text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Arthur, Prince

ARTHUR, Prince. See.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Arthur (duke)

ARTHUR, duke of Brittany, the grandson of King Henry II of England: b. 1187; d. 1203. On the death in 1199 of his uncle, Richard I, who had declared the boy his heir, Arthur was proclaimed King of England by the nobles of Anjou, Touraine and Maine, while the English lords decided in John's favor. King Philip of France supported the claims of Arthur, but a peace being presently concluded between John and Philip, Arthur came later into the hands of his uncle, King John, and soon mysteriously disappeared. According to general belief Arthur was murdered by command of his uncle.

The story of Arthur forms a portion of Shakespeare's ‘King John.’ See.


text: Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/11


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Arthur, Chester Alan

ARTHUR, Chester Alan, the 21st President of the United States: b. Fairfield, Vt., 5 Oct. 1830; d. New York, 18 Nov. 1886. He was graduated from Union College at 18, was principal of an academy at North Pownal, Vt., and in 1853 began the practice of law in New York, where he argued several important legal cases in behalf of the colored people. Through these and other cases he became noted in his profession, and he was also prominent as a Republican politician. In April 1861 Gov. E. D. Morgan made him acting quartermaster-general, and later he was made full quartermaster-general. For the next decade he was a successful and widely known practising lawyer and a leading Republican politician of New York, chairman of the Grant Club in 1868, and of the executive committee of the Republican State committee in 1869. He was appointed by President Grant, 20 Nov. 1871 to the highest office in the State patronage, the collectorship of the port of New York, which he held till 11 July 1878. His business conduct of the office was not impeached, and he was retained by President Hayes for over a year after his accession; but he was first of all a political manager, in open hostility to civil service reform. As a matter of actual practice and not theory, however, Mr. Arthur produced figures to show that the annual percentage of removals under him for all causes had been only 2¾ per cent. as against an annual average of 24 per cent since 1857. In 1880 he was nominated for the vice-presidency, chiefly to conciliate the Grant section of the Republicans, sore at the defeat of the third-term project, and was elected with Garfield. In place of the customary dignified nullity of his office, he remained an active party leader in the patronage contest of his State between the “Stalwarts” or Grant section led by Roscoe Conkling (q.v.), and of which Mr. Arthur was chief lieutenant, and the “Half-Breeds” or more independent wing which Garfield was trying to build up. Conkling soon resigned his seat in the Senate, declaring that Garfield had broken his promises to him, and the Garfield party for the time was triumphant; but the assassination of Garfield, shortly after, reversed the situation. The open lamentations of the press at the prospect of the accession of so convinced a spoilsman as himself deeply hurt Mr. Arthur, who felt that he was misjudged, and determined on the most admirable revenge, that of disappointing their prophecies of evil. He did so; not only was his term of office measurably free from the dominance of patronage, but he extended the civil service rules and kept faith with them. In other respects his administration was so excellent that the leading Independents had announced their intention of supporting him for President if nominated in 1884. Its most notable incident was the appointment of a commission to revise the tariff, which, though composed of strong Protectionists, reported that the tariff should be reduced 20 per cent all around, a recommendation unheeded by Congress. Several commercial treaties were passed, however. He vetoed a Chinese immigration bill as inconsistent with treaty oblig;ations; favored the stringent laws passed against polygamy, appointed a

Utah commission to supervise their enforcement; managed Indian affairs wisely, promoting Indian education and the breaking up of the tribal system; extended postal facilities; took measures to increase the navy, improve its discipline and efficiency and provide for coast defense; supported the improvement of Mississippi River navigation, etc. The attempts at remonetizing silver, and at forcibly abrogating the Clayton-Bulwer treaty to build a Nicaragua Canal, were in accordance with general party feeling at the time. The lingering scandal of the Star Route frauds, however, injured the party somewhat, and its policy and methods were gravely disapproved of by the Independents; but this was much more than counterbalanced by distrust of the Democratic party for its alliance with the Greenback element. Mr. Arthur's defeat for the nomination was not caused by any demerits of his own, still less by desire to conciliate the Independents, but by the personal ambitions of Republican leaders, which, justly or unjustly, had aroused and exasperated the Republicans of the State of New York, causing the defeat of C. J. Folger for Governor, and resulting in the nomination of Blaine in 1884. Arthur, although a close adherent of Conkling, supported Blaine. Consult Smalley, G. W., ‘Life of C. A. Arthur’ (New York 1880).


text:
User:Mwwmenger/Books/A Doll's House

by Henrik Ibsen

 * A Doll's House
 * A Doll's House/Act I
 * A Doll's House/Act II
 * A Doll's House/Act III

title: User:Mwwmenger/Books/A Doll's House


text:
Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/12

vi {| style="border: 0px; text-align: left;  margin: 0em auto 0em auto;" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"
 * width=90%|Against the Sub-Treasury and Other Policies of the Van Buren Administration. Speech at a Political Discussion in the Hall of Representatives at Springfield, Ill., About December 20, 1839.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Plan of Organization for Illinois Whigs in the Harrison Campaign. Circular from Whig State Committee, of which Lincoln was a Member, Sent to Leading Whigs in each County. About January 1, 1840.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Resolution for Ballot Reform. Offered in the Illinois Legislature. November 28, 1840.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Remarks on an Election Contest. In the Illinois Legislature. December 4, 1840.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Remarks in Favor of Issue of "Interest Bonds." In the Illinois Legislature. December 4, 1840.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Remarks in Favor of "Canal Scrip." In the Illinois Legislature. January 23, 1841.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Against the Subordination of the Judiciary to the Legislature. An Appeal to the People of the State of Illinois, Issued by a Committee on Behalf of the Whig Members of the Legislature, A. Lincoln being one of the Committee. About February 8, 1841.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Against Reorganization of the Judiciary. Extract from a Protest in the Illinois Legislature Signed by A. Lincoln and Others. February 26, 1841.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Charity in Temperance Reform. Address Before the Washingtonian Temperance Society of Springfield, Ill. February 22, 1842.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|In Favor of a Protective Tariff, a National Bank, and Other Whig Policies. Resolutions Offered at a Whig Meeting in Springfield, Ill. March 1, 1843.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * }
 * width=90%|Remarks in Favor of "Canal Scrip." In the Illinois Legislature. January 23, 1841.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Against the Subordination of the Judiciary to the Legislature. An Appeal to the People of the State of Illinois, Issued by a Committee on Behalf of the Whig Members of the Legislature, A. Lincoln being one of the Committee. About February 8, 1841.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Against Reorganization of the Judiciary. Extract from a Protest in the Illinois Legislature Signed by A. Lincoln and Others. February 26, 1841.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|Charity in Temperance Reform. Address Before the Washingtonian Temperance Society of Springfield, Ill. February 22, 1842.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|In Favor of a Protective Tariff, a National Bank, and Other Whig Policies. Resolutions Offered at a Whig Meeting in Springfield, Ill. March 1, 1843.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * }
 * width=90%|Charity in Temperance Reform. Address Before the Washingtonian Temperance Society of Springfield, Ill. February 22, 1842.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * width=90%|In Favor of a Protective Tariff, a National Bank, and Other Whig Policies. Resolutions Offered at a Whig Meeting in Springfield, Ill. March 1, 1843.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * }
 * width=90%|In Favor of a Protective Tariff, a National Bank, and Other Whig Policies. Resolutions Offered at a Whig Meeting in Springfield, Ill. March 1, 1843.
 * width=6% valign="bottom" align="right"|
 * }
 * }


text:
Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/13

Rh


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Hardcastle

HARD'CASTLE. A family, the members of which are principal characters in Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer. The scene is laid about the country house of jovial Squire Hardcastle, the father of Kate, the heroine of the comedy, who assumes the airs of a barmaid in order to win the love of the bashful Marlow. The pretentious Mrs. Hardcastle is the mother of Tony Lumpkin, the Squire's stepson.


text:
Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/14

viii


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Harding, Chester

HARDING, (1792-1866). An American portrait painter. He was born in Conway, Mass., September 11, 1792. In 1812 he enlisted in the army as a drummer boy. Owing to failure in business, he went to Pittsburg, where he was engaged as a house-painter. At this time he became interested in portrait painting, and went to Paris, Ky. After a short time spent in study at Philadelphia he spent successful seasons at Saint Louis and Washington. In 1823 he established a studio in Boston, where he enjoyed great popularity. In 1832 he went to Europe. In London he met David Leslie and Sir Thomas Lawrence, and during a stay of three years painted the portraits of several prominent Englishmen, including the Dukes of Essex, Norfolk, and Hamilton, Samuel Rogers, and Lord Aberdeen. The chief characteristic of his portraits is their indication and appreciation of character. Harding had many friends, one of whom was Daniel Webster, whose portrait by Harding hangs in the Bar Association, New York. He died in Boston, April 1, 1866. Among his principal portraits are those of Washington Allston, John Randolph (Corcoran Gallery, Washington), General Sherman, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Chief Justice Marshall, Charles Carroll, and Presidents Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams.


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Harding, James Duffield

HARDING, (1798-1863). An English landscape painter and teacher, born in Deptford. He first studied painting and engraving, and then took up water-colors and became a member of the Water-Color Society (1821). He was one of the first after Turner to use body-color in this medium, and obtained excellent results with it. His paintings treat European scenes in a rather studied manner. He was the inventor of ‘Harding's papers’ (paper in different tints and textures for sketching), which were used until recently. He gave much attention to lithography, and obtained two gold medals from the Academic des Beaux-Arts for his plates. Among his works in it are Home and Abroad (1836, fifty plates), Park and Forest (1841), and Picturesque Selections (1861). Harding was a successful teacher, and published a number of text-books of no great importance.


