text:
The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter XIX

At Poissy the three weeks had worn listlessly away. Margery yet remained, though the time originally set as a limit for her visit had passed. Monsieur and Madame Palffy were staying with some friends in Dresden, whom Mrs. Carnby had never seen, but whom, under the present circumstances, she whimsically described to Jeremy as being “in danger, necessity, and tribulation.”
 * Chapter XIX. Redemption.

Truth to tell, she had been forced to fall back upon her own invention for means of amusement. She was chafing under a sense of helplessness in a situation which she seemed totally unable to grasp, and a fierce impatience against the social conditions which make it possible for a man to shut off the women most deeply interested in him from the most significant features of his life and conduct. She had spent a half-hour in Margery’s room on the morning of Andrew’s departure, and there had heard as much as she cared to about the conversation in the arbour. Upon this problem she had brought to bear all her trained powers of persuasion, and at the end had the satisfaction of bringing Margery to a less intolerant attitude. The matter of inducing her to telegraph Andrew a recall she had found more difficult.

“I wouldn’t deceive you, my dear,” she said. “I’m absolutely convinced of the truth of what I say when I tell you that you’ve misjudged him. Oh yes — I know the appearances are all against him. I thought just as you do, until I had the courage to ask him out and out about the matter; but, when I did, I soon saw that the circumstances were unusual — extraordinarily so. He’s been reckless, and, if he cares for you as he pretends to, highly inconsiderate. But I believe, as firmly as I do in my own existence, that in the main essentials he’s innocent. Of course, he’s been going around with this woman — even he doesn’t deny that; but the very fact that he admits it seems to me to prove that it hasn’t been as bad as you suppose. One may go a long way with a woman without going too far. Why, Margery, I could bite my tongue off when I think what I said to you last night. Just think! — I imagined I was straightening things out, and giving you your cue! Instead, it appears that I was only giving you a wrong idea, and putting everything into a hideous mess. Why, you didn’t give him a fighting chance! You piled on him every accusation that came into your head, and then sent him off before he had a chance to explain. Why didn’t you ask him one straight question, if that was what you wanted to know? He’d have answered you — yes, and told you the truth! If there’s one thing Andrew Vane is not, it’s a liar. I was sure of that before I’d known him two minutes.”

“But there wasn’t any need to ask him,” broke in Margery. “He said of his own accord that — that there is such a woman.”

“And what else?” demanded Mrs. Carnby.

“That she wasn’t any more to him than a bird that was singing near us; that he’d never see her again if I asked him.”

“And you sent him away after that! Good heavens, my dear, that was the moment of all others when you should have said ‘I believe you!’ For he was telling you the truth— I’ll stake my intelligence on it. It was the supreme evidence of his reliance upon you, the supreme test of your love. And you failed. Appearances? Yes, of course! And what are appearances? Nothing in the world but a perpetual reminder that we’re not omniscient. Margery — you’ve got to call him back.”

Margery made no reply.

“You owe that much to him, and you owe it to me. We’ve both of us been in the wrong, and you must give us a chance to set things right. If you can’t take him as he is, then ask him to tell you exactly what his relations have been with this woman, and act on his answer as you see fit. I can’t criticise you for doing as you think right, if only you’re acting on the truth; but the truth you must have! At present you’re depending upon a lot of hearsay, upon the criminally thoughtless cynicism of a gossipy old woman, and on your own rash conclusions. My dear girl, you know I love you — love you better than anything in the world, except Jeremy? Well, then, do this for me.”

“Very well,” answered Margery wearily, “but it’s no use, Mrs. Carnby.”

That morning she telegraphed Andrew to come back to her — and there was no reply.

Thereafter the subject had not been mentioned either by the girl or her hostess. For the first time there lay a little barrier of restraint between them, which Mrs. Carnby, with all her tact, found it impossible to pass, or even clearly to define. Her customary confidence in herself stood back aghast. Any further interference, she knew, might well be set down as idle meddling. She had done her best — and failed.

Day by day she saw Margery grow paler and thinner. The old gaiety was slipping from her, flashing forth at more and more infrequent intervals, like the flame of an untended lamp, brightening more feebly, ever and anon, before it dies away. But there was nothing to be said or done. The little touches of endearment and sympathy with which women often fill the place of words, passed between them, but too often these negative interpreters of their hidden thoughts caused the girl’s eyes to fill. At Mrs. Carnby’s earnest entreaty, she prolonged her visit, and was glad of the seclusion of the villa, the long idle days, the evenings at billiards or backgammon with Jeremy, and the still warm nights when, through sleepless hours, reverie had free rein. Curiously enough, and despite Andrew’s neglect of her, her former tenderness for him returned and grew. The first passion of her resentment having passed, she was learning to make the ample and even obstinate allowances of the woman who has seen love in her grasp, and had it snatched away. At the moment of her rejection of him, there had been nothing within her range of vision but the spectre of cruel and humiliating wrong. But now a thousand little appealing reminiscences came back to woo and to persuade her. The old days at Beverly; the boy-and-girl companionship wherefrom had sprung the first flower of her love; the high hopefulness of their young attitude; the bashful acknowledgment of unspoken understanding with which they parted; the long months of separation, when her unhappiness in her new surroundings was silver-shot with prescience of his coming; that coming itself, and the joyous significance of it — all these worked upon her night and day. She was learning to forget the little hints of gossip whereby she first began to doubt him, and even the terrible frankness of Mrs. Carnby’s words, which had seemed to confirm all her worst suspicions. She felt that if only she had been given the time which now was hers, she would have been able to adjust these matters, reduce the gossip to its proper place of insignificance, and see, as now she saw, the vast and supreme importance of their love. Now it was herself, not him, she blamed for his silence. She had indeed not “given him a fighting chance.” She had insulted him, and, at the end, sent him about his business with a heartless sneer. Mrs. Carnby’s words came back to her — “love is little more than forgiveness on the endless instalment plan!” — and she had not been willing to forgive him, even when perhaps there had been nothing to forgive. She would turn restlessly, watching the dawn brightening against her window. Ah, kind God, what would she not forgive him now! What difference could anything that had been make, if only she could hear his voice again, and see him bending over the music of “The Persian Garden,” and know that for all time he was hers!

“Each morn a thousand roses brings, you say: Yes — but where leaves the rose of yesterday?”

Mrs. Carnby was not alone in her perception of the change in Margery. Jeremy mentioned it, one night, as they were dressing for dinner.

“I hope there’s nothing gone wrong with Margery, Louisa.”

“I hope not,” retorted his wife, dragging savagely on the comb.

“Then you’ve noticed?”

“I’ve noticed — yes. It’s the Tremonceau woman.”

“The—”

“The most beautiful cocotte in Paris, my poor Jeremy. Thank God, you have to be told these things! It’s the old story, no more admirable because, this time, it’s a friend of ours who’s making a fool of himself. If I had my way, I’d have sign-boards stuck up at every gate of Paris, with a finger pointing inward, and the inscription ‘Mud Garden. For Children Only.’ Faugh!”

“But you don’t suppose—”

Mrs. Carnby faced her husband, her hands upon her hips, assuming a kind of brazen effrontery.

“I don’t suppose, Jeremy Carnby, that a Paris cocotte affects the company of a rich young American for the sake of his beaux yeux. I don’t suppose that a good-looking boy in his twenties affects the company of Mirabelle Tremonceau for the pleasures of her conversation. I don’t suppose that the loveliest and purest girl on earth is going to survey with emotion the unspeakable folly of the man she cares for. And I don’t suppose the man she cares for is likely to be any different from the majority of men, who decide upon marriage principally because they’re tired of the other thing. I don’t suppose anything except what’s logical, and natural — and perfectly disgusting!”

“Do you mean — Vane?” asked Jeremy.

“Yes—bat!” said Mrs. Carnby.

Jeremy wisely made no reply.

So it was that when, at the end of the three weeks, Mr. Thomas Radwalader came down to spend the day, he found his hostess in a fine glow of suppressed impatience. She seized the first moment when they were alone to question him. They were old friends. He never laid claim to much in the way of morality in the presence of Mrs. Carnby, and it is a characteristic of this attitude that the person adopting it is frequently his own worst critic, and has more credit allowed to him than he deserves. Even the devil is not so black as he is painted, and if he will have the audacity to do most of the painting in question himself, he is more than likely to find that, in the opinion of others, his complexion will be comfortably free from blemishes. Radwalader’s smooth assumption of an indefinite kind of laxity, set at ease rather than aroused Mrs. Carnby’s suspicions of him.

“He can’t be so very bad,” she told herself, “or he wouldn’t talk so much about it.”

For unnecessary admissions are a sedative to gossip, just as unnecessary concealments are a stimulant.

“How’s Mr. Vane?” demanded Mrs. Carnby abruptly.

“Why, I was about to ask you,” answered Radwalader. “I thought he was quite a protégé of yours. I’ve not seen much of him, myself, of late. He’s made new friends, and of course I was never much more than a preliminary guide to Paris. I fancy he can find his own way about, nowadays.”

“I’ll warrant he can!” exclaimed Mrs. Carnby, “and into society none too good, at that!”

“How so?”

“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t know what I mean! Of course, you’re bound to shield him. You men always do that, don’t you? You put your intoxicated friends to bed, and send discreet telegrams to their wives, to say they’ve been called out of town on business. That’s not forgery — it’s friendship. And when one of you’s going to the bad, the rest of you stand around and say: ‘Poor old chap! Don’t let his family suspect what we know.’ Oh, I wasn’t born yesterday, Radwalader! You may as well tell me what I want to know: it isn’t much. Is he still trotting about with that Tremonceau woman?”

“Now, Mrs. Carnby!” protested Radwalader. “Is that a fair question?”

“Perhaps not,” said Mrs. Carnby dryly, “but you’ve answered it already, so never mind! Let me tell you that I’m quite through with Andrew Vane. He didn’t even have the grace to answer a telegram that Margery Palffy sent him, three weeks ago, asking him to come down.”

