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Taoist teachings from the book of Lieh Tzŭ/Book 6

Effort and Destiny
Effort said to Destiny: 'Your achievements are not equal to mine.' 'Pray what do you achieve in the working of things,' replied Destiny, 'that you would compare yourself with me?' 'Why,' said Effort, 'the length of man's life, his measure of success, his rank, and his wealth, are all things which I have the power to determine.' To this, Destiny made reply: 'P'êng Tsu's wisdom did not exceed that of Yao and Shun, yet he lived to the age of eight hundred. Yen Yŭan's ability was not inferior to that of the average man, yet he died at the early age of thirty-two. The virtue of Confucius was not less than that of the feudal princes, yet he was reduced to sore straits between Ch'ên and Ts'ai. The conduct of Chou, of the Yin dynasty, did not surpass that of the Three Men of Virtue, yet he occupied a kingly throne. Chi Cha would not accept the overlordship of Wu, while T'ien Hêng usurped sole power in Ch'i. Po I and Shu. Ch'i starved to death at Shou-yang, while Chi Shih waxed rich at Chan-ch'in. If these results were compassed by your efforts, how is it that you allotted long life to P'êng Tsu and an untimely death to Yen Yŭan; that you awarded discomfiture to the sage and success to the impious, humiliation to the wise man and high honours to the fool, poverty to the good and wealth to the wicked?' 'If, as you say,' rejoined Effort, 'I have really no control over events, is it not, then, owing to your management that things turn out as they do?' Destiny replied: 'The very name "Destiny" shows that there can be no question of management in the case. When the way is straight, I push on; when it is crooked, I put up with it. Old age and early death, failure and success, high rank and humble station, riches and poverty — all these come naturally and of themselves. How can I know anything about them?

Yang Chu had a friend called Chi Liang, who fell ill. In seven days' time his illness had become very grave; medical aid was summoned, and his sons stood weeping round his bed. Chi Liang said to Yang Chu: 'Such excess of emotion shows my children to be degenerate. Will you kindly sing them something which will enlighten their minds?' Yang Chu then chanted the following words:

'How can men be aware of things outside God's ken? Over misfortune man has no control, and can look for no help from God. Have doctors and wizards this knowledge that you and I have not?'

The sons, however, did not understand, and finally called in three physicians, Dr Chiao, Dr Yŭ and Dr Lu. They all diagnosed his complaint; and Dr Chiao delivered his opinion first: 'The hot and cold elements of your body,' he said to Chi Liang, 'are not in harmonious accord, and the impermeable and infundibular parts are mutually disproportionate. The origin of your malady is traceable to disordered appetites, and to the dissipation of your vital essence through worry and care. Neither God nor devil is to blame. Although the illness is grave, it is amenable to treatment.' Chi Liang said: 'You are only one of the common ruck,' and speedily got rid of him. Then Dr Yŭ came forward and said: 'You were born with too little nervous force, and were too freely fed with mother's milk. Your illness is not one that has developed in a matter of twenty-four hours; the causes which have led up to it are of gradual growth. It is incurable.' Chi Liang replied: 'You are a good doctor,' and told them to give him some food. Lastly, Dr Lu said: 'Your illness is attributable neither to God, nor to man, nor to the agency of spirits. It was already fore-ordained in the mind of Providence when you were endowed with this bodily form at birth. What possible good can herbs and drugs do you?' 'You are a heaven-born physician indeed!' cried Chi Liang; and he sent him away laden with presents.

Not long after, his illness disappeared of itself.

Duke Ching of Ch'i was travelling across the northern flank of the Ox-mountain in the direction of the capital. Gazing at the view before him, he burst into a flood of tears, exclaiming: 'What a lovely scene! How verdant and luxuriantly wooded! To think that some day I must die and leave my kingdom, passing away like running water! If only there were no such things as death, nothing should induce me to stir from this spot.' Two of the Ministers in attendance on the Duke, taking their cue from him, also began to weep, saying: 'We, who are dependent on your Highness's bounty, whose food is of an inferior sort, who have to ride on broken-down hacks or in creaking carts — even we do not want to die. How much less our sovereign liege!'

Yen Tzŭ, meanwhile, was standing by, with a broad smile on his face. The Duke wiped away his tears and, looking at him, said: 'To-day I am stricken with grief on my journey, and both K'ung and Chŭ mingle their tears with mine. How is it that you alone can smile? Yen Tzŭ replied: 'If the worthy ruler were to remain in perpetual possession of his realm, Duke T'ai and Duke Huan would still be exercising their sway. If the bold ruler were to remain in perpetual possession, Duke Chuang and Duke Ling would still be ruling the land. But if all these rulers were now in possession, where would your Highness be? Why, standing in the furrowed fields, clad in coir cape and hat! Condemned to a hard life on earth, you would have had no time, I warrant, for brooding over death. Again, how did you yourself come to occupy this throne? By a series of successive reigns and removals, until at last your turn came. And are you alone going to weep and lament over this order of things? That is pure selfishness. it was the sight of these two objects — a self-centred prince and his fawning attendants — that set me quietly laughing to myself just now.'

Duke Ching felt much ashamed. Raising his goblet, he filled himself one cup, and his obsequious courtiers two cups of wine apiece.

There was once a man, Tung-mên Wu of Wei, who when his son died testified no grief. His house-steward said to him: 'The love you bore your son could hardly be equalled by that of any other parent. Why, then, do you not mourn for him now that he is dead?' 'There was a time,' replied Tung-mên Wu, 'when I had no son, yet I never had occasion to grieve on that account. Now that my son is dead, I am only in the same condition as I was before my son was born. What reason have I, then, to mourn? The husbandman takes his measures according to the season, the trader occupies himself with gain, the craftsman strives to master his art, the official pursues power. Here we have the operation of human forces. But the husbandman has seasons of rain and seasons of drought, the trader meets with gains and losses, the craftsman experiences both failure and success, the official finds opportunities or the reverse. Here we see the working of Destiny.


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 they have at any rate been in countless individual instances an original and unborrowed experience. Were we writing the story of the mind from the purely natural-history point of view, with no religious interest whatever, we should still have to write down man's liability to sudden and complete conversion as one of his most curious peculiarities.

What, now, must we ourselves think of this question? Is an instantaneous conversion a miracle in which God is present as he is present in no change of heart less strikingly abrupt? Are there two classes of human beings, even among the apparently regenerate, of which the one class really partakes of Christ's nature while the other merely seems to do so? Or, on the contrary, may the whole phenomenon of regeneration, even in these startling instantaneous examples, possibly be a strictly natural process, divine in its fruits, of course, but in one case more and in another less so, and neither more nor less divine in its mere causation and mechanism than any other process, high or low, of man's interior life?

Before proceeding to answer this question, I must ask you to listen to some more psychological remarks. At our last lecture, I explained the shifting of men's centres of personal energy within them and the lighting up of new crises of emotion. I explained the phenomena as partly due to explicitly conscious processes of thought and will, but as due largely also to the subconscious incubation and maturing of motives deposited by the experiences of life. When ripe, the results hatch out, or burst into flower. I have now to speak of the subconscious region, in which such processes of flowering may occur, in a somewhat less vague way. I only regret that my limits of time here force me to be so short.

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it is not only entertaining in itself, but also consonant with use and wont, to be in love; and since in our innocent and moral society, one can so much the more safely indulge in these amatory diversions as one runs no risk of being disturbed either by vigilant fathers or pugnacious brothers; and, finally, since one can as easily get out of as get into our peculiarly Norwegian form of betrothal—a half-way house between marriage and free board in a good family—all these things considered, I say, it was not wonderful that Cousin Hans felt profoundly unhappy. For he was not the least in love.

He had long lived in expectation of being seized by a kind of delirious ecstasy, which, if experienced people are to be trusted, is the infallible symptom of true love. But as nothing of the sort had happened, although he was already in his second year at college, he said to himself: "After all, love is a lottery; if you want to win, you must at least table your stake. 'Lend Fortune a helping hand,' as they say in the lottery advertisements."

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Taoist teachings from the book of Lieh Tzŭ/Book 7

== Book VII ==

Causality
In the course of Lieh Tzŭ's instruction by Hu-ch'iu Tzŭ-lin, the latter said to him: 'You must familiarize yourself with the theory of consequents before you can talk of regulating conduct.' Lieh Tzŭ said: 'Will you explain what you mean by the theory of consequents?' 'Look at your shadow,' said his Master, 'and then you will know.' Lieh turned and looked at his shadow. When his body was bent, the shadow was crooked; when his body was upright, the shadow was straight. Thus it appeared that the attributes of straightness and crookedness were not inherent in the shadow, but corresponded to certain positions of the body. Likewise, contraction and extension are not inherent in the subject, but take place in obedience to external causes. Holding this theory of consequents is to be at home in the antecedent.

Kuan Yin spoke to the Master Lieh Tzŭ, saying: 'If speech is sweet, the echo will be sweet; if speech is harsh, the echo will be harsh. If the body is long, the shadow will be long; if the body is short, the shadow will be short. Reputation is like an echo, personal experiences like a shadow.

'Hence the saying: "Heed your words, and they will meet with harmonious response; heed your actions, and they will find agreeable accord." Therefore, the Sage observes the origin in order to know the issue, scrutinizes the past in order to know the future. Such is the principle whereby he attains foreknowledge.

'The standard of conduct lies with one's own self; the testing of it lies with other men. We are impelled to love those who love us, and to hate those who hate us. T'ang and Wu loved the Empire, and therefore each became King. Chieh and Chou hated the Empire, and therefore they perished. Here we have the test applied. He who does not follow Tao when standard and test are both clear may be likened to one who, when leaving a house, does not go by the door, Or, when travelling abroad, does not keep to the straight road. To seek profit in this way is surely impossible.

'You may consider the virtues of Shên Nung and Yu Yen, you may examine the books of Yŭ, Hsia, Shang and Chou, you may weigh the utterances of great teachers and sages, but you will find no instance of preservation or destruction, fullness or decay, which has not obeyed this supreme Law.'

