The fellness of a gloomy hurricane but faintly resembled the discord that reigned in my mind. To omit this sacrifice must not be; yet my sinews had refused to perform it. No alternative was offered. To rebel against the mandate was impossible; but obedience would render me the executioner of my wife. My will was strong, but my limbs refused their office.

That accents and looks so winning should disarm me of my resolution was to be expected. My thoughts were thrown anew into anarchy. I spread my hand before my eyes that I might not see her, and answered only by groans. She took my other hand between hers, and pressing it to her heart, spoke with that voice which had ever swayed my will and wafted away sorrow:—

"My friend! my soul's friend! tell me thy cause of grief. Do I not merit to partake with thee in thy cares? Am I not thy wife?"

This was too much. I broke from her embrace and retired to a corner of the room. In this pause, courage was once more infused into me. I resolved to execute my duty. She followed me, and renewed her passionate entreaties to know the cause of my distress. I raised my head and regarded her with steadfast looks. I muttered something about death, and the injunctions of my duty. At these words she shrunk back, and looked at me with a new expression of anguish. After a pause, she clasped her hands, and exclaimed:—-

"O Wieland! Wieland! God grant that I am mistaken! but something surely is wrong. I see it; it is too plain; thou art undone—lost to me and to thyself." At the same time she gazed on my features with intensest anxiety, in hope that different symptoms would take place. I replied to her with vehemence:—

"Undone! No; my duty is known, and I thank my God that my cowardice is now vanquished and I have power to fulfill it. Catharine, I pity the weakness of thy nature; I pity thee, but must not spare. Thy life is claimed from my hands; thou must die!"

Fear was now added to her grief. "What mean you? Why talk you of death? Bethink yourself, Wieland; bethink yourself, and this fit will pass. Oh, why came I hither? Why did you drag me hither?"

"I brought thee hither to fulfill a divine command. I am appointed thy destroyer, and destroy thee I must." Saying this, I seized her wrists. She shrieked aloud, and endeavored to free herself from my grasp; but her efforts were vain.

"Surely, surely, Wieland, thou dost not mean it. Am I not thy wife? and wouldst thou kill me? Thou wilt not; and yet—I see—thou art Wieland no longer! A fury resistless and horrible possesses thee. Spare me—spare—help—help—"

Till her breath was stopped she shrieked for help, for mercy. When she could speak no longer, her gestures, her looks appealed to my compassion. My accursed hand was irresolute and tremulous. I meant thy death to be sudden, thy struggles to be brief. Alas! my heart was infirm, my resolves mutable. Thrice I slackened my grasp, and life kept its hold, though in the midst of pangs. Her eyeballs started from their sockets. Grimness and distortion took the place of all that used to bewitch me into transport and subdue me into reverence. I was commissioned to kill thee, but not to torment thee with the foresight of thy death; not to multiply thy fears and prolong thy agonies. Haggard and pale and lifeless, at length thou ceasedst to contend with thy destiny.

This was the moment of triumph. Thus had I successfully subdued the stubbornness of human passions: the victim which had been demanded was given; the deed was done past recall.

I lifted the corpse in my arms and laid it on the bed. I gazed upon it with delight. Such was the elation of my thoughts that I even broke into laughter. I clapped my hands and exclaimed, "It is done! My sacred duty is fulfilled! To that I have sacrificed, O my God, Thy last and best gift, my wife!"

For a while I thus soared above frailty. I imagined I had set myself forever beyond the reach of selfishness; but my imaginations were false. This rapture quickly subsided. I looked again at my wife. My joyous ebullitions vanished, and I asked myself who it was whom I saw. Methought it could not be Catharine. It could not be the woman who had lodged for years in my heart; who had slept nightly in my bosom; who had borne in her womb, who had fostered at her breast, the beings who called me father; whom I have watched with delight, and cherished with a fondness ever new and perpetually growing; it could not be the same. Where was her bloom? These deadly and blood-suffused orbs but ill resemble the azure and ecstatic tenderness of her eyes. The lucid stream that meandered over that bosom, the glow of love that was wont to sit upon that cheek, are much unlike these livid stains and this hideous deformity. Alas! these were the traces of agony; the gripe of the assassin had been here!

I will not dwell upon my lapse into desperate and outrageous sorrow. The breath of heaven that sustained me was withdrawn, and I sunk into mere man. I leaped from the floor; I dashed my head against the wall; I uttered screams of horror; I panted after torment and pain. Eternal fire and the bickerings of hell, compared with what I felt, were music and a bed of roses.

I thank my God that this degeneracy was transient—that He deigned once more to raise me aloft. I thought upon what I had done as a sacrifice to duty, and was calm. My wife was dead; but I reflected that though this source of human consolation was closed, yet others were still open. If the transports of a husband were no more, the feelings of a father had still scope for exercise. When remembrance of their mother should excite too keen a pang, I would look upon them and be comforted.

While I revolved these ideas, new warmth flowed in upon my heart. I was wrong. These feelings were the growth of selfishness. Of this I was not aware; and to dispel the mist that obscured my perceptions, a new effulgence and a new mandate were necessary. From these thoughts I was recalled by a ray that was shot into the room. A voice spake like that which I had before heard:—"Thou hast done well. But all is not done—the sacrifice is incomplete—thy children must be offered—they must perish with their mother!—"

* * * * *

Thou, Omnipotent and Holy! Thou knowest that my actions were conformable to Thy will. I know not what is crime; what actions are evil in their ultimate and comprehensive tendency, or what are good. Thy knowledge, as Thy power, is unlimited. I have taken Thee for my guide, and cannot err. To the arms of Thy protection I intrust my safety. In the awards of Thy justice I confide for my recompense.

Come death when it will, I am safe. Let calumny and abhorrence pursue me among men; I shall not be defrauded of my dues. The peace of virtue and the glory of obedience will be my portion hereafter.



JOHN BROWN

(1810-1882)

John Brown, the son of a secession-church minister, was born in Biggar, Lanarkshire, Scotland, September 22d, 1810, and died in Edinburgh, May 11th, 1882. He was educated at the Edinburgh High School and at the University, and graduated in medicine in 1833. For a time he was a surgeon's assistant to the great Dr. Syme, the man of whom he said "he never wasted a drop of ink or blood," and whose character he has drawn in one of his most charming biographies. When he began to practice for himself he gradually "got into a good connection," and his patients made him their confidant and adviser. He was considered a fine doctor too, for he had remarkable common-sense, and was said to be unerring in diagnosis.



Dr. Brown did not, as is commonly believed, dislike his profession; but later on he took a view of it which seemed non-progressive, and his success as a writer no doubt interfered with his practice. His friend Professor Masson draws a pleasant picture of him when he first settled in practice, as a dark-haired man with soft, fine eyes and a benignant manner, the husband of a singularly beautiful woman, and much liked and sought after in the social circles of Edinburgh. This was partly owing to the charm of his conversation, and partly to the literary reputation he had achieved through some articles on the Academy exhibition and on local artists. Though he had little technical training, he had an eye for color and form, an appreciation of the artist's meaning, and an instinct for discovering genius, as in the case of Noel Paton and David Scott. He soon became an authority among artists, and he gave a new impulse to national art.

He contributed largely to the North British Review. In 1855 he published 'Horae Subsceivae,' which contained, among medical biography and medico-literary papers, the immortal Scotch idyl, 'Rab and his Friends.' Up to this time the unique personality of the doctor, with its delightful mixture of humor and sympathy, was known only to his own circle. The appearance of 'Rab and his Friends' revealed it to the world. Brief as it is in form, and simple in outline, Scotland has produced nothing so full of pure, pathetic genius since Scott.

Another volume of 'Horae Subsceivae' appeared two years after, and some selections from it, and others from unpublished manuscript, were printed separately in the volume entitled 'Spare Hours.' They met with instant and unprecedented success. In a short time ten thousand copies of 'Minchmoor' and 'James the Doorkeeper' were sold, fifteen thousand copies of 'Pet Marjorie,' and 'Rab' had reached its fiftieth thousand. With all this success and praise, and constantly besought by publishers for his work, he could not be persuaded that his writings were of any permanent value, and was reluctant to publish. In 1882 appeared a third volume of the 'Horae Subsceivae,' which included all his writings. A few weeks after its publication he died.

The Doctor's medical essays, which are replete with humor, are written in defense of his special theory, the distinction between the active and the speculative mind. He thought there was too much science and too little intuitive sagacity in the world, and looked back longingly to the old-time common-sense, which he believed modern science had driven away. His own mind was anti-speculative, although he paid just tributes to philosophy and science and admired their achievements. He stigmatized the speculations of the day as the "lust of innovation." But the reader cares little for the opinions of Dr. Brown as arguments: his subject is of little consequence if he will but talk. By the charm of his story-telling these dead Scotch doctors are made to live again. The death-bed of Syme, for instance, is as pathetic as the wonderful paper on Thackeray's death; and to-day many a heart is sore for 'Pet Marjorie,' the ten-year-old child who died in Scotland almost a hundred years ago.

