text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section/III

REMINISCENCES I first heard of Theosophy through coming across a second-hand copy of Mr. Sinnett's book The Occult World, but my first communication from one of the Masters was obtained in a somewhat unusual way. For some years before this I had been engaged in the investigation of spiritualism, and in the course of that enquiry I had come into contact with most of the prominent mediums of that day, and had seen every one of the ordinary phenomena about which one reads in books upon that subject. One medium with when I had much to do was Mr. Eglinton; and although I have heard stories told against him, I must bear witness that in all my own dealings with him I found him most straightforward, reasonable and courteous. One of his specialities was slate-writing, and I found it a very useful phenomenon to show to any enquirer who adopted the skeptical attitude. The method was this. On the way to the séance I took the skeptic into a stationer's shop and induced him to buy two new school slates, and to have them packed in one parcel with a tiny crumb of slate pencil enclosed between them. I advised him to assure himself that the parcel was securely tied, and to seal the knots with his own seal if he had one. Then I told him to carry the parcel, and on no account whatever to let it pass out of his personal custody either before or during the séance. If during the performance it was necessary to sit with joined hands, I advised him to sit upon his parcel. Thus the séance commenced, and usually after a very short time there would be raps or some other indication that the force had gathered. We sat usually at a small square wooden table without any cloth upon it, and Eglinton's plan was to take an ordinary slate, lay upon it a crumb of pencil and then slip it under the table, holding the slate against the under surface of the table. As this was in broad daylight, and we were alone in the room with the medium, there was no opportunity for substitution of previously prepared slates, or anything of that sort. The slate being held in this way, writing would appear on the surface which was pressed close against the table — writing in answer to any question which we chose to ask. After this had been going on for some little time I asked insinuatingly whether the kind spirits could write on our slates. Nearly always the answer was in the affirmative, though once or twice I have been told that the power was not strong enough. Then I turned to the skeptic and asked him to produce his sealed package of slates, but on no account to allow it to go out of his hands. Usually he held it out in both his hands above the table, and Mr. Eglinton would place one hand lightly upon the package. Under those conditions I asked the skeptic to formulate a mental question, and then while he still held the package of slates we heard the writing rapidly going on inside. When the usual three little taps announced that the message was finished, I said to the skeptic: “Now examine your slates and your string, and make sure that no one has thrown you into an hypnotic trance and tampered with your parcel; then cut it open and read your answer.” Generally we found the two sides of the slates which had been pressed together filled with writing more or less in relation to the mental question which had been formulated. Usually the skeptic was tremendously impressed and even dumbfounded for the time; but within a week he generally wrote to say that of course we had somehow or other been deceived, and we had not really seen what we thought we saw. Mr. Eglinton had various so-called controls — one a Red Indian girl who called herself Daisy, and chattered volubly whether opportunity offered or not. Another was a tall Arab, named Abdullah, considerably over six feet, who never said anything, but produced remarkable phenomena, and often exhibited feats showing great strength. I have seen him simultaneously lift two heavy men, one in each hand. A third control who frequently put in an appearance was Ernest; he comparatively rarely materialized, but frequently spoke with direct voice, and wrote a characteristic and well-educated hand. One day in conversation with him something was said in reference to the Masters of the Wisdom; Ernest spoke of Them with the most profound reverence, and said that he had on various occasions had the privilege of seeing Them. I at once enquired whether he was prepared to take charge of any message or letter for Them, and he said that he would willingly do so, and would deliver it when opportunity offered, but he could not say exactly when that would be. I may mention here that in connection with this I had later a good example of the unreliability of all such communications. Some considerable time afterwards some spiritualist wrote to Light explaining that there could not possibly be such persons as the Masters, because Ernest had positively told him that there were not. I wrote to the same newspaper to say that I had it on precisely the same valueless authority that there were Masters, and that Ernest knew Them well. In each case Ernest had evidently reflected the thought of the questioner, as such entities so often do. To return to my story, I at once provisionally accepted Ernest's offer; I said that I would write a letter to one of these Great Masters, and would confide it to him if my friend and teacher, Mr. Sinnett, approved. At the mention of this name the “spirits” were much perturbed; Daisy especially was very angry, and declared that she would have nothing to do with Mr. Sinnett under any circumstances; “Why, he calls us spooks!” she said, with great indignation. However I blandly stuck to my point that all I knew of Theosophy had come to me through Mr. Sinnett, and that I therefore did not feel justified in going behind his back in any way, or trying to find some other means of communication without first consulting him.

Finally, though with a very bad grace, the spirits consented to this, and the séance presently terminated. When Mr. Eglinton came out of his trance, I asked him how I could send a letter to Ernest, and he said at once that if I would send the letter to him he would put it in a certain box which hung against the wall, from which Ernest would take it when he wished. I then posted off to Mr. Sinnett, and asked his opinion of all this. He was at once eagerly interested, and advised me promptly to accept the offer and see what happened. Thereupon I went home and wrote three letters. The first was to the Master K. H., telling Him with all reverence that ever since I had first heard of Theosophy my one desire had been to place myself under Him as a pupil. I told Him of my circumstances at the time, and asked whether it was necessary that the seven years of probation of which I had heard should be passed in India. I put this letter in a small envelope and sealed it carefully with my own seal. Then I enclosed it in a letter to Ernest in which I reminded him of his promise, and asked him to deliver this letter for me, and to bring back an answer, if there should be one. That second letter I sealed in the same manner as the first, and then I enclosed that in turn with a short note to Eglinton, asking him to put it in his box and let me know whether any notice was taken of it. I had asked a friend who was staying with me to examine the seals of both the letters with a microscope, so that if we should see them again we might know whether any one had been tampering with them. By return of post I received a note from Mr. Eglinton, saying that he had duly put the note for Ernest into his box, and that it had already vanished, and further that if any reply should come to him he would at once forward it. A few days later I received a letter directed in a hand which was unknown to me, and on opening it I discovered my own letter to Ernest apparently unopened, the name “Ernest” on the envelope being marked out, and my own written underneath it in pencil. My friend and I once more examined the seal with a microscope, and were unable to detect any indication whatever that any one had tampered with the letter, and we both agreed that it was quite impossible that it could have been opened; yet on cutting it open I discovered that the letter which I had written to the Master had disappeared. All that I found inside was my own letter to Ernest, with a few words in the well-known hand-writing of the latter written on its blank page, to the effect that my letter had been duly handed to the Great Master, and that if in the future I should ever be thought worthy to receive an answer Ernest would gladly bring it to me. I waited for some months, but no reply came, and whenever I went to Eglinton's séances and happened to encounter Ernest I always asked him when I might expect my answer. He invariably said that my letter had been duly delivered, but that nothing had yet been said about an answer, and that he could do no more. Six months later I did receive a reply, but not through Ernest, and in it the Master said that though He had not received the letter (nor, as He remarked, was it likely that He should, considering the nature of the messenger) He was aware of what I had written and He now proceeded to answer it. He told me that the seven years of probation could be passed anywhere, but He suggested that I might come out here for a few months, to see whether I could work with the Headquarters staff. I wished to say in answer to this that my circumstances were such that it would be impossible for me to come to Adyar for three months, and then return to the work in which I was then engaged; but that I was perfectly ready to throw up that work altogether and to devote my life absolutely to His service. Ernest having so conspicuously failed me, I knew of no way to get this message to the Master but to take it to Madame Blavatsky, and as she was to leave England on the following day for India, I rushed up to London to see her. It was with difficulty that I induced her to read the letter, as she said very decidedly that such communications were intended only for the recipient. I was obliged to insist, however, and at last she read it and asked me what I wished to say in reply. I answered to the above effect, and asked her how this information could be conveyed to the Master. She replied that He knew it already, referring of course to the exceedingly close relation in which she stood with Him, so that whatever was within her consciousness was also within His when He wished it. She then told me to wait by her, and not to leave her on any account. I waited patiently all through the afternoon and evening, and even went with her quite late at night to Mrs. Oakley's house, where a number of friends were gathered to say farewell Madame Blavatsky sat in an easy chair by the fireside, talking brilliantly to those who were present, and rolling one of her eternal cigarettes, when suddenly her right hand was jerked out towards the fire in a very peculiar fashion, and lay palm upwards. She looked down at it in surprise, as I did myself, for I was standing close to her, leaning with an elbow on the mantelpiece; and several of us saw quite clearly a sort of whitish mist form in the palm of her hand and then condense into a piece of' folded paper, which she at once handed to me, saying, “There is your answer.” Every one in the room crowded round, of course, but she sent me away outside to read it, saying that I must not let anyone see its contents. It told me that my intuition of throwing up everything and coming out here was a right one; that that was what He had wished me to do, but could not ask it unless I offered. I was further told to take a steamer a few days later and to join Madame Blavatsky in Egypt, which of course I did. In Cairo we took up our quarters in the Hotel d'Orient. Here it was that I first saw one of the members of the Brotherhood. While sitting on the floor at Madame Blavatsky's feet, sorting out some papers for her, I was startled to see standing between us a man who had not entered by the door. It was He who is now the Master D. K., though at that date He had not taken the degree which made Him an adept. Our stay in Egypt with Madame Blavatsky was in many ways a most remarkable experience, as she constantly told us much of the inner side of what we saw there. She had been in Egypt before, and was well acquainted with some of the officials, with the Prime Minister, Nubar Pasha, with the Russian Consul Monsieur Hitrovo, and especially with the curator of the museum, Monsieur Maspero. I remember particularly how we went through the museum with this last gentleman, and how Madame Blavatsky was able to give him a great mass of most interesting information about the various curiosities which were under his care. Madame Blavatsky understood Arabic, and she used to amuse us greatly by translating for our benefit the private remarks which were being made by the grave and dignified Arab merchants, as they sat talking to one another in the bazaar. After they had for some time been calling us Christian dogs, and speaking disrespectfully of our female relatives for many generations, she blandly asked them in their own language whether they thought that this was the way in which a good son of the Prophet should speak of those from whom he hoped to gain much in the way of business. The men were always covered with confusion, not having expected that any European could possibly understand them. Arabic, however, seems to have been the only Oriental language with which she was acquainted; she did not know Sanskrit, and many of the difficulties of our Theosophical terminology arise from the fact that in those days she would describe what she saw or knew, and then ask any Indian who happened to be near what was the Sanskrit name for it. Very often the gentleman who provided her with the term had not clearly understood what she meant; and even when he did, we must remember that she asked adherents of different schools of philosophy, and that each answered according to the shade of meaning applied to the term in his teaching. Many curious phenomena were constantly taking place around her at this period. First, she was herself the most striking of all the phenomena, for her changes were protean. Sometimes the Masters Themselves used her body, and wrote or spoke directly through her. At other times when her ego was elsewhere engaged, one or other of two pupils of lower degree than herself would take the body, and there were even certain occasions when another woman used to be in charge. I have myself frequently seen all these changes take place, and I have seen the new man who had entered the body looking round to discover the condition of affairs into which he had come — trying to take up the thread of conversation, for example. Yet with all this, she was in no sense of the word like an ordinary medium, for the true owner of the body stood at the back all the time in full consciousness, and thoroughly understood what was going on. Extraordinary phenomena, however, also occasionally occurred. While we were crossing the desert by train from Ismailia to Cairo a letter fell in the railway carriage, referring to the subject-matter of the conversation then proceeding, and conveying by name to each one present a kindly message of encouragement. I and another member of the party happened to be looking up at the time when this letter came, and we both saw it appear in the air, just in the circular space in the roof of the carriage in which a lamp is usually put at night. It came, just as the other had done, as a vague ball of whitish mist which condensed into a piece of paper and fluttered down. I remember another occasion on which she bought in the scent-bazaar at Cairo a tiny bottle of attar of roses, for use in the shrine-room here, paying £2 for it. When we were sitting at lunch in the hotel half-an-hour afterwards, at a small table reserved for our party in an alcove, two English sovereigns fell out of space upon the table, and Madame Blavatsky explained that she had been told she ought not to spend money upon Them in this way, as we should need every shilling that we had before we reached Adyar — a statement which certainly proved true. At one time and another I have seen a good many of the phenomena which were so closely associated with Madame Blavatsky. I have seen her precipitate drawing and writing, and I have also seen her find a missing object by occult power. On several occasions I have seen letters fall out of the air in her presence; and I must also state that I have seen such a letter fall here in this house at Adyar when she was six thousand miles away in England, and again that I myself have several times had the privilege of being employed by the Master to deliver just such letters after her departure from the physical plane. In those early days of the Society messages and instructions from the Masters were frequent, and we lived at a level of splendid enthusiasm which those who have joined since Madame Blavatsky's death can hardly imagine. Those of us who have had the inestimable privilege of direct touch with the Masters have naturally retained that enthusiasm, but we have been unable under less favourable circumstances to keep it up among the rank and file of the members. Perhaps now we may be about to witness a recrudescence of it; may we all be worthy to take part in the glorious times that are coming!