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Harding, Karl Ludwig

HARDING, (1765-1834). A German astronomer, born at Lauenburg. He was educated at Göttingen, where he studied theology, and became a tutor in the family of Schröter in Lilienthal. Schröter was an enthusiastic astronomer, and Harding was soon appointed observer and inspector in his observatory. Here he discovered the third planetoid, June (1804). In 1805 he went to Göttingen as professor of astronomy, and eight years afterwards discovered, independently of Pons, the second comet of 1813. His published works include: Atlas Novus Cœlestis (1808-23; reëdited by Jahn, 1856), for long

the most complete astronomical chart; Kleine astronomische Ephemeriden (edited with Wiessen, 1830-35); and the fifteenth in the series of Sternkarten of the Berlin Academy's publications (1830).


text:
User:Tasvir007

♛ кĨηĞ øŦ äŁŁ ʞ Ĩℵԍ ᵴ™ ♀♥♂

"Cocktail of Strength & Charisma...a fine blend of Character, Passion N Courage...along with remarkable oratory ability wit a pint of wiCked seNse Of humoR! = ♀ - ♥ - ♂

dats ME....Tasvir A R Chowdhury™ ♛ ;-)

hmmm....ensuring a GUD tym "alwayz"...as well as Xplorin...reachin' new heights...followin' regular norms...helpin' ppl...at times...breakin' boundaries..crossin' limits & bending rulez a bit - PersonallY, ProfessionallY & SociallY..! ! !

In other words...I'm an independent soul...with a balanced personality...a simple head & a clean heart...who's content wit one's own lyf...dat involves a lot of INTERACTION...(ya know wat i mean!)....mutual communication ...fascination.... sharin' of thoughts...desire...passion & emotions...in da end...tryin' 2 be a better humanbeing on dis complex planet...!

Ultimate goal iz...2 live life 2 da FULLEST..Live lyk a KING...since..ya just get 1 life 2 live! So..'LIVE IT'...dats my philosophy ...(NOT urs) !!! :-)

Be happy and make others happy...with you..ur deeds and ur dealings.

Tasvir A R Chowdhury™

title: User:Tasvir007


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Harding, Stephen

HARDING, (?-1134). The third abbot of the celebrated monastery of Cîteaux. Of his parentage and youthful history little is known beyond the fact that he was born at Sherborne, near Dorchester, England, of a respectable family, and in early life traveled first to Scotland, then to Paris, and later to Rome, On his way back he stopped at the Benedictine monastery at Molesme, near Dijon, Burgundy, and joining the Order, received the name of Stephen. He delighted in austerities, and left the monastery with some twenty companions, including the abbot and prior, in order that they might start a new monastery where the Benedictine rule should be strictly observed. Cîteaux, the ‘cisterns,’ fifteen miles south of Dijon, a barren and marshy spot, seemed attractive to the band, and there the monastery was built. In 1110 Stephen was elected its abbot. The rigor of observance which he enforced had such an effect in deterring novices from entering the new Order that at first grave fears were entertained for its stability; but Stephen persevered, and was rewarded in 1113 by the accession of Saint Bernard (q.v.) and thirty others, who gave such an impulse to the institute that in a short time the number ot claimants for admission compelled him to found several new convents, and especially that ot Clairvaux (1115), which, under the rule of Saint Bernard, attained to the very highest distinction in that age. Stephen continued till his death, at Cîteaux, March 28, 1134, to direct the fortunes of the Cistercian Order. In 1119 he drew up, in conjunction with Saint Bernard and other members of the brotherliood, the well-known constitutions of the Order, entitled the Charter of Charity, which were approved by Popes Calixtus II. and Eugenius III., and, with some modifications, have continued down to modern times as the rule of the Cistercian institute. Two of Stephen's letters are preserved among the Epistolæ Sancti Bernardi (Epp. 45 and 49). See .


text:
User:Hesperian/works.js

var specialFormats = (function {	var chapterof = function(page) {		// the actual page numbers (not DjVu page numbers) on which each chapter starts - set offset in work		var chapterpages = [161,183,197,221];		var chapter=0;		for (var num in chapterpages) {			if (chapterpages[num]>page)				return chapter;			else				chapter++;		}		return chapter;	};	var pagenum = (function { var m = /\.djvu\/([0-9]+)&action=edit/g.exec(location.href); if (m===null) return null; return parseInt(m[1], 10); });	// convenience function for converting to roman numerals	var roman = function(number) {		var values = {m:1000, cm:900, d:500, cd:400, c:100, xc:90, l:50, xl:40, x:10, ix:9, v:5, iv:4, i:1};		var romanexpr = '';		var value;		for (value in values) {			while (number >= values[value] ) {				romanexpr = romanexpr + value;				number = number - values[value];			}		}		return romanexpr;	};	return [		// add as many as you like...		// format is ["url to match", "even numbered /pages", "odd numbered /pages", "footer if no ref", "footer if ref"]		[			"Page:The Sense of the Past",			"",			"",			""+(pagenum-14)+"",			""+(pagenum-14)+""		]	];	// format is ["url to match", "even numbered /pages", "odd numbered /pages", "footer if no ref", "footer if ref"] });

title: User:Hesperian/works.js


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/266

Rh speaking to him, and even while she slept her lips moved and she smiled as if he had come back to her, and when she woke he might vanish so suddenly that she started up bewildered and looked about her, and then said slowly, "My David's dead!" or perhaps he remained long enough to whisper why he must leave her now, and then she lay silent with filmy eyes. When I became a man and he was still a boy of thirteen, I wrote a little paper called "Dead this Twenty Years," which was about a similar tragedy in another woman's life, and it is the only thing I have written that she never spoke about, not even to that daughter she loved the best. No one ever spoke of it to her, or asked her if she had read it; one does not ask a mother if she knows that there is a little coffin in the house. She read many times the book in which it is printed, but when she came to that chapter she would put her hands to her heart or even over her ears. Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/266


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/267

 CHAPTER II

WHAT SHE HAD BEEN

she had been, what I should be, these were he two great subjects between us in my boyhood, and while we discussed the one we were deciding the other, though neither of us knew it.

Before I reached my tenth year a giant entered my native place in the night, and we woke to find him in possession. He transformed it into a new town at a rate with which we boys only could keep up, for as fast as he built dams we made rafts to sail in them; he knocked down houses, and there we were crying, "Pilly!" among the ruins; he dug trenches, and we jumped them; we had to be dragged by the legs from beneath his engines; he sunk wells, and in we went. But though there were never circumstances to which boys could not adapt themselves in half an hour, older folk are slower in the uptake, and I am sure they stood and gaped at the changes so suddenly being worked in our midst, and scarce knew their way home now in the dark. Where had been formerly but the click of the shuttle was soon the Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/267


text: Peter and Wendy - Margaret Ogilvy/Margaret Ogilvy


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/268

Rh roar of "power," hand-looms were pushed into a corner as a room is cleared for a dance, every morning at half-past five the town was awakened with a yell, and from a chimney-stalk that rose high into our caller air the conqueror waved for evermore his flag of smoke. Another era had dawned, new customs, new fashions sprang into life, all as lusty as if they had been born at twentyone; as quickly as two people may exchange seats, the daughter, till now but a knitter of stockings, became the breadwinner, he who had been the breadwinner sat down to the knitting of stockings; what had been yesterday a nest of weavers was to-day a town of girls.

I am not of those who would fling stones at the change; it is something, surely, that backs are no longer prematurely bent; you may no more look through dim panes of glass at the aged poor weaving tremulously for their little bit of ground in the cemetery. Rather are their working years too few now, not because they will it so, but because it is with youth that the power-looms must be fed. Well, this teaches them to make provision, and they have the means as they never had before. Not in batches are boys now sent to college, the half-dozen a year have dwindled to one, doubtless because in these days they can begin to draw wages as they step out of their fourteenth year. Here assuredly there is loss, but all Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/268


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/269

Rh the losses would be but a pebble in a sea of gain were it not for this, that with so many of the family, young mothers among them, working in the factories, home life is not so beautiful as it was. So much of what is great in Scotland has sprung from the closeness of the family ties; it is there I sometimes fear that my country is being struck. That we are all being reduced to one dead level, that "character" abounds no more and life itself is less interesting, such things I have read, but I do not believe them. I have even seen them given as my reason for writing of a past time, and in that at least there is no truth. In our little town, which is a sample of many, life is as interesting, as pathetic, as joyous as ever it was; no group of weavers was better to look at or think about than the rivulet of winsome girls that overruns our streets every time the sluice is raised, the comedy of summer evenings and winter firesides is played with the old zest, and every window-blind is the curtain of a romance. Once the lights of a little town are lit, who could ever hope to tell all its story, or the story of a single wynd in it? And who looking at lighted windows needs to turn to books? The reason my books deal with the past instead of with the life I myself have known is simply this, that I soon grow tired of writing tales unless I can see a little girl, of whom my mother has told me, wandering confidently Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/269


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/270

Rh through the pages. Such a grip has her memory of her girlhood had upon me since I was a boy of six.

