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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 TOP SECRET – Sensitive III. A. 3.

 * 1.

 * a.

Between mid-June and the end of the Conference on 21 July, U.S. diplomacy worked at unifying the Western alliance behind a Southeast Asia defense pact and at coalescing a united Western diplomatic front at Geneva so as to obtain the best possible settlement. In this process, the Western alliance gradually cohered. The result was that Anglo–French cooperation was gained not only for the concept of a regional security pact, but also for a firm negotiating position vis-à-vis the communists. Additionally, although the U.S. private position was, by late June, to abide by a settlement which partitioned Vietnam and provided for "the ultimate reunification of Vietnam by peaceful means" (under the U.S.–U.K. seven-point memorandum of 29 June, our public posture at the Conference left unclear to the communists just what terms would in fact be acceptable to us. For our part, united action was a dead issue by mid-June; but the communist negotiators could not have known this. As a result, they may well have been influenced toward a settlement by the belief that further prolongation of talks would only reinforce Western unity, perhaps coalesce a united response in Indochina previously unobtainable by the U.S., and very likely bring the three Indochinese states into the proposed American security treaty.

 * b.

Both the French and the British negotiators made excellent use of America's ambivalent status. The Chief French delegate, Jean Chauvel, told a Russian delegate, Kuznetsov, for instance, that France's proposed division of Vietnam at the 18th parallel would probably be more acceptable to the other conferees than the unreasonable Viet Minh demand for the 13th parallel. Chauvel added that a settlement along the French line would thereby avert the risk of an internationalization of the conflict, Eden also used the implied threat of U.S. involvement.

During late May, he warned Chou "again" of the dangers inherent in the Indochina situation, which could lead to unpredictable and serious results. When Chou said he was counting on Britain to prevent this from happening, the Foreign Secretary replied Chou was mistaken, since Britain would stand by the U.S. in a showdown. And Bidault and Smith, in mid-June, agreed that in view of genuine Sino-Soviet desire to keep the Conference going, Chinese concern' over U.S. bases in Laos and Cambodia should not be dispelled,

 * c.

The British seem to have played a particularly vital role in exploiting ambiguous American intentions for diplomatic gain. At the Conference, Eden was in close contact with Molotov and Chou, and evidently Rh

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316 magazines, N. P. Willis, and there was no more popular American writer, pledged himself for months ahead. To Philadelphia, Lowell came from Boston to get work. Poe deserted Richmond and the South for Philadelphia, where he contributed to Philadelphia magazines, edited them, planned new ones, while Philadelphia waited until he was well out of the world to know that he ever had lived there. Altogether, when I came upon the scene, Philadelphia had had a highly creditable literary past, and was having a highly creditable literary present, and, in pursuance of its invariable policy, was making no fuss about it.

III

As I look back, the three most conspicuous figures of this literary present were Charles Godfrey Leland, George Boker and Walt Whitman. All three were past middle age, they had done most of their important work, they had gained an international reputation. But that of course made no difference to Philadelphia. I doubt if it had heard of George Boker as a man of letters, though it knew him politically and also socially, as he had not lost his interest in society and the Philadelphia Club. My Uncle, having no use for society in Philadelphia and saying so with his accustomed vigour, and not having busied himself with politics for many years, was ignored unreservedly. Walt Whitman, who probably would not have been considered eligible for the Assembly and the Dancing Class

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Rh had he condescended to know of their existence, did not exist socially, and it is a question if he would have collected round him his ardent worshippers from Philadelphia had he not had the advantage of having been born somewhere else. If I am not mistaken, this worship had not begun in my time, when he was more apt to receive a visitor from London or Boston than from Philadelphia.

The fact that it was my good fortune to know these three men contributed considerably to my new and pleasant feeling of self-importance. When I wrote the life of my Uncle a few years ago, I had much to say of him and my relations with him at this period, and I do not want to repeat myself. But I can no more leave him out of my recollections of literary Philadelphia than out of my personal reminiscences. When he entered so intimately into my life he was nearer sixty than fifty, but he had lost nothing of his vigour nor of his physical beauty—tall, large, long-bearded, a fine profile, the eyes of the seer. He was fastidious in dress, with a leaning to light greys and browns, and a weakness for canes which he preferred thin and elegant. I remember his favourite was black and had an altogether unfashionable silver, ruby-eyed dragon for handle. On occasions to which it was appropriate, he wore a silk hat; on others, more informal, he exchanged it for a large soft felt—a modified cowboy hat—which suited him better, though he would not have forgiven me had I had the courage to say so to his face, his respect for the