As an essayist, Dr. Brown belongs to the followers of Addison and Charles Lamb, and he blends humor, pathos, and quiet hopefulness with a grave and earnest dignity. He delighted, not like Lamb "in the habitable parts of the earth," but in the lonely moorlands and pastoral hills, over which his silent, stalwart shepherds walked with swinging stride. He had a keen appreciation for anything he felt to be excellent: his usual question concerning a stranger, either in literature or life, was "Has he wecht, sir?"—quoting Dr. Chalmers; and when he wanted to give the highest praise, he said certain writing was "strong meat." He had a warm enthusiasm for the work of other literary men: an artist himself, he was quick to appreciate and seize upon the witty thing or the excellent thing wherever he found it, and he was eager to share his pleasure with the whole world. He reintroduced to the public Henry Vaughn, the quaint seventeenth-century poet; he wrote a sympathetic memoir of Arthur Hallam; he imported 'Modern Painters,' and enlightened Edinburgh as to its merits. His art papers were what Walter Pater would call "appreciations,"—that is to say, he dwelt upon the beauties of what he described rather than upon the defects. What he did not admire he left alone.

As the author of 'Rab' loved the lonely glens on Minchmoor and in the Enterkin, or where Queen Mary's "baby garden" shows its box-row border among the Spanish chestnuts of Lake Monteith, so he loved the Scottish character, "bitter to the taste and sweet to the diaphragm": "Jeemes" the beadle, with his family worship when he himself was all the family; the old Aberdeen Jacobite people; Miss Stirling Graham of Duntrune, who in her day bewitched Edinburgh; Rab, Ailie, and Bob Ainslie. His characters are oddities, but are drawn without a touch of cynicism. What an amount of playful, wayward nonsense lies between these pages, and what depths of melancholy under the fun! Like Sir Walter, he had a great love for dogs, and never went out unaccompanied by one or two of them. They are the heroes of several of his sketches.

Throughout the English-speaking world, he was affectionately known as Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh. He stood aloof from political and ecclesiastical controversies, and was fond of telling a story to illustrate how little reasoning went to forming partisans. A minister catechizing a raw plowboy, after asking the first question, "Who made you?" and getting the answer "God," asked him, "How do you know that God made you?" After some pause and head-scratching, the reply came, "Weel, sir, it's the clash [common talk] o' the kintry." "Ay," Brown added, "I'm afraid that a deal of our belief is founded on just 'the clash o' the kintry.'"

* * * * *

MARJORIE FLEMING

From 'Spare Hours'

One November afternoon in 1810—the year in which 'Waverley' was resumed and laid aside again, to be finished off, its last two volumes in three weeks, and made immortal in 1814; and when its author, by the death of Lord Melville, narrowly escaped getting a civil appointment in India—three men, evidently lawyers, might have been seen escaping like schoolboys from the Parliament House, and speeding arm-in-arm down Bank Street and the Mound in the teeth of a surly blast of sleet.

The three friends sought the bield of the low wall old Edinburgh boys remember well, and sometimes miss now, as they struggle with the stout west wind....

The third we all know. What has he not done for every one of us? Who else ever, except Shakespeare, so diverted mankind, entertained and entertains a world so liberally, so wholesomely? We are fain to say not even Shakespeare, for his is something deeper than diversion, something higher than pleasure; and yet who would care to split this hair?

Had any one watched him closely before and after the parting, what a change he would see! The bright, broad laugh, the shrewd, jovial word, the man of the Parliament House and of the world; and next step, moody, the light of his eye withdrawn, as if seeing things that were invisible; his shut mouth like a child's, so impressionable, so innocent, so sad; he was now all within, as before he was all without; hence his brooding look. As the snow blattered in his face, he muttered, "How it raves and drifts! On-ding o' snaw,—ay, that's the word,—on-ding—" He was now at his own door, "Castle Street, No. 39." He opened the door and went straight to his den; that wondrous workshop, where in one year, 1823, when he was fifty-two, he wrote 'Peveril of the Peak,' 'Quentin Durward,' and 'St. Ronan's Well,' besides much else. We once took the foremost of our novelists—the greatest, we would say, since Scott—into this room, and could not but mark the solemnizing effect of sitting where the great magician sat so often and so long, and looking out upon that little shabby bit of sky, and that back green where faithful dog Camp lies.

He sat down in his large green morocco elbow-chair, drew himself close to his table, and glowered and gloomed at his writing apparatus, "a very handsome old box, richly carved, lined with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, etc., in silver, the whole in such order that it might have come from the silversmith's window half an hour before." He took out his paper, then starting up angrily, said, "'Go spin, you jade, go spin.' No, d—— it, it won't do,—

"'My spinnin' wheel is auld and stiff, The rock o't wunna stand, sir; To keep the temper-pin in tiff Employs ower aft my hand, sir.'

I am off the fang. I can make nothing of 'Waverley' to-day; I'll awa' to Marjorie. Come wi' me, Maida, you thief." The great creature rose slowly, and the pair were off, Scott taking a maud (a plaid) with him. "White as a frosted plum-cake, by jingo!" said he, when he got to the street. Maida gamboled and whisked among the snow, and his master strode across to Young Street, and through it to 1 North Charlotte Street, to the house of his dear friend, Mrs. William Keith, of Corstorphine Hill; niece of Mrs. Keith of Ravelston, of whom he said at her death, eight years after, "Much tradition, and that of the best, has died with this excellent old lady, one of the few persons whose spirits, and cleanliness and freshness of mind and body, made old age lovely and desirable."

Sir Walter was in that house almost every day, and had a key, so in he and the hound went, shaking themselves in the lobby. "Marjorie! Marjorie!" shouted her friend, "where are ye, my bonnie wee croodlin' doo?" In a moment a bright, eager child of seven was in his arms, and he was kissing her all over. Out came Mrs. Keith. "Come your ways in, Wattie." "No, not now. I am going to take Marjorie wi' me, and you may come to your tea in Duncan Roy's sedan, and bring the bairn home in your lap." "Tak' Marjorie, and it on-ding o' snaw!" said Mrs. Keith. He said to himself, "On-ding,'—that's odd,—that is the very word. Hoot, awa'! look here," and he displayed the corner of his plaid, made to hold lambs [the true shepherd's plaid, consisting of two breadths sewed together, and uncut at one end, making a poke or cul-de-sac]. "Tak' your lamb," said she, laughing at the contrivance, and so the Pet was first well happit up, and then put, laughing silently, into the plaid neuk, and the shepherd strode off with his lamb,—Maida gamboling through the snow, and running races in her mirth.

Didn't he face "the angry airt," and make her bield his bosom, and into his own room with her, and lock the door, and out with the warm rosy little wifie, who took it all with great composure! There the two remained for three or more hours, making the house ring with their laughter; you can fancy the big man's and Maidie's laugh. Having made the fire cheery, he set her down in his ample chair, and standing sheepishly before her, began to say his lesson, which happened to be,—"Ziccotty, diccotty, dock, the mouse ran up the clock; the clock struck one, down the mouse ran, ziccotty, diccotty, dock." This done repeatedly till she was pleased, she gave him his new lesson, gravely and slowly, timing it upon her small fingers,—he saying it after her,—

"Wonery, twoery, tickery, seven; Alibi, crackaby, ten and eleven; Pin, pan, musky dan; Tweedle-um, twoddle-um, twenty-wan; Eerie, orie, ourie, You, are, out."

He pretended to great difficulty, and she rebuked him with most comical gravity, treating him as a child. He used to say that when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um Twoddle-um made him roar with laughter. He said Musky-Dan especially was beyond endurance, bringing up an Irishman and his hat fresh from the Spice Islands and odoriferous Ind; she getting quite bitter in her displeasure at his ill behavior and stupidness.

Then he would read ballads to her in his own glorious way, the two getting wild with excitement over 'Gil Morrice' or the 'Baron of Smailholm'; and he would take her on his knee, and make her repeat Constance's speech in 'King John,' till he swayed to and fro, sobbing his fill....

Scott used to say that he was amazed at her power over him, saying to Mrs. Keith, "She's the most extraordinary creature I ever met with, and her repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me as nothing else does."