Those innumerable talks with her made her youth as vivid to me as my own, and so much more quaint, for, to a child, the oddest of things, and the most richly coloured picture-book, is that his mother was once a child also, and the contrast between what she is and what she was is perhaps the source of all humour. My mother's father, the one hero of her life, died nine years before I was born, and I remember this with bewilderment, so familiarly does the weather-beaten mason's figure rise before me from the old chair on which I was nursed and now write my books. On the surface he is as hard as the stone on which he chiselled, and his face is dyed red by its dust, he is rounded in the shoulders and a "hoast" hunts him ever; sooner or later that cough must carry him off, but until then it shall not keep him from the quarry, nor shall his chapped hands, as long as they can grasp the mell. It is a night of rain or snow, and my mother, the little girl in a pinafore who is already his housekeeper, has been many times to the door to look for him. At last he draws nigh, hoasting. Or I see him setting off to church, for he was a great "stoop" of the Auld Licht kirk, and his mouth is very firm now as if there were a case of discipline to face, but on his Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/270


text:
Portal:Adenanthos cuneatus

 * Labillardière, Jacques (1805), Novae Hollandiae plantarum specimen 1. (French)
 * Adenanthos cuneata published on page 28 and figured in plate 36.

 * Knight, Joseph (1809) On the cultivation of the plants belonging to the natural order of Proteeae
 * Adenanthes (sic) flabellifolia described on page 96. A. cuneata given as a synonym. A. flabellifolia cannot be typified, so is now treated as a synonym of A. cuneata.

 * Brown, Robert (1810), "On the Proteaceae of Jussieu" in Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 10
 * Adenanthos cuneata described on page 152.

 * Brown, Robert (1810) Prodromus florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen. (Latin)
 * Adenanthos cuneata described on page 367.

 * Willdenow, Carl Ludwig (1825) in Sprengel, Kurt, Systema Vegetabilium (16th edition) 1 (Latin)
 * Adenanthos cuneata and Adenanthos crenata described on page 472. The type specimen given for A. crenata is that of A. cuneata, so the former is now considered a synonym of the latter.

 * Meissner, Carl (1845), "Adenanthos" in Lehmann, Johann Georg Christian and Preiss, Ludwig, Plantae Preissianae sive Enumeratio plantarum quas in Australasia occidentali et meridionali-occidentali annis 1838-1841 1. (Latin)
 * Adenanthos cuneata described in volume 1, page 511, and on volume 2, page 247.

 * Meissner, Carl (1856) "Adenanthos" in de Candolle, A. P. (ed) Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis 14. (Latin)
 * Adenanthos cuneata described on page 312;

 * Bentham, George (1870) Flora Australiensis 5
 * Adenanthos cuneata described on page 352.

 * Nelson, Ernest Charles (1978). "A taxonomic revision of the genus Adenanthos Proteaceae". Brunonia 1: 303–406.
 * Adenanthos cuneata described on pages 387–389 (not in the public domain)

title: Portal:Adenanthos cuneatus


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/271

Rh way home he is bowed with pity. Perhaps his little daughter who saw him so stern an hour ago does not understand why he wrestles so long in prayer to-night, or why when he rises from his knees he presses her to him with unwonted tenderness. Or he is in this chair repeating to her his favourite poem, "The Cameronian's Dream," and at the first lines so solemnly uttered,

In a dream of the night I was wafted away,

she screams with excitement, just as I screamed long afterwards when she repeated them in his voice to me. Or I watch, as from a window, while she sets off through the long parks to the distant place where he is at work, in her hand a flaggon which contains his dinner. She is singing to herself and gleefully swinging the flaggon, she jumps the burn and proudly measures the jump with her eye, but she never dallies unless she meets a baby, for she was so fond of babies that she must hug each one she met, but while she hugged them she also noted how their robes were cut, and afterwards made paper patterns, which she concealed jealously, and in the fullness of time her first robe for her eldest born was fashioned from one of these patterns, made when she was in her twelfth year.

She was eight when her mother's death made her mistress of the house and mother to her little Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/271


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/272

Rh brother, and from that time she scrubbed and mended and baked and sewed, and argued with the flesher about the quarter-pound of beef and penny bone which provided dinner for two days (but if you think that this was poverty you don't know the meaning of the word), and she carried the water from the pump, and had her washing days and her ironings and a stocking always on the wire for odd moments, and gossiped like a matron with the other women, and humoured the men with a tolerant smile—all these things she did as a matter of course, leaping joyful from bed in the morning because there was so much to do, doing it as thoroughly and sedately as if the brides were already due for a lesson, and then rushing out in a fit of childishness to play dumps or palaulays with others of her age. I see her frocks lengthening, though they were never very short, and the games given reluctantly up. The horror of my boyhood was that I knew a time would come when I also must give up the games, and how it was to be done I saw not (this agony still returns to me in dreams, when I catch myself playing marbles, and look on with cold displeasure); I felt that I must continue playing in secret, and I took this shadow to her, when she told me her own experience, which convinced us both that we were very like each other inside. She had discovered that work is the best fun after Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/272


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/273

Rh all, and I learned it in time, but have my lapses, and so had she.

I know what was her favourite costume when she was at the age that they make heroines of: it was a pale blue with a pale blue bonnet, the white ribbons of which tied aggravatingly beneath the chin, and when questioned about this garb she never admitted that she looked pretty in it, but she did say, with blushes too, that blue was her colour, and then she might smile, as at some memory, and begin to tell us about a man who—but it ended there with another smile which was longer in departing. She never said, indeed she denied strenuously, that she had led the men a dance, but again the smile returned, and came between us and full belief. Yes, she had her little vanities; when she got the Mizpah ring she did carry that finger in such a way that the most reluctant must see. She was very particular about her gloves, and hid her boots so that no other should put them on, and then she forgot their hiding-place, and had suspicions of the one who found them. A good way of enraging her was to say that her last year's bonnet would do for this year without alteration, or that it would defy the face of clay to count the number of her shawls. In one of my books there is a mother who is setting off with her son for the town to which he had been called as minister, and she pauses on the threshold to ask Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/273


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/274

Rh him anxiously if he thinks her bonnet "sets" her. A reviewer said she acted thus, not because she cared how she looked, but for the sake of her son. This, I remember, amused my mother very much.

I have seen many weary on-dings of snow, but the one I seem to recollect best occurred nearly twenty years before I was born. It was at the time of my mother's marriage to one who proved a most loving as he was always a well-loved husband, a man I am very proud to be able to call my father. I know not for how many days the snow had been falling, but a day came when the people lost heart and would make no more gullies through it, and by next morning to do so was impossible, they could not fling the snow high enough. Its back was against every door when Sunday came, and none ventured out save a valiant few, who buffeted their way into my mothers home to discuss her predicament, for unless she was "cried" in the church that day she might not be married for another week, and how could she be cried with the minister a field away and the church buried to the waist? For hours they talked, and at last some men started for the church, which was several hundred yards distant. Three of them found a window, and forcing a passage through it, cried the pair, and that is how it came about that my father and mother were married on the first of March. Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/274


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/275

Rh That would be the end, I suppose, if it were a story, but to my mother it was only another beginning, and not the last. I see her bending over the cradle of her first-born, college for him already in her eye (and my father not less ambitious), and anon it is a girl who is in the cradle, and then another girl—already a tragic figure to those who know the end. I wonder if any instinct told my mother that the great day of her life was when she bore this child; what I am sure of is that from the first the child followed her with the most wistful eyes and saw how she needed help and longed to rise and give it. For of physical strength my mother had never very much; it was her spirit that got through the work, and in those days she was often so ill that the sand rained on the doctor's window, and men ran to and fro with leeches, and "she is in life, we can say no more" was the information for those who came knocking at the door. "I am sorrow to say," her father writes in an old letter now before me," that Margaret is in a state that she was never so bad before in this world. Till Wednesday night she was in as poor a condition as you could think of to be alive. However, after bleeding, leeching, etc., the Dr. says this morning that he is better hoped now, but at present we can say no more but only she is alive and in the hands of Him in whose hands all our lives are. I can give you no adequate view Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/275


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/276

Rh of what my feelings are, indeed they are a burden too heavy for me and I cannot describe them. I look on my right and left hand and find no comfort, and if it were not for the rock that is higher than I my spirit would utterly fail, but blessed be His name who can comfort those that are cast down. O for more faith in His supporting grace in this hour of trial."

Then she is "on the mend," she may "thole thro'" if they take great care of her," which we will be forward to do." The fourth child dies when but a few weeks old, and the next at two years. She was her grandfather's companion, and thus he wrote of her death, this stern, self-educated Auld Licht with the chapped hands:

"I hope you received my last in which I spoke of Dear little Lydia being unwell. Now with deep sorrow I must tell you that yesterday I assisted in laying her dear remains in the lonely grave. She died at 7 o'clock on Wednesday evening, I suppose by the time you had got the letter. The Dr. did not think it was croup till late on Tuesday night, and all that Medical aid could prescribe was done, but the Dr. had no hope after he saw that the croup was confirmed, and hard indeed would the heart have been that would not have melted at seeing what the dear little creature suffered all Wednesday until the feeble frame was quite worn out. She was quite sensible till within Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/276


