"The story of Joan has been a rich motive in the world of art, and painter and sculptor have spent their genius on the theme without as yet adequately realizing its simple grandeur."



Of Voices Long Dead

The following is not history, although we have placed it under this heading. It is the literal translation of a poem by Theocritus, a light in the ancient literature of the Greeks. Although the actual incident never occurred, it is typical of what was going on among that long dead people, and it is of as much importance to us as the most valuable record of history, and is of vital interest when viewed in retrospect from the year 1915, because it gives us a rare glimpse into the domestic manners of a people who lived when all the present civilized world was in the hands of savages—and how modern it all seems. The scene might have been enacted yesterday even to the smallest detail.

Imagine yourself in the city of Alexandria about the year 280 B.C.

"Some Syracusan women staying at Alexandria, agreed, on the occasion of a great religious solemnity—the feast of Adonis—to go together to the palace of King Ptolemy Philadelphus, to see the image of Adonis, which the Queen Arsinoe, Ptolemy's wife, had had decorated with peculiar magnificence. A hymn, by a celebrated performer, was to be recited over the image. The names of the two women are Gorgo and Praxinoe; their maids, who are mentioned in the poem, are called Eunoe and Eutychis. Gorgo comes by appointment to Praxinoe's house to fetch her, and there the dialogue begins."

We are following the translation of William Cleaver Wilkinson.

Gorgo. Is Praxinoe at home?

Praxinoe. My dear Gorgo, at last! Yes, here I am. Eunoe, find a chair—get a cushion for it.

G. It will do beautifully as it is.

P. Do sit down.

G. Oh, this gadabout spirit! I could hardly get to you, Praxinoe, through all the crowd and all the carriages. Nothing but heavy boots, nothing but men in uniform. And what a journey it is! My dear child, you really live too far off.

P. It is all that insane husband of mine. He has chosen to come out here to the end of the world, and take a hole of a place—for a house it is not—on purpose that you and I might not be neighbors. He is always just the same—anything to quarrel with one! anything for spite!

G. My dear, don't talk so of your husband before the little fellow. Just see how astonished he looks at you. Never mind, Zopyrio, my pet, she is not talking about papa.

P. Good heavens! the child does really understand.

G. Pretty papa!

P. That pretty papa of his the other day (though I told him beforehand to mind what he was about), when I sent him to shop to buy soap and rouge, he brought me home salt instead—stupid, great, big, interminable animal.

G. Mine is just the fellow to him.... But never mind; get on your things and let us be off to the palace to see the Adonis. I hear the queen's decorations are something splendid.

P. In grand people's houses everything is grand. What things you have seen in Alexandria! What a deal you will have to tell anybody who has never been here!

G. Come, we ought to be going.

P. Every day is holiday to people who have nothing to do. Eunoe, pick up your work; and take care, lazy girl, how you leave it lying about again; the cats find it just the bed they like. Come, stir yourself; fetch me some water, quick! I wanted the water first, and the girl brings me the soap. Never mind, give it me. Not all that, extravagant! Now pour out the water—stupid! why don't you take care of my dress? That will do. I have got my hands washed as it pleases God. Where is the key of the large wardrobe? Bring it here—quick!

G. Praxinoe, you can't think how well that dress, made full, as you've got it, suits you. Tell me, how much did it cost?—the dress by itself, I mean.

P. Don't talk of it, Gorgo; more than eight guineas of good hard money. And about the work on it I have almost worn my life out.

G. Well, you couldn't have done better.

P. Thank you. Bring me my shawl, and put my hat properly on my head—properly. No, child (to her little boy), I am not going to take you; there is a bogey on horseback, who bites. Cry as much as you like, I'm not going to have you lamed for life. Now we'll start. Nurse, take the little one and amuse him; call the dog in, and shut the street door. (They go out.) Good heavens! what a crowd of people! How on earth are we ever to get through all this? They are like ants—you can't count them. My dearest Gorgo, what will become of us? Here are the Royal Horse Guards. My good man, don't ride over me! Look at that bay horse rearing bolt upright; what a vicious one! Eunoe, you mad girl, do take care!—that horse will certainly be the death of the man on his back. How glad I am now that I left the child at home!

