text:
Indian Summer of a Forsyte/III

The little spirits of the past which throng an old man's days had never pushed their faces up to his so seldom as in the seventy hours elapsing before Sunday came. The spirit of the future, with the charm of the unknown, put up her lips instead. Old Jolyon was not restless now, and paid no visits to the log, because she was coming to lunch. There is wonderful finality about a meal; it removes a world of doubts, for no one misses meals except for reasons beyond control. He played many games with Holly on the lawn, pitching them up to her who was batting so as to be ready to bowl to Jolly in the holidays. For she was not a Forsyte, but Jolly was—and Forsytes always bat, until they have resigned and reached the age of eighty-five. The dog Balthasar, in attendance, lay on the ball as often as he could, and the page-boy fielded, till his face was like the harvest moon. And because the time was getting shorter, each day was longer and more golden than the last. On Friday night he took a liver pill, his side hurt him rather, and though it was not the liver side, there is no remedy like that. Anyone telling him that he had found a new excitement in life and that excitement was not good for him, would have been met by one of those steady and rather defiant looks of his deep-set iron-grey eyes, which seemed to say: 'I know my own business best.' He always had and always would.

On Sunday morning, when Holly had gone with her governess to church, he visited the strawberry beds. There, accompanied by the dog Balthasar, he examined the plants narrowly and succeeded in finding at least two dozen berries which were really ripe. Stooping was not good for him, and he became very dizzy and red in the forehead. Having placed the strawberries in a dish on the dining-table, he washed his hands and bathed his forehead with eau de Cologne. There, before the mirror, it occurred to him that he was thinner. What a 'threadpaper' he had been when he was young! It was nice to be slim—he could not bear a fat chap; and yet perhaps his cheeks were too thin! She was to arrive by train at half-past twelve and walk up, entering from the road past Drage's farm at the far end of the coppice. And, having looked into June's room to see that there was hot water ready, he set forth to meet her, leisurely, for his heart was beating. The air smelled sweet, larks sang, and the Grand Stand at Epsom was visible. A perfect day! On just such a one, no doubt, six years ago, Soames had brought young Bosinney down with him to look at the site before they began to build. It was Bosinney who had pitched on the exact spot for the house—as June had often told him. In these days he was thinking much about that young fellow, as if his spirit were really haunting the field of his last work, on the chance of seeing—her. Bosinney—the one man who had possessed her heart, to whom she had given her whole self with rapture! At his age one could not, of course, imagine such things, but there stirred in him a queer vague aching—as it were the ghost of an impersonal jealousy; and a feeling, too, more generous, of pity for that love so early lost. All over in a few poor months! Well, well! He looked at his watch before entering the coppice—only a quarter past, twenty-five minutes to wait! And then, turning the corner of the path, he saw her exactly where he had seen her the first time, on the log; and realised that she must have come by the earlier train to sit there alone for a couple of hours at least. Two hours of her society missed! What memory could make that log so dear to her? His face showed what he was thinking, for she said at once:

"Forgive me, Uncle Jolyon; it was here that I first knew."

"Yes, yes; there it is for you whenever you like. You're looking a little Londony; you're giving too many lessons."

That she should have to give lessons worried him. Lessons to a parcel of young girls thumping out scales with their thick fingers.

"Where do you go to give them?" he asked.

"They're mostly Jewish families, luckily."

Old Jolyon stared; to all Forsytes Jews seem strange and doubtful.

"They love music, and they're very kind."

"They had better be, by George!" He took her arm—his side always hurt him a little going uphill—and said:

"Did you ever see anything like those buttercups? They came like that in a night."

Her eyes seemed really to fly over the field, like bees after the flowers and the honey. "I wanted you to see them—wouldn't let them turn the cows in yet." Then, remembering that she had come to talk about Bosinney, he pointed to the clock-tower over the stables:

"I expect he wouldn't have let me put that there—had no notion of time, if I remember."

But, pressing his arm to her, she talked of flowers instead, and he knew it was done that he might not feel she came because of her dead lover.

"The best flower I can show you," he said, with a sort of triumph, "is my little sweet. She'll be back from Church directly. There's something about her which reminds me a little of you," and it did not seem to him peculiar that he had put it thus, instead of saying: "There's something about you which reminds me a little of her." Ah! And here she was!

Holly, followed closely by her elderly French governess, whose digestion had been ruined twenty-two years ago in the siege of Strasbourg, came rushing towards them from under the oak tree. She stopped about a dozen yards away, to pat Balthasar and pretend that this was all she had in her mind. Old Jolyon, who knew better, said:

"Well, my darling, here's the lady in grey I promised you."

Holly raised herself and looked up. He watched the two of them with a twinkle, Irene smiling, Holly beginning with grave inquiry, passing into a shy smile too, and then to something deeper. She had a sense of beauty, that child—knew what was what! He enjoyed the sight of the kiss between them.

"Mrs. Heron, Mam'zelle Beauce. Well, Mam'zelle—good sermon?"

For, now that he had not much more time before him, the only part of the service connected with this world absorbed what interest in church remained to him. Mam'zelle Beauce stretched out a spidery hand clad in a black kid glove—she had been in the best families—and the rather sad eyes of her lean yellowish face seemed to ask: "Are you well-brrred?" Whenever Holly or Jolly did anything unpleasing to her—a not uncommon occurrence—she would say to them: "The little Tayleurs never did that—they were such well-brrred little children." Jolly hated the little Tayleurs; Holly wondered dreadfully how it was she fell so short of them. 'A thin rum little soul,' old Jolyon thought her—Mam'zelle Beauce.