Thanks to the unforgetting sister of this dear child, who has much of the sensibility and fun of her who has been in her small grave these fifty and more years, we have now before us the letters and journals of Pet Marjorie,—before us lies and gleams her rich brown hair, bright and sunny as if yesterday's, with the words on the paper, "Cut out in her last illness," and two pictures of her by her beloved Isabella, whom she worshiped; there are the faded old scraps of paper, hoarded still, over which her warm breath and her warm little heart had poured themselves; there is the old water-mark, "Lingard, 1808." The two portraits are very like each other, but plainly done at different times; it is a chubby, healthy face, deep-set, brooding eyes, as eager to tell what is going on within as to gather in all the glories from without; quick with the wonder and the pride of life; they are eyes that would not be soon satisfied with seeing; eyes that would devour their object, and yet childlike and fearless. And that is a mouth that will not be soon satisfied with love; it has a curious likeness to Scott's own, which has always appeared to us his sweetest, most mobile and speaking feature.

There she is, looking straight at us as she did at him,—fearless and full of love, passionate, wild, willful, fancy's child.

* * * * *

There was an old servant, Jeanie Robertson, who was forty years in her grandfather's family. Marjorie Fleming—or as she is called in the letters and by Sir Walter, Maidie—was the last child she kept. Jeanie's wages never exceeded L3 a year, and when she left service she had saved L40. She was devotedly attached to Maidie, rather despising and ill-using her sister Isabella, a beautiful and gentle child. This partiality made Maidie apt at times to domineer over Isabella. "I mention this," writes her surviving sister, "for the purpose of telling you an instance of Maidie's generous justice. When only five years old, when walking in Raith grounds, the two children had run on before, and old Jeanie remembered they might come too near a dangerous mill-lade. She called to them to turn back. Maidie heeded her not, rushed all the faster on, and fell, and would have been lost, had her sister not pulled her back, saving her life, but tearing her clothes. Jeanie flew on Isabella to 'give it her' for spoiling her favorite's dress; Maidie rushed in between, crying out, 'Pay (whip) Maidie as much as you like, and I'll not say one word; but touch Isy, and I'll roar like a bull!' Years after Maidie was resting in her grave, my mother used to take me to the place, and told the story always in the exact same words." This Jeanie must have been a character. She took great pride in exhibiting Maidie's brother William's Calvinistic acquirements when nineteen months old, to the officers of a militia regiment then quartered in Kirkcaldy. This performance was so amusing that it was often repeated, and the little theologian was presented by them with a cap and feathers. Jeanie's glory was "putting him through the carritch" (catechism) in broad Scotch, beginning at the beginning with "Wha made ye, ma bonnie man?" For the correctness of this and the three next replies, Jeanie had no anxiety; but the tone changed to menace, and the closed nieve (fist) was shaken in the child's face as she demanded, "Of what are you made?" "DIRT," was the answer uniformly given. "Wull ye never learn to say dust, ye thrawn deevil?" with a cuff from the opened hand, was the as inevitable rejoinder.

Here is Maidie's first letter, before she was six, the spelling unaltered, and there are no "commoes."

"MY DEAR ISA—I now sit down to answer all your kind and beloved letters which you was so good as to write to me. This is the first time I ever wrote a letter in my Life. There are a great many Girls in the Square and they cry just like a pig when we are under the painfull necessity of putting it to Death. Miss Potune a Lady of my acquaintance praises me dreadfully. I repeated something out of Dean Swift and she said I was fit for the stage and you may think I was primmed up with majestick Pride but upon my word I felt myselfe turn a little birsay—birsay is a word which is a word that William composed which is as you may suppose a little enraged. This horrid fat simpliton says that my Aunt is beautifull which is intirely impossible for that is not her nature."

What a peppery little pen we wield! What could that have been out of the sardonic Dean? what other child of that age would have used "beloved" as she does? This power of affection, this faculty of beloving, and wild hunger to be beloved, comes out more and more. She periled her all upon it, and it may have been as well—we know, indeed, that it was far better—for her that this wealth of love was so soon withdrawn to its one only infinite Giver and Receiver. This must have been the law of her earthly life. Love was indeed "her Lord and King"; and it was perhaps well for her that she found so soon that her and our only Lord and King Himself is Love. Here are bits from her Diary at Braehead:—

"The day of my existence here has been delightful and enchanting. On Saturday I expected no less than three well-made Bucks the names of whom is here advertised. Mr. Geo. Crakey [Craigie], and Wm. Keith and Jn. Keith—the first is the funniest of every one of them. Mr. Crakey and I walked to Crakyhall [Craigiehall] hand in hand in Innocence and matitation [meditation] sweet thinking on the kind love which flows in our tender hearted mind which is overflowing with majestic pleasure no one was ever so polite to me in the hole state of my existence. Mr. Craky you must-know is a great Buck and pretty good-looking."

"I am at Ravelston enjoying nature's fresh air. The birds are singing sweetly—the calf doth frisk and nature shows her glorious face."

Here is a confession:

"I confess I have been very more like a little young divil than a creature for when Isabella went up stairs to teach me religion and my multiplication and to be good and all my other lessons I stamped with my foot and threw my new hat which she had made on the ground and was sulky and was dreadfully passionate, but she never whiped me but said Marjory go into another room and think what a great crime you are committing letting your temper git the better of you. But I went so sulkily that the Devil got the better of me but she never never never whips me so that I think I would be the better of it and the next time that I behave ill I think she should do it for she never does it.... Isabella has given me praise for checking my temper for I was sulky even when she was kneeling an hole hour teaching me to write."

Our poor little wifie, she has no doubts of the personality of the Devil!—"Yesterday I behave extremely ill in God's most holy church for I would never attend myself nor let Isabella attend which was a great crime for she often, often tells me that when to or three are geathered together God is in the midst of them, and it was the very same Divil that tempted Job that tempted me I am sure; but he resisted Satan though he had boils and many many other misfortunes which I have escaped.... I am now going to tell you the horible and wretched plaege that my multiplication gives me you can't conceive it the most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature itself cant endure."

This is delicious; and what harm is there in her "Devilish"? it is strong language merely; even old Rowland Hill used to say "he grudged the Devil those rough and ready words." "I walked to that delightful place Crakyhall with a delightful young man beloved by all his friends especially by me his loveress, but I must not talk any more about him for Isa said it is not proper for to speak of gentalmen but I will never forget him! ... I am very very glad that satan has not given me boils and many other misfortunes—In the holy bible these words are written that the Devil goes like a roaring lyon in search of his pray but the lord lets us escape from him but we" (pauvre petite!) "do not strive with this awfull Spirit.... To-day I pronounced a word which should never come out of a lady's lips it was that I called John a Impudent Bitch. I will tell you what I think made me in so bad a humor is I got one or two of that bad sina [senna] tea to-day,"—a better excuse for bad humor and bad language than most.

She has been reading the Book of Esther:—"It was a dreadful thing that Haman was hanged on the very gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai to hang him and his ten sons thereon and it was very wrong and cruel to hang his sons for they did not commit the crime; but then Jesus was not then come to teach us to be merciful." This is wise and beautiful,—has upon it the very dew of youth and holiness. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings He perfects his praise.

"This is Saturday and I am very glad of it because I have play half the Day and I get money too but alas I owe Isabella 4 pence for I am finned 2 pence whenever I bite my nails. Isabella is teaching me to make simmecoling nots of interrigations peorids commoes, etc.... As this is Sunday I will meditate upon Senciable and Religious subjects. First I should be very thankful I am not a beggar."

This amount of meditation and thankfulness seems to have been all she was able for.

"I am going to-morrow to a delightfull place, Braehead by name, belonging to Mrs. Crraford, where there is ducks cocks hens bubblyjocks 2 dogs 2 cats and swine which is delightful. I think it is shocking to think that the dog and cat should bear them" (this is a meditation physiological) "and they are drowned after all. I would rather have a man-dog than a woman-dog, because they do not bear like woman-dogs; it is a hard case—it is shocking. I came here to enjoy natures delightful breath it is sweeter than a fial of rose oil."

Braehead is the farm the historical Jock Howison asked and got from our gay James the Fifth, "the gudeman o' Ballengiech," as a reward for the services of his flail when the King had the worst of it at Cramond Brig with the gipsies. The farm is unchanged in size from that time, and still in the unbroken line of the ready and victorious thrasher. Braehead is held on the condition of the possessor being ready to present the King with a ewer and basin to wash his hands, Jock having done this for his unknown king after the splore; and when George the Fourth came to Edinburgh, this ceremony was performed in silver at Holyrood.

It is a lovely neuk, this Braehead, preserved almost as it was two hundred years ago. "Lot and his wife," mentioned by Maidie,—two quaintly cropped yew-trees,—still thrive; the burn runs as it did in her time, and sings the same quiet tune,—as much the same and as different as Now and Then. The house is full of old family relics and pictures, the sun shining on them through the small deep windows with their plate-glass; and there, blinking at the sun and chattering contentedly, is a parrot, that might, for its looks of eld, have been in the ark, and domineered over and deaved the dove. Everything about the place is old and fresh.

