In one corner of his sensual mouth rested the stump of a cigar. Once during the proceedings he had produced another, lighted it, and continued quietly smoking. If he took to himself any shame as the central figure of this ignoble performance, no one knew it. There was something almost royal in his unconcern. The humor, the badinage, the open contempt, of which he was the public target, fell thick and fast upon him, but as harmlessly as would balls of pith upon a coat of mail. In truth, there was that in his great, lazy, gentle, good-humored bulk and bearing which made the gibes seem all but despicable. He shuffled from one foot to the other as though he found it a trial to stand up so long, but all the while looking the spectators full in the eyes without the least impatience. He suffered the man of the factory to walk round him and push and pinch his muscles as calmly as though he had been the show bull at a country fair. Once only, when the sheriff had pointed across the street at the figure of Mr. Clay, he had looked quickly in that direction with a kindling light in his eye and a passing flush on his face. For the rest, he seemed like a man who has drained his cup of human life and has nothing left him but to fill again and drink without the least surprise or eagerness.

The bidding between the man of the factory and the student had gone slowly on. The price had reached ten dollars. The heat was intense, the sheriff tired. Then something occurred to revivify the scene. Across the market place and toward the steps of the court-house there suddenly came trundling along in breathless haste a huge old negress, carrying on one arm a large shallow basket containing apple-crab lanterns and fresh gingerbread. With a series of half-articulate grunts and snorts she approached the edge of the crowd and tried to force her way through. She coaxed, she begged, she elbowed and pushed and scolded, now laughing, and now with the passion of tears in her thick, excited voice. All at once, catching sight of the sheriff, she lifted one ponderous brown arm, naked to the elbow, and waved her hand to him above the heads of those in front.

"Hole on marster! hole on!" she cried in a tone of humorous entreaty. "Don' knock 'im off till I come! Gim me a bid at 'im!"

The sheriff paused and smiled. The crowd made way tumultuously, with broad laughter and comment.

"Stan' aside theah an' let Aun' Charlotte in!"

"Now you'll see biddin'!"

"Get out of the way foh Aun' Charlotte!"

"Up, my free niggah! Hurrah foh Kentucky."

A moment more and she stood inside the ring of spectators, her basket on the pavement at her feet, her hands plumped akimbo into her fathomless sides, her head up, and her soft, motherly eyes turned eagerly upon the sheriff. Of the crowd she seemed unconscious, and on the vagrant before her she had not cast a single glance.

She was dressed with perfect neatness. A red and yellow Madras kerchief was bound about her head in a high coil, and another over the bosom of her stiffly starched and smoothly ironed blue cottonade dress. Rivulets of perspiration ran down over her nose, her temples, and around her ears, and disappeared mysteriously in the creases of her brown neck. A single drop accidentally hung glistening like a diamond on the circlet of one of her large brass earrings.

The sheriff looked at her a moment, smiling but a little disconcerted. The spectacle was unprecedented.

"What do you want heah, Aun' Charlotte?" he asked kindly. "You can't sell yo' pies an' gingerbread heah."

"I don' wan' sell no pies en gingerbread," she replied, contemptuously. "I wan' bid on him," and she nodded sidewise at the vagrant. "White folks allers sellin' niggahs to wuk fuh dem; I gwine to buy a white man to wuk fuh me. En he gwine t' git a mighty hard mistiss, you heah me!"

The eyes of the sheriff twinkled with delight.

"Ten dollahs is offahed foh ole King Sol'mon. Is theah any othah bid. Are you all done?"

"Leben," she said.

Two young ragamuffins crawled among the legs of the crowd up to her basket and filched pies and cake beneath her very nose.

"Twelve!" cried the student, laughing.

"Thirteen!" she laughed, too, but her eyes flashed.

"You are bidding against a niggah" whispered the student's companion in his ear.

"So I am; let's be off," answered the other, with a hot flush on his proud face.

Thus the sale was ended, and the crowd variously dispersed. In a distant corner of the courtyard the ragged urchins were devouring their unexpected booty. The old negress drew a red handkerchief out of her bosom, untied a knot in a corner of it, and counted out the money to the sheriff. Only she and the vagrant were now left on the spot.

"You have bought me. What do you want me to do?" he asked quietly.

"Lohd, honey!" she answered, in a low tone of affectionate chiding, "I don' wan' you to do no thin'! I wuzn' gwine t' 'low dem white folks to buy you. Dey'd wuk you till you dropped dead. You go 'long en do ez you please."

She gave a cunning chuckle of triumph in thus setting at naught the ends of justice, and in a voice rich and musical with affection, she said, as she gave him a little push:

"You bettah be gittin' out o' dis blazin' sun. G' on home! I be 'long by-en-by."

He turned and moved slowly away in the direction of Water Street, where she lived; and she, taking up her basket, shuffled across the market place toward Cheapside, muttering to herself the while:

"I come mighty nigh gittin' dar too late, foolin' long wid dese pies. Sellin' him 'ca'se he don' wuk! Umph! if all de men in dis town dat don' wuk wuz to be tuk up en sole, d' wouldn' be 'nough money in de town to buy em! Don' I see 'em settin' 'roun' dese taverns f'om mohnin' till night?"

Nature soon smiles upon her own ravages and strews our graves with flowers, not as memories, but for other flowers when the spring returns.

It was one cool, brilliant morning late in that autumn. The air blew fresh and invigorating, as though on the earth there were no corruption, no death. Far southward had flown the plague. A spectator in the open court square might have seen many signs of life returning to the town. Students hurried along, talking eagerly. Merchants met for the first time and spoke of the winter trade. An old negress, gayly and neatly dressed, came into the market place, and sitting down on a sidewalk displayed her yellow and red apples and fragrant gingerbread. She hummed to herself an old cradle-song, and in her soft, motherly black eyes shone a mild, happy radiance. A group of young ragamuffins eyed her longingly from a distance. Court was to open for the first time since the spring. The hour was early, and one by one the lawyers passed slowly in. On the steps of the court-house three men were standing: Thomas Brown, the sheriff; old Peter Leuba, who had just walked over from his music store on Main Street; and little M. Giron, the French confectioner. Each wore mourning on his hat, and their voices were low and grave.

"Gentlemen," the sheriff was saying, "it was on this very spot the day befoah the cholera broke out that I sole 'im as a vagrant. An' I did the meanes' thing a man can evah do. I hel' 'im up to public ridicule foh his weakness an' made spoht of 'is infirmities. I laughed at 'is povahty an' 'is ole clo'es. I delivahed on 'im as complete an oration of sarcastic detraction as I could prepare on the spot, out of my own meanness an' with the vulgah sympathies of the crowd. Gentlemen, if I only had that crowd heah now, an' ole King Sol'mon standin' in the midst of it, that I might ask 'im to accept a humble public apology, offahed from the heaht of one who feels himself unworthy to shake 'is han'! But gentlemen, that crowd will nevah reassemble. Neahly ev'ry man of them is dead, an' ole King Sol'mon buried them."

"He buried my friend Adolphe Xaupi," said Francois Giron, touching his eyes with his handkerchief.

"There is a case of my best Jamaica rum for him whenever he comes for it," said old Leuba, clearing his throat.

"But, gentlemen, while we are speakin' of ole King Sol'mon we ought not to forget who it is that has suppohted 'im. Yondah she sits on the sidewalk, sellin' 'er apples an' gingerbread."

The three men looked in the direction indicated.

"Heah comes ole King Sol'mon now," exclaimed the sheriff.

Across the open square the vagrant was seen walking slowly along with his habitual air of quiet, unobtrusive preoccupation. A minute more and he had come over and passed into the court-house by a side door.

"Is Mr. Clay to be in court to-day?"

"He is expected, I think."

"Then let's go in: there will be a crowd."

"I don't know: so many are dead."

They turned and entered and found seats as quietly as possible; for a strange and sorrowful hush brooded over the court-room. Until the bar assembled, it had not been realized how many were gone. The silence was that of a common overwhelming disaster. No one spoke with his neighbor; no one observed the vagrant as he entered and made his way to a seat on one of the meanest benches, a little apart from the others. He had not sat there since the day of his indictment for vagrancy. The judge took his seat, and making a great effort to control himself, passed his eyes slowly over the court-room. All at once he caught sight of old King Solomon sitting against the wall in an obscure corner; and before any one could know what he was doing, he had hurried down and walked up to the vagrant and grasped his hand. He tried to speak, but could not. Old King Solomon had buried his wife and daughter,—buried them one clouded midnight, with no one present but himself.

Then the oldest member of the bar started up and followed the example; and then the other members, rising by a common impulse, filed slowly back and one by one wrung that hard and powerful hand. After them came the other persons in the court-room. The vagrant, the gravedigger, had risen and stood against the wall, at first with a white face and a dazed expression, not knowing what it meant; afterwards, when he understood it, his head dropped suddenly forward and his tears fell thick and hot upon the hands that he could not see. And his were not the only tears. Not a man in the long file but paid his tribute of emotion as he stepped forward to honor that image of sadly eclipsed but still effulgent humanity. It was not grief, it was not gratitude, nor any sense of making reparation for the past. It was the softening influence of an act of heroism, which makes every man feel himself a brother hand in hand with every other;—such power has a single act of moral greatness to reverse the relations of men, lifting up one, and bringing all others to do him homage.

It was the coronation scene in the life of 'Ole' King Solomon of Kentucky.



WILLIAM ALLINGHAM

(1828-1889)

Each form of verse has, in addition to its laws of structure, a subtle quality as difficult to define as the perfume of a flower. The poem, 'An Evening,' given below, may be classified both as a song and as a lyric; yet it needs no music other than its own rhythms, and the full close to each verse which falls upon the ear like a soft and final chord ending a musical composition. A light touch and a feeling for shades of meaning are required to execute such dainty verse. In 'St. Margaret's Eve,' and in many other ballads, Allingham expresses the broader, more dramatic sweep of the ballad, and reveals his Celtic ancestry.

The lovable Irishman, William Allingham, worked hard to enter the brotherhood of poets. When he was only fourteen his father took him from school to become clerk in the town bank of which he himself was manager. "The books which he had to keep for the next seven years were not those on which his heart was set," says Mr. George Birkbeck Hill. But this fortune is almost an inevitable part, and probably not the worst part, of the training for a literary vocation; and he justified his ambitions by pluckily studying alone till he had mastered Greek, Latin, French, and German.