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320, always great, having been intensified during his long residence in England. It seems superfluous to add that he could not pass unnoticed in Philadelphia streets, which did not run to cowboy hats or dragon-handled canes or any deviations from the approved Philadelphia dress. Nor did his fancy for peering into shop windows make him less conspicuous, and as his daily walk was hardly complete if it did not lead to his buying something in the shop, were it only a five-cent bit of modern blue-and-white Japanese china, this meant that before his purchase was handed over to me, as it usually was, his pleasure being not in the possession but in the buying, he had parcels to carry, a shocking breach of good manners in Philadelphia. In his company therefore I became a conspicuous figure myself, and I was often his companion in the streets; but to this I had no objection, having been inconspicuous far too long for my taste.

He had written his Breitmann Ballads years before when the verse of no other American of note—unless it was Longfellow's and Whittier's and Lowell's in the Biglow Papers—had had so wide a circulation. He had also published one or two of his Gypsy books, never surpassed except by Borrow. And he was engaged in endless new tasks—more Gypsy papers, Art in the Schools, Indian Legends, Comic Ballads, Essays on Education, and I did not mind what since my excitement was in being admitted for the first time into the companionship of a man who


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Rh himself to writing, to whom writing was business, who sat down at his desk after breakfast and wrote as my Father after breakfast went down to his office and bought and sold stocks, who never stopped except for his daily walk, who got back to work if there was a free hour before dinner and who, after dinner, read until he went to bed. Moreover, he had brought with him the aroma, as it were, of the literary life in London. He had met many of the people who, because they had written books, were my heroes. Here would have been literature enough to transfigure Philadelphia had I known no other writers.

IV

But, through him, I did know others. First of all, George Boker with whom, however, I could not pretend to friendship or more than the barest acquaintance. In the streets he was as noticeable a figure as my Uncle, though given neither to cowboy hats and dragon-handled canes nor to peering into shop windows and carrying parcels. Like my Uncle, he was taller than the average man, and handsomer, his white hair and white military moustache giving him a more distinguished air, I fancy, in his old age than was his in his youth. His smile was of the kindliest, the characteristic I remember best. He had returned from his appointments as Minister to Russia and Turkey and had given up active political and diplomatic life. He had written most of his poems, if not all,


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Rh and gold. From above the huge capital of each rises a beautiful arch, which seems so light and airy, as to make it impossible to believe that it is built of solid stone, and weighs hundreds on hundreds of tons. The grand dome, which without is covered with beautiful glazed tiles of different colors, laid in mosaic, is painted within in fresco, in the most florid but highly artistic style. A narrow gallery of bronze metal richly gilded, runs around the entire building, on a level with the capitals of the pillars which support the roof. Under the great dome is the grand organ, and arranged in a semi-circle behind the choir, the twenty-four seats for the Bishop and Canons. The choir is as superb as gilding and carving can make it.

A few years since, this Cathedral was struck by lightning, and two of the organists were killed. In a vault below the pavement of the Cathedral, the dead Bishops and Priests have been accumulating for centuries. Under the great dome, in front of the choir, they are now erecting a magnificent altar, some thirty feet in height, of white marble and metal, gilded and burnished, which was imported from Rome at a cost of fifty-thousand dollars, and hauled—Heaven knows how—over the terrible, and, as we found them, almost impassable roads, all the way from Vera Cruz to Guadalajara. Several of the blocks are immensely heavy, one I should judge, weighing from ten to twenty tons, and the task of transporting them must have been, indeed, herculean.

Around the walls hang pictures of great age; and in one of the rooms back of the altar we saw a collection of life-sized statues of saints, apostles, and martyrs, done in wood, and covered with some kind of flesh


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120 colored lacquer work, by native artists. Physical torture, mental suffering, unmurmuring and glad obedience to the behests of an all-powerful faith, or the beatific delight of the dying martyr, beamed on the face of each. A more distorted, frightful and painful collection to look at was never seen together. The skill of the artists in depicting physical and mental suffering, with such materials, is beyond praise for its perfection.