This is beautiful:—"I am very sorry to say that I forgot God—that is to say I forgot to pray to-day and Isabella told me that I should be thankful that God did not forget me—if he did, O what would become of me if I was in danger and God not friends with me—I must go to unquenchable fire and if I was tempted to sin—how could I resist it O no I will never do it again—no no—if I can help it." (Canny wee wifie!) "My religion is greatly falling off because I dont pray with so much attention when I am saying my prayers, and my charecter is lost among the Braehead people. I hope I will be religious again—but as for regaining my charecter I despare for it." [Poor little "habit and repute"!]

Her temper, her passion, and her "badness" are almost daily confessed and deplored:—"I will never again trust to my own power, for I see that I cannot be good without God's assistance—. I will not trust in my own selfe, and Isa's health will be quite ruined by me—it will indeed." "Isa has giving me advice, which is, that when I feel Satan beginning to tempt me, that I flea him and he would flea me." "Remorse is the worst thing to bear, and I am afraid that I will fall a marter to it."

Poor dear little sinner!—Here comes the world again:—"In my travels I met with a handsome lad named Charles Balfour Esq., and from him I got ofers of marage—offers of marage, did I say? Nay plenty heard me." A fine scent for "breach of promise"!

This is abrupt and strong:—"The Divil is curced and all works. 'Tis a fine work 'Newton on the profecies.' I wonder if there is another book of poems comes near the Bible. The Divil always girns at the sight of the Bible." "Miss Potune" (her "simpliton" friend) "is very fat; she pretends to be very learned. She says she saw a stone that dropt from the skies; but she is a good Christian."

Here come her views on church government:—"An Anni-babtist is a thing I am not a member of—I am a Pisplekan (Episcopalian) just now, and" (O you little Laodicean and Latitudinarian!) "a Prisbeteran at Kirkcaldy"—(Blandula! Vagula! coelum et animum mutas quoe trans mare [i.e., trans Bodotriam] curris!)—"my native town."

"Sentiment is not what I am acquainted with as yet, though I wish it, and should like to practise it" (!) "I wish I had a great, great deal of gratitude in my heart, in all my body." There is a new novel published, named 'Self-Control' (Mrs. Brunton's)—"a very good maxim forsooth!"

This is shocking:—"Yesterday a marrade man, named Mr. John Balfour, Esq., offered to kiss me, and offered to marry me, though the man" (a fine directness this!) "was espused, and his wife was present and said he must ask her permission; but he did not. I think he was ashamed and confounded before 3 gentelman—Mr. Jobson and 2 Mr. Kings." "Mr. Banesters" (Bannister's) "Budjet is to-night; I hope it will be a good one. A great many authors have expressed themselves too sentimentally." You are right, Marjorie. "A Mr. Burns writes a beautiful song on Mr. Cunhaming, whose wife desarted him—truly it is a most beautiful one." "I like to read the Fabulous historys, about the histerys of Robin, Dickey, flapsay, and Peccay, and it is very amusing, for some were good birds and others bad, but Peccay was the most dutiful and obedient to her parients." "Thomson is a beautiful author, and Pope, but nothing to Shakespear, of which I have a little knolege. 'Macbeth' is a pretty composition, but awful one." "The 'Newgate Calender' is very instructive." (!)

"A sailor called here to say farewell; it must be dreadful to leave his native country when he might get a wife; or perhaps me, for I love him very much. But O I forgot, Isabella forbid me to speak about love." This antiphlogistic regimen and lesson is ill to learn by our Maidie, for here she sins again:—"Love is a very papithatick thing" (it is almost a pity to correct this into pathetic), "as well as troublesome and tiresome—but O Isabella forbid me to speak of it."

Here are her reflections on a pineapple:—"I think the price of a pineapple is very dear: it is a whole bright goulden guinea, that might have sustained a poor family." Here is a new vernal simile:—"The hedges are sprouting like chicks from the eggs when they are newly hatched or, as the vulgar say, clacked". "Doctor Swift's works are very funny; I got some of them by heart." "Moreheads sermons are I hear much praised, but I never read sermons of any kind; but I read novelettes and my Bible, and I never forget it, or my prayers." Brava, Marjorie!

She seems now, when still about six, to have broken out into song:—

EPHIBOL [EPIGRAM OR EPITAPH—WHO KNOWS WHICH?] ON MY DEAR LOVE ISABELLA.

"Here lies sweet Isabel in bed, With a night-cap on her head; Her skin is soft, her face is fair, And she has very pretty hair; She and I in bed lies nice, And undisturbed by rats or mice. She is disgusted with Mr. Worgan, Though he plays upon the organ. Her nails are neat, her teeth are white, Her eyes are very, very bright. In a conspicuous town she lives, And to the poor her money gives. Here ends sweet Isabella's story, And may it be much to her glory."

Here are some bits at random:—

"Of summer I am very fond, And love to bathe into a pond: The look of sunshine dies away, And will not let me out to play; I love the morning's sun to spy Glittering through the casement's eye; The rays of light are very sweet, And puts away the taste of meat; The balmy breeze comes down from heaven, And makes us like for to be living."

"The casawary is an curious bird, and so is the gigantic crane, and the pelican of the wilderness, whose mouth holds a bucket of fish and water. Fighting is what ladies is not qualyfied for, they would not make a good figure in battle or in a duel. Alas! we females are of little use to our country. The history of all the malcontents as ever was hanged is amusing." Still harping on the Newgate Calendar!

"Braehead is extremely pleasant to me by the companie of swine, geese, cocks, etc., and they are the delight of my soul."

"I am going to tell you of a melancholy story. A young turkie of two or three months old, would you believe it, the father broke its leg, and he killed another! I think he ought to be transported or hanged."

"Queen Street is a very gay one, and so is Princes Street, for all the lads and lasses, besides bucks and beggars, parade there"

"I should like to see a play very much, for I never saw one in all my life, and don't believe I ever shall; but I hope I can be content without going to one. I can be quite happy without my desire being granted."

"Some days ago Isabella had a terrible fit of the toothake, and she walked with a long night-shift at dead of night like a ghost, and I thought she was one. She prayed for nature's sweet restorer—balmy sleep—but did not get it—a ghostly figure indeed she was, enough to make a saint tremble. It made me quiver and shake from top to toe. Superstition is a very mean thing, and should be despised and shunned."

Here is her weakness and her strength again:—"In the love-novels all the heroines are very desperate. Isabella will not allow me to speak about lovers and heroins, and 'tis too refined for my taste." "Miss Egward's [Edgeworth's] tails are very good, particularly some that are very much adapted for youth (!) as Laz Laurance and Tarelton, False Keys, etc., etc."

"Tom Jones and Gray's Elegey in a country churchyard are both excellent, and much spoke of by both sex, particularly by the men." Are our Marjories now-a-days better or worse, because they cannot read 'Tom Jones' unharmed? More better than worse; but who among them can repeat Gray's 'Lines on a Distant Prospect of Eton College' as could our Maidie?

Here is some more of her prattle:—"I went into Isabella's bed to make her smile like the Genius Demedicus [the Venus de' Medicis] or the statute in an ancient Greece, but she fell asleep in my very face, at which my anger broke forth, so that I awoke her from a comfortable nap. All was now hushed up again, but again my anger burst forth at her biding me get up."

She begins thus loftily,—

"Death the righteous love to see, But from it doth the wicked flee."

Then suddenly breaks off [as if with laughter],—

"I am sure they fly as fast as their legs can carry them!"

"There is a thing I love to see, That is our monkey catch a flee."

"I love in Isa's bed to lie, Oh, such a joy and luxury! The bottom of the bed I sleep, And with great care within I creep; Oft I embrace her feet of lillys, But she has goton all the pillys. Her neck I never can embrace, But I do hug her feet in place."

How childish and yet how strong and free is her use of words!—"I lay at the foot of the bed because Isabella said I disturbed her by continial fighting and kicking, but I was very dull, and continially at work reading the Arabian Nights, which I could not have done if I had slept at the top. I am reading the Mysteries of Udolpho. I am much interested in the fate of poor, poor Emily."

Here is one of her swains:—

"Very soft and white his cheeks, His hair is red, and gray his breeks; His tooth is like the daisy fair, His only fault is in his hair."

This is a higher flight:—

DEDICATED TO MRS. H. CRAWFORD BY THE AUTHOR, M. F.

"Three turkeys fair their last have breathed, And now this world forever leaved; Their father, and their mother too, They sigh and weep as well as you; Indeed, the rats their bones have crunched, Into eternity theire laanched. A direful death indeed they had, As wad put any parent mad; But she was more than usual calm: She did not give a single dam."

This last word is saved from all sin by its tender age, not to speak of the want of the n. We fear "she" is the abandoned mother, in spite of her previous sighs and tears.