Mr. Hill, in his 'Letters of D.G. Rossetti' (Atlantic Monthly, May, 1896), thus quotes Allingham's own delightful description of his early home at Ballyshannon, County Donegal:—

"The little old town where I was born has a voice of its own, low, solemn, persistent, humming through the air day and night, summer and winter. Whenever I think of that town I seem to hear the voice. The river which makes it rolls over rocky ledges into the tide. Before spreads a great ocean in sunshine or storm; behind stretches a many-islanded lake. On the south runs a wavy line of blue mountains; and on the north, over green rocky hills rise peaks of a more distant range. The trees hide in glens or cluster near the river; gray rocks and bowlders lie scattered about the windy pastures. The sky arches wide over all, giving room to multitudes of stars by night, and long processions of clouds blown from the sea; but also, in the childish memory where these pictures live, to deeps of celestial blue in the endless days of summer. An odd, out-of-the-way little town, ours, on the extreme western edge of Europe; our next neighbors, sunset way, being citizens of the great new republic, which indeed, to our imagination, seemed little if at all farther off than England in the opposite direction."

Of the cottage in which he spent most of his childhood and youth he writes:—

"Opposite the hall door a good-sized walnut-tree leaned its wrinkled stem towards the house, and brushed some of the second-story panes with its broad, fragrant leaves. To sit at that little upper window when it was open to a summer twilight, and the great tree rustled gently, and sent one leafy spray so far that it even touched my face, was an enchantment beyond all telling. Killarney, Switzerland, Venice, could not, in later life, come near it. On three sides the cottage looked on flowers and branches, which I count as one of the fortunate chances of my childhood; the sense of natural beauty thus receiving its due share of nourishment, and of a kind suitable to those early years."

At last a position in the Customs presented itself:—

"In the spring of 1846 I gladly took leave forever of discount ledgers and current accounts, and went to Belfast for two months' instruction in the duties of Principal Coast Officer of Customs; a tolerably well-sounding title, but which carried with it a salary of but L80 a year. I trudged daily about the docks and timber-yards, learning to measure logs, piles of planks, and, more troublesome, ships for tonnage; indoors, part of the time practiced customs book-keeping, and talked to the clerks about literature and poetry in a way that excited some astonishment, but on the whole, as I found at parting, a certain degree of curiosity and respect. I preached Tennyson to them. My spare time was mostly spent in reading and haunting booksellers' shops where, I venture to say, I laid out a good deal more than most people, in proportion to my income, and managed to get glimpses of many books which I could not afford or did not care to buy. I enjoyed my new position, on the whole, without analysis, as a great improvement on the bank; and for the rest, my inner mind was brimful of love and poetry, and usually all external things appeared trivial save in their relation to it."

Of Allingham's early song-writing, his friend Arthur Hughes says:—

"Rossetti, and I think Allingham himself, told me, in the early days of our acquaintance, how in remote Ballyshannon, where he was a clerk in the Customs, in evening walks he would hear the Irish girls at their cottage doors singing old ballads, which he would pick up. If they were broken or incomplete, he would add to them or finish them; if they were improper he would refine them. He could not get them sung till he got the Dublin Catnach of that day to print them, on long strips of blue paper, like old songs, and if about the sea, with the old rough woodcut of a ship on the top. He either gave them away or they were sold in the neighborhood. Then, in his evening walks, he had at last the pleasure of hearing some of his own ballads sung at the cottage doors by the blooming lasses, who were quite unaware that it was the author who was passing by."

In 1850 Allingham published a small volume of lyrics whose freshness and delicacy seemed to announce a new singer, and four years later his 'Day and Night Songs' strengthened this impression. Stationed as revenue officer in various parts of England, he wrote much verse, and published also the 'The Rambles of Patricius Walker,' a collection of essays upon his walks through England; 'Lawrence Bloomfield in Ireland,' the tale of a young landlord's efforts to improve the condition of his tenantry; an anthology, 'Nightingale Valley' (1862), and an excellent collection of English ballads, 'The Ballad Book' (1865).

In 1870 he gladly embraced an opportunity to leave the Customs for the position of assistant editor of Fraser's Magazine under Froude, whom he afterward succeeded as editor. He was now a member of a brilliant literary circle, knew Tennyson, Ruskin, and Carlyle, and was admitted into the warm friendship of the Pre-Raphaelites. But in no way does he reflect the Pre-Raphaelite spirit by which he was surrounded; nor does he write his lyrics in the metres and rhythms of mediaeval France. He is as oblivious of rondeaux, ballades, and roundels, as he is of fair damosels with cygnet necks and full pomegranate lips. He is a child of nature, whose verse is free from all artificial inspiration or expression, and seems to flow easily, clearly, and tenderly from his pen. Some of it errs in being too fanciful. In the Flower-Songs, indeed, he sometimes becomes trivial in his comparison of each English poet to a special flower; but his poetry is usually sincere with an undercurrent of pathos, as in 'The Ruined Chapel,' 'The Winter Pear,' and the 'Song.' For lightness of touch and aerial grace, 'The Bubble' will bear comparison with any verse of its own genre. 'Robin Redbreast' has many delightful lines; and in 'The Fairies' one is taken into the realm of Celtic folklore, which is Allingham's inheritance, where the Brownies, the Pixies, and the Leprechauns trip over the dew-spangled meadows, or dance on the yellow sands, and then vanish away in fantastic mists. Quite different is 'Lovely Mary Donnelly,' which is a sample of the popular songs that made him a favorite in his own country.

After his death at Hampstead in 1889, his body was cremated according to his wish, when these lines of his own were read:—

"Body to purifying flame, Soul to the Great Deep whence it came, Leaving a song on earth below, An urn of ashes white as snow."

THE RUINED CHAPEL

By the shore, a plot of ground Clips a ruined chapel round, Buttressed with a grassy mound; Where Day and Night and Day go by And bring no touch of human sound.

Washing of the lonely seas, Shaking of the guardian trees, Piping of the salted breeze; Day and Night and Day go by To the endless tune of these.

Or when, as winds and waters keep A hush more dead than any sleep, Still morns to stiller evenings creep, And Day and Night and Day go by; Here the silence is most deep.

The empty ruins, lapsed again Into Nature's wide domain, Sow themselves with seed and grain As Day and Night and Day go by; And hoard June's sun and April's rain.

Here fresh funeral tears were shed; Now the graves are also dead; And suckers from the ash-tree spread, While Day and Night and Day go by; And stars move calmly overhead.

From 'Day and Night Songs.'

THE WINTER PEAR

Is always Age severe? Is never Youth austere? Spring-fruits are sour to eat; Autumn's the mellow time. Nay, very late in the year, Short day and frosty rime, Thought, like a winter pear, Stone-cold in summer's prime, May turn from harsh to sweet.

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

SONG

O spirit of the Summer-time! Bring back the roses to the dells; The swallow from her distant clime, The honey-bee from drowsy cells.

Bring back the friendship of the sun; The gilded evenings calm and late, When weary children homeward run, And peeping stars bid lovers wait.

Bring back the singing; and the scent Of meadow-lands at dewy prime; Oh, bring again my heart's content, Thou Spirit of the Summer-time!

From 'Day and Night Songs.'

THE BUBBLE

See the pretty planet! Floating sphere! Faintest breeze will fan it Far or near;

World as light as feather; Moonshine rays, Rainbow tints together, As it plays.

Drooping, sinking, failing, Nigh to earth, Mounting, whirling, sailing, Full of mirth;

Life there, welling, flowing, Waving round; Pictures coming, going, Without sound.

Quick now, be this airy Globe repelled! Never can the fairy Star be held.

Touched—it in a twinkle Disappears! Leaving but a sprinkle, As of tears.

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

ST. MARGARET'S EVE

I built my castle upon the seaside, The waves roll so gayly O, Half on the land and half in the tide, Love me true!

Within was silk, without was stone, The waves roll so gayly O, It lacks a queen, and that alone, Love me true!

The gray old harper sang to me, The waves roll so gayly O, "Beware of the Damsel of the Sea!" Love me true!

Saint Margaret's Eve it did befall, The waves roll so gayly O, The tide came creeping up the wall, Love me true!

I opened my gate; who there should stand— The waves roll so gayly O, But a fair lady, with a cup in her hand, Love me true!

The cup was gold, and full of wine, The waves roll so gayly O, "Drink," said the lady, "and I will be thine," Love me true!

"Enter my castle, lady fair," The waves roll so gayly O, "You shall be queen of all that's there," Love me true!

A gray old harper sang to me, The waves roll so gayly O, "Beware of the Damsel of the Sea!" Love me true!

In hall he harpeth many a year, The waves roll so gayly O, And we will sit his song to hear, Love me true!

"I love thee deep, I love thee true," The waves roll so gayly O, "But ah! I know not how to woo," Love me true!

Down dashed the cup, with a sudden shock, The waves roll so gayly O, The wine like blood ran over the rock, Love me true!

She said no word, but shrieked aloud, The waves roll so gayly O, And vanished away from where she stood, Love me true!

I locked and barred my castle door, The waves roll so gayly O, Three summer days I grieved sore, Love me true!

For myself a day, a night, The waves roll so gayly O, And two to moan that lady bright, Love me true!

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

THE FAIRIES

(A CHILD'S SONG)

Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a hunting For fear of little men: Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather.

Down along the rocky shore Some have made their home; They live on crispy pancakes Of yellow-tide foam. Some in the reeds Of the black mountain-lake, With frogs for their watch-dogs, All night awake.

High on the hill-top The old King sits; He is now so old and gray He's nigh lost his wits. With a bridge of white mist Columbkill he crosses, On his stately journeys From Sliveleague to Rosses; Or going up with music On cold starry nights, To sup with the Queen Of the gay northern lights.

They stole little Bridget For seven years long; When she came down again Her friends were all gone. They took her lightly back, Between the night and morrow, They thought that she was fast asleep, But she was dead with sorrow. They have kept her ever since Deep within the lakes, On a bed of flag leaves Watching till she wakes.

By the craggy hillside, Through the mosses bare, They have planted thorn-trees For pleasure here and there. Is any man so daring As dig them up in spite, He shall feel their sharpest thorns In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a hunting For fear of little men: Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather.