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/277

Rh 2 hours of her death, and then she sunk quite low till the vital spark fled, and all medicine that she got she took with the greatest readiness, as if apprehensive they would make her well. I cannot well describe my feelings on the occasion. I thought that the fountain head of my tears had now been dried up, but I have been mistaken, for I must confess that the briny rivulets descended fast on my furrowed cheeks, she was such a winning Child, and had such a regard for me and always came and told me all her little things, and as she was now speaking, some of her little prattle was very taking, and the lively images of these things intrude themselves more into my mind than they should do, but there is allowance for moderate grief on such occasions. But when I am telling you of my own grief and sorrow, I know not what to say of the bereaved Mother, she hath not met with anything in this world before that hath gone so near the quick with her. She had no handling of the last one as she was not able at the time, for she only had her once in her arms, and her affections had not time to be so fairly entwined around her. I am much afraid that she will not soon if ever get over this trial. Although she was weakly before, yet she was pretty well recovered, but this hath not only affected her mind but her body is so much affected that she is not well able to sit so long as her bed is making and hath Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/277


text: Page:An introduction to pharmacognosy (1905).djvu/262


text: Page:An introduction to pharmacognosy (1905).djvu/250


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/278

Rh scarcely tasted meat [i. e. food] since Monday night, and till some time is elapsed we cannot say how she may be. There is none that is not a parent themselves that can fully sympathise with one in such a state. David is much affected also, but it is not so well known on him, and the younger branches of the family are affected but it will be only momentary. But alas in all this vast ado, there is only the sorrow of the world which worketh death, O how gladdening would it be if we were in as great bitterness for sin as for the loss of a first-born. O how unfitted persons or families is for trials who knows not the divine art of casting all their cares upon the Lord, and what multitudes are there that when earthly comforts is taken away, may well say what have I more? all their delight is placed in some one thing or another in the world, and who can blame them for unwillingly parting with what they esteem their chief good. O that we were wise to lay up treasure for the time of need, for it is truly a solemn affair to enter the lists with the king of terrors. It is strange that the living lay the things so little to heart until they have to engage in that war where there is no discharge. O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for my own and others' stupidity in this great matter. O for grace to do every day work in its proper time and to live above the tempting Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/278


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/279

Rh train of earthly things. The rest of the family are moderately well. I have been for some days worse than I have been for 8 months past, but I may soon get better, I am in the same way I have often been in before, but there is no security for it always being so, for I know that it cannot be far from the time when I will be one of those that once were. I have no other news to send you, and as little heart for them. I hope you will take the earliest opportunity of writing that you can, and be particular as regards Margaret, for she requires consolation."

He died exactly a week after writing this letter, but my mother was to live for another forty-four years. And joys of a kind never shared in by him were to come to her so abundantly, so long drawn out, that, strange as it would have seemed to him to know it, her fuller life had scarce yet begun. And with the joys were to come their sweet, frightened comrades, pain and grief, again she was to be touched to the quick, again and again to be so ill that "she is in life, we can say no more," but still she had attendants very "forward" to help her, some of them unborn in her father's time.

She told me everything, and so my memories of our little red town are coloured by her memories. I knew it as it had been for generations, and suddenly I saw it change, and the transformation Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/279


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/280

Rh could not fail to strike a boy, for these first years are the most impressionable (nothing that happens after we are twelve matters very much); they are also the most vivid years when we look back, and more vivid the farther we have to look, until, at the end, what lies between bends like a hoop, and the extremes meet. But though the new town is to me a glass through which I look at the old, the people I see passing up and down these wynds, sitting, night-capped, on their barrow-shafts, hobbling in their blacks to church on Sunday, are less those I saw in my childhood than their fathers and mothers who did these things in the same way when my mother was young. I cannot picture the place without seeing her, as a little girl, come to the door of a certain house and beat her bass against the gav'le-end, or there is a wedding to-night, and the carriage with the white-eared horse is sent for a maiden in pale blue, whose bonnet-strings tie beneath the chin. Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/280


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/281

 CHAPTER III

WHAT I SHOULD BE

mother was a great reader, and with ten minutes to spare before the starch was ready would begin the "Decline and Fall"—and finish it, too, that winter. Foreign words in the text annoyed her and made her bemoan her want of a classical education—she had only attended a Dame's school during some easy months—but she never passed the foreign words by until their meaning was explained to her, and when next she and they met it was as acquaintances, which I think was clever of her. One of her delights was to learn from me scraps of Horace, and then bring them into her conversation with "colleged men." I have come upon her in lonely places, such as the stair-head or the east room, muttering these quotations aloud to herself, and I well remember how she would say to the visitors, "Ay, ay, it's very true, Doctor, but as you know, 'Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni,'" or "Sal, Mr. so and so, my lassie is thriving well, but would it no be more to the point to say 'O mater, pulchra filia pulchrior'?" Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/281


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/282

Rh which astounded them very much if she managed to reach the end without being flung, but usually she had a fit of laughing in the middle, and so they found her out.

Biography and exploration were her favourite reading, for choice the biography of men who had been good to their mothers, and she liked the explorers to be alive so that she could shudder at the thought of their venturing forth again, but though she expressed a hope that they would have the sense to stay at home henceforth, she gleamed with admiration when they disappointed her. In later days I had a friend who was an African explorer, and she was in two minds about him; he was one of the most engrossing of mortals to her, she admired him prodigiously, pictured him at the head of his caravan, now attacked by savages, now by wild beasts, and adored him for the uneasy hours he gave her, but she was also afraid that he wanted to take me with him, and then she thought he should be put down by law. Explorers' mothers also interested her very much; the books might tell her nothing about them, but she could create them for herself and wring her hands in sympathy with them when they had got no news of him for six months. Yet there were times when she grudged him to them—as the day when he returned victorious. Then what was before her eyes was not the son coming marching home Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/282


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/283

Rh again, but an old woman peering for him round the window curtain and trying not to look uplifted. The newspaper reports would be about the son, but my mother's comment was "She's a proud woman this night."

We read many books together when I was a boy, "Robinson Crusoe" being the first (and the second), and the "Arabian Nights" should have been the next, for we got it out of the library (a penny for three days), but on discovering that they were nights when we had paid for knights we sent that volume packing, and I have curled my lips at it ever since. "The Pilgrim's Progress" we had in the house (it was as common a possession as a dresser-head), and so enamoured of it was I that I turned our garden into sloughs of Despond, with pea-sticks to represent Christian on his travels and a buffet-stool for his burden, but when I dragged my mother out to see my handiwork she was scared, and I felt for days, with a certain elation, that I had been a dark character. Besides reading every book we could hire or borrow I also bought one now and again, and while buying (it was the occupation of weeks) I read, standing at the counter, most of the other books in the shop, which is perhaps the most exquisite way of reading. And I took in a magazine called "Sunshine," the most delicious periodical, I am sure, of any day. It cost a halfpenny or a penny Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/283


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/284

Rh a month, and always, as I fondly remember, had a continued tale about the dearest girl, who sold water-cress, which is a dainty not grown and I suppose never seen in my native town. This romantic little creature took such hold of my imagination that I cannot eat water-cress even now without emotion. I lay in bed wondering what she would be up to in the next number; I have lost trout because when they nibbled my mind was wandering with her; my early life was embittered by her not arriving regularly on the first of the month. I know not whether it was owing to her loitering on the way one month to an extent flesh and blood could not bear, or because we had exhausted the penny library, but on a day I conceived a glorious idea, or it was put into my head by my mother, then desirous of making progress with her new clouty hearth-rug, The notion was nothing short of this, why should I not write the tales myself? I did write them—in the garret—but they by no means helped her to get on with her work, for when I finished a chapter I bounded downstairs to read it to her, and so short were the chapters, so ready was the pen, that I was back with new manuscript before another clout had been added to the rug. Authorship seemed, like her bannock-baking, to consist of running between two points. They were all tales of adventure (happiest is he who writes of Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/284


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/285

Rh adventure), no characters were allowed within if I knew their like in the flesh, the scene lay in unknown parts, desert islands, enchanted gardens, with knights (none of your nights) on black chargers, and round the first corner a lady selling water-cress.

At twelve or thereabout I put the literary calling to bed for a time, having gone to a school where cricket and football were more esteemed, but during the year before I went to the university, it woke up and I wrote great part of a three-volume novel. The publisher replied that the sum for which he would print it was a hundred and—however, that was not the important point (I had sixpence): where he stabbed us both was in writing that he considered me a "clever lady." I replied stiffly that I was a gentleman, and since then I have kept that manuscript concealed. I looked through it lately, and, oh, but it is dull. I defy any one to read it.

The malignancy of publishers, however, could not turn me back. From the day on which I first tasted blood in the garret my mind was made up; there could be no hum-dreadful-drum profession for me; literature was my game. It was not highly thought of by those who wished me well. I remember being asked by two maiden ladies, about the time I left the university, what I was to be, and when I replied brazenly, "An author," Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/285


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/366

  Hill, and in consequence left Stepney to found a Unitarian chapel at Highgate. Among other new causes due directly to his suggestion, and largely to his aid, were those at Clerkenwell, Croydon, Forest Hill, Netting Hill, and Peckham; and, outside London, there were few parts of the country where his influence was not felt among unitarians as a stimulus to propagandist work. Biblical as he was in his own theology, he was deeply interested in the monotheistic movement of the Brahmo Somaj of India, and was in close contact with its leaders from the visit (1870) to this country of the late Keshub Chunder Sen (who was his guest). On his initiative was founded (7 June 1881) the ‘Christian Conference,’ which has brought together representatives of all denominations, from Cardinal Manning to Dr. Martineau. He had travelled in France, Italy, and America, and kept up a correspondence with liberal thinkers in all parts of the world. Personally he was a man of singularly winning characteristics; his massive head was full of strong good sense and marvellous knowledge of men and things; his robust energy was equalled only by his generous warmth of heart. He died at his residence, Arundel House, Highgate, of internal cancer, on 25 Feb. 1899, and was buried at Nunhead cemetery on 1 March. He married, first (1846), Margaret Kirton (d. 1867), by whom he had five children, of whom the youngest daughter survived him; secondly (1869), Emily Glover, who survived him with two sons and four daughters.