"Isabella says when we pray we should pray fervently, and not rattel over a prayer—for that we are kneeling at the foot-stool of our Lord and Creator, who saves us from eternal damnation, and from unquestionable fire and brimston."

She has a long poem on Mary Queen of Scots:—

"Queen Mary was much loved by all, Both by the great and by the small, But hark! her soul to heaven doth rise? And I suppose she has gained a prize; For I do think she would not go Into the awful place below. There is a thing that I must tell— Elizabeth went to fire and hell! He who would teach her to be civil, It must be her great friend, the divil!"

She hits off Darnley well:—

"A noble's son,—a handsome lad,— By some queer way or other, had Got quite the better of her heart; With him she always talked apart: Silly he was, but very fair; A greater buck was not found there."

"By some queer way or other": is not this the general case and the mystery, young ladies and gentlemen? Goethe's doctrine of "elective affinities" discovered by our Pet Maidie!

SONNET TO A MONKEY

O lively, O most charming pug: Thy graceful air and heavenly mug! The beauties of his mind do shine, And every bit is shaped and fine. Your teeth are whiter than the snow; Your a great buck, your a great beau; Your eyes are of so nice a shape, More like a Christian's than an ape; Your cheek is like the rose's blume; Your hair is like the raven's plume; His nose's cast is of the Roman: He is a very pretty woman. I could not get a rhyme for Roman, So was obliged to call him woman.

This last joke is good. She repeats it when writing of James the Second being killed at Roxburgh:—

He was killed by a cannon splinter, Quite in the middle of the winter; Perhaps it was not at that time, But I can get no other rhyme.

Here is one of her last letters, dated Kirkcaldy, 12th October, 1811. You can see how her nature is deepening and enriching:—

MY DEAR MOTHER—You will think that I entirely forget you but I assure you that you are greatly mistaken. I think of you always and often sigh to think of the distance between us two loving creatures of nature. We have regular hours for all our occupations first at 7 o'clock we go to the dancing and come home at 8 we then read our Bible and get our repeating and then play till ten then we get our music till 11 when we get our writing and accounts we sew from 12 till 1 after which I get my gramer and then work till five. At 7 we come and knit till 8 when we dont go to the dancing. This is an exact description. I must take a hasty farewell to her whom I love, reverence and doat on and who I hope thinks the same of

MARJORY FLEMING.

P.S.—An old pack of cards (!) would be very exceptible.

This other is a month earlier:—

"MY DEAR LITTLE MAMA—I was truly happy to hear that you were all well. We are surrounded with measles at present on every side, for the Herons got it, and Isabella Heron was near Death's Door, and one night her father lifted her out of bed, and she fell down as they thought lifeless. Mr. Heron said, 'That lassie's deed noo'—'I'm no deed yet.' She then threw up a big worm nine inches and a half long. I have begun dancing, but am not very fond of it, for the boys strikes and mocks me.—I have been another night at the dancing; I like it better. I will write to you as often as I can; but I am afraid not every week. I long for you with the longings of a child to embrace you—to fold you in my arms. I respect you with all the respect due to a mother. You don't know how I love you. So I shall remain, your loving child,

M. FLEMING."

What rich involution of love in the words marked! Here are some lines to her beloved Isabella, in July, 1811:—

"There is a thing that I do want— With you these beauteous walks to haunt; We would be happy if you would Try to come over if you could. Then I would all quite happy be Now and for all eternity. My mother is so very sweet, And checks my appetite to eat; My father shows us what to do; But O I'm sure that I want you. I have no more of poetry; O Isa do remember me, And try to love your Marjory."

In a letter from "Isa" to

"Miss Muff Maidie Marjory Fleming, favored by Rare Rear-Admiral Fleming,"

she says:—"I long much to see you, and talk over all our old stories together, and to hear you read and repeat. I am pining for my old friend Cesario, and poor Lear, and wicked Richard. How is the dear Multiplication table going on? are you still as much attached to 9 times 9 as you used to be?"

But this dainty, bright thing is about to flee,—to come "quick to confusion." The measles she writes of seized her, and she died on the 19th of December, 1811. The day before her death, Sunday, she sat up in bed, worn and thin, her eye gleaming as with the light of a coming world, and with a tremulous, old voice repeated the lines by Burns,—heavy with the shadow of death, and lit with the fantasy of the judgment-seat,—the publican's prayer in paraphrase:—

Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene

It is more affecting than we care to say to read her mother's and Isabella Keith's letters, written immediately after her death. Old and withered, tattered and pale, they are now: but when you read them, how quick, how throbbing with life and love! how rich in that language of affection which only women and Shakespeare and Luther can use,—that power of detaining the soul over the beloved object and its loss....

In her first letter to Miss Keith, Mrs. Fleming says of her dead Maidie:—"Never did I behold so beautiful an object. It resembled the finest wax-work. There was in the countenance an expression of sweetness and serenity which seemed to indicate that the pure spirit had anticipated the joys of heaven ere it quitted the mortal frame. To tell you what your Maidie said of you would fill volumes; for you were the constant theme of her discourse, the subject of her thoughts, and ruler of her actions. The last time she mentioned you was a few hours before all sense save that of suffering was suspended, when she said to Dr. Johnstone, 'If you will let me out at the New Year, I will be quite contented.' I asked what made her so anxious to get out then. 'I want to purchase a New Year's gift for Isa Keith with the sixpence you gave me for being patient in the measles; and I would like to choose it myself.' I do not remember her speaking afterwards, except to complain of her head, till just before she expired, when she articulated, 'O mother! mother!'"

Do we make too much of this little child, who has been in her grave in Abbotshall. Kirkyard these fifty and more years? We may of her cleverness,—not of her affectionateness, her nature. What a picture the animosa infans gives us of herself, her vivacity, her passionateness, her precocious love-making, her passion for nature, for swine, for all living things, her reading, her turn for expression, her satire, her frankness, her little sins and rages, her great repentances. We don't wonder Walter Scott carried her off in the neuk of his plaid, and played himself with her for hours....

We are indebted for the following—and our readers will be not unwilling to share our obligations—to her sister:—"Her birth was 15th January, 1803; her death 19th December, 1811. I take this from her Bibles. I believe she was a child of robust health, of much vigor of body, and beautifully formed arms, and until her last illness, never was an hour in bed. She was niece to Mrs. Keith, residing in No. 1 North Charlotte Street, who was not Mrs. Murray Keith, although very intimately acquainted with that old lady....

"As to my aunt and Scott, they were on a very intimate footing. He asked my aunt to be godmother to his eldest daughter Sophia Charlotte. I had a copy of Miss Edgeworth's 'Rosamond' and 'Harry and Lucy' for long, which was 'a gift to Marjorie from Walter Scott,' probably the first edition of that attractive series, for it wanted 'Frank,' which is always now published as part of the series under the title of 'Early Lessons.' I regret to say these little volumes have disappeared."

Sir Walter was no relation of Marjorie's, but of the Keiths, through the Swintons; and like Marjorie, he stayed much at Ravelstone in his early days, with his grand-aunt Mrs. Keith....

We cannot better end than in words from this same pen:—"I have to ask you to forgive my anxiety in gathering up the fragments of Marjorie's last days, but I have an almost sacred feeling to all that pertains to her. You are quite correct in stating that measles were the cause of her death. My mother was struck by the patient quietness manifested by Marjorie during this illness, unlike her ardent, impulsive nature; but love and poetic feeling were unquenched. When lying very still, her mother asked her if there was anything she wished: 'Oh yes! if you would just leave the room door open a wee bit, and play 'The Land o' the Leal,' and I will lie and think, and enjoy myself' (this is just as stated to me by her mother and mine). Well, the happy day came, alike to parents and child, when Marjorie was allowed to come forth from the nursery to the parlor. It was Sabbath evening, and after tea. My father, who idolized this child, and never afterwards in my hearing mentioned her name, took her in his arms; and while walking up and down the room, she said, 'Father, I will repeat something to you; what would you like?' He said, 'Just choose yourself, Maidie.' She hesitated for a moment between the paraphrase 'Few are thy days, and full of woe,' and the lines of Burns already quoted, but decided on the latter, a remarkable choice for a child. The repeating these lines seemed to stir up the depths of feeling in her soul. She asked to be allowed to write a poem; there was a doubt whether it would be right to allow her, in case of hurting her eyes. She pleaded earnestly, 'Just this once;' the point was yielded, her slate was given her, and with great rapidity she wrote an address of fourteen lines, 'To her loved cousin on the author's recovery,' her last work on earth:—

'Oh! Isa, pain did visit me, I was at the last extremity; How often did I think of you, I wished your graceful form to view, To clasp you in my weak embrace, Indeed I thought I'd run my race: Good care, I'm sure, was of me taken, But still indeed I was much shaken. At last I daily strength did gain, And oh! at last, away went pain; At length the doctor thought I might Stay in the parlor all the night; I now continue so to do; Farewell to Nancy and to you.'