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

ROBIN REDBREAST

(A CHILD'S SONG)

Good-by, good-by, to Summer! For Summer's nearly done; The garden smiling faintly, Cool breezes in the sun; Our Thrushes now are silent, Our Swallows flown away— But Robin's here, in coat of brown, With ruddy breast-knot gay. Robin, Robin Redbreast, Oh, Robin, dear! Robin singing sweetly In the falling of the year.

Bright yellow, red, and orange, The leaves come down in hosts; The trees are Indian Princes, But soon they'll turn to Ghosts; The scanty pears and apples Hang russet on the bough, It's Autumn, Autumn, Autumn late, 'Twill soon be winter now. Robin, Robin Redbreast, Oh, Robin, dear! And welaway! my Robin, For pinching times are near.

The fireside for the Cricket, The wheatstack for the Mouse, When trembling night-winds whistle And moan all round the house. The frosty ways like iron, The branches plumed with snow— Alas! in Winter, dead and dark, Where can poor Robin go? Robin, Robin Redbreast, Oh, Robin, dear! And a crumb of bread for Robin, His little heart to cheer.

From 'Ballads and Songs.'

AN EVENING

Sunset's mounded cloud; A diamond evening-star; Sad blue hills afar: Love in his shroud.

Scarcely a tear to shed; Hardly a word to say; The end of a summer's day; Sweet Love is dead.

From 'Day and Night Songs.'

DAFFODIL

Gold tassel upon March's bugle-horn, Whose blithe reveille blows from hill to hill And every valley rings—O Daffodil! What promise for the season newly born? Shall wave on wave of flow'rs, full tide of corn, O'erflow the world, then fruited Autumn fill Hedgerow and garth? Shall tempest, blight, or chill Turn all felicity to scathe and scorn?

Tantarrara! the joyous Book of Spring Lies open, writ in blossoms; not a bird Of evil augury is seen or heard: Come now, like Pan's old crew, we'll dance and sing, Or Oberon's: for hill and valley ring To March's bugle-horn,—Earth's blood is stirred.

From 'Flower Pieces.'

LOVELY MARY DONNELLY

(To an Irish Tune)

O lovely Mary Donnelly, it's you I love the best! If fifty girls were round you, I'd hardly see the rest. Be what it may the time of day, the place be where it will, Sweet looks of Mary Donnelly, they bloom before me still.

Her eyes like mountain water that's flowing on a rock, How clear they are, how dark they are! and they give me many a shock. Red rowans warm in sunshine and wetted with a shower, Could ne'er express the charming lip that has me in its power.

Her nose is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up; Her chin is very neat and pert, and smooth like a china cup; Her hair's the brag of Ireland, so weighty and so fine, It's rolling down upon her neck and gathered in a twine.

The dance o' last Whit Monday night exceeded all before; No pretty girl for miles about was missing from the floor; But Mary kept the belt of love, and oh, but she was gay! She danced a jig, she sung a song, that took my heart away.

When she stood up for dancing, her steps were so complete, The music nearly killed itself to listen to her feet; The fiddler moaned his blindness, he heard her so much praised, But blessed himself he wasn't deaf, when once her voice she raised.

And evermore I'm whistling or lilting what you sung, Your smile is always in my heart, your name beside my tongue; But you've as many sweethearts as you'd count on both your hands, And for myself there's not a thumb or little finger stands.

Oh, you're the flower o' womankind in country or in town; The higher I exalt you, the lower I'm cast down. If some great lord should come this way, and see your beauty bright, And you to be his lady, I'd own it was but right.

Oh, might we live together in a lofty palace hall, Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall! Oh, might we live together in a cottage mean and small, With sods of grass the only roof, and mud the only wall!

O lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty's my distress: It's far too beauteous to be mine, but I'll never wish it less. The proudest place would fit your face, and I am poor and low; But blessings be about you, dear, wherever you may go!

From 'Ballads and Songs.'



KARL JONAS LUDVIG ALMQUIST

(1793-1866)

Almquist, one of the most versatile writers of Sweden, was a man of strange contrasts, a genius as uncertain as a will-o'-the-wisp. His contemporary, the famous poet and critic Atterbom, writes:—

"What did the great poets of past times possess which upheld them under even the bitterest worldly circumstances? Two things: one a strong and conscientious will, the other a single—not double, much less manifold—determination for their work, oneness. They were not self-seekers; they sought, they worshiped something better than themselves. The aim which stood dimly before their inmost souls was not the enjoyment of flattered vanity; it was a high, heroic symbol of love of honor and love of country, of heavenly wisdom. For this they thought it worth while to fight, for this they even thought it worth while to suffer, without finding the suffering in itself strange, or calling earth to witness thereof.... The writer of 'Toernrosens Bok' [The Book of the Rose] is one of these few; he does therefore already reign over a number of youthful hearts, and out of them will rise his time of honor, a time when many of the celebrities of the present moment will have faded away."

Almquist was born in Stockholm in 1793. When still a very young man he obtained a good official position, but gave it up in 1823 to lead a colony of friends into the forests of Vaermland, where they intended to return to a primitive life close to the heart of nature. He called this colony a "Man's-home Association," and ordained that in the primeval forest the members should live in turf-covered huts, wear homespun, eat porridge with a wooden spoon, and enact the ancient freeholder. The experiment was not successful, he tired of the manual work, and returning to Stockholm, became master of the new Elementary School, and began to write text-books and educational works. His publication of a number of epics, dramas, lyrics, and romances made him suddenly famous. Viewed as a whole, this collection is generally called 'The Book of the Rose,' but at times 'En Irrande Hind' (A Stray Deer). Of this, the two dramas, 'Signora Luna' and 'Ramido Marinesco,' contain some of the pearls of Swedish literature. Uneven in the plan and execution, they are yet masterly in dialogue, and their dramatic and tragic force is great. Almquist's imagination showed itself as individual as it is fantastic. Coming from a man hitherto known as the writer of text-books and the advocate of popular social ideas, the volumes aroused extraordinary interest. The author revealed himself as akin to Novalis and Victor Hugo, with a power of language like that of Atterbom, and a richness of color resembling Tegner's. Atterbom himself wrote of 'Toernrosens Bok' that it was a work whose "faults were exceedingly easy to overlook and whose beauties exceedingly difficult to match."

After this appeared in rapid succession, and written with equal ease, lyrical, dramatic, educational, poetical, aesthetical, philosophical, moral, and religious treatises, as well as lectures and studies in history and law; for Almquist now gave all his time to literary labors. His novels showed socialistic sympathies, and he put forth newspaper articles and pamphlets on Socialism which aroused considerable opposition. Moreover, he delighted in contradictions. One day he wrote as an avowed Christian, extolling virtue, piety, and Christian knowledge; the next, he abrogated religion as entirely unnecessary: and his own explanation of this variability was merely—"I paint so because it pleases me to paint so, and life is not otherwise."

In 1851 was heard the startling rumor that he was accused of forgery and charged with murder. He fled from Sweden and disappeared from the knowledge of men. Going to America, he earned under a fictitious name a scanty living, and became, it is said, the private secretary of Abraham Lincoln. In 1866 he found himself again under the ban of the law, his papers were destroyed, and he escaped with difficulty to Bremen, where he died.

One of his latest works was his excellent modern novel, 'Det Gar An' (It's All Right), a forerunner of the "problem novel" of the day. It is an attack upon conventional marriage, and pictures the helplessness of a woman in the hands of a depraved man. Its extreme views called out violent criticism.

He was a romanticist through and through, with a strong leaning toward the French school. Among the best of his tales are 'Araminta May,' 'Skaellnora Quarn' (Skaellnora's Mill), and 'Grimstahamns Nybygge' (Grimstahamn's Settlement). His idyl 'Kapellet' (The Chapel) is wonderfully true to nature, and his novel 'Palatset' (The Palace) is rich in humor and true poesy. His literary fame will probably rest on his romances, which are the best of their kind in Swedish literature.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CATTLE

Any one with a taste for physiognomy should carefully observe the features of the ox and the cow; their demeanor and the expression of their eyes. They are figures which bear an extraordinary stamp of respectability. They look neither joyful nor melancholy. They are seldom evilly disposed, but never sportive. They are full of gravity, and always seem to be going about their business. They are not merely of great economic service, but their whole persons carry the look of it. They are the very models of earthly carefulness.

Nothing is ever to be seen more dignified, more official-looking, than the whole behavior of the ox; his way of carrying his head, and looking around him. If anybody thinks I mean these words for a sarcasm, he is mistaken: no slur on official life, or on what the world calls a man's vocation, is intended. I hold them all in as much respect as could be asked. And though I have an eye for contours, no feeling of ridicule is connected in my mind with any of these. On the contrary, I regard the ox and the cow with the warmest feelings of esteem. I admire in them a naive and striking picture of one who minds his own business; who submits to the claims of duty, not using the word in its highest sense; who in the world's estimate is dignified, steady, conventional, and middle-aged,—that is to say, neither youthful nor stricken in years.

Look at that ox which stands before you, chewing his cud and gazing around him with such unspeakable thoughtfulness—but which you will find, when you look more closely into his eyes, is thinking about nothing at all. Look at that discreet, excellent Dutch cow, which, gifted with an inexhaustible udder, stands quietly and allows herself to be milked as a matter of course, while she gazes into space with a most sensible expression. Whatever she does, she does with the same imperturbable calmness, and as when a person leaves an important trust to his own time and to posterity. If the worth of this creature is thus great on the one side, yet on the other it must be confessed that she possesses not a single trait of grace, not a particle of vivacity, and none of that quick characteristic retreating from an object which indicates an internal buoyancy, an elastic temperament, such as we see in a bird or fish.... There is something very agreeable in the varied lowing of cattle when heard in the distant country, and when replied to by a large herd, especially toward evening and amid echoes. On the other hand, nothing is more unpleasant than to hear all at once, and just beside one, the bellowing of a bull, who thus authoritatively announces himself, as if nobody else had any right to utter a syllable in his presence.

A NEW UNDINE

From 'The Book of the Rose'

Miss Rudenskoeld and her companion sat in one of the pews in the cheerful and beautiful church of Normalm, which is all that is left of the once famous cloister of St. Clara, and still bears the saint's name. The sermon was finished, and the strong full tones of the organ, called out by the skillful hands of an excellent organist, hovered like the voices of unseen angel choirs in the high vaults of the church, floated down to the listeners, and sank deep into their hearts.