Luncheon was a successful meal, the mushrooms which he himself had picked in the mushroom house, his chosen strawberries, and another bottle of the Steinberg cabinet filled him with a certain aromatic spirituality, and a conviction that he would have a touch of eczema to-morrow.

After lunch they sat under the oak tree drinking Turkish coffee. It was no matter of grief to him when Mademoiselle Beauce withdrew to write her Sunday letter to her sister, whose future had been endangered in the past by swallowing a pin—an event held up daily in warning to the children to eat slowly and digest what they had eaten. At the foot of the bank, on a carriage rug, Holly and the dog Balthasar teased and loved each other, and in the shade old Jolyon with his legs crossed and his cigar luxuriously savoured, gazed at Irene sitting in the swing. A light, vaguely swaying, grey figure with a fleck of sunlight here and there upon it, lips just opened, eyes dark and soft under lids a little drooped. She looked content; surely it did her good to come and see him! The selfishness of age had not set its proper grip on him, for he could still feel pleasure in the pleasure of others, realising that what he wanted, though much, was not quite all that mattered.

"It's quiet here," he said; "you mustn't come down if you find it dull. But it's a pleasure to see you. My little sweet is the only face which gives me any pleasure, except yours."

From her smile he knew that she was not beyond liking to be appreciated, and this reassured him. "That's not humbug," he said. "I never told a woman I admired her when I didn't. In fact I don't know when I've told a woman I admired her, except my wife in the old days; and wives are funny." He was silent, but resumed abruptly:

"She used to expect me to say it more often than I felt it, and there we were." Her face looked mysteriously troubled, and, afraid that he had said something painful, he hurried on:

"When my little sweet marries, I hope she'll find someone who knows what women feel. I shan't be here to see it, but there's too much topsy-turvydom in marriage; I don't want her to pitch up against that." And, aware that he had made bad worse, he added: "That dog will scratch."

A silence followed. Of what was she thinking, this pretty creature whose life was spoiled; who had done with love, and yet was made for love? Some day when he was gone, perhaps, she would find another mate—not so disorderly as that young fellow who had got himself run over. Ah! but her husband?

"Does Soames never trouble you?" he asked.

She shook her head. Her face had closed up suddenly. For all her softness there was something irreconcilable about her. And a glimpse of light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies strayed into a brain which, belonging to early Victorian civilisation—so much older than this of his old age—had never thought about such primitive things.

"That's a comfort," he said. "You can see the Grand Stand to-day. Shall we take a turn round?"

Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose high outer walls peach trees and nectarines were trained to the sun, through the stables, the vinery, the mushroom house, the asparagus beds, the rosery, the summer-house, he conducted her—even into the kitchen garden to see the tiny green peas which Holly loved to scoop out of their pods with her finger, and lick up from the palm of her little brown hand. Many delightful things he showed her, while Holly and the dog Balthasar danced ahead, or came to them at intervals for attention. It was one of the happiest afternoons he had ever spent, but it tired him and he was glad to sit down in the music room and let her give him tea. A special little friend of Holly's had come in—a fair child with short hair like a boy's. And the two sported in the distance, under the stairs, on the stairs, and up in the gallery. Old Jolyon begged for Chopin. She played studies, mazurkas, waltzes, till the two children, creeping near, stood at the foot of the piano—their dark and golden heads bent forward, listening. Old Jolyon watched.

"Let's see you dance, you two!"

Shyly, with a false start, they began. Bobbing and circling, earnest, not very adroit, they went past and past his chair to the strains of that waltz. He watched them and the face of her who was playing turned smiling towards those little dancers thinking: 'Sweetest picture I've seen for ages.'

A voice said:

"Hollee! Mais enfin—qu'est-ce que tu fais là—danser, le dimanche! Viens, donc!"

But the children came close to old Jolyon, knowing that he would save them, and gazed into a face which was decidedly 'caught out.'

"Better the day, better the deed, Mam'zelle. It's all my doing. Trot along, chicks, and have your tea."

And, when they were gone, followed by the dog Balthasar, who took every meal, he looked at Irene with a twinkle and said:

"Well, there we are! Aren't they sweet? Have you any little ones among your pupils?"

"Yes, three—two of them darlings."

"Pretty?"

"Lovely!"

Old Jolyon sighed; he had an insatiable appetite for the very young. "My little sweet," he said, "is devoted to music; she'll be a musician some day. You wouldn't give me your opinion of her playing, I suppose?"

"Of course I will."

"You wouldn't like—" but he stifled the words "to give her lessons." The idea that she gave lessons was unpleasant to him; yet it would mean that he would see her regularly. She left the piano and came over to his chair.

"I would like, very much; but there is—June. When are they coming back?"

Old Jolyon frowned. "Not till the middle of next month. What does that matter?"

"You said June had forgiven me; but she could never forget, Uncle Jolyon."

Forget! She must forget, if he wanted her to.

But as if answering, Irene shook her head. "You know she couldn't; one doesn't forget."

Always that wretched past! And he said with a sort of vexed finality:

"Well, we shall see."

He talked to her an hour or more, of the children, and a hundred little things, till the carriage came round to take her home. And when she had gone he went back to his chair, and sat there smoothing his face and chin, dreaming over the day.