She went to bed apparently well, awoke in the middle of the night with the old cry of woe to a mother's heart, 'My head, my head!' Three days of the dire malady 'water in the head' followed, and the end came."

"Soft, silken primrose, fading timelessly!"

It is needless, it is impossible to add anything to this; the fervor, the sweetness, the flush of poetic ecstasy, the lovely and glowing eye, the perfect nature of that bright and warm intelligence, that darling child; Lady Nairne's words, and the old tune, stealing up from the depths of the human heart, deep calling unto deep, gentle and strong like the waves of the great sea hushing themselves to sleep in the dark; the words of Burns touching the kindred chord; her last numbers, "wildly sweet," traced with thin and eager fingers, already touched by the last enemy and friend,—moriens canit,—and that love which is so soon to be her everlasting light, is her song's burden to the end.

"She set as sets the morning star, which goes Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides Obscured among the tempests of the sky, But melts away into the light of heaven."

THE DEATH OF THACKERAY

From 'Spare Hours'

We cannot resist here recalling one Sunday evening in December, when he was walking with two friends along the Dean road, to the west of Edinburgh,—one of the noblest outlets to any city. It was a lovely evening,—such a sunset as one never forgets: a rich dark bar of cloud hovered over the sun, going down behind the Highland hills, lying bathed in amethystine bloom; between this cloud and the hills there was a narrow slip of the pure ether, of a tender cowslip color, lucid, and as if it were the very body of heaven in its clearness; every object standing out as if etched upon the sky. The northwest end of Corstorphine Hill, with its trees and rocks, lay in the heart of this pure radiance, and there a wooden crane, used in the quarry below, was so placed as to assume the figure of a cross; there it was, unmistakable, lifted up against the crystalline sky. All three gazed at it silently. As they gazed, he gave utterance in a tremulous, gentle, and rapid voice, to what all were feeling, in the word "CALVARY!" The friends walked on in silence, and then turned to other things. All that evening he was very gentle and serious, speaking, as he seldom did, of divine things,—of death, of sin, of eternity, of salvation; expressing his simple faith in God and in his Savior.

There is a passage at the close of the 'Roundabout Paper' No. 23, 'De Finibus,' in which a sense of the ebb of life is very marked; the whole paper is like a soliloquy. It opens with a drawing of Mr. Punch, with unusually mild eye, retiring for the night; he is putting out his high-heeled shoes, and before disappearing gives a wistful look into the passage, as if bidding it and all else good-night. He will be in bed, his candle out, and in darkness, in five minutes, and his shoes found next morning at his door, the little potentate all the while in his final sleep. The whole paper is worth the most careful study; it reveals not a little of his real nature, and unfolds very curiously the secret of his work, the vitality and abiding power of his own creations; how he "invented a certain Costigan, out of scraps, heel-taps, odds and ends of characters," and met the original the other day, without surprise, in a tavern parlor. The following is beautiful: "Years ago I had a quarrel with a certain well-known person (I believed a statement regarding him which his friends imparted to me, and which turned out to be quite incorrect). To his dying day that quarrel was never quite made up. I said to his brother, 'Why is your brother's soul still dark against me? It is I who ought to be angry and unforgiving, for I was in the wrong.'" Odisse quem laeseris was never better contravened. But what we chiefly refer to now is the profound pensiveness of the following strain, as if written with a presentiment of what was not then very far off:—"Another Finis written; another milestone on this journey from birth to the next world. Sure it is a subject for solemn cogitation. Shall we continue this story-telling business, and be voluble to the end of our age?" "Will it not be presently time, O prattler, to hold your tongue?" And thus he ends:—

"Oh, the sad old pages, the dull old pages; oh, the cares, the ennui, the squabbles, the repetitions, the old conversations over and over again! But now and again a kind thought is recalled, and now and again a dear memory. Yet a few chapters more, and then the last; after which, behold Finis itself comes to an end, and the Infinite begins."

* * * * *

He had been suffering on Sunday from an old and cruel enemy. He fixed with his friend and surgeon to come again on Tuesday, but with that dread of anticipated pain which is a common condition of sensibility and genius, he put him off with a note from "yours unfaithfully, W.M.T." He went out on Wednesday for a little, and came home at ten. He went to his room, suffering much, but declining his man's offer to sit with him. He hated to make others suffer. He was heard moving, as if in pain, about twelve, on the eve of—

"That happy morn Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King, Of wedded maid and virgin-mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring."

Then all was quiet, and then he must have died—in a moment. Next morning his man went in, and opening the windows found his master dead, his arms behind his head, as if he had tried to take one more breath. We think of him as of our Chalmers, found dead in like manner: the same childlike, unspoiled, open face; the same gentle mouth; the same spaciousness and softness of nature; the same look of power. What a thing to think of,—his lying there alone in the dark, in the midst of his own mighty London; his mother and his daughters asleep, and, it may be, dreaming of his goodness. God help them, and us all! What would become of us, stumbling along this our path of life, if we could not, at our utmost need, stay ourselves on Him?

Long years of sorrow, labor, and pain had killed him before his time. It was found after death how little life he had to live. He looked always fresh, with that abounding silvery hair, and his young, almost infantine face, but he was worn to a shadow, and his hands wasted as if by eighty years. With him it is the end of Ends; finite is over and, infinite begun. What we all felt and feel can never be so well expressed as in his own words of sorrow for the early death of Charles Buller:—

"Who knows the inscrutable design? Blest He who took and He who gave! Why should your mother, Charles, not mine, Be weeping at her darling's grave? We bow to heaven that willed it so, That darkly rules the fate of all, That sends the respite or the blow, That's free to give or to recall."



CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE (ARTEMUS WARD)

(1834-1867)

BY CHARLES F. JOHNSON

Charles Farrar Brown, better known to the public of thirty years ago under his pen-name of Artemus Ward, was born in the little village of Waterford, Maine, on the 26th day of April, 1834. Waterford is a quiet village of about seven hundred inhabitants, lying among the foot-hills of the White Mountains. When Browne was a child it was a station on the western stage-route, and an important depot for lumbermen's supplies. Since the extension of railroads northerly and westerly from the seaboard, it has however shared the fate of many New England villages in being left on one side of the main currents of commercial activity, and gradually assuming a character of repose and leisure, in many regards more attractive than the life and bustle of earlier days. Many persons are still living there who remember the humorist as a quaint and tricksy boy, alternating between laughter and preternatural gravity, and of a surprising ingenuity in devising odd practical jokes in which good nature so far prevailed that even the victims were too much amused to be very angry.



On both sides, he came from original New England stock; and although he was proud of his descent from a very ancient English family, in deference to whom he wrote his name with the final "e," he felt greater pride in his American ancestors, and always said that they were genuine and primitive Yankees,—people of intelligence, activity, and integrity in business, but entirely unaffected by new-fangled ideas. It is interesting to notice that Browne's humor was hereditary on the paternal side, his father especially being noted for his quaint sayings and harmless eccentricities. His cousin Daniel many years later bore a strong resemblance to what Charles had been, and he too possessed a kindred humorous faculty and told a story in much the same solemn manner, bringing out the point as if it were something entirely irrelevant and unimportant and casually remembered. The subject of this sketch, however, was the only member of the family in whom a love for the droll and incongruous was a controlling disposition. As is frequently the case, a family trait was intensified in one individual to the point where talent passes over into genius.

On his mother's side, too, Browne was a thorough-bred New-Englander. His maternal grandfather, Mr. Calvin Farrar, was a man of influence in town and State, and was able to send two of his sons to Bowdoin College. I have mentioned Browne's parentage because his humor is so essentially American. Whether this consists in a peculiar gravity in the humorous attitude towards the subject, rather than playfulness, or in a tendency to exaggerated statement, or in a broad humanitarian standpoint, or in a certain flavor given by a blending of all these, it is very difficult to decide. Probably the peculiar standpoint is the distinguishing note, and American humor is a product of democracy.

Humor is as difficult of definition as is poetry. It is an intimate quality of the mind, which predisposes a man to look for remote and unreal analogies and to present them gravely as if they were valid. It sees that many of the objects valued by men are illusions, and it expresses this conviction by assuming that other manifest trifles are important. It is the deadly enemy of sentimentality and affectation, for its vision is clear. Although it turns everything topsy-turvy in sport, its world is not a chaos nor a child's play-ground, for humor is based on keen perception of truth. There is no method—except the highest poetic treatment—which reveals so distinctly the falsehoods and hypocrisies of the social and economic order as the reductio ad absurdum of humor; for all human institutions have their ridiculous sides, which astonish and amuse us when pointed out, but from viewing which we suddenly become aware of relative values before misunderstood. But just as poetry may degenerate into a musical collection of words and painting into a decorative association of colors, so humor may degenerate into the merely comic or amusing. The laugh which true humor arouses is not far removed from tears. Humor indeed is not always associated with kindliness, for we have the sardonic humor of Carlyle and the savage humor of Swift; but it is naturally dissociated from egotism, and is never more attractive than when, as in the case of Charles Lamb and Oliver Goldsmith, it is based on a loving and generous interest in humanity.

