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Rh been more strikingly illustrated than in the fact stated in the report of the Navy Department, that by means of the Wind and Current Charts projected and prepared by Lieut. Maury, the Superintendent of the Naval Observatory, the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific ports of our country has been shortened by about forty days.' (Annual Message of President Fillmore, December 2nd, 1851.)

"'The Wind and Current Charts planned by Lieutenant Maury, the Superintendent of the Naval Observatory, and prosecuted under his direction with much industry, are being extended to the Pacific and Indian Oceans. This work is viewed with great interest and satisfaction by our seafaring communities, and all those interested in the safe and speedy navigation of the ocean. It has materially shortened the passage along the highway by which our commerce passes into and through the southern hemisphere, bringing the ports of those distant parts of the world some ten days, and some several weeks, nearer to us than before. A letter from the Superintendent of the Observatory, which accompanies this communication, states the important fact, that vessels sailing from the Atlantic to the Pacific ports of the United States, with the instructions afforded by these charts, make the voyage in forty days less, upon the average, than those sailing without them, and that there is reason to hope the time may be still further reduced.' (Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy, November 29th, 1851.)

"The Naval Observatory continues to pursue its appropriate labours with its usual good results, and is found to contribute the most important facilities to the improvement of navigation. I cannot better commend it to the regard of Congress than by a reference to the letter of Lieutenant Maury, which accompanies this report.’ (Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy, December 4th, 1852.}


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64 "'The Naval Observatory, under the superintendence of Lt. M. F. Maury, is doing much for science and navigation, much for the benefit of mankind and the honour of our country. For a few years past a correspondence has been conducted between the United States and certain other governments on the importance of adopting some plan to secure a more uniform mode of making observations at sea. Ascertaining that various governments designed being represented at Brussels, in pursuance of scientific suggestions with which Lieutenant Maury had been conspicuously connected, I felt it my duty to relieve him temporarily from service at the Observatory, with a view to his visiting Brussels. The result of his labours, in conjunction with other eminent persons, will, I have no doubt, prove vastly beneficial to commerce and navigation' (Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy, December 5th, 1853.)

"'The achievements quietly and gradually effected by Lieutenant Maury, although not attracting the admiration of the multitude, nor dazzling the beholder with sudden flashes of triumph, have reflected honour upon himself and his country; have brought remote nations in comparative proximity to each other; have promoted commerce by pointing out to the mariner new paths on the great deep where favourable winds and currents lend favourable aid. His Wind and Current Charts and Sailing Directions are saving millions of money, by shortening the voyages of merchant vessels freighted with treasure.

"'I am officially informed that it was stated, in a paper read before the British Association last year, that it was estimated India that a set of wind and current charts of the Indian Ocean, like those that have been constructed at this office for the Atlantic Ocean, would produce an annual saving to British commerce, in those seas alone, of not less than $1,000,000 a year (£250,000 pounds), and for British commerce in

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Rh all seas of $10,000,000 a year. This estimate was based on the condition of shortening the voyage only one tenth (whereas the average length of the passage to all places beyond the equator has been shortened much more); and the estimate was again repeated at the last meeting of the Association in Liverpool. It has also been estimated that the value of these charts to the commerce and navigation of the United States is equivalent, in the saving of time, to several millions a year.' (Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy, December 4th, 1854.)

"Such are, briefly, the origin, the design, and the utility of the Wind and Currents Charts and Sailing Directions of Lieutenant Maury; and now the question in the Senate's resolution, of the justice and expediency of making some remuneration to him for them, arises.

"Mr. Maury is an officer of the Government, and its agent within the legitimate scope of his authority, and to the Government are due his time and his talents. This work, though originated and executed by him, has been achieved by the authority and with the assistance of the Government. He is the Superintendent of the Astronomical Observatory, is charged with the Hydrography of the Navy; and the purchase, safe-keeping, and distribution of the nautical instruments required for the Navy also devolve upon him.

"His rank of Lieutenant entitles him to the pay of fifteen hundred dollars per annum; but for the performance of these various duties he receives three thousand dollars per annum and house rent; and while performing these duties, upon this pay, these charts have been, and are being, created by him, and published and distributed by the Government. Can Congress specially reward a valuable discovery or invention, achieved under such conditions, consistently with the public interests? And, if it can, do justice and expediency require it? Will such rewards have a tendency Rh


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66 to develop, encourage, and maintain the zeal, devotion, and abilities of public servants, or are they calculated to repress or weaken them?

"When a man enters the Naval service, he without a doubt surrenders certain rights of the citizen; for instance, he cannot quit the country without leave; he cannot make certain bargains and contracts; and he is specially bound to render particular services which are determined by law, custom, and the usages of the sea. Though he has given up his energies, both of body and mind, for certain things, he has not given them up for everything. He gives them up so far as they are necessary to the performance of the recognized duties of his office. It is difficult, as we approach the ground where the line of duty begins or ends, to separate all the rights of the individual from the obligations of the officer. The exact limits of the line are obscure and uncertain.

"So with the obligations of the officer and his private rights: they so overlap and blend in with each other, that as we approach the line where they pass into each other, it is difficult to mark it; but when we take the case of Whitney with his cotton gin, and Fulton with his steamboat, even though they had been Navy officers, there is no difficulty in comprehending the rights of the individual to his own discoveries. Neither is there, it is submitted, any difficulty in recognizing the rights of the author to the discovery which he has expanded out into the "Wind and Current Charts."

"It cannot be urged that, in giving form and expression to this chart idea, its author has done it at the expense of any other of the duties the Government had devolved upon him, for he has at the same time performed a class of duties that, in other services, are usually divided into three distinct departments, and which (as in England) are assigned each


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Rh to a special superintendent under a separate organization. And now that the British Government has decided to follow our example, and collect materials also for a series of wind and current charts, a special department in the Board of Trade has been created therefor, and one of the most distinguished and accomplished officers of the British Navy placed at the head of it.

"It would appear, therefore, that the American officer has carried out his idea, not at the expense of his duties proper, but in addition thereto. It may be supposed that he was stimulated to their performance by the energy that originality gives, and the excitement which is always attendant upon discovery and conscious progress towards the development of useful results.

"The facts that hydrographical officers have existed for ages; that none of them have led off in the construction of such charts as those under consideration; and the fact that England, with her hydrographical office, venerable with years and renowned for works, should, within the last year only, have created a new department and appointed a special organization for the purpose of carrying out the object of these charts, are significant proofs of the originality and merits of Mr. Maury's labours.

"Will it be said that Mr. Maury might have secured a copyright, and thus have reaped a reward for his labours? Admitting his right to have thus secured himself, should his omission to do so lessen the expediency and justice of remunerating him?

"Considering the profession to which the officer belongs and its tone, this waiver of right by him in the beginning, so far from operating to his prejudice now, ought to be held in his favour. Suppose this same officer should now discover some improvement in the means of navigation by which all the dangers of the sea might be canceled, and wrecks and Rh


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User talk:Pchang

Welcome
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Again, welcome! -- Cirt (talk) 05:00, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

title: User talk:Pchang


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 your attention to a very remarkable statement regarding the Mahometan law on this subject. It is contained in a sermon, entitled "Marriage with Two Sisters contrary to the Holy Law of God and Nature," preached in Canterbury Cathedral on Tuesday, May 7, 1850, by the Rev. Charles Forster, B.D.; and it is in that division of his sermon where he is replying to the charge "that this particular restriction is without sanction from the law of nature, or the natural sense of mankind ". He says (pp. 24, 25): "The law of Mahomet differs as widely from the law of Christ as a carnal can differ from a spiritual law. It goes beyond the liberty of the Mosaic law: for it enacts polygamy, and gives lawless licence of divorce. Yet this licentious creed has too its table of prohibited degrees of marriage; a table certainly not taken from the table of Leviticus, as its variations most clearly prove. As Mahomet assuredly did not introduce into the Koran restraints borrowed from the pure morality of the Law or Gospel, it is clear that he took them where he found them, from the traditional law and custom of the Arabs; a law and custom, all must acknowledge, originating with the Patriarchs. Now, it is most remarkable that the Mahometan table of prohibited degrees, recited in the 4th chapter of the Koran, entitled 'Women' is either literally or virtually identical with the table in the 18th chapter of Leviticus, and that it closes with a prohibition, in the most solemn terms, of the very marriage now in question. 'It is forbidden—or it is wickedness—for a man to unite himself with two sisters'. After this, who will be bold enough to affirm that marriage with the sister of a deceased wife is not contrary to the law of nature? that the law of nature and the primitive usage and custom of mankind do not unite in interpreting the law of God in this matter, as laid down in Leviticus, as the Church universal and the Church of England have done? What Christian state can venture to let down the pure morality of the Gospel below even the lax and licentious morality of Mahomet and the Koran? Yet is this the guilty consummation at which a British Legislature must arrive, before it can become lawful in this Christian land for a man to marry the sister of his deceased wife. May our statesmen, then," Mr. Forster concludes his sermon, "no less than