Lieh Tzŭ learned archery and, when he was able to hit the target, he asked the opinion of Kuan Yin Tzŭ on his shooting. 'Do you know why you hit the target?' said Kuan Yin Tzŭ. 'No, I do not,' was the reply. 'Then you are not good enough yet,' rejoined Kuan Yin Tzŭ. Lieh Tzŭ withdrew and practised for three years after which he again presented himself. Kuan Yin Tzŭ asked, as before: 'Do you know why you hit the target?' 'Yes,' said Lieh Tzŭ, 'I do.' 'In that case, all is well. Hold that knowledge fast, and do not let it slip.'

The above principle does not apply only to shooting, but also to the government of a State and to personal conduct. Therefore the Sage investigates not the mere facts of preservation and destruction, but rather the causes which bring them about.

Lieh Tzŭ said: 'Those who excel in beauty become vain; those who excel in strength become violent. To such, it is useless to speak of Tao. He who is not yet turning grey will surely err if he but speak of Tao; how much less can he put it into practice!

'No man will confide in one who shows himself aggressive. And he in whom no man confides will remain solitary and without support.

'The wise man puts his trust in others: thus he reaches fullness of years without decay, perfection of Wisdom without bewilderment. In the government of a State, then, the hardest thing is to recognize the worth of others, not to rely upon one's own.'

There was once a man in Sung who carved a mulberry leaf out of jade for his prince. It took three years to complete, and it imitated Nature so exquisitely in its down, its glossiness, and its general configuration from tip to stem, that, if placed in a heap of real mulberry leaves, it could not be distinguished from them. This man was subsequently pensioned by the Sung State as a reward for his skill. Lieh Tzŭ, hearing of it, said: 'If it took the Creator three years to make a single leaf, there would be very few trees with leaves on them. The Sage will rely not so much on human science and skill as on the operations of Tao.'

The Master Lieh Tzŭ was very poor, and his face wore a hungry look. A certain stranger spoke about it to Tzŭ Yang, of Cheng. 'Lieh Yŭ-k'ou,' said he, 'is a scholar in possession of Tao. Yet here he is, living in destitution, within your Excellency's dominion. It surely cannot be that you have no liking for scholars?' Tzŭ Yang forthwith directed that an official allowance of grain should be sent to him. Lieh Tzŭ came out to receive the messengers, made two low bows and declined the gift, whereupon the messengers went away, and Lieh Tzŭ reentered the house. There he was confronted by his Wife, who beat her breast and cried aloud: 'I have always understood that the wife and family of a man of Tao live a life of ease and pleasure. Yet now, when his Honour sends you a present of food, on account of your starved appearance, you refuse to accept it! I suppose you will call that "destiny"!' The Master Lieh Tzŭ smiled and replied: 'The Minister did not know about me himself. His present of grain was made on the suggestion of another. If it had been a question of punishing me, that too would have been done at some one else's prompting. That is the reason why I did not accept the gift.'

Later on, the masses rose in actual rebellion against Tzŭ Yang, and slew him.

Mr Shih of Lu had two sons, one of whom was a scholar and the other a soldier. The former found in his accomplishments the means of ingratiating himself with the Marquis of Ch'i, who engaged him as tutor to the young princes. The other brother proceeded to Ch'u, and won favour with the King of that State by his military talents. The King was so well pleased that he installed him at the head of his troops. Thus both of them succeeded in enriching their family and shedding lustre on their kinsfolk.

Now, a certain Mr Mêng, the neighbour of Mr Shih, also had two sons who followed the selfsame professions but were straitened by poverty. Envying the affluence of the Shih family, Mr Mêng called at his neighbour's house, and wanted to know the secret of their rapid rise in the world. The two brothers readily gave him the desired information, whereupon the eldest son immediately set off for Ch'in, hoping that his cultural attainments would recommend him to the King of that State. But the King said: 'At the present moment all the feudal princes are struggling to outbid one another in power, and the great essential is to keep up a large army. If I tried to govern my State on the lines of benevolence and righteousness, ruin and annihilation would be the outcome! So saying, he had the unfortunate man castrated, and turned him away.

The second son, meanwhile, had gone to Wei, hoping that his military knowledge would stand him in good stead. But the Marquis of Wei said to himself — 'Mine is a weak State hedged in by powerful ones. My method of preserving tranquillity is to show subservience to the larger States and to conciliate the lesser ones. If I were to rely on armed force, I could only expect utter destruction. I must not allow this man to depart unscathed, or he may find his way to some other State and be a terrible thorn in my side.' So, without more ado, he cut off his feet and sent him back to Lu.

On their return, the whole family fell to beating their breasts in despair, and uttered imprecations on Mr Shih. Mr Shih, however, said: 'Success consists in hitting off the right moment, while missing it means failure. Your method was identical with ours, only the result was different. That is not due to any flaw in the action itself, but simply because it was not well timed. Nothing, in the ordering of this world, is either at all times right or at all times wrong. What formerly passed current may nowadays be rejected; what is now rejected may by and by come into use again. The fact that a thing is in use or in disuse forms no criterion whatever of right or wrong. There is no fixed rule for seizing opportunities, hitting off the right moment, or adapting oneself to circumstances; it is all a matter of native wit. If you are deficient in that, you may possess the learning of a Confucius or the strategical gifts of a Lŭ Shang, and yet you will remain poor wherever you go.

The Mêng family were now in a more resigned frame of mind, and their indignation had subsided. 'Yes, you are right,' they said; 'please say no more about it.'

Duke Wên of Chin put an army into the field with the intention of attacking the Duke of Wei, whereat Tzŭ Ch'u threw his head back and laughed aloud. On being asked the reason of his behaviour, he replied: 'I was thinking of the experience of a neighbour of mine, who was escorting his wife on a visit to her own family. On the way, he came across a woman tending silkworms, who attracted him greatly, and he fell into conversation with her. Happening to look up, what should he see but his own wife also receiving the attentions of an admirer! It was the recollection of this incident that made me laugh.'

The Duke saw the point, and forthwith turned home with his army. Before he got back, an invading force had already crossed his northern frontier!

In the Chin State, which was infested with robbers, there lived a certain Ch'i Yung, who was able to tell a robber by his face; by examining the expression of his eyes he could read his inmost thoughts. The Marquis of Chin employed him in the inspection of hundreds and thousands of robbers, and he never missed a single one. The Marquis expressed his delight to Wên Tzŭ of Chao, saying: 'I have a man who, singlehanded, is ridding my whole State of robbers. He saves me the necessity of employing a whole staff of police.' Wên Tzŭ replied: 'If your Highness relies on a detective for catching robbers, you will never get rid of them. And what is more, Ch'i Yung is certain sooner or later to meet with a violent end.'

Meanwhile, a band of robbers were plotting together. 'Ch'i Yung,' they said, 'is the enemy who is trying to exterminate us.' So one day they stole upon him in a body and murdered him. When the Marquis of Chin heard the news, he was greatly alarmed and immediately sent for Wên Tzŭ. 'Your prophecy has come true,' he said; 'Ch'i Yung is dead. What means can I adopt for catching robbers now?' 'In Chou,' replied Wên Tzŭ, 'we have a proverb: "Search not the ocean-depths for fish: calamity comes upon those who pry into hidden mysteries." If you want to be quit of robbers, the best thing your Highness can do is to promote the worthy to office. Let them instruct and enlighten their sovereign on the one hand, and reform the masses below them on the other. if once the people acquire a sense of shame, you will not find them turning into robbers.'

The Marquis then appointed Sui Hui to be Prime Minister, and all the robbers fled to the Ch'in State.

Duke Mu of Ch'in said to Po Lo: 'You are now advanced in years. Is there any member of your family whom I could employ to look for horses in your stead?' Po Lo replied: 'A good horse can be picked out by its general build and appearance. But the superlative horse — one that raises no dust and leaves no tracks — is something evanescent and fleeting, elusive as thin air. The talent of my sons lies on a lower plane altogether: they can tell a good horse when they see one, but they cannot tell a superlative horse. I have a friend, however, one Chiu-fang Kao, a hawker of fuel and vegetables, who in things appertaining to horses is nowise my inferior. Pray see him.'

Duke Mu did so, and subsequently despatched him on the quest for a steed. Three months later, he returned with the news that he had found one. 'It is now in Sha-ch'iu,' he added. 'What kind of a horse is it?' asked the Duke. 'Oh, it is a dun-coloured mare,' was the reply. However, on some one being sent to fetch it, the animal turned out to be a coal-black stallion! Much displeased, the Duke sent for Po Lo. 'That friend of yours,' he said, 'whom I commissioned to look for a horse, has made a nice mess of it. Why, he cannot even distinguish a beast's colour or sex! What on earth can he know about horses?' Po Lo heaved a sigh of satisfaction. 'Has he really got as far as that?' he cried. 'Ah, then he is worth a thousand of me put together. There is no comparison between us. What Kao keeps in view is the spiritual mechanism. In making sure of the essential, he forgets the homely details; intent on the inward qualities, he loses sight of the external. He sees what he wants to see, and not what he does not want to see. He looks at the things he ought to look at, and neglects those that need not be looked at. So clever a judge of horses is Kao, that he has it in him to judge something better than horses.'

When the horse arrived, it turned out indeed to be a superlative horse.

Mr Yŭ was a wealthy man of the Liang State. His household was rolling in riches, and his hoards of money and silk and other valuables were quite incalculable. It was his custom to have banquets served, to the accompaniment of music, in a high upper hall overlooking the main road; there he and his friends would sit drinking their wine and amusing themselves with bouts of gambling.