On either side of the altar, next to the wall, are old, plain, square, wooden boxes, each about six feet in length, covered with red cloth. In these two boxes, are enclosed the mummified remains of the first two bishops of Guadalajara. One of them has been lying there for three hundred years, and the other some forty years less. Both are said to be in a good state of preservation. Above the coffins, on the wall, hang the broad brimmed hats worn by these worthy men in their lives, and we were gravely informed by our guide, that when the coffins are opened for any reason, the hats will immediately swing from side to side of their own volition, as if doing reverence to the holy dust below. We did not see the coffins opened.

But the charitable institutions and schools of Guadalajara claimed more of our time and attention, and are worthy of mention, even before the grand cathedral, which is one of its especial wonders.

The great hospital of San Miguel de Belan, generally known as "the Belan," is near the center of the city, and encloses within its walls about eight acres of land. It was founded, as the inscription over the inner gateway shows, in 1787, by Bishop Alcalde, whose first name I do not remember, and with whom, I presume,


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324 the Francesca da Rimini which Lawrence Barrett was shortly afterwards to put on the stage, and he impressed me as a man who had had his fill of life and work and adventure and was content to settle down to the comforts of Philadelphia. He and my Uncle, who had been friends from boyhood or babyhood, spent every Sunday afternoon together. My Uncle had large spacious rooms on the grund floor of a house in South Broad Street where the Philadelphia Art Club now is, and there George Boker came Sunday after Sunday and there, if I dropped in, I saw him. I had the discretion never to stay long, for I realized that their intimate free talk was valued too much by both for them to care to have it interrupted. I can remember nothing he ever said—I have an idea he was a man who did not talk a great deal, while my Uncle did; my memory is of his kindly smile and my sense that here was one of the literary friendships I had read of in books. So, I thought, might Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith have met and talked, or Lamb and Coleridge, and Broad Street seemed tinged with the romance that I took for granted coloured the Temple in London and Gough Square.

V

Through my Uncle I also met Walt Whitman, and he impressed me still more with the romance of literature. He was so unexpected in Philadelphia, for which I claim him in his last years, Camden being little more than a suburb, whatever Camden itself may think. I could


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Rh the people of the United States of the present day had no personal acquaintance. Its revenues were once immense, they say one million dollars per annum; but each succeeding revolution has impoverished it, and six or seven years ago, the late Bishop Portugal found it almost wholly in ruins and without funds to support patients. His office was worth a large sum per annum, and he had a large private property. He set himself earnestly to work to rebuild and endow this great hospital, and lived to see it once more in the full tide of prosperity, after having devoted his entire fortune and all the voluntary contributions he could secure to the institution.

The amount expended in building and repairing, and the property bestowed upon the institution, from the rents of which it is now sustained, was estimated, all told, at six million dollars. The first thing a revolutionist did in past times, was to enlist all the prisoners in the Jails and State-Prisons, then seize the moneys in the custom-houses, mints, and charitable institutions, then force into his ranks all the able-bodied men in the community, and levy prestimos on the merchants and wealthy men In this manner, society has regained from time to time all the thieves, robbers, and vagabonds which had been lost to it through the criminal laws, and the public funds and charitable institutions have suffered in proportion. The Liberal Government, during the late war, was compelled much against its will, but from sheer necessity, to use a million dollars of the property of the Belan Hospital; what amount the French and Austrians got I am not informed. The hospital now has about five hundred thousand dollars worth of property, from which it receives twenty


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122 dollars in rents, all of which it expends upon its patients, and through a commission of citizens it is most admirably administered.

The Sisters of charity attend upon the patients, but do not control the management of the institution. The number of patients now in the hospital is three hundred, and this is about the average in seasons of peace, but at times during the last war, it was nearly trebled. Bishop Portugal died poor, but left behind him in the hospital, a monument which will cause his name to be honored and revered for centuries.

The building is admirably constructed for the purpose. It is but one story in height, and there are, of course, no stairs to climb up and down. Then the rooms are twenty-five feet from floor to ceiling, insuring perfect ventilation, and all of immense size. The walls, of brick or adobe, are very thick, and the thick roof, with red tiles above, keeps out effectually the heat of the sun, so that there is no very perceptible change in the temperature in summer or winter, and no artificial heating is necessary. No dirt, no noise, no blinding light, no musquitoes, flies, or vermin, are there.