“Three weeks ago?” repeated Radwalader reflectively. “But, Mrs. Carnby, he was here three weeks ago. We all were — don’t you remember?”

“Naturally I remember,” said Mrs. Carnby impatiently, “but there were urgent reasons for his return. Now, don’t tell me you don’t know that!”

“Know it? How should I know it? Vane doesn’t confide his private affairs to me. Do you mean that—”

“I mean that Margery had made a great mistake, in the course of a conversation they had on the last evening he was here — a mistake which imperilled the happiness of them both, and which it was of the utmost importance to set right. At the time, perhaps, he showed himself to be the victim of an unjust accusation; but since, he has shown himself to be a cad. If you’ve never known — but I’d not have believed it of you — that Margery was in love with him, and that he’s pretended to be in love with her, then it’s time you did!”

“What a pity!” observed Radwalader. “I wish I’d known all this before: I might have done something. But, after all, it’s just as well. It wouldn’t have done for Miss Palffy to humiliate herself; and the little Tremonceau—”

“Is his mistress?” put in Mrs. Carnby.

“Of course,” said Radwalader, with a skilful sigh. “There’s no doubt whatever about that.”

“I’d have wagered a good bit on his innocence!”

“When you wager anything on the innocence of a young man who’s been the close companion of Mirabelle Tremonceau for six weeks or so,” answered Radwalader, “it’s nothing less than a criminal waste of money.”

“Then he’s not only a cad,” said Mrs. Carnby angrily, “but a liar as well; and, as I’ve said already, I’m through with him!”

She was more than astounded when, two mornings later, a telegram was handed her at the breakfast-table. It was from Andrew, and requested permission to come down at once and spend one night.

“I think I’ll leave you to answer that,” she observed to Margery, who was alone with her at table, Jeremy having gone up to town by the early train. “The boy’s waiting.”

She tossed the despatch across the table as she spoke.

She was more astounded still when Margery looked up at her with the first spontaneous smile which Mrs. Carnby had seen upon her lips for many days.

“Please ask him to come,” she said.

“Oh, my dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Carnby, “do be careful! Remember how much has happened. If only you’d let me advise you!”

“You’ve advised me once already, fairy godmother,” said Margery, laughing.

“Heaven help me, so I have!” replied her hostess. “Do you mean it, Margery?”

“I was never more in earnest,” answered the girl, turning suddenly grave again. So Mrs. Carnby sent the required answer. All that morning she was more puzzled than ever she had been in the whole course of her life. It was certain that the girl’s mood had changed. The doubtful shadow in her eyes had given place to a clear glow of confidence, and her laugh was free from any suggestion of restraint. That in itself was curious. Depression, melancholy, even resentment, were to be expected as a result of the news that Andrew Vane was on the point of entering her life once more. Of late he had shown himself in a more unfavourable light than ever, and yet in her eyes, her smile, her light-hearted animation there was something akin to a suggestion that he had been fully exonerated from suspicion, rather than freshly and more significantly subjected to it. She was emphatically happy — and Mrs. Carnby could not comprehend. The thought, indeed, came to her that the explanation which Andrew had denied her, these three weeks past, had been given to Margery, in some fashion as yet unexplained. But this theory was wholly incompatible with his bearing when he arrived at noon. He looked wretchedly ill, and was prey to a visible embarrassment. He took her hand, but did not meet her eyes, and the credit she was beginning to accord him gave way, once more, to anger. As a result, her greeting was conspicuously cool. After dinner he and Margery played billiards, while Jeremy dozed, with the Temps over his placid face, and Mrs. Carnby did more to ruin a piece of embroidery than she had done to further it in the past six months. Suddenly the good lady retired to her room, with a violent and fortuitous headache. She had relinquished any attempt to fathom the situation: she had frankly thrown up the sponge!

“Shall we take a walk in the garden?” asked Andrew.

When they were alone with the silence and the stars, his hand sought hers.

“Margery!”

“Andy!”

“I’ve simply come to say good-by, my dear. You were quite right; I’m not worthy of you. I’m going back to the States as soon as I can get away. All I want you to remember is this. I’ve been careless — reckless — wholly at fault from the beginning to the end — but I’ve loved you always, my dearest — always — always! I won’t go into all the miserable details. Paris has made a fool of me, that’s all. I’m not the first idiot to throw away his chance of happiness because of the big city over there, and I’m not the first to pay the penalty I deserve. Once, perhaps, I had the right to demand something at your hands; but now I’ve no right to ask for anything. I ask for nothing! I’ve come to beg for your forgiveness, and to say good-by. Will you forgive me, Margery?”

“I want to ask you just one question,” said Margery steadily. “When I accused you of — of that— the other night, was I right or wrong?”

“Wrong,” said Andrew Vane; “but now—”

Suddenly she leaned toward him, stopping his speech with her soft and open palm.

“I’ve thought of another question,” she said. “Do you love me — now?”

“Love you?” answered Andrew. “Ah, Margery!”

“Then I wish to hear no more. The past is the past, do you hear? I love you! I’ve learned much in these few weeks. I love you, and I need you. You can’t leave me now. I’ve been so weary for you, my love! Ah, whatever there has been between us in the past, don’t let anything stand between us now!”

“But you don’t understand,” faltered Andrew. “Things have changed. There is much that you have to forgive me — much that I have to explain—”

“As to what I have to forgive you,” answered Margery, “I think there is also much for you to forgive me; and as to what you have to explain — oh, explain it later, Andy — explain it, if you like, when we—”

“Are married!” exclaimed Andrew. “No! Things must be made clear now. I’ve transgressed, my love — transgressed beyond hope of forgiveness. What would you say if you knew—?”

“I know already!” answered the girl. “I know more than you think — and I forgive it all. Oh, Andy, don’t make it too hard for me! Help me — won’t you?”

Suddenly, with a realization of what all this meant, he opened his arms, as to a child, and, like a confiding child, she went into them.

“I love you,” she whispered. “That’s all — I love you!”

“My love — my love — my love!” said Andrew.


text:
The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter XX

Your most astute strategist is the general ready, at any stage of the campaign, to authorize a complete change of plan, if the circumstances call for it, and to make for the end in view along wholly altered lines. The Braddocks of warfare are those who at all hazards persist in the course at first laid out.
 * Chapter XX. The Shadow.

Radwalader, contrary to his custom, did not leave his apartment until mid-afternoon of the following day. He carried a valise, and stopped for a moment on the step to snuff the fresh air with appreciation. Then he said “Psst!” and the yellow cab which was standing at the comer of the avenue squeaked into motion and drew up at the kerb.

“Gare St. Lazare,” said Radwalader briefly. He flung his valise upon the seat, climbed in after it, put one foot on the strapontin to steady himself, and plunged, with a grin of amusement, into the latest number of Le Rire. He could afford a few moments of sheer frivolity: for he had just finished eight hours of careful reflection, and his plans were quite complete.

The driver of the yellow cab had only grunted in reply, but he drove briskly enough, once they were under way. Though the day was warm, he wore his fawn-coloured coat, with the triple cape, and had turned up the collar about his ears. His white cockaded hat, a size too large, was tipped forward over his nose, and between it and his coat-collar, in the back, showed a strip of bright red hair. For features, he had a nobbly nose, with a purple tinge, and a mustache like a red nail-brush.

From time to time Radwalader looked up from his reading to remark their progress, and invariably he smiled. The Place de l’Etoile, freshly sprinkled, and smelling refreshingly of cool wet wood; the omnibus and tramway stations, with their continual ebb and flow of passengers seeking numbers; the stupendous dignity of the Arc, and the preposterous insignificance of three Englishwomen staring up at it, with their mouths open, and Baedekers in their hands; the fresh green of the chestnuts on the Avenue de Friedland; the crack of a teamster’s whip, and his ''“Ahi! Houp!” of encouragement to the giant gray stallions, toiling up the steep incline of the Faubourg St. Honoré; the crowds of women at Felix Potin’s, pinching the fat fowls, and stowing parcels away in netted bags; the “shish-shish-shish” of an infantry company shuffling at half-step toward the gateway of La Pépinière; the people terrassé before the restaurants on the Place du Hâvre — it was all very amusing, very characteristic, very Parigot''. More than ever, Radwalader felt that he needed it all, that he must have it at any price, that life would not be worth living else or elsewhere. Fortunately, there was no reason for a change, so long as he kept his wits. Indeed his prospects were brighter now than they had ever been.

Once a bridal carriage whirled past him, all windows, and with a lamp at each corner, and a red-faced quartette inside; and other carriages followed, full of exultant guests, whose full-dress costumes, in this broad daylight, were, to his Saxon sense, as incongruous as a Welsh rabbit on a breakfast-table — all bowling across to the Champs, and so away to the Restaurant Gillet. Again, it was a glimpse of a funeral moving up to a side door of St. Augustin, with an abject little band of mourners trailing along on foot, behind the black and purple car; again, nothing more than a sally between an agent and a ragamuffin at a crossing — ''“Ouste, galopin!” “Eh, ’spèce de dalai! As-tu vu la ferme?” — or a driver’s injunction to his horse — “Tu prends done racine, saucisse” — or a girl’s laugh, or the squawk of a tram-horn, or the cries of the camelots — “Voyez l’Parispor! Voici la Pa-resse! Voyez l’D-rrr-oi ’d’l’homme!”'' The importance of the phenomenon was not significant. It was all Paris, and Thomas Radwalader was very glad to be alive. When he left the yellow cab in the Cour du Hâvre, the driver had fifty centimes pourboire, though it was not like his passengers to go beyond three sous.

Trivial as this circumstance was, it apparently had a strangely demoralizing effect upon the driver of the yellow cab. He drew on for perhaps twenty feet, and then deliberately clambered down from his box, and followed his late client to the ticket office, at the foot of the eastern stairway. Here, with some ingenuity, he remarked, “Même chose.”

“Poissy première?”

“Oui.”