One day, a party of young gallants happened to pass along the road. In the chamber above, play was going on as usual, and a lucky throw of the dice, which resulted in the capture of both fishes, evoked a loud burst of merriment from the players. Precisely at that moment, it happened that a kite which was sailing overhead dropped the carcass of a rat in the midst of the company outside. The young men held an angry consultation on the spot: 'This Mr Yŭ,' they said, 'has been enjoying his wealth for many a long day, and has always treated his neighbours in the most arrogant spirit. And now, although we have never offended him, he insults us with this dead rat. If such an outrage goes unavenged, the world will look upon us as a set of poltroons. Let us summon up our utmost resolution, and combine with one accord to wipe him and his family out of existence!' The whole party signified their agreement, and when the evening of the day appointed had come, they collected, fully armed for the attack, and exterminated every member of the family.

In the east of China there was a man named Yŭan Ching Mu, who set off on a journey but was overcome by hunger on the way. A certain robber from Hu-fu, of the name of Ch'iu, saw him lying there, and fetched a bowl of rice-gruel in order to feed him. After swallowing three mouthfuls, Yŭan Ching Mu opened his eyes and murmured, 'Who are you?' 'I am a native of Hu-fu, and my name is Ch'iu.' 'Oh misery!' cried Yŭan Ching Mu, 'are not you the robber Ch'iu? What are you feeding me for? I am an honest man and cannot eat your food.' So saying, he clutched the ground with both hands, and began retching and coughing in order to bring it up again. Not succeeding, however, he fell flat on his face and expired.

Now the man from Hu-fu was a robber, no doubt, but the food he brought was not affected thereby. Because a man is a robber, to refuse to eat the food he offers you, on the ground that it is tainted with crime, is to have lost all power of discriminating between the normal and the real.

Yang Chu's younger brother, named Pu, went out one day wearing a suit of white clothes. It came on to rain, so that he had to change and came back dressed in a suit of black. His dog failed to recognize him in this garb, and rushed out at him, barking. This made Yang Pu angry, and he was going to give the dog a beating, when Yang Chu said: 'Do not beat him. You are no wiser than he. For, suppose your dog went away white and came home black, do you mean to tell me that you would not think it strange?'

Yang Chu said: 'You may do good without thinking about fame, but fame will follow in its wake. Fame makes no tryst with gain, but gain will come all the same. Gain makes no tryst with strife, but strife will certainly ensue. Therefore the superior man is very cautious about doing good.'

The good people of Han-tan were in the habit, every New Year's day, of presenting their Governor, Chien Tzŭ, with a number of live pigeons. This pleased the Governor very much, and he liberally rewarded the donors. To a stranger who asked the meaning of the custom, Chien Tzŭ explained that the release of living creatures on New Year's day was the sign of a benevolent disposition. 'But,' rejoined the stranger, 'the people, being aware of your Excellency's whim, no doubt exert themselves to catch as many pigeons as possible, and large numbers must get killed in the process. If you really wish to let the birds live, the best way would be to prohibit the people from capturing them at all. If they have to be caught first in order to be released, the kindness does not compensate for the cruelty.' Chien Tzŭ acknowledged that he was right.

Mr T'ien, of the Ch'i State, was holding an ancestral banquet in his hall, to which a thousand guests were bidden. As he sat in their midst, many came up to him with presents of fish and game. Eyeing them approvingly, he exclaimed with unction: 'How generous is Almighty God to man! He makes the five kinds of grain to grow, and creates the finny and the feathered tribes, especially for our benefit.' All Mr T'ien's guests applauded this sentiment to the echo; but the twelve-year-old son of a Mr Pao, regardless of seniority, came forward and said: 'You are wrong, my lord. All the living creatures of the universe stand in the same category as ourselves, and one is of no greater intrinsic value than another. It is only by reason of size, strength or cunning that some particular species gains the mastery, or that one preys upon another. None of them are produced in order to subserve the uses of others. Man catches and eats those that are fit for food, but how can it be maintained that God creates these expressly for man's use? Mosquitoes and gnats suck man's blood, and tigers and wolves devour his flesh; but we do not therefore assert that God created man expressly for the benefit of mosquitoes and gnats, or to provide food for tigers and wolves.'

A man, having lost his axe, suspected his neighbour's son of having taken it. Certain peculiarities in his gait, his countenance and his speech, marked him out as the thief. In his actions, his movements, and in fact his whole demeanour, it was plainly written that he and no other had stolen the axe. By and by, however, while digging in a dell, the owner came across the missing implement. The next day, when he saw his neighbour's son again, he found no trace of guilt in his movements, his actions, or his general demeanour.

There was once a man in the Ch'i State who had a burning lust for gold. Rising early one morning, he dressed and put on his hat and went down to the marketplace, where he proceeded to seize and carry off the gold from a money-changer's shop. He was arrested by the police, who were puzzled to know why he had committed the theft at a time when every body was about. 'When I was taking the gold,' he replied, 'I did not see anybody at all; what I saw was the gold, and nothing but the gold.'


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 The expression 'field of consciousness' has but recently come into vogue in the psychology books. Until quite lately the unit of mental life which figured most was the single 'idea,' supposed to be a definitely outlined thing. But at present psychologists are tending, first, to admit that the actual unit is more probably the total mental state, the entire wave of consciousness or field of objects present to the thought at any time; and, second, to see that it is impossible to outline this wave, this field, with any definiteness.

As our mental fields succeed one another, each has its centre of interest, around which the objects of which we are less and less attentively conscious fade to a margin so faint that its limits are unassignable. Some fields are narrow fields and some are wide fields. Usually when we have a wide field we rejoice, for we then see masses of truth together, and often get glimpses of relations which we divine rather than see, for they shoot beyond the field into still remoter regions of objectivity, regions which we seem rather to be about to perceive than to perceive actually. At other times, of drowsiness, illness, or fatigue, our fields may narrow almost to a point, and we find ourselves correspondingly oppressed and contracted.

Different individuals present constitutional differences in this matter of width of field. Your great organizing geniuses are men with habitually vast fields of mental vision, in which a whole programme of future operations will appear dotted out at once, the rays shooting far ahead into definite directions of advance. In common people there is never this magnificent inclusive view of a topic. They stumble along, feeling their way, as it were, from point to point, and often stop entirely. In certain diseased conditions consciousness is a mere spark, without memory of the past or thought of the future, and with the


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198 in the murder as no free nation could accept, and when Serbia had gone to the utmost limit of concession, and even Austria hesitated, Germany hastened to fasten her quarrel on Russia, the ultimate reserve of all Slavdom. Had Russia submitted, as in 1908, she would have gone into the question of the renewal of the Tariff Treaty with Germany in 1916 with no option but a surrender into economic slavery. All this is a familiar story, but it is necessary to keep it clearly in mind, if we are to appreciate the fact that the key to the resettlement is in the East, though the decisive fighting has been in the West.

How came it that Germany made the double mistake of invading France and of invading her through Belgium? Germany knew the weakness of Russia; there was no illusion of the 'steam roller' for her. Her choice of the more difficult offensive must have been on the assumption that the British democracy probably, and the American democracy certainly, were, from her point of view, asleep. She meant the German superman to rule the world, and she thought she saw a short cut to her end, in the place of the longer path through the Heartland, the command of which would fall to her inevitably, could she but deprive the Islanders


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Rh of their 'bridge-head' in France. But there was another and even stronger reason for what she did; she was in the grip of economic fate. She was out against the Slavs for markets, for raw materials, and for wider fields to till; a million people were being added annually to her stay-at-home, kept-at-home family. But to develop that mighty Going Concern of her man-power, so strong for conquest if she could keep it going, but so insatiably hungry, she had built up Hamburg, and all that Hamburg stood for in the way of overseas adventure and home industries. Hamburg had her own momentum, and it was not eastward. Thus German strategy was biased by political necessity.

The result was that Berlin committed a fundamental mistake; she fought on two fronts without fully making up her mind on which front she meant to win. You may strike at the two flanks of your enemy, the right and the left, but unless your force is sufficient to annihilate you must decide beforehand which stroke is to be the feint and which the real attack. Berlin had not decided between her political objectives—Hamburg and overseas dominion or Baghdad and the Heartland—and therefore her strategical aim also was uncertain. Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1919 Dingbat.jpg Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1919 Dingbat.jpg Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1919 Dingbat.jpg Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1919 Dingbat.jpg Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1919 Dingbat.jpg


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User:DrCBryant/Translation/Deuteronomy

When Nations as the supreme diέspeiren sons Adam, he erected boundaries of nations by number of angels God

οτεG3753 ADV διεμεριζενG1266 V-IAI-3S οG3588 T-NSM υψιστοςG5310 A-NSM εθνηG1484 N-APN ωςG3739 CONJ διεσπειρενG1289 V-AAI-3S υιουςG5207 N-APM αδαμG76 N-PRI εστησενG2476 V-AAI-3S οριαG3725 N-APN εθνωνG1484 N-GPN καταG2596 PREP αριθμονG706 N-ASM αγγελωνG32 N-GPM θεουG2316 N-GSM

 * When (adverb) - WHEN -> divided
 * divided V-IAI-3S -> [he/she/it] WAS DIVIDING
 * the T-NSM -> THE [man]
 * highest A-NSM HIGHEST/MOST HIGH

 * races/ethnicities/nations N-APN
 * who/which/what/that CONJ
 * sow throught/distributed V-AAI-3S
 * son N-APM
 * Adam/mankind N-PRI
 * stand/place/put/set V-AAI-3S
 * boundaries N-APN
 * races/ethnicities/nations N-GPN
 * according to, toward, along PREP
 * numbers/arithmetic N-ASM
 * angels N-GPM
 * God N-GSM

title: User:DrCBryant/Translation/Deuteronomy


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200 The German blunder, under compelling destiny, having given us Victory, it is essential that we should focus our thought on the stable resettlement of the affairs of East Europe and the Heartland. If we accept anything less than a complete solution of the Eastern Question in its largest sense we shall merely have gained a respite, and our descendants will find themselves under the necessity of marshalling their power afresh for the siege of the Heartland. The essence of the resettlement must be territorial, for in East Europe, and in still greater measure in the remainder of the Heartland, we have to deal with regions whose economic development has only commenced. Unless you look forward, the growth of the peoples will by and by imbalance your settlement.