G. All right, Praxinoe, we are safe behind them, and they have gone on to where they are stationed.

P. Well, yes, I begin to revive again. From the time I was a little girl I have had more horror of horses and snakes than of anything in the world. Let us get on; here's a great crowd coming this way upon us.

G. (to an old woman). Mother, are you from the palace?

Old Woman. Yes, my dears.

G. Has one a tolerable chance of getting there?

O.W. My pretty young lady, the Greeks got to Troy by dint of trying hard; trying will do anything in this world.

G. The old creature has delivered herself of an oracle and departed.

P. Women can tell you everything about everything. Jupiter's marriage with Juno not excepted.

G. Look, Praxinoe, what a squeeze at the palace gates!

P. Tremendous! Take hold of me, Gorgo, and you, Eunoe, take hold of Eutychis!—tight hold, or you'll be lost. Here we go in all together. Hold tight to us, Eunoe. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Gorgo, there's my scarf torn right in two. For heaven's sake, my good man, as you hope to be saved, take care of my dress!

Stranger. I'll do what I can, but it doesn't depend upon me.

P. What heaps of people! They push like a drove of pigs.

Str. Don't be frightened, ma'am; we are all right.

P. May you be all right, my dear sir, to the last day you live, for the care you have taken of us! What a kind, considerate man! There is Eunoe jammed in a squeeze. Push, you goose, push! Capital! We are all of us the right side of the door, as the bridegroom said when he had locked himself in with the bride.

G. Praxinoe, come this way. Do but look at that work, how delicate it is! how exquisite! Why, they might wear it in heaven!

P. Heavenly patroness of needle-women, what hands we hired to do that work? Who designed those beautiful patterns? They seem to stand up and move about, as if they were real—as if they were living things and not needlework. Well, man is a wonderful creature! And look, look, how charming he lies there on his silver couch, with just a soft down on his cheeks, that beloved Adonis—Adonis, whom one loves, even though he is dead!

Another Stranger. You wretched woman, do stop your incessant chatter. Like turtles, you go on forever. They are enough to kill one with their broad lingo—nothing but a, a, a.

G. Lord, where does the man come from? What is it to you if we are chatterboxes? Order about your own servants. Do you give orders to Syracusan women? If you want to know, we came originally from Corinth, as Bellerophon did; we speak Peloponnesian. I suppose Dorian women may be allowed to have a Dorian accent.

P. Oh, honey-sweet Proserpine, let us have no more masters than the one we've got! We don't the least care for you; pray don't trouble yourself for nothing.

G. Be quiet, Praxinoe! That first-rate singer, the Argive woman's daughter, is going to sing the Adonis hymn. She is the same who was chosen to sing the dirge last year. We are sure to have something first rate from her. She is going through her airs and graces ready to begin.

* * * * *

And here the voices die away in the remote past. How difficult it is to believe that this dialogue took place more than two thousand years ago!

As a last glimpse of such a beautiful, modernly remote gem of conversation, we will give a few more words to show what those ancient gossipy ladies thought of their husbands.

The following are the last surviving words which Gorgo gave to the world:

Gorgo. Praxinoe, certainly women are wonderful things. That lucky woman, to know all that; and luckier still to have such a voice! And now we must see about getting home. My husband has not had his dinner. That man is all vinegar, and nothing else; and if you keep him waiting for his dinner he's dangerous to go near. Adieu! precious Adonis, and may you find us all well when you come next year!

He might have been a husband of yesterday!

For how many years have the husbands been coming home from work daily to partake of a meal which an attentive and tender wife has prepared for him? This was twenty-two hundred years ago.