He published: He prefaced Belsham's ‘Memoirs of Lindsey’ (3rd edit. 1873, 8vo); compiled from Priestley's works ‘The Apostolic and Primitive Church … Unitarian’ (1871, 12mo); and wrote the introduction and appendix to Stannus's ‘History of the Origin of the Doctrine of the Trinity’ (1882, 8vo). He brought out popular editions of Channing's works, 1873, 8vo; 1884, 4to. His ‘Scriptural Declaration of Unitarian Principles’ has been the most widely circulated of Unitarian tracts.
 * 1) ‘The Unitarian Hand-book,’ Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1859?, 12mo; 2nd edit. 1862, 12mo; later edits, revised by Russell Lant Carpenter (d. 1892).
 * 2) ‘Record of Unitarian Worthies’ [1877], 8vo; the prefixed ‘Historical Sketch’ was reprinted, 1895, 8vo.

STANSFELD, JAMES (1820–1898), politician, born at Moorlands, Halifax, on 5 Oct. 1820, was the only son of James Stansfeld (1792–1872), originally a member of a firm of solicitors, Stansfeld & Craven, and subsequently county-court judge of the district comprising Halifax, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, and Holmfirth. His mother was Emma, daughter of James Ralph, minister of the Northgate-End independent chapel, Halifax, and his sister married [q. v. Suppl.] Brought up as a nonconformist, Stansfeld was in 1837 sent to University College, London, whence he graduated B.A. in 1840 and LL.B. in 1844. He was admitted student of the Middle Temple on 31 Oct. 1840, and was called to the bar on 26 Jan. 1849; he does not seem, however, to have practised, and later in life derived his income mainly from his brewery at Fulham.

On 27 July 1844 Stansfeld married Caroline, second daughter of [q. v.], the well-known radical and friend of Mazzini, and in 1847 Stansfeld was himself introduced to the Italian patriot, with whom he formed an intimate friendship. Stansfeld sympathised with the chartist movement, though on one occasion [q. v.] denounced him as ‘a capitalist wolf in sheep's clothing.' He also took an active part in propagating radical opinions in the north of England, frequently spoke at meetings of the Northern Reform Union, and was one of the promoters of the association for the repeal of taxes on knowledge.

On 29 April 1859 Stansfeld was returned to parliament for his native town, Halifax, which he continued to represent for more than thirty-six years. In the House of Commons he generally acted with the extreme liberals led by Bright and Forster, and in June 1862 he moved a resolution, which was defeated by 367 to 65 votes, in favour of reducing national expenditure. His efforts were, however, mainly devoted to the furtherance of Italian unity, and he published several speeches and lectures delivered in that cause. When Garibaldi visited England in 1862 he chose Stansfeld as his adviser, and subsequently referred to him as a ‘type of English courage, loyalty, and consistency, the friend of Italy in her evil days, the champion of the weak and of the oppressed abroad.’ In February 1863 Stansfeld moved a resolution in the House of Commons of sympathy with the Poles, which was supported by Lord Robert Cecil (now Marquis of Salisbury), and in the following April Palmerston appointed Stansfeld a junior lord of the admiralty.


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/286

Rh they flung up their hands, and one exclaimed reproachfully, "And you an M. A.!" My mother's views at first were not dissimilar; for long she took mine jestingly as something I would grow out of, and afterwards they hurt her so that I tried to give them up. To be a minister—that she thought was among the fairest prospects, but she was a very ambitious woman, and sometimes she would add, half scared at her appetite, that there were ministers who had become professors, "but it was not canny to think of such things."

I had one person only on my side, an old tailor, one of the fullest men I have known, and quite the best talker. He was a bachelor (he told me all that is to be known about woman), a lean man, pallid of face, his legs drawn up when he walked, as if he was ever carrying something in his lap; his walks were of the shortest, from the tea-pot on the hob to the board on which he stitched, from the board to the hob, and so to bed. He might have gone out had the idea struck him, but in the years I knew him, the last of his brave life, I think he was only in the open twice, when he "flitted"—changed his room for another hard by. I did not see him make these journeys, but I seem to see him now, and he is somewhat dizzy in the odd atmosphere; in one hand he carries a box-iron, he raises the other, wondering what this is on his head—it is a hat; a faint smell of singed cloth goes Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/286


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/287

Rh by with him. This man had heard of my set of photographs of the poets and asked for a sight of them, which led to our first meeting. I remember how he spread them out on his board, and after looking long at them, turned his gaze on me and said solemnly,

These lines of Cowley were new to me, but the sentiment was not new, and I marvelled how the old tailor could see through me so well. So it was strange to me to discover presently that he had not been thinking of me at all, but of his own young days, when that couplet sang in his head, and he, too, had thirsted to set off for Grub Street, but was afraid, and while he hesitated old age came, and then Death, and found him grasping a box-iron.

I hurried home with the mouthful, but neighbours had dropped in, and this was for her ears only, so I drew her to the stair, and said imperiously,

It was an odd request for which to draw her from a tea-table, and she must have been surprised, but I think she did not laugh, and in after years she

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/287


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/288

Rh would repeat the lines fondly, with a flush on her soft face. "That is the kind you would like to be yourself!" we would say in jest to her, and she would reply almost passionately, "No, but I would be windy of being his mother." It is possible that she could have been his mother had that other son lived, he might have managed it from sheer love of her, but for my part I can smile at one of those two figures on the stair now, having long given up the dream of being for ever known, and seeing myself more akin to my friend, the tailor; for as he was found at the end on his board, so I hope shall I be found at my hand-loom, doing honestly the work that suits me best. Who shall know so well as I that it is but a hand-loom compared to the great guns that reverberate through the age to come? But she who stood with me on the stair that day was a very simple woman, accustomed all her life to making the most of small things, and I weaved sufficiently well to please her, which has been my only steadfast ambition since I was a little boy.

Not less than mine became her desire that I should have my way—but, ah, the iron seats in that Park of horrible repute, and that bare room at the top of many flights of stairs! While I was away at college she drained all available libraries for books about those who go to London to live by the pen, and they all told the same shuddering Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/288


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Spears, Robert


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Snowdon, John


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/289

Rh tale. London, which she never saw, was to her a monster that licked up country youths as they stepped from the train; there were the garrets in which they sat abject, and the park seats where they passed the night. Those park seats were the monster's glaring eyes to her, and as I go by them now she is nearer to me than when I am in any other part of London. I daresay that when night comes, this Hyde Park which is so gay by day is haunted by the ghosts of many mothers, who run, wild-eyed, from seat to seat, looking for their sons.

But if we could dodge those dreary seats she longed to see me try my luck, and I sought to exclude them from the picture by drawing maps of London with Hyde Park left out. London was as strange to me as to her, but long before I was shot upon it I knew it by maps, and drew them more accurately than I could draw them now. Many a time she and I took our jaunt together through the map, and were most gleeful, popping into telegraph offices to wire my father and sister that we should not be home till late, winking to my books in lordly shop-windows, lunching at restaurants (and remembering not to call it dinner), saying, "How do?" to Mr. Alfred Tennyson when we passed him in Regent Street, calling at publishers offices for a cheque, when "Will you take care of it, or shall I?" I asked gaily, and she would be certain to reply, "I'm thinking we'd  Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/289


text:
Page:Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day.djvu/232

 own words, the story of how 'Punch' was founded, and how it became the most successful of satirical and comic journals.

'Punch,' said its present editor, in a very charming and witty lecture he used to deliver on 'Modern Satire,' 'was founded July 17th, 1841, by two or three gentlemen—Henry Mayhew, the original projector, Mark Lemon, E. Landells, Sterling Coyne, and Henry Grattan. It was at first a joint speculation of authors, artists, and engravers; and I was only connected with it after it had been established, and others had borne the heat and burden of the day. The first and second numbers were brought out; but, in truth, it was a question whether the third would appear, for want of funds, for it was no secret that the projectors were none of them rich men. Indeed, I may say they were all poor men. Had it not been for the happy accident of Mr. Mark Lemon having a farce, "The Silver Thimble," accepted at one of the minor theatres, "Punch" would have been stopped. The silver thimble, however, was large enough to cover the acorn, which has since grown into an oak. At first, the paper was published by a person who was noted as being connected with some disreputable prints, and there was an ill-odour resulting from the connection hanging about "Punch." This was no fault of the projectors; and the moment they were aware of the fact, they took the paper to a respectable firm, who became the proprietors; and from that time the paper has increased largely from year to year in popularity and circulation. Perhaps a good reason why "Punch" has been successful lies in the fact that there has been no line, from the first to the last, which might not be read by a girl of eighteen. Had it been otherwise, I hope I should not have been in this hall to talk about it.'

Speaking of the old contributors, the lecturer referred to Douglas Jerrold (born in London in 1803, died 8th of June 1857), whose writings under the signature of Q., the first of which appeared on the 13th September 1841, were very successful, and soon gained notoriety. The late Gilbert à'Beckett (born in London, 1810; died at Boulogne, 1856) was another valued contributor. The sketch of a London magistrate in 'Aspen Court' is a portrait of Mr. à'Beckett by the hand of his friend, Shirley Brooks. John Leech, who was born in London in 1816, was mentioned in appropriate terms of eulogy. 'The greatest compliment that could be paid to


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/290

Rh take it to the bank and get the money," for she always felt surer of money than of cheques, so to the bank we went ("Two tens, and the rest in gold"), and thence straightway (by cab) to the place where you buy sealskin coats for middling old ladies. But ere the laugh was done the park would come through the map like a blot.

"If you could only be sure of as much as would keep body and soul together," my mother would say with a sigh.

"With something over, mother, to send to you."

"You couldna expect that at the start."