In the first-class carriage of the Poissy train, a little, oblong pane of glass, above Radwalader’s head, enabled him, had he been so minded, to glance into the next compartment — enabled the single occupant of the next compartment, who was so minded, to glance, as they started, into his.

In the Cour du Hâvre an infuriated agent apostrophized the deserted vehicle:

“Sale sous-les-pieds! He amuses himself elsewhere, then, ton drôle!”

The which was strictly true.

As the train rumbled through the illuminated tunnel, the driver of the yellow cab did a number of things with the most surprising rapidity and decision. He threw his varnished white hat out of the window, and followed it immediately with his triple-caped overcoat. He stripped off his fawn-coloured trousers, thereby revealing the unusual circumstance that he wore two pairs — one of corduroy. The latter hurtled out into the smoky tunnel, in the wake of the hat and coat, and the climax was capped by a like disappearance of the red hair, the nail-brush mustache, and the nobbly nose. Then Monsieur Jules Vicot smoothed his workman’s blouse, dragged a Tam-o’-shanter from his pocket, pulled it down over his eyes, settled the scarlet handkerchief at his throat, threw himself back on the cushions, and lit a cigarette with hands that trembled excessively.

At Poissy Radwalader alighted, and swung rapidly away, across the place, in the direction of the Villa Rossignol. At Poissy the other also alighted, strolled over to the Hôtel de Rouen, and, in the company of a slowly consumed matelote and four successive absinthes, dozed, pondered, smoked — and waited for the dark.

That morning Margery and Andrew had told Mrs. Carnby. For an instant the good lady faced Andrew, her eyes blazing with inquiry. He met their challenge serenely.

“Won’t you congratulate me,” he asked, smiling — “and the only girl in the world?”

“The only girl in the world?” demanded Mrs. Carnby audaciously.

“Yes — just that.”

Mrs. Carnby pounced upon Margery.

“Of course I congratulate you! You dear! And, as for you,” she added, whirling upon Andrew once more, “you’re the luckiest man I know — except Jeremy! And you’ve worried me almost into a decline. I thought you’d never get her — I mean, I thought she’d never get you — I don’t know what I mean, Andrew Vane! Go along in, both of you, and sing about your roses and jugs of wine and nightingales and moons of delight. I can see that’s all you’ll be good for, from now on!”

And so, shamelessly, they did — all over again, from “Wake! for the Sun” to “flown again, who knows!”

“It’s tied up in double bow-knots with our hearts, all this ‘Persian Garden’ music,” said Andrew. “Do you remember how we used to rave over it at Beverly? And I loved you even then — from the first night.”

Standing behind him, Margery touched his hair.

And so evening came again, drenched in starlight and rose-perfume, and stirring rapturously to the voice of the nightingale.

“I want to speak to you.”

Radwalader touched Andrew’s arm as they rose from the table, and led the way directly through the open window into the garden, and, through the garden gate, into the Avenue Meissonier beyond. Once there, he fell back a step, so that they were side by side.

“Let’s walk toward the river,” he suggested, taking Andrew’s arm.

A single lamp swung at the archway of the railroad bridge, but along the villa walls and under the trees of the Boulevard de la Seine beyond, the shadows were very dark. Once, as they passed a poplar, one shadow disengaged itself from the trunk, and at a distance followed them. A little ahead was the gaily illuminated terrace of L’Esturgeon, overhanging the river, and crowded with people dining and talking all at once.

“I saw Mirabelle yesterday,” observed Radwalader. “It seems you’re off scot-free.”

“Did she tell you that?” asked Andrew in surprise.

“No — only that you’d parted company for good and all. I guessed the rest. I thought you’d hardly be so foolish as not to consult me, if the question of money came up.”

“Thank the Lord, the episode was free from that element of vulgarity, at all events!” exclaimed Andrew. “Yes, it’s over. It wasn’t easy, Radwalader. I was surprised to find how much she thought of me. But, of course, there was nothing else to do. In any event, the thing couldn’t have gone on for ever, and when I heard about that telegram, I couldn’t ring down the curtain too soon. But it hurt. Poor little girl! I’ll always think kindly of her, Radwalader, although she came near to losing me the only thing in the world that’s worth while. Well, we said good-by, and I came down here just on the chance that it mightn’t be too late. It was a thin-enough chance, to my way of thinking, in view of the past three weeks. By Gad, here was I deserving the worst kind of a wigging that ever a man got, and lo and behold, it was the prodigal son after all! Mrs. Carnby was the first to congratulate me. Will you be the next?”

“Do you mean that Miss Palffy is going to marry you?” asked Radwalader, coming to a full stop.

“Just that,” said Andrew; “though why she should, after all this—”

“Oh, rot!” laughed the other. “You’ve been no worse than other men, and so long as you’ve owned up—”

“We’ll never agree on the question of whether I deserve her or not,” put in Andrew. “Never in the whole course of my life shall I forgive myself this folly. But we won’t talk of that. The fact remains that I’m forgiven, and that she’s going to marry me. Oh, Gawd!”

He looked up at the sky and bit his lip. He was desperately shy of slopping over, and, for a moment, desperately near to it.

Presently he continued. They had rounded L’Esturgeon now, and were walking along the southern side of the Pont de Poissy, close to the rail. Radwalader’s pieces were all in place for the opening of the new game.

“When a chap’s only been pulled out of a horrible mess by the merest chance, and when, into the bargain, he’s been engaged to the one-and-only for something under twenty-four hours, he is apt to do considerable slobbering. I hope you’ll give me credit for sparing you all I might say, Radwalader, when I confine myself to saying that I’m in luck.”

“And that, you most certainly are,” said Radwalader cheerfully. “I’m glad you’re so well out of your scrape, Vane, and I congratulate you heartily.” A pressure of his fingers on Andrew’s arm lent the phrase the emphasis of a hand-shake. “Miss Palffy is charming — so clean and straight, and, to say nothing of her beauty, with such high standards. To be quite frank with you, I’m a bit surprised that you got off so easily. But, since you have, there’s nothing to be said, except that she’s a stunner, and I can understand now how much all this has meant to you. What a thing to have standing between you, eh? If Mirabelle had been ugly, I fancy you’d have paid her about anything she chose to ask.”

“If I’d been sure of getting Margery!” said Andrew.

“Of course — yes. That’s what I mean. With Miss Palffy as an object, there could scarcely be a limit to the hush-money one would put up to clear away any obstacles that might exist.”

“I expect not,” said Andrew nervously. “I couldn’t lose her now — I simply couldn’t. It would kill me.”

“I once knew of such a case,” said Radwalader musingly. “Chap just about to marry the girl, and he found out that there was something very crooked about his birth — that he was illegitimate, in fact. The father hung on to him like an octopus and bled him like a leech. But the — er — girl never knew.”

“It was worth it to him,” commented Andrew, “if he’d have lost the girl else.”

“I’ve forgotten what he paid,” said Radwalader, “but I know it was pretty stiff — in the form of a regular allowance by the year.”

“Was the chap rich?” asked Andrew. He was looking down the river, and taking great breaths of the delicious night air, thrilling with the memory of Margery waiting back there for him; and his part in the conversation was little more than automatic.

“Reasonably,” said Radwalader. “Enough to stand the strain. Curious old house, this — isn’t it?”

He paused, and leaned upon the railing of the bridge.

“The plaster’s rotten as possible,” answered Andrew after a moment, during which he had been hacking boyishly at it with his knife.

“You know both sides of the bridge were lined with houses once,” said Radwalader. “Picturesque it must have been! This is the only one left, and it doesn’t look as if it could keep from toppling over into the river very much longer. Lord! how fast the water runs down there! It’s a veritable mill-race. I shouldn’t care to have to swim against it.”

He hesitated deliberately, and then continued, with a slight change of tone:

“There’s something I want to tell you, Vane. I didn’t care to bother you with it as long as you were worrying on your own account, but now— confidence for confidence. The fact of the matter is that I need money, and need it badly.”

Andrew pursued his hacking.

“If that’s all that’s troubling you,” he said, “I can probably make you a loan that will tide you over. I’ll be very glad to, if I can. How much do you need?”

A workman slouched past them, his hands in the pockets of his corduroy trousers, his tam o’ shanter pulled down over his eyes.

“No,” said Radwalader, “I don’t want to borrow; I might never be able to repay. But suppose I were to give you a piece of information — a tip — that was of the very greatest importance to you, mightn’t it be worth a small sum?”

Andrew stared at him curiously.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Do you mean that you know something that is very important to me?”

“Vastly important.”

“And that is known to no one else?”

“To one other person only.”

“And that you want to sell to me?”

“That I want to tell you. You can do as you see fit about paying me for it. I think you will, but if not—”

He smiled evilly, secure of the darkness.

“There are other ways of utilizing it,” he added.

Andrew chopped thoughtfully at the plaster.

“I don’t seem to understand what you’re driving at,” he said presently, “but, somehow — well, I don’t like the sound of it, Radwalader. Of course, I know you don’t mean it that way, but it sounds rather — rather unfriendly, if you’ll allow me to say so. Oh, damn it all!”

“What?” asked Radwalader, surprised at the sudden exclamation.

“There goes my knife. I ought to have known better than to hew at this stuff with it. I suppose that’s the last I shall ever see of it — and a new one, too. Why — that’s queer! Did you notice? There wasn’t any splash.”

He peered over the rail.

“Hello!” he added, “here’s a ladder — leading down.”

“There’s a little garden down there,” explained Radwalader, peering over in his turn. “I remember now. It’s on part of the foundations of another old house, and the chap who lives in this one grows flowers there, oddly enough, and goes up and down on the ladder. Your knife’s down there, somewhere. Jove! but it’s dark!”

But Andrew already had one leg across the railing, one foot on the top round of the ladder.

“This is easy,” he said, “and I have my match-box, too. You see — well, Margery bought the knife only this morning in the bazar, and I wouldn’t lose it for the world. And, by the way, Radwalader, forget what I said just now, will you? It wasn’t very decent.”

Then, with a short laugh of embarrassment, he descended into the shadows.

