadour life on the other half with a superb disdain of future needs. His affairs so well in order, he could afford to get married; and chose for his wife Lovisa Groenlund, a girl of a bright intellect and strong character, of which she ultimately had great need, the responsibilities of their married life being left altogether to her.

Bellman was now at his best; about this time he wrote most of 'Fredman's Songs' and 'Actions concerning the Chapter of Bacchus order.' both rich in lyric gems; he was the favorite companion of the King, to whom his devotion was boundless, and he was happy in his chosen friends whose company inspired him. Nevertheless he was now, as ever, in need of money. Atterbom tells that "One day the King met him on the street, so poorly dressed that he instinctively exclaimed, 'My dear Bellman, how poorly you are clad!' The poet answered with a bow, 'I can nevertheless most obediently assure your Majesty that I am wearing my entire wardrobe.'" His ready wit never left him. "How goes the world with you?" asked the King once when they met; "you don't look to me as if you could turn a single rhyme to-day." The poet bowed and replied on the spur of the moment:—

"No scrip my purse doth hold; My lyre's unstrung, alas! But yet upon my glass Stands Gustaf's name in gold."

Another time the King sent his men for him, with the order to bring him in whatever condition they found him. "He was found not entirely free from drink, and not very presentable, but was nevertheless carried off, zither and all, to Haga Castle, where he drank some champagne, sang some songs, drank a little more, and finally fell asleep. The King left him so to go to his supper; and when he returned and found his guest still sleeping, he remarked, 'I wonder what Bellman would say if I awoke him now and asked him to give me a song.' The poet sat up, blinked with his eyes, and said, 'Then Bellman would say,—listen;' whereupon he sang to the tune of 'Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre':—

"'Oh, so heavily, heavily trailing, The clouds over Haga are sailing, And the stars their bright glances are veiling, While woods in the gloom disappear. Go, King, thy rest is dear, Go, King, thy respite taking, Rest softly, rest softly, then waking, When dawn through the darkness is breaking, Thy people with mild rule thou cheer!'

Then he fell into his former position again, and was carried home asleep with a little gift in his hand."

The task of collecting, preserving, and publishing his works fell entirely upon his friends; if it had depended on him, they would probably never have been collected, much less published.

During the last fifteen years of his life, from 1780 to 1795, his health grew very poor. In 1791 he was invited to be present at the distribution of degrees at Upsala, and at the dinner he returned a toast with a song born of the moment; but his voice had grown so weak from lung trouble that only those nearest to him could hear him. To add to his sufferings, he had to meet the great sorrow of his King's death at the hand of a murderer, and his poem on the 'Death and Memory of the King' was not of a nature to make friends for him at the new court. Thus it happened that, poor and broken in health, he was put into the debtor's prison in the very castle where he had been so happy a guest. Hallman and Krexel and others of his best friends, as devoted to him as ever, were unable to obtain his release; but he was at last bailed out by some one, who as recompense asked him to sing one of his jolly songs, and in his poor broken voice he sang. 'Drink out thy glass, see, Death awaits thee.' Atterbom remarks about the man in question, "And maybe he did not find that song so jolly after all."

While in prison he sent in a petition to the King,—somewhat different from his first petition to Gustavus III.,—in which he asked permission to live in the castle until his death. The following is one of the verses:—

"Spring commands; the birds are singing, Bees are swarming, fishes play; Now and then the zephyrs stray, Breath of life the poet bringing. Lift my load of sorrow clinging, Spare me one small nook, I pray."

Of his death Atterbom writes as follows:—

"He had been the favorite of the nation and the King, content with the mere necessities of life, free from every care, not even desiring the immortality of fame; moderate in everything except in enthusiasm, he had enjoyed to the full what he wanted,—friendship, wine, and music. Now he lived to see the shadows fall over his life and genius. Feeling that his last hour was not far off, he sent word to his nearest friends that a meeting with them as in old times would be dear to him. He came to meet them almost a shadow, but with his old friendly smile; even in the toasts he took part, however moderately, and then he announced that he would let them 'hear Bellman once more.' The spirit of song took possession of him, more powerfully than ever, and all the rays of his dying imagination were centred in an improvised good-by song. Throughout an entire night, under continual inspiration, he sang his happy life, his mild King's glory, his gratitude to Providence, who let him be born among a noble people in this beautiful Northern country,—finally he gave his grateful good-by to every one present, in a separate strophe and melody expressing the peculiar individuality of the one addressed and his relation to the poet. His friends begged him with tears to stop, and spare his already much weakened lungs; but he replied, 'Let us die, as we have lived, in music!'—emptied his last glass of champagne, and began at dawn the last verse of his song."