title: The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section/III


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section/IV

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH Long ago in old Atlantis, in the great City of the Golden Gate, there reigned a mighty King. One day there came to him a soldier whom he had sent out to head an expedition against a troublesome tribe on the borders of that vast empire. The soldier reported victory, and as a reward the King gave him the position of captain of the Palace guard, and placed specially in his charge the life of his own only son, the heir apparent to his throne. Not long afterwards the newly-appointed captain had an opportunity of proving his faithfulness to his trust, for when he was alone with the young Prince in the Palace gardens a band of conspirators rushed upon them and tried to assassinate his charge. The captain fought bravely against heavy odds and, though mortally wounded, succeeded in protecting the Prince from serious harm until help arrived, and he and the unconscious Prince were borne together into the presence of the King. The Monarch heard the story and, turning to his dying captain, said: “What can I do for you who have given your life for me?” The captain replied:

“Grant me to serve you and your son forever in future lives, since now there is the bond of blood between us.” And with a last effort he dipped his finger in the blood which flowed so fast from his wounds, and touched with it the feet of his sovereign and the forehead of the still unconscious Prince. The King held out his hand in benediction, and replied: “By the blood that has been shed for me and mine, I promise that both you and he shall serve me to the end.” So was the first link forged between three leaders of men of whom we have all heard; for that great King is now the Master M., the Prince his son has been known to us as Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and the Captain of the guard as Henry Steele Olcott. Through all the ages since, through many strange vicissitudes, the link has been kept unbroken and the service has been rendered, as we know that it will be through ages yet to come. Since then as Gashtasp, King of Persia, he protected and assisted in the foundation of the present form of Zoroastrianism, and later as the world-renowned King Asoka he issued those wonderful edicts which remain until this day graven upon rocks and pillars in India to show how real were his zeal and his devotion. And when, at the end of that long and strenuous life, he looked back upon it with sorrow to see how far short of his intentions even his wonderful achievements had fallen, his Master showed him, for his encouragement, two visions, one of the past and one of the future. The vision of the past was the scene in Atlantis when the link between them was forged; the vision of the future showed his Master as the Manu of the Sixth Root-Race and our President-Founder as a lieutenant serving under Him in the exalted work of that high office. So Asoka died content in the certainty that the closest of all earthly ties, that between the Master and His pupil, would never be severed. Having thus taken a prominent part in the spreading of two of the great religions of the world, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism, it was appropriate that he should be so closely associated with the work of this great movement which synthesizes all religions — the Theosophical Society. Never himself the spiritual teacher, he has always been the practical organizer who made the teacher's work possible. In his recent life as in all those others, his ruling principle was always that of passionate loyalty to the Master and to the work which he had to do. When first I met him more than a quarter of a century ago that was the dominant feature in his character; through all the years that I have known him that above all other motives ruled his actions; it inspires the last letter which I received from him, written only a few weeks before his death; it has been still his most salient characteristic in the astral world in which he has since been living. If we turn to the outward details of this last life of his, we still find the same keynote of devotion to duty. The Assistant Sectary of the United States Treasury wrote to him with regard to his public work for the Government: “I wish to say that I have never met with a gentleman intrusted with important duties, of more capacity, rapidity and reliability than have been exhibited by you throughout. More than all, I desire to bear testimony to your entire uprightness and integrity of character, which I am sure have characterized your whole career, and which to my knowledge have never been assailed. That you have thus escaped with no stain upon your reputation, when we consider the corruption, audacity and power of the many villains in high position whom you have prosecuted and punished, is a tribute of which you may well be proud, and which no other man occupying a similar position and performing similar services in this country has ever achieved.” He showed the same energy and capacity in his work for the Theosophical Society. Few of our members realize the extent and the success of his labours, for much of what he did can be properly appreciated only by those who have travelled in those Eastern lands which he loved so well. To his untiring exertion was due the rebuilding and enlargement of the Society's Headquarters at Adyar. It was he who founded the great library there, and on the occasion of its opening gathered together to bless its inception priests of all the leading religions of the world — the first occasion in history on which such representatives had met in fraternal accord, each freely acknowledging the others as standing on an equal footing with himself. To him is due the great movement for Buddhist education in the island of Ceylon, in consequence of which up to the present, 287 Buddhist schools have been founded, in which over 35,000 children are being taught. He it was who brought together on a common platform of belief the Northern and Southern Schools of Buddhism, separated for more than a thousand years; he it was who took up the education of the neglected pariah class. Many and great were the difficulties in his way in holding together and directing so complex a movement as the Theosophical Society; yet in every land he was always popular, by every nation he was eagerly welcomed. His utter devotion to the welfare of the Society and the transparent honesty of his purpose could not fail to impress all who met him. I speak of him with feeling, for I had special opportunities of knowing him well. I shall never forget his fatherly kindness to me, when as a comparatively young man, quite new to Indian life, I first went to reside at the Headquarters at Adyar. Since then I have met him in many countries; I have passed weeks alone with him (except for an interpreter and a servant) in a bullock-cart in the jungles of Ceylon; I went with him on the journey which carried Theosophy into Burma in 1885. Under circumstances like these one quickly gets to know a man with far greater intimacy than is afforded by years of ordinary social life, and I can unreservedly bear testimony to the whole-souled devotion of the man — to the fact that during all this time his one anxiety was the furthering of the Theosophical work, his one thought how to please the Master by doing with all his might that which had been given him to do. His passing from among us is too recent for its details to have been forgotten; we all know how courageously he bore his sufferings, how all through his illness his constant thought was still the welfare of the dear Society to which his life had been devoted. We remember how when the time came for him to leave the body three of the great Masters stood beside him, as well as his old colleague and friend, H. P. Blavatsky; we have all read the magnificent speech of his successor at his cremation. That cremation was a grand and worthy ceremony. The pyre was of sandalwood and his body was covered with the American flag and the Buddhist flag, the latter a standard which he himself had invented, bearing in their right order the special colours of the aura of the Lord BUDDHA.

He was unconscious for a while after death, but soon became fully awake and active. As I was always deeply attached to him, his Master told me to act as a kind of guide to him when necessary, and to explain to him whatever he wished. He had always been keenly interested in the powers and possibilities of the astral plane, and as soon as he could see it clearly, he was full of eager and insatiable desire to know how everything is done, to understand the rationale of it, and to learn to do it himself. He has an unusually strong will in certain directions, and that made many of the experiments easy to him even when they were quite new. He is most at home in work which involves the use of power in some way — to fight, to cure, to defend. He is full of big schemes for the future, and is just as enthusiastic as ever about the Society which he loves. His attention has been attracted by the strong thought about him involved in writing this; he stands beside me now, and insists that I shall convey to the members his most earnest advice to give whole-hearted loyalty and support to his noble successor, to put aside at once and forever all pitiable squabbling over personalities, all unprofitable wrangling over matters which are not their business and which they cannot be expected to understand, and to turn their attention to the one and only matter of importance — the work which the Society has to do in the world. His message to them is: “Forget yourselves, your limitations and your prejudices, and spread the truths of Theosophy.” Of his future we can say little as yet. By the time that these lines are before the reader, it is probable that he will be again in incarnation. He has earnestly wished this, in order that he may work along with Madame Blavatsky in her present incarnation. How far his desire will be granted, I cannot yet tell. Certainly he will be employed wherever the Masters think that he will be most useful. His great talent is organization, and we have seen that he has already practiced it in Zoroastrianism, in the great missionary enterprise of Buddhism and in the foundation of the Theosophical Society. No doubt he may have similar work to do in connection with the next great religion, and again at the establishment of the Sixth Root-Race. Be that as it may, the great man whom in his last life we knew as Henry Steele Olcott will be ready to bear his part in all such activities, to lead us as he led us before, devoted as ever to the service of his Master, faithful as ever through life and through death.