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 our churchmen, be preserved from thus sinning against the holy law of God and nature. Let our statesmen, as well as our churchmen, consider well the awful words of our Saviour in the text: 'Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to confirm. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven' (St. Matt. v. 17-19)." An appendix to this sermon gives the correspondence of Dr. William Berriman, "one of the most judicious, learned and pious clergymen of the Church of England in the last century". In one of his letters (in 1734) he says, in answer to a person who asked his opinion on the subject of these marriages, "You will allow me, I suppose, that the prohibitions in Leviticus are part of the moral law, obliging all nations: since the neglect of them is charged among the abominations of these nations that were cast out before the Israelites". He then gives two rules to be observed: 1. "That as the man and wife are become one flesh by marriage, whatever degree of consanguinity makes it unlawful for him to marry with his own relations, the same degree of affinity makes it unlawful for him to marry with his wife's relations." 2. "That whatever is forbidden to one sex is in the same degree unlawful to the other sex: so that if a woman is not allowed to marry two brothers, neither may a man marry two sisters. But that a woman cannot marry two brothers,—or, which is the same thing, that a man may not marry his brother's wife,—is plain from Levit. xviii 16." Let us in concluding this portion of the subject, stamp on our minds and endeavour to impress on all around us, the one great barrier against marriage with a deceased wife's sister, the one general prohibition, in Lev. xviii. 6, "None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him". Nearness of kin is what is commanded to be avoided in contracting marriages. "Since the word, 'near of kin'" Dr. Pusey says (I., p. 13) "(as is plain from the instances given in Leviticus xviii.), includes

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 those who are 'near of kin' through the wife, not by blood, then it is equally plain that it includes the wife's sister. 'Near of kin' includes, it is plain, the wife's near relations. For, in God's word, it includes her mother, or her daughter. Then it includes the sister too, unless any will contend that the sister is not her sister's near relation. The argument which enforces the prohibition of marriage of the wife's sister by parity of reasoning from the prohibition of the marriage with the brother's widow is, I doubt not, valid, but it is not needed. For it appears from Holy Scripture itself, that the near relations of the wife are included in the general prohibition, 'None of you shall approach,' &c, and this being so, human reason of itself confesses that the wife's sister is near;"—and I therefore maintain the proposition with which I started, and trust I have shown, that 'marriage with a deceased wife's sister is contrary to the Law of God'. My second proposition is:

I have been so lengthy in the first part of my subject, that this and the remaining proposition must necessarily be considered in an abbreviated form; but the leading ideas to be borne in mind can well be pointed out, while brevity is preserved. Again we must bear in mind the wide extent to which the marriage laws extended, including Jews and Gentiles, and therefore binding now in Christian days, only with a more binding force, as "The Christian Church is stricter than Paganism, and the Christian doctrine more severe and pure". (Eccl. Vol. VII., p. 189). "If the prohibition in Leviticus were given to the Jews alone, it manifestly could not extend to us Christians. But this was not the case. The marriage prohibited is only one out of a large class of unlawful connections with which the nations of the Gentile world had fearfully defiled themselves. Now marriage with a deceased wife's sister is an analagous case to marriage with a deceased father's wife. Both are close degrees of affinity, not of consanguinity; both were not so much as named among the Gentiles, i.e., were considered in the highest degree unnatural and odious connections. A learned Arabic writer says, "The

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 foulest thing that the old Arabs did in time of ignorance was this, that a man married two sisters". The very Gentiles, then, regarded this marriage as execrable. In 1 Cor. v. 1, St. Paul, in condemning the marriage he there names, calls it by the very name of the sin (πορνεία) from which the Gentiles were commanded by the Apostles at the Synod of Jerusalem to refrain, while they were exempted from observing the Mosaic law. (See Eccl. Vol. VII., pp. 188, 189.) And Dr. Pusey says to the same effect (1 p. 19). "St. Paul also speaks of the incestuous marriage with the father's widow, under the same term as that used by the Apostles at Jerusalem, as πορνεία not even known among the heathen". Bishop Wordsworth says "Not a single iota of testimony in favour of such marriages can be cited from any Christian writer of any note for fourteen centuries after Christ. In the words of St. Basil writing in the fourth century, and speaking not only in his own name, but bearing testimony to the judgment of his predecessors on this subject, 'our custom in this matter has the force of law, because the statutes we observe have been handed down to us by holy men; and our judgment is this, that if a man has fallen into the sin of marrying two sisters, we do not regard such a union as marriage, nor do we receive the parties to communion with the Church until they are separated'." And we may just remember "that the Church of Rome does not solemnize such marriages without a dispensation and thus is still a witness to their illegality". "Within the Levitical degrees there is no instance whatever of any dispensation until (the Pope) Alexander VI. in 1500 gave the dispensation to Immanuel, King of Portugal; in the next generation his family was extinct." (Dr. Pusey, II., pp. lix. lxii.). In the Apostolical Canons (an ante-nicene collection) (a genuine code of Canons of the Primitive Church according to Bishop Beveridge, who was born 1638, and died Bishop of St. Asaph, 1708), it is ruled (canon 19) that one who married two sisters or his niece was for ever excluded from the clergy. (Dr. Pusey, II., p. 11) (Keble, p. 26). At the Council of Neo-Cæsarea, A.D. 315, one who married two brothers was excommunicated till death, unless in case of sickness. In a canon of the Council of Elvira (or Illibesis) A.D. 325, it was ruled "if any man after the death of

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Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:17, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

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 his wife have married her sister, she being also a communicant, let them be suspended from communion for five years, except there be need through sickness of a more speedy reconciliation”. “Elvira is in Spain, Neo-Cæsarea in Pontus; these marriages were therefore condemned at that time from one end to the other of the Christian world.” (Dr. Pusey, II., p. 12) (Keble, p. 26). "In the General Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, the first canon pronounces it 'fit and just that the canons of the Holy Fathers make in every Synod to this present time be in full force'; thus adopting among others the censures which had been previously enacted against marrying two sisters. St. Ambrose (born A.D. 333, Bishop of Milan 374, died 397), and St. Augustine (born A.D. 354, converted 386, Assistant Bishop of Hippo 395, died 430), distinctly recognise the Levitical degrees as binding on all Christians; not only those which are expressed, but those which are implied by parity of reasoning." (See Keble, p. 29.) “The language of St. Basil (born about A.D. 329, Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia 370, died Jan. 1, 379), is exceedingly strong, for its having been an universal hereditary practice to forbid the marriage with the sister of the deceased wife. He speaks of it as being something unheard of, which people would shudder at. He speaks of ‘the practice established among us having the power of a law, because these laws (using a word which means sacred laws), have been delivered down to us by holy men’. So that he speaks of it as a traditional custom before his time, and this as an exception which anybody would shudder at. His words refer to an universal sacred practice.” (See Dr. Pusey's Evidence before the Commissioners, II., p. 12.) And regarding this evidence I may here mention what the Ecclesiastic says (Vol. VII., p. 192), “no one can be considered as having made himself master of this question who has not read Dr. Pusey's evidence; the research and learning it displays, being something that belongs rather to a past age than to our own”; and I may add he has prefixed to his evidence a valuable preface. A very important piece of evidence Dr. Pusey gives in the next page to that from which I have just quoted, when he says, “we actually know from the Roman laws (which I have investigated lately) that these marriages were allowed, and that as soon as the

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 empire became Christian, these marriages were prohibited by force of law”. If we are surprised at the “absence of early canons on the subject,” we may reflect that “there was no need of canons of the Church when there was a Divine law”. (Dr. Pusey, I., p. 27.) These brief remarks which I have made, may serve to indicate the tone of the early Church on the subject of these marriages, and the mind of the reformed Anglican Church is clearly and distinctly set forth in the table of prohibited degrees “ordered to be set up in Churches by Archbishop Parker in 1563” (see Forster's sermon, p. 21), which has the imprimatur of the English canons of 1604, made by the convocation of the Province of Canterbury, and afterwards passed by the Province of York. (See Perry's History of the Church of England, Vol. I, pp. 120-123.) Canon 99 declares “no person shall marry within the degrees prohibited by the laws of God, and expressed in a table set forth by authority in the year of our Lord 1563. And all marriages so made and contracted shall be adjudged incestuous and unlawful, and consequently shall be dissolved as void from the beginning, and the parties so married shall by course of law, be separated. And the aforesaid table shall be in every Church publicly set up and fixed at the charge of the parish.” This table is headed “A table of kindred and affinity, wherein whosoever are related are forbidden in Scripture and our laws to marry together,” and by this table a man is forbidden to marry 10 persons related to him by consanguinity, and 20 by affinity, among whom is “a wife's sister”. If we are prepared to alter our table of prohibited degrees, “at least (says Keble, p. 32), let us distinctly understand what sort of course we are committing ourselves to. We cannot, I apprehend, make this or any similar change, without virtually accepting the principle, that the Gospel precepts in such matters are less strict than those of the law: although our Divine Master has distinctly and repeatedly intimated, in the kindred matter of divorce, that concessions were made to the Jews, ‘because of the hardness of their hearts,’ which could in no wise be allowed to us Christians: although St. Paul, in the other kindred matter of polygamy, has once for all told us the mind of Christ, saying, 'Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband':

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 (1 Cor. vii, 2), and although the whole spirit and tendency of the Christian Dispensation is to require more of man in proportion, as it gives him immeasureably more grace. The truth is (Keble further says, p. 37), no thoughtful heart can regard this matter of the marriage laws, as a thing standing apart by itself. It belongs rather to a much greater and deeper movement, showing itself now nearly all over Christendom, by tokens very various, yet all most curiously tending the same way, i.e., toward lawlessness, the predicted forerunner of Anti-Christ”. Let us then, who may foresee the evils that would hereby come upon this land, speak out, before it is too late, and tell our Statesmen that we regard with horror the marriage of a man with his wife's sister, and all others like unto it, as prohibited by Holy Scripture, and unsanctioned by the Church of Christ. I shall not here enter into the purposes or results of the Bill introduced into Parliament by Lord Lyndhurst in the year 1835, as it has nothing to do with the proposition I have been elucidating and now maintain, that “marriage with a deceased wife's sister is not approved of, or sanctioned by the Church of Christ”.