Of the White Woman Who Became an Indian Squaw

The early history of the northwest frontier of Massachusetts is fraught with blood-curdling tales of savage invasions against the home-builders and empire-makers of that once troubled boundary between the French of Canada and the English of the New England States, but there is not a more pitiful story than that which has been recorded touching the Williams family of Deerfield, who were captured by the Indians during one of their inroads in the year 1704. John Williams was a minister who had come to Deerfield when it was still suffering from the ruinous effects of King Philip's war. His parishioners built him a house, he married, and had eight children. The story of the Indians' invasion, the destruction of the village, and the capture of over one hundred prisoners is admirably told by Francis Parkman in one of those excellent works of his dealing with the old regime of Canada and New England.

"A war party of about fifty Canadians and two hundred Indians left Quebec about mid-winter, and arrived at Deerfield on the 28th of February, 1704. Savage and hungry, they lay shivering under the pines till about two hours before dawn the following morning; then, leaving their packs and their snowshoes behind, they moved cautiously towards their prey. The hideous din startled the minister, Williams, from his sleep. Half naked, he sprang out of bed, and saw, dimly, a crowd of savages bursting through the shattered door. With more valor than discretion he snatched a pistol that hung at the head of the bed, cocked it and snapped it at the breast of the foremost Indian. It missed fire. Amid the screams of his terrified children, three of the party seized him and bound him fast, for they came well provided with cords, as prisoners had a great market value. Nevertheless, in the first fury of their attack, they dragged to the door and murdered two of the children. They kept Williams shivering in his shirt for an hour, while a frightful uproar of yells, shrieks, and gunshots sounded from within. At length they permitted him, his wife, and five remaining children to dress themselves. After the entire village had been destroyed and the inhabitants either murdered or made captive, Williams and his wife and family were led from their burning house across the Connecticut River to the foot of the mountain, and the following day the march north began with the hundred or more prisoners."

The hardships of the prisoners, and the crimes of the victors during that long and arduous march north through snow and ice, forms a chapter of pathos in the early history of those eastern states.

"At the mouth of the White River the party divided, and the Williams family were separated and carried off in various directions. Eunice, the youngest daughter, about eight years old, was handed over by the Indians to the mission at St. Louis on their arrival there, and although many efforts were made on the part of the Governor, who had purchased and befriended Williams, to ransom her, the Jesuits flatly refused to give her up. On one occasion he went himself with the minister to St. Louis. This time the Jesuits, whose authority within their mission seemed almost to override that of the Governor himself, yielded so far as to allow the father to see his daughter, on condition that he spoke to no other English prisoner. He spoke to her for an hour, exhorting her never to forget her catechism, which she had learned by rote. The Governor and his wife afterwards did all in their power to procure her ransom, but of no avail.

"'She is there still,' writes Williams two years later, 'and has forgotten to speak English.' What grieved him still more, Eunice had forgotten her catechism." But now we come to this strange transformation, unprecedented, we think, which made an Indian squaw out of a white woman. "Eunice, reared among Indian children, learned their language and forgot her own; she lived in a wigwam of the Caughnawagas, forgot her catechism, was baptized in the Roman Catholic faith, and in due time married an Indian of the tribe, who henceforth called himself Williams. Thus her hybrid children bore her family name.

"Many years after, in 1740, she came, with her husband, to visit her relatives at Deerfield, dressed as a squaw and wrapped in an Indian blanket. Nothing would induce her to stay, though she was persuaded on one occasion to put on a civilized dress and go to church, after which she impatiently discarded her gown and resumed her blanket."

Could a sadder instance of degeneration be written in the annals of the human family? "She was kindly treated by her relatives, and no effort was made to detain her. She came again the following year, bringing two of her children, and twice afterwards she repeated the visit. She and her husband were offered land if they would remain, but she positively refused, saying it would endanger her soul. She lived to a great age, a squaw to the last. One of her grandsons became a missionary to the Indians of Green Bay, Wisconsin."