That evening after dinner he went to his study and took a sheet of paper. He stayed for some minutes without writing, then rose and stood under the masterpiece 'Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.' He was not thinking of that picture, but of his life. He was going to leave her something in his Will; nothing could so have stirred the stilly deeps of thought and memory. He was going to leave her a portion of his wealth, of his aspirations, deeds, qualities, work—all that had made that wealth; going to leave her, too, a part of all he had missed in life, by his sane and steady pursuit of wealth. All! What had he missed? 'Dutch Fishing Boats' responded blankly; he crossed to the French window, and drawing the curtain aside, opened it. A wind had got up, and one of last year's oak leaves which had somehow survived the gardener's brooms, was dragging itself with a tiny clicking rustle along the stone terrace in the twilight. Except for that it was very quiet out there, and he could smell the heliotrope watered not long since. A bat went by. A bird uttered its last 'cheep.' And right above the oak tree the first star shone. Faust in the opera had bartered his soul for some fresh years of youth. Morbid notion! No such bargain was possible, that was real tragedy! No making oneself new again for love or life or anything. Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from afar off while you could, and leave it something in your Will. But how much? And, as if he could not make that calculation looking out into the mild freedom of the country night, he turned back and went up to the chimney-piece. There were his pet bronzes—a Cleopatra with the asp at her breast; a Socrates; a greyhound playing with her puppy; a strong man reining in some horses. 'They last!' he thought, and a pang went through his heart. They had a thousand years of life before them!

'How much?' Well! enough at all events to save her getting old before her time, to keep the lines out of her face as long as possible, and grey from soiling that bright hair. He might live another five years. She would be well over thirty by then. 'How much?' She had none of his blood in her! In loyalty to the tenor of his life for forty years and more, ever since he married and founded that mysterious thing, a family, came this warning thought—None of his blood, no right to anything! It was a luxury then, this notion. An extravagance, a petting of an old man's whim, one of those things done in dotage. His real future was vested in those who had his blood, in whom he would live on when he was gone. He turned away from the bronzes and stood looking at the old leather chair in which he had sat and smoked so many hundreds of cigars. And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting there in her grey dress, fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful, looking up at him. Why! She cared nothing for him, really; all she cared for was that lost lover of hers. But she was there, whether she would or no, giving him pleasure with her beauty and grace. One had no right to inflict an old man's company, no right to ask her down to play to him and let him look at her—for no reward! Pleasure must be paid for in this world. 'How much?' After all, there was plenty; his son and his three grandchildren would never miss that little lump. He had made it himself, nearly every penny; he could leave it where he liked, allow himself this little pleasure. He went back to the bureau. 'Well, I'm going to,' he thought, 'let them think what they like. I'm going to!' And he sat down.

'How much?' Ten thousand, twenty thousand—how much? If only with his money he could buy one year, one month of youth. And startled by that thought, he wrote quickly:

',—Draw me a codicil to this effect: "I leave to my niece Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name she now goes, fifteen thousand pounds free of legacy duty." 'Yours faithfully, '.'

When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went back to the window and drew in a long breath. It was dark, but many stars shone now.

title: Indian Summer of a Forsyte/III


text:
Indian Summer of a Forsyte/IV

He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience had taught him brings panic intensity to all awkward thoughts. Experience had also taught him that a further waking at the proper hour of eight showed the folly of such panic. On this particular morning the thought which gathered rapid momentum was that if he became ill, at his age not improbable, he would not see her. From this it was but a step to realisation that he would be cut off, too, when his son and June returned from Spain. How could he justify desire for the company of one who had stolen—early morning does not mince words—June's lover? That lover was dead; but June was a stubborn little thing; warm-hearted, but stubborn as wood, and—quite true—not one who forgot! By the middle of next month they would be back. He had barely five weeks left to enjoy the new interest which had come into what remained of his life. Darkness showed up to him absurdly clear the nature of his feeling. Admiration for beauty—a craving to see that which delighted his eyes.

Preposterous, at his age! And yet—what other reason was there for asking June to undergo such painful reminder, and how prevent his son and his son's wife from thinking him very queer? He would be reduced to sneaking up to London, which tired him; and the least indisposition would cut him off even from that. He lay with eyes open, setting his jaw against the prospect, and calling himself an old fool, while his heart beat loudly, and then seemed to stop beating altogether. He had seen the dawn lighting the window chinks, heard the birds chirp and twitter, and the cocks crow, before he fell asleep again, and awoke tired but sane. Five weeks before he need bother, at his age an eternity! But that early morning panic had left its mark, had slightly fevered the will of one who had always had his own way. He would see her as often as he wished! Why not go up to town and make that codicil at his solicitor's instead of writing about it; she might like to go to the opera! But, by train, for he would not have that fat chap Beacon grinning behind his back. Servants were such fools; and, as likely as not, they had known all the past history of Irene and young Bosinney—servants knew everything, and suspected the rest. He wrote to her that morning:

"MY DEAR IRENE,—I have to be up in town to-morrow. If you would like to have a look in at the opera, come and dine with me quietly ...."

But where? It was decades since he had dined anywhere in London save at his Club or at a private house. Ah! that new-fangled place close to Covent Garden....

"Let me have a line to-morrow morning to the Piedmont Hotel whether to expect you there at 7 o'clock. "Yours affectionately, "."

She would understand that he just wanted to give her a little pleasure; for the idea that she should guess he had this itch to see her was instinctively unpleasant to him; it was not seemly that one so old should go out of his way to see beauty, especially in a woman.

The journey next day, short though it was, and the visit to his lawyer's, tired him. It was hot too, and after dressing for dinner he lay down on the sofa in his bedroom to rest a little. He must have had a sort of fainting fit, for he came to himself feeling very queer; and with some difficulty rose and rang the bell. Why! it was past seven! And there he was and she would be waiting. But suddenly the dizziness came on again, and he was obliged to relapse on the sofa. He heard the maid's voice say:

"Did you ring, sir?"