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

title: The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section/IV


text:
Page:Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days.djvu/255

Rh "Well, you didn't get much show at football last year."

"Can't help it. I may this time."

"Dutton is just as much against you as ever."

"I know it, but I may get a chance just the same. I'm going to begin training, and I'll keep at it until the last game."

Dick was as good as his word. He rather hoped he might make the regular nine, but he learned that Dutton and his set were against him, and the best he could do was to be named as a substitute shortstop.

The season opened rather badly for Kentfield, for they lost the first game, and that against a small college team. It was because Captain Rutledge was so confident that he did not play his men with any vim, and several bad fumbles cost them the game.

They won the first of the championship contests with Mooretown academy, and lost the second, making it a tie, and so the third game, which would be played at Kentfield that spring, would be an important and the deciding one.

Dick got an opportunity to play on the regular team once during the last few innings, but as the game, which was with a small college, was won by the cadets before he went into it, his performance did not receive much credit.

"If I only get a chance to play against Mooretown," he said to Paul, "I'll be satisfied. Anyhow, I'm one of the subs."


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section/V

A COURSE OF STUDY IN THEOSOPHY It is desirable that one who wishes to study Theosophy thoroughly should acquaint himself in the course of time with the whole of Theosophical literature. This is no light task; and the order in which the books are taken is of importance if a man wishes to get out of them the best that he can. But at the same time it must be remembered that no order can be prescribed which will be equally suitable for every one; there are those who can usefully absorb information only along devotional lines, and there are those who must have a scientific and non-emotional presentation of the truth. The best thing that I can do, therefore, is to prescribe such a plan of reading as I have found to be on the whole most generally useful, leaving room for considerable variation to suit individual idiosyncrasies. It seems to me of great importance to have a clear outline of the whole scheme thoroughly in the mind before endeavouring to fill in the details. No one can know how strong is the evidence for any one part of the Theosophical teaching until he knows the whole of that teaching, and sees how each separate portion is confirmed and strengthened by the rest, and is indeed a necessary part of the scheme as a whole. My advice, therefore, is that the beginner should read first the elementary literature, not troubling himself unduly with details, but seeking rather to take in and assimilate the broad ideas contained in it, so as to see all that they imply and to realize them as facts in nature, thereby putting himself into what may be called the Theosophical attitude, and learning to look at everything from the Theosophical point of view. To this end the student may take An Outline of Theosophy, The Riddle of Life, Hints to Young Students of Occultism, and various lectures by Mrs. Besant and myself which have been issued as propaganda pamphlets. When he feels himself fairly certain of these, I should recommend next Mrs. Besant's Popular Lectures on Theosophy and then her Ancient Wisdom, which will give him a clear idea of the system as a whole. Another book which might be useful to him at this stage is Some Glimpses of Occultism. He can then proceed to follow details along whichever line most commends itself to him. If he is interested chiefly in the ethical side, the best books are: At the Feet of the Master, Light on the Path, The Voice of the Silence, The Path of Discipleship, In the Outer Court, The Laws of the Higher Life, The Three Paths and Dharma, and The Bhagavad-Gita. One who wishes to study the life after death will find what he wants in: The Other Side of Death, The Astral Plane, Death and After, The Devachanic Plane.

If he is approaching the matter from the scientific side, the following books will suit him: Esoteric Buddhism, Nature's Mysteries, Scientific Corroborations of Theosophy, Occult Chemistry and The Physics of the Secret Doctrine.

If he cares for the study of comparative religion he should read: Universal Text-book of Religion and Morals, Four Great Religions, The Great Law, The Bhagavad-Gita, Hints on the Study of the Bhagavad-Gita, The Upanishads, The Wisdom of the Upanishads, An Advanced Text-book of Hindu Religion and Ethics, The Light of Asia, A Buddhist Catechism, Buddhist Popular Lectures and The Religious Problem in India.

If he thinks chiefly of the Christian presentation of these truths, the best books are: Esoteric Christianity, The Christian Creed, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten and The Perfect Way.

If one wishes to investigate the origin and early history of Christianity, in addition to the books on the subject already mentioned, Mr. Mead's works will specially appeal to him: ''Did Jesus Live B.C. 100? , The Gospel and the Gospel, Orpheus and Plotinus''.

The student who is interested in applying Theosophy to the world of modern thought, and to political and social questions, may profitably turn to The Changing World, Some Problems of Life, Theosophy and Human Life, Occult Essays and Theosophy and the New Psychology. If, as is the case with most enquirers, his main interest centres round the wider knowledge and the grasp of life resulting from a study of occultism, he should read, in addition to many of the books mentioned above: A Study in Consciousness, An Introduction to Yoga, Clairvoyance, Dreams, Invisible Helpers, Man Visible and Invisible, Thought-Forms, The Evolution of Life and Form, Thought-Power — Its Control and Culture, The Other Side of Death and the two volumes of The Inner Life. It will be desirable that he should comprehend the subjects dealt with in the manuals on Reincarnation, Karma, and Man and his Bodies. Indeed, these should be taken at an early stage of his reading.

The earnest student, who intends to live Theosophy, as well as merely to study it intellectually, should also have knowledge of the inner purpose of the Theosophical Society. He will gain this from Mrs. Besant's London Lectures of 1907 and The Changing World, from The Inner Life (2 vols.), as well as from the study of Colonel Olcott's Old Diary Leaves, and Mr. Sinnett's Occult World and Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky. I myself think that the greatest book of all, Madame Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, should be left until all these others have been thoroughly assimilated, for the man who comes to it thus thoroughly prepared will gain from it far more than is otherwise possible. I know that many students prefer to take it at an earlier stage, but it seems to me more an encyclopedia or book or reference.

Four books which are now in preparation should be added to the above list as soon as they appear: A Text-book of Theosophy, which endeavours to state the Theosophical teaching in the simplest possible form, and without technical terms; The Hidden Side of Things, which shows how knowledge of occultism changes our view with regard to all sorts of small practical matters in every-day life, Man: Whence, How, Whither? which gives a detailed account of the past evolution of man, and shows something of the future which lies before him; First Principles of Theosophy, which is to approach the whole subject from the scientific standpoint, and to present it from an entirely new point of view. The course I have indicated above means some years of hard reading for the ordinary man, but one who has achieved it and tries to put into practice what he has learnt will certainly be in a position to afford much help to his fellow-men. END

title: The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section/V


text:
Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/90

66

Geseah ðā on searwumsige-ēadig bil, eald sweord eotenisc,ecgum þyhtig, wigena weorð-mynd;þæt [wæs] wǣpna cyst, būton hit wæs māreðonne ǣnig mon ōðer tō beadu-lāceætberan meahte, gōd ond geatolīc,gīganta geweorc. Hē gefēng þā fetel-hilt,freca Scyldinga hrēoh ond heoro-grimhring-mǣl gebrægd, aldres orwēnayrringa *slōh, þæt hire wið halseheard grāpode, bān-hringas bræc;bil eal ðurhwōd fǣgne flǣsc-homan;hēo on flet gecrong. Sweord wæs swātig;secg weorce gefeh. Līxte se lēoma,lēoht inne stōd, efne swā of hefenehādre scīneð rodores candel.Hē æfter recede wlāt, hwearf þā be wealle;wǣpen hafenade heard be hiltumHigelāces ðegn yrre ond ān-rǣd.Næs sēo ecg fracod hilde-rince,ac hē hraþe wolde Grendle forgyldangūð-rǣsa fela, ðāra þe hē geworhtetō West-Denum oftor micleðonne on ǣnne sīð, þonne he Hrōðgāresheorð-genēatas slōh on sweofote,slǣpende fræt folces Denigeafȳf-tȳne men, ond ōðer swylcūt offerede, lāðlicu lāc.Hē him þæs lēan forgeald,

title: Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/90


text:
Page:Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days.djvu/256

238 It was the day of the great and deciding game with Mooretown. Dick was struggling into his trousers and blouse in his room, when Toots brought him word that there was a visitor for him in the reception room.

"Who is it, Toots?" he asked. "I haven't much time. Most of the fellows are already on the diamond."

"He says his name is Honeybee, as near as I can make out."

"Honeybee," repeated Dick, much puzzled. "Oh, it must be Larabee. It's my Uncle Ezra!"

Then a look of annoyance came over his face.

"If I go down to see him he'll keep me from the game," he thought. "I haven't any time to spare. He'll lecture me about the waste of time in playing baseball, or the danger of it, or something like that. Or he may want me to show him around the academy. No, he's not likely to do that, for fear he'd wear out his shoes. I wonder what in the world he can want, anyhow? But if I see him now I'll never get a chance to play. I'll not see him."

"Toots," he said, "tell my uncle that I have an important engagement, and ask him to wait until I come back."

"All right, Mr. Hamilton," replied the janitor. "Shall I tell him what it is? Maybe he'd like to see the game," and Toots softly whistled "Just Before the Battle, Mother."

"No! No! Don't tell him!" exclaimed Dick.


text:
Page:Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days.djvu/257

Rh "He thinks baseball is wicked. Just say—say anything you like except that. I'll come back as soon as the game's over—if I'm alive. He won't mind waiting. It will give him a chance to think."

Which perhaps was not exactly polite on Dick's part. He hurried off, leaving Uncle Ezra in the reception room, wondering what important business his nephew had that kept him so long. And, by not seeing his Uncle Ezra, Dick missed hearing a bit of news that was destined to make a great change in his affairs. But he heard it later, as you will see.

While our hero was on his way to the field, hoping that he would get a chance to play, Uncle Ezra sat in the reception room. He was not very impatient at the delay. As Dick had said, it gave him a chance to think.

Presently the door opened, and Russell Glen looked in the apartment. He was in search of Dutton, having been told the young major was there. Not seeing his friend, he was about to withdraw, with an apology for having disturbed Mr. Larabee.

"Are you one of the students here?" asked Dick's uncle, who was getting rather tired waiting.

"Yes. I'm in my second year."

"Ah, then you must know my nephew, Richard Hamilton?"