My third and last proposition is:

There are two considerations, which stand in the forefront in regard to this point now before us and unless they can be answered in the negative, I would boldly claim that my proposition is proved and made good, that such marriages are detrimental. (1) What are the relative numbers of those who wish to have the marriage laws altered in this matter and of those who wish them unaltered? I should suppose there is little doubt that the minority are the claimants for the alteration, and I therefore think that until the contrary could be shown to be the case, the majority who are against the alteration should not be sacrificed for the supposed convenience, or at all events the wishes, of the few. (2) Is it at all likely or to be expected that the relaxation of the marriage laws (if this point were conceded) would stop there? Would it not be likely to be the case, that this first

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User talk:Dratman

Welcome
Welcome

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Again, welcome! Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:37, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

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 barrier having been broken down, other marriages most undesirable, both of consanguinity and affinity, would follow and there would be a general and almost inextricable confusion of relationships. Until this point, equally with the one just above, can be answered in the negative, I maintain that such marriages are “detrimental to the best interests of our social life”. But, of course, I must not stop here. These simple propositions and considerations will not, alas! convince those who are eager for the change. I may ask, well-nigh in despair, will anything influence those, whom self-interest it may be, or family convenience is urging on to this step? Will anything deter them from pursuing it further? The law of God? The law of the Church? The law of the land? The social hardship to the probable majority? The horrible results that may be expected? Will none of these considerations move them? Let me at least picture briefly the hard lot of the deprived sister-in-law and of others too, from extracts of a pamphlet, called “The sound policy of the existing law of marriage, as prohibiting the union of a widower with his deceased wife's sister, vindicated”: by George Wray, 1849. “A relaxation (p. 9) of the present law would press most heavily on orphan girls, who would be deprived of the home and shelter now afforded them by their married sister's roof. No longer would these be welcome inmates and their presence as now, a source of pleasure and happiness; suspicion would then usurp the place of confidence; every trifling act of civility or attention on the husband's part would then be productive of jealousy and distrust.” “But the wife (p. 11) and her sister would not be the only sufferers by the proposed change in the law,—the husband would have, also, grounds for lamenting it; since the inevitable effect of the removal of the prohibition would be to deprive him of the services of his sister-in-law. Thus the removal of the restraint, it may be safely predicted, would operate to the disadvantage of all parties on whom it could produce any effect at all; husband, wife, children, and wife's sister would, one and all, experience its blighting and baneful influence. It would sow discord and misery where now reign peace and happiness.”" Mr. Wray further says (p. 13) “it is asserted by the opponents of the restriction, that its removal will deprive the

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 sister-in-law of no license or conventional privileges that she now enjoys; because even at present, she cannot, after the death of the wife, reside, without scandal, in the widower's house. Now that she can and does so reside, in innumerable instances and without the slightest reproach, is notorious”. But even if it were otherwise, she may at least be a daily visitor at his house and thus be of incalculable service and utility, which Mr. Wray goes on to show she could not do if the restriction was removed, and quotes Dr. Pusey in proof of this, that in countries where marriage with a sister-in-law and niece are permitted “all domestic relations are broken up; that the uncle's house cannot be the home of the orphan niece; nor the sister-in-law take charge of her deceased sister's children” (p. 14). A very few more words from Dr. Pusey's evidence will complete my statement and arguments. He speaks of the marriages between uncles and nieces in Germany as being very general, that he had “been told so by Germans and they lament it very much”: “that the state of marriage in Germany is very frightful”: he speaks then regarding divorces: that he had asked a German doctor of philosophy as to the state of marriage, and he said “it makes a German cover his face with his hands for shame”. He concludes his evidence with some general remarks: “that such relaxation is opening a question which, when opened, cannot be closed. The marriages now in question are but the first outworks: if they were conceded, further questions would be raised, which it would be impossible to meet on any principle. The next step is that of the uncle and niece, which (as I said) is allowed and practised commonly in the countries held up for our pattern in this. But such marriages as introduce a confusion of relations seem contrary to nature itself, as St. Ambrose observed of old. The husband's house is now so often the home of the orphan unmarried sister. ‘The change would throw thousands of helpless females on the world.’ In whatever degree the marriage law is relaxed, in that degree are domestic affections narrowed.” Dr. Pusey then goes on to state that a change of the civil provisions as to marriage does not alter the duties of the clergy, who remain under the canons. “They could neither celebrate such marriages, nor consider persons so united, as

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 married in the sight of God. These are, however, ulterior, though in fact great evils, threatening the breaking up of those domestic habits, which are so great a blessing to the English nation. The great evil is the contradiction to the laws of God.” (Dr. Pusey, II., pp. 54-57, and see Preface, p. xcii.)

And now, in conclusion, to what extent will any of the arguments I have brought forward avail? Who will be convinced by them? Not those, I fear, whom self-interest or family convenience are urging on in this matter, unless indeed it please God to over-rule their hearts. But at least I may challenge these, and I do challenge them, to show any other than these motives, as the mainspring of their advocacy for marriage with a deceased wife's sister. But they must be the minority, however exalted their station, or however powerful their influence. Are these then to cause the majority to suffer on their account, and for the desire of, it may be, but a very few, shall grievous hardships be inflicted on so many others? If I am not mistaken, it has been stated, that it was not likely that the number of these marriages would be much increased by the law being altered in their favour. If this be so, it only makes it the more selfish and cruel in those who are demanding the alteration, regardless of the many injuries they would be inflicting upon the many who derive protection from the law as it stands at present, and who “quiet and retiring are to be sacrificed to the clamorous”. Is there then no hope of averting such an impending calamity, as would be the case, if this became the law of the land? No hope of altering the opinion of members of both Houses of Parliament, that by triumphant majorities they may reject this measure and settle the ceaseless agitation on this point for at least some considerable time? Let me appeal to those to take this line, who are supporting this measure from no personal or self-interested motives. Surely I may appeal to them to re-consider their opinions and to re-call their votes on the next occasion. They can have no truer and safer interest in so grave a matter as this, than to follow the better, the safer, the Scriptural, and the Christian way, the way which will preserve the sanctity of marriage, and the purity, decorum, and happiness of the households of this country in their domestic and family relationships, and

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Rh

from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warning, I made the best of my way to Fleet-street, and there got a late hackney chariot and drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a bed was always to be got there at any hour of the night, and the chamberlain, letting me in at his ready wicket, lighted the candle next in order on his shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom next in order on his list. It was a sort of vault on the ground floor at the back, with a despotic monster of a four-post bedstead in it, straddling over the whole place, putting one of his arbitrary legs into the fireplace, and another into the doorway, and squeezing the wretched little washing-stand in quite a Divinely Righteous manner.

As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in, before he left me, the good old constitutional rush-light of those virtuous days—an object like the ghost of a walking-cane, which instantly broke its back if it were touched, which nothing could ever be lighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement at the bottom of a high tin tower, perforated with round holes that made a staringly wide-awake pattern on the walls. When I had got into bed, and lay there, footsore, weary, and wretched, I found that I could no more close my own eyes than I could close the eyes of this foolish Argus. And thus, in the gloom and death of night, we stared at one another.

What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was an inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust; and, as I looked up into the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what a number of blue-bottle flies from the butcher's, and earwigs from the market, and grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying by for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of them ever tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light falls on my face—a disagreeable

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382 turn of thought, suggesting other and more objectionable approaches up my back. When I had lain awake a little while, those extraordinary voices with which silence teems, began to make themselves audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in the chest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired a new expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw written,.

Whatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded on me, they never warded off this. It plaited itself into whatever I thought of, as a bodily pain would have done. Not long before, I had read in the newspapers how a gentleman unknown had come to the Hummums in the night, and had gone to bed, and had destroyed himself, and had been found in the morning weltering in blood. It came into my head that he must have occupied this very vault of mine, and I got out of bed to assure myself that there were no red marks about; then opened the door to look out into the passages, and cheer myself with the companionship of a distant light, near which I knew the chamberlain to be dozing. But all this time, why I was not to go home, and what had happened at home, and when I should go home, and whether Provis was safe at home, were questions occupying my mind so busily, that one might have supposed there could be no more room in it for any other theme. Even when I thought of Estella, and how we had parted that day for ever, and when I recalled all the circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and tones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted—even then I was pursuing, here and there and everywhere, the caution Don't go home. When at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became a vast shadowy verb which I had to conjugate, Imperative mood, present tense: Do not thou go home, let him not go home, let us not go home, do not ye or you go home, let not them go home. Then, potentially: I may not and I cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would not, and should not go home; until I felt that I was going distracted, and rolled

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Rh over on the pillow, and looked at the staring rounds upon the wall again.

I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for it was plain that I must see Wemmick before seeing anyone else, and equally plain that this was a case in which his Walworth sentiments, only, could be taken. It was a relief to get out of the room where the night had been so miserable, and I needed no second knocking at the door to startle me from my uneasy bed.