The shadows! They were very deep below there, until broken by the flicker of Andrew’s match. Then the shadows under the doorway of the old house, up by the top of the bridge, were deeper, and — what was this? — one shadow moved — moved — drew near to the man who leaned upon the rail, whistling “Au Clair de la Lune.”

“All right!” called Andrew. “I have it. Now we come up again.”

“Go slow,” advised Radwalader. “You’ll find it darker than ever, after the match. Why — what—”

A hand on his shoulder had spun him round, but he had no more than recognized the white face grinning into his, no more than time to comprehend the words, “You’ve whistled for the last time, by God!” before the steel-shod butt of a revolver crashed three times in succession on — and through — his forehead.

“Once for me!” said Jules Vicot, between his teeth, “and once for my wife, and once for your son!”

He hurled Radwalader from him, ran a few feet, turned at the rail to see the smitten man writhing and groping blindly on the cobbles of the driveway, and then, emptying the entire contents of the revolver in his direction, vaulted with a laugh into the swirling Seine below.

The guilty river caught him, hid him, hurried him away. Only once he moved of his own volition, and then she laid her brown hand on his mouth and stilled him, once for all. Around the wide curves of her course, he was to go, through the thrashing locks of Les Mureaux and Notre Dame de la Garenne, past Les Andelys and Pont de l’Arche, and the high quays of Elbeuf, and the twinkling lights of Rouen, and the vineyards and the poplars and the red-roofed villages — on, on, on, to where the lights of Le Hâvre and Honfleur wink, each to each, across the widened channel. For such was the course appointed whereby the most pitiful shadow that ever fell from Poissy Bridge should make its way to sea.

Back there was the sound of many voices and of running feet. Radwalader lay with his head on Andrew’s arm, his eyes closed, and his breath coming in short hard gasps. The first arrivals from the town were three young Englishmen, who had been dining at L’Esturgeon, were on their way to the station, and outran all others at the sound of the five shots. One of them proved to be a medical student, and fell at once to making an examination, while the others held back the crowd.

“How did it happen?” he asked. “What was it all about?”

“God knows!” said Andrew. “I’d been down the ladder there to look for a knife I’d dropped, and I was just coming up again when I heard him call out, and then a scuffle and the sound of blows, and then the firing. I think whoever shot him jumped into the river. There was a big splash just as I came up to the level of the bridge.”

“Yes,” said the other. “We heard that from the street, just as we started to run. God! how that blackguard piled it on! Look here — his head’s all pushed in, and he’s shot in at least two places. I’m afraid the poor chap’s done for. Hello! he’s coming to.”

Radwalader slowly opened his eyes, and after a moment seemed striving to speak. Andrew bent down, wiping away the blood.

“What is it?” he asked. “Is there something you want to say, dear old man?”

Without replying, Radwalader glanced eloquently at the Englishman, and, at this mute signal, the latter stepped back.

“What is it?” whispered Andrew. “Do you want to tell us who it was?”

Radwalader shook his head.

“Is it what you were going to tell me a few minutes ago?” asked Andrew, with a kind of intuition.

For a full half-minute, the dying man’s eyes were fixed upon the eager, solicitous face that bent so close to his — upon the earnest eyes so curiously like and yet unlike his own, upon the white teeth showing between the parted lips, upon the straight patrician nose and the smooth clear complexion. Then, with a singular smile, a smile almost affectionate in its sweetness:

“It’s of no consequence now,” he murmured.

He raised one hand, and gently touched Andrew on the cheek.

“Good-by, my boy,” he added, more feebly.

His head fell limply, and he shuddered once, and then was very still.

A moment later, Andrew laid him back upon the driveway, and covered his face.

THE END.

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


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text: Talk:The Transgression of Andrew Vane

title: Talk:The Transgression of Andrew Vane


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Page:Flora Australiensis Volume 5.djvu/365

 with few rather long linear segments, narrow but flat or concave and mostly obtuse, the whole leaf 1 to 2 in. long including the short petiole. Involucres solitary in the axils, on peduncles of 2 to 3 lines. Bracts acute, silky-hairy, the inner ones 2 lines long. Perianth about 1 in. long, silky-villous, the tube straight. Anthers all perfect. Style-end slender.

{{smaller block|W. Australia. King George's Sound, Fraser; in the interior, Preiss, n. 2621 {Meissner). I have not seen Preiss's specimen; all others, which I have seen in different collections, appear to have originated in a shrub raised in the Sydney Botanic Garden from Fraser's seeds.}}

5. A. pungens, ''Meissn. in Pl. Preiss.'' i. 515, ii. 248, ''and in DC. Prod.'' xiv. 318. A rigid bushy or spreading shrub, the young shoots hoary-tomentose, the adult foliage glabrous. Leaves terete, slightly grooved above, entire or divaricately bifid or trifid above the middle, rather thick, rigid and pungent-pointed, $3/4$ to $1 1/2$ in. long. Involucres solitary in the upper axils, sometimes rather crowded towards the ends of the branches, on peduncles of 1 to 2 lines. Bracts softly silky-villous, the inner ones about $1 1/2$ lines long. Perianth rather under 1 in. long', silky-villous. Anthers all perfect. Style slightly hairy, the end scarcely thickened. Fruit oblong, 2 to 3 lines long.—A. armata, Meissn. in DC. Prod. xiv. 313.

{{smaller-block|W. Australia, Drummond, 3''rd coll. n. 256 (with the leaves mostly, but not all, undivided), 5th coll. n. 400 (with the leaves mostly, but not all, 3-fid); in the interior, Preiss, n. 671 {Meissner). Meissner distinguishes A. armata from the divided-leaved specimens of A. pungens'', by the leaves divided to below the middle and by the laminæ of the perianth-segments longer in proportion, neither of which characters holds good in our specimens, all from Drummond; I have not seen Preiss's.}}

6. A. venosa, ''Meissn. in DC. Prod.'' xiv. 311. A bushy shrub of 3 or 4 ft., the branches and young shoots softly and often densely villous, the older foliage nearly glabrous. Leaves crowded under the flowers, more distant along the branches, sessile, entire, obovate or broadly elliptical, shortly acuminate or mucronate-acute, narrowed at the base, often ciliate on the margins, $1/2$ to $3/4$ in. long, often coriaceous, more or less prominently marked with almost longitudinal veins, the floral ones often rather larger than those below them. Involucres in terminal clusters or umbels of 3 to 6, rarely solitary, on short peduncles; bracts 4 to 6. Perianth about 1 in. long, slender, glandular-hirsute. Anthers all perfect. Style-end scarcely thickened.

7. A. Dobsoni, ''F. Muell. Fragm.'' vi. 204. A prostrate much-branched shrub, spreading to 1 or 2 ft. diameter, the young shoots silky-hairy, the older foliage glabrous. Leaves entire, oblong—linear or spathulate, mostly under $1/2$ in. long, very obtuse, narrowed into a distinct petiole. Involucres terminal, solitary, on very short peduncles; bracts obtuse, the inner ones about $1 1/2$ lines long, Perianth slender,


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Page:A Christmas Faggot (1884, Gurney).djvu/66

Pilgrim-Kings their King have found, The Wise Men kneel at Wisdom’s shrine, Their royal gifts His Crib surround, He gives them bread and wine.

One Star has pointed to the Sun, That men may see and understand The Witness borne by all to One, Who holds in His Right Hand,


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Bennett v. Butterworth (49 U.S. 124)/Dissent Daniel

Mr. Justice DANIEL.

In the opinion of the court pronounced in this cause I am unable to concur, regarding that opinion as reconcilable with neither the act of Congress (Judiciary Act, § 22) regulating the jurisdiction of this court, nor with the fundamental rules of pleading and evidence, but as in contravention of both. This cause is in effect, and in form except with regard to the frame of the petition, corresponding with the declaration at common law, in all its details and proceedings, an action of detinue for the recovery of four slaves. In every such action, the authorities tell us that it is requisite to describe the property demanded with so much certainty, that it may be delivered up in specie; and it was ruled by the older cases, that, where the property consisted of several articles, the plaintiff must show the value of each particular article, and not state the aggregate value. Subsequently, however, it has been ruled that the declaration may mention the separate value of each article, or it may state the value in gross; and this appears to be the established doctrine in England at this day. See Com. Dig., tit. Pleader (2 x 2). So in 1 Chit. Pl., p. 377, it is said, that, 'in actions for injuring or taking away goods or chattels, it is in general necessary that their quality, quantity, or number, and value or price, should be stated; the assigned reason is, that a former recovery could not else be pleaded in bar to a second action for the same goods; neither could the defendant properly defend himself.' Then with respect to the verdict and judgment, to be rendered in the action of detinue, the law is thus given in Com. Dig., tit. Pleader (2 x 12):-'The judgment against the defendant shall be for the recovery of the thing detained vel valorem inde and costs; and if judgment be upon confession non sum informatus, demurrer, &c., a writ of inquiry shall be awarded to inquire of the values. And after judgment, if a distringas goes ad deliberandum bona, and the defendant does not, the plaintiff shall have damages taxed by the inquest, so that it lies in the defendant's election to deliver the goods or the value.'

Sir William Blackstone in treating of the action of detinue, Vol. IV., p. 413, thus states the law:-'In detinue, after judgment, the plaintiff shall have a distringas to compel the defendant to deliver the goods by repeated distresses of his chattels; and if the defendant still continues obstinate, then (if judgment hath been by default or demurrer) the sheriff shall summon an inquest to ascertain the value of the goods, and the plaintiff's damages (which being so assessed, or by the verdict in case of an issue) shall be levied on the person or goods of the defendant. So that after all, in replevin and detinue (the only actions for recovering the specific possession of personal chattels), if the wrong-doer be very perverse, he cannot be compelled to a restitution of the thing taken or detained.' So, too, in Chit Pl., Vol I., p. 124, it is said,-'The nature of this action requires, that the verdict and judgment be such that a specific remedy may be had for the recovery of the goods detained, or a satisfaction in value, for each parcel, in case they or either of them cannot be obtained. The judgment is on the alternative, that the plaintiff do recover the goods or the value thereof, if he cannot have the goods themselves.'