This is one of the most drastic instances of a woman's devotion to husband, and mother love for children driving her back to the forest of her ancestors, and making her sacrifice all that her race had gained for her during thousands of years. Thus the most natural and primitive instincts of the human race will prevail against all our arts, science and accomplishments.



THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE



Through the Microscope

Life is full of impossibilities.

After all it is not money we want so much as something to do.

Every man should have an accomplishment of some kind.

Some music is like a jumble of misplaced notes.

If you have reached forty and have done nothing, get busy.

We sometimes lose dollars by being too careful with our cents.

We should try to arrange ourselves so that we will appear as plausible as possible to posterity.

We must have something to worry about or we will become stagnant.

Music should be rendered slowly and softly so that each note may have time to tell its story before the next one comes on the stage.

When we are young our time is all present. When we are old there is no present, but our time becomes the aggregate days and years.

We sometimes get into trouble trying to keep out of it.

It is not what we would like to do, but what we can do.

Let us take our medicine philosophically.

A dollar looks larger going out than it does coming in.

What is that we see falling like grain before the reaper? It is the days, and the weeks, and the months, and the years.

Every dog wonders why the other dog was born.

We are so constituted in temperament that one may love what the other hates.

A face is like a song, it has to be learned to be thoroughly appreciated. You have to acquire a taste for it, and when it is once memorized it is never forgotten.

Most of our best words are derived from dead, heathen languages.

If you have married the wrong man, or the wrong woman, cheer up and be a philosopher over it. Philosophy is a good substitute for love if properly applied.

If you do not go about sniffing the air you will not find so many obnoxious odors.

If you have a mental wound of any kind, do not mind; time, the great healer, will cure it.

We despise the ancient heathen, yet in some cases we have risen from his ashes.

A woman dresses for appearance, not for comfort.

An ounce of domestic harmony is worth a ton of gold.

We should adjust ourselves as much as possible to circumstances.

It is better to be a dummy than to be a gossip.

Every man thinks his dog is an angel.

It is not always the one who can afford it who keeps the hired servant.

Since we can grow a new finger nail, why cannot we grow a new finger?

The mouse is destructive only from man's point of view.

When a man reaches forty he usually settles down to make the best of things.

Sometimes we are called cranks because we will not be sat upon.

The passing of time so quickly would not be so regrettable were life not so short.

A good book has no ending.

It is nothing to win a girl if you do not win her love also.

The passing of time so quickly takes the pleasure out of everything.

If you are popular, anything you say will rise into the air like a Zeppelin. If you are unpopular anything you say or do will sink into the ocean of oblivion like a Titanic.

It is a pity we have to do so much to get so little.

It sometimes pays to accept a few cents on the dollar and let it go at that.

Sometimes men become so parasitical to their occupation that, were they to lose it, they would drown.

"Help ye one another." It pays.

Our mistakes keep us perpetually on the convalescence.

Woman is equal to man—sometimes more than equal.

While the years are with you freeze on to them as tightly as ever you can.

The "Give-in-to-nothing-or-nobody-for-anything" spirit nurses a great deal of evil.

It takes forty years for a man to become a philosopher. Some never graduate.

Our generation is to be pitied. It is living in the most extravagant age the world has ever known.

When the church does not ameliorate the objectionable dispositions of its adherents, it has failed in its mission.

It is diplomacy to be on friendly terms with all men.

Politics are sometimes dangerous things.

Be cheerful under all circumstances.

The human race has mounted a treadmill which it must tread or perish.

The strenuous industries of this world are man's unconscious efforts to preserve his increasing numbers from annihilation.

Courtesy in business is the best policy.

It takes three men's wages to sustain one family in an up-to-date fashion.

Under the circumstances, it is almost necessary to be greedy and grasping.

To be perfectly healthy we should adopt the exercises followed by our ancestors in climbing among the trees.

It is not how much you can do or how quick you get through it, but the care that you take and how well you can do it.