"Yes, come here"; he could not see her clearly, for the cloud in front of his eyes. "I'm not well, I want some sal volatile."

"Yes, sir." Her voice sounded frightened.

Old Jolyon made an effort.

"Don't go. Take this message to my niece—a lady waiting in the hall—a lady in grey. Say Mr. Forsyte is not well—the heat. He is very sorry; if he is not down directly, she is not to wait dinner."

When she was gone, he thought feebly: 'Why did I say a lady in grey—she may be in anything. Sal volatile!' He did not go off again, yet was not conscious of how Irene came to be standing beside him, holding smelling salts to his nose, and pushing a pillow up behind his head. He heard her say anxiously: "Dear Uncle Jolyon, what is it?" was dimly conscious of the soft pressure of her lips on his hand; then drew a long breath of smelling salts, suddenly discovered strength in them, and sneezed.

"Ha!" he said, "it's nothing. How did you get here? Go down and dine—the tickets are on the dressing-table. I shall be all right in a minute."

He felt her cool hand on his forehead, smelled violets, and sat divided between a sort of pleasure and a determination to be all right.

"Why! You are in grey!" he said. "Help me up." Once on his feet he gave himself a shake.

"What business had I to go off like that!" And he moved very slowly to the glass. What a cadaverous chap! Her voice, behind him, murmured:

"You mustn't come down, Uncle; you must rest."

"Fiddlesticks! A glass of champagne'll soon set me to rights. I can't have you missing the opera."

But the journey down the corridor was troublesome. What carpets they had in these newfangled places, so thick that you tripped up in them at every step! In the lift he noticed how concerned she looked, and said with the ghost of a twinkle:

"I'm a pretty host."

When the lift stopped he had to hold firmly to the seat to prevent its slipping under him; but after soup and a glass of champagne he felt much better, and began to enjoy an infirmity which had brought such solicitude into her manner towards him.

"I should have liked you for a daughter," he said suddenly; and watching the smile in her eyes, went on:

"You mustn't get wrapped up in the past at your time of life; plenty of that when you get to my age. That's a nice dress—I like the style."

"I made it myself."

Ah! A woman who could make herself a pretty frock had not lost her interest in life.

"Make hay while the sun shines," he said; "and drink that up. I want to see some colour in your cheeks. We mustn't waste life; it doesn't do. There's a new Marguerite to-night; let's hope she won't be fat. And Mephisto—anything more dreadful than a fat chap playing the Devil I can't imagine."

But they did not go to the opera after all, for in getting up from dinner the dizziness came over him again, and she insisted on his staying quiet and going to bed early. When he parted from her at the door of the hotel, having paid the cabman to drive her to Chelsea, he sat down again for a moment to enjoy the memory of her words: "You are such a darling to me, Uncle Jolyon!" Why! Who wouldn't be! He would have liked to stay up another day and take her to the Zoo, but two days running of him would bore her to death. No, he must wait till next Sunday; she had promised to come then. They would settle those lessons for Holly, if only for a month. It would be something. That little Mam'zelle Beauce wouldn't like it, but she would have to lump it. And crushing his old opera hat against his chest he sought the lift.

He drove to Waterloo next morning, struggling with a desire to say: 'Drive me to Chelsea.' But his sense of proportion was too strong. Besides, he still felt shaky, and did not want to risk another aberration like that of last night, away from home. Holly, too, was expecting him, and what he had in his bag for her. Not that there was any cupboard love in his little sweet—she was a bundle of affection. Then, with the rather bitter cynicism of the old, he wondered for a second whether it was not cupboard love which made Irene put up with him. No, she was not that sort either. She had, if anything, too little notion of how to butter her bread, no sense of property, poor thing! Besides, he had not breathed a word about that codicil, nor should he—sufficient unto the day was the good thereof.

In the victoria which met him at the station Holly was restraining the dog Balthasar, and their caresses made 'jubey' his drive home. All the rest of that fine hot day and most of the next he was content and peaceful, reposing in the shade, while the long lingering sunshine showered gold on the lawns and the flowers. But on Thursday evening at his lonely dinner he began to count the hours; sixty-five till he would go down to meet her again in the little coppice, and walk up through the fields at her side. He had intended to consult the doctor about his fainting fit, but the fellow would be sure to insist on quiet, no excitement and all that; and he did not mean to be tied by the leg, did not want to be told of an infirmity—if there were one, could not afford to hear of it at his time of life, now that this new interest had come. And he carefully avoided making any mention of it in a letter to his son. It would only bring them back with a run! How far this silence was due to consideration for their pleasure, how far to regard for his own, he did not pause to consider.

That night in his study he had just finished his cigar and was dozing off, when he heard the rustle of a gown, and was conscious of a scent of violets. Opening his eyes he saw her, dressed in grey, standing by the fireplace, holding out her arms. The odd thing was that, though those arms seemed to hold nothing, they were curved as if round someone's neck, and her own neck was bent back, her lips open, her eyes closed. She vanished at once, and there were the mantelpiece and his bronzes. But those bronzes and the mantelpiece had not been there when she was, only the fireplace and the wall! Shaken and troubled, he got up. 'I must take medicine,' he thought; 'I can't be well.' His heart beat too fast, he had an asthmatic feeling in the chest; and going to the window, he opened it to get some air. A dog was barking far away, one of the dogs at Gage's farm no doubt, beyond the coppice. A beautiful still night, but dark. 'I dropped off,' he mused, 'that's it! And yet I'll swear my eyes were open!' A sound like a sigh seemed to answer.

"What's that?" he said sharply, "who's there?"