"Oh, yes, I know Dick."


text:
Page:Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days.djvu/258

240 "Richard is his proper name," corrected Mr. Larabee stiffly.

Glen nodded, and was about to go out.

"If you see him, I wish you would tell him to hurry," went on Mr. Larabee. "I have been waiting for some time for him, but he sent word that he had an important engagement, and would see me later."

Glen guessed what the "engagement" was, so he merely nodded.

"I want to see him very particularly," continued the aged man, "as I have some important news for him. It may make a great difference in his life. In fact, I'm sure it will."

Glen opened his eyes at this, and decided not to go just yet.

Has some one left him some more millions?" he asked in a joking tone.

"Far from it," said Mr. Larabee in solmen accents.

"Eh?" asked Glen, wondering what was coming.

"I always said it was foolish for my sister to leave Richard so much money," went on Mr. Larabee severely, "and I told Mortimer Hamilton that he was risking his money to go to Europe. Now, what I said would happen has happened."

"Is Mr. Hamilton in trouble?" asked Glen, not a little rejoiced to find that difficulties were in store for Dick.

"Well, I'd call it trouble to lose nearly all my


text:
Page:Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days.djvu/259

Rh fortune. But it serves Mortimer right, and Richard also."

"Has Mr. Hamihon lost his money?" inquired Glen, coming closer to Mr. Larabee.

"Practically so."

"And Dick?"

"A large part of his is gone also. It was invested with Mr. Hamilton's. I received word of it yesterday, and I hurried to come here and tell him. A New York bank, in which Mr. Hamilton was largely interested, and in which were most of Dick's funds, as well his father's, has failed."

"Then Mr. Hamilton isn't a millionaire any longer?"

"I fear not."

"And Dick?" asked Glen eagerly.

"He has very little left."

"Whew!" whistled the cadet. This would be news indeed to the students. He must hasten and tell them.

"That's what I came to see my nephew about," went on Mr. Larabee. "I want him to come away from this expensive school, and live with me until his father returns. Oh, the money that young man has wasted! It is awful! Terrible!" and Uncle Ezra seemed about to faint with the horror of it.

"Shall I find Dick for you?" asked Glen.

"I wish you would, young man. I want to tell him this news, and take him back with me.


text:
Page:Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days.djvu/260

242 I have a return ticket on the railroad, and if I stay over night it will be no good. Besides I am afraid my hired man will use kerosene oil in starting the fire if I am not home by morning, and he might burn down the house. One can not be too careful of money. Mortimer and my nephew are a terrible example. Find him for me, if you will, please."

"I will," promised Glen, hurrying away. "My word!" he exclaimed as he ran out on the campus. "Hamilton's money all gone! Then he's no better than the rest of us now. He'll come down a peg or two."

Considering that Dick had never tried to hang himself on a "peg," this seemed a useless as well as cruel remark.

"I wish I had borrowed a hundred from him yesterday, instead of fifty," mused Glen, as he hurried on toward the baseball field. As he neared it he heard shouts and cheers.

"The game's started," he exclaimed, as he broke into a run.


text: Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days/Chapter 28

title: Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days/Chapter 28


text:
Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/150

 February 27th, 1859. .

… Ockey has just received another Veronese to copy for her work at home. She has begun doing it so beautifully. She is distressed at only working three hours on Dulwich days; so she has begun working in her spare time at the College, and by that she will manage six hours every day. …

We are very regular with our reading three evenings a week from nine to ten. Mama reads and Ockey and I work. … I think Ockey is becoming converted to Shakespeare. Dear Mama reads it so beautifully.

February, 1859.

I thank you for your letter. "What has been the matter?" you ask. Physically, only this, I have severe pains in walking distances that I used to manage easily. But you would quite laugh if you saw me, to hear me speak of want of strength.

But the truth is that, if enough is as good as a feast, too little must be as bad as a famine; and I feared that I had just too little for my work. But everyone agrees that it isn't fatigue that has made me ill, but responsibility and worry and want of change. It's my own fault. I ought to take things more quietly and not think that so very much depends on my deciding wisely, and not nearly break my heart if things go wrong for a time.

I think you're mistaken about the teaching, which is hopeful and refreshing. As to sentiment there are few people who have not stronger feelings than I have. I assure you, I am considered the person in the family,


text:
Page:Mysteries of Melbourne Life.djvu/13

Rh gentleman had not been unobservant: "I have carefully noticed his (Harry's) conduct for years, and have seen that instead of foolishly depending upon expectations, he has set to work with a will to build his own fortune, hence I pass others over, and bequeath my property to him because I know he will make a proper use of the valuable bequest." So Harry had left the bank, and was now installed in the beautiful place his dead relative had built in St. Kilda.

The sun was declining in the western sky, casting over the earth, so soon to be enveloped in the shadows of night, beams richer and mellower than his noontide rays, as if to prepare the world for the peaceful change that was coming on. The light of departing day fell on few scenes so beautiful as that presented at the little villa of Robert Wilton, an unpretending, cosy cottage on the outskirts of East St. Kilda, with a neat lawn and flower beds in front. Tending one of these parterres, attired in a bewitching garden costume, was Linda. It is difficult to say what she was doing, although her own opinion was that she was working, and working very hard, too. But all ladies who have gardens fancy that. It was easy to see, however, that the flowers, beautiful as they were, occupied but a little space in Linda's mind. Her eyes turned continually towards the railway station, and when a train stopped she desisted from her "labor," and watched for a well-known form, pouting when she saw the iron monster go on its way, and no appearance of the desired person. Standing over those beds of flowers, gorgeous with crimson, and gold and blue blossom, Linda Wilton fell into a reverie in which all the sweet dream of their wedded life was presented to her view. What a delicious dream it was! She remembered the delirious days of happiness that followed that fluttering, agitating ceremony which made them one; the happy time spent at Queenscliff, where they went after the wedding; then the settling down into a peaceful pleasant life in this home, now so inexpressibly dear to her, as associated with all that had been brightest in her life. Not a shadow had fallen upon them. O! was it not happiness supreme to meet the dear handsome fellow every evening when he returned from the city, to be clasped in his arms, and to receive that loving kiss so dear to the devoted wife; to pass with him the quiet evening in reading or other amusements, with music to vary the pleasures? But why dwell on these things? Is there a husband or wife who can recall the first sir months of their wedded life, and not sigh over the Elysium that has passed for ever from their grasp into the eternal shadows, a thing to be dreamed of, but never again realised? Enough!

Would this last? Light-hearted as Linda was, that question even now entered into her mind, as did the serpent into Paradise. Even Linda thought it too bright to continue. Had she not noticed a slight change in Bob lately?

"Bottles, ma'am, any bottles to sell—give twice the vally, and no mistake."

Linda looked up. Outside the fence stood a ragged urchin who, according to his stature, should be only about ten years, but whose face, wizened like that of a man of sixty, showed be was a great deal older. A cunning monkey countenance it was, indeed. He carried an old basket in which were several empty bottles.

A sudden idea of making money occurred to Madame Linda. There were a lot of bottles in the yard; therefore, after some preliminary bargaining with this new Alnaschar, in which she thought she showed wonderful business capacity, she sent him round to the back to get the bottles off the generally useful lad who, with a general servant, formed Robert's establishment.

Master Patsy Quinlan, blinking his owl-like eyes, which seemed to dislike the light, and laughing in his sleeve at the very advantageous bargain made with Linda, opened the side gate, and made his way to the kitchen, not forgetting to keep a careful look out on either side to see what Providence might throw in his way, for this interesting youth was a picker up of unconsidered trifles, and never looked a gift horse in the month.

"Missus sent me round for the bottles," said he, addressing a youth who was industriously hosing a well-made little horse which appeared to enjoy the operation.

"Hello!" cried the youth, turning sharp round, and dropping the hose as if it were red hot, to the discomfort of a cat who was sunning herself, and who received the douche, "Where did you spring from?"

"Well I'm blowed!" cried the equally surprised bottle-merchant, almost dropping his basket Alnascharlike. "I'm blessed if it ain't Billy Dawson, as we all thought 'ad gone on the farmin' lay, nothin' a week and find yourself. Why I wouldn't ha' known ye!"


text:
Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/151

 who is without imagination, poetry, feeling, affection. Good only to do a sum, carry a weight, go a long walk in the rain, or decide any difficult question about tangible things. You happen to know the other side of me. All that's kept in, that I may do my work; and you don't know what a life of calculation and routine and steadiness mine is. I'm told that the best developed organ that I have is that of caution.

However, thank you, I hope I haven't "come to a smash." I'm gloriously well to-day, and I've done my full work; perhaps I may manage five days at Dulwich after all. I think I wrote too seriously, and I beg your pardon. You can imagine the horror of being ill, to a person whose whole heart is in what they do, and who has never been obliged to calculate strength, but only time.

Never mind, I'm in glorious spirits now. The Salvator is going on well. I'm not the least afraid of anything. I will conscientiously take care of my health; and, if I lose it then, I can't help it. I should like to leave them all comfortable, and learn to love them, and to live to do some drawing worth doing and to see the Alps; and then I'd leave the world in God's hands who made it. In the meantime I'll order the dinners, and try to be quiet and sensible, if you will go on having patience with me. You'll see me rational and quiet some day. You mustn't expect a great deal of wisdom, in spite of my having begun with hard experiences so young. You know I'm only a little more than twenty; and it takes a long time and a great deal to teach me anything. I assure you I try to be calm and sensible about all things, and if I say foolish things, I don't often do them, as our condition here shows. I never, but for two days in my life, felt so


text:
Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/91

Rh

rēþe cempa,tō ðæs þe hē on ræste geseah gūð-wērigneGrendel licgan, aldor-lēasne,swā him ǣr gescōd hild æt Heorote.Hrā wīde sprong, syþðan hē æfter dēaðedrepe þrōwade, heoro-sweng heardne;ond hine þā hēafde becearf. Sōna þæt gesāwonsnottre *ceorlas, þā ðe mid Hrōðgāreon holm wliton, þæt wæs ȳð-geblondeal gemenged, brim blōde fāh.Blonden-feaxe gomele ymb gōdneon geador sprǣcon, þæt hig þæs æðelingeseft ne wēndon, þæt hē sige-hrēðigsēcean cōme mǣrne þēoden,þā ðæs monige gewearð, þæt hine sēo brim-wylfābroten hæfde. Ðā cōm nōn dæges;næs ofgēafon hwate Scyldingas;gewāt him hām þonon gold-wine gumena.Gistas sētan mōdes sēoce,ond on mere staredon; wiston ond ne wēndon,þæt hīe heora wine-drihten selfne gesāwon.Ðā þæt sweord ongan æfter heaþo-swātehilde-gicelum, wīg-bil wanian;þæt wæs wundra sum, þæt hit eal gemealtīse gelīcost, }}

title: Page:Beowulf (Wyatt).djvu/91


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/95

I have said, Strelley Mill lies at the north end of the long Nethermere valley. On the northern slopes lay its pasture and arable lands. The shaggy common, now closed and part of the estate, covered the western slope, and the cultivated land was bounded on the east by the sharp dip of the brook course, a thread of woodland broadening into a spinney and ending at the upper pond; beyond this, on the east, rose the sharp, wild, grassy hillside, scattered with old trees, ruinous with the gaunt, ragged bones of old hedge-rows, grown into thorn trees. Along the rim of the hills, beginning in the northwest, were dark woodlands, which swept round east and south till they raced down in riot to the very edge of southern Nethermere, surrounding our house. From the eastern hill crest, looking straight across, you could see the spire of Selsby Church, and a few roofs, and the head-stocks of the pit.