The citation of these seemingly trite and familiar principles of law will not be deemed useless, when an application of them, and of the reasons on which they are founded, shall be made to the case under consideration. In the authorities above quoted, we have disclosed to us the propriety and necessity (resulting from the peculiar character of the remedy) for averring in the declaration, and of ascertaining by the verdict and judgment, the value of the property sought; because that value is to become the measure of redress to the plaintiff, in one branch of the alternative, in the event that the other shall prove fruitless. It is indispensable, therefore, that this measure be ascertained upon legal testimony and solemn investigation before the court, and under its supervising authority,-as indispensable, fully, as that the title to the property should be so ascertained; for both enter alike into the redress of the plaintiff, and flow from the same source. His right to the one rests upon the same foundation with his right to the other, and if he had no right to one, he had a right to neither. Nor can it be said that the measure of the plaintiff's redress rests mainly in the breast or in the action of the court; on the contrary, it rests rather in the opinion and action of the jury. The court cannot, even with the parties and witnesses before it, determine the value of the property, or the parties' right thereto. The court, be awarding a new trial, may correct an excess or irregularity of any kind on the part of the jury; but it could have no power to find for either party upon the issue before the jury, nor argument or diminish by one cent the measure of redress established by the jury. If, then, such a power belonged not to the court when in a course of regular judicial inquiry, with the parties and witnesses fully before it, does it not seem strange to contend, that such a power can be exercised collaterally by a different tribunal, neither trying the issue, nor weighing the evidence which the jury had before them, and in the absence of all or any of the circumstances, exercised upon ex parte affidavits before the jury, thereby overturning what twelve men upon their oaths, and in regular discharge of their functions, have done, and what the law through them had declared shall be the standard of value? And for what purpose, it may be asked, is this collateral inquiry to be allowed? Not, strange as it may seem, to settle any other alternate value of the property, nor to put any estimate upon it at all; but to let in other questions connected with the title, or with some proceedings in the court below, wholly disconnected with the value of the property. But it is said that the plaintiff below has released his right to the damages assessed by the jury, and therefore can no longer enforce them. What of that? What possible connection can exist between the power of the plaintiff to enforce his judgment, as affected by any act or indiscretion of his own, and the value of the property as assessed by the jury? Does the release of the estimated value render that value either greater or smaller than it was before? Possibly this act of the plaintiff may render his power to enforce the verdict and judgment less efficient; but to reason from that consequence to the value of the property as found by the jury, appears to me to be an argument as illogical as any that can be conceived. The estimated value, the true measure settled by the jury, remains unchanged, although it may have been released. The verdict has never been reversed or annulled. Moreover, it may not follow necessarily, that the release of the damages by the plaintiff below vitiates the judgment, or deprives the plaintiff of the power to enforce it; for we find by the authorities that a judgment may be by confession, or non sum informatus, or on demurrer, in either of which cases judgment may be entered, and that afterwards, if the defendant will not deliver the property, damages for the value and for the detention may be assessed; and such value, when assessed in the proper, regular, legal mode, is all for which execution can be had against the person or property of the defendant. But the inquiry is not properly instituted here whether the plaintiff, by error or indiscretion, has lost the power of enforcing his verdict and judgment; the question is purely one of jurisdiction, dependent upon the value of the subject, and that value ascertained by all the solemnities, and in the only mode known to the law,-solemnities, as I contend, nowhere to be properly gainsaid. Let it be supposed that there had been no release of damages or value by the plaintiff below. The principles applicable to the action of this court would be precisely those involved in the case as it now stands. Then let it be supposed that, after taking jurisdiction upon this collateral inquiry, this court should come to the conclusion that there was no error in the proceedings and judgment in the court below. What manner of mandate would be sent to that court? Would this court, upon its own estimate of the value of the subject founded upon affidavits, and because it had claimed jurisdiction upon such an estimate, order the Circuit Court to augment the damages assessed to the plaintiff below? Could they by so doing open again that which had become res judicata? If they should not do this, they would confessedly have effected a wrong to the plaintiff; and if they should attempt to do so, I desire to know their authority for such a proceeding, and what standard or measure for their mandate they would adopt; they would have repudiated the verdict of a jury and a judgment of the court, and what higher or other standard they would adopt I am at a loss to conceive. In defence of the proceeding permitted in this case, it has been contended that, by the practice of this court, in cases sounding in damages purely, a plaintiff is permitted to confer jurisdiction on this tribunal by laying his damages at an amount ad libitum, sufficient for that purpose. If the practice of this court is to be understood in the latitude in which it is just expressed, that practice must be deemed to be in consonance with neither the letter nor the spirit of the statute. In cases arising ex contractu or quasi ex contractu, which in their original form and magnitude might fall within the rule laid down by Congress, but which, in the progress of investigation by the application of payments or set-offs, should be brought below the minimum established by law, or in cases of tort, which, from their peculiar character, might also come within the reason of the same rule, (though the latter must be regarded as liable to strong doubt,) jurisdiction may be claimed. But if either the practice, or any express annunciation from this court, is to be apprehended as placing it at the option of parties, plaintiffs or defendants, to refer all their contests to this tribunal, however their character may be stamped and ascertained by the decision of the inferior courts, and in contravention of such solemn decisions, given upon full investigation by courts and juries, why then, by the rules or the practice of this court, the act of Congress is substantially repealed, and the proceedings of the courts below are a mere mockery. The value of the subject of the controversy, as ascertained in the court below, supplies the only safe and uniform rule as to jurisdiction, in cases wherein jurisdiction is dependent on value. My opinion, therefore, is, that it is incompetent to either of the parties, or to this court, in the indirect and collateral mode here attempted, and upon evidence entirely dehors and unconnected with the record, to impeach or inquire into the verdict and judgment rendered in the District Court of Texas; that such a proceeding is utterly subversive of the act of Congress limiting the right to appeals and writs of error, and equally subversive of the fundamental rule of pleading and of evidence, which establishes undeniable verity in the solemn proceedings of courts acting within the sphere of their jurisdiction, and establishes every fact and every conclusion embraced within the scope of those proceedings.


text: Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day/Lord Lytton


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 {|style="margin: 0 auto 0 auto; border:4px double black; text-align:center;" THE VISION OF THE EUCHARIST AND OTHER POEMS. Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s.
 * BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
 * BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

KEGAN PAUL., TRENCH. & CO.
 * }


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64 not in the sense that you mean; he would have given his eyes; ay, and ten thousand pounds more, if I would have accepted the girl, but I would not."

"Why, in the name of goodness?"

"Sir, her uncle was a shoemaker. I never would debase myself by marrying into such a family."

"Of course not," said Dobble, "he couldn't, you know. Well, now—tell him about the other girl, Mary Waters, you know."

"Hush, Dobble, hush! don't you see one of those naval officers has turned round and heard you. My dear Clopper, it was a mere childish bagatelle."

"Well, but let’s have it," said Clopper, "let’s have it; I won't tell my sister, you know;" and he put his hand to his nose, and looked monstrous wise.

"Nothing of that sort, Clopper—no, no—’pon honor—little Bob Stubbs is no libertine; and the story is very simple. You see that my father has a small place, merely a few hundred acres, at Sloffemsquiggle: Isn't it a funny name? Hang it, there’s the naval gentleman staring again,—(I looked terribly fierce


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Author:John Grimes Walker

Works

 * Encrypted message to John Pemberton, 1863-07-04

title: Author:John Grimes Walker


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 [xiii]


text: Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day/C. R. Darwin, F.R.S.


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148 then younger and more nervous suddenly lost his temper, banged his fist on the table, and turning to the young lawyer, cried out:

"It's a lie. I bet you two millions you wouldn't stick in a cell even for five years."

"If you mean it seriously," replied the lawyer, "then I bet I'll stay not five but fifteen."

"Fifteen! Done!" cried the banker. "Gentlemen, I stake two millions."

"Agreed. You stake two millions, I my freedom," said the lawyer.

So this wild, ridiculous bet came to pass. The banker, who at that time had too many millions to count, spoiled and capricious, was beside himself with rapture. During supper he said to the lawyer jokingly:

"Come to your senses, young man, before it's too late. Two millions are nothing to me, but you stand to lose three or four of the best years of your life. I say three or four, because you'll never stick it out any longer. Don't forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary is much heavier than enforced imprisonment. The idea that you have the right to free yourself at any moment will poison the whole of your life in the cell. I pity you."

And now the banker, pacing from corner to corner, recalled all this and asked himself:

"Why did I make this bet? What's the good? The lawyer loses fifteen years of his life and I throw away two millions. Will it convince people that capital punishment is worse or better than imprisonment for life? No, no! all stuff and rubbish. On my part, it was the caprice of a well-fed man; on the lawyer's pure greed of gold."

He recollected further what happened after the evening party. It was decided that the lawyer must undergo his imprisonment under the strictest observation, in a garden wing of the banker's house. It was agreed that during the period he would be deprived of the right to cross the threshold, to see living people, to hear human voices, and to receive letters and newspapers. He was permitted to have a musical instrument, to read books, to write letters, to drink wine and smoke tobacco. By the agreement he could


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 8 to 9 lines long, silky-pubesccent. Anthers all perfect. Style-end scarcely thickened.

8. A. linearis, ''Meissn. in DC. Prod.'' xiv. 311. Apparently procumbent, with slender branching stems of above 1 ft., the young shoots silky-pubescent and hirsute with long fine hairs, the older foliage glabrous. Leaves entire, narrow-linear, obtuse, attenuate at the base, rather thick but flat, to $1/2$ to $1 1/2$ in. long. Involucres solitary or 2 or 3 together at the ends of the branches, on peduncles of about 1 line; inner bracts nearly 2 lines long. Perianth 6 to 7 lines long, softly hairy. Anthers all perfect. Style sparingly bearded, the end narrow-oblong.