The wench I should have been courting now was journalism, that grisette of literature who has a smile and a hand for all beginners, welcoming them at the threshold, teaching them so much that is worth knowing, introducing them to the other lady whom they have worshipped from afar, showing them even how to woo her, and then bidding them a bright God-speed—he were an ingrate who, having had her joyous companionship, no longer flings her a kiss as they pass. But though she bears no ill-will when she is jilted, you must serve faithfully while you are hers, and you must seek her out and make much of her, and, until you can rely on her good-nature (note this), not a word about the other lady. When at last she took me in I grew so fond of her that I called Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/290


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/291

Rh her by the other's name, and even now I think at times that there was more fun in the little sister, but I began by wooing her with contributions that were all misfits. In an old book I find columns of notes about works projected at this time, nearly all to consist of essays on deeply uninteresting subjects; the lightest was to be a volume on the older satirists, beginning with Skelton and Tom Nash—the half of that manuscript still lies in a dusty chest—the only story was about Mary Queen of Scots, who was also the subject of many unwritten papers. Queen Mary seems to have been luring me to my undoing ever since I saw Holyrood, and I have a horrid fear that I may write that novel yet. That anything could be written about my native place never struck me. We had read somewhere that a novelist is better equipped than most of his trade if he knows himself and one woman, and my mother said, "You know yourself for everybody must know himself" (there never was a woman who knew less about herself than she), and she would add dolefully, "But I doubt I'm the only woman you know well."

"Then I must make you my heroine," I said lightly.

"A gey auld-farrant-like heroine!" she said, and we both laughed at the notion—so little did we read the future. Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/291


text: Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day/Dr. Garrett Anderson


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/292

Rh Thus it is obvious what were my qualifications when I was rashly engaged as a leader-writer (it was my sister who saw the advertisement) on an English provincial paper. At the moment I was as uplifted as the others, for the chance had come at last, with what we all regarded as a prodigious salary, but I was wanted in the beginning of the week, and it suddenly struck me that the leaders were the one thing I had always skipped. Leaders! How were they written? what were they about? My mother was already sitting triumphant among my socks, and I durst not let her see me quaking. I retired to ponder, and presently she came to me with the daily paper. Which were the leaders? she wanted to know, so evidently I could get no help from her. Had she any more newspapers? I asked, and after rummaging she produced a few with which her boxes had been lined. Others, very dusty, came from beneath carpets, and lastly a sooty bundle was dragged down the chimney. Surrounded by these, I sat down and studied how to become a journalist. Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/292


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/293

 CHAPTER IV

AN EDITOR

lady, to whom some friend had presented one of my books, used to say when asked how she was getting on with it, "Sal, it's dreary, weary, uphill work, but I've wrastled through with tougher jobs in my time, and, please God, I'll wrastle through with this one." It was in this spirit, I fear, though she never told me so, that my mother wrestled for the next year or more with my leaders, and indeed I was always genuinely sorry for the people I saw reading them. In my spare hours I was trying journalism of another kind and sending it to London, but nearly eighteen months elapsed before there came to me, as unlocked for as a telegram, the thought that there was something quaint about my native place. A boy who found that a knife had been put into his pocket in the night could not have been more surprised. A few days afterwards I sent my mother a London evening paper with an article entitled "An Auld Licht Community," and they told me that when she saw the heading she laughed, because there was something droll to her in the sight of the words Auld Licht Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/293


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/294

Rh in print. For her, as for me, that newspaper was soon to have the face of a friend. To this day I never pass its placards in the street without shaking it by the hand, and she used to sew its pages together as lovingly as though they were a child's frock; but let the truth be told, when she read that first article she became alarmed, and fearing the talk of the town, hid the paper from all eyes. For some time afterwards, while I proudly pictured her showing this and similar articles to all who felt an interest in me, she was really concealing them fearfully in a bandbox on the garret stair. And she wanted to know by return of post whether I was paid for these articles just as I was paid for real articles; when she heard that I was paid better, she laughed again and had them out of the bandbox for re-reading, and it cannot be denied that she thought the London editor a fine fellow but slightly soft.

When I sent off that first sketch I thought I had exhausted the subject, but our editor wrote that he would like something more of the same, so I sent him a marriage, and he took it, and then I tried him with a funeral, and he took it, and really it began to look as if we had him. Now my mother might have been discovered, in answer to certain excited letters, flinging the bundle of undarned socks from her lap, and "going in for literature;" she was racking her brains, by request Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/294


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/295

Rh for memories I might convert into articles, and they came to me in letters which she dictated to my sisters. How well I could hear her saying between the lines: "But the editor-man will never stand that, it's perfect blethers"——"By this post it must go, I tell you; we must take the editor when he's hungry—we canna be blamed for it, can we? he prints them of his free will, so the wite is his"——"But I'm near terrified.—If London folk reads them we're done for." And I was sounded as to the advisability of sending him a present of a lippie of short-bread, which was to be her crafty way of getting round him. By this time, though my mother and I were hundreds of miles apart, you may picture us waving our hands to each other across country, and shouting "Hurrah!" You may also picture the editor in his office thinking he was behaving like a shrewd man of business, and unconscious that up in the north there was an elderly lady chuckling so much at him that she could scarcely scrape the potatoes.

I was now able to see my mother again, and the park seats no longer loomed so prominent in our map of London. Still, there they were, and it was with an effort that she summoned up courage to let me go. She feared changes, and who could tell that the editor would continue to be kind? Perhaps when he saw me—

She seemed to be very much afraid of his seeing Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/295


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/296

Rh me, and this, I would point out, was a reflection on my appearance or my manner.

No, what she meant was that I looked so young, and—and that would take him aback, for had I not written as an aged man?

"But he knows my age, mother."

"I'm glad of that, but maybe he wouldna like you when he saw you."

"Oh, it is my manner, then!"

"I dinna say that, but——"

Here my sister would break in: "The short and the long of it is just this, she thinks nobody has such manners as herself. Can you deny it, you vain woman?"

My mother would deny it vigorously.

"You stand there," my sister would say with affected scorn, "and tell me you don't think you could get the better of that man quicker than any of us?"

"Sal, I'm thinking I could manage him," says my mother, with a chuckle.

"How would you set about it?"

Then my mother would begin to laugh. "I would find out first if he had a family, and then I would say they were the finest family in London."

"Yes, that is just what you would do, you cunning woman! But if he has no family?"

"I would say what great men editors are!"

"He would see through you."

"Not he!" Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/296


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/297

Rh "You don't understand that what imposes on common folk would never hoodwink an editor."

"That's where you are wrong. Gentle or simple, stupid or clever, the men are all alike in the hands of a woman that flatters them."

"Ah, I'm sure there are better ways of getting round an editor than that."

"I daresay there are," my mother would say with conviction, "but if you try that plan you will never need to try another."

"How artful you are, mother—you with your soft face! Do you not think shame?"

"Pooh!" says my mother brazenly.

"I can see the reason why you are so popular with men."

"Ay, you can see it, but they never will."

"Well, how would you dress yourself if you were going to that editor's office?"

"Of course I would wear my silk and my Sabbath bonnet."

"It is you who are shortsighted now, mother. I tell you, you would manage him better if you just put on your old grey shawl and one of your bonny white mutches, and went in half smiling and half timid and said, 'I am the mother of him that writes about the Auld Lichts, and I want you to promise that he will never have to sleep in the open air.'"

But my mother would shake her head at this, Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/297


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/298

Rh and reply almost hotly, "I tell you if I ever go into that man's office, I go in silk."

I wrote and asked the editor if I should come to London, and he said No, so I went, laden with charges from my mother to walk in the middle of the street (they jump out on you as you are turning a corner), never to venture forth after sunset, and always to lock up everything (I who could never lock up anything, except my heart in company). Thanks to this editor, for the others would have nothing to say to me though I battered on all their doors, she was soon able to sleep at nights without the dread that I should -be waking presently with the iron-work of certain seats figured on my person, and what relieved her very much was that I had begun to write as if Auld Lichts were not the only people I knew of. So long as I confined myself to them she had a haunting fear that, even though the editor remained blind to his best interests, something would one day go crack within me (as the mainspring of a watch breaks) and my pen refuse to write for evermore. "Ay, I like the article brawly," she would say timidly, "but I'm doubting it's the last—I always have a sort of terror the new one may be the last," and it many days elapsed before the arrival of another article her face would say mournfully, "The blow has fallen—he can think of nothing more to write about." If I ever shared her fears I never told her Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/298


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/299

Rh so, and the articles that were not Scotch grew in number until there were hundreds of them, all carefully preserved by her: they were the only thing in the house that, having served one purpose, she did not convert into something else, yet they could give her uneasy moments. This was because I nearly always assumed a character when I wrote; I must be a country squire, or an undergraduate, or a butler, or a member of the House of Lords, or a dowager, or a lady called Sweet Seventeen, or an engineer in India, else was my pen clogged; and though this gave my mother certain fearful joys, causing her to laugh unexpectedly (so far as my articles were concerned she nearly always laughed in the wrong place), it also scared her. Much to her amusement, the editor continued to prefer the Auld Licht papers, however, as was proved (to those who knew him) by his way of thinking that the others would pass as they were, while he sent these back and asked me to make them better. Here again she came to my aid. I had said that the row of stockings were hung on a string by the fire, which was a recollection of my own, but she could tell me whether they were hung upside down. She became quite skilful at sending or giving me (for now I could be with her half the year) the right details, but still she smiled at the editor, and in her gay moods she would say, "I was fifteen when I got my first Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/299


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/300

Rh pair of elastic-sided boots. Tell him my charge for this important news is two pounds ten."