Humor, must rest on a broad human foundation, and cannot be narrowed to the notions of a certain class. But in most English humor,—as indeed in all English literature except the very highest,—the social class to which the writer does not belong is regarded ab extra. In Punch, for instance, not only are servants always given a conventional set of features, but they are given conventional minds, and the jokes are based on a hypothetical conception of personality. Dickens was a great humorist, and understood the nature of the poor because he had been one of them; but his gentlemen and ladies are lay figures. Thackeray's studies of the flunky are capital; but he studies him qua flunky, as a naturalist might study an animal, and hardly ranks him sub specie humanitatis. But to the American humorist all men are primarily men. The waiter and the prince are equally ridiculous to him, because in each he finds similar incongruities between the man and his surroundings; but in England there is a deep impassable gulf between the man at the table and the man behind his chair. This democratic independence of external and adventitious circumstance sometimes gives a tone of irreverence to American persiflage, and the temporary character of class distinctions in America undoubtedly diminishes the amount of literary material "in sight" but when, as in the case of Browne and Clemens, there is in the humorist's mind a basis of reverence for things and persons that are really reverend, it gives a breadth and freedom to the humorous conception that is distinctively American.

We put Clemens and Browne in the same line, because in reading a page of either we feel at once the American touch. Browne of course is not to be compared to Clemens in affluence or in range in depicting humorous character-types; but it must be remembered that Clemens has lived thirty active years longer than his predecessor did. Neither has written a line that he would wish to blot for its foul suggestion, or because it ridiculed things that were lovely and of good report. Both were educated in journalism, and came into direct contact with the strenuous and realistic life of labor. And to repeat, though one was born and bred west of the Mississippi and the other far "down east," both are distinctly American. Had either been born and passed his childhood outside our magic line, this resemblance would not have existed. And yet we cannot say precisely wherein this likeness lies, nor what caused it; so deep, so subtle, so pervading is the influence of nationality. But their original expressions of the American humorous tone are worth ten thousand literary echoes of Sterne or Lamb or Dickens or Thackeray.

The education of young Browne was limited to the strictly preparatory years. At the age of thirteen he was forced by the death of his father to try to earn his living. When about fourteen, he was apprenticed to a Mr. Rex, who published a paper at Lancaster, New Hampshire. He remained there about a year, then worked on various country papers, and finally passed three years in the printing-house of Snow and Wilder, Boston. He then went to Ohio, and after working for some months on the Tiffin Advertiser, went to Toledo, where he remained till the fall of 1857. Thence he went to Cleveland, Ohio, as local editor of the Plain Dealer. Here appeared the humorous letters signed "Artemus Ward" and written in the character of an itinerant showman. In 1860 he went to New York as editor of the comic journal Vanity Fair.

His reputation grew steadily, and his first volume, 'Artemus Ward, His Book,' was brought out in 1862. In 1863 he went to San Francisco by way of the Isthmus and returned overland. This journey was chronicled in a short volume, 'Artemus Ward, His Travels.' He had already undertaken a career of lecturing, and his comic entertainments, given in a style peculiarly his own, became very popular. The mimetic gift is frequently found in the humorist; and Browne's peculiar drawl, his profound gravity and dreamy, far-away expression, the unexpected character of his jokes and the surprise with which he seemed to regard the audience, made a combination of a delightfully quaint absurdity. Browne himself was a very winning personality, and never failed to put his audience in good humor. None who knew him twenty-nine years ago think of him without tenderness. In 1866 he visited England, and became almost as popular there as lecturer and writer for Punch. He died from a pulmonary trouble in Southampton, March 6th, 1867, being not quite thirty-three years old. He was never married.

When we remember that a large part of Browne's mature life was taken up in learning the printer's trade, in which he became a master, we must decide that he had only entered on his career as humorous writer. Much of what he wrote is simply amusing, with little depth or power of suggestion; it is comic, not humorous. He was gaining the ear of the public and training his powers of expression. What he has left consists of a few collections of sketches written for a daily paper. But the subjoined extracts will show, albeit dimly, that he was more than a joker, as under the cap and bells of the fool in Lear we catch a glimpse of the face of a tender-hearted and philosophic friend. Browne's nature was so kindly and sympathetic, so pure and manly, that after he had achieved a reputation and was relieved from immediate pecuniary pressure, he would have felt an ambition to do some worthy work and take time to bring out the best that was in him. As it is, he had only tried his 'prentice hand. Still, the figure of the old showman, though not very solidly painted, is admirably done. He is a sort of sublimated and unoffensive Barnum; perfectly consistent, permeated with his professional view of life, yet quite incapable of anything underhand or mean; radically loyal to the Union, appreciative of the nature of his animals, steady in his humorous attitude toward life: and above all, not a composite of shreds and patches, but a personality. Slight as he is, and unconscious and unpracticed as is the art that went to his creation, he is one of the humorous figures of all literature; and old Sir John Falstaff, Sir Roger de Coverley, Uncle Toby, and Dr. Primrose will not disdain to admit him into their company; for he too is a man, not an abstraction, and need not be ashamed of his parentage nor doubtful of his standing among the "children of the men of wit."



EDWIN FORREST AS OTHELLO

Durin a recent visit to New York the undersined went to see Edwin Forrest. As I am into the moral show biziness myself I ginrally go to Barnum's moral museum, where only moral peeple air admitted, partickly on Wednesday arternoons. But this time I thot I'd go and see Ed. Ed has bin actin out on the stage for many years. There is varis 'pinions about his actin, Englishmen ginrally bleevin that he's far superior to Mister Macready; but on one pint all agree, & that is that Ed draws like a six-ox team. Ed was actin at Niblo's Garding, which looks considerable more like a parster than a garding, but let that pars. I sot down in the pit, took out my spectacles and commenced peroosin the evenin's bill. The awjince was all-fired large & the boxes was full of the elitty of New York. Several opery glasses was leveled at me by Gotham's fairest darters, but I didn't let on as tho I noticed it, tho mebby I did take out my sixteen-dollar silver watch & brandish it round more than was necessary. But the best of us has our weaknesses & if a man has gewelry let him show it. As I was peroosin the bill a grave young man who sot near me axed me if I'd ever seen Forrest dance the Essence of Old Virginny. "He's immense in that," sed the young man. "He also does a fair champion jig," the young man continnered, "but his Big Thing is the Essence of Old Virginny." Sez I, "Fair youth, do you know what I'd do with you if you was my sun?"

"No," sez he.

"Wall," sez I, "I'd appint your funeral to-morrow arternoon, & the korps should be ready. You're too smart to live on this yerth."

He didn't try any more of his capers on me. But another pussylanermuss individooul in a red vest and patent leather boots told me his name was Bill Astor & axed me to lend him 50 cents till early in the mornin. I told him I'd probly send it round to him before he retired to his virtoous couch, but if I didn't he might look for it next fall as soon as I'd cut my corn. The orchestry was now fiddling with all their might & as the peeple didn't understan anything about it they applaudid versifrusly. Presently old Ed cum out. The play was Otheller or More of Veniss. Otheller was writ by Wm. Shakspeer. The seene is laid in Veniss. Otheller was a likely man & was a ginral in the Veniss army. He eloped with Desdemony, a darter of the Hon. Mr. Brabantio, who represented one of the back districks in the Veneshun legislater. Old Brabantio was as mad as thunder at this & tore round considerable, but finally cooled down, tellin Otheller, howsoever, that Desdemony had come it over her par, & that he had better look out or she'd come it over him likewise. Mr. and Mrs. Otheller git along very comfortable-like for a spell. She is sweet-tempered and lovin—a nice, sensible female, never goin in for he-female conventions, green cotton umbrellers, and pickled beats. Otheller is a good provider and thinks all the world of his wife. She has a lazy time of it, the hird girl doin all the cookin and washin. Desdemony in fact don't have to git the water to wash her own hands with. But a low cuss named Iago, who I bleeve wants to git Otheller out of his snug government birth, now goes to work & upsets the Otheller family in most outrajus stile. Iago falls in with a brainless youth named Roderigo & wins all his money at poker. (Iago allers played foul.) He thus got money enuff to carry out his onprincipled skeem. Mike Cassio, a Irishman, is selected as a tool by Iago. Mike was a clever feller & a orficer in Otheller's army. He liked his tods too well, howsoever, & they floored him as they have many other promisin young men. Iago injuces Mike to drink with him, Iago slily throwin his whiskey over his shoulder. Mike gits as drunk as a biled owl & allows that he can lick a yard full of the Veneshun fancy before breakfast, without sweatin a hair. He meets Roderigo & proceeds for to smash him. A feller named Mentano undertakes to slap Cassio, when that infatooated person runs his sword into him. That miserble man, Iago, pretends to be very sorry to see Mike conduck hisself in this way & undertakes to smooth the thing over to Otheller, who rushes in with a drawn sword & wants to know what's up. Iago cunningly tells his story & Otheller tells Mike that he thinks a good deal of him but that he cant train no more in his regiment. Desdemony sympathises with poor Mike & interceds for him with Otheller. Iago makes him bleeve she does this because she thinks more of Mike than she does of hisself. Otheller swallers Iagos lyin tail & goes to makin a noosence of hisself ginrally. He worries poor Desdemony terrible by his vile insinuations & finally smothers her to deth with a piller. Mrs. Iago comes in just as Otheller has finished the fowl deed & givs him fits right & left, showin him that he has been orfully gulled by her miserble cuss of a husband. Iago cums in & his wife commences rakin him down also, when he stabs her. Otheller jaws him a spell & then cuts a small hole in his stummick with his sword. Iago pints to Desdemony's deth bed & goes orf with a sardonic smile onto his countenance. Otheller tells the peple that he has dun the state some service & they know it; axes them to do as fair a thing as they can for him under the circumstances, & kills hisself with a fish-knife, which is the most sensible thing he can do. This is a breef skedule of the synopsis of the play.