No doubt it may be urged that German mentality will be altered by the German defeat. He would be a sanguine man, however, who would trust the future peace of the world to a change in the mentality of any nation. Look back to old Froissard or to Shakespeare, and you will find your Englishman, Scotsman, Welshman, and Frenchman with all their essential characteristics already fixed. The Prussian is a definite type of humanity with his good and his bad


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Rh points, and we shall be wise if we act on the assumption that his kind will breed true to its type. However great the defeat which in the end we may have inflicted on our chief enemy, we should only be cheapening our own achievement if we did not recognise in the North German one of the three or four most virile races of mankind.

Even with revolution in Germany let us not be toe sure in regard to its ultimate effect. The German revolutions of 1848 were almost comic in their futility. Since Bismarck there has only been one German Chancellor with political insight, and he—Von Bülow—has declared in his book on Imperial Germany that 'the German has always accomplished his greatest works under strong, steady, and firm guidance.' The end of the present disorder may only be a new ruthless organisation, and ruthless organisers do not stop when they have attained the objects which they at first set before them.

It will be replied, of course, that though Prussian mentality remain unchanged, and though a really stable Prussian Democracy be slow in its development, yet that Germany will, in any case, be so impoverished that she cannot do harm for the better part of a century to come. Is there not, however, in that


text:
Author:Lie Yukou

Works

 * Taoist teachings from the book of Lieh Tzŭ, translated by Lionel Giles (1912)

Short works

 * Rest, translated in Gems of Chinese Literature (1922)
 * Why Confucius was Sad, translated in Gems of Chinese Literature (1922)
 * Dream and Reality, translated in Gems of Chinese Literature (1922)

title: Author:Lie Yukou


text:
Page:Melbourne and Mars.djvu/83

Rh also. We life only by following out the Divine plan and obeying the laws of our being.

'We must be weak as compared with the earth men!'

'No,' said my friend, 'considering our size we are a strong and compact species; we are relatively stronger and more active than our earth friends and we are warmer and our death rate is much lower. We do not employ half so many surgeons and physicians as they do. Our work is done more easily, but we are a busy race and have twice as many workers in proportion, profitable people as they have. Indeed, as you have already seen, this is for the greater part a made world; an idle population could not live upon it. We work to a purpose here. Our time is not spent in making guns, building forts and ships of war, and standing, millions of us, waiting to kill each other at the word of command. Again, we have not a vast population who spend their time in buying, selling, and carrying about all kinds of provisions and goods. What we make goes direct to the consumer and pays him for his work. The middle man who buys from the manufacturer and sells to the consumer and makes a profit out of articles that are not better but frequently worse for going through his hands does not exist here. This sets at liberty a whole army of men for industrial and productive pursuits.'

'But these changes will gradually be made upon earth?'

'Eventually they will,' answered Martha, 'though not yet. Earth-dwellers are not yet ready for an altruistic socialism. Their actions are selfish; they wish to acquire and to hold for themselves. We seek for the good of others and know that they seek for ours. On Earth people have to lock all their doors; here we have no need for lock or key. We only close doors and windows to keep out the cold; they have to use hasp and bolt and lock to keep out thieves. True, there is no incentive to steelsteal [sic] or to accumulate; for we can always obtain what we require as long as we live. We cannot fall into poverty; and if by any chance we should become possessed of more wealth of any kind than we can use it would have to go into the coffers of the State.'

'The State, it appears to me, holds all the wealth.'

'Practically it does,' was the reply, 'who could hold it so safely and distribute it so wisely? Besides, the State is the people, we have a perfect democracy and a perfect socialism. No class can prey upon any other class in social life; all are free and have equal rights; we cannot be equal in power and capacity, hence some are greater than others. Politically we are self-governed and all laws are made for the benefit of all.'

'But our laws are not made by the people and for them?'

'By whom then, are they made and for whom?' asked my fair instructor. 'The Central Executive of one hundred of the best and most capable men and women on our planet meets twice a week not far from here for the purpose of directing the affairs of the world and for the good of all its

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82 dwellers; but that body cannot make a law it can only put laws into operation. When same new law is wanted men and women selected by the people form a temporary Parliament and consider the question; these are rare occasions. The Central itself when it wants a new member elects one from those selected in each district to manage local affairs.'

'Power must be invested somewhere?'

'It must,' answered Martha, 'and on Mars it is held by those who cannot be interested in abusing it. We have no party; whosoever joins the Central is elected for life and has no advantage but that which you hold, viz., the Freedom of the Planet. We are not ruled by a mob, nor by a despot; we rule ourselves and make the wise one hundred administrators of the laws we have from time to time made.'

'I have had very little experience of life except that which I have lived here as a Martial youth. I know practically nothing of earth life. I am therefore to be excused if I ask you what you think of the moral tone of the earthborns who come to this planet; are they equal to the people of Mars?'

'Generally they are,' answered Martha, 'if they were not fit to associate with the Martials they would not be born here; without flattering ourselves we may say that we have risen to another world. Your earth life has been pretty good else you would not have been here. It is possible that some of us are prepared for Martial life by the influence of friends on Mars; there may be much more connection than we dream of between the two planets. Most of what you regard as new inventions are Martial suggestions received from the souls of friends who have come to dwell in a smaller but happier, because better world. Some of our earth friends may be tempted more than the Martials are but I have never heard of anything being done by an earthborn that might not have been done by a Martial.'

'You remember the earth life and I do not; can you tell me if there are any people there who claim to be from Venus?'

'I can,' answered my friend. 'There are none. Venus may be a grand world some day; it will be able to support life when the sun has left us in the cold, but it is one hundred thousand years short of the human stage at present. It is passing through a carboniferous epoch and its highest life is that of reptiles. It is fourteen times as hot as it is here; and it receives light in like proportion, but the light will never reach the surface of the planet through the thick, heavy atmosphere.'

At this point my friend left me having some other matter to attend to, and a young man who had heard some of our conversation, told me that she had come to study music for a year at the great school; he was afraid that she was not very happy as she did not appear to form social ties of any kind. He was interested in our conversation because he, like me, knew nothing about his earth life. He said that he was studying earth, history and found great pleasure in it because it corresponded in many ways with that of our

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Rh own planet in its early days. He discovered that there had been a time when tribe fought against tribe, and later a time when nation fought against nation in the history of our own world, and he thought that the Earth was developing and growing and only going through the experiences that belonged to its period of evolution.

'I can trust the records I find here,' said the youth, 'for they are fresh, and are corroborated by many observers. Look at the common place journal, in which each earth man, who is conscious on the earth side, records the principal events of his day. One says that a German statesman, Bismarck, and the present emperor of Germany, are trying to ameliorate the condition of the working classes; that the statesman is devising a plan to prevent the artisans from falling into poverty. Read entries made by other Europeans of our Club and you find that they all allude to it. No less than three Americans tell us that a millionaire, Carnegie, of Pittsburg, says that his class ought to invest their millions for the public good during life, and above all things not to leave wealth to their children. He would make the State heir of half his wealth. This is a step towards making the State sole heir as with us. And now, for the last ten days, we have been receiving accounts, from some hundred or more of a great revolt of laborers in London, and of the sympathy their revolt has excited in all parts of the British Empire. One of our recorders, writing of your city of Melbourne, says that the little colony, having in it only about twice as many people as the strikers and their families, has sent twenty-two thousands of pounds to the relief of the sufferers by the strike. Look at the significance of those three events. They all tell of the growth of altruism both in the Christian Church, where it is supposed specially to reside, and in the larger world of men, who are begining to recognise the tie which binds each man to all his fellow men. In a thousand years hence these records of Earth history will be invaluable, and we can rely on their truth, because if false they would be contradicted now.'

I was almost startled by this outburst from so young a man, and began to think his company worth more than I at first supposed, and I therefore exchanged cards with him. 'George Foster' was on his card. I asked him if he knew his earth name. He answered that he did, and he mentioned a name known as that of a Statesman, a Scholar, and a Historian all the Earth over. I no longer wondered. I knew that such a shining soul must attain to greatness even in Mars.

This day I spent the evening at Grayson's. His wife is a sweet voiced gentle matron, with hair as white as his own. Their family of three children are all married; the younger daughter and her husband live with the old people and keep the house alive. Mother Grayson treats me with the utmost kindness. She tries to make her house a home for me; she has a place for my books, and has a comfortable corner of her sittingroom, with chair and table, set apart for me. This evening Grayson asked me if I was willing to

title: Page:Melbourne and Mars.djvu/85


text:
Author:James Lionel Michael

Works

 * Songs without Music (1854)
 * a collection of tuneful lyrics
 * John Cumberland (1867)
 * long narrative poem

Individual poems

 * "Personality" (1858)
 * "'Through Pleasant Paths'" (1907)

title: Author:James Lionel Michael


text:
Author:Louisa Anne Meredith

Works

 * The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated (1936)
 * Beautiful and costly volume in verse and prose, with hand-coloured plates from her own drawings—the 3rd edition published in 1839 (Tilt)
 * Our Wild Flowers
 * The story of the year in a narrative form, with many poems introduced, the plates hand-coloured from the author's drawings
 * A Tour in South Wales
 * An Autumn on the Wye (Tilt)
 * Illustrated with engravings after David Cox, Cattermole, etc
 * Notes and Sketches of New South Wales published in Murray's Home and Colonial Library" series
 * My Home in Tasmania (Murray)
 * With landscape illustrations by the Bishop of Tasmania (Dr. Nixon)
 * With landscape illustrations by the Bishop of Tasmania (Dr. Nixon)