Azouras did not speak a single word; neither did she sing, for she did not know a whole hymn through. Nor did Miss Rudenskoeld sing, because it was not her custom to sing in church. During the organ solo, however, Miss Rudenskoeld ventured to make some remarks about Dr. Asplund's sermon which was so beautiful, and about the notices afterward which were so tiresome. But when her neighbor did not answer, but sat looking ahead with large, almost motionless eyes, as people stare without looking at anything in particular, she changed her subject.

At one of the organ tones which finished a cadence, Azouras started, and blinked quickly with her eyelids, and a light sigh showed that she came back to herself and her friend, from her vague contemplative state of mind. Something indescribable, very sad, shone in her eyes, and made them almost black; and with a childlike look at Miss Rudenskoeld she asked, "Tell me what that large painting over there represents."

"The altar-piece? Don't you know? The altar-piece in Clara is one of the most beautiful we possess."

"What is going on there?" asked Azouras.

Miss Rudenskoeld gave her a side glance; she did not know that her neighbor in the pew was a girl without baptism, without Christianity, without the slightest knowledge of holy religion, a heathen—and knew less than a heathen, for such a one has his teachings, although they are not Christian. Miss Rudenskoeld thought the girl's question came of a momentary forgetfulness, and answered, to remind her:—

"Well, you see, it is one of the usual subjects, but unusually well painted, that is all. High up among the other figures in the painting you will see the half-reclining figure of one that is dead—see what an expression the painter has put into the face!—That is the Saviour."

"The Saviour?"

"Yes, God's son, you know; or God Himself."

"And he is dead?" repeated Azouras to herself with wondering eyes. "Yes, I believe that; it must be so: it is godlike to die!"

Miss Rudenskoeld looked at her neighbor with wide-opened eyes. "You must not misunderstand this subject," she said. "It is human to live and want to live; you can see that, too, in the altar-piece, for all the persons who are human beings, like ourselves, are alive."

"Let us go out! I feel oppressed by fear—no, I will tarry here until my fear passes away. Go, dearest, I will send you word."

Miss Rudenskoeld took leave of her; went out of the church and over the churchyard to the Eastern Gate, which faces Oden's lane....

The girl meanwhile stayed inside; came to a corner in the organ stairs; saw people go out little by little; remained unobserved, and finally heard the sexton and the church-keeper go away. When the last door was closed, Azouras stepped out of her hiding-place. Shut out from the entire world, severed from all human beings, she found herself the only occupant of the large, light building, into which the sun lavishly poured his gold.

Although she was entirely ignorant of our holy church customs and the meaning of the things she saw around her, she had nevertheless, sometimes in the past, when her mother was in better health, been present at the church service as a pastime, and so remembered one thing and another. The persons with whom she lived, in the halls and corridors of the opera, hardly ever went to God's house; and generally speaking, church-going was not practiced much during this time. No wonder, then, that a child who was not a member of any religious body, and who had never received an enlightening word from any minister, should neglect what the initiated themselves did not attend to assiduously.

She walked up the aisle, and never had the sad, strange feeling of utter loneliness taken hold of her as it did now; it was coupled with the apprehension of a great, overhanging danger. Her heart beat wildly; she longed unspeakably—but for what? for her wild free forest out there, where she ran around quick as a deer? or for what?

She walked up toward the choir and approached the altar railing. "Here at least—I remember that once—but that was long ago, and it stands like a shadow before my memory—I saw many people kneel here: it must have been of some use to them? Suppose I did likewise?"

Nevertheless she thought it would be improper for her to kneel down on the decorated cushions around the chancel. She folded her hands and knelt outside of the choir on the bare stone floor. But what more was she to do or say now? Of what use was it all? Where was she to turn?

She knew nothing. She looked down into her own thoughts as into an immense, silent dwelling. Feelings of sorrow and a sense of transiency moved in slow swells, like shining, breaking waves, through her consciousness. "Oh—something to lean on—a help—where? where? where?"

She looked quietly about her; she saw nobody. She was sure to meet the most awful danger when the door was opened, if help did not come first.

She turned her eyes back toward the organ, and in her thoughts she besought grace of the straight, long, shining pipes. But all their mouths were silent now.

She looked up to the pulpit; nobody was standing there. In the pews nobody. She had sent everybody away from here and from herself.

She turned her head again toward the choir. She remembered that when she had seen so many gathered here, two ministers in vestments had moved about inside of the railing and had offered the kneeling worshipers something. No doubt to help them! But now—there was nobody inside there. To be sure she was kneeling here with folded hands and praying eyes; but there was nobody, nobody, nobody who offered her the least little thing. She wept.

She looked out of the great church windows to the clear noonday sky; her eyes beheld the delicate azure light which spread itself over everything far, far away, but on nothing could her eyes rest. There were no stars to be seen now, and the sun itself was hidden by the window post, although its mild golden light flooded the world.

She looked away again, and her eyes sank to the ground. Her knees were resting on a tombstone, and she saw many of the same kind about her. She read the names engraven on the stones; they were all Swedish, correct and well-known. "Oh," she said to herself with a sigh, "I have not a name like others! My names have been many, borrowed,—and oh, often changed. I did not get one to be my very own! If only I had one like other people! Nobody has written me down in a book as I have heard it said others are written down. Nobody asks about me. I have nothing to do with anybody! Poor Azouras," she whispered low to herself. She wept much.

There was no one else who said "poor Azouras Tintomara!" but it was as if an inner, higher, invisible being felt sorry for the outer, bodily, visible being, both one and the same person in her. She wept bitterly over herself.

"God is dead," she thought, and looked up at the large altar-piece again. "But I am a human being; I must live." And she wept more heartily, more bitterly....

The afternoon passed, and the hour for vespers struck. The bells in the tower began to lift their solemn voices, and keys rattled in the lock. Then the heathen girl sprang up, and, much like a thin vanishing mist, disappeared from the altar. She hid in her corner again. It seemed to her that she had been forward, and had taken liberties in the choir of the church to which she had no right; and that in the congregation coming in now, she saw persons who had a right to everything.

Nevertheless, when the harmonious tones of the organ began to mix with the fragrant summer air in the church, Azouras stood radiant, and she felt quickly how the weight lifted from her breast. Was it because of the tears she had shed? Or did an unknown helper at this moment scatter the fear in her heart?

She felt no more that it would be dangerous to leave the church; she stole away, before vespers were over, came out into the churchyard and turned off to the northern gate.

GOD'S WAR

His mighty weapon drawing, God smites the world he loves; Thus, worthy of him growing, She his reflection proves. God's war like lightning striking, The heart's deep core lays bare, Which fair grows to his liking Who is supremely fair.

Escapes no weakness shame, No hid, ignoble feeling; But when his thunder pealing Enkindles life's deep flame, And water clear upwelleth, Flowing unto its goal, God's grand cross standing, telleth His truth unto the soul. Sing, God's war, earth that shakes! Sing, sing the peace he makes!



JOHANNA AMBROSIUS

(1854-)

Before the year 1895 the name of the German peasant, Johanna Ambrosius, was hardly known, even within her own country. Now her melodious verse has made her one of the most popular writers in Germany. Her genius found its way from the humble farm in Eastern Prussia, where she worked in the field beside her husband, to the very heart of the great literary circles. She was born in Lengwethen, a parish village in Eastern Prussia, on the 3d of August, 1854. She received only the commonest education, and every day was filled with the coarsest toil. But her mind and soul were uplifted by the gift of poetry, to which she gave voice in her rare moments of leisure. A delicate, middle-aged woman, whose simplicity is undisturbed by the lavish praises of literary men, she leads the most unpretending of lives. Her work became known by the merest chance. She sent a poem to a German weekly, where it attracted the attention of a Viennese gentleman, Dr. Schrattenthal, who collected her verses and sent the little volume into the world with a preface by himself. This work has already gone through twenty-six editions. The short sketch cited, written some years ago, is the only prose of hers that has been published.

The distinguishing characteristics of the poetry of this singularly gifted woman are the deep, almost painfully intense earnestness pervading its every line, the fine sense of harmony and rhythmic felicity attending the comparatively few attempts she has thus far made, and her tender touch when dwelling upon themes of the heart and home. One cannot predict what her success will be when she attempts more ambitious flights, but thus far she seems to have probed the aesthetic heart of Germany to its centre.

A PEASANT'S THOUGHTS

The first snow, in large and thick flakes, fell gently and silently on the barren branches of the ancient pear-tree, standing like a sentinel at my house door. The first snow of the year speaks both of joy and sadness. It is so comfortable to sit in a warm room and watch the falling flakes, eternally pure and lovely. There are neither flowers nor birds about, to make you see and hear the beautiful great world. Now the busy peasant has time to read the stories in his calendar. And I, too, stopped my spinning-wheel, the holy Christ-child's gift on my thirteenth birthday, to fold my hands and to look through the calendar of my thoughts.

I did not hear a knock at the door, but a little man came in with a cordial "Good morning, little sister!" I knew him well enough, though we were not acquaintances. Half familiar, half strange, this little time-worn figure looked. His queer face seemed stamped out of rubber, the upper part sad, the lower full of laughing wrinkles. But his address surprised me, for we were not in the least related. I shook his horny hand, responding, "Hearty thanks, little brother." "I call this good luck," began little brother: "a room freshly scoured, apples roasting in the chimney, half a cold duck in the cupboard; and you all alone with cat and clock. It is easier talking when there are two, for the third is always in the way."

The old man amused me immensely. I sat down on the bench beside him and asked after his wife and family. "Thanks, thanks," he nodded, "all well and happy except our nestling Ille. She leaves home to-morrow, to eat her bread as a dress-maker in B—."—"And the other children, where are they?" "Flown away, long ago! Do you suppose, little sister, that I want to keep all fifteen at home like so many cabbages in a single bed?" Fifteen children! Almost triumphantly, little brother watched me. I owned almost as many brothers and sisters myself, and fifteen children were no marvel to me. So I asked if he were a grandfather too.