The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o'clock. The little servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I passed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge, in her company, and so came without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a perspective view of the Aged in bed.

"Halloa, Mr. Pip!" said Wemmick. "You did come home, then?"

"Yes," I returned; "but I didn't go home."

"That's all right," said he, rubbing his hands. "I left a note for you at each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which gate did you come to?"

I told him.

"I'll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy the notes," said Wemmick; "it's a good rule never to leave documentary evidence if you can help it, because you don't know when it may be put in. I'm going to take a liberty with you—Would you mind toasting this sausage for the Aged P.?"

I said I should be delighted to do it.

"Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne," said Wemmick to the little servant; "which leaves us to ourselves, don't you see, Mr. Pip?" he added, winking, as she disappeared.

I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our discourse proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the Aged's sausage and he buttered the crumb of the Aged's roll.

"Now, Mr. Pip, you know," said Wemmick, "you and

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 I understand one another. We are in our private and personal capacities, and we have been engaged in a confidential transaction before to-day. Official sentiments are one thing. We are extra official."

I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already lighted the Aged's sausage like a torch, and been obliged to blow it out.

"I accidentally heard, yesterday morning," said Wemmick, "being in a certain place where I once took you—even between you and me, it's as well not to mention names when avoidable"

"Much better not," said I. "I understand you."

"I heard there by chance, yesterday morning," said Wemmick, "that a certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits, and not unpossessed of portable property—I don't know who it may really be—we won't name this person"

"Not necessary," said I.

"—had made some little stir in a certain part of the world where a good many people go, not always in gratification of their own inclinations, and not quite irrespective of the government expense"

In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged's sausage, and greatly discomposed both my own attention and Wemmick's; for which I apologised.

"—by disappearing from such place, and being no more heard of thereabouts. From which," said Wemmick, "conjectures had been raised and theories formed. I also heard that you at your chambers in Garden-court, Temple, had been watched, and might be watched again."

"By whom?" said I.

"I wouldn't go into that," said Wemmick, evasively, "it might clash with official responsibilities. I heard it, as I have in my time heard other curious things in the same place. I don't tell it you on information received. I heard it."

He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he spoke, and set forth the Aged's breakfast neatly on a little tray. Previous to placing it before him, he went into the

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Rh Aged's room with a clean white cloth, and tied the same under the old gentleman's chin, and propped him up, and put his nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then he placed his breakfast before him with great care, and said, "All right, ain't you, Aged P.?" To which the cheerful Aged replied, "All right, John, my boy, all right!" As there seemed to be a tacit understanding that the Aged was not in a presentable state, and was therefore to be considered invisible, I made a pretence of being in complete ignorance of these proceedings.

"This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once had reason to suspect)," I said to Wemmick when he came back, "is inseparable from the person to whom you have adverted; is it?"

Wemmick looked very serious. "I couldn't undertake to say that, of my own knowledge. I mean, I couldn't undertake to say it was at first. But it either is, or it will be, or it's in great danger of being."

As I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain from saying as much as he could, and as I knew with thankfulness to him how far out of his way he went to say what he did, I could not press him. But I told him, after a little meditation over the fire, that I would like to ask him a question, subject to his answering or not answering, as he deemed right, and sure that his course would be right. He paused in his breakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt-sleeves (his notion of indoor comfort was to sit without any coat), he nodded to me once, to put my question.

"You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true name is Compeyson?"

He answered with one other nod.

"Is he living?"

One other nod.

"Is he in London?"

He gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office exceedingly, gave me one last nod, and went on with his breakfast.

"Now," said Wemmick, "questioning being over;"

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386 which he emphasised and repeated for my guidance; "I come to what I did, after hearing what I heard. I went to Garden-court to find you; not finding you, I went to Clarriker's to find Mr. Herbert."

"And him you found?" said I, with great anxiety.

"And him I found. Without mentioning any names or going into any details, I gave him to understand that if he was aware of anybody—Tom, Jack, or Richard—being about the chambers, or about the immediate neighbourhood, he had better get Tom, Jack, or Richard, out of the way while you were out of the way."

"He would be greatly puzzled what to do?"

"He was puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave him my opinion that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or Richard, too far out of the way at present. Mr. Pip, I'll tell you something. Under existing circumstances there is no place like a great city when you are once in it. Don't break cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things slacken, before you try the open, even for foreign air."

I thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked him what Herbert had done?

"Mr. Herbert," said Wemmick, "after being all of a heap for half an hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a secret, that he is courting a young lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a bedridden Pa. Which Pa, having been in the Purser line of life, lies abed in a bow-window where he can see the ships sail up and down the river. You are acquainted with the young lady, most probably?"

"Not personally," said I.

The truth was, that she had objected to me as an expensive companion who did Herbert no good, and that, when Herbert had first proposed to present me to her, she had received the proposal with such very moderate warmth, that Herbert had felt himself obliged to confide the state of the case to me, with a view to the lapse of a little time before I made her acquaintance. When I had begun to advance Herbert's prospects by stealth, I had been able to

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Rh bear this with cheerful philosophy; he and his affianced, for their part, had naturally not been very anxious to introduce a third person into their interviews; and thus, although I was assured that I had risen in Clara's esteem, and although the young lady and I had long regularly interchanged messages and remembrances by Herbert, I had never seen her. However, I did not trouble Wemmick with those particulars.

"The house with the bow-window," said Wemmick, "being by the river-side, down the Pool there between Limehouse and Greenwich, and being kept, it seems, by a very respectable widow, who has a furnished upper floor to let, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that as a temporary tenement for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very well of it, for three reasons I'll give you. That is to say. Firstly, It's altogether out of all your beats, and is well away from the usual heap of streets great and small. Secondly. Without going near it yourself, you could always hear of the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert. Thirdly. After a while and when it might be prudent, if you should want to slip Tom, Jack, or Richard, on board a foreign packet-boat, there he is—ready."

Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked Wemmick again and again, and begged him to proceed.

"Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the business with a will, and by nine o'clock last night be housed Tom, Jack, or Richard—whichever it may be—you and I don't want to know—quite successfully. At the old lodgings it was understood that he was summoned to Dover, and in fact he was taken down the Dover road and cornered out of it. Now, another great advantage of all this is, that it was done without you, and when, if any one was concerning himself about your movements, you must be known to be ever so many miles off, and quite otherwise engaged. This diverts suspicion and confuses it; and for the same reason I recommended that even if you came back last night, you should not go home. It brings in more confusion, and you want confusion."

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 Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked at his watch, and began to get his coat on.

"And now, Mr. Pip," said he, with his hands still in the sleeves, "I have probably done the most I can do; but if I can ever do more—from a Walworth point of view, and in a strictly private and personal capacity—I shall be glad to do it. Here's the address. There can be no harm in your going here to-night and seeing for yourself that all is well with Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home—which is another reason for your not going home last night. But after you have gone home, don't go back here. You are very welcome, I am sure, Mr. Pip;" his hands were now out of his sleeves, and I was shaking them; "and let me finally impress one important point upon you." He laid his hands upon my shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper: "Avail yourself of this evening to lay hold of his portable property. You don't know what may happen to him. Don't let anything happen to the portable property."

Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick on this point, I forbore to try.

"Time's up," said Wemmick, "and I must be off. If you had nothing more pressing to do than to keep here till dark, that's what I should advise. You look very much worried, and it would do you good to have a perfectly quiet day with the Aged—he'll be up presently—and a little bit ofyou remember the pig?"

"Of course," said I.

"Well; and a little bit of him. That sausage you toasted was his, and he was in all respects a first-rater. Do try him, if it is only for old acquaintance' sake. Good bye, Aged Parent!" in a cheery shout.

"All right, John; all right, my boy!" piped the old man from within.

I soon fell asleep before Wemmick's fire, and the Aged and I enjoyed one another's society by falling asleep before it more or less all day. We had loin of pork for dinner, and greens grown on the estate, and I nodded at the Aged with a good intention whenever I failed to do it drowsily.

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Rh When it was quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire for toast; and I inferred from the number of tea-cups, as well as from his glances at the two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skiffins was expected.

o'clock had struck before I got into the air that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the longshore boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge, was unknown ground to me, and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted was not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to find. It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks's Basin; and I had no other guide to Chinks's Basin than the Old Green Copper Rope-Walk.

It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I lost myself among, what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked to pieces, what ooze and slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of ship-builders and shipbreakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting into the ground though for years off duty, what mountainous country of accumulated casks and timber, how many rope-walks that were not the Old Green Copper. After several times falling short of my destination and as often overshooting it, I came unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a fresh kind of place, all circumstances considered, where the wind from the river had room to turn itself round; and there were two or three trees in it, and there was the stump of a ruined windmill, and there was the Old Green Copper Rope-Walk—whose long and narrow vista I could trace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames set in the ground, that looked like superannuated haymaking-rakes which had grown old and lost most of their teeth.

Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond

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text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Merit, Order of

MERIT,. An order instituted in London, June 26, 1902, by King Edward VII., with the object of conferring distinction on persons who have gained prominence in military, scientific, artistic, and professional circles. The Order consists of the sovereign and the members and is not conferred as a reward for political services. Members of the order are accorded precedence immediately after the Order of the

Bath and before the other orders of knighthood. Up to January 1, 1903, only twelve members had been installed, comprising, as representatives of the army, Lords Roberts, Wolseley, and Kitchener; of the navy, Admirals Keppel and Seymour; of science, Lords Rayleigh and Kelvin and Sir William Huggins; of medicine Lord Lister; of literature and history, John Morley and W. E. H. Lecky; of painting, G. F. Watts.


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Merit System, The

MERIT SYSTEM,. The merit system, as the name implies, looks toward the appointment of men to office because of their competency, and not because of their political opinions. The fitness of the candidate is determined by his ability to pass a written competitive examination, given by a commission of examiners. The answers submitted by candidates must be unsigned, so as to obviate the possibility of favoritism on the part of the examiners. A list is made of the successful candidates, arranged in the order of their merit as shown by the results of the examination. Appointments must be made from this eligible list in the order of rank unless good cause can be shown why one of higher rank should be set aside for one standing lower on the list. A common objection to the merit system is that it does not give an adequate test of a man's real capacity to administer the office to which he seeks appointment. This is in a measure true, though more and more the civil service examiners are coming to lay stress upon experience and practical knowledge. Inasmuch as the merit system makes it more difficult for the ordinary political heeler to secure lucrative offices because of his vote-getting ability, the system must be recognized as a power for good. Though it does not inevitably lead to the choice of the most competent, it does very effectually exclude the absolutely unfit—the political trickster and dealer in votes. See.


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Parker, Louis Napoleon

PARKER, (1852—). An English composer and dramatist, born in Calvados, France, and educated at Freiburg im Breisgau, and at the Royal Academy of Music. From 1877 to 1896 he was director of music in Sherborne School. To this period belong his songs, cantatas, and instrumental music. He was made a fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 1898. He was connected as author, collaborator, or translator with many successful plays. Among those which he translated are Magda, Cyrano de Bergerac, and L'Aiglon.


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Rh turned to him, with a break in her voice, saying: “Oh, I am so sorry—I am so sorry.”

He said, very low and soft,—“Never mind—never mind.”

She heard the laughter of those preparing the charade. She drew away and went in the drawing room, saying aloud:

“Now I think everything is ready—we can sit down now.”

After the actors had played the last charade, Leslie came and claimed her.

“Now, Madam—are you glad to have me back?”

“That I am,” she said. “Don’t leave me again, will you?”

“I won’t,” he replied, drawing her beside him. “I have left my handkerchief in the dining-room,” he continued; and they went out together.

Mother gave me permission for the men to smoke.

“You know,” said Marie to Tom, “I am surprised that a scientist should smoke. Isn’t it a waste of time?”

“Come and light me,” he said.

“Nay,” she replied, “let science light you.”

“Science does—Ah, but science is nothing without a girl to set it going—Yes—Come on—now, don’t burn my precious nose.”

“Poor George!” cried Alice. “Does he want a ministering angel?”

He was half lying in a big arm chair.

“I do,” he replied. “Come on, be my box of soothing ointment. My matches are all loose.”

“I’ll strike it on my heel, eh? Now, rouse up, or I shall have to sit on your knee to reach you.”


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v. 14- A verse of doubtful interpretation; but it is altogether probable that the animal-names are coördinate in construction with kṛtyā́ in c; and they are feminine doubtless because this is feminine; the kṛtyā is to overtake its perpetrator with their swiftness and force. But the Pet. Lex. takes vāraṇī́ as 'shy, wild,' qualifying eṇī́. Ppp. combines enāi ’va and mṛgāi ’va, and reads vāruṇī, and -krandaṁ for -skandaṁ; -krandam seems rather preferable. The unaltered s of abhisk- in b falls under Prāt. ii. 104, and the example is quoted there. Though the verse is a fairly regular gāyatrī, the Anukr. stupidly accounts it a sāmnī triṣṭubh, as if it were prose, and contained only 22 syllables.

12. Straighter than an arrow let it fly, O heaven-and-earth, to meet him; let it, the witchcraft, seize again him, the witchcraft-maker, like a deer.

13. Let it go like fire up-stream, like water down-stream; like an easyc hariot let the witchcraft roll back to the witchcraft-maker.

1. Both one of me and ten of me [are] the exorcisers (apavaktár), O herb; thou born of right (ṛtá), thou rich in right, mayest thou, honeyed (madhulā́), make honey for me.

2. Both two of me and twenty of me [are] etc. etc.

3. Both three of me and thirty of me [are] etc. etc.

4. Both four of me and forty of me [are] etc. etc.

5. Both five of me and fifty of me [are] etc. etc.

6. Both six of me and sixty of me [are] etc. etc.

7. Both seven of me and seventy of me [are] etc. etc.

8. Both eight of me and eighty of me [are] etc. etc.

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180 “Poor dear—he shall be luxurious,” and the dauntless girl perched on his knee.

“What if I singe your whiskers—would you send an Armada? Aw—aw—pretty!—You do look sweet—doesn’t he suck prettily?”

“Do you envy me?” he asked, smiling whimsically.

“Ra—ther!”

“Shame to debar you,” he said, almost with tenderness.

“Smoke with me.”

He offered her the cigarette from his lips. She was surprised, and exceedingly excited by his tender tone. She took the cigarette.

“I’ll make a heifer—like Mrs. Daws,” she said.

“Don’t call yourself a cow,” he said.

“Nasty thing—let me go,” she exclaimed.

“No—you fit me—don’t go,” he replied, holding her.

“Then you must have growed. Oh—what great hands—let go. Lettie, come and pinch him.”

“What’s the matter?” asked my sister.

“He won’t let me go.”

“He’ll be tired first,” Lettie answered.

Alice was released, but she did not move. She sat with wrinkled forehead trying his cigarette. She blew out little tiny whiffs of smoke, and thought about it; she sent a small puff down her nostrils, and rubbed her nose.

“It’s not as nice as it looks,” she said.

He laughed at her with masculine indulgence.

“Pretty boy,” she said, stroking his chin.

“Am I?” he murmured languidly.


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Rh “Cheek!” she cried, and she boxed his ears. Then “Oh, pore fing!” she said, and kissed him.

She turned round to wink at my mother and at Lettie. She found the latter sitting in the old position with Leslie, two in a chair. He was toying with her arm; holding it and stroking it.

“Isn’t it lovely?” he said, kissing the forearm, “so warm and yet so white. Io—it reminds one of Io.”

“Somebody else talking about heifers,” murmured Alice to George.

“Can you remember,” said Leslie, speaking low, “that man in Merimée who wanted to bite his wife and taste her blood?”

“I do,” said Lettie. “Have you a strain of wild beast too?”

“Perhaps,” he laughed, “I wish these folks had gone. Your hair is all loose in your neck—it looks lovely like that though——”

Alice, the mocker, had unbuttoned the cuff of the thick wrist that lay idly on her knee, and had pushed his sleeve a little way.

“Ah!” she said. “What a pretty arm, brown as an overbaked loaf!”

He watched her smiling.

“Hard as a brick,” she added.

“Do you like it?” he drawled.

“No,” she said emphatically, in a tone that meant “yes.” “It makes me feel shivery.” He smiled again.

She superposed her tiny pale, flower-like hands on his.

He lay back looking at them curiously.


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The New International Encyclopædia/Parker, Matthew

PARKER, (1504-75). The second Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury. He was born at Norwich, August 6, 1504, studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was ordained a priest in 1527. At the university he was a distinguished student, and was from an early period favorably disposed toward the doctrines of the Reformation, and lived in close intimacy with some of the more ardent reformers. In 1535 he was appointed chaplain to Queen Anne Boleyn. With this appointment he obtained the deanery of the monastic college of Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk. Here he appears to have first definitely sided with the reforming party in the Church and State, the sermons which he preached containing bold attacks on different Catholic tenets and practices. In 1538 Parker took the degree of D.D.; and in 1544, after some minor changes, became master

of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, which he ruled admirably. Three years later he married and probably about this time drew up his defense of the marriage of priests, entitled De Conjugio Sacerdotum. In 1552 he was presented by King Edward VI. to the rich deanery of Lincoln. On the accession of Queen Mary he refused to conform to the reëstablished order of things, and was deprived of his preferments, and even obliged to conceal himself. It does not appear, however, that he was eagerly sought after by the emissaries of Mary; for he was very unwilling to disturb the framework of the Church. On the death of Mary and the accession of Elizabeth (1558) he was appointed by the Queen Archbishop of Canterbury. The consecration took place in Lambeth Chapel, December 17, 1559.

The subsequent history of Archbishop Parker is that of the Church of England. The difficulties that beset him were very great. Elizabeth herself was addicted to various ‘popish’ practices, such as the use of images, and was strongly in favor of the celibacy of the clergy. But his greatest anxiety was in regard to the spirit of sectarian dissension within the bosom of the Church itself. Already the germs of Puritanism were beginning to spring up, and there can be no doubt that their growth was fostered by the despotic caprices of the Queen. Parker himself was manifestly convinced that if ever Protestantism was to be firmly established in the land at all, some definite ecclesiastical forms and methods must be sanctioned to secure the triumph of order over anarchy, and he vigorously set about the repression of what he thought a mutinous individualism incompatible with a catholic spirit. That he always acted wisely or well cannot be affirmed; he was forced into intolerant and inquisitorial courses, and as he grew older he grew harsher, the conservative spirit increasing with his years. He gave the English people the “Bishops' Bible,” which was undertaken at his request, prepared under his supervision, and published at his expense in 1572. Much of his time and labor from 1563 to 1568 was given to this work. He had also the principal share in drawing up the Book of Common Prayer, for which his skill in ancient liturgies peculiarly fitted him, and it was under his presidency that the Thirty-nine Articles were finally reviewed and subscribed by the clergy (1562). Parker died in the palace at Lambeth, London, May 17, 1575.