It is not the gift but the giving.

It is quality, not quantity, that counts.

Do not measure a person's length by your personal prejudices.

The man who never had an enemy is too good for this world.

"You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink." You can send a boy to college, but you cannot make him think.

The dog hates the cat, and the cat hates the dog, but when they are friends there are no truer ones.

Just take the world as it is; take things as to be had. Your friends may not be quite so good, your foes not quite so bad.

It is the aggregate that counts.

The almighty dollar is getting smaller every day.

It is fashionable to be lazy.

Money is man's passport through the world.

The one who is most jealous is the one who is least in love.

Poetry is something that was written by someone who is dead.

Life is one thing after another—getting in between man and his money.

Some men are so small that they could easily go through the eye of a needle.

Often the man who is the most mean in buying is the most extortionate in selling.

Some husbands have to prove their love by sending their wives off for a month's holiday every six weeks.

The cat is one of the most cleanly of animals, yet she has never been known to take a bath.

"It is an ill wind," etc. The harder the times become to others, the better they become to the sheriff.

Germany wants to reap where she has not sown.

Misery likes company. It is consolation to know that everybody else is hard up during these hard times.

In our life struggle we are obliged to sacrifice many of our pet ambitions.

If a person is not naturally inclined he cannot be influenced by argument.

When the war is over it will be an easy matter to estimate the German casualties. She had about sixty-five millions.

The present seems to be a thing of the past.

An honorable defeat is more commendable than an empty triumph.

One half of the war in Europe does not know what the other half is doing.

Sometimes finance gets men into positions for which they are not qualified.

We must abandon that ancient superstition that a dollar has any financial value.

Where a cat and a canary are brought up together, the cat ultimately gets the canary.

If a man does not support his country during the war, what can he expect after the war is over?

There is not a misunderstanding but that can be adjusted amicably if it is gone about in the right spirit.

Your business is not the only important one.

It is a pity the cat would not always remain a kitten.

With the bank man it is more a matter of figures than it is of dollars.

To man, money is like a train going into a tunnel. It goes in at one end and out at the other, and leaves nothing.

Never judge a person's way by what the other people say.

There are only two sides to business: what I.O.U. and what U.O.I.

Where there is abundance there is likely to be waste and lack of economy.

A one dollar contra is often used to stave off a hundred dollar account.

"Every crow thinks that its bird is a white one," and every man thinks that his wife is the right one.

The hieroglyphic signature is often taken as a sign of perfect commercial attainment.

Some people give and take; others are all take.

Blessed is the man who has no family, for he shall inherit wealth.

Unlucky is the man who has children, for verily I say unto you, they keep him broke.

The good Samaritan who lends his friend a dollar, sometimes loses both the friend and the dollar.

The poorer a man the greater his misfortunes.

A great many children go to school to learn to read novels.

It takes as long to become a man as it does to become a philosopher.

Life is far too short judging by the time it takes to collect some of our accounts.

First, steel made millionaires, then railways, then oil, then pork; and now it is the automobile.

When two or three women are gathered together no man can tell when the end will be.

The well-fed philosopher is likely to have a well-fed philosophy; the under-fed one an emaciated variety.

Habitual melancholy is not always a mental derangement; it is very often a constitutional weakness.

Live and—let your indorser—learn.

The further you get into the world the less time you have for poetry, philosophy and sentiment.

The doctor is a man whom we don't want to do any business with.

You seldom meet an enthusiast who is not a crank also.

Individually, dimensions are determined by the proportions of the observer.

The modern attitude is a contempt for economy. Conservation is a bugbear.

Your neighbor is not a freak because he does not fall in line with your way of thinking.

When you have gained your equilibrium, you usually find that it was not worth while getting mad after all.



[Transcriber's note: In "Of the Foolhardy Expedition," there is extensive quoting of a text, and the quotes are not always matched. The punctuation was left as printed.]

THE END