"Of course," he answered gravely. "But I am going to tell you how I came by fifteen children. You know how we peasant folk give house and land to the eldest son, and only a few coppers to the youngest children. A bad custom, that leads to quarrels, and ends sometimes in murder. Fathers and mothers can't bring themselves to part with the property, and so they live with the eldest son, who doles out food and shelter, and gets the farm in the end. So, in time, a family has some rich members and more paupers. Now, we'd better sell the land and let the children share alike; but then that way breaks estates too. I was a younger child, and I received four hundred thalers;—a large sum forty years ago. I didn't know anything but field work. The saying that 'The peasant must be kept stupid or he will not obey' was still printed in all the books. So I had to look about for a family where a son was needed. One day, with my four hundred thalers in my pocket, I went to a farm where there was an unmarried daughter. When you go a-courting among us, you pretend to mean to buy a horse. That's the fashion. With us, a lie doesn't wear French rouge. The parents of Marianne (that was her name) made me welcome. Brown Bess was brought from the stable, and her neck, legs, and teeth examined. I showed my willingness to buy her, which meant as much as to say, 'Your daughter pleases me.' As proud as you please, I walked through the buildings. Everything in plenty, all right, not a nail wanting on the harrow, nor a cord missing from the harness. How I strutted! I saw myself master, and I was tickled to death to be as rich as my brother.

"But I reckoned without my host. On tiptoe I stole into the kitchen, where my sweetheart was frying ham and eggs. I thought I might snatch a kiss. Above the noise of the sizzling frying-pan and the crackling wood, I plainly heard the voice of my—well, let us say it—bride, weeping and complaining to an old house servant: 'It's a shame and a sin to enter matrimony with a lie. I can't wed this Michael: not because he is ugly; that doesn't matter in a man, but he comes too late! My heart belongs to poor Joseph, the woodcutter, and I'd sooner be turned out of doors than to make a false promise. Money blinds my mother's eyes!' Don't be surprised, little sister, that I remember these words so well. A son doesn't forget his father's blessing, nor a prisoner his sentence. This was my sentence to poverty and single-blessedness. I sent word to Marianne that she should be happy—and so she was.

"But now to my own story. I worked six years as farm hand for my rich brother, and then love overtook me. The little housemaid caught me in the net of her golden locks. What a fuss it made in our family! A peasant's pride is as stiff as that of your 'Vous' and 'Zus.' My girl had only a pair of willing hands and a good heart to give to an ugly, pock-marked being like me. My mother (God grant her peace!) caused her many a tear, and when I brought home my Lotte she wouldn't keep the peace until at last she found out that happiness depends on kindness more than on money. On the patch of land that I bought, my wife and I lived as happily as people live when there's love in the house and a bit of bread to spare. We worked hard and spent little. A long, scoured table, a wooden bench or so, a chest or two of coarse linen, and a few pots and pans—that was our furniture. The walls had never tasted whitewash, but Lotte kept them scoured. She went to church barefoot, and put on her shoes at the door. Good things such as coffee and plums, that the poorest hut has now-a-days, we never saw. We didn't save much, for crops sold cheap. But I didn't speculate, nor squeeze money from the sweat of the poor. In time five pretty little chatterboxes arrived, all flaxen-haired girls with blue eyes, or brown. I was satisfied with girls, but the mother hankered after a boy. That's a poor father that prefers a son to a daughter. A man ought to take boys and girls alike, just as God sends them. I was glad enough to work for my girls, and I didn't worry about their future, nor build castles in the air for them to live in. After fifteen years the boy arrived, but he took himself quickly out of the world and coaxed his mother away with him."

Little brother was silent, and bowed his snow-white head. My heart felt as if the dead wife flitted through the room and gently touched the old fellow's thin locks. I saw him kneeling at her death-bed, heard the little girls sobbing, and waited in silence till he drew himself up, sighing deeply:—

"My Lotte died; she left me alone. What didn't I promise the dear Lord in those black hours! My life, my savings, yea, all my children if He would but leave her to me. In vain. 'My thoughts are not thy thoughts, saith the Lord, and My ways are not thy ways.' It was night in my soul. I cried over my children, and I only half did my work. At night I tumbled into bed tearless and prayerless. Oh, sad time! God vainly knocked at my heart's door until the children fell ill. Oh, what would become of me if these flowers were gathered? What wealth these rosy mouths meant to me, how gladly would they smile away my sorrow! I had set myself up above the Lord. But by my children's bedside I prayed for grace. They all recovered. I took my motherless brood to God's temple to thank Him there. Church-going won't bring salvation, but staying away from church makes a man stupid and coarse.

"But I am forgetting, little sister. I started to tell you about my fifteen children. You see I made up my mind that I had to find a mother for the chicks. I wouldn't chain a young thing to my bonds, even if she understood housekeeping. I held to the saying, 'Equal wealth, equal birth, equal years make a good match.' When an old widower courts a young girl he looks at her faults with a hundred eyes when he measures her with his first wife. But a home without a wife is like spring without blossoms. So, thinking this way, I chose a widow with ten children."

Twirling his thumbs, little brother smiled gayly as he looked at me. "Five and ten make fifteen, I thought, and when fifteen prayers rise to heaven, the Lord must hear. My two eldest stepsons entered military service. We wouldn't spend all our money on the boys and then console our poor girls with a husband. I put three sons to trades. But my girls were my pride. They learned every kind of work. When they could cook, wash, and spin, we sent them into good households to learn more. Two married young. Some of the rest are seamstresses and housekeepers. One is a secretary, and our golden-haired Miez is lady's-maid to the Countess H——. Both these girls are betrothed. Miez is the brightest, and she managed to learn, even at the village school. So much is written about education nowadays," (little brother drew himself up proudly as he added, "I take a newspaper,") "but the real education is to keep children at work and make them unselfish. They must love their work. Work and pray, these were my rules, and thank Heaven! all my children are good and industrious.

"Just think, last summer my dear girls sent me a suit of fine city clothes and money to go a journey, begging their old father to make them a visit. Oh, how pretty they looked when they showed me round the city in spite of my homespun, for I couldn't bring myself to wear the fine clothes, after all. The best dressed one was our little lady's-maid, who had a gold watch in her belt. So I said: 'Listen, child, that is not fit for you.' But she only laughed. 'Indeed it is, little father. If my gracious lady makes me a present, I'm not likely to be mistaken for her on that account.'—'And girls, are you contented to be in service?'—'Certainly, father: unless there are both masters and servants the world would go out of its grooves. My good Countess makes service so light, that we love and serve her. Yes, little father,' added Miez, 'my gracious mistress chose Gustav for me, and is going to pay for the wedding and start us in housekeeping—God bless her!' Now see what good such a woman does. If people would but learn that it takes wits to command as well as to obey, they would get along well enough in these new times of equality. Thank heaven! we country folk shan't be ruined by idleness. When I saw my thatched roof again, among the fir-trees, I felt as solemn as if I were going to prayers. The blue smoke looked like incense. I folded my hands, I thanked God."

Little brother arose, his eyes bright with tears. He cast a wistful look toward the apples in the chimney: "My old wife, little sister?"— "Certainly, take them all, little brother, you are heartily welcome to them."—"We are like children, my wife and I, we carry tidbits to each other, now that our birds have all flown away."—"That is right, old boy, and God keep thee!" I said. From the threshold the words echoed back, "God keep thee!"

Translation of Miss H. Geist.

STRUGGLE AND PEACE

A quarter-century warfare woke No sabre clash nor powder smoke, No triumph song nor battle cry; Their shields no templared knights stood by.

Though fought were many battles hot, Of any fight the world knew not How great the perils often grew— God only knew.

Within my deepest soul-depths torn, In hands and feet wounds bleeding borne, Trodden beneath the chargers' tread, How I endured, felt, suffered, bled, How wept and groaned I in my woe, When scoffed the malice-breathing foe, How pierced his scorn my spirit through, God only knew.

The evening nears; cool zephyrs blow; The struggle wild doth weaker grow; The air with scarce a sigh is filled From the pale mouth; the blood is stilled. Quieted now my bitter pain; A faint star lights the heavenly plain; Peace cometh after want and woe— My God doth know.

DO THOU LOVE, TOO!

The waves they whisper In Luna's glance, Entrancing music For the nixies' dance. They beckon, smiling, And wavewise woo, While softly plashing:— "Do thou love, too!"

In blossoming lindens Doves fondly rear Their tender fledglings From year to year. With never a pausing, They bill and coo, And twitter gently:— "Do thou love, too!"

INVITATION

How long wilt stand outside and cower? Come straight within, beloved guest. The winds are fierce this wintry hour: Come, stay awhile with me and rest. You wander begging shelter vainly A weary time from door to door; I see what you have suffered plainly: Come, rest with me and stray no more!

And nestle by me, trusting-hearted; Lay in my loving hands your head: Then back shall come your peace departed, Through the world's baseness long since fled; And deep from out your heart upspringing, Love's downy wings will soar to view, The darling smiles like magic bringing Around your gloomy lips anew.

Come, rest: myself will here detain you, So long as pulse of mine shall beat; Nor shall my heart grow cold and pain you, Till carried to your last retreat. You gaze at me in doubting fashion, Before the offered rapture dumb; Tears and still tears your sole expression: Bedew my bosom with them—come!



EDMONDO DE AMICIS

(1846-)

In 1869, 'Vita Militare' (Military Life), a collection of short stories, was perhaps the most popular Italian volume of the year. Read alike in court and cottage, it was everywhere discussed and enthusiastically praised. Its prime quality was that quivering sympathy which insures some success to any imaginative work, however crudely written. But these sketches of all the grim and amusing phases of Italian soldier life are drawn with an exquisite precision. The reader feels the breathless discouragement of the tired soldiers when new dusty vistas are revealed by a sudden turn in the road ('A Midsummer March'); understands the strong silent love between officer and orderly, suppressed by military etiquette ('The Orderly'); smiles with the soldiers at the pretty runaway boy, idol of the regiment ('The Son of the Regiment'); pities the humiliations of the conscript novice ('The Conscript'); thrills with the proud sorrow of the old man whose son's colonel tells the story of his heroic death ('Dead on the Field of Battle'). "When I had finished reading it," said an Italian workman, "I would gladly have pressed the hand of the first soldier whom I happened to meet." The author was only twenty-three, and has since given the world many delightful volumes, but nothing finer.

These sketches were founded upon personal knowledge, for De Amicis began life as a soldier. After his early education at Coni and Turin, he entered the military school at Modena, from which he was sent out as sub-lieutenant in the third regiment of the line. He saw active service in various expeditions against Sicilian brigands; and in the war with Austria he fought at the battle of Custozza.