Putting his hand to his side to still the beating of his heart, he stepped out on the terrace. Something soft scurried by in the dark. "Shoo!" It was that great grey cat. 'Young Bosinney was like a great cat!' he thought. 'It was him in there, that she—that she was— He's got her still!' He walked to the edge of the terrace, and looked down into the darkness; he could just see the powdering of the daisies on the unmown lawn. Here to-day and gone to-morrow! And there came the moon, who saw all, young and old, alive and dead, and didn't care a dump! His own turn soon. For a single day of youth he would give what was left! And he turned again towards the house. He could see the windows of the night nursery up there. His little sweet would be asleep. 'Hope that dog won't wake her!' he thought. 'What is it makes us love, and makes us die! I must go to bed.'

And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the moonlight, he passed back within.

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title: Indian Summer of a Forsyte/IV


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/333

 remarkable capacity for work, and his popularity made him indispensable to the king. But he was a trying servant, for his temper was captious and his tongue sarcastic, while his aristocratic arrogance led him to display an offensive contempt for the golillas (the stiff collars), as he called the lawyers and public servants whom the king preferred to choose as ministers, and he permitted himself an amazing freedom of language with his sovereign. At last Charles III. sent him as ambassador to Paris in a disguised disgrace. Aranda held this position till 1787, but in Paris he was chiefly known for his oddities of manner and for perpetual wrangling with the French on small points of etiquette. He resigned his post for private reasons. In the reign of Charles IV., with whom he had been on familiar terms during the life of the old king, he was for a very short time prime minister in 1792. In reality he was merely used as a screen by the queen Maria Louisa and her favourite Godoy. His open sympathy with the French Revolution brought him into collision with the violent reaction produced in Spain by the excesses of the Jacobins, while his temper, which had become perfectly uncontrollable with age, made him insufferable to the king. After his removal from office he was imprisoned for a short time at Granada, and was threatened with a trial by the Inquisition. The proceedings did not go beyond the preliminary stage, and Aranda died at Epila on the 9th of January 1798.

ARAN ISLANDS, or, three islands lying across Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland, in a south-easterly direction, forming a kind of natural breakwater. They belong to the county Galway, and their population in 1901 was 2863. They are called respectively—beginning with the northernmost—Inishmore (or Aranmore), the Great Island; Inishmaan, the Middle Island; and Inisheer, the Eastern Island. The first has an elevation of 354 ft., the second of 259, and the third of 202. Their formation is carboniferous limestone. These islands are remarkable for a number of architectural remains of a very early date. In Inishmore there stand, on a cliff 220 ft. high, large remains of a circular cyclopean tower, called Dun-Aengus, ascribed to the Fir-bolg or Belgae; or, individually, to the first of three brothers, Aengus, Conchobar and Nil, who reached Aran Islands from Scotland in the 1st century There are seven other similar structures in the group. Inishmore also bears the name of Aran-na-naomh, Aran-of-the-Saints, from the number of religious recluses who took up their abode in it, and gave a celebrity to the holy wells, altars and shrines, to which many are still attracted. No less, indeed, than twenty buildings of ecclesiastical or monastic character have been enumerated in the three islands. On Inishmore are remains of the abbey of Killenda. Christianity was introduced in the 5th century, and Aran soon became one of the most famous island-resorts of religious teachers and ascetics. The extraordinary fame of the foundations here has been inferred from the inscription “VII. Romani” on a stone in the church Teampull Brecain on Inishmore, attributed to disciples from Rome. The total area of the islands is 11,579 acres. The Congested Districts Board made many efforts to improve the condition of the inhabitants, especially by introducing better methods of fishing. A curing station is established at Killeany, the harbour of Inishmore. ARANJUEZ (perhaps the ancient Ara Jovis), a town of central Spain, in the province of Madrid, 30 m. S. of Madrid, on the left bank of the river Tagus, at the junction of the main southern railways to Madrid, and at the western terminus of the Aranjuez-Cuenca railway. Pop. (1900) 12,670. Aranjuez occupies part of a wide valley, about 1500 ft. above the sea. Its formal, straight streets, crossing one another regularly at right angles, and its uniform, two-storeyed houses were built in imitation of the Dutch style, under the direction of Jerónimo, marquis de Grimaldi (1716–1788), ambassador of Charles III. at the Hague. A rapid in the Tagus, artificially converted into a weir, renders irrigation easy, and has thus created an oasis in the midst of the barren plateau of New Castile. On every side the town is surrounded by royal parks and woods of sycamores, plane-trees and elms, often of extraordinary size. The prevalence of the dark English elms, first introduced into the country and planted here by order of Philip II. (1527–1598), gives to the Aranjuez district a character wholly distinct from that of other Spanish landscapes; and at an early period, despite the unhealthy climate, and especially the oppressive summer heat, which often approaches 100° F., Aranjuez became a favourite residence of the Spanish court. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the master of the Order of Santiago had a country seat here, which passed, along with the mastership, into the possession of the crown of Spain in 1522. Its successive occupants, from the emperor Charles V. (1500–1558) down to Ferdinand VII. (1784–1833), modified it according to their respective tastes. The larger palace was built by Pedro Caro for Philip V. (1683–1746), in the French style of the period. It overlooks the Jardin de la Isla, a beautiful garden laid out for Philip II. on an island in the Tagus, which forms the scene of Schiller’s famous drama Don Carlos. The Casa del Labrador, or Labourer’s Cottage, as it is called, is a smaller palace built by Charles IV. in 1803, and full of elaborate ornamentation. The chief local industry is farming, and an annual fair is held in September for the sale of live stock. Great attention is given to the rearing of horses and mules, and the royal stud used to be remarkable for the beauty of its cream-coloured breed. The treaty of 1772 between France and Spain was concluded at Aranjuez, which afterwards suffered severely from the French during the Peninsular War. Here, also, in 1808, the insurrection broke out which ended in the abdication of Charles IV.