"Ay, but though we're doing well, it's no the same as if they were a book with your name on it." So the ambitious woman would say with a sigh, and I did my best to turn the Auld Licht sketches into a book with my name on it. Then perhaps we understood most fully how good a friend our editor had been, for just as I had been able to find no well-known magazine—and I think I tried all—which would print any article or story about the poor of my native land, so now the publishers, Scotch and English, refused to accept the book as a gift. I was willing to present it to them, but they would have it in no guise; there seemed to be a blight on everything that was Scotch. I daresay we sighed, but never were collaborators more prepared for rejection, and though my mother might look wistfully at the scorned manuscript at times and murmur, "You poor cold little crittur shut away in a drawer, are you dead or just sleeping?" she had still her editor to say grace over. And at last publishers, sufficiently daring and far more than sufficiently generous, were found for us by a dear friend, who made one woman very "uplifted." He also was an editor, and had as large a part in making me a writer of books as the other in determining what the books should be about. Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/300


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/301

Rh Now that I was an author, I must get into a club. But you should have heard my mother on clubs! She knew of none save those to which you subscribe a pittance weekly in anticipation of rainy days, and the London clubs were her scorn. Often I heard her on them—she raised her voice to make me hear, whichever room I might be in, and it was when she was sarcastic that I skulked the most: "Thirty pounds is what he will have to pay the first year, and ten pounds a year after that. You think it's a lot o' siller? Oh, no, you're mista'en—it's nothing ava. For the third part of thirty pounds you could rent a four-roomed house, but what is a four-roomed house, what is thirty pounds, compared to the glory of being a member of a club! Where does the glory come in ? Sal, you needna ask me, I'm just a doited auld stock that never set foot in a club, so it's little I ken about glory. But I may tell you if you bide in London and canna become member of a club, the best you can do is to tie a rope round your neck and slip out of the world. What use are they? Oh, they're terrible useful. You see, it doesna do for a man in London to eat his dinner in his lodgings. Other men shake their heads at him. He maun away to his club if he is to be respected. Does he get good dinners at the club? Oh, they cow! You get no common beef at clubs; there is a manzy of different things all Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/301


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/302

Rh sauced up to be unlike themsels. Even the potatoes daurna look like potatoes. If the food in a club looks like what it is, the members run about, flinging up their hands and crying, "Woe is me!" Then this is another thing, you get your letters sent to the club instead of to your lodgings. You see, you would get them sooner at your lodgings, and you may have to trudge weary miles to the club for them; but that's a great advantage, and cheap at thirty pounds, is it no? I wonder they can do it at the price."

My wisest policy was to remain downstairs when these withering blasts were blowing, but probably I went up in self-defence.

"I never saw you so pugnacious before, mother."

"Oh," she would reply promptly, "you canna expect me to be sharp in the uptake when I am no a member of a club."

"But the difficulty is in becoming a member. They are very particular about whom they elect, and I daresay I shall not get in."

"Well, I'm but a poor crittur (not being member of a club), but I think I can tell you to make your mind easy on that head. You'll get in, I'se uphaud—and your thirty pounds will get in, too."

"If I get in, it will be because the editor is supporting me."

"It's the first ill thing I ever heard of him." Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/302


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/303

Rh "You don't think he is to get any of the thirty pounds, do you?"

"'Deed if I did I should be better pleased, for he has been a good friend to us; but what maddens me is that every penny of it should go to those bare-faced scoundrels."

"What bare-faced scoundrels?"

"Them that have the club."

"But all the members have the club between them."

"Havers! I'm no to be catched with chaff."

"But don't you believe me?"

"I believe they've filled your head with their stories till you swallow whatever they tell you. If the place belongs to the members, why do they have to pay thirty pounds?"

"To keep it going."

"They dinna have to pay for their dinners, then?"

"Oh, yes, they have to pay extra for dinner."

"And a gey black price, I'm thinking."

"Well, five or six shillings."

"Is that all ? Losh, it's nothing. I wonder they dinna raise the price."

Nevertheless my mother was of a sex that scorned prejudice, and, dropping sarcasm, she would at times cross-examine me as if her mind was not yet made up. "Tell me this, if you were Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/303


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/304

Rh to fall ill, would you be paid a weekly allowance out of the club?"

No, it was not that kind of club.

"I see. Well, I am just trying to find out what kind of club it is. Do you get anything out of it for accidents?"

Not a penny.

"Anything at New Year's time?"

Not so much as a goose.

"Is there any one mortal thing you get free out of that club?"

There was not one mortal thing.

"And thirty pounds is what you pay for this?"

If the committee elected me.

"How many are in the committee?"

About a dozen, I thought.

"A dozen! Ay, ay, that makes two pound ten apiece."

When I was elected I thought it wisdom to send my sister upstairs with the news. My mother was ironing, and made no comment, unless with the iron, which I could hear rattling more violently in its box. Presently I heard her laughing—at me undoubtedly, but she had recovered control over her face before she came downstairs to congratulate me sarcastically. This was grand news, she said without a twinkle, and I must write and thank the committee, the noble critturs. I saw behind her mask, and maintained a dignified Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/304


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/305

Rh silence, but she would have another shot at me. "And tell them," she said from the door, "you were doubtful of being elected, but your auld mother had aye a mighty confidence they would snick you in." I heard her laughing softly as she went up the stair, but though I had provided her with a joke I knew she was burning to tell the committee what she thought of them.

Money, you see, meant so much to her, though even at her poorest she was the most cheerful giver. In the old days, when the article arrived, she did not read it at once, she first counted the lines to discover what we should get for it—she and the daughter who was so dear to her had calculated the payment per line, and I remember once overhearing a discussion between them about whether that sub-title meant another sixpence. Yes, she knew the value of money; she had always in the end got the things she wanted, but now she could get them more easily, and it turned her simple life into a fairy tale. So often in those days she went down suddenly upon her knees; we would come upon her thus, and go away noiselessly. After her death I found that she had preserved in a little box, with a photograph of me as a child, the envelopes which had contained my first cheques. There was a little ribbon round them. Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/305


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/306

 CHAPTER V

A DAY OF HER LIFE

like to call back a day of her life as it was at this time, when her spirit was as bright as ever and her hand as eager, but she was no longer able to do much work. It should not be difficult, for she repeated herself from day to day, and yet did it with a quaint unreasonableness that was ever yielding fresh delight. Our love for her was such that we could easily tell what she would do in given circumstances, but she had always a new way of doing it.

Well, with break of day she wakes and sits up in bed and is standing in the middle of the room. So nimble was she in the mornings (one of our troubles with her) that these three actions must be considered as one; she is on the floor before you have time to count them. She has strict orders not to rise until her fire is lit, and having broken them there is a demure elation on her face. The question is what to do before she is caught and hurried to bed again. Her fingers are tingling to prepare the breakfast; she would dearly love to Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/306


text:
Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/307

Rh black-lead the grate, but that might rouse her daughter from whose side she has slipped so cunningly. She catches sight of the screen at the foot of the bed, and immediately her soft face becomes very determined. To guard her from draughts the screen had been brought here from the lordly east room, where it was of no use whatever. But in her opinion it was too beautiful for use; it belonged to the east room, where she could take pleasant peeps at it; she had objected to its removal, even become low-spirited. Now is her opportunity. The screen is an unwieldy thing, but still as a mouse she carries it, and they are well under way when it strikes against the gas-bracket in the passage. Next moment a reproachful hand arrests her. She is challenged with being out of bed, she denies it—standing in the passage. Meekly or stubbornly she returns to bed, and it is no satisfaction to you that you can say, "Well, well, of all the women!" and so on, or "Surely you knew that the screen was brought here to protect you," for she will reply scornfully, "Who was touching the screen?"

By this time I have awakened (I am through the wall) and join them anxiously: so often has my mother been taken ill in the night that the slightest sound from her room rouses the house. She is in bed again, looking as if she had never been out of it, but I know her and listen sternly Rh

title: Page:Peter and Wendy.djvu/307


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/26

 xviii II

Smith had no sooner addressed himself to his heavy task than he found himself face to face with a crisis in the affairs of the firm of exceptional difficulty for so young a man to grapple with. The third partner was discovered to be misusing the firm's credit and capital, and had to withdraw from the partnership under circumstances that involved grave anxiety to all concerned. Elder, who had not of late years given close attention to the business, made up his mind to retire almost at the same time. Smith was thus left to conduct single-handed the firm's affairs at a moment when the utmost caution and financial skill were required to maintain its equilibrium Although no more than twenty-two, he proved himself equal to the situation. By a rare combination of sagacity and daring, by a masterful yet tactful exercise of authority, and by unremitting application, he was able to set the firm's affairs in order, to unravel the complications due to neglected bookkeeping, and to launch the concern anew on a career of prosperity far greater than that it had previously known.

For a time the major part of his energies and business instinct was devoted to the control and extension of the agency and banking department. It is difficult to overestimate the powers of work which he brought to his task. 'It was a common thing for me,' he wrote of this period, 'and many of the clerks to work until three or four o'clock in the morning, and occasionally, when there was but a short interval between the arrival and departure of the Indian mails, I used to start work at nine o'clock of one morning, and neither leave my room nor cease dictating until seven o'clock the next evening, when the mail was despatched. During these thirty-two hours of continuous work I was supported by mutton chops and green tea at stated intervals. I believe I maintained my health by active exercise on foot and horseback, and by being able, after these excessive stretches of work, to sleep soundly for many hours; on these occasions I generally got to bed at about eleven, and slept till three or four o'clock the next afternoon.'