Edwin Forrest is a grate acter. I thot I saw Otheller before me all the time he was actin &, when the curtin fell, I found my spectacles was still mistened with salt-water, which had run from my eyes while poor Desdemony was dyin. Betsy Jane—Betsy Jane! let us pray that our domestic bliss may never be busted up by a Iago!

Edwin Forrest makes money actin out on the stage. He gits five hundred dollars a nite & his board & washin. I wish I had such a Forrest in my Garding!

Copyrighted by G.W. Dillingham and Company, New York.

HIGH-HANDED OUTRAGE AT UTICA

In the fall of 1856 I showed my show in Utiky, a trooly grate sitty in the State of New York.

The people gave me a cordyal recepshun. The press was loud in her prases.

1 day as I was givin a descripshun of my Beests and Snaiks in my usual flowry stile, what was my skorn & disgust to see a big burly feller walk up to the cage containin my wax figgers of the Lord's Last Supper, and cease Judas Iscariot by the feet and drag him out on the ground. He then commenced fur to pound him as hard as he cood.

"What under the son are you abowt?" cried I.

Sez he, "What did you bring this pussylanermus cuss here fur?" & he hit the wax figger another tremenjus blow on the hed.

Sez I, "You egrejus ass that air's a wax figger—a representashun of the false 'Postle."

Sez he, "That's all very well fur you to say, but I tell you, old man, that Judas Iscariot can't show hisself in Utiky with impunerty by a darn site!" with which observashun he kaved in Judassis hed. The young man belonged to 1 of the first famerlies in Utiky. I sood him and the Joory brawt in a verdick of Arson in the 3d degree.

Copyrighted by G.W. Dillingham and Company, New York.

AFFAIRS ROUND THE VILLAGE GREEN

And where are the friends of my youth? I have found one of 'em, certainly. I saw him ride in a circus the other day on a bareback horse, and even now his name stares at me from yonder board-fence in green and blue and red and yellow letters. Dashington, the youth with whom I used to read the able orations of Cicero, and who as a declaimer on exhibition days used to wipe the rest of us boys pretty handsomely out—well, Dashington is identified with the halibut and cod interests —drives a fish-cart, in fact, from a certain town on the coast back into the interior. Hurburtson—the utterly stupid boy—the lunkhead who never had his lesson, he's about the ablest lawyer a sister State can boast. Mills is a newspaper man, and is just now editing a Major General down South. Singlingson, the sweet-faced boy whose face was always washed and who was never rude, he is in the penitentiary for putting his uncle's autograph to a financial document. Hawkins, the clergyman's son, is an actor; and Williamson, the good little boy who divided his bread and butter with the beggar-man, is a failing merchant, and makes money by it. Tom Slink, who used to smoke Short Sixes and get acquainted with the little circus boys, is popularly supposed to be the proprietor of a cheap gaming establishment in Boston, where the beautiful but uncertain prop is nightly tossed. Be sure the Army is represented by many of the friends of my youth, the most of whom have given a good account of themselves.

But Chalmerson hasn't done much. No, Chalmerson is rather of a failure. He plays on the guitar and sings love-songs. Not that he is a bad man—a kinder-hearted creature never lived, and they say he hasn't yet got over crying for his little curly-haired sister who died ever so long ago. But he knows nothing about business, politics, the world, and those things. He is dull at trade—indeed, it is the common remark that "Everybody cheats Chalmerson." He came to the party the other evening and brought his guitar. They wouldn't have him for a tenor in the opera, certainly, for he is shaky in his upper notes; but if his simple melodies didn't gush straight from the heart! why, even my trained eyes were wet! And although some of the girls giggled, and some of the men seemed to pity him, I could not help fancying that poor Chalmerson was nearer heaven than any of us all.

Copyrighted by G. W. Dillingham and Company.

MR. PEPPER

From 'Artemus Ward: His Travels'

My arrival at Virginia City was signalized by the following incident:—

I had no sooner achieved my room in the garret of the International Hotel than I was called upon by an intoxicated man, who said he was an Editor. Knowing how rare it is for an Editor to be under the blighting influence of either spirituous or malt liquors, I received this statement doubtfully. But I said:

"What name?"

"Wait!" he said, and went out.

I heard him pacing unsteadily up and down the hall outside.

In ten minutes he returned, and said, "Pepper!"

Pepper was indeed his name. He had been out to see if he could remember it, and he was so flushed with his success that he repeated it joyously several times, and then, with a short laugh, he went away.

I had often heard of a man being "so drunk that he didn't know what town he lived in," but here was a man so hideously inebriated that he didn't know what his name was.

I saw him no more, but I heard from him. For he published a notice of my lecture, in which he said that I had a dissipated air!

HORACE GREELEY'S RIDE TO PLACERVILLE

From 'Artemus Ward: His Travels'

When Mr. Greeley was in California, ovations awaited him at every town. He had written powerful leaders in the Tribune in favor of the Pacific Railroad, which had greatly endeared him to the citizens of the Golden State. And therefore they made much of him when he went to see them.

At one town the enthusiastic populace tore his celebrated white coat to pieces and carried the pieces home to remember him by.

The citizens of Placerville prepared to fete the great journalist, and an extra coach with extra relays of horses was chartered of the California Stage Company to carry him from Folsom to Placerville—distance, forty miles. The extra was in some way delayed, and did not leave Folsom until late in the afternoon. Mr. Greeley was to be feted at seven o'clock that evening by the citizens of Placerville, and it was altogether necessary that he should be there by that time. So the Stage Company said to Henry Monk, the driver of the extra, "Henry, this great man must be there by seven to-night." And Henry answered, "The great man shall be there."

The roads were in an awful state, and during the first few miles out of Folsom slow progress was made.

"Sir," said Mr. Greeley, "are you aware that I must be in Placerville at seven o'clock to-night?"

"I've got my orders!" laconically replied Henry Monk.

Still the coach dragged slowly forward.

"Sir," said Mr. Greeley, "this is not a trifling matter. I must be there at seven!"

Again came the answer, "I've got my orders!"

But the speed was not increased, and Mr. Greeley chafed away another half-hour; when, as he was again about to remonstrate with the driver, the horses suddenly started into a furious run, and all sorts of encouraging yells filled the air from the throat of Henry Monk.

"That is right, my good fellow," said Mr. Greeley. "I'll give you ten dollars when we get to Placerville. Now we are going!"

They were indeed, and at a terrible speed.

Crack, crack! went the whip, and again "that voice" split the air, "Get up! Hi-yi! G'long! Yip-yip."

And on they tore over stones and ruts, up hill and down, at a rate of speed never before achieved by stage horses.

Mr. Greeley, who had been bouncing from one end of the stage to the other like an India-rubber ball, managed to get his head out of the window, when he said:—

"Do-on't-on't-on't you-u-u think we-e-e-e shall get there by seven if we do-on't-on't go so fast?"

"I've got my orders!" That was all Henry Monk said. And on tore the coach.

It was becoming serious. Already the journalist was extremely sore from the terrible jolting—and again his head "might have been seen from the window."

"Sir," he said, "I don't care-care-air if we don't get there at seven."

"I've got my orders!" Fresh horses—forward again, faster than before—over rocks and stumps, on one of which the coach narrowly escaped turning a summerset.