ARANY, JÁNOS (1817–1882), the greatest poet of Hungary after Petöfi, was born at Nagy-Szalontá on the 2nd of March 1817, the son of György Arany and Sara Mégyeri; his people were small Calvinist yeomen of noble origin, whose property consisted of a rush-thatched cottage and a tiny plot of land. An only son, late born, seeing no companions of his own age, hearing nothing but the voices of his parents and the hymns and prayers in the little Calvinist chapel, Arany grew up a grave and gentle, but by no means an ignorant child. His precocity was remarkable. At six years of age he went to school at Szalontá, where he read everything he could lay his hands upon in Hungarian and Latin. From 1832 to 1836 Arany was a preceptor at Kis-Ujszállás and Debreczen, still a voracious reader with a wider field before him, for he had by this time taught himself French and German. Tiring of the monotony of a scholastic life, he joined a troupe of travelling actors. The hardships he suffered were as nothing compared with the pangs of conscience which plagued him when he thought of the despair of his father, who had meant to make a pastor of this prodigal son, to whom both church and college now seemed for ever closed. At last he borrowed sixpence from the stage-manager and returned home, carrying all his property tied up in a handkerchief. Shortly after his home-coming his mother died and his father became stone-blind. Arany at once resolved that it was his duty never to leave his father again, and a conrectorship which he obtained at this time enabled them to live in modest comfort. In 1840 he obtained a notaryship also, and the same year married Juliana Ercsey, the penniless orphan daughter of an advocate. The next few happy years were devoted to his profession and a good deal of miscellaneous reading, especially of Shakespeare (he learnt English in order to compare the original with his well-thumbed German version) and Homer. Meanwhile the reactionaries of Vienna were goading the Magyar Liberals into revolt, and Arany found a safety-valve for his growing indignation by composing a satirical poem in hexameters, entitled “The Lost Constitution.” The Kisfaludy Society, the great literary association of Hungary, about this time happened to advertise a prize for the best satire on current

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text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aranda, Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea


text:
Portal:Literary criticism

Criticism

 * The Four Ages of Poetry, 1820 by Thomas Love Peacock
 * Review of Ballads and Other Poems, 1842 by Edgar Allan Poe
 * The Quacks of Helicon by Edgar Allan Poe
 * Hawthorne and His Mosses, 1850 by Herman Melville
 * A survey of Danish literature, 1852 by Anne Bushby
 * Edgar Poe and his Critics, 1860 by Sarah Helen Whitman
 * Descriptive Catalogue from Life of William Blake, 1880 by William Blake
 * Mother Shipton investigated, 1881 by William Henry Harrison
 * Comparative Literature, 1886 by Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett
 * Introduction and brief biography of Honore de Balzac, 1901 by George Saintsbury
 * Balzac as a Dramatist, 1901 by Epiphanius Wilson
 * Introduction to The Works of Honoré de Balzac, volume 34, 1901 by J. Walker McSpadden
 * The First Half of the Seventeenth Century, 1906 by Herbert John Clifford Grierson (Vol. 7 of Periods of European Literature)
 * The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream', 1908 by Frank Sidgwick
 * Prophets of Dissent: Essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy, 1918 by Otto Heller
 * The Sacred Wood, 1920 by T. S. Eliot
 * The truth about The Protocols, 1921, reprinted from The Times
 * Women in the Life of Balzac, 1921 by Juanita Helm Floyd
 * Studies in Classic American Literature, 1923 by D. H. Lawrence
 * Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and the Papal State, 1992 by Adrian Comollo
 * Women in the Life of Balzac, 1921 by Juanita Helm Floyd
 * Studies in Classic American Literature, 1923 by D. H. Lawrence
 * Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and the Papal State, 1992 by Adrian Comollo

title: Portal:Literary criticism


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aran Islands


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aranjuez

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aranjuez


text:
Portal:Literary history

Works

 * A survey of Danish literature, 1852 by Anne Bushby
 * A History of Sanskrit Literature, 1900 by Arthur Anthony Macdonell
 * A history of Chinese literature, 1901 by Herbert Allen Giles
 * The American Novel, 1921 by Carl Van Doren
 * The First Half of the Seventeenth Century, 1906 by Herbert John Clifford Grierson (Vol. 7 of Periods of European Literature)
 * The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1907-17 by the Cambridge University Press
 * The Cambridge History of American Literature, 1917-21 by the Cambridge University Press

title: Portal:Literary history


text:
Portal:Quotations

Works

 * Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations, 1922 by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, compiled by Kate Louise Roberts
 * Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, by Mao Zedong, translated by the Foreign Language Press
 * Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert

title: Portal:Quotations


text:
Author:Alexander James Johnson

Works

 * New Zealand Justice of the Peace (1863)
 * Treatise on Powers, etc., and Magistrates, etc., in the Colony of New Zealand
 * Notes on Native Affairs

title: Author:Alexander James Johnson


text:
Author:Robert Mackenzie Johnston

Works

 * Field Memoranda for Tasmanian Botanists (Launceston, 1874)
 * Descriptive Catalogue of Tasmanian Fishes (Hobart, 1882)
 * Systematic Account of the Geology of Tasmania (Hobart, 1888)

title: Author:Robert Mackenzie Johnston


text: Page:Aristotle - Rhetoric, translator Crimmin, 1811.djvu/2


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text:
Page:Aristotle - Rhetoric, translator Crimmin, 1811.djvu/7