His literary power seems to have been early manifest; for in 1867 he became manager of a newspaper, L'Italia Militare, at Florence; and in 1871, yielding to his friends' persuasions, he settled down to authorship at Turin. His second book was the 'Ricordi,' memorials dedicated to the youth of Italy, of national events which had come within his experience. Half a dozen later stories published together were also very popular, especially 'Gli Amici di Collegio' (College Friends), 'Fortezza,' and 'La Casa Paterna' (The Paternal Home). He has written some graceful verse as well.



But De Amicis soon craved the stimulus of novel environments, of differing personalities; and he set out upon the travels which he has so delightfully recounted. This ardent Italian longed for the repose of "a gray sky," a critic tells us. He went first to Holland, and experienced a joyous satisfaction in the careful art of that trim little land. Later, a visit to North Africa in the suite of the Italian ambassador prompted a brilliant volume, "Morocco," "which glitters and flashes like a Damascus blade." Among his other well-known books, descriptive of other trips, are 'Holland and Its People,' 'Spain,' 'London,' 'Paris,' and 'Constantinople,' which, translated into many languages, have been widely read.

That unfortunate though not uncommon traveler who finds ennui everywhere must envy De Amicis his inexhaustible enthusiasm, his power of epicurean enjoyment in the color and glory of every land. His is a curiously optimistic nature. Always perceiving the beautiful and picturesque in art and nature, he treats other aspects hopefully, and ignores them when he may. He catches what is characteristic in every nation as inevitably as he catches the physiognomy of a land with its skies and its waters, its flowers and its atmosphere. His is a realism transfigured by poetic imagination, which divines essential things and places them in high relief.

Very early in life De Amicis announced his love and admiration of Manzoni, of whom he called himself a disciple. But his is a very different mind. This Italian, born at Oneglia of Genoese parents, has inherited the emotional nature of his country. He sees everything with feeling, penetrating below the surface with sympathetic insight. Italy gives him his sensuous zest in life. But from France, through his love of her vigor and grace, his cordial admiration of her literature, he has gained a refining and strengthening influence. She has taught him that direct diction, that choice simplicity, which forsakes the stilted Italian of literary tradition for a style far simpler, stronger, and more natural.

All selections used by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons.

THE LIGHT

From 'Constantinople'

And first of all, the light! One of my dearest delights at Constantinople was to see the sun rise and set, standing upon the bridge of the Sultana Valide. At dawn, in autumn, the Golden Horn is almost always covered by a light fog, behind which the city is seen vaguely, like those gauze curtains that descend upon the stage to conceal the preparations for a scenic spectacle. Scutari is quite hidden; nothing is to be seen but the dark uncertain outline of her hills. The bridge and the shores are deserted, Constantinople sleeps; the solitude and silence render the spectacle more solemn. The sky begins to grow golden behind the hills of Scutari. Upon that luminous strip are drawn, one by one, black and clear, the tops of the cypress trees in the vast cemetery, like an army of giants ranged upon the heights; and from one cape of the Golden Horn to the other there shines a tremulous light, faint as the first murmur of the awakening city. Then behind the cypresses of the Asiatic shore comes forth an eye of fire, and suddenly the white tops of the four minarets of Saint Sophia are tinted with deep rose. In a few minutes, from hill to hill, from mosque to mosque, down to the end of the Golden Horn, all the minarets, one after the other, turn rose color; all the domes, one by one, are silvered, the flush descends from terrace to terrace, the tremulous light spreads, the great veil melts, and all Stamboul appears, rosy and resplendent upon her heights, blue and violet along the shores, fresh and young, as if just risen from the waters.

As the sun rises, the delicacy of the first tints vanishes in an immense illumination, and everything remains bathed in white light until toward evening. Then the divine spectacle begins again. The air is so limpid that from Galata one can see clearly every distant tree, as far as Kadi-Kioi. The whole of the immense profile of Stamboul stands out against the sky with such a clearness of line and rigor of color, that every minaret, obelisk, and cypress-tree can be counted, one by one, from Seraglio Point to the cemetery of Eyub. The Golden Horn and the Bosphorus assume a wonderful ultramarine color; the heavens, the color of amethyst in the East, are afire behind Stamboul, tinting the horizon with infinite lights of rose and carbuncle, that make one think of the first day of the creation; Stamboul darkens, Galata becomes golden, and Scutari, struck by the last rays of the setting sun, with every pane of glass giving back the glow, looks like a city on fire.

And this is the moment to contemplate Constantinople. There is one rapid succession of the softest tints, pallid gold, rose and lilac, which quiver and float over the sides of the hills and the water, every moment giving and taking away the prize of beauty from each part of the city, and revealing a thousand modest graces of the landscape that have not dared to show themselves in the full light. Great melancholy suburbs are lost in the shadow of the valleys; little purple cities smile upon the heights; villages faint as if about to die; others die at once like extinguished flames; others, that seemed already dead, revive, and glow, and quiver yet a moment longer under the last ray of the sun. Then there is nothing left but two resplendent points upon the Asiatic shore,—the summit of Mount Bulgurlu, and the extremity of the cape that guards the entrance to the Propontis; they are at first two golden crowns, then two purple caps, then two rubies; then all Constantinople is in shadow, and ten thousand voices from ten thousand minarets announce the close of the day.

RESEMBLANCES

From 'Constantinople'

In the first days, fresh as I was from the perusal of Oriental literature, I saw everywhere the famous personages of history and legend, and the figures that recalled them resembled sometimes so faithfully those that were fixed in my imagination, that I was constrained to stop and look at them. How many times have I seized my friend by the arm, and pointing to a person passing by, have exclaimed: "It is he, cospetto! do you not recognize him?" In the square of the Sultana Valide, I frequently saw the gigantic Turk who threw down millstones from the walls of Nicaea on the heads of the soldiers of Baglione; I saw in front of a mosque Umm Djemil, that old fury that sowed brambles and nettles before Mahomet's house; I met in the book bazaar, with a volume under his arm, Djemaleddin, the learned man of Broussa, who knew the whole of the Arab dictionary by heart; I passed quite close to the side of Ayesha, the favorite wife of the Prophet, and she fixed upon my face her eyes, brilliant and humid, like the reflection of stars in a well; I have recognized, in the At-Meidan, the famous beauty of that poor Greek woman killed by a cannon ball at the base of the serpentine column; I have been face to face, in the Fanar, with Kara-Abderrahman, the handsome young Turk of the time of Orkhan; I have seen Coswa, the she-camel of the Prophet; I have encountered Kara-bulut, Selim's black steed; I have met the poor poet Fignahi, condemned to go about Stamboul tied to an ass for having pierced with an insolent distich the Grand Vizier of Ibrahim; I have been in the same cafe with Soliman the Big, the monstrous admiral, whom four robust slaves hardly succeeded in lifting from the divan; Ali, the Grand Vizier, who could not find in all Arabia a horse that could carry him; Mahmoud Pasha, the ferocious Hercules that strangled the son of Soliman; and the stupid Ahmed Second, who continually repeated "Koso! Koso!" (Very well, very well) crouching before the door of the copyists' bazaar, in the square of Bajazet. All the personages of the 'Thousand and One Nights,' the Aladdins, the Zobeides, the Sindbads, the Gulnares, the old Jewish merchants, possessors of enchanted carpets and wonderful lamps, passed before me like a procession of phantoms.

BIRDS

From 'Constantinople'

Constantinople has one grace and gayety peculiar to itself, that comes from an infinite number of birds of every kind, for which the Turks nourish a warm sentiment and regard. Mosques, groves, old walls, gardens, palaces, all resound with song, the whistling and twittering of birds; everywhere wings are fluttering, and life and harmony abound. The sparrows enter the houses boldly, and eat out of women's and children's hands; swallows nest over the cafe doors, and under the arches of the bazaars; pigeons in innumerable swarms, maintained by legacies from sultans and private individuals, form garlands of black and white along the cornices of the cupolas and around the terraces of the minarets; sea-gulls dart and play over the water; thousands of turtle-doves coo amorously among the cypresses in the cemeteries; crows croak about the Castle of the Seven Towers halcyons come and go in long files between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora; and storks sit upon the cupolas of the mausoleums. For the Turk, each one of these birds has a gentle meaning, or a benignant virtue: turtle-doves are favorable to lovers, swallows keep away fire from the roofs where they build their nests, storks make yearly pilgrimages to Mecca, halcyons carry the souls of the faithful to Paradise. Thus he protects and feeds them, through a sentiment of gratitude and piety; and they enliven the house, the sea, and the sepulchre. Every quarter of Stamboul is full of the noise of them, bringing to the city a sense of the pleasures of country life, and continually refreshing the soul with a reminder of nature.

CORDOVA

From 'Spain'

For a long distance the country offers no new aspect to the feverish curiosity of the tourist. At Vilches there is a vast plain, and beyond there the open country of Tolosa, where Alphonso VIII., King of Castile, gained the celebrated victory "de las Navas" over the Mussulman army. The sky was very clear, and in the distance one could see the mountains of the Sierra de Segura. Suddenly, there comes over one a sensation which seems to respond to a suppressed exclamation of surprise: the first aloes with their thick leaves, the unexpected heralds of tropical vegetation, rise on both sides of the road. Beyond, the fields studded with flowers begin to appear. The first are studded, those which follow almost covered, then come vast stretches of ground entirely clothed with poppies, daisies, lilies, wild mushrooms, and ranunculuses, so that the country (as it presents itself to view) looks like a succession of immense purple, gold, and snowy-hued carpets. In the distance, among the trees, are innumerable blue, white, and yellow streaks, as far as the eye can reach; and nearer, on the banks of the ditches, the elevations of ground, the slopes, and even on the edge of the road are flowers in beds, clumps, and clusters, one above the other, grouped in the form of great bouquets, and trembling on their stalks, which one can almost touch with his hand. Then there are fields white with great blades of grain, flanked by plantations of roses, orange groves, immense olive groves, and hillsides varied by a thousand shades of green, surmounted by ancient Moorish towers, scattered with many-colored houses; and between the one and the other are white and slender bridges that cross rivulets hidden by the trees.

On the horizon appear the snowy caps of the Sierra Nevada; under that white streak lie the undulating blue ones of the nearer mountains. The country becomes more varied and flourishing; Arjonilla lies in a grove of olives, whose boundary one cannot see; Pedro Abad, in the midst of a plain, covered with vineyards and fruit-trees; Ventas di Alcolea, on the last hills of the Sierra Nevada, peopled with villas and gardens. We are approaching Cordova, the train flies along, we see little stations half hidden by trees and flowers, the wind carries the rose leaves into the carriages, great butterflies fly near the windows, a delicious perfume permeates the air, the travelers sing; we pass through an enchanted garden, the aloes, oranges, palms, and villas grow more frequent; and at last we hear a cry—"Here is Cordova!"