After this he sang no more. A few days later he went to bed, lingered for ten weeks, and died on the 11th of February, 1795, aged fifty-four years. He was buried in Clara cemetery.

Bellman's critics have given themselves much trouble about his personal character. Some have thought him little better than a coarse drunkard; others again have made him out a cynic who sneered at the life he depicted; again others have laid the weight on the note found in 'Drink out thy glass,' and have seen only the underlying sad pathos of his songs. His contemporaries agree that he was a man of great consideration for form, and assert that if there are coarse passages in his songs it is because they only could express what he depicted. All coarseness was foreign to his nature; he was reserved and somewhat shy, and only in the company of his chosen few did he open his heart.

His critics have, moreover, assiduously sought the moral of his works. If any was intended, it may have been that of fighting sentimentality and all false feeling; but it seems more in accordance with his entire life that he sang out of the fullness of his heart, as a bird sings, simply because it must sing.



TO ULLA

Ulla, mine Ulla, tell me, may I hand thee Reddest of strawberries in milk or wine? Or from the pond a lively fish? Command me! Or, from the well, a bowl of water fine? Doors are blown open, the wind gets the blaming. Perfumes exhale from flower and tree. Clouds fleck the sky and the sun rises flaming, As you see! Isn't it heavenly—the fish market? So? "Heavenly, oh heavenly!" "See the stately trees there, standing row on row,— Fresh, green leaves show! And that pretty bay Sparkling there?" "Ah yes!" "And, seen where sunbeams play, The meadows' loveliness? Are they not heavenly—those bright fields?—Confess!"— Heavenly! Heavenly!

Skal and good-noon, fair one in window leaning, Hark how the city bells their peals prolong! See how the dust the verdant turf is screening, Where the calashes and the wagons throng! Hand from the window—he's drowsy, the speaker, In my saddle I nod, cousin mine— Primo a crust, and secundo a beaker, Hochlaender wine! Isn't it heavenly—the fish-market? So? "Heavenly, oh heavenly!" "See the stately trees there, standing row on row,— Fresh, green leaves show! And that pretty bay Sparkling there?" "Ah yes!" "And, seen where sunbeams play, The meadows' loveliness? Are they not heavenly—those bright fields?—Confess!"— Heavenly! Heavenly!

Look, Ulla dear! To the stable they're taking Whinnying, prancing, my good steed, I see. Still in his stall-door he lifts his head, making Efforts to look up to thee: just to thee! Nature itself into flames will be bursting; Keep those bright eyes in control! Klang! at your casement my heart, too, is thirsting. Klang! Your Skal! Isn't it heavenly—the fish-market? So? "Heavenly, oh heavenly!" "See the stately trees there, standing row on row,— Fresh, green leaves show! And that pretty bay Sparkling there?" "Ah yes!" "And, seen where sunbeams play, The meadows' loveliness? Are they not heavenly—those bright fields?—Confess!"— Heavenly! Heavenly!

CRADLE-SONG FOR MY SON CARL

Little Carl, sleep soft and sweet: Thou'lt soon enough be waking; Soon enough ill days thou'lt meet, Their bitterness partaking. Earth's an isle with grief o'ercast; Breathe our best, death comes at last, We but dust forsaking.

Once, where flowed a peaceful brook Through a rye-field's stubble, Stood a little boy to look At himself; his double. Sweet the picture was to see; All at once it ceased to be; Vanished like a bubble!

And thus it is with life, my pet, And thus the years go flying; Live we wisely, gaily, yet There's no escape from dying. Little Carl on this must muse When the blossoms bright he views On spring's bosom lying.

Slumber, little friend so wee; Joy thy joy is bringing. Clipped from paper thou shalt see A sleigh, and horses springing; Then a house of cards so tall We will build and see it fall, And little songs be singing.

* * * * *

AMARYLLIS

Up, Amarylis! Darling, awaken! Through the still bracken Soft airs swell; Iris, all dightly, Vestured so brightly, Coloreth lightly Wood and dell.

Amaryllis, thy sweet name pronouncing, Thee in Neptune's cool embrace announcing. Slumber's god the while his sway renouncing, O'er your eyes sighs, and speech yields his spell.