 TO THE

WITH ALL THE RESPECT

WHICH THE LEARNING

OF

MUST INSPIRE

ARE MOST HUMBLY DEDICATED


text:
Author:Joseph Colin Francis Johnson

Works

 * Moses and Me

title: Author:Joseph Colin Francis Johnson


text:
Page:Aristotle - Rhetoric, translator Crimmin, 1811.djvu/9

N ushering to the world this treatise of the learned Stagyrite, I shall confess the difficulties which I have encountered, and the anxiety which I still feel as to its reception. That it is the greatest of all that great master's productions, is an assertion which I do not singly hazard. The learned and laborious Franciscus Philelphus terms it "Rhetorica illustrissimi philosophorum Aristotelis utilissima" and this epithet has been strongly borne out by the following testimony of the celebrated Boileau Despreaux, in his preface to a translation of Longinus upon the Sublime: "C'est une ouvrage d'une extrême utilité; & pour moi, j'avoue franchement que sa lecture m'a plus profite que tout ce qui j'ai jamais lû en ma vie."

So important has this work appeared in the eyes of the learned, during the fifteenth century, that it employed, with incessant emulation, the pens of several most distinguished scholars, to produce a A 3


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 perfect version of it. The style of the original presented an intrinsic obstacle to the accomplishment of that object in several instances. Many of the translators, by too literal an attention to the context, increased the obscurity, in which Aristotle's quaint and methodical expression involves the meaning of several passages; and it remained for those alone who built their labours upon the ingenious Commentary of Petrus Victorius, to transmit a close and correct version of this famous treatise to posterity. In this class of the Latin translation, Ricccboni appeared to me most faithfully precise; and consequently, whenever I entertained any hesitation upon the original, I combined his reference with that of M. Cassandre, an accomplished scholar of the seventeenth century, who gave to the world a French translation of this work, which stands eminently high in the admiration of D'Ablancourt. His arrangement is so familiar and connected, that I have adopted it, in preference to that of Muretus or Riccoboni. The Greek edition, which formed the basis of the present version (which I believe is the only one in the English language), was that of Duval, Paris, 1619; the readings of which are allowed to be


text: Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/16


text: Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/17


text:
Page:Aristotle - Rhetoric, translator Crimmin, 1811.djvu/480

 opposite party would do, if he had shown such and such a thing, instead of what he has brought forward?" Or again, in form of interrogatory: "Now, what is there which I have not made appear, and what proofs can be added to those I have already given?" Or, in speaking of our adversary, "In all that he has said, what has he proved?" These are the modes of recapitulation; but we must finally observe, that it will be necessary to avoid conjunctions, in order that the judge may perceive that the discourse is not to be of long continuation; as for example: "I have assigned my reasons, you have heard them, you are acquainted with the subject, it is for you now to pronounce your judgment and decision thereon."

THE END.

Printed by S., Little Queen Street, London.


text:
Page:Aristotle - Rhetoric, translator Crimmin, 1811.djvu/21

 A

UPON

General Y.

HE art of rhetoric and dialectics are so far related, as they both treat of subjects, which, being common, fall, as it were, under the knowledge of mankind in general, and are not contained within the limits of any particular science. Hence, no man is presumed ignorant of either, to the extent of examining or upholding, defending or refuting, any particular reason within his scope.


text:
Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/415

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.

I.

walks in Beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

II.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace


text:
Page:Aristotle - Rhetoric, translator Crimmin, 1811.djvu/5

 A

UPON

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF

BY

PRINTED FOR J. J. STOCKDALK,

41, PALL MALL.

1811.


text:
Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/416

382 Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

III.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent! June 12, 1814

THE HARP THE MONARCH MINSTREL SWEPT.

I.

Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept,

The King of men, the loved of Heaven!

Which Music hallowed while she wept

O'er tones her heart of hearts had given—

Redoubled be her tears, its chords are riven!

It softened men of iron mould,

It gave them virtues not their own;

No ear so dull, no soul so cold,

That felt not—fired not to the tone,

Till David's Lyre grew mightier than his Throne!


text:
Author:Daniel Michael Crimmin

Translations

 * A Dissertation Upon Rhetoric (1811) by Aristotle

title: Author:Daniel Michael Crimmin


text:
Portal:Oration

Criticism

 * Dialogue on Orators, by Tacitus, 1876 translation by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
 * Lord Chatham as an Orator, 1912 by Henry Montagu Butler

Rhetoric

 * A Dissertation Upon Rhetoric, by Aristotle, 1811 translation by Daniel Michael Crimmin
 * "The Secret Of Success In Public Speaking," in Up From Slavery, 1901 by Booker Taliaferro Washington

Fiction

 * "The Parlour Orator," in Sketches by Boz, 1836 by Charles Dickens
 * The Orator, 1886 by Anton Chekhov, translated by Marian Fell
 * Making an Orator, 1899 by Stephen Crane as it appeared in the December 1899 Harper's New Monthly Magazine

Science

 * Portal:Harveian Oration
 * Portal:Hunterian Oration

Speeches

 * Portal:Speeches
 * Portal:Early modern speeches
 * Portal:Modern speeches

title: Portal:Oration


text:
Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/417

Rh II.

It told the triumphs of our King,

It wafted glory to our God;

It made our gladdened valleys ring,

The cedars bow, the mountains nod;

Its sound aspired to Heaven and there abode!

Since then, though heard on earth no more,

Devotion and her daughter Love

Still bid the bursting spirit soar

To sounds that seem as from above,

In dreams that day's broad light can not remove.

IF THAT HIGH WORLD.