How many lovely pictures and grand recollections the sound of that name awakens in one's mind! Cordova,—the ancient pearl of the East, as the Arabian poets call it,—the city of cities; Cordova of the thirty suburbs and three thousand mosques, which inclosed within her walls the greatest temple of Islam! Her fame extended throughout the East, and obscured the glory of ancient Damascus. The faithful came from the most remote regions of Asia to banks of the Guadalquivir to prostrate themselves in the marvelous Mihrab of her mosque, in the light of the thousand bronze lamps cast from the bells of the cathedrals of Spain. Hither flocked artists, savants, poets from every part of the Mahometan world to her flourishing schools, immense libraries, and the magnificent courts of her caliphs. Riches and beauty flowed in, attracted by the fame of her splendor. From here they scattered, eager for knowledge, along the coasts of Africa, through the schools of Tunis, Cairo, Bagdad, Cufa, and even to India and China, in order to gather inspiration and records; and the poetry sung on the slopes of the Sierra Morena flew from lyre to lyre, as far as the valleys of the Caucasus, to excite the ardor for pilgrimages. The beautiful, powerful, and wise Cordova, crowned with three thousand villages, proudly raised her white minarets in the midst of orange groves, and spread around the valley a voluptuous atmosphere of joy and glory.

I leave the train, cross a garden, look around me. I am alone. The travelers who were with me disappear here and there; I still hear the noise of a carriage which is rolling off; then all is quiet. It is midday, the sky is very clear, and the air suffocating. I see two white houses; it is the opening of a street; I enter and go on. The street is narrow, the houses as small as the little villas on the slopes of artificial gardens, almost all one story in height, with windows a few feet from the ground, the roofs so low that one could almost touch them with a stick, and the walls very white. The street turns; I look, see no one, and hear neither step nor voice. I say to myself:—"This must be an abandoned street!" and try another one, in which the houses are white, the windows closed, and there is nothing but silence and solitude around me. "Why, where am I?" I ask myself. I go on; the street, which is so narrow that a carriage could not pass, begins to wind; on the right and left I see other deserted streets, white houses, and closed windows. My step resounds as if in a corridor. The whiteness of the walls is so vivid that even the reflection is trying, and I am obliged to walk with my eyes half closed, for it really seems as if I were making my way through the snow. I reach a small square; everything is closed, and no one is to be seen. At this point a vague feeling of melancholy seizes me, such as I have never experienced before; a mixture of pleasure and sadness, similar to that which comes to children when, after a long run, they reach a lonely rural spot and rejoice in their discovery, but with a certain trepidation lest they should be too far from home. Above many roofs rise the palm-trees of inner gardens. Oh, fantastic legends of Odalisk and Caliph! On I go from street to street, and square to square; I begin to meet some people, but they pass and disappear like phantoms. All the streets resemble each other; the houses have only three or four windows; and not a spot, scrawl, or crack is to be seen on the walls, which are as smooth and white as a sheet of paper. From time to time I hear a whisper behind a blind, and see, almost at the same moment, a dark head, with a flower in the hair, appear and disappear. I look in at a door....

A patio! How shall I describe a patio? It is not a court, nor a garden, nor a room; but it is all three things combined. Between the patio and the street there is a vestibule. On the four sides of the patio rise slender columns, which support, up to a level with the first floor, a species of gallery inclosed in glass; above the gallery is stretched a canvas, which shades the court. The vestibule is paved with marble, the door flanked by columns, surmounted by bas-reliefs, and closed by a slender iron gate of graceful design. At the end of the patio there is a fountain; and all around are scattered chairs, work-tables, pictures, and vases of flowers. I run to another door: there is another patio, with its walls covered with ivy, and a number of niches holding little statues, busts, and urns. I look in at a third door: here is another patio, with its walls worked in mosaics, a palm in the centre, and a mass of flowers all around. I stop at a fourth door: after the patio there is another vestibule, after this a second patio, in which one sees other statues, columns, and fountains. All these rooms and gardens are so neat and clean that one could pass his hand over the walls and on the ground without leaving a trace; and they are fresh, odorous, and lighted by an uncertain light, which increases their beauty and mysterious appearance.

On I go at random from street to street. As I walk, my curiosity increases and I quicken my pace. It seems impossible that a whole city can be like this; I am afraid of stumbling across some house or coming into some street that will remind me of other cities, and disturb my beautiful dream. But no, the dream lasts; for everything is small, lovely, and mysterious. At every hundred steps I reach a deserted square, in which I stop and hold my breath; from time to time there appears a cross-road, and not a living soul is to be seen; everything is white, the windows closed, and silence reigns on all sides. At each door there is a new spectacle; there are arches, columns, flowers, jets of water, and palms; a marvelous variety of design, tints, light, and perfume; here the odor of roses, there of oranges, farther on of pinks; and with this perfume a whiff of fresh air, and with the air a subdued sound of women's voices, the rustling of leaves, and the singing of birds. It is a sweet and varied harmony, that without disturbing the silence of the streets, soothes the ear like the echo of distant music. Ah! it is not a dream! Madrid, Italy, Europe, are indeed far away! Here one lives another life, and breathes the air of a different world,—for I am in the East.

THE LAND OF PLUCK

From 'Holland and Its People'

Whoever looks for the first time at a large map of Holland wonders that a country so constituted can continue to exist. At the first glance it is difficult to see whether land or water predominates, or whether Holland belongs most to the continent or to the sea. Those broken and compressed coasts; those deep bays; those great rivers that, losing the aspect of rivers, seem bringing new seas to the sea; that sea which, changing itself into rivers, penetrates the land and breaks it into archipelagoes; the lakes, the vast morasses, the canals crossing and recrossing each other, all combine to give the idea of a country that may at any moment disintegrate and disappear. Seals and beavers would seem to be its rightful inhabitants; but since there are men bold enough to live in it, they surely cannot ever sleep in peace.

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What sort of a country Holland is, has been told by many in few words. Napoleon said it was an alluvion of French rivers,—the Rhine, the Scheldt, and the Meuse,—and with this pretext he added it to the Empire. One writer has defined it as a sort of transition between land and sea. Another, as an immense crust of earth floating on the water. Others, an annex of the old continent, the China of Europe, the end of the earth and the beginning of the ocean, a measureless raft of mud and sand; and Philip II. called it the country nearest to hell.

But they all agreed upon one point, and all expressed it in the same words:—Holland is a conquest made by man over the sea; it is an artificial country: the Hollanders made it; it exists because the Hollanders preserve it; it will vanish whenever the Hollanders shall abandon it.

To comprehend this truth, we must imagine Holland as it was when first inhabited by the first German tribes that wandered away in search of a country.

It was almost uninhabitable. There were vast tempestuous lakes, like seas, touching one another; morass beside morass; one tract after another covered with brushwood; immense forests of pines, oaks, and alders, traversed by herds of wild horses, and so thick were these forests that tradition says one could travel leagues passing from tree to tree without ever putting foot to the ground. The deep bays and gulfs carried into the heart of the country the fury of the northern tempests. Some provinces disappeared once every year under the waters of the sea, and were nothing but muddy tracts, neither land nor water, where it was impossible either to walk or to sail. The large rivers, without sufficient inclination to descend to the sea, wandered here and there uncertain of their way, and slept in monstrous pools and ponds among the sands of the coasts. It was a sinister place, swept by furious winds, beaten by obstinate rains, veiled in a perpetual fog, where nothing was heard but the roar of the sea and the voices of wild beasts and birds of the ocean. The first people who had the courage to plant their tents there, had to raise with their own hands dikes of earth to keep out the rivers and the sea, and lived within them like shipwrecked men upon desolate islands, venturing forth at the subsidence of the waters in quest of food in the shape of fish and game, and gathering the eggs of marine birds upon the sand.

Caesar, passing by, was the first to name this people. The other Latin historians speak with compassion and respect of these intrepid barbarians who lived upon a "floating land," exposed to the intemperance of a cruel sky and the fury of the mysterious northern sea; and the imagination pictures the Roman soldiers, who, from the heights of the uttermost citadels of the empire, beaten by the waves, contemplated with wonder and pity those wandering tribes upon their desolate land, like a race accursed of heaven.

Now, if we remember that such a region has become one of the most fertile, wealthiest, and best regulated of the countries of the world, we shall understand the justice of the saying that Holland is a conquest made by man. But, it must be added, the conquest goes on forever.

To explain this fact—to show how the existence of Holland, in spite of the great defensive works constructed by the inhabitants, demands an incessant and most perilous struggle—it will be enough to touch here and there upon a few of the principal vicissitudes of her physical history, from the time when her inhabitants had already reduced her to a habitable country.

Tradition speaks of a great inundation in Friesland in the sixth century. From that time every gulf, every island, and it may be said every city, in Holland has its catastrophe to record. In thirteen centuries, it is recorded that one great inundation, beside smaller ones, has occurred every seven years; and the country being all plain, these inundations were veritable floods. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, the sea destroyed a part of a fertile peninsula near the mouth of the Ems, and swallowed up more than thirty villages. In the course of the same century, a series of inundations opened an immense chasm in northern Holland, and formed the Zuyder Zee, causing the death of more than eighty thousand persons. In 1421 a tempest swelled the Meuse, so that in one night the waters overwhelmed seventy-two villages and one hundred thousand inhabitants. In 1532 the sea burst the dikes of Zealand, destroying hundreds of villages, and covering forever a large tract of country. In 1570 a storm caused another inundation in Zealand and in the province of Utrecht; Amsterdam was invaded by the waters, and in Friesland twenty thousand people were drowned. Other great inundations took place in the seventeenth century; two terrible ones at the beginning and the end of the eighteenth; one in 1825 that desolated North Holland, Friesland, Over-Yssel, and Gueldres; and another great one of the Rhine, in 1855, which invaded Gueldres and the province of Utrecht, and covered a great part of North Brabant. Beside these great catastrophes, there happened in different centuries innumerable smaller ones, which would have been famous in any other country, but which in Holland are scarcely remembered: like the rising of the lake of Haarlem, itself the result of an inundation of the sea; flourishing cities of the gulf of Zuyder Zee vanished under the waters; the islands of Zealand covered again and again by the sea, and again emerging; villages of the coast, from Helder to the mouths of the Meuse, from time to time inundated and destroyed; and in all these inundations immense loss of life of men and animals. It is plain that miracles of courage, constancy, and industry must have been accomplished by the Hollanders, first in creating and afterwards in preserving such a country. The enemy from which they had to wrest it was triple: the sea, the lakes, the rivers. They drained the lakes, drove back the sea, and imprisoned the rivers.