So on three sides the farm was skirted by woods, the dens of rabbits, and the common held another warren.

Now the squire of the estate, head of an ancient, once even famous, but now decayed house, loved his rabbits. Unlike the family fortunes, the family tree flourished amazingly; Sherwood could show nothing


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/96

88 comparable. Its ramifications were stupendous; it was more like a banyan than a British oak. How was the good squire to nourish himself and his lady, his name, his tradition, and his thirteen lusty branches on his meagre estates? An evil fortune discovered to him that he could sell each of his rabbits, those bits of furry vermin, for a shilling or thereabouts in Nottingham; since which time the noble family subsisted by rabbits.

Farms were gnawed away; corn and sweet grass departed from the face of the hills; cattle grew lean, unable to eat the defiled herbage. Then the farm became the home of a keeper, and the country was silent, with no sound of cattle, no clink of horses, no barking of lusty dogs.

But the squire loved his rabbits. He defended them against the snares of the despairing farmer, protected them with gun and notices to quit. How he glowed with thankfulness as he saw the dishevelled hillside heave when the gnawing hosts moved on!

“Are they not quails and manna?” said he to his sporting guest, early one Monday morning, as the high meadow broke into life at the sound of his gun. “Quails and manna—in this wilderness?”

“They are, by Jove!” assented the sporting guest as he took another gun, while the saturnine keeper smiled grimly.

Meanwhile, Strelley Mill began to suffer under this gangrene. It was the outpost in the wilderness. It was an understood thing that none of the squire’s tenants had a gun.

“Well,” said the squire to Mr. Saxton, “you


text:
Page:Mysteries of Melbourne Life.djvu/14

10 Neither would the reader have recognised our little vagrant of the Yarra scrub. He was dressed neatly in white moleskin trousers, kept up by a leather belt with a serpent buckle, and wore a red Crimean shirt; his hair was cut after the style, and his face was filling out and assuming the rounded proportions proper to the blooming time of life. On the whole, a young nursemaid would have set him down as not a bad-looking fellow.

"So they didn't nab you, eh?" asked Mr. Patsy Quinlan with a queer chuckle; "you always was a knowing card, Bill. Why, I was cotched, and the beak sent me to quod for three months, sayin' I was the biggest larrikin in Melbourne."

"Well wasn't it true?" said Bill; uneasily, however, for he didn't seem to relish the presence of this fellow.

"No, it wasn't," said the other sharply; "I might be the wust, Master Bill, but I wasn't the biggest, ha! ha! ha!" and the little goblin laughed at his own wit. "But, how on earth did you anchor here and get on the square, eh?"

"Well it was fortinate," replied Bill, "Ye see when you'd led me to try and steal the books from Cole's——"

"Steal," said Mr. Patsy, "what ails you—can't you say prig?"

"No," replied Bill; "missus is teaching me better."

"Oho!" cried Patsy; "you're becomin' a genelman, eh? Genelman Bill—O!"—and he laughed his eldritch laugh. "Well, purcced, genelman."

"Well!" continued Bill, rather doggedly, "I knew I'd catch it from old Sturt if he set eyes on me again, for he'd given me plain warning last time, so I made tracks."

"Tracks is good," said Patsy—"you ain't forgotten your hedication altogether."

"And I saw such a thing when I was hiding in the Yarra scrub," said Bill, lowering his voice. "Patsy, did you ever see a murder?"

"A murder I" said the goblin. "Well, I might have, and I mightn't. It's very interesting; besides, I'd like to take lessons—don't know when they'd be handy? he! he!"

"Shut up, you hardened vagabond," cried Bill. "Well, I saw a murder, Patsy, one of the terriblest as could be; a poor woman killed by a great big young fellow; it makes my flesh creep. I can't forget it, Patsy; why when I go to sleep I dream of it every night and think I see the corpse come to my bedside and make faces at me, and threaten to kill me if I don't do something to scrag the fellow——"

"Scrag's good," said Patsy, rubbing his hands, "You ain't altogether forgot, he! he!"

"Well, I was frightened, and ran away, an' I kept wandering about for several days. First I went to a little farmer or milkman down Brighton. Nice place, Patsy; we had to work from daylight to twelve at night milkin' cows, diggin' mangolds, and that sort of thing; and all we got in return was five bob a week, and cold potatoes and skim-milk. Lord! It was high. Did I say we got five bob a week—bless you, no; for when I'd been there some weeks I felt as if I could do no more work, for I was weak as a rat; and I goes to the boss and asks for my wages. 'Wages, you vagabond,' says he ; 'why, you've drawed your wages, and owe me six shillins!' Well, I tried to argue with him; but it was no use, he took me by the collar, and bundled me out at the gate."

"That's a capital kind of argyment," said Patsy; "beat yours hollow."

"Lord! didn't my heart grow big at the thought of that—to slave like a horse, sleep on a bit of straw, shiverin' with cold, all for potatoes and skim-milk, when he was makin his fortune. No wonder there's so many larrikins and thieves, Patsy, when that's the way poor fellows who want to live honestly get treated."

"So you wanted to live honestly, did ye," said Patsy: "That's new; it is."

"I did;" said Bill earnestly. "I was sick of the life I'd led with you and the other chaps, and wanted to try and live right, as poor mother used to talk about. Well, when I was turned off I didn't know what to do; I was without clothes, without money, and afraid of the blue-flies.* I kept knocking about until I got quite desperate; and then one day I was passin' this place, when I saw that angel, my missus; an' when I looks in her face, why I thought I saw pity shinin' out of it. How I shivered; how cold I was; how hungry; and everybody hunting me about like a wild beast. 'Get out, ye larrikin,' said they. I wonder if they've got hearts, Patsy?"

"Yes—gizzards," replied Patsy. "They'd weep like a corcordile while eatin' of ye."

"But when I spoke up and told missus I was dyin' with cold and hunger, the blessed woman believed me—"

"Fust time you was believed," giggled Patsy."

"—And she took me to the kitchen and told


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/97

Rh have the land for next to nothing—next to nothing—at a rent really absurd. Surely the little that the rabbits eat——”

“It’s not a little—come and look for yourself,” replied the farmer. The squire made a gesture of impatience.

“What do you want?” he inquired.

“Will you wire me off?” was the repeated request.

“Wire is—what does Halkett say—so much per yard—and it would come to—what did Halkett tell me now?—but a large sum. No, I can’t do it.”

“Well, I can’t live like this.”

“Have another glass of whisky? Yes, yes, I want another glass myself, and I can’t drink alone—so if I am to enjoy my glass.—That’s it! Now surely you exaggerate a little. It’s not so bad.”

“I can’t go on like it, I’m sure.”

“Well, we’ll see about compensation—we’ll see. I’ll have a talk with Halkett, and I’ll come down and have a look at you. We all find a pinch somewhere—it’s nothing but humanity’s heritage.”

I was born in September, and love it best of all the months. There is no heat, no hurry, no thirst and weariness in corn harvest as there is in the hay. If the season is late, as is usual with us, then mid-September sees the corn still standing in stook. The mornings come slowly. The earth is like a woman married and fading; she does not leap up with a laugh for the first fresh kiss of dawn, but slowly, quietly, unexpectantly lies watching the waking of each new day. The blue mist, like memory in the


text: Page:Mysteries of Melbourne Life.djvu/6

title: Page:Mysteries of Melbourne Life.djvu/6


text:
Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/148

 Dear Ockey and Minnie must have worked so hard; they would not let me have any trouble, but arranged it all, and beautiful indeed it looks: the crimson table cover and chair cover and green carpet and white muslin curtains and white walls with roses, make such a lovely combination, and I enjoy the nice square high rooms. Miss Sterling, who called yesterday, exclaimed, "What a dainty room you have." It certainly does give one a most pleasant sense of simplicity, cleanliness, and beautiful colour.

January 25th, 1859.