 * Over the Straits (Chapman & Hall)
 * Narrative of a visit to Melbourne and the goldfields in 1856
 * Lost
 * Short life of a pet bird, told in poem and picture
 * Some of my Bush Friends in Tasmania (1860, Day & Sons)
 * Large and elaborate work on the flora of the colony, with numerous coloured plates from the author's drawings, and original poems and prose
 * Ebba
 * Grandmamma's Verse-Book for Young Australia
 * Poems for children on local subjects
 * Tasmanian Friends and Foes, Furred, Feathered and Finned (1880: Marcus Ward)
 * Book for young people, with coloured plates from the author's drawings

title: Author:Louisa Anne Meredith


text:
Author:Maxwell Miller

Works

 * The Tasmanian House of Assembly: A Metrical Catalogue (Hobart, 1860)

title: Author:Maxwell Miller


text:
Page talk:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/240

This page appears to be a folded map, scanned whilst still folded. Simon Burchell (talk) 03:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I got a full copy of the map from archive.org, although the resolution isn't great. Simon Burchell (talk) 20:23, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Scratch that, I got the djvu page from the same source. Simon Burchell (talk) 20:38, 14 December 2012 (UTC)


text:
User talk:DrCBryant

Welcome
Welcome

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Again, welcome! Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:10, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

title: User talk:DrCBryant


text:
Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/225

Rh

, for Lucy, waned the weeks of a winter, which, to her, was the most dreary portion of life she had ever passed. It became the time for the Judge to attend one of those periodical visitations so fraught with dread and dismay to the miserable inmates of the dark abodes which the complex

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218 laws of this country so bounteously supply—those times of great hilarity and eating to the legal gentry,

Ah! excellent order of the world, which it is so wicked to disturb! How miraculously beautiful must be that system which makes wine out of the scorching tears of guilt; and from the suffocating suspense, the agonized fear, the compelled and self-mocking bravery, the awful sentence, the despairing death-pang of one man, furnishes the smirking expectation of fees, the jovial meeting, and the mercenary holiday to another! "Of law, nothing less can be said, than that her seat is the bosom of God." To be sure not, Richard Hooker, you are perfectly right. The divinity of a sessions, and the inspiration of the Old Bailey, are undeniable!

The care of Sir William Brandon had effectually kept from Lucy's ear the knowledge of her lover's ignominious situation. Indeed, in her

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Rh health, even the hard eye of Brandon, and the thoughtless glance of Mauleverer, perceived the danger of such a discovery. The Earl now waiting the main attack on Lucy, till the curtain had for ever dropped on Clifford, proceeded with great caution and delicacy in his suit to his purposed bride. He waited with the more patience, inasmuch as he had drawn in advance on his friend Sir William for some portion of the heiress's fortune; and he readily allowed that he could not, in the meanwhile, have a better advocate than he found in Brandon. So persuasive, indeed, and so subtle was the eloquence of this able sophist, that often, in his artful conversations with his niece, he left even on the unvitiated, and strong though simple mind of Lucy an uneasy and restless impression, which time might have ripened into an inclination towards the worldly advantages of the marriage at her command. Brandon was no bungling mediator or violent persecutor. He seemed to acquiesce in her rejection of Mauleverer. He scarcely recurred to the event. He rarely praised the Earl himself, save for the obvious qualities of liveliness and good-nature. But he spoke

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220 with all the vivid colours he could infuse at will into his words, of the pleasures and the duties of rank and wealth. Well could he appeal alike to all the prejudices and all the foibles of the human breast, and govern virtue through its weaknesses. Lucy had been brought up, like the daughters of most country gentlemen of antient family, in an undue and idle consciousness of superior birth; and she was far from inaccessible to the warmth and even feeling (for here Brandon was sincere) with which her uncle spoke of the duty of raising a gallant name sunk into disrepute, and sacrificing our own inclinations, for the redecorating the mouldered splendour of those who have gone before us. If the confusion of idea occasioned by a vague pomposity of phrase, and the infant inculcation of a sentiment that is mistaken for a virtue, so often makes fools of the wise on the subject of ancestry; if it clouded even the sarcastic and keen sense of Brandon himself, we may forgive its influence over a girl so little versed in the arts of sound reasoning as poor Lucy, who, it may be said, had never learnt to think until she had learnt to love. However, the impression made by Brandon, in his happiest moments of persuasion, was as

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Rh yet only transient; it vanished before the first thought of Clifford, and never suggested to her even a doubt as to the suit of Mauleverer.

When the day arrived for Sir William Brandon to set out on the circuit, he called Barlow, and enjoined that acute and intelligent servant the strictest caution with respect to Lucy. He bade him deny her to every one of whatever rank, and carefully to look into every newspaper that was brought to her, as well as to withhold every letter, save such as were addressed to her in the Judge's own handwriting. Lucy's maid Brandon had already won over to silence; and the uncle now pleased himself with thinking that he had put an effectual guard to every chance of discovery. The identity of Lovett with Clifford had not yet even been rumoured, and Mauleverer had rightly judged of Clifford, when he believed the prisoner would himself take every precaution against the detection of that fact. Clifford answered the Earl's note and promise, in a letter couched in so affecting yet so manly a tone of gratitude, that even Brandon was touched when he read it. And since his confinement and partial recovery of health, the prisoner had kept himself closely secluded, and

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222 refused all visitors. Encouraged by this reflection, and the belief in the safety of his precautions, Brandon took leave of Lucy. "Farewell!" said he, as he embraced her affectionately. "Be sure that you write to me, and forgive me if I do not answer you punctually. Take care of yourself, my sweet niece, and let me see a fresher colour on that soft cheek when I return!"

"Take care of yourself rather, my dear, dear uncle," said Lucy, clinging to him and weeping, as of late her weakened nerves caused her to do at the least agitation. "Why may I not go with you? You have seemed to me paler than usual, the last three or four days, and you complained yesterday. Do let me go with you; I will be no trouble, none at all; but I am sure you require a nurse."

"You want to frighten me, my pretty Lucy," said Brandon, shaking his head with a smile. "I am well, very well: I felt a strange rush of blood towards the head yesterday, it is true; but I feel to-day, stronger and lighter than I have done for years. Once more, God bless you, my child!"

And Brandon tore himself away, and commenced his journey.

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Rh The wandering and dramatic course of our story now conducts us to an obscure lane in the metropolis, leading to the Thames, and makes us spectators of an affecting farewell between two persons, whom the injustice of fate, and the persecutions of men, were about perhaps for ever to divide.

"Adieu, my friend!" said Augustus Tomlinson, as he stood looking full on that segment of the face of Edward Pepper, which was left unconcealed by a huge hat and a red belcher handkerchief. Tomlinson himself was attired in the full costume of a dignified clergyman. "Adieu, my friend, since you will remain in England,—adieu! I am, I exult to say, no less sincere a patriot than you. Heaven be my witness, how long I looked repugnantly on poor Lovett's proposal, to quit my beloved country. But all hope of life here, is now over; and really, during the last ten days, I have been so hunted from corner to corner, so plagued with polite invitations, similar to those given by a farmer's wife to her ducks, 'Dilly, dilly, dilly, come and be killed!' that my patriotism has been prodigiously cooled, and I no longer recoil from the thoughts of

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224. 'The earth,' my dear Ned, as a Greek sage has very well observed,—'the earth is the same every where!' and if I am asked for my home, I can point, like Anaxagoras, to Heaven!"

"'Pon my soul, you affect me!" said Ned, speaking thick, either from grief or the pressure of the belcher handkerchief on his mouth; "it is quite beautiful to hear you talk!"

"Bear up, my dear friend," continued Tomlinson, "bear up against your present afflictions. What, to a man who fortifies himself by reason and by reflection on the shortness of life, are the little calamities of the body? What is imprisonment, or persecution, or cold, or hunger?—By the by, you did not forget to put the sandwiches into my coat-pocket?"

"Hush!" whispered Ned, and he moved on involuntarily; "I see a man at the other end of the street."

"Let us quicken our pace," said Tomlinson; and the pair proceeded towards the river.

"And now," began Ned, who thought he might as well say something about himself, for hitherto Augustus, in the ardour of his friendship, had

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Rh been only discussing his own plans;—"and now,—that is to say, when I leave you,—I shall hasten to dive for shelter, until the storm blows over. I don't much like living in a cellar and wearing a smock-frock,—but those concealments have something interesting in them, after all! the safest and snuggest place I know of, is the Pays Bas, about Thames Court; so I think of hiring an apartment under-ground, and taking my meals at poor Lovett's old quarters, the 'Mug,'—the police will never dream of looking in those vulgar haunts, for a man of my fashion."

"You cannot then tear yourself from England?" said Tomlinson.

"No, hang it! the fellows are so cursed unmanly on the other side of the water. I hate their wine and their parley woo. Besides, there is no fun there!"

Tomlinson, who was absorbed in his own thoughts, made no comment on his friend's excellent reasons against travel, and the pair now approached the brink of the river. A boat was in waiting to receive and conduct to the vessel in which he had taken his place for Calais, the

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226 emigrant. But as Tomlinson's eye fell suddenly on the rude boatman and the little boat, which were to bear him away from his native land; as he glanced too across the blue waters, which a brisk wind wildly agitated, and thought how much rougher it would be at sea, where "his soul" invariably "sickened at the heaving wave," a whole tide of deep and sorrowful emotions rushed upon him.

He turned away:—the spot on which he stood was a piece of ground to be let (as a board proclaimed) upon a building lease; below, descended the steps which were to conduct him to the boat; around, the desolate and houseless space allowed him to see, in far and broad extent, the spires, and domes, and chimneys of the great city whose inhabitants he might never plunder more. As he looked and looked, the tears started to his eyes, and with a gust of enthusiasm little consonant with his temperate and philosophical character, he lifted his right hand from his black breeches-pocket, and burst into the following farewell to the metropolis of his native shores.