Among other literary performances, Parker published in 1567 an old Saxon Homily on the Sacrament, by Ælfric of Saint Albans, A Testimonie of Antiquitie Showing the Ancient Fayth in the Church of England Touching the Sacrament of the Body and Bloude of the Lord, to prove that transubstantiation was not the doctrine of the ancient English Church; edited (1571) the histories of Matthew of Westminster and Matthew Paris; and superintended the publication of a most valuable work, De Antiquitate Britannieæ Ecclesiæ, probably printed at Lambeth in 1572, where the Archbishop, we are told, had an establishment of printers, engravers, and illuminators. He also founded the ‘Society of Antiquaries,’ and was its first president; endowed the University of Cambridge, and particularly his own college, with many fellowships and scholarships and with a magnificent collection of manuscripts relating to

the civil and ecclesiastical condition of England, and belonging to nine different centuries (from the eighth to the sixteenth). His correspondence from 1535 on was published by the Parker Society (Cambridge, 1853). Consult his Life by Strype (best ed., 3 vols., Oxford, 1821), and in Hook's Archbishops of Canterbury, new series, vol. iv. (London, 1872). In his honor the Parker Society was formed, which published 53 volumes of Elizabethan ecclesiastical literature (Cambridge, 1841-54).


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182 “Do you feel as if your hands were full of silver?” she asked almost wistfully, mocking.

“Better than that,” he replied gently.

“And your heart full of gold?” she mocked.

“Of hell!” he replied briefly.

Alice looked at him searchingly.

“And am I like a blue-bottle buzzing in your window to keep your company?” she asked.

He laughed.

“Good-bye,” she said, slipping down and leaving him.

“Don’t go,” he said—but too late.

The irruption of Alice into the quiet, sentimental party was like taking a bright light into a sleeping hen-roost. Everybody jumped up and wanted to do something. They cried out for a dance.

“Emily—play a waltz—you won’t mind, will you, George? What! You don’t dance, Tom? Oh, Marie!”

“I don’t mind, Lettie,” protested Marie.

“Dance with me, Alice,” said George, smiling “and Cyril will take Miss Tempest.”

“Glory!—come on—do or die!” said Alice.

We began to dance. I saw Lettie watching, and I looked round. George was waltzing with Alice, dancing passably, laughing at her remarks. Lettie was not listening to what her lover was saying to her; she was watching the laughing pair. At the end she went to George.

“Why!” she said, “You can——”

“Did you think I couldn’t?” he said. “You are


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247 9. Both nine of me and ninety of me [are] etc. etc.

10. Both ten of me and a hundred of me [are] etc. etc.

11. Both a hundred of me and a thousand [are] the exorcisers, O herb; etc. etc.

1. If thou art sole chief, let go; sapless art thou.

2. If thou art twice chief etc. etc.

3. If thou art thrice chief etc. etc.

4. If thou art four times chief etc. etc.

5. If thou art five times chief etc. etc.

6. If thou art six times chief etc. etc.

7. If thou art seven times chief etc. etc.

8. If thou art eight times chief etc. etc.

9. If thou art nine times chief etc. etc.

10. If thou art ten times chief etc. etc.

11. If thou art eleven-fold, then thou art waterless.

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Rh pledged for a minuet and a valeta with me—you remember?”

“Yes.”

“You promise?”

“Yes. But——”

“I went to Nottingham and learned.”

“Why—because?—Very well, Leslie, a mazurka. Will you play it, Emily—Yes, it is quite easy. Tom, you look quite happy talking to the Mater.”

We danced the mazurka with the same partners. He did it better than I expected—without much awkwardness—but stiffly. However, he moved quietly through the dance, laughing and talking abstractedly all the time with Alice.

Then Lettie cried a change of partners, and they took their valeta. There was a little triumph in his smile.

“Do you congratulate me?” he said.

“I am surprised,” she answered.

“So am I. But I congratulate myself.”

“Do you? Well, so do I.”

“Thanks! You’re beginning at last.”

“What?” she asked.

“To believe in me.”

“Don’t begin to talk again,” she pleaded, sadly, “nothing vital.”

“Do you like dancing with me?” he asked.

“Now, be quiet—that’s real,” she replied.

“By Heaven, Lettie, you make me laugh!”

“Do I?” she said—“What if you married Alice—soon.”

“I—Alice!—Lettie!! Besides, I’ve only a hundred pounds in the world, and no prospects whatever.


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184 That’s why—well—I shan’t marry anybody—unless its somebody with money.”

“I’ve a couple of thousand or so of my own——”

“Have you? It would have done nicely,” he said smiling.

“You are different to-night,” she said, leaning on him.

“Am I?” he replied—“It’s because things are altered too. They’re settled one way now—for the present at least.”

“Don’t forget the two steps this time,” said she smiling, and adding seriously, “You see, I couldn’t help it.”

“No, why not?”

“Things! I have been brought up to expect it—everybody expected it—and you’re bound to do what people expect you to do—you can’t help it. We can’t help ourselves, we’re all chess-men,” she said.

“Ay,” he agreed, but doubtfully.

“I wonder where it will end,” she said.

“Lettie!” he cried, and his hand closed in a grip on her’s.

“Don’t—don’t say anything—it’s no good now, it’s too late. It’s done; and what is done, is done. If you talk any more, I shall say I’m tired and stop the dance. Don’t say another word.”

He did not—at least to her. Their dance came to an end. Then he took Marie who talked winsomely to him. As he waltzed with Marie he regained his animated spirits. He was very lively the rest of the evening, quite astonishing and reckless. At supper he ate everything, and drank much wine.

“Have some more turkey, Mr. Saxton.”


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Rh “Thanks—but give me some of that stuff in brown jelly, will you? It’s new to me.”

“Have some of this trifle, Georgie?”

“I will—you are a jewel.”

“So will you be—a yellow topaz tomorrow!”

“Ah! tomorrow’s tomorrow!”

After supper was over, Alice cried:

“Georgie, dear—have you finished?—don’t die the death of a king—King John—I can’t spare you, pet.”

“Are you so fond of me?”

“I am—Aw! I’d throw my best Sunday hat under a milk-cart for you, I would!”

“No; throw yourself into the milk-cart—some Sunday, when I’m driving.”

“Yes—come and see us,” said Emily.

“How nice! Tomorrow you won’t want me, Georgie dear, so I’ll come. Don’t you wish Pa would make ? Wouldn’t you marry me then?”

“I would,” said he.

When the cart came, and Alice, Madie, Tom and Will departed, Alice bade Lettie a long farewell—blew Georgie many kisses—promised to love him faithful and true—and was gone.

George and Emily lingered a short time.

Now the room seemed empty and quiet, and all the laughter seemed to have gone. The conversation dribbled away; there was an awkwardness.

“Well,” said George heavily, at last. “To-day is nearly gone—it will soon be tomorrow. I feel a bit drunk! We had a good time to-night.”

“I am glad,” said Lettie.


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186 They put on their clogs and leggings, and wrapped themselves up, and stood in the hall.

“We must go,” said George, “before the clock strikes,—like Cinderella—look at my glass slippers—” he pointed to his clogs. “Midnight, and rags, and fleeing. Very appropriate. I shall call myself Cinderella who wouldn’t fit. I believe I’m a bit drunk—the world looks funny.”

We looked out at the haunting wanness of the hills beyond Nethermere. “Good-bye, Lettie; good-bye.”

They were out in the snow, which peered pale and eerily from the depths of the black wood.

“Good-bye,” he called out of the darkness. Leslie slammed the door, and drew Lettie away into the drawing-room. The sound of his low, vibrating satisfaction reached us, as he murmured to her, and laughed low. Then he kicked the door of the room shut. Lettie began to laugh and mock and talk in a high strained voice. The sound of their laughter mingled was strange and incongruous. Then her voice died down.

Marie sat at the little piano—which was put in the dining-room—strumming and tinkling the false, quavering old notes. It was a depressing jingling in the deserted remains of the feast, but she felt sentimental, and enjoyed it.

This was a gap between to-day and tomorrow, a dreary gap, where one sat and looked at the dreary comedy of yesterdays, and the grey tragedies of dawning tomorrows, vacantly, missing the poignancy of an actual to-day.

The cart returned.


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Rh “Leslie, Leslie, John is here, come along!” called Marie.

There was no answer.

“Leslie—John is waiting in the snow.”

“All right.”

“But you must come at once.” She went to the door and spoke to him. Then he came out looking rather sheepish, and rather angry at the interruption. Lettie followed, tidying her hair. She did not laugh and look confused, as most girls do on similar occasions; she seemed very tired.

At last Leslie tore himself away, and after more returns for a farewell kiss, mounted the carriage, which stood in a pool of yellow light, blurred and splotched with shadows, and drove away, calling something about tomorrow.