… I think you will like our dear new home; the prettiness of it is a continual delight to me, and I am most thankful for its order and cleanliness. … I am so fond of it. … I was amazed to find how much you had all thought of Ruskin's statement about my accuracy. Of course I was disappointed, because I thought the battle was won; but you see it referred to pencil and colour sketches, in which I had not tried mainly for accuracy, believing that I need not try, that the amount of measurement I gave it secured it; and I had other things to aim at. It was not colour or pencil sketches that he ever praised for accuracy. (Oh yes, the first coloured one; but then it had so little colour). I never thought for a moment my eye was accurate about anything, unless it were matching colours. I only thought that, by some miracle, the things I had done were as accurate as human work need be; and that all would continue so, if I worked in the same way. Now that I know where I am, I don't doubt I can win the battle in time by steady work; and I have not been


text:
Page:Mysteries of Melbourne Life.djvu/87

 ADVERTISEMENTS. VICTORIAN PERMANENT $r0pcrtu Enbestnuntt anb guilbing <§krri£ig. Instituted and Registered August, 1865. COLLINS STREET EAST, MELBOURNE. The Largest, Most Successful, and Most Equitable Building Society in the Australian Colonies. ABOVE HALF-A-MILLION OF MONEY ALREADY ADVANCED ox FREEHOLDS. SHARES, £25 EACH. Entrance Fee, Is. per Share. Fortnightly Subscription, Is. per Investing Share. SUBSCRIBED CAPITAL, £1,250,000. PAID UP, £30 0,000. The following repayments include Principal and Interest for a loan of 4 Shares (£100) :— No. of Teara for which Loan ia effected. Fortnightly Repayments. Total Amount per Annnm. Total Amount Repaid. £14 17 8 14 8 13 11 8 £31 4 22 19 4 19 1 4 IS 18 IS 3 4 £124 18 187 16 152 10 8 169 182 The repayments may be made monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly, in advance. Any sum of money may also be obtained on the Security of Freehold Property, on Fixed Mortgage, at a low rate of interest, for such a term of years as may be agreed upon. Interest (and principal, if desired) payable by quarterly instalments. INSTRUCTIONS TO BORROWERS. . Take up as many Shares as will amount in value to the requisite loan, as under — For £25 ... One Share. I For £75 ... Three Shares. I For £125... Five Shares. „ 50 ... Two „ „ 100 ... Four „ | „ 150... Six „ And so od, taking Ooo Share for every £25. . Pay the entrance and survey fees, and obtain a printed form from the office of the Society, 46 Collins-street East, Melbourne. . In filling up the form be particular in describing the land offered as security, and the buildings erected or to bo erected thereon. Then send the form to the office of the Society. . If the money is required for the purpose of Building, send a plan and specification along with the application form to the office. . On receiving notice that the loan is granted, place yourself at once in communication with such one of the Society's Solicitors as you may bo directed at the office of the Society. . Survey Fees, 5s. first Share, and 2s. 6d. for every succeeding Share ; but if only two Shares, charge to be 10s.; and if number of Shares exceed ten, the allowance above ten up to twenty-live shall be Is. per Share, and then cease. Foregoing; only applicable within five miles from Melbourne ; beyond that distance, such Survey Fees as Committee may think reasonable. TO DEPOSITORS. Sums of Money received on Fixed Deposit on the following terms : — Repayablo 3 months from date of deposit 3 per cent, per annum. » ,S *' " i " ,, 1- i, if -■• ••■ ■■• 9 „ „ The office is open daily for receiving and paying Deposits. All Cheques and Post Office Orders are payable to James Monbo, Secretary. Prospectuses, Rules, Annual Reports, and every information, can be obtained at the SOCIETY'S OFFICES, 46 COLLINS STREET EAST, MELBOURNE. JAMES MUNRO, Skretabt.


text:
Page:Mysteries of Melbourne Life.djvu/88

 ADVERTISEMENTS. v' ICTORIAJSTS well may be allowed To be not only pleased, but proud. Of the National Galle-ree. For Pictures rich, and also rare, Ancient and modern Statues there. In plenty you may see. But if on Pictures you are bent. There is a man who can present One you may set your heart on. This Picture, life-size, is a gem, "THE JOHN BULL TAVERN, ONE P.M.," The artist's name is Barton. THE CELEBRATED JOHN BULL TAVERKT, "Where none but the Choicest Viands are served, is in LITTLE COLLINS STREET WEST, A few doors from Elizabeth-street. WM. BARTON, Proprietor. ASTROLOGY AND CHIROMANCY. DORETBIEA 8CHULTZ, 184 SI»H.I3SrC3- STUEDST, Near Carlton Gardens, Opposite Model Schools. " Advice of the Creations to the Nature, and persons wishing to be happy should be married in their own planet or temperament" A person born in the north and a person born in the south will never agree. A Planet may be obtained on reasonable terms. Seventeen years established in Australia and in Europe for many years with the greatest success. ID IR.. 3MC Y 3E! . COLLINS STREET EAST. Cancer (without operation), Tumours, Swellings, Rheumatism, and Diseases generally arising from Impurity of the Blood. Diseases peculiar to Females and Children specially attended to. •" < v-' v. ■. .A At Home from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and in the Evenings; from 6 to 8.


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/98

90 eyes of a neglected wife, never goes from the wooded hill, and only at noon creeps from the near hedges. There is no bird to put a song in the throat of morning; only the crow’s voice speaks during the day. Perhaps there is the regular breathing hush of the scythe—even the fretful jar of the mowing machine. But next day, in the morning, all is still again. The lying corn is wet, and when you have bound it, and lift the heavy sheaf to make the stook, the tresses of oats wreathe round each other and droop mournfully.

As I worked with my friend through the still mornings we talked endlessly. I would give him the gist of what I knew of chemistry, and botany, and psychology. Day after day I told him what the professors had told me; of life, of sex and its origins; of Schopenhauer and William James. We had been friends for years, and he was accustomed to my talk. But this autumn fruited the first crop of intimacy between us. I talked a great deal of poetry to him, and of rudimentary metaphysics. He was very good stuff. He had hardly a single dogma, save that of pleasing himself. Religion was nothing to him. So he heard all I had to say with an open mind, and understood the drift of things very rapidly, and quickly made these ideas part of himself.

We tramped down to dinner with only the clinging warmth of the sunshine for a coat. In this still, enfolding weather a quiet companionship is very grateful. Autumn creeps through everything. The little damsons in the pudding taste of September, and are fragrant with memory. The voices of those at table are softer and more reminiscent than at haytime.

Afternoon is all warm and golden. Oat sheaves


text:
Page:Mysteries of Melbourne Life.djvu/89

 .-. DR. L. L. SMITH'S BESIDElsTOE ASD CONSULTING ROOMS ARE AT COLLINS STREET EAST, OPPOSITE THE MELBOURNE CLUB. (Late the Residence of the Governor, His Excellency Sir Charles Darling.) CONSULTING FEE BY LETTER, £1. N.B. — Medicines appropriately Packed and Forwarded to all parts of the Colonies. BY DR. L. L. SMITH. MEANS OF PROLONGING LIFE AND HOW TO GET FAT OR THIN. Both combined, IB. W. Post free, Is. 94 Ai*>, juet published, VoL IL HOUSEHOLD SKETCHES. IMPOTENCE & STERILITY, &c. fe 6JL Post free, 5«. BY DR. L. L. SMITH. MEDICAL HOUSEHOLD WORDS; or, Popular Treatises for Parlour and Bush Hut on the Diseases Prevalent in Australia. s. Gd. Post free, as. OBSTACLES TO MARRIAGE. «a.6d. Postfree.fei ' A fresh edition of this Utter is now in pre*.", and will be published shortly.


text:
Page:Mysteries of Melbourne Life.djvu/90

 B A. H R Y*S : TRICOPHEROUS PBESEBVIHO, BESTOBDIO, AHD BEAuTIFTIHG THE HAIB; Eradicating Scurf and Dandruff j H2H07ING AZ.L IMPTJEITISS FBOM THE SCALP; Preventing Baldness and Grey Hair. Will to a certainty restore weak and thin Hair, making it thick, soft, and glossy. TEE BEST HAIB COLOURING IN THE WORLD is Guaranteed not to contain any injurious or dangerous ingredients, and will colour the Hair or Whiskers any shade from Light Brown to Jet Black. IMPORTANT TO THE LADIES. Wrinkles Removed! Sunburn Removed I Freckles Removed! Tan Removed T Every Blemish Removed from .the Skin! • Sallow and Dark Skin, made Clear, Pure, and Wliite as Alabaster. Youth Restored I Ladies of 50 made to appear like J30, by a single application of the celebrated' PEARL CREAM. The most wonderful and innocent of all preparations for Beauti- fying the Face, Hands, Neck, and Arms. It floes not produce a chalky pallid white, hut gives to faded cheeks the Bich, Healthy Bloom of Youth. All Chemists, Perfumers, and Fancy Repositories.


text:
Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/149

 the least cast down about it, since the first hour I knew it. I am very impatient to get home and see how Minnie is. I didn't like leaving the darling all alone.

… Don't let anyone frighten you about my health; I think they none of them are frightened now; but, whether or no, I am resolved to take the most immense care; for I think it probable this will be required for a little time, and that it is very important that I should preserve both health and strength. … I enjoy Dulwich extremely; you know it is so nice to see a little country. I only go three days in the week now, because of fatigue and expense. … I have such lovely walks home past trees with rooks' nests, you remember them. Our home is in such exquisite order; for dear M. has the housekeeping and everything is as orderly and noiseless and comfortable as can be. I hope she won't find it too much for her... the rooms are very pretty and comfortable. For my part I greatly fear I'm growing idle, I never seem hard worked now, and I never seem to do needlework or anything. I take it however very quietly, and don't mean to exert myself just now unless I need. … Ruskin was so kind when he heard I had been ill. He wrote to tell me to write and let him know whether I ought not to stop working for some time....

February 7th.—We went to a Pre-Raph. Exhib., and saw the loveliest wood in Spring, full of harebells, a thorn tree casting a shadow over some of the flowers.


text:
Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/91

Rh rest in my armchair at home, and pore over my favourite books, as in days gone by for ever. The trees I had planted with my own hands, and their lovely growing day by day, were now hidden from mine eyes. The friends whom I have loved, and who have loved me—have I lost them for evermore?

Thinking thus, and with a thousand other despairing thoughts, whether wicked or not I do not know, I became aware that the battle was not yet over. The thought of Astoragus crossed my mind, and a prayer from my heart ascended to Heaven that he might not find me out, or sting me again. Renewed shouting, and a violent shaking of the ground, alarmed me terribly. All the demons in that pandemonium seemed to be let loose once more. I raised my head, and beheld the crowned kings and emperors flying from and after each other, some torn in pieces by their enemies, others by their own subjects. One of them, whom I knew only too well, came panting and rushing from the field. His face was deadly pale, and his eyes were starting out of his head with terror, for he was pursued by thousands of armed men whom he had slain in cold blood or in battle. As he came near, I saw that the unfortunate being, who had been literally covered with earthly glory, in addition to his mental anguish, had a fearful disease rankling at his heart. He fell down groaning bitterly on my breast; his enemies cut and thrust at him as they rushed past. Notwithstanding my agonies and his, I was cruel enough to say, 'Ha! old fellow, are you getting enough of it at last?'