Now comes the fishing! The net we fasten; This minute hasten! Follow me! Don your skirt and jacket And veil, or you'll lack it; Pike and trout wait a racket; Sails flap free. Waken, Amaryllis, darling, waken! Let me not by thy smile be forsaken: Then by dolphins and fair sirens overtaken, In our gay boat we'll sport in company.

Come now, your rods, lines, and nets with you taking! The day is breaking; Hasten thee nigh! Sweet little treasure, Think ill in no measure; For thee 'twere no pleasure Me to deny. Let us to the little shallows wander, Or beside the inlet over yonder, Where the pledge-knot made our fond love fonder, O'er which Thyrsis erst was moved to sigh.

Step in the boat, then—both of us singing, Love his wand swinging Over our fate. AEol is moving, But though wild proving, In your arms loving Comfort doth wait. Blest, on angry waves of ocean riding, By thee clasped, vain 'twere this dear thought hiding: Death shall find me in thy pathway biding. Sirens, sing ye, and my voice imitate!

ART AND POLITICS

"Good servant Mollberg, what's happened to thee, Whom without coat and hatless I see? Bloody thy mouth—and thou'rt lacking a tooth! Where have you been, brother?—tell me the truth." "At Rostock, good sir, Did the trouble occur. Over me and my harp An argument sharp Arose, touching my playing—pling plingeli plang; And a bow-legged cobbler coming along Struck me in the mouth—pling plingeli plang.

"I sat there and played—no carouse could one see— The Polish Queen's Polka—G-major the key: The best kind of people were gathered around, And each drank his schoppen 'down to the ground.' I don't know just how Began freshly the row, But some one from my head Knocked my hat, and thus said: 'What is Poland to thee?'—Pling plingeli plang— 'Play us no polka!' Another one sang: 'Now silent be!'—Pling plingeli plang.

"Hear, my Maecenas, what still came to pass. As I sat there in quiet, enjoying my glass, On Poland's condition the silence I broke: 'Know ye, good people,' aloud thus I spoke, 'That all monarchs I On this earth do defy My harp to prevent From giving song vent Throughout all this land—pling plingeli plang! Did only a single string to it hang, I'd play a polka—pling plingeli plang!'

"There sat in the corner a sergeant old, Two notaries and a dragoon bold, Who cried 'Down with him! The cobbler is right! Poland earns the meeds of her evil might!' From behind the stove came An old squint-eyed dame, And flung at the harp Glass broken and sharp; But the cobbler—pling plingeli plang— Made a terrible hole in my neck—that long! There hast thou the story—pling plingeli plang.

"O righteous world! Now I ask of thee If I suffered not wrongly?" "Why, certainly!" "Was I not innocent?" "Bless you, most sure!" "The harp rent asunder, my nose torn and sore, Twas hard treatment, I trow! Now no better I know Than to go through the land With my harp in my hand, Play for Bacchus and Venus—kling klang— With masters best that e'er played or sang; Attend me, Apollo!—pling plingeli plang."

DRINK OUT THY GLASS

Drink out thy glass! See, on thy threshold, nightly, Staying his sword, stands Death, awaiting thee. Be not alarmed; the grave-door, opened slightly, Closes again; a full year it may be Ere thou art dragged, poor sufferer, to the grave. Pick the octave! Tune up the strings! Sing of life with glee!

Golden's the hue thy dull, wan cheeks are showing; Shrunken's thy chest, and flat each shoulder-blade. Give me thy hand! Each dark vein, larger growing, Is, to my touch, as if in water laid. Damp are these hands; stiff are these veins becoming. Pick now, and strumming, Empty thy bottle! Sing! drink unafraid.

. . . . .

Skal, then, my boy! Old Bacchus sends last greeting; Freya's farewell receive thou, o'er thy bowl. Fast in her praise thy thin blood flows, repeating Its old-time force, as it was wont to roll. Sing, read, forget; nay, think and weep while thinking. Art thou for drinking Another bottle? Thou art dead? No Skal!



JEREMY BENTHAM

(1748-1832)

Bentham, whose name rightly stands sponsor for the utilitarian theory of morals in legislation, though not its originator, was a mighty and unique figure in many ways. His childhood reminds us of that of his disciple John Stuart Mill in its precocity; but fortunately for him, life had more juice in it for young Bentham than it had for Mill. In his maturity and old age he was widely recognized as a commanding authority, notwithstanding some startling absurdities.