9. A. sericea, Labill. Pl. Nov. Holl. i. 29. t. 38. A tall shrub or small tree of 10 to 20 ft., the branches and foliage softly silky-pubescent or villous with soft appressed or longer or spreading hairs. Leaves crowded, very shortly petiolate, twice ternately or pinnately divided into linear-terete almost filiform segments, often ending in small glabrous gland-like tips and sometimes the lower segments short, as if mutilated, with dilated almost peltate gland-like tips, the whole leaf 1 to $l 1/2$ in. long, the floral ones often rather longer than the others. Involucres terminal, solitary or rarely 2 or 3 together, almost concealed by the foliage, on peduncles of about 1 line, the bracts silky-pubescent, the inner ones 2 lines long. Perianth above 1 in. long, silky-villous, slender, the laminæ densely bearded inside behind the anthers which are all perfect. Style glabrous, the end slightly thickened.—R. Br. in Trans. Linn. Soc. x. 152, Prod. 367; Meissn. in Pl. Preiss. i. 513, ii. 248, and in DC. Prod. xiv. 312; A. apiculuta, Meissn. in Pl. Preiss. i. 614, and in DC. l.c. 313, not of R. Br.

10. A. Meissneri, ''Lehm. Pl. Preiss.'' i. 512, ii. 248. A procumbent or irregularly spreading shrub of 3 or 4 ft., the branches pubescent or villous, the foliage hirsute pubescent or almost glabrous. Leaves mostly twice trifid but varying either more divided or less so, with terete rather rigid segments, more spreading than in A. sericea and


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Rh communicate, but only in silence, with the outside world through a little window specially constructed for this purpose. Everything necessary, books, music, wine, he could receive in any quantity by sending a note through the window. The agreement provided for all the minutest details, which made the confinement strictly solitary, and it obliged the lawyer to remain exactly fifteen years from twelve o'clock of November 14th, 1870, to twelve o'clock of November 14th, 1885. The least attempt on his part to violate the conditions, to escape if only for two minutes before the time freed the banker from the obligation to pay him the two millions.

During the first year of imprisonment, the lawyer, as far as it was possible to judge from his short notes, suffered terribly from loneliness and boredom. From his wing day and night came the sound of the piano. He rejected wine and tobacco. "Wine," he wrote, "excites desires, and desires are the chief foes of a prisoner; besides, nothing is more boring than to drink good wine alone," and tobacco spoils the air in his room. During the first year the lawyer was sent books of a light character; novels with a complicated love interest, stories of crime and fantasy, comedies, and so on.

In the second year the piano was heard no longer and the lawyer asked only for classics. In the fifth year, music was heard again, and the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched him said that during the whole of that year he was only eating, drinking, and lying on his bed. He yawned often and talked angrily to himself. Books he did not read. Sometimes at nights he would sit down to write. He would write for a long time and tear it all up in the morning. More than once he was heard to weep.

In the second half of the sixth year, the prisoner began zealously to study languages, philosophy, and history. He fell on these subjects so hungrily that the banker hardly had time to get books enough for him. In the space of four years about six hundred volumes were bought at his request. It was while that passion lasted that the banker received the following letter from the prisoner: "My dear gaoler, I am writing these lines in six languages. Show them to experts. Let them read them. If they do not find


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 These letters led to an engagement on 'Vanity Fair,' to which periodical he contributed under the same nom de plume.

In May 1870, the London 'Figaro,' one of the most successful journalistic enterprises of the day, was started; and, two months later, Mr. James Mortimer selected Mr. Hopkins for his chief leader-writer. It cannot be denied that Mr. Hopkins is sometimes too unsparing and too vehement in the use of invective, and too bitter in his satire; but he says, and truly, that he has never written a line that assailed or reflected upon the private character of any man, be he prince or peasant.


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Author:Norman Macleod

Works

 * Home School; or Hints on Home Education
 * "Courage, Brother, Do Not Stumble", 1857
 * Reminiscences of a Highland Parish (1867)
 * "Farewell to Funery"

title: Author:Norman Macleod


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subject of our cartoon was born in Scotland in the year 1824. He is well known as the editor of 'Good Words for the Young,' the title of which has lately been changed to 'Good Things.' The periodical over the interests of which Mr. Macdonald presides was started after the great success that attended its parent, 'Good Words,' when under the care of the late Dr. Norman Macleod.

Mr. Macdonald's first attempt at a book of any importance was met with a rebuff from the eminent publisher to whom he had offered the manuscript. He received a note, the terms of which are familiar to every man of letters, successful or unsuccessful.

He was told that, though the manuscript was a credit to him, and showed signs of great promise for the future, it contained certain things that it was not desirable, &c. In a word, the copy was politely declined. After this, however, Mr. Macdonald, with the perseverance of his nation, tried again, and was successful.

The book the first eminent publisher had rejected was 'David Elginbrod,' the author's best novel.

The following is a pretty complete list of Mr. Macdonald's works: 'Phantastes,' 'David Elginbrod,' 'The Portent,' 'Alec Forbes of Howglen,' 'Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood,' 'Guild Court,' 'At the Back of the North Wind,' 'Dealings with the Fairies,' 'Robert Falconer,' 'The Seaboard Parish,' 'Ronald Bannerman's Boyhood,' 'The Miracles of our Lord,' 'Unspoken Sermons,' 'Wilfrid Cumbermede,' and 'The Vicar's Daughter.' Mr. Macdonald's first books displayed considerable originality of thought; the characters were strongly marked and life-like, and they had a good Scotch savour about them. Since then, however, their author has been on the decline; his books have grown dull, and he has taken to favouring his


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 mostly short,the whole leaf often scarcely above $1/2$ in. long, those clustered round the flowers however usually twice as long and often plumose at the base. Involucres terminal, usually 3 or 4 together. Perianth $3/4$ to 1 in. long, glandular-pubescent and not silky, the laminæ with few hairs inside behind the anthers which are all perfect.—Meissn. in DC. Prod. xiv. 312.

11. A. filifolia, Benth. A shrub of 5 or 6 ft. with pubescent branches. Leaves glabrous or nearly so, twice or even thrice pinnately divided into filiform segments, those of the stem-leaves short, those of the floral leaves much longer and slightly plumose at the base, the whole leaf on the branches not above $1/2$ in. long, round the flowers $3/4$ to 1 in., all glandular at the point. Involucres terminal, solitary or 2 or 3 together. Perianth fully $3/4$ in. long, the tube somewhat angular, glabrous or slightly hairy in the upper part, the laminæ darker coloured, hairy outside, bearded inside behiud the anthers which are all perfect.

12. A. terminalis, R. Br. in Trans. Linn. Soc. x. 152, Prod. 367. A procumbent shrub, extending to 3 or 4 ft., tomentose-pubescent and more or less sprinkled with fine spreading hairs. Leaves divided into 3 to 7 linear-terete segments, those along the branches usually appressed and 3 to 5 lines long, those around the flowers crowded and twice as long. Involucres terminal, solitary or 2 or 3 together, the inner floral leaves less divided with a dilated ciliate petiole, or even reduced to a simple filiform leaf. Bracts plumose at the base. Perianth about f in. long, hirsute outside. Anthers all perfect, with very few hairs on the perianth-laminæ behind them. Style-end slender.—Meissn. in DC. Prod. xiv. 313; Endl. Iconogr. t. 110.

13. A. flavidiflora, ''F. Muell. Fragm.'' i. 157. A procumbent much branched shrub, the branches and foliage silvery-tomentose and more or less hirsute with spreading hairs. Leaves divided into 3 to 7 linear-terete obtuse segments without terminal glands, those along the branches $1/4$ to nearly $1/2$ in. long, those crowded round the flowers nearly $3/4$ in. Involucres terminal, solitary or clustered, on very short pedicels, the bracts silky-hairy. Perianth $3/4$ in. long, villous outside, the laminæ


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 densely plumose outside with yellow hairs, glabrous inside or nearly so. Anthers all perfect. Style-end narrow..

14. A. apiculata, ''R. Br. Prot. Nov. 9, not of Meissn.'' A procumbent shrub spreading to 2 or 3 ft., the branches slender, silky-villous when young. Leaves divided into 3 to 5 filiform segments usually with a depressed lateral gland at the end, those of the branches often short and nearly glabrous, the floral leaves crowded, often 1 in. long, and ciliate with a few long fine glabrous hairs. Involucres 2 or more together in terminal clusters and nearly sessile, the bracts nearly glabrous. Perianth not above $1/2$ in. long, villous with short spreading hairs, the laminæ glabrous inside or with very few hairs behind the anthers which are all perfect. Style-end oblong.—A. procumbens, Meissn. in Pl. Preiss. i. 512, ii. 248, and in DC. Prod. xiv. 312; A. Drummondii, Meissn. in Pl. Preiss. i. 514, and in DC. Prod. xiv. 313.

 4. STIRLINGIA, Endl.

Flowers hermaphrodite or male by abortion. Perianth regular, the tube cylindrical, at length separating into distinct segments, recurved above the middle. Anthers all perfect, erect on short thick filaments below the base of the laminæ, cohering round the style when the flower first opens, at length recurved with the perianth-segments, the cells of each anther separated by a broad connective, and the two adjoining cells of two adjoining anthers applied face to face in the bud so as to form a single cell. No hypogynous scales. Ovary sessile, with a single anatropous ovule erect from the base; style filiform with a terminal obtuse or dilated and peltate stigma. Fruit a small dry indehiscent nut, usually broadly obovoid or obconical with a convex or nearly flat top, hirsute all over, the upper hairs usually longer forming a coma.—Undershrubs or shrubs usually glabrous, branching and leafy at the base. Leaves dichotomous or rarely trifid only. Peduncles terminal, leafless, long and simple or more or less branched and paniculate. Flowers small, in globular spikes or heads terminating the branches of the panicle, each flower sessile within a small bract, the rhachis or receptacle cylindrical ovoid or short, usually villous.