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 as made the old woods ring again. "Well, well," at length the individual stammered out, as well as he could from his almost hysterical state, "if this example fails, I must clear out for good." It was old Dodge, who, in a short time reached the creek and paddled himself over, where he found Hugh and Slinger waiting, with a meal prepared and set forth in true bush fashion on a large box. "Here I am again," he said; "I thought my last adventure with bailiffs would have prevented the necessity for any further cruelty on my part to the species, but they will not learn wisdom." He then recounted his adventure, concluding—" a night in the scrubs will cure our friend, I think, of his partiality for Westernport. It won't be a paying speculation for him—this won't."

"But," said Slinger, "you surely will not leave the poor wretch in such a position, and after frightening him as you have done: why he will die of cold."

"Won't I though," said Dodge. "He will keep warm until the morning, and by that time have recovered his senses. Then he will either strike upon the creek or come into open ground, and the chances are that eventually he will make my station. Meantime we must clear out."

"Suppose you accompany us in search of a station," said Slinger; "that is the business we are out upon."

"Agreed," replied Dodge; "and there is no time to be lost; we must make preparations at once." Accordingly, after taking out the necessary supplies, he planted his flour-bag and beef-barrel in the hollow of an adjacent tree, declaring that he would starve out his enemy in case he attempted to quarter upon him. Selecting a pair of not particularly clean canvass trousers and some strips of linen to serve for strings, he then observed, "Now I'll show you what I call my multum in parvo;" he then proceeded, after tying up the bottom of one

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' thou girdest up thy loins thyself, And goest where thou wouldest: presently Others shall gird thee,' said the Lord, 'to go Where thou would'st not.'He spoke to Peter thus, To signify the death which he should die When crucified head downwards. If He spoke To Peter then, He speaks to us the same; The word suits many different martyrdoms, And signifies a multiform of death, Although we scarcely die apostles, we, And have mislaid the keys of heaven and earth.

For 'tis not in mere death that men die most; And, after our first girding of the loins In youth's fine linen and fair broidery, To run up hill and meet the rising sun, We are apt to sit tired, patient as a fool, While others gird us with the violent bands Of social figments, feints, and formalisms,

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90 Reversing our straight nature, lifting up Our base needs, keeping down our lofty thoughts, Head downward on the cross-sticks of the world.

Yet He can pluck us from the shameful cross. God, set our feet low and our forehead high, And show us how a man was made to walk!

Leave the lamp, Susan, and go up to bed. The room does very well; I have to write Beyond the stroke of midnight. Get away; Your steps, for ever buzzing in the room, Tease me like gnats. Ah, letters! throw them down At once, as I must have them, to be sure, Whether I bid you never bring me such At such an hour, or bid you. No excuse. You choose to bring them, as I choose perhaps To throw them in the fire. Now, get to bed, And dream, if possible, I am not cross.

Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow,— A mere, mere woman,—a mere flaccid nerve,— A kerchief left out all night in the rain, Turned soft so,—overtasked and overstrained And overlived in this close London life! And yet I should be stronger. Never burn Your letters, poor Aurora! for they stare With red seals from the table, saying each, ‘Here’s something that you know not.’ Out alas,

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Rh ’Tis scarcely that the world’s more good and wise Or even straighter and more consequent Since yesterday at this time—yet, again, If but one angel spoke from Ararat, I should be very sorry not to hear: So open all the letters! let me read. Blanche Ord, the writer in the ‘Lady’s Fan,’ Requests my judgment on. . that, afterwards. Kate Ward desires the model of my cloak, And signs, ‘Elisha to you.’ Pringle Sharpe Presents his work on ‘Social Conduct,’. . craves A little money for his pressing debts. . From me, who scarce have money for my needs,— Art’s fiery chariot which we journey in Being apt to singe our singing-robes to holes, Although you ask me for my cloak, Kate Ward! Here’s Rudgely knows it,—editor and scribe— He’s forced to marry where his heart is not, Because the purse lacks where he lost his heart. Ah,——lost it because no one picked it up! That’s really loss! (and passable impudence.) My critic Hammond flatters prettily, And wants another volume like the last. My critic Belfair wants another book Entirely different, which will sell, (and live?) A striking book, yet not a startling book, The public blames originalities. (You must not pump spring-water unawares Upon a gracious public, full of nerves—) Good things, not subtle, new yet orthodox,

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92 As easy reading as the dog-eared page That’s fingered by said public, fifty years, Since first taught spelling by its grandmother, And yet a revelation in some sort: That’s hard, my critic, Belfair! So—what next? My critic Stokes objects to abstract thoughts; ‘Call a man, John, a woman, Joan,’ says he, ‘And do not prate so of humanities:’ Whereat I call my critic, simply Stokes. My critic Jobson recommends more mirth, Because a cheerful genius suits the times, And all true poets laugh unquenchably Like Shakspeare and the gods. That’s very hard. The gods may laugh, and Shakspeare; Dante smiled With such a needy heart on two pale lips, We cry, ‘Weep rather, Dante.’ Poems are Men, if true poems: and who dares exclaim At any man’s door, ‘Here, ’tis probable The thunder fell last week, and killed a wife, And scared a sickly husband—what of that? Get up, be merry, shout, and clap your hands, Because a cheerful genius suits the times—’? None says so to the man,—and why indeed Should any to the poem? A ninth seal; The apocalypse is drawing to a close. Ha,—this from Vincent Carrington,—‘Dear friend, I want good counsel. Will you lend me wings To raise me to the subject, in a sketch I’ll bring to-morrow—may I? at eleven? A poet’s only born to turn to use;

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Rh So save you! for the world. . and Carrington.’ ‘(Writ after.) Have you heard of Romney Leigh, Beyond what’s said of him in newspapers, His phalansteries there, his speeches here, His pamphlets, pleas, and statements, everywhere? He dropped me long ago; but no one drops A golden apple—though, indeed, one day, You hinted that, but jested. Well, at least, You know Lord Howe, who sees him. . whom he sees, And you see, and I hate to see,—for Howe Stands high upon the brink of theories, Observes the swimmers, and cries ‘Very fine,’ But keeps dry linen equally,—unlike That gallant breaster, Romney. Strange it is, Such sudden madness, seizing a young man, To make earth over again,—while I’m content To make the pictures. Let me bring the sketch. A tiptoe Danae, overbold and hot; Both arms a-flame to meet her wishing Jove Halfway, and burn him faster down; the face And breasts upturned and straining; the loose locks All glowing with the anticipated gold. Or here’s another on the self-same theme. She lies here—flat upon her prison-floor, The long hair swathed about her to the heel, Like wet sea-weed. You dimly see her through The glittering haze of that prodigious rain, Half blotted out of nature by a love As heavy as fate. I’ll bring you either sketch. I think, myself, the second indicates

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94 More passion.’ Surely. Self is put away, And calm with abdication. She is Jove, And no more Danae—greater thus. Perhaps The painter symbolises unawares Two states of the recipient artist-soul; One, forward, personal, wanting reverence, Because aspiring only. We’ll be calm, And know that, when indeed our Joves come down, We all turn stiller than we have ever been.

Kind Vincent Carrington. I’ll let him come. He talks of Florence,—and may say a word Of something as it chanced seven years ago,— A hedgehog in the path, or a lame bird, In those green country walks, in that good time, When certainly I was so miserable. . I seem to have missed a blessing ever since.

The music soars within the little lark, And the lark soars. It is not thus with men. We do not make our places with our strains,— Content, while they rise, to remain behind, Alone on earth instead of so in heaven. No matter—I bear on my broken tale.

When Romney Leigh and I had parted thus, I took a chamber up three flights of stairs Not far from being as steep as some larks climb, And, in a certain house in Kensington,

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Rh Three years I lived and worked. Get leave to work In this world,—’tis the best you get at all; For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts Than men in benediction. God says, ‘Sweat For foreheads;’ men say ‘crowns;’ and so we are crowned,— Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work, get work; Be sure ’tis better than what you work to get.

So, happy and unafraid of solitude, I worked the short days out,—and watched the sun On lurid morns or monstrous afternoons, Like some Druidic idol’s fiery brass, With fixed unflickering outline of dead heat, In which the blood of wretches pent inside Seemed oozing forth to incarnadine the air,— Push out through fog with his dilated disk, And startle the slant roofs and chimney-pots With splashes of fierce colour. Or I saw Fog only, the great tawny weltering fog, Involve the passive city, strangle it Alive, and draw it off into the void, Spires, bridges, streets, and squares, as if a sponge Had wiped out London,—or as noon and night Had clapped together and utterly struck out The intermediate time, undoing themselves In the act. Your city poets see such things, Not despicable. Mountains of the south, When, drunk and mad with elemental wines, They rend the seamless mist and stand up bare,

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96 Make fewer singers, haply. No one sings, Descending Sinai; on Parnassus mount, You take a mule to climb, and not a muse, Except in fable and figure: forests chant Their anthems to themselves, and leave you dumb. But sit in London, at the day’s decline, And view the city perish in the mist Like Pharaoh’s armaments in the deep Red Sea,— The chariots, horsemen, footmen, all the host, Sucked down and choked to silence—then, surprised By a sudden sense of vision and of tune, You feel as conquerors though you did not fight, And you and Israel’s other singing girls, Ay, Miriam with them, sing the song you choose.