Entering the portal, near the center of the building, the visitor finds himself in a gallery, from which radiate, in fan form, six wards of immense length, three on either side. These wards are designated by the inscriptions over the doors, "God the Father," "God the Son," and "God the Holy Ghost," on one side, and on the other, "St. Vincent de Paul," "The Sacred Heart of Jesus," and "St. John of God." The patients are allowed to see their friends as often as they desire, and appear to be well waited upon and cared for. The kitchen, dispensary, bath-house, &c., all appear to be remarkably well-arranged and supplied.


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Rh Passing one of the large rooms I noticed the sign "Operating Room" over the door, and looking in through the open grating, saw a party of surgeons and students busily engaged in dissecting a corpse, so thoroughly occupied in fact that they paid no attention to our presence. This part of the work was carried on much more openly than with us, and seemed to be regarded quite as a matter of course by all present.

Grander in proportions and conception than even the Belan Hospital, is the great Hospicio de Guadalajara, the equal of which cannot be found on the American Continent. This was founded a century ago by Bishop Juan Cruz Ruis Cabanais, a man of great wealth and piety, who endowed it magnificently. His full length portrait, in which he is represented standing, in full Canonicals, before a table, on which rests a diagram of, the complete structure, just as we see it to-day, and holding in his hands the purse containing the endowment of the institution, hangs in the chapel of the establishment now. What it cost to erect a structure covering six or eight acres of ground, with walls from three to eight feet in thickness, inclosing no less than twenty-two court-yards, each surrounded by magnificent corridors or portals, and furnish it throughout, I cannot tell, but it must have been millions of dollars, even in a country where labor costs next to nothing.

This establishment was greatly run down a few years ago, but through the efforts of the late Señor Matute, and other patriotic and public-spirited citizens, it has been regenerated, and now holds within its walls sixteen-hundred human beings, from the foundling just brought in from the street, to the young woman or man ready to go forth into the world as a teacher, artizan,


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Rh almost have imagined that it was for the humour of the thing he came to settle where his very appearance was an offence to the proprieties. George Boker was scrupulously correct. My Uncle's hat and dragon-handled cane only seemed to emphasize his inborn Philadelphia shrinking from eccentricity. But Walt Whitman, from top to toe, proclaimed the man who did not bother to think of the conventions, much less respect them. You saw it in his long white hair and long white beard, in his loose light grey clothes, in the soft white shirt unlaundered and open at the neck, in the tall, formless grey hat like no hat ever worn in Philadelphia. To have been stopped by him on Chestnut Street—a street he loved—would have filled me with confusion and shame in the days before literature had become my shop. But once literature blocked my horizon, to be stopped by him lifted me up to the seventh heaven. If people turned to look, and Philadelphians never grew quite accustomed to his presence, my pleasure was the greater. I took it for a visible sign that I was known, recognized, and accepted in the literary world. And what a triumph in streets where, of old, life had appalled me by its emptiness of incident!

In one way or another I saw a good deal of Walt Whitman, but most frequently by the chance which increased the picturesqueness of the meeting. I called on him in the Camden house described many times by many people: in my memory, a little house, the room where I was received simple and bare, the one ornament as


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124 house-servant, husband or wife. It is superintended by the Sisters of Charity, of whom there are some twenty in the establishment, and managed with an amount of economy and skill wonderful to witness. In its sixteen different departments it is at once, a foundling hospital, reform school, juvenile school, orphan asylum, asylum for the aged and indigent, boy's and girl's high school, school of arts, workshop, college and hospital.

In one department we saw thirty foundlings, two of which had just been brought in, all white, and most of them presenting an effeminate delicacy of feature, indicating "blue blood." The Indians, and people of part Indian blood, do not throw their children into the streets, to be eaten by dogs and hogs, whether born in or out of lawful wedlock. They are neatly dressed, nursed by Indian women, and well cared for. In another ward were one hundred and five boys, arrested by the police, as vagabonds on the streets, and sent here to be reformed. They were drilling as soldiers when we came in. The City pays six and one quarter cents each, per day, for the support of these boys, and they all have to learn useful trades before leaving the institution. I noticed among the children many who had lost one or both eyes, and was told that in the Indian villages it is not uncommon for the parents to thus mutilate their children in infancy, to fit them for begging, or to enable them to avoid military duty.