He was born in London, February 15th, 1747-8; the child of an attorney of ample means, who was proud of the youth, and did not hesitate to show him off. In his fourth year he began the study of Latin, and a year later was known in his father's circle as "the philosopher." At six or seven he began the study of French. He was then sent to Westminster school, where he must have had a rather uncomfortable time; for he was small in body, sensitive and delicate, and not fond of boyish sports. He had a much happier life at the houses of his grandmothers at Barking and at Browning Hill, where much of his childhood was spent. His reminiscences of these days, as related to his biographer, are full of charm. He was a great reader and a great student; and going to Oxford early, was only sixteen when he took his degree.

It must be confessed that he did not bear away with him a high appreciation of the benefits which he owed to his alma mater. "Mendacity and insincerity—- in these I found the effects, the sure and only sure effects, of an English university education." He wrote a Latin ode on the death of George II., which was much praised. In later years he himself said of it, "It was a mediocre performance on a trumpery subject, written by a miserable child."

On taking his degree he entered at Lincoln's Inn, but he never made a success in the practice of the law. He hated litigation, and his mind became immediately absorbed in the study and development of the principles of legislation and jurisprudence, and this became the business of his life. He had an intense antipathy to Blackstone, under whom he had sat at Oxford; and in 1776 he published anonymously a severe criticism of his work, under the title 'Fragments on Government, or a Commentary on the Commentaries,' which was at first attributed to Lord Mansfield, Lord Camden, and others. His identification as the author of the 'Fragments' brought him into relations with Lord Shelburne, who invited him to Bowood, where he made a long and happy visit, of which bright and gossipy letters tell the story. Here he worked on his 'Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,' in which he developed his utilitarian theory, and here he fell in love with a young lady who failed to respond to his wishes. Writing in 1827, he says:—

"I am alive, more than two months advanced in my eightieth year, more lively than when you presented me in ceremony with a flower in Green Lane. Since that day not a single one has passed, not to speak of nights, in which you have not engrossed more of my thoughts than I could have wished.... Embrace——; though it is for me, as it is by you, she will not be severe, nor refuse her lips to me as she did her hand, at a time perhaps not yet forgotten by her, any more than by me."

Bentham wrote voluminously on morals, on rewards and punishments, on the poor laws, on education, on law reform, on the codification of laws, on special legislative measures, on a vast variety of subjects. His style, at first simple and direct, became turgid, involved, and obscure. He was in the habit of beginning the same work independently many times, and usually drove several horses abreast. He was very severe in his strictures upon persons in authority, and upon current notions; and was constantly being warned that if he should publish such or such a work he would surely be prosecuted. Numerous books were therefore not published until many years after they were written. His literary style became so prolix and unintelligible that his disciples—Dumont, Mill, and others—came to his rescue, and disentangled and prepared for the press his innumerable pamphlets, full of suggestiveness and teeming with projects of reform more or less completely realized since. His publications include more than seventy titles, and he left a vast accumulation of manuscript, much of which has never been read.

He had a wide circle of acquaintances, by whom he was held in high honor, and his correspondence with the leading men of his time was constant and important. In his later years he was a pugnacious writer, but he was on intimate and jovial terms with his friends. In 1814 he removed to Ford Abbey, near Chard, and there wrote 'Chrestomathea,' a collection of papers on the principles of education, in which he laid stress upon the value of instruction in science, as against the excessive predominance of Greek and Latin. In 1823, in conjunction with James Mill and others, he established the Westminster Review, but he did not himself contribute largely to it. He continued, however, to the end of his life to write on his favorite topics.

Robert Dale Owen, in his autobiography, gives the following description of a visit to Bentham during the philosopher's later years:—

"I preserve a most agreeable recollection of that grand old face, beaming with benignity and intelligence, and occasionally with a touch of humor which I did not expect.... I do not remember to have met any one of his age [seventy-eight] who seemed to have more complete possession of his faculties, bodily and mental; and this surprised me the more because I knew that in his childhood he had been a feeble-limbed, frail boy.... I found him, having overpassed by nearly a decade the allotted threescore years and ten, with step as active and eye as bright and conversation as vivacious as one expects in a hale man of fifty....

"I shall never forget my surprise when we were ushered by the venerable philosopher into his dining-room. An apartment of good size, it was occupied by a platform about two feet high, and which filled the whole room, except a passageway some three or four feet wide, which had been left so that one could pass all round it. Upon this platform stood the dinner-table and chairs, with room enough for the servants to wait upon us. Around the head of the table was a huge screen, to protect the old man, I suppose, against the draught from the doors....