"Farewell, my beloved London, farewell! Where shall I ever find a city like you? Never,

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Rh till now, did I feel how inexpressibly dear you were to me. You have been my father, and my brother, and my mistress, and my tailor, and my shoemaker, and my hatter, and my cook, and my wine merchant! You and I never misunderstood each other. I did not grumble when I saw what fine houses and good strong boxes you gave to other men. No! I rejoiced at their prosperity. I delighted to see a rich man—my only disappointment was in stumbling on a poor one. You gave riches to my neighbours; but, O generous London, you gave those neighbours to me! Magnificent streets, all christian virtues abide within you! Charity is as common as smoke! Where, in what corner of the habitable world shall I find human beings with so many superfluities? where shall I so easily decoy from their benevolent credulity, those superfluities to myself? God only knows, my dear, dear, darling London, what I lose in you! O public charities!—O public institutions!—O Banks that belie mathematical axioms, and make lots out of nothing!—O showrooms where Frenchmen are expected to drink prussic acid like water!—O merciful spectators, who pursue the said Frenchmen to coal-holes, if

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228 they refuse to be poisoned!—O antient constitution always to be questioned!—O modern improvements that never answer!—O speculations!—O companies!—O usury laws which guard against usurers, by making as many as possible!—O churches in which no one profits, save the parson, and the old women that let pews of an evening!—O superb theatres, too small for parks, too enormous for houses, which exclude comedy and comfort, and have a monopoly for performing nonsense gigantically!—O houses of plaster built in a day!—O palaces four yards high, with a dome in the middle, meant to be invisible! —O shops worth thousands, and O shopkeepers not worth a shilling!—O system of credit, by which beggars are princes, and princes are beggars!—O imprisonment for debt, which lets the mare be stolen, and then locks up the bridle!—O sharpers, bubbles, senators, beaux, taverns, brothels, clubs, houses private and

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Rh public!—O, in a word, receive my last adieu! Long may you flourish in peace and plenteousness! may your knaves be witty, and your fools be rich! May you alter only two things—your damnable tricks of transportation and hanging! Those are your sole faults; but for those, I would never desert you.—Adieu!"

Here Tomlinson averted his head, and then hastily shaking the hand of Long Ned with a tremulous and warm grasp, he hurried down the stairs and entered the boat. Ned remained motionless for some moments, following him with his eyes, as he sat at the end of the boat, waving a white pocket handkerchief. At length, a line of barges snatched him from the sight of the lingerer, and Ned slowly turning away, muttered—"Yes, I have always heard that Dame Lobkins's was the safest asylum for misfortune like mine. I will go forthwith in search of a lodging, and to-morrow I will make my breakfast at the 'Mug!'"

Be it our pleasing task, dear reader, to forestall the good robber, and return, at the hour of sunrise on the day following Tomlinson's departure, to the scene at which our story commenced. We are now once more at the house of Mrs. Margery Lobkins.

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230 The room which served so many purposes was still the same as when Paul turned it into the arena of his mischievous pranks. The dresser, with its shelves of mingled delf and pewter, occupied its antient and important station. Only it might be noticed that the pewter was more dull than of yore, and that sundry cracks made their erratic wanderings over the yellow surface of the delf. The eye of the mistress had become less keen than heretofore, and the care of the handmaid had, of necessity, relaxed. The tall clock still ticked in monotonous warning; the blanket-skreen, haply innocent of soap since we last described it, many-storied, and poly-balladed, still unfolded its ample leaves "rich with the spoils of time." The spit and the musket yet hung from the wall in amicable proximation. And the long smooth form, "with many a holy text thereon bestrewn," still afforded rest to the weary traveller, and an object to the vacant stare of Mrs. Margery Lobkins, as she lolled in her opposite seat and forgot the world. But poor Piggy Lob! there was the alteration! The soul of the woman was gone! The spirit had evaporated from the human bottle! She sat with open

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Rh mouth and glassy eye in her chair, sidling herself to and fro, with the low, peevish sound of fretful age and bodily pain, sometimes this querulous murmur sharpened into a shrill but unmeaning scold. "There now, you gallows bird, you has taken the swipes without chalking; you wants to cheat the poor widow; but I sees you, I does! Providence protects the aged and the innocent—oh, oh! these twinges will be the death o' me! Where's Martha? You jade, you! you wiperous hussey, bring the tape here, doesn't you see how I suffers? Has you no bowels, to let a poor Chistin cretur perish for want o' help! That's the way with 'em, that's the way! No one cares for I now—no one has respect for the grey 'airs of the old!" And then the voice dwindled into the whimpering "tenor of its way." Martha, a strapping wench with red hair streaming over her "hills of snow," was not, however, inattentive to the wants of her mistress. "Who knows," said she to a man who sat by the hearth, drinking tea out of a blue mug, and toasting with great care two or three huge rounds of bread, for his own private and especial nutriment—"who knows," said she, "what we may come to ourselves?" and, so

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232, she placed a glowing tumbler by her mistress's elbow. But in the sunken prostration of her intellect, the old woman was insensible even to her consolation: she sipped and drank, it is true; but, as if the stream warmed not the benumbed region through which it passed, she continued muttering in a crazed and groaning key, "Is this your gratitude, you sarpent! why does not you bring the tape I tells you? Am I of a age to drink water like a oss, you nasty thing! Oh, to think as ever I should live to be desarted!"

Inattentive to these murmurs, which she felt unreasonable, the bouncing Martha now quitted the room, to repair to her "upper household" avocations. The man at the hearth was the only companion left to the widow. Gazing at her for a moment, as she sat whining, with a rude compassion in his eye, and slowly munching his toast which he had now buttered, and placed in a delf plate on the hob, this person thus soothingly began—

"Ah, Dame Lobkins, if so be as ow little Paul vas a vith you, it vould be a gallows comfort to you in your latter hend!"

The name of Paul made the good woman

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Rh her head towards the speaker; a ray of consciousness shot through her bedulled brain.

"Little Paul, eh Sirs! where is Paul? Paul, I say, my ben-cull. Alack! he's gone—left his poor old nurse to die like a cat in a cellar. Oh Dummie! never live to be old, man! They leaves us to oursels, and then takes away all the lush with 'em! I has not a drop o' comfort in the varsal world!"

Dummie, who at this moment had his own reasons for soothing the dame, and was anxious to make the most of the opportunity of a conversation as unwitnessed as the present, replied tenderly; and with a cunning likely to promote his end, reproached Paul bitterly for never having informed the dame of his whereabout and his proceedings. "But come, dame," he wound up, "come, I knows as how he is better nor all that, and that you need not beat your hold brains to think where he lies, or vot he's a doing. Blow me tight, mother Lob,—I ax pardon, Mrs. Margery, I should say,—if I vould not give five bob, ay, and five to the tail o' that, to know vot the poor lad is about; I takes a mortal hinterest in that 'ere chap!"

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text: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Miles, Hon. William


text: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Milford, Samuel Frederick


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Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/242

234 "Oh! oh!" groaned the old woman, on whose palsied sense the astute inquiries of Dummie Dunnaker fell harmless; "my poor sinful carcase! what a way it be in!"

Artfully again did Dummie Dunnaker, nothing defeated, renew his attack; but fortune does not always favour the wise, and it failed Dummie now, for a twofold reason: first, because it was not possible for the dame to comprehend him; secondly, because even if it had been, she had nothing to reveal. Some of Clifford's pecuniary gifts had been conveyed anonymously, all without direction or date; and, for the most part, they had been appropriated by the sage Martha, into whose hands they fell, to her own private uses. Nor did the dame require Clifford's grateful charity; for she was a woman tolerably well off in this world, considering how near she was waxing to another. Longer, however, might Dummie have tried his unavailing way, had not the door of the inn creaked on its hinges, and the bulky form of a tall man in a smock-frock, but with a remarkably fine head of hair, darkened the threshold. He honoured the dame, who cast on him a lack-lustre eye, with a sulky, yet ambrosial nod, seized a bottle

title: Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/242


text: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Miller, Granville George


text: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Miller, Hon. Henry


text:
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Rh of spirits and a tumbler, lighted a candle, drew a small German pipe and a tobacco-box from his pouch, placed these several luxuries on a small table, wheeled it to a far corner of the room, and throwing himself into one chair, and his legs into another, he enjoyed the result of his pains in a moody and supercilious silence. Long and earnestly did the meek Dummie gaze on the face of the gentleman before him. It had been some years since he had last beheld it; but it was one which did not easily escape the memory; and although its proprietor was a man who had risen in the world, and gained the height of his profession, (a station far beyond the diurnal sphere of Dummie Dunnaker,) and the humble purloiner was therefore astonished to encounter him in these lower regions; yet Dummie's recollection carried him back to a day when they had gone shares together without respect of persons, and been right jolly partners in the practical game of beggar my neighbour. While, however, Dummie Dunnaker, who was a little inclined to be shy, deliberated as to the propriety of claiming acquaintanceship, a dirty boy, with a face which betokened the frost, as Dummie himself said, like

title: Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/243


text: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Miller, Hon. Henry John


text: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Miller, Hon. Maxwell


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236 a plum dying of the scarlet fever, entered the room, with a newspaper in his dexter paw. "Great news—great news!" cried the urchin, imitating his vociferous originals in the street; "all about the famous Captain Lovett, as large as life!"

"'Old your blarney, you blattergowl!" said Dummie rebukingly, and seizing the journal.

"Master says as how he must have it to send to Clapham, and can't spare it for more than a 'our!" said the boy as he withdrew.

"I 'members the day," said Dummie, with the zeal of a clansman, "when the Mug took a paper all to itsel', instead of 'iring it by the job like!"

Thereon he opened the paper with a fillip, and gave himself up to the lecture. But the tall stranger, half rising with a start, exclaimed, "Can't you have the manners to be communicative?—do you think nobody cares about Captain Lovett but yourself?"