In another ward we saw the old women, some of them from eighty to one hundred years of age, and girls of weak intellect, sitting in the sun and doing some little plain sewing or knitting, and in an adjoining room a number of blind girls busily engaged in grinding half-hulled corn, with the metate into tortillas, a sweet


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Rh smile on their faces indicating their knowledge of our presence. In another, boys were at work making shoes, tailoring, carpentering, and setting type in a regular printing office, and printing with one of Hoe's Washington presses, just such as I "rolled" upon twenty-four years ago, in a country printing office in the then "Far West." In another, girls were sewing, embroidering in silk and bullion, making lace, knitting, etc. In another, young ladies of the first families, who reside with their parents, were learning painting and the highest styles of embroidery.

In another ward, two hundred children, between two and five years of age, one hundred' boys and one hundred girls, belonging to parents too poor even to dress them, were being taught orally, as at the school of San Felipe. All the cloth for the clothing of the pupils, is made within its walls, and all the clothing, and boots and shoes required, are made up by the boys and girls.

The kitchen, as large as an ordinary school-house with us, is floored with glazed tiles of beautiful pattern, and the old Spanish ranges have recently been replaced by English iron ranges, which cost twenty-four hundred


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126 dollars, but save fifty dollars per month on the charcoal bill, and are considered a good investment. Soup, meat, and beans are cooked here for sixteen hundred persons at once, and they are now erecting an enormous kitchen in which the entire cooking for the State-Prison, containing from seven hundred to one thousand prisoners, is to be done. It now costs the State five cents per day, to board the State prisoners, and the Sisters expect to do it better, and make a profit on that figure, for the benefit of the Hospicio.

The Chapel is really a grand Church, magnificently decorated with paintings, with a great dome, beautifully frescoed. The founder gave forty blocks of buildings in Guadalajara, all under rent, as an endowment for this establishment; but most of the property is now gone. It costs only sixty thousand dollars per annum to support the Hospicio and Belan Hospital together and their resources being but forty-four thousand dollars, the State and City pay the rest. We spent four hours wandering through this great establishment, and, after partaking of a collation, listened to a brass band of thirty pieces, played by boys instructed in the place, and operatic music by the young ladies, and then left because night had come and we could wait no longer.

The schools of Guadalajara, new as they are—some of them but a year or two established—astonished us more than anything else we saw in this ancient City. The municipality of Guadalajara now supports eighteen primary day schools, nine for girls, and nine for boys, free to all, and five evening schools, beside contributing to the support of several more advanced schools, accommodating in all seven thousand pupils, and all at an


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326 there as Walt Whitman himself in Philadelphia, for it was an old portrait, dark and dingy, of an ancestor; and I wondered if an ancestor so ancient as to grow dark and dingy in a frame did not make it easier to play the democrat and call every man comrade—or Camerado, I should say, as Walt Whitman said, with his curious fondness for foreign words and sounds. But though I saw him at home, he is more associated in my memory with the ferry-boat for Camden when my Uncle and I were on our way to the Gypsy's camping place near the reservoir; and with the corner of Front and Market and the boot-black's big chair by the Italian's candy and fruit stand where he loved to sit, and where I loved to see him, though, Philadelphian at heart, I trembled for his audacity; and with the Market Street horse-car, where he was already settled in his corner before it started and where the driver and the conductor, passing through, nodded to him and called him "Walt," and where he was as happy as the modern poet in his sixty-horse-power car. He was happiest when sitting out in front with the driver, and I have rarely been as proud as the afternoon he gave up that privileged seat to stay with my Uncle and myself inside. His greeting was always charming. He would take a hand of each of us, hold the two in his for a minute or so beaming upon us, never saying very much. I remember his leading us once, with our hands still in his, from the fruitstand to the tobacconist's opposite to point out to my


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Rh expense, as I was informed by Señor Juan Ignacio Matute, a member of the Municipal Council, whose father may be called the father of the Common School system of Jalisco, of only twenty-five thousand dollars per annum.

Then, the State provides two High Schools, or "lycees," one for boys and one for girls, which are free to all who are unable to pay ten dollars per month for board and tuition—no scholar who can pass the examination can be refused, however humble or poor—where the youth are taught all the higher branches of mathematics, the languages, vocal and instrumental music, and many arts by which they can gain an honest livelihood; a school of Arts, in which four hundred boys are taught all the useful arts and trades, such as tailoring, saddlery, blacksmithing, boot-making, carpentering, etc., etc., and an Institute or college of higher grade, for the instruction of boys intended for the learned professions. In addition to this, the State contributes a comparatively liberal sum towards the support of the Hospicio and other institutions of