To drain the lakes the Hollanders pressed the air into their service. The lakes, the marshes, were surrounded by dikes, the dikes by canals; and an army of windmills, putting in motion force-pumps, turned the water into the canals, which carried it off to the rivers and the sea. Thus vast tracts of land buried under the water saw the sun, and were transformed, as if by magic, into fertile fields, covered with villages, and intersected by canals and roads. In the seventeenth century, in less than forty years, twenty-six lakes were drained. At the beginning of the present century, in North Holland alone, more than six thousand hectares (or fifteen thousand acres) were thus redeemed from the waters; in South Holland, before 1844, twenty-nine thousand hectares; in the whole of Holland, from 1500 to 1858, three hundred and fifty-five thousand hectares. Substituting steam-mills for windmills, in thirty-nine months was completed the great undertaking of the draining of the lake of Haarlem, which measured forty-four kilometres in circumference, and forever threatened with its tempests the cities of Haarlem, Amsterdam, and Leyden. And they are now meditating the prodigious work of drying up the Zuyder Zee, which embraces an area of more than seven hundred square kilometres.

The rivers, another eternal enemy, cost no less of labor and sacrifice. Some, like the Rhine, which lost itself in the sands before reaching the sea, had to be channeled and defended at their mouths, against the tides, by formidable cataracts; others, like the Meuse, bordered by dikes as powerful as those that were raised against the ocean; others, turned from their course; the wandering waters gathered together; the course of the affluents regulated; the waters divided with rigorous measure in order to retain that enormous mass of liquid in equilibrium, where the slightest inequality might cost a province; and in this way all the rivers that formerly spread their devastating floods about the country were disciplined into channels and constrained to do service.

But the most tremendous struggle was the battle with the ocean. Holland is in great part lower than the level of the sea; consequently, everywhere that the coast is not defended by sand banks it has to be protected by dikes. If these interminable bulwarks of earth, granite, and wood were not there to attest the indomitable courage and perseverance of the Hollanders, it would not be believed that the hand of man could, even in many centuries, have accomplished such a work. In Zealand alone the dikes extend to a distance of more than four hundred kilometres. The western coast of the island of Walcheren is defended by a dike, in which it is computed that the expense of construction added to that of preservation, if it were put out at interest, would amount to a sum equal in value to that which the dike itself would be worth were it made of massive copper. Around the city of Helder, at the northern extremity of North Holland, extends a dike ten kilometres long, constructed of masses of Norwegian granite, which descends more than sixty metres into the sea. The whole province of Friesland, for the length of eighty-eight kilometres, is defended by three rows of piles sustained by masses of Norwegian and German granite. Amsterdam, all the cities of the Zuyder Zee, and all the islands,—fragments of vanished lands,—which are strung like beads between Friesland and North Holland, are protected by dikes. From the mouths of the Ems to those of the Scheldt, Holland is an impenetrable fortress, of whose immense bastions the mills are the towers, the cataracts are the gates, the islands the advanced forts; and like a true fortress, it shows to its enemy, the sea, only the tops of its bell-towers and the roofs of its houses, as if in defiance and derision.

Holland is a fortress, and her people live as in a fortress, on a war footing with the sea. An army of engineers, directed by the Minister of the Interior, spread over the country, and, ordered like an army, continually spy the enemy, watch over the internal waters, foresee the bursting of the dikes, order and direct the defensive works. The expenses of the war are divided,—one part to the State, one part to the provinces; every proprietor pays, beside the general imposts, a special impost for the dikes, in proportion to the extent of his lands and their proximity to the water. An accidental rupture, an inadvertence, may cause a flood; the peril is unceasing; the sentinels are at their posts upon the bulwarks; at the first assault of the sea, they shout the war-cry, and Holland sends men, material, and money. And even when there is no great battle, a quiet, silent struggle is forever going on. The innumerable mills, even in the drained districts, continue to work unresting, to absorb and turn into the canals the water that falls in rain and that which filters in from the sea. Every day the cataracts of the bays and rivers close their gigantic gates against the high tide trying to rush into the heart of the land. The work of strengthening dikes, fortifying sand-banks with plantations, throwing out new dikes where the banks are low, straight as great lances, vibrating in the bosom of the sea and breaking the first impetus of the wave, is forever going on. And the sea eternally knocks at the river-gates, beats upon the ramparts, growls on every side her ceaseless menace, lifting her curious waves as if to see the land she counts as hers, piling up banks of sand before the gates to kill the commerce of the cities, forever gnawing, scratching, digging at the coast; and failing to overthrow the ramparts upon which she foams and fumes in angry effort, she casts at their feet ships full of the dead, that they may announce to the rebellious country her fury and her strength.

In the midst of this great and terrible struggle Holland is transformed: Holland is the land of transformations. A geographical map of that country as it existed eight centuries ago is not recognizable. Transforming the sea, men also are transformed. The sea, at some points, drives back the land; it takes portions from the continent, leaves them and takes them again; joins islands to the mainland with ropes of sand, as in the case of Zealand; breaks off bits from the mainland and makes new islands, as in Wieringen; retires from certain coasts and makes land cities out of what were cities of the sea, as Leuvarde; converts vast tracts of plain into archipelagoes of a hundred islets, as Biisbosch; separates a city from the land, as Dordrecht; forms new gulfs two leagues broad, like the gulf of Dollart; divides two provinces with a new sea, like North Holland and Friesland. The effect of the inundations is to cause the level of the sea to rise in some places and to sink in others; sterile lands are fertilized by the slime of the rivers, fertile lands are changed into deserts of sand. With the transformations of the waters alternate the transformations of labor. Islands are united to continents, like the island of Ameland; entire provinces are reduced to islands, as North Holland will be by the new canal of Amsterdam, which is to separate it from South Holland; lakes as large as provinces disappear altogether, like the lake of Beemster; by the extraction of peat, land is converted into lakes, and these lakes are again transformed into meadows. And thus the country changes its aspect according to the violence of nature or the needs of men. And while one goes over it with the latest map in hand, one may be sure that the map will be useless in a few years, because even now there are new gulfs in process of formation, tracts of land just ready to be detached from the mainland, and great canals being cut that will carry life to uninhabited districts.

But Holland has done more than defend herself against the waters; she has made herself mistress of them, and has used them for her own defense. Should a foreign army invade her territory, she has but to open her dikes and unchain the sea and the rivers, as she did against the Romans, against the Spaniards, against the army of Louis XIV., and defend the land cities with her fleet. Water was the source of her poverty, she has made it the source of wealth. Over the whole country extends an immense network of canals, which serves both for the irrigation of the land and as a means of communication. The cities, by means of canals, communicate with the sea; canals run from town to town, and from them to villages, which are themselves bound together by these watery ways, and are connected even to the houses scattered over the country; smaller canals surround the fields and orchards, pastures and kitchen-gardens, serving at once as boundary wall, hedge, and road-way; every house is a little port. Ships, boats, rafts, move about in all directions, as in other places carts and carriages. The canals are the arteries of Holland, and the water her life-blood. But even setting aside the canals, the draining of the lakes, and the defensive works, on every side are seen the traces of marvelous undertakings. The soil, which in other countries is a gift of nature, is in Holland a work of men's hands. Holland draws the greater part of her wealth from commerce; but before commerce comes the cultivation of the soil; and the soil had to be created. There were sand-banks interspersed with layers of peat, broad downs swept by the winds, great tracts of barren land apparently condemned to an eternal sterility. The first elements of manufacture, iron and coal, were wanting; there was no wood, because the forests had already been destroyed by tempests when agriculture began; there was no stone, there were no metals. Nature, says a Dutch poet, had refused all her gifts to Holland; the Hollanders had to do everything in spite of nature. They began by fertilizing the sand. In some places they formed a productive soil with earth brought from a distance, as a garden is made; they spread the siliceous dust of the downs over the too watery meadows; they mixed with the sandy earth the remains of peat taken from the bottoms; they extracted clay to lend fertility to the surface of their lands; they labored to break up the downs with the plow: and thus in a thousand ways, and continually fighting off the menacing waters, they succeeded in bringing Holland to a state of cultivation not inferior to that of more favored regions. That Holland, that sandy, marshy country which the ancients considered all but uninhabitable, now sends out yearly from her confines agricultural products to the value of a hundred millions of francs, possesses about one million three hundred thousand head of cattle, and in proportion to the extent of her territory may be accounted one of the most populous of European States.

It may be easily understood how the physical peculiarities of their country must influence the Dutch people; and their genius is in perfect harmony with the character of Holland. It is sufficient to contemplate the monuments of their great struggle with the sea in order to understand that their distinctive characteristics must be firmness and patience, accompanied by a calm and constant courage. That glorious battle, and the consciousness of owing everything to their own strength, must have infused and fortified in them a high sense of dignity and an indomitable spirit of liberty and independence. The necessity of a constant struggle, of a continuous labor, and of perpetual sacrifices in defense of their existence, forever taking them back to a sense of reality, must have made them a highly practical and economical people; good sense should be their most salient quality, economy one of their chief virtues; they must be excellent in all useful arts, sparing of diversion, simple even in their greatness; succeeding in what they undertake by dint of tenacity and a thoughtful and orderly activity; more wise than heroic; more conservative than creative; giving no great architects to the edifice of modern thought, but the ablest of workmen, a legion of patient and laborious artisans. And by virtue of these qualities of prudence, phlegmatic activity, and the spirit of conservatism, they are ever advancing, though by slow degrees; they acquire gradually, but never lose what they have gained; holding stubbornly to their ancient customs; preserving almost intact, and despite the neighborhood of three great nations, their own originality; preserving it through every form of government, through foreign invasions, through political and religious wars, and in spite of the immense concourse of strangers from every country that are always coming among them; and remaining, in short, of all the northern races, that one which, though ever advancing in the path of civilization, has kept its antique stamp most clearly.