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 readers with long and troublesome sermons in every other chapter of what he is pleased to style new novels.

The fall of the once ubiquitous A. K. H. B.—as far as current literature was concerned—may be traced to foisting upon the public a book of sermons as 'The Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson.' Mr. Macdonald should take warning in time, and call novels novels and sermons sermons.

We should rejoice to see him again writing such books as 'Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood' and 'David Elginbrod;' and we very much regret he ever devoted himself to goody-goody literature.


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our portraits are included some few of those gentlemen who, not being known in the strict sense as literary men, are identified with literary interests. We have already given Mr. W. H. Smith, M.P. for Westminster, and Mr. Mudie, the well-known librarian; we now add Mr. William Tinsley, of 18 Catherine-street, Strand, the proprietor of 'Tinsleys' Magazine,' whom we have selected as a representative publisher.

Mr. William Tinsley trades under the name of Tinsley Brothers; he has, however, no brother in partnership with him, nor has he had for several years past. The business known as 'Tinsley Brothers' was founded some twenty years ago by William and Edward Tinsley, hence the name under which the business is still carried on by the surviving partner. Mr. Edward Tinsley was, we believe, the younger brother of the two, and at his death, six or seven years ago, the business came into the sole possession of the present proprietor.

William Tinsley was born, in the year 1830, at the village of South Mimms, in the county of Middlesex; and we hope we are violating no confidence when we mention that he was sent to work by his father as a farmer's boy before he was twelve years old; that the only actual schooling he ever received was at the national school at South Mimms, and this for no more than a few months.

At the age of fourteen, young William Tinsley was offered the chance of learning a trade. He availed himself of the opportunity thus afforded him; and it was with the few pounds he had saved whilst working at his trade that he, with his brother Edward, opened a small shop in the Strand for the sale of second-hand books. But the brothers were not long content with being merely booksellers: they soon began to print and publish books on their own account. The few books they published to start with


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, Mr. Hopkins read an elaborate and remarkable statistical paper on the resources of the South; and this paper he soon afterwards reprinted as an introduction to 'The South Vindicated.'

The connection with the 'Index' involved a great deal of labour outside the immediate business of the paper; for the 'Index' was the bureau for information on Southern affairs. Mr. Hopkins was the London correspondent of the 'New York Daily News,' and he also sent occasional letters to the 'Mobile Register.' At the conclusion of the civil war it was intended to carry on the 'Index;' but President Johnson regarded the continued publication of the paper as a proof that the South had not entirely submitted to the Union, and therefore the 'Index' ceased to appear.

From 1864 until 1868, Mr. Hopkins held the responsible appointment of London correspondent to the Paris 'Correspondence Havas' a lithographic daily sheet of telegrams and news, circulated by imperial authority, and from which the French press took their information. The 'Correspondence Havas' is the oldest press association in Europe, and from it sprang our 'Reuter agency'—Mr. Julius Reuter having been for many years on the 'Havas' staff before he started his useful and successful agency in England.

In September 1865, Mr. Hopkins was invited by his friend Captain Hamber, the editor, and by Mr. Johnstone, the proprietor, to join the staff of the 'Standard;' and for three years he was associated with that paper.

Meantime Mr. Hopkins produced 'The Fall of the Confederacy,' an essay that was favourably received both in England and America. Some sketches of social life which had been contributed to the 'Cosmopolitan' were collected and published under the title of 'Cosmopolitan Sketches.' A few months after the passing of the 1867 Reform Bill, Mr. Hopkins wrote 'The English Revolution.' In that book, after a survey of the political situation, the author advocates certain changes and reforms which he deems expedient in consequence of the establishment of household suffrage.

At the commencement of 1867, Mr. Hopkins's learned friend, the editor of the 'Law Journal,' offered him an appointment on that paper, which he accepted and still holds. Mr. Hopkins was an occasional contributor of leaders to the 'Morning Post,' and for some time wrote a weekly letter under the signature of 'Esse Quam Videri.'


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Rh and camp was no sooner made, and food and water brought, than a great exodus took place.

The general called me to the tent-door to see the deserted camp, and wondered how the soldiers could all have disappeared so quickly. Another problem was, where the fishing-tackle came from! Some had brought rods, even in the restricted space allotted them, but many cut them from the bushes along the river, attaching hooks and lines, while some bent pins and tied them to strings. The soldiers shared so generously with one another that one pole was loaned about while the idle ones watched. I never cared for fishing, but my husband begged me to go with him always, and carried my book and work. I sat under a bush near him, which he covered with a shawl to protect me from the sun, and there we stayed for hours. Officers and men competed alike for the best places by the quiet pools. The general could hardly pay attention to his line, he was so interested watching the men and enjoying their pleasure. His keen sense of the ludicrous took in the comical figures as far as we could see. In cramped and uncomfortable positions, with earnest eyes fixed steadily in one place for hours, they nearly fell into the water with excitement if they chanced to draw out a tiny fish. The other men came from all along the bank to observe if any one was successful.

One of the men near us was a member of the band. He was a perfect reproduction of the old prints of Izaak Walton. The fixedness of his gaze—his whole soul in his eyes—while he was utterly unconscious of any one being near, was too much for the general's equanimity. Rh

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82 He put his head under the canopy made by my shawl, not daring to laugh aloud, for fear he might be heard by the man, and said it was more fun to see that soldier fish than to hear him play on the violin. No wonder the men enjoyed the sport, for even these little bull-fish, fairly gritty from the muddy water in which they lived, were a great addition to their pork and hard-tack fare.

For once the sun overcame me, and I knew the ignominy of being compelled to own that I was dizzy and faint. I had not been long in military life before I was as much ashamed of being ill as if I had been a real soldier. The troops pride themselves on being invulnerable to bodily ailments. I was obliged to submit to being helped back to camp, and in the cool of the evening watched the return of the fishers, who were as proud of the strings of ugly little things they carried as if they had been pickerel or bass. Then the blue flame and soft smoke began to ascend from the evening fires, and the odor from the frying supper rose on the air.

In my indolent, weak condition I never knew how I was able to perform such agile pirouettes as I did; but hearing a peculiar sound, I looked down and saw a huge rattlesnake gliding towards me. I had long ago learned to suppress shrieks, but I forgot all such self-control then. How I wished myself the Indian baby we had seen the day before—the veritable "baby in the tree-top," for it was tied by buckskin thongs to a limb! There I thought I could rest in peace. The snake was soon despatched. The men had left camp so hurriedly in the morning that the usual beating of the ground was omitted, and so I had this unwelcome visitor.

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User:Loudubewe

See wikipedia:fr:Utilisateur:Loudubewe

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Rh When we camped near a village, the Indians soon appeared. Groups of half a dozen on ponies, with children running after, would come. The ponies were, most of them, dull and sway-backed. It was no wonder, for I have seen four persons on one pony—an Indian and three half-grown boys. No horse could keep its shape loaded down, as those of the Indians usually are, with game and property. These visitors grew to be great trials, for they were inveterate beggars. One day an old Indian, called "The-Man-with-the-Broken-Ear," came riding in, elaborately decorated and on a shapely pony. He demanded to see the chief. The general appeared, assisted him to dismount, and seated him in my camp-chair. The savage leaned back in a grand sort of manner and calmly surveyed us all. I was soon in agonies of anxiety, for Colonel Tom and the young officers lounging near entered the tent. They bowed low, took the hand of the old fellow with profound deference, and, smiling benignly, addressed him. In just as suave a voice as if their words had been genuine flattery, they said, "You confounded old galoot, why are you here begging and thieving, when your wretched old hands are hardly dry from some murder, and your miserable mouth still red from eating the heart of your enemy?" Each one saluted him, and each vied with the other in pouring forth a tirade of forcible expletives, to which he bowed in acknowledgment and shook hands. My terror was that he might understand, for we often found these people as cunning as foxes, sitting stolid and stupid, pretending not to know a word, while they understood the gist of much that was said.

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User talk:Loudubewe

— billinghurst  sDrewth  11:17, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

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text: Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day/John Everett Millais


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84 The officers gave this chief tobacco—Perique I think it is called—and so strong that, though I was accustomed to all kinds, I rather avoided the odor of it. We had no whiskey, but if we had kept it, the general obeyed the law of the reservation too strictly to allow it to be given away. He was called to the office-tent a few moments, and in a trice one of the others had emptied the alcohol from the spirit-lamp and offered the cup to the distinguished guest. Putting the great square of Perique into his mouth, with a biscuit beside, he washed it all down with gulps of the burning fluid. His eyes, heretofore dull, sparkled at the sight of the fire-water. The officers said, "How," and he replied, "How." This did not surprise me, for that one word is the Indian toast, and all tribes know it. But my breath almost went out of my body when they asked him if he would have more, and he replied, "You bet." I was sure then that he had understood all the railing speeches and that he would plan a revenge. Loud cries of laughter greeted his reply; but matching their cunning against his, they eventually found that he knew no more English. He had learned these words, without understanding their meaning, at the trader's store on the reservation. He waited around in the tent, hoping for more alcohol, until I was weary of the sight of him; but I was too much afraid of him, limp as he then was, to look bored.

Finally he was lifted out, a tumbled up, disorganized heap of drooping feathers, trailing blanket, and demoralized legs. When once, however, one drunken old foot was lifted over the pony for him, he swung himself into

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Rh the saddle, and though swaying uncertainly, he managed to ride away.

During the last days of our march we came upon another premonitory warning from the Indians. A pole was found stuck in the trail before us, with a red flag, to which were fastened locks of hair. It was a challenge, and when interpreted meant, that if we persisted in advancing, the hostiles were ready to meet the soldiers and fight them. The officers paid little attention to this, but my heart was like lead for days afterwards.

We encamped that night near what the Indians call "Medicine Rock;" my husband and I walked out to see it. It was a large stone, showing on the flat surface the impress of hands and feet made ages ago, before the clay was petrified. The Indians had tied bags of their herb medicine on poles about the rock, believing that virtue would enter into articles left in the vicinity of this proof of the marvels or miracles of the Great Spirit. Tin cans, spoons, and forks, that they had bought at the Agency, on account of the brightness of the metal, were left there as offerings to an unseen God.