Astonishing success followed Smith's efforts. The profits rose steadily, and the volume of business, which was well under 50,000l. when he assumed control of the concern, multiplied thirteen times within twenty years of his becoming its moving spirit. The clerks at Cornhill in a few years numbered 150. An important branch was established at Bombay, and other agencies were opened at Java and on the West Coast of Africa. There was no manner of merchandise for which Smith's clients could apply to him in vain. Scientific instruments for surveying purposes, the testing of which needed the closest supervision, were regularly forwarded to the Indian government. The earliest electric telegraph plant that reached India was despatched from Cornhill. It was an ordinary experience to export munitions


text: Index:Manners and customs of ye Englyshe.djvu


text:
Author:Percival Leigh

Works

 * The Comic English Grammar, illustrated by John Leech (1840)
 * Manners and customs of ye Englyshe, illustrated by Richard Doyle (1849)

title: Author:Percival Leigh


text:
Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/198

previously considered in some detail the various modes of change in language—the processes of linguistic life, as, by an allowable figure, we termed them—we went on at our last interview to direct our attention to the circumstances and conditions which govern the working of those processes, giving prominence to the one or the other of them, and quickening or retarding their joint effects. We then proceeded to inquire into the manner in which the same processes operate to divide any given form of speech, with the lapse of time, into varying forms, or to convert a language into dialects. We passed in review the causes which favour the development of dialectic differences, as well as those which limit and oppose such development, and even tend to bring uniformity out of diversity. They are, we found, of two general kinds: the one, proceeding from individuals, and founded on the diversities of individual character and circumstance, tend to indefinite separation and discordance; the other, acting in communities, and arising from the necessity of mutual intelligence, the grand aim and purpose of language, make for uniformity and assimilation,


text:
Page:Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day.djvu/233

 him was that of some young ladies who were too far from a town to procure the fashions early, so they dressed themselves after the style of his caricatures.' Albert Smith (1816-1860) was an able contributor. Thomas Hood (1778 [sic]-1845), whose various pen touched alike the springs of laughter and the sources of tears, was amongst those who wrote for 'Punch.' This is the story of the publication of the celebrated 'Song of the Shirt.' Hood sent it to Mark Lemon, for insertion in 'Punch,' with a note of apology. 'I sent it to a first-rate magazine, and they wrote back, "It is hardly the thing for genteel people." 'What say you?' said Shirley Brooks. The answer of his audience need hardly be told—how their applause recorded their appreciation of the writings of Thomas Hood.

Tom Taylor, born at Sunderland in 1817, was also a contributor. Perceval Leigh—whose name was not so well known, but 'Pips his Diary,' and 'Ye Manners and Customs of ye English in ye Nineteenth Century,' &c., were from his pen—Henry and Horace Mayhew, Laman Blanchard, Maguire, Thackeray, Tennyson, Trench, were also among the writers; and Doyle, who drew the design for the cover—which, by the bye, is not the original one in which Mr. 'Punch' first showed—and Kenny Meadows were among the illustrators. The names of those of the present time are too well known to need mention here.

Shirley Brooks said, 'The cartoons were settled at a dinner given once a week, at which the editor met the contributors and artists. These meetings were most pleasant, and the dinners remarkably good.'

He farther related some humorous anecdotes of the curious communications forwarded to the editor. 'Ladies sometimes sent accounts of the dresses, ribbons, and bonnets of other persons, with a request to "cut them up," the information being of so minute a character that it could only be written by one lady of another. Sometimes the editor was requested to write something stinging about persons who gave parties and did not pay their debts, laying special stress on those who crammed 120 guests into a room not capable of holding fifty.

'Some persons were patronising; and one gentleman sought to bribe, by stating he, if something he sent were inserted, would take twenty copies of "Punch." Sometimes artful advertisers sent communications deprecatory


text:
Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/199

V.] sacrificing a merely personal to a more comprehensive unity, merging the individual in the society of which he is a member. Language is an institution founded in man's social nature, wrought out for the satisfaction of his social wants; and hence, while individuals are the sole ultimate agents in the formation and modification of every word and meaning of a word, it is still the community that makes and changes its language. The one is the molecular force; the other, the organic. Both, as we saw, are always at work, and the history of human tongues is a record of their combined effects; but the individual diversifying forces lie deeper down, are more internal, more inherent in the universal use of speech, and removed from the control of outward circumstances. Language, we may fairly say, tends toward diversity, but circumstances connected with its employment check, annul, and even reverse this tendency, preserving unity, or producing it where it did not before exist.

One or two recent writers upon language have committed the very serious error of inverting the mutual relations of dialectic variety and uniformity of speech, thus turning topsy-turvy the whole history of linguistic development. Unduly impressed by the career of modern cultivated dialects, their effacement of existing dialectic differences and production of homogeneous speech throughout wide regions, and failing to recognize the nature of the forces which have made such a career possible, these authors affirm that the natural tendency of language is from diversity to uniformity; that dialects are, in the regular order of things, antecedent to language; that human speech began its existence in a state of infinite dialectic division, which has been, from the first, undergoing coalescence and reduction. It may seem hardly worth while to spend any effort in refuting an opinion


text:
Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/200

178 of which the falsity will have been apparent by the exposition already given; yet a brief additional discussion of the point will afford us the opportunity of setting in a clearer light one or two principles whose distinct apprehension is necessary in order to the successful prosecution of our farther inquiries.

It will be readily admitted that the difference between any given dialect and another of kindred stock is made up of a multitude of separate items of difference, and consists in their sum and combined effect; thus, for instance, words are possessed by the one which are wanting in the other; words found in both are differently pronounced by each, or are used in senses either not quite identical or very unlike; combinations and forms belong only to one, or are corrupted and worn down in diverse degrees by the two; phrases occur in the one which would be meaningless in the other. Now the gradual production of such differences as these is something which we see to have been going on in language during the whole period of its history illustrated by literary records; nay, which is even going on at the present day under our own eyes. If the Italian uses in the sense of 'truth' the word verità, the Spanish verdad, the French vérité, the English verity, we know very well that it is not because all these forms were once alike current in the mouths of the same people, till those who preferred each one of them sorted themselves out and combined together into a separate community; it must be because some single people formerly used in the same sense a single word, either coincident with one of these or nearly resembling them all, from which they have all descended, in the ordinary course of linguistic tradition, that always implies liability to linguistic change. We happen to know, indeed, in this particular case, by direct historical evidence, what the original word was, and who were the people that used it: it was vēritāt (nominative veritas), and belonged to the language of Rome, the Latin: its present varieties of form merely illustrate the usual effects of phonetic corruption. So, too, if I say attend! and the Frenchman attendez! our words differ in pronunciation, in grammatical form (the latter having a plural ending which the


text:
Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/201

V.] former lacks), and in sense (the French meaning 'wait!'); and, in all these respects save the last, both differ from the Latin attendite; yet of this both are alike the hereditary representatives: no Roman ever said either attend or attendez. But this same reasoning we apply also in other cases, where direct historical evidence is wanting, arriving without hesitation or uncertainty at like conclusions. If we say true, while the German says treu, the Dane tro, the Netherlander trouw, and so on, we do not once think of doubting that it is because we have all gotten nearly the same word, in nearly the same sense, by uninterrupted tradition from some primitive community in which a like word had a like sense; and we set ourselves to discover what this word was, and what and why have been the changes which have brought it into its present varying forms. The discordance between our father, the Anglo-Saxon fæder, the Icelandic fadir, the Dutch vader, and the German vater, does not, any more than that between verity and its analogues, compel us to assume a time when these words existed as primitive dialectic varieties in the same community: we regard them as the later effects of the separation of one community into several. And when we compare them all with the Latin pater, the Greek patēr, the Persian peder, the Sanskrit pitar—all which are but palpable forms of the same original from which the rest have come—our inference is still the same. Or, to recur once more to an example which we have already had occasion to adduce, our word is is the English correspondent of the German ist, the Latin est, the Greek esti, the Lithuanian esti, the Slavonian yesti, the Persian est, the Sanskrit asti. To the apprehension of the historical student of language, all these are nothing more than slightly varying forms of the same vocable: their difference is one of the innumerable differences of detail which distinguish from one another the languages we have named. We cannot, to be sure, go back under the sure guidance of contemporary records to the people among whom, and the time at which, the word originated: but we are just as far in this case as in those referred to above from being driven to the conclusion that all its present representatives are equally primitive, that they


text:
Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/202

180 together the state of indefinite dialectic variety in which the expression of the third person singular of the verb to be began, and that the nations, modern or ancient, in whose languages we find them are the lineal descendants of those groups in a former community who finally made up their minds to prefer the one or the other of them. On the contrary, we derive, with all the confidence belonging to a strictly logical process of reasoning, the conclusion that the words we are considering are later variations of a single original, namely asti, and that they would have no existence if a certain inferrible community, at an unknown period in the past, had not put together the verbal root as, signifying 'existence,' and the pronoun ti, meaning 'that,' to form that original.

The same reasoning is applicable to every other individual instance of dialectic difference. And it is so applied, in each individual instance, even by those who maintain the priority of dialects: such comparison and inference as we have been illustrating constitute the method of linguistic research of the comparative philologists, among whom they too desire to count themselves. Only they fail to note that the whole sum of dialectic difference is made up of instances like these, and that, if the latter point back, in detail, to an original unity, the former must, in its entirety, do the same. "As there were families, clans, confederacies, and tribes," we are told, "before there was a nation, so there were dialects before there was a language." The fallacy involved in this comparison, as in all the reasoning by which is supported the view we are combating, is that it does not go back far enough; it begins in the middle of historic development, instead of at its commencement. If families, clans, and tribes were ultimate elements in the history of humanity, if they sprang up independently, each out of the soil on which it stands, then the indefinite diversity of human language in its early stages—a diversity, however, fundamental, and not dialectic—might follow, not only as an analogical, but as a direct historical consequence. But, if a population of scattered communities implies dispersion from a single point,