I.

that high world, which lies beyond

Our own, surviving Love endears;


text:
Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/418

384 If there the cherished heart be fond,

The eye the same, except in tears—

How welcome those untrodden spheres!

How sweet this very hour to die!

To soar from earth and find all fears

Lost in thy light—Eternity!

II.

It must be so: 'tis not for self

That we so tremble on the brink;

And striving to o'erleap the gulf,

Yet cling to Being's severing link.

Oh! in that future let us think

To hold each heart the heart that shares,

With them the immortal waters drink,

And soul in soul grow deathless theirs!

THE WILD GAZELLE.

I.

wild gazelle on Judah's hills

Exulting yet may bound,

And drink from all the living rills

That gush on holy ground;

Its airy step and glorious eye

May glance in tameless transport by:—


text:
Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/419

Rh II.

A step as fleet, an eye more bright,

Hath Judah witnessed there;

And o'er her scenes of lost delight

Inhabitants more fair.

The cedars wave on Lebanon,

But Judah's statelier maids are gone!

III.

More blest each palm that shades those plains

Than Israel's scattered race;

For, taking root, it there remains

In solitary grace:

It cannot quit its place of birth,

It will not live in other earth.

IV.

But we must wander witheringly,

In other lands to die;

And where our fathers' ashes be,

Our own may never lie:

Our temple hath not left a stone,

And Mockery sits on Salem's throne.

OH! WEEP FOR THOSE.

I.

! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream,

Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream;

Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell;

Mourn—where their God hath dwelt the godless dwell!


text:
Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/420

386 II.

And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet?

And when shall Zion's songs again seem sweet?

And Judah's melody once more rejoice

The hearts that leaped before its heavenly voice?

III.

Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast,

How shall ye flee away and be at rest!

The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave,

Mankind their country—Israel but the grave!

ON JORDAN'S BANKS.

I.


text:
The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/Hebrew Melodies/She walks in Beauty

Ihre Schönheit Idzie w Piękności Elle marche dans sa beauté


text:
The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/Hebrew Melodies/The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept

Rozbita harfa Арфа Давида (Байрон/Гнедич)


text:
The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/Hebrew Melodies/If that High World

Օ՜, եթե այնտեղ… Еврейская мелодия (Когда в нетленном мире том — Байрон/И. Козлов)


text: The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/Hebrew Melodies/The Wild Gazelle


text:
The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/Hebrew Melodies/Oh! weep for those

Ա՜խ, լացե՛ք… Еврейская мелодия (Байрон/Минаев)


text:
The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/Hebrew Melodies/On Jordan's Banks

Սրբանվեր այս ափերում


text:
Portal:General literature/Genre

Genre (from the French "genre" meaning "kind" or "sort") is the term for any category of literature based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions.

The following portals list works on Wikisource sorted by genre:

 * Portal:Christian fiction
 * Portal:Cowboys (covers Western fiction)
 * Portal:Horror
 * Portal:Cthulhu Mythos
 * Portal:Ghost stories
 * Portal:Gothic fiction
 * Portal:Humour
 * Portal:Adventure
 * Portal:Fantasy
 * Portal:Mystery (includes Crime & Detective fiction)
 * Portal:Romance
 * Portal:Science fiction
 * Portal:Thriller (includes Suspense fiction)

title: Portal:General literature/Genre


text:
Portal:General literature/Children

 * Portal:Children's literature
 * Portal:Newbery Medal
 * Portal:Stratemeyer Syndicate
 * Portal:Children's poetry

title: Portal:General literature/Children


text:
Portal:General literature/Correspondence

 * Portal:Letters
 * Portal:Death threats
 * Portal:Resignations
 * Portal:Suicide notes


text:
Portal:General literature/Verse

Poetry (from the Greek poiesis, with a broad meaning of a "making") is a form of literary art which uses the aesthetic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.

Wikisource has a main portal for poetry as well as portals that collect works by period, subject, or form:

 * Portal:Poetry

 * Period
 * Portal:Ancient poetry
 * Portal:Medieval poetry
 * Portal:Renaissance poetry
 * Portal:Enlightenment poetry
 * Portal:Romantic poetry
 * Portal:Modern poetry

 * Type
 * Portal:Christian poetry
 * Portal:Islamic poetry

 * Subject
 * Portal:Love poetry
 * Portal:War poetry

 * Form
 * Portal:Limericks

 * Nation
 * Portal:Poets Laureate of the United Kingdom
 * Portal:United States Poets Laureate

title: Portal:General literature/Verse


text:
Portal:General literature/Oratory

 * Portal:Oration
 * Portal:Public addresses
 * Portal:Speeches
 * Portal:Early modern speeches
 * Portal:Modern speeches

title: Portal:General literature/Oratory


text:
Portal:General literature/Drama

 * Portal:Drama
 * Portal:Plays
 * Portal:Scripts

title: Portal:General literature/Drama


text:
Portal:General literature/Study

 * Portal:Literary criticism
 * Portal:Literary history
 * Portal:Literary theory
 * Portal:Nobel Prize in Literature

title: Portal:General literature/Study


text:
Portal:General literature/Non-fiction

 * Portal:Non-fiction
 * Portal:Modern non-fiction

 * Portal:Journals
 * Portal:Essays

title: Portal:General literature/Non-fiction


text:
Portal:General literature/Other

 * Portal:Comics
 * Portal:Quotations

title: Portal:General literature/Other


text:
Portal:General literature/Journalism

 * Portal:Journalism

title: Portal:General literature/Journalism


text:
Portal:General literature/Period

 * Portal:Modern fiction

title: Portal:General literature/Period