I worked with patience which means almost power. I did some excellent things indifferently, Some bad things excellently. Both were praised, The latter loudest. And by such a time That I myself had set them down as sins Scarce worth the price of sackcloth, week by week, Arrived some letter through the sedulous post, Like these I’ve read, and yet dissimilar, With pretty maiden seals,—initials twined Of lilies, or a heart marked Emily, (Convicting Emily of being all heart); Or rarer tokens from young bachelors, Who wrote from college (with the same goosequill, Suppose, they had been just plucked of) and a snatch From Horace, ‘Collegisse juvat,’ set

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Rh Upon the first page. Many a letter signed Or unsigned, showing the writers at eighteen Had lived too long, though every muse should help The daylight, holding candles,—compliments, To smile or sigh at. Such could pass with me No more than coins from Moscow circulate At Paris. Would ten roubles buy a tag Of ribbon on the boulevard, worth a sou? I smiled that all this youth should love me,—sighed That such a love could scarcely raise them up To love what was more worthy than myself; Then sighed again, again, less generously, To think the very love they lavished so, Proved me inferior. The strong loved me not, And he. . my cousin Romney. . did not write. I felt the silent finger of his scorn Prick every bubble of my frivolous fame As my breath blew it, and resolve it back To the air it came from. Oh, I justified The measure he had taken of my height: The thing was plain—he was not wrong a line; I played at art, made thrusts with a toy-sword, Amused the lads and maidens. Came a sigh Deep, hoarse with resolution,—I would work To better ends, or play in earnest. ‘Heavens, I think I should be almost popular If this went on!’—I ripped my verses up, And found no blood upon the rapier’s point: The heart in them was just an embryo’s heart,

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 of the legs to deposit in it a quantity of flour, that done, he tied it tightly above; the other leg was devoted to tea, sugar, and tobacco. "Let me see," he said, thoughtfully, tapping the ashes from his pipe, "we have tobacco, flour, tea, sugar, powder, shot, bullets, and blankets; there is only one thing requisite to render us disgustingly rich—a bottle of rum, Slinger, and we should be rolling in wealth.

"Indeed it would be a comfortable addition," Slinger answered.

Dodge smiled pleasantly as he removed a turf from one side of his chimney, and thrusting his arm into the aperture drew forth several black bottles. One was labelled "laudanum—poison," another "the cattle medicine," another "poison for wild dogs." Selecting the latter, the cork was drawn, and after drinking to the success of their expedition, Dodge tendered a portion of the "poison" to his visitors, who partook of the same, found it marvellously like rum to the taste, and found no ill effects from their libations. The remainder in the bottle was then carefully wrapped in a blanket to be taken with them, and the rest replaced in the chimney.

"There is nothing like preparing for the worst," said Dodge.— "A man does not like drinking freely from a bottle labelled 'poison' although the stuff in it may smell like rum. I wish education was more general. Now if the black protectors had taught the Darkeys to read they would be more careful how they emptied my poison bottles:—as it is, the rascals somehow scent 'em out, and not having the fear of death before their eyes, they get dead drunk on their contents."

Every thing being arranged for an early move on the morrow, the visitors had leisure to admire the domestic arrangements of their host. The great box, which occupied so conspicuous a position in the hut, served as a table, chest of

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98 Which never yet had beat, that it should die; Just gasps of make-believe galvanic life; Mere tones, inorganised to any tune.

And yet I felt it in me where it burnt, Like those hot fire-seeds of creation held In Jove’s clenched palm before the worlds were sown;— But I—I was not Juno even! my hand Was shut in weak convulsion, woman’s ill, And when I yearned to loose a finger—lo, The nerve revolted. ’Tis the same even now: This hand may never, haply, open large, Before the spark is quenched, or the palm charred, To prove the power not else than by the pain.

It burns, it burnt—my whole life burnt with it, And light, not sunlight and not torchlight, flashed My steps out through the slow and difficult road. I had grown distrustful of too forward Springs, The season’s books in drear significance Of morals, dropping round me. Lively books? The ash has livelier verdure than the yew; And yet the yew’s green longer, and alone Found worthy of the holy Christmas time. We’ll plant more yews if possible, albeit We plant the graveyards with them. Day and night I worked my rhythmic thought, and furrowed up Both watch and slumber with long lines of life Which did not suit their season. The rose fell

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Rh From either cheek, my eyes globed luminous Through orbits of blue shadow, and my pulse Would shudder along the purple-veined wrist Like a shot bird. Youth’s stern, set face to face With youth’s ideal: and when people came And said, ‘You work too much, you are looking ill,’ I smiled for pity of them who pitied me, And thought I should be better soon perhaps For those ill looks. Observe—‘I,’ means in youth Just I. . the conscious and eternal soul With all its ends,—and not the outside life, The parcel-man, the doublet of the flesh, The so much liver, lung, integument, Which make the sum of ‘I’ hereafter, when World-talkers talk of doing well or ill. I prosper, if I gain a step, although A nail then pierced my foot: although my brain Embracing any truth, froze paralysed, I prosper. I but change my instrument; I break the spade off, digging deep for gold, And catch the mattock up. I worked on, on. Through all the bristling fence of nights and days Which hedges time in from the eternities, I struggled,. . never stopped to note the stakes Which hurt me in my course. The midnight oil Would stink sometimes; there came some vulgar needs: I had to live, that therefore I might work, And, being but poor, I was constrained, for life, To work with one hand for the booksellers,

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100 While working with the other for myself And art. You swim with feet as well as hands Or make small way. I apprehended this,— In England, no one lives by verse that lives; And, apprehending, I resolved by prose To make a space to sphere my living verse. I wrote for cyclopædias, magazines, And weekly papers, holding up my name To keep it from the mud. I learnt the use Of the editorial ‘we’ in a review, As courtly ladies the fine trick of trains, And swept it grandly through the open doors As if one could not pass through doors at all Save so encumbered. I wrote tales beside, Carved many an article on cherry-stones To suit light readers,—something in the lines Revealing, it was said, the mallet-hand, But that, I’ll never vouch for. What you do For bread, will taste of common grain, not grapes, Although you have a vineyard in Champagne,— Much less in Nephelococcygia, As mine was, peradventure. Having bread For just so many days, just breathing room For body and verse, I stood up straight and worked My veritable work. And as the soul Which grows within a child, makes the child grow,— Or as the fiery sap, the touch from God, Careering through a tree, dilates the bark, And roughs with scale and knob, before it strikes

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Rh The summer foliage out in a green flame— So life, in deepening with me, deepened all The course I took, the work I did. Indeed, The academic law convinced of sin; The critics cried out on the falling off, Regretting the first manner. But I felt My heart’s life throbbing in my verse to show It lived, it also—certes incomplete, Disordered with all Adam in the blood, But even its very tumours, warts, and wens, Still organised by, and implying life.

A lady called upon me on such a day. She had the low voice of your English dames, Unused, it seems, to need rise half a note To catch attention,—and their quiet mood, As if they lived too high above the earth For that to put them out in anything: So gentle, because verily so proud; So wary and afeared of hurting you, By no means that you are not really vile, But that they would not touch you with their foot To push you to your place; so self-possessed Yet gracious and conciliating, it takes An effort in their presence to speak truth: You know the sort of woman,—brilliant stuff, And out of nature. ‘Lady Waldemar.’ She said her name quite simply, as if it meant Not much indeed, but something,—took my hands, And smiled, as if her smile could help my case,

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102 And dropped her eyes on me, and let them melt. ‘Is this,’ she said, ‘the Muse?’ ‘No sibyl even,’ I answered,‘since she fails to guess the cause Which taxed you with this visit, madam.’ ‘Good,’ She said, ‘I like to be sincere at once; Perhaps, if I had found a literal Muse, The visit might have taxed me. As it is, You wear your blue so chiefly in your eyes, My fair Aurora, in a frank good way, It comforts me entirely for your fame, As well as for the trouble of my ascent To this Olympus.’ There, a silver laugh Ran rippling through her quickened little breaths The steep stair somewhat justified. ‘But still Your ladyship has left me curious why You dared the risk of finding the said Muse?’

‘Ah,—keep me, notwithstanding, to the point Like any pedant. Is the blue in eyes As awful as in stockings, after all, I wonder, that you’d have my business out Before I breathe—exact the epic plunge In spite of gasps? Well, naturally you think I’ve come here, as the lion-hunters go To deserts, to secure you, with a trap For exhibition in my drawing-rooms

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Rh On zoologic soirées? Not in the least. Roar softly at me; I am frivolous, I dare say; I have played at lions, too Like other women of my class,—but now I meet my lion simply as Androcles Met his. . when at his mercy.’ So, she bent Her head, as queens may mock,—then lifting up Her eyelids with a real grave queenly look, Which ruled, and would not spare, not even herself,— ‘I think you have a cousin:—Romney Leigh.’

‘You bring a word from him?’—my eyes leapt up To the very height of hers,— a word from him?’

‘I bring a word about him, actually. But first,’—she pressed me with her urgent eyes— ‘You do not love him,—you?’ ‘You’re frank at least In putting questions, madam,’ I replied ‘I love my cousin cousinly—no more.’

‘I guessed as much. I’m ready to be frank In answering also, if you’ll question me, Or even with something less. You stand outside, You artist women, of the common sex; You share not with us, and exceed us so Perhaps by what you’re mulcted in, your hearts Being starved to make your heads: so run the old Traditions of you. I can therefore speak,

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