I do not know whether it is right for us to go off into fits of moralizing on the subject of war. The Israelites of old were permitted to wage it against their enemies by their Holy and Divine Master, but we can well believe that their wars were waged against barbarous, unclean idolaters. Christ said He came not to bring peace on the earth but a


text:
Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/92

84 sword; and again, 'Put up again thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' How are these contradictory statements to be reconciled? I seek not of myself to penetrate or explain the hidden meaning of our Saviour's words, but I believe that unjust, aggressive war, is as contrary to His divine wish and command, as it is to commit secret murder or any other sin. Unjust war seems to me to be only worthy—if it is worthy even of them—of yahoos, of gorillas, of the evil spirits of the infernal and for ever cursed world. If the great men of the earth are not madmen, they should remember by whose hands they were made, and put away the accursed thing from them. My business, however, is not to moralize, but to tell my story.

Once more the earth shook: the brigades and squadrons and batteries swept over us as we lay helplessly on the ground; shouting dragoons, whiskered pandoors, fierce lancers, and artillery wheels, and masses of blaspheming infantry, trampled and crushed us into the gory clay; but at last—all in a moment—the darkness of death covered us with its friendly mantle.


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/99

Rh are lighter; they whisper to each other as they freely embrace. The long, stout stubble tinkles as the foot brushes over it; the scent of the straw is sweet. When the poor, bleached sheaves are lifted out of the hedge, a spray of nodding wild raspberries is disclosed, with belated berries ready to drop; among the damp grass lush blackberries may be discovered. Then one notices that the last bell hangs from the ragged spire of fox-glove. The talk is of people, an odd book; of one’s hopes—and the future; of Canada, where work is strenuous, but not life; where the plains are wide, and one is not lapped in a soft valley, like an apple that falls in a secluded orchard. The mist steals over the face of the warm afternoon. The tying-up is all finished, and it only remains to rear up the fallen bundles into shocks. The sun sinks into a golden glow in the west. The gold turns to red, the red darkens, like a fire burning low, the sun disappears behind the bank of milky mist, purple like the pale bloom on blue plums, and we put on our coats and go home.

In the evening, when the milking was finished, and all the things fed, then we went out to look at the snares. We wandered on across the stream and up the wild hillside. Our feet rattled through black patches of devil’s-bit scabius; we skirted a swim of thistle-down, which glistened when the moon touched it. We stumbled on through wet, coarse grass, over soft mole-hills and black rabbit-holes. The hills and woods cast shadows; the pools of mist in the valleys gathered the moonbeams in cold, shivery light.


text:
Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/93

is music, delicious music, in the air; it is not the blare of trumpets and trombones, nor the beating of war-like drums that I hear, but a soft, sweet kind of music, which whispers of temporary, if not eternal, peace. It is such music as we might imagine was played by Ariel among the shipwrecked mariners of The Tempest; it is now here, now there, now under my pillow, now rolling beneath the roof, now rising into loud strains, and now sinking into lower and gentler tones. I was about to open my eyes, perhaps in a world more fair and dazzling than that in which I was born; possibly in the kingdom of darkness where the glorious light of heaven and the sweet rays of the twinkling stars never shine. For a long time I dared not open them. What shall I do, I asked myself with apprehension, if they open upon scenes of happiness and love; or what if, on the contrary, I find myself still in the lost and ruined world, or even somewhere worse than that?

The music continued; a strange kind of music it was, like nothing that I had ever heard before. There was no harshness or grating in the strains: and yet the harmony which I had so often heard in our churches, homes, and concert-halls seemed to be lacking. It is impossible to


text: Artabanzanus/Chapter 6

title: Artabanzanus/Chapter 6


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/100

92 We came to an old farm that stood on the level brow of the hill. The woods swept away from it, leaving a great clearing of what was once cultivated land. The handsome chimneys of the house, silhouetted against a light sky, drew my admiration. I noticed that there was no light or glow in any window, though the house had only the width of one room, and though the night was only at eight o’clock. We looked at the long, impressive front. Several of the windows had been bricked in, giving a pitiful impression of blindness; the places where the plaster had fallen off the walls showed blacker in the shadow. We pushed open the gate, and as we walked down the path, weeds and dead plants brushed our ankles. We looked in at a window. The room was lighted also by a window from the other side, through which the moonlight streamed on to the flagged floor, dirty, littered with paper, and wisps of straw. The hearth lay in the light, with all its distress of grey ashes, and piled cinders of burnt paper, and a child’s headless doll, charred and pitiful. On the border-line of shadow lay a round fur cap—a game-keeper’s cap. I blamed the moonlight for entering the desolate room; the darkness alone was decent and reticent. I hated the little roses on the illuminated piece of wallpaper, I hated that fireside.

With farmer’s instinct George turned to the outhouse. The cow-yard startled me. It was a forest of the tallest nettles I have ever seen—nettles far taller than my six feet. The air was soddened with the dank scent of nettles. As I followed George along the obscure brick path, I felt my flesh creep. But the buildings, when we entered them, were in


text:
Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/152

 strongly about anything as to prevent my working and both times I think you would admit that I had sufficient cause. So neither feelings nor excitement do anyone very much harm.

Most sincere thanks for your letter. You won't forget the out-of-the-way ways that I can help you. I will be sure not to overwork myself; and it would be a great pleasure to me to help you more.

I am, Yours affectionately,

103, Milton Street, Dorset Square, March 6th, 1859.

… Ruskin has written me such a kind letter telling me to take as long a holiday as I like. … I am to do "such a difficult thing from Turner" at South Kensington soon. I was much puzzled, knowing that would prevent my beginning work till ten o'clock any day; so after much thought I meant to give up the College. I mentioned it to Miss Sterling, who seemed quite dismayed, said I must know they could not possibly supply my place; it was impossible; the whole flourishing or decay of the classes depended on whom they had in my place; my value could not be calculated in £. s. d., or in any number of mechanical performances. So after calculating that I could get at the worst thirty or thirty-three hours' work weekly, I resolved to remain. I had no idea Miss Sterling cared so much about it. … To-morrow we have a grand tea-meeting at the Young Women's; Lord Shaftesbury will be there. … I draw at the College


text:
Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/94

86 describe that music. The instruments seemed to be somewhat out of tune. It sounded like a machine band. If it was played by keys it was certainly played by the performers with taste and skill. I felt sure that voices of men or women accompanied the instruments. The tune was a plaintive one, and reminded me of the old favourite 'Believe me, if all these endearing young charms,' played with appropriate variations.

If the ineffable, cloudless glory should burst upon me, I mused, how could I ever bear it? Had I a thousand eyes they would not be sufficient to take it in. But I am not worthy of it, I could not look upon it and live: a poor creature of pitiable weakness; a helpless being of dust and ashes. Without supernatural help what human being could look upon it? I came slowly to my senses, and tried to collect a few scattered ideas. My eyes opened for a moment, and then closed again in another long period of partial insensibility; then they opened and closed as before. My mind was bereft of all power to realize where I was, and I seemed to be a drifting cloud, without either aim or control. The pains in all my limbs, in my chest, and in my head, were most intense. My breath came and went in short convulsive gasps, and I could not stir, for bandages were wound around me from my neck to my feet. The excruciating agony of bones cracking, and seeming to fly and then knitting together again; of nerves which had been thrown together in tangled bunches slowly unravelling themselves; of sinews which had been loosened and unstrung being pulled, and screwed into concert pitch of muscles that had been pounded into jelly being hardened and strengthened into vigour and elasticity once more, was terrible to bear. Were not my tortures yet over? I could endure them no longer, and groaned aloud.


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/101

Rh splendid condition; they had been restored within a small number of years; they were well-timbered, neat, and cosy. Here and there we saw feathers, bits of animal wreckage, even the remnants of a cat, which we hastily examined by the light of a match. As we entered the stable there was an ugly noise, and three great rats half rushed at us and threatened us with their vicious teeth. I shuddered, and hurried back, stumbling over a bucket, rotten with rust, and so filled with weeds that I thought it part of the jungle. There was a silence made horrible by the faint noises that rats and flying bats give out. The place was bare of any vestige of corn or straw or hay, only choked with a growth of abnormal weeds. When I found myself free in the orchard I could not stop shivering. There were no apples to be seen overhead between us and the clear sky. Either the birds had caused them to fall, when the rabbits had devoured them, or someone had gathered the crop.

“This,” said George bitterly, “is what the mill will come to.”

“After your time,” I said.

“My time—my time. I shall never have a time. And I shouldn’t be surprised if father’s time isn’t short—with rabbits and one thing and another. As it is, we depend on the milk-round, and on the carting which I do for the council. You can’t call it farming. We’re a miserable mixture of farmer, milkman, greengrocer, and carting contractor. It’s a shabby business.”

“You have to live,” I retorted.

“Yes—but it’s rotten. And father won’t move—and he won’t change his methods.”


text:
Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/95

Rh The music instantly ceased, and I opened my eyes wide. I was not in heaven, and could see no light of day. Despair, with gruesome face, darted into the centre of my heart. I was in a low vaulted room, which was dimly lit by a solitary lamp standing on a black table which was placed beside my bed. An open door at the foot of the bed communicated with a larger and better lit apartment, and while I gazed into it with intense curiosity, I heard an extraordinary noise for which I could not possibly account. It was like the scuffling of a number of cats, or dogs, or other creatures, scurrying out in haste at a narrow doorway. While my eyes were thus fixed, I was startled by an apparition, one of the very last I expected to see in that place. A man, or an angel in disguise perhaps, strangely and grotesquely dressed it is true, but middle aged, fresh coloured, and handsome in countenance, with a benevolent smile of interest and encouragement, in figure straight and perfect as a guardsman, in appearance portly and dignified, stood there gazing upon me. He was dressed in an old-fashioned suit of clothes of various colours—old-fashioned I may well say, as no living person has ever seen the fashion, except, perhaps, at a fancy dress ball. He wore a once elegant Vandyke costume, toned down to the style of Charles the Second's time, much faded and the worse for wear, and in many places stained with blood. A buff jerkin, with red sleeves and shoulder bands, a short doublet of green satin open in front where, down to his waistband, the remains of a rich shirt could be seen, petticoat breeches adorned with ribbons down the sides, lace collar and ruffles at his wrists; a cloak hanging at his left shoulder, and a Spanish rapier by his side, made up a costume which I contemplated with unspeakable pleasure, from the contrast between it and that worn by some of the fiends I had recently seen. Instead of a high-crowned hat he wore a strange-looking yellow


text: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Hermagoras 3.


text:
Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/96

88 smoking cap. His breeches, being tied at the knees, exhibited a very handsome pair of legs in dark silk or velvet stockings. Altogether I found that my heart was warming to him before he spoke a word.