Everything pertaining to the Indians was new and interesting to me. While we were in Kansas the tribes were at war, and we had not the opportunity to see their daily life as we did while passing through the Sioux reservations on the march.

I regretted each day that brought us nearer to the conclusion of our journey, for though I had been frightened by Indians, and though we had encountered cold, storms, and rough life, the pleasures of the trip overbalanced the discomforts.

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title: Boots and Saddles/Chapter 7


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66 leaving France. He could not safely return to England, for his brother was in Newgate on a charge of treason, and he himself was described in the indictment as the principal. He went to Switzerland, probably joining Helen Williams there, but he must have been back in June, for he then obtained a divorce from his wife, Rachel Coope. This is the presumptive date of his liaison or secret marriage with Miss Williams. William Stone was tried at the Old Bailey, after nearly two years' incarceration, on January 28 and 29, 1796, for "treacherously conspiring with his brother, John Hurford Stone, now in France, to destroy the life of the King and to raise a rebellion in his realms." The truth was, however, that he had urged his brother, "that seditious and wicked traitor," as Sir John Scott (afterwards Lord Eldon) styled him, to dissuade the French from invading England, inasmuch as they would find none of the sympathy they expected, but were doomed to failure. Scott argued, indeed, that by warning the French against a hopeless enterprise William Stone had acted as their friend and as the King's enemy; but Erskine and Adair, his counsel, urged that if promoting an invasion was treason, warding it off must be the reverse. It must, however, be acknowledged that the collecting of opinions on the chances of a French invasion, however openly done, and however adverse those opinions, was sailing very near the


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hall, Joseph


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250 tone down the stone to a sober tint. Unhappily of late years there has been much firing of the furze and heather on the moor, and the flames destroy the beautiful lichens and mosses, and leave the old stones white and ghostly, not to be reclothed with the old tints for centuries.

I do not think that we have any idea of the slowness with which the lichens spread; a century to them is nothing—it passes as a watch in the night. There is a granite post I often go by. It was set up just seventy years ago, and on it the largest golden circle of the Physcia parietina has attained the diameter of an inch. Mr. Parfitt mentions in connection with it a rocky crag at Baggy Point, North Devon, where it covers the whole surface with a coat of golden colour. It spreads more rapidly on slate than it does on granite, and especially on such slates as are liable to rapid disintegration. The Woodland and the Coryton slates are readily attacked by it. The growth begins with a splash about the size of a sixpence, and increases to that of a plate, when the centre breaks up, and the ring becomes detached in fragments which meet others, and so appear to cover the rock or roof.

One of the most beautiful of the lichens on the moor is the coral moss, Sphœrophoron coralloides. It is a pale greenish- white, upright-growing lichen, that forms a cup, and somewhat resembles an old Venetian wineglass. Then points of brilliant scarlet form round the lip of the cup, and increase in size till the whole presents a wonderful appearance as of sealing-wax splashed over the soil. It is not

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Rh to the moorland, but grows also in woods, where there has been a clearance made. I came upon a wonderful carpet of sprinkled scarlet and white on one occasion, where there was a woodman's track through an old oak coppice. But it must be capricious, for of late years when searching for it in the same spot I have found no more. The black coral moss is scarce, but it has been found about Lynx and Yes Tors.

The birds on Dartmoor have a hard time of it, not only because of the guns levelled at them, but because of the "swaling" or burning of the moor, which takes place at the time when they are nesting. In East Anglia there are along the coast the "bird tides," as the people say. At that period when the plovers and sea-mews are nesting in the marshes, there are unusually low tides, a provision of God, so it is held, for the protection of the feathered creatures whilst laying and hatching out their eggs. So the ancients told of the halcyon days when the gods had pity on the seabirds, and smoothed seven to eleven days in the winter solstice, that they might with safety hatch their young. But on Dartmoor man has none of this pity; he selects the very time when the poor birds are sitting in their nests on their eggs, or are cherishing their callow young, for enveloping them in flames. The buzzard, the hen-harrier, and the sparrow-hawk are now chiefly seen in the most lonely portions of the moor. Gulls visit it on the approach of stormy weather; but the ring-ouzel is there throughout the year. The golden and grey plovers are abundant; the pipe of the curlew may be heard; black grouse

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252 and quail may be shot, as also snipe. By the water, that living jewel the kingfisher can be observed watching for his prey, and about every farm the blue tit, called locally the hicky maul or hicka noddy, is abundant. The sand martin breeds in a few places. The heron has a place where she builds at Archerton.

The snow bunting and cirl bunting are met with occasionally.

The cuckoo is heard on the moor before he visits the lowlands. "March, he sits on his perch; April, he tunes his bill; May, he sings all day; June, he alters his tune, and July, away he do fly." So say the people.

One of the freshest and most delicious of Devonshire folk-melodies is that connected with a song about the cuckoo.

There is a saying among the country folk:—

The wren is said to be the king of all birds. The story told to account for this is that the birds once assembled to elect a sovereign, and agreed that that

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text:
Talk:Best Russian Short Stories/God Sees the Truth, but Waits

Original
The original is ru:Третья русская книга для чтения (Лев Толстой). -- Sergey kudryavtsev (talk) 13:06, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


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User talk:92.23.87.164

Welcome

Hello, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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text:
Charles Darwin

 * The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
 * Charles Darwin in the Falklands, 1833
 * C. R. Darwin, F.R.S. in Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day
 * Charles Darwin, Controversial Scientist, Dies at 73
 * Obituary Notice of Charles Robert Darwin in Transactions & Proceedings of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh

 * The Times

 * Littell's Living Age

 * Popular Science Monthly

title: Charles Darwin


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 what influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this great country by his narrow exertions? Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover to show light at Calais." Sheridan was so annoyed at the failure of the public to appreciate his theories regarding oratory, that at one time he purposed emigrating to America. Late in life he managed Drury- lane for his son, Richard Brinsley Sheri- dan, and his partners; but for a long period father and son were completely es- tranged. Mr. Sheridan was often obliged to reside on the Continent because of money difficulties. He was the author of nume- rous works, chiefly on oratory and educa- tion. Sheridan's Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1780, which saw many editions, is said by Allibone to be " of more phonetic than philological value." His Life and Works of Jonathan Swift, (17 vols., 1784) has been superseded by later writers. He died 14th August 1788, aged 66, at Margate, where his remains were interred. Dibdiu says: "He was an excellent actor, a man of strict honour, and a perfect gentleman ; " whilst Macklin writes of " the dissonance of his voice, the laboured quaintness of his emphasis, the incessant flux of his speech." ^ His daughter Alicia married Joseph LeFanu. [See LeFand, Alicia.] 3 16 37 46

Sheridan, Frances, wife of foregoing, was born in 1724. Her father. Dr. Philip Chamberlaine, was opposed to female edu- cation, and it was only by stealth that, principally with the help of her brothers, she obtained her knowledge of books. At the early age of fifteen she published, unknown to her father, Eugenia and Ade- laide, a romance, in two volumes. She be- came acquainted with Sheridan through a pamphlet she wrote in his favour on the occasion of his theatrical difficulties with the Dub'-'n public. Mrs. Sheridan is de- scribed as an accomplished and amiable woman : " Quite celestial : both her vir- tues and her genius were highly esteemed." Of her numerous works, Sidney Biddulph is the best known and most successful ; part of it was dramatized. Johnson re- marked to her upon passages therein : " I know not, madam, that you have a right upon moral principles to make your readers suffer so much." Fox thought it " the best novel of our age." Mrs, Sheridan died in September 1766, of a a lingering illness, at Blois, in France. " She appears to have been one of those rare women, who, united to men of more pretensions, but less real in- tellect than themselves, meekly conceal this superiority even from their own hearts, and pass their lives without a remonstrance or murmur, patiently endeavouring to re- pair those evils which the indiscretion or vanity of their partners has brought upon them." 3°7 '6 146

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, oi-ator and author, son of the two preced- ing, was born at 12 Dorset-street, Dublin, in September 1751. At the age of seven, he was, with his elder brother Charles, placed at Whyte's academy in Grafton- street, where he was considered very dull. His parents removed to England, and in 1762 he was sent to Harrow, where, Moore says, "he was remarkable only as a very idle, careless, but, at the same time, en- gaging boy, who contrived to win the aff'ection and even admiration of the whole school, both masters and pupils, by the mere charm of his frank and genial man- ners, and by the occasional gleams of supe- rior intellect which broke through all the indolence and indiflierence of his charac- ter." During the greater part of his stay at Harrow, his family resided in France. He left Harrow wheuhewasabouteighteen, and went to live with liis father in London, and sometimes at Bath. He spent his time perfecting himself in fencing and other accomplishments. He formed an intimacy with a Mr. Halhed, and they wrote in partnership, Jupiter, a farce, and some other ephemeral productions, and in August 177 1 published a translation of Aristaenetus, which proved a total failure. Both young men fell in love with Miss Linley, a beautiful singer of sixteen. She had been on the point of marriage to a rich elderly gentleman, whose suit her father favoured from mercenary reasons, but who, on her assurance that she could never really love him, showed the sin- cerity of his attachment by settling £3,000 upon her. It was probably at this period that, inspired by Miss Liuley's beauty, Sheridan wrote " Dry be that tear," and others of his beautiful love verses. Mr. Halhed eventually resigned the pursuit of Miss Linley and went to India ; and She- ridan eloped with her to Calais, where they were secretly married in March 1 772. He was then little more than twenty, and she was entering but her eighteenth year. The young couple were married at Bath about a year afterwards. As he declined to allow his wife to sing in pub- lic, and as he was without a regular pro- fession, the remnants of her fortune, and his talents were all they had to live upon. He wrote occasionally for Woodfall's Public Advertiser. In January 1775, his comedy of The Rivals was brought out at Covent-garden. It proved a brilliant sue-