On this, Dummie turned round on his chair, and, with a "Blow me tight, you're velcome, I'm sure!" began as follows:—(we copy the paper, not the diction of the reader.)

title: Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/244


text: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Miller, Hon. Robert Byron


text: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Mills, James


text: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Milne, Hon. Sir William


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Rh "The trial of the notorious Lovett commences this day. Great exertions have been made by people of all classes to procure seats in the Town Hall, which will be full to a degree never before known in this peaceful province. No less than seven indictments are said to await the prisoner; it has been agreed that the robbery of Lord Mauleverer should be the first to come on. The principal witness in this case, against the prisoner, is understood to be the King's evidence, Mac Grawler. No news, as yet, have been circulated concerning the suspected accomplices, Augustus Tomlinson and Edward Pepper. It is believed that the former has left the country, and that the latter is lurking among the low refuges of guilt with which the heart of the metropolis abounds. Report speaks highly of the person and manners of Lovett. He is also supposed to be a man of some talent, and was formerly engaged in an obscure periodical, edited by Mac Grawler, and termed the Altenæum, or Asinæum. Nevertheless, we apprehend that his origin is remarkably low, and suitable to the nature of his pursuits. The prisoner will be most fortunate in a judge. Never did any one holding

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238 the same high office as Sir William Brandon, earn an equal reputation in so short a time. The Whigs are accustomed to sneer at us, when we insist on the private virtues of our Ministers. Let them look to Sir William Brandon, and confess that the austerest morals may be linked with the soundest knowledge and the most brilliant genius. The opening address of the learned Judge to the jury at, is perhaps the most impressive and solemn piece of eloquence in the English language!"—A cause for this eulogium might haply be found in another part of the paper, in which it was said, "Among the higher circles, we understand, the rumour has gone forth, that Sir William Brandon is to be recalled to his old parliamentary career in a more elevated scene. So highly are this gentleman's talents respected by his Majesty and the Ministers, that they are, it is reported, anxious to secure his assistance in the Cabinet, and of course, as his station precludes him from the Commons, in the House of Lords!"

When Dummie had spelt his "toilsome march" through the first of the above extracts, he turned

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Rh round to the tall stranger, and eyeing him with a sort of winking significance, said—

"So, Mac Grawler peaches, blows the gaff on his pals, eh! Vel now, I always suspected that 'ere son of a gun! Does you know, he used to be at the Mug many's a day, a teaching our little Paul, and says I to Piggy Lob, says I, 'Blow me tight, but that cove is a queer one! and if he does not come to be scragged,' says I, 'it vill only be because he'll turn a rusty, and scrag one of his pals!' So you sees—(here Dummie looked round and his voice sank into a whisper)—so you sees, Meester Pepper, I vas no fool there!"

Long Ned dropped his pipe, and said sourly, and with a suspicious frown, "What! you know me?"

"To be sure and sartain I does," answered little Dummie, walking to the table where the robber sat. "Does not you know I?"

Ned regarded the interrogator with a sullen glance, which gradually brightened into knowledge. "Ah!" said he, with the air of a Brummel, "Mr. Bummie, or Dummie, I think, eh! Shake a paw—I'm glad to see you—Recollect

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240 the last time I saw you, you rather affronted me. Never mind. I dare say you did not mean it."

Encouraged by this affable reception from the highwayman, though a little embarrassed by Ned's allusion to former conduct on his part, which he felt was just, Dummie grinned, pushed a stool near Ned, sat himself down, and carefully avoiding any immediate answer to Ned's complaint, he rejoined:—

"Do you know, Meester Pepper, you struck I all of a heap. I could not have sposed as how you'd condescend now-a-days to come to the Mug, vhere I never seed you but vonce before. Lord love ye, they says as 'ow you go to all the fine places in ruffles, with a pair of silver pops in your vaistcoat pocket! Vy, the boys hereabouts say, that you and Meester Tomlinson, and this 'ere poor devil in quod, vere the finest gemmen in town; and Lord, for to think of your ciwility to a pitiful rag marchant, like I!"

"Ah!" said Ned gravely, "there are sad principles afloat now. They want to do away with all distinctions in ranks,—to make a duke no better than his valet, and a gentleman

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Rh class with a filcher of fogles. But, dammee if I don't think misfortune levels us all quite enough: and misfortune brings me here, little Dummie!"

"Ah! you vants to keep out of the vay of the bulkies!"

"Right. Since poor Lovett was laid by the heels, which I must say was the fault of his own deuced gentlemanlike behaviour to me and Augustus (you've heard of Guz, you say), the knot of us seems quite broken. One's own friends look inclined to play one false; and really, the queer cuffins hover so sharply upon us, that I thought it safe to duck for a time. So I have taken a lodging in a cellar, and I intend for the next three months to board at the 'Mug.' I have heard that I may be sure of lying snug here:—Dummie, your health! Give us the baccy!"

"I say, Meester Pepper," said Dummie, clearing his throat, when he had obeyed the request, "can you tell I, if so be you as met in your travels our little Paul? Poor chap! You

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242 knows as ow and vy he vas sent to quod by Justice Burnflat. Vel, ven he got out, he vent to the devil, or summut like it, and ve have not eard a vord of him since. You members the lad—a nation fine cull, tall and strait as a harrow!"

"Why, you fool," said Ned, "don't you know,"—then checking himself suddenly,—"ah! by-the-by, that rigmarole oath!—I was not to tell; though now it's past caring for, I fear! It is no use looking after the seal when the letter's burnt."

"Blow me," cried Dunnaker, with unaffected vehemence, "I sees as ow you know vots come of he! Many's the good turn I'll do you, if you vill but tell I."

"Why, does he owe you a dozen bobs; or what, Dummie?" said Ned.

"Not he—not he," cried Dummie.

"What then, you want to do him a mischief of some sort?"

"Do little Paul a mischief!" ejaculated Dummie; "vy I've known the cull ever since he vas that high! No, but I vants to do him a great

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Rh sarvice, Meester Pepper, and myself too,—and you to boot, for aught that I know, Meester Pepper."

"Humph!" said Ned; "humph! what do you mean? I do, it is true, know where Paul is; but you must tell me first, why you wish to know, otherwise you may ask your Grandfather for me."

A long, sharp, wistful survey did Mr. Dummie Dunnaker cast around him before he rejoined. All seemed safe and convenient for confidential communication. The supine features of Mrs. Lobkins were hushed in a drowsy stupor: even the grey cat that lay by the fire, was curled in the embrace of Morpheus. Nevertheless, it was in a close whisper that Dummie spoke.

"I dares be bound, Meester Pepper, that you members vell ven Harry Cook, the great Highvayman,—poor fellow! he's gone vhere ve must all go,—brought you, then quite a gossoon, for the

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244 first time, to the little back parlour, at the Cock and Hen, Dewereux Court."

Ned nodded assent.

"And you members as how I met Harry and you there, and I vas all afeared at you—cause vy? I had never seen you afore, and ve vas a going to crack a swell's crib. And Harry spoke up for you, and said as ow, though you had just gone on the town, you vas already prime up to gammon:—you members, eh?"

"Ay, I remember all," said Ned; "it was the first and only house I ever had a hand in breaking into. Harry was a fellow of low habits, so I dropped his acquaintance, and took solely to the road, or a chance ingenuity now and then. I have no idea of a gentleman turning cracksman."

"Vel, so you vent with us, and we slipped you through a pane in the kitchen-vindow. You vas the least of us, big as you be now; and you vent round, and opened the door for us; and ven you had opened the door, you saw a voman had

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Rh joined us, and you vere a funked then, and stayed vithout the crib; to keep vatch vhile ve vent in."

"Well, well," cried Ned, "what the devil has all this rigmarole got to do with Paul?"

"Now don't be glimflashey, but let me go on smack right about. Vel, ven ve came out, you minds as ow the voman had a bundle in her arms, and you spake to her; and she answered you roughly, and left us all, and vent straight home; and ve vent and fenced the swag that wery night, and afterwards napped the regulars. And sure you made us laugh artily, Meester Pepper, vhen you said, says you, 'That 'ere voman is a rum blowen!' So she vas, Meester Pepper!"

"Oh spare me," said Ned affectedly, "and make haste; you keep me all in the dark. By the way, I remember that you joked me about the bundle; and when I asked what the woman had wrapped in it, you swore it was a child. Rather more likely that the girl, whoever she was, would have left a child behind her, than carried one off!" The face of Dummie waxed big with conscious importance.

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246 "Vel now, you vould not believe us; but it vas all true; that 'ere bundle vas the voman's child, I spose an unnatural von by the gemman: she let us into the ouse on condition ve helped her off vith it. And, blow me tight but ve paid ourselves vel for our trouble. That 'ere voman vas a strange cretur; they say she had been a lord's blowen; but howsomever, she was as ot-eaded and hodd as if she ad been. There vas hold Nick's hown row made on the matter, and the revard for our (de)tection vas so great, that as you vas not much tried yet, Harry thought it best for to take you vith im down to the country, and told you as ow it vas all a flam about the child in the bundle!"

"Faith," said Ned, "I believed him readily enough; and poor Harry was twisted shortly after, and I went into Ireland for safety, where I stayed two years,—and deuced good claret I got there!"

"So, vhiles you vas there," continued Dummie, "poor Judy, the voman, died,—she died in this wery ouse, and left the horphan to the (af)fection of Piggy Lob, who was nation fond of it surely!

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text: Index:The White Stone.djvu

title: Index:The White Stone.djvu


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Rh Oh! but I members vot a night it vas vhen poor Judy died; the vind vhistled like mad, and the rain tumbled about as if it had got a holiday; and there the poor creature lay raving just over ed of this room we sits in! Laus-a-me, vot a sight it vas!"

Here Dummie paused, and seemed to recall in imagination the scene he had witnessed; but over the mind of Long Ned a ray of light broke slowly.

"Whew!" said he, lifting up his fore-finger, "whew! I smell a rat; this stolen child, then, was no other than Paul; but, pray, to whom did the house belong? for that fact Harry never communicated to me. I only heard the owner was a lawyer, or parson, or some such thing!"

"Vy now, I'll tell you, but don't be glimflashey. So, you see, ven Judy died, and Harry was scragged, I vas the only von living who vas up to the secret; and vhen Mother Lob vas a taking a drop to comfort her vhen Judy vent off, I hopens a great box in which poor Judy kept her duds and rattletraps, and surely I finds at the bottom of the box hever so many letters and sich

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FEW Frenchmen, united in friendship, who were spending the spring in Rome, were wont to meet amid the ruins of the disinterred Forum. They were Joséphin Leclerc, an Embassy Attaché on leave; M. Goubin, licencié ès lettres, an annotator; Nicole Langelier, of the old Parisian family of the Langeliers, printers and classical scholars; Jean Boilly, a civil engineer, and Hippolyte Dufresne, a man of leisure, and a lover of the fine arts.