He advanced to my bedside, bent over me quietly and in perfect silence, and gazed long and earnestly into my face. My eyes closed; oh the joy, the rapture of having a fellow creature, a being of flesh and blood, capable of feelings of consideration, of pity, near me again! I felt him feeling my pulse, and placing his hand lightly on my heart, then he felt my cheeks, and I think he held some kind of polished metal over my nose and lips. Without the slightest warning I saluted him with a loud and violent sneeze. It racked me through and through like an electric shock.

'Good, that's a capital sign,' said the stranger, 'but it's far too severe; we must stop that, but you're getting on splendidly; it's miraculous!' He spoke in a soft and, pleasing voice, and rubbed my nose with some kind of ointment which put an end to all inclination to sneeze.

'Do not speak,' he continued, 'you are not strong enough; you must be silent, and keep perfectly quiet for another week, and then you will be as right as ever; yes, stronger than you were before, and better able to fight your enemies, and write your adventures in a dozen volumes for the everlasting wonder, and incredible delight, of posterity. At present you must not even think: I will give you sedatives, and tonics, and febrifuges, and plenty of doses of my famous medicines, taxacorum squeezetalis and t. puffinalis, to pull you down and build you up again; and you will not have to pay through the nose, as you must whenever an apothecary above ground catches you by that useful organ. Drink some more of this—it is bracing you up in grand style, and giving new life to your blood.' He gently raised my head, and held a crystal cup to my lips; the liquor it


text:
Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/97

Rh contained tasted like delicious tea: I instantaneously felt its invigorating qualities.

'Now,' said the doctor, for such I concluded him to be, 'I must leave you; duty must be done. Keep yourself very quiet. I am overwhelmed with work just now—and such work!—after that cursed battle. I never saw the like of it before; it must have been fought in your honour. A million of men mowing each other down like hay! Old Arty is growing worse. But I must not excite you with my childish prattle. I will come again soon, and when you are well enough we will have a long chat together. I am a rare fellow to talk. I bother Old Arty himself out of his wits when he comes here, which is not very often. He says he can stand everything but the clack of my infernal tongue. But to whom am I talking? I believe I was born to be a magpie. No more at present—no more, or your life won't be worth a farthing candle; no fretting or fuming, or flying through the air on fiery dragons; put away that sort of thing altogether. You'll be stronger when I come back; bye-bye for the present.

This extraordinary chatterbox withdrew accordingly into the adjoining room, and I immediately heard another door grating on its hinges, and the air was filled with horrid cries of agony and despair, and the yells of people in the last extremities of torture and anguish. The door was mercifully shut again, but did that mercy reach the sufferers themselves? This was one of the certain bitter consequences of war—how many others there are it is impossible to say.

The chamber in which I found myself was a small dark room, a single lamp, as I have said, burning on a small table beside me. Being obliged to lie in an immovable position I could not see anything more in the room, and could do nothing but think and dream, in spite of the good doctor's injunctions to the contrary. Ah! what a relief


text: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Hermagoras 2.


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/102

94 “Well—what about you?”

“Me! What should I change for?—I’m comfortable at home. As for my future, it can look after itself, so long as nobody depends on me.”

“Laissez faire,” said I, smiling.

“This is no laissez faire,” he replied, glancing round, “this is pulling the nipple out of your lips, and letting the milk run away sour. Look there!”

Through the thin veil of moonlit mist that slid over the hillside we could see an army of rabbits bunched up, or hopping a few paces forward, feeding.

We set off at a swinging pace down the hill, scattering the hosts. As we approached the fence that bounded the Mill fields, he exclaimed, “Hullo!”—and hurried forward. I followed him, and observed the dark figure of a man rise from the hedge. It was a game-keeper. He pretended to be examining his gun. As we came up he greeted us with a calm “Good-evenin’!”

George replied by investigating the little gap in the hedge.

“I’ll trouble you for that snare,” he said.

“Will yer?” answered Annable, a broad, burly, black-faced fellow. “An’ I should like ter know what you’re doin’ on th’ wrong side th’ ’edge?”

“You can see what we’re doing—hand over my snare—and the rabbit,” said George angrily.

“What rabbit?” said Annable, turning sarcastically to me.

“You know well enough—an’ you can hand it over—or——” George replied.


text:
Come, Send Round The Wine

Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief To simpleton sages, and reasoning fools; This moment's a flower too fair and brief, To be wither'd and stain'd by the dust of the schools. Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue, But while they are fill'd from the same bright bowl, The fool that would quarrel for difference of hue Deserves not the comfort they shed o'er the soul.

Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree? Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried, If he kneel not before the same altar with me? From the heretic girl of my soul should I fly To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss? No, perish the hearts, and the laws that try Truth, valour, or love, by a standard like this!

title: Come, Send Round The Wine


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/103

Rh “Or what? Spit it out! The sound won’t kill me”—the man grinned with contempt.

“Hand over here!” said George, stepping up to the man in a rage.

“Now don’t!” said the keeper, standing stock still, and looking unmovedly at the proximity of George:

“You’d better get off home—both you an’ ’im. You’ll get neither snare nor rabbit—see!”

“We will see!” said George, and he made a sudden move to get hold of the man’s coat. Instantly he went staggering back with a heavy blow under the left ear.

“Damn brute!” I ejaculated, bruising my knuckles against the fellow’s jaw. Then I too found myself sitting dazedly on the grass, watching the great skirts of his velveteens flinging round him as if he had been a demon, as he strode away. I got up, pressing my chest where I had been struck. George was lying in the hedge-bottom. I turned him over, and rubbed his temples, and shook the drenched grass on his face. He opened his eyes, and looked at me, dazed. Then he drew his breath quickly, and put his hand to his head.

“He—he nearly stunned me,” he said.

“The devil!” I answered.

“I wasn’t ready.”

“No.”

“Did he knock me down?”

“Ay—me too.”

He was silent for some time, sitting limply. Then he pressed his hand against the back of his head, saying, “My head does sing!” He tried to get up, but


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/104

96 failed. “Good God!—being knocked into this state by a damned keeper!”

“Come on,” I said, “let’s see if we can’t get indoors.”

“No!” he said quickly, “we needn’t tell them—don’t let them know.”

I sat thinking of the pain in my own chest, and wishing I could remember hearing Annable’s jaw smash, and wishing that my knuckles were more bruised than they were—though that was bad enough. I got up, and helped George to rise. He swayed, almost pulling me over. But in a while he could walk unevenly.

“Am I,” he said, “covered with clay and stuff?”

“Not much,” I replied, troubled by the shame and confusion with which he spoke.

“Get it off,” he said, standing still to be cleaned.

I did my best. Then we walked about the fields for a time, gloomy, silent, and sore.

Suddenly, as we went by the pond-side, we were startled by great, swishing black shadows that swept just above our heads. The swans were flying up for shelter, now that a cold wind had begun to fret Nethermore. They swung down on to the glassy mill-pond, shaking the moonlight in flecks across the deep shadows; the night rang with the clacking of their wings on the water; the stillness and calm were broken; the moonlight was furrowed and scattered, and broken. The swans, as they sailed into shadow, were dim, haunting spectres; the wind found us shivering.

“Don’t—you won’t say anything?” he asked as I was leaving him.


text: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Hermagoras 1.


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/105

Rh “No.”

“Nothing at all—not to anybody?”

“No.”

“Good-night.”

About the end of September, our countryside was alarmed by the harrying of sheep by strange dogs. One morning, the squire, going the round of his fields as was his custom, to his grief and horror found two of his sheep torn and dead in the hedge-bottom, and the rest huddled in a corner swaying about in terror, smeared with blood. The squire did not recover his spirits for days.

There was a report of two grey wolvish dogs. The squire’s keeper had heard yelping in the fields of Dr. Collins, of the Abbey, about dawn. Three sheep lay soaked in blood when the labourer went to tend the flocks.

Then the farmers took alarm. Lord, of the White House farm, intended to put his sheep in pen, with his dogs in charge. It was Saturday, however, and the lads ran off to the little travelling theatre that had halted at Westwold. While they sat open-mouthed in the theatre, gloriously nicknamed the “Blood-Tub,” watching heroes die with much writhing, and heaving, and struggling up to say a word, and collapsing without having said it, six of their silly sheep were slaughtered in the field. At every house it was enquired of the dog; nowhere had one been loose.

Mr. Saxton had some thirty sheep on the Common. George determined that the easiest thing was


text:
Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/106

98 for him to sleep out with them. He built a shelter of hurdles interlaced with brushwood, and in the sunny afternoon we collected piles of bracken, browning to the ruddy winter-brown now. He slept there for a week, but that week aged his mother like a year. She was out in the cold morning twilight watching, with her apron over her head, for his approach. She did not rest with the thought of him out on the Common.

Therefore, on Saturday night he brought down his rugs, and took up Gyp to watch in his stead. For some time we sat looking at the stars over the dark hills. Now and then a sheep coughed, or a rabbit rustled beneath the brambles, and Gyp whined. The mist crept over the gorse-bushes, and the webs on the brambles were white;—the devil throws his net over the blackberries as soon as September’s back is turned, they say.

“I saw two fellows go by with bags and nets,” said George, as we sat looking out of his little shelter.

“Poachers,” said I. “Did you speak to them?”

“No—they didn’t see me. I was dropping asleep when a rabbit rushed under the blanket, all of a shiver, and a whippet dog after it. I gave the whippet a punch in the neck, and he yelped off. The rabbit stopped with me quite a long time—then it went.”

“How did you feel?”

“I didn’t care. I don’t care much what happens just now. Father could get along without me, and mother has the children. I think I shall emigrate.”

“Why didn’t you before?”

“Oh, I don’t know. There are a lot of little