Towards five o'clock of the afternoon of the first day of May, they wended their way, as was their custom, through the northern door, closed to the public, where Commendatore Boni, who superintended the excavations, welcomed them with quiet amenity, and led them to the threshold of his house of wood nestling in the shadow of laurel bushes, privet hedges and cytisus, and rising above the vast

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248 I knew as ow they vas there; so I vhips these off and carries 'em ome with me, and soon arter, Mother Lob sold me the box o' duds for two quids—'cause vy? I vas a rag marchant! So now, I 'solved, since the secret vas all in my hown keeping, to keep it as tight as vinkey! for first, you sees as ow I vas afeard I should be hanged if I vent for to tell,—'cause vy? I stole a vatch, and lots more, as vell as the hurchin! and next, I vas afeard as ow the mother might come back and haunt me the same as Sall haunted Villy, for it vas a orrid night vhen her soul took ving. And hover and above this, Meester Pepper, I thought summut might turn hup by and by, in vhich it vould be best for I to keep my hown counsel and nab the revard, if I hever durst make myself known."

Here Dummie proceeded to narrate how frightened he had been lest Ned should discover all; when (as it may be remembered, Pepper informed Paul at the beginning of this history) he encountered that worthy at Dame Lobkins's house,—how this fear had induced him to testify to Pepper that coldness and rudeness which had so enraged the haughty highwayman, and how great had been his

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10 trench, dug down to the depth of the ancient Forum, in the cattle market of pontifical Rome.

Here, they pause awhile, and look about them.

Facing them rise the truncated shafts of the Columnae Honorariae, and where stood the Basilica of Julia, the eye rested on what bore the semblance of a huge draughts-board and its draughts. Further south, the three columns of the Temple of the Dioscuri cleave the azure of the skies with their blue-tinted volutes. On their right, surmounting the dilapidated Arch of Septimus Severus, the tall columns of the Temple of Saturn, the dwellings of Christian Rome, and the Women's Hospital display in tiers, their facings yellower and muddier than the waters of the Tiber. To their left stands the Palatine flanked by huge red arches and crowned with evergreen oaks. At their feet, from hill to hill, among the flagstones of the Via Sacra, narrow as a village street, spring from the earth an agglomeration of brick walls and marble foundations, the remains of buildings which dotted the Forum in the days of Rome's strength. Trefoil, oats, and the grasses of the field which the wind has sown on their lowered tops, have covered them with a rustic roof illumined by the crimson poppies. A mass of débris, of crumbling entablatures, a multitude of pillars and altars, an entanglement of steps and enclosing walls : all this indeed not stunted but of a serried vastness and within limits.

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Rh relief and delight at finding that Ned returned to the Mug no more. He next proceeded to inform his new confidant of his meeting with the father, (the sagacious reader knows where and when,) and of what took place at that event. He said how, in his first negotiation with the father, prudently resolving to communicate drop by drop such information as he possessed, he merely, besides confessing to a share in the robbery, stated that he thought he knew the house, &c. to which the infant had been consigned,—and that, if so, it was still alive; but that he would inquire. He then related how the sanguine father, who saw that hanging Dummie for the robbery of his house might not be half so likely a method to recover his son as bribery and conciliation, not only forgave him his former outrage, but whetted his appetite to the search by rewarding him for his disclosure. He then proceeded to state how, unable any where to find Paul, or any trace of him, he amused the sire from time to time with forged excuses;—how, at first, the sums he received made him by no means desirous to expedite a discovery that would terminate such

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Rh Nicole Langelier was doubtless reviewing in his mind the host of monuments confined in this famed space:

"These edifices of wise proportions and moderate dimensions," he remarked, "were separated from one another by narrow streets full of shade. Here ran the vicoli beloved in countries where the sun shines, while the generous descendants of Remus, on their return from hearing public speakers, found, along the walls of the temples, cool yet foul-smelling corners, whence the rinds of water-melons and castaway shells were never swept away, and where they could eat and enjoy their siesta. The shops skirting the square must certainly have emitted the pungent odour of onions, wine, fried meats, and cheese. The butchers' stalls were laden with meats, to the delectation of the hardy citizens, and it was from one of those butchers that Virginius snatched the knife with which he killed his daughter. There also were doubtless jewellers and vendors of little domestic tutelary deities, protectors of the hearth, the ox-stall, and the garden. The citizens' necessaries of life were all centred in this spot. The market and the shops, the basilicas, i.e., the commercial Exchanges and the civil tribunals; the Curia, that municipal council which became the administrative power of the universe; the prisons, whose vaults emitted their much dreaded and fetid

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250 receipts;—how at length the magnitude of the proffered reward, joined to the threats of the sire, had made him become seriously anxious to learn the real fate and present "whereabout" of Paul;—how, the last time he had seen the father, he had, by way of propitiation and first fruit, taken to him all the papers left by the unhappy mother and secreted by himself; and how he was now delighted to find that Ned was acquainted with Paul's address. Since he despaired of finding Paul by his own exertions alone, he became less tenacious of his secret, and he now proffered Ned, on discovery of Paul, a third of that reward the whole of which he had once hoped to engross.

Ned's eyes and mouth opened at this proposition. "But the name,—the name of the father? you have not told me that yet!" cried he impatiently.

"Noa, noa!" said Dummie archly, "I doesn't tell you all, till you tells I summut. Vhere's little Paul, I say; and vhere be us to get at him?"

Ned heaved a sigh.

"As for the oath," said he musingly, "it would

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12 effluvia, and the temples, the altars, of the highest necessity to the Italians who have ever some thing to beg of the celestial powers.

"Here it was, lastly, that during a long roll of centuries were accomplished the vulgar or strange deeds, almost ever flat and dull, oftentimes odious and ridiculous, at times generous, the agglomeration of which constitutes the august life of a people."

"What is it that one sees, in the centre of the square, fronting the commemorative pedestals?" inquired M. Goubin, who, primed with an eyeglass, had noticed a new feature in the ancient Forum, and was thirsting for information concerning it.

Joséphin Leclerc obligingly answered him that they were the foundations of the recently unearthed colossal statue of Domitian.

Thereupon he pointed out, one after the other, the monuments laid bare by Giacomo Boni in the course of his five years' fruitful excavations: the fountain and the well of Juturna, under the Palatine Hill; the altar erected on the site of Caesar's funeral pile, the base of which spread itself at their feet, opposite the Rostra; the archaic stele and the legendary tomb of Romulus over which lies the black marble slab of the Comitium; and again, the Lacus Curtius.

The sun, which had set behind the Capitol, was

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Rh striking with its last shafts the triumphal arch of Titus on the towering Velia. The heavens, where to the West the pearl-white moon floated, remained as blue as at midday. An even, peaceful, and clear shadow spread itself over the silent Forum. The bronzed navvies were delving this field of stones, while, pursuing the work of the ancient Kings, their comrades turned the crank of a well, for the purpose of drawing the water which still forms the bed where slumbered, in the days of pious Numa, the reed-fringed Velabrum.

They were performing their task methodically and with vigilance. Hippolyte Dufresne, who had for several months been a witness of their assiduous labour, of their intelligence and of their prompt obedience to orders, inquired of the director of the excavations how it was that he obtained such yeoman's work from his labourers.

"By leading their life," replied Giacomo Boni. "Together with them do I turn over the soil; I impart to them what we are together seeking for and I impress on their minds the beauty of our common work. They feel an interest in an enterprise the grandeur of which they apprehend but vaguely. I have seen their faces pale with enthusiasm when unearthing the tomb of Romulus. I am their everyday comrade, and if one of them falls ill, I take a seat at his bedside. I place as great faith in them as

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text:
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Rh be a sin to keep it, now that to break it can do him no harm, and may do him good! especially as, in case of imprisonment or death, the oath is not held to be binding; yet I fear it is too late for the reward. The father will scarcely thank you for finding his son!—Know, Dummie, that Paul is in gaol, and that he is one and the same person as Captain Lovett!"

Astonishment never wrote in more legible characters than she now displayed on the rough features of Dummie Dunnaker. So strong are the sympathies of a profession compared with all others, that Dummie's first, confused thought was that of pride. "The great Captain Lovett!" he faltered. "Little Paul at the top of the profession! Lord, lord!—I always said as how he'd the hambition to rise!"

"Well, well, but the father's name?"

At this question, the expression of Dummie's face fell,—a sudden horror struggled to his eyes—

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text: Paul Clifford/Volume 3/Chapter 10

title: Paul Clifford/Volume 3/Chapter 10


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14 they do in me. And so it is that I boast of faithful workmen."

"Boni, my dear Boni," exclaimed Joséphin Leclerc, "you know full well that I admire your labours, and that your grand discoveries fill me with emotion, and yet, allow me to say so, I regret the days when flocks grazed over the entombed Forum. A white ox, from whose massive head branched horns widely apart, chewed the cud in the unploughed field; a hind dozed at the foot of a tall column which sprang from the sward, and one mused: Here was debated the fate of the world. The Forum has been lost to poets and lovers from the day that it ceased to be the Campo Formio."

Jean Boilly dwelt on the value of these excavations, so methodically carried out, as a contribution towards a knowledge of the past. Then, the conversation having drifted towards the philosophy of the history of Rome:

"The Latins," he remarked, "displayed reason even in the matter of their religion. Their gods were commonplace and vulgar, but full of common sense and occasionally generous. If a comparison be drawn between this Roman Pantheon composed of soldiers, magistrates, virgins, and matrons and the devilries painted on the walls of Etruscan tombs, reason and madness will be found in juxtaposition. The infernal scenes depicted in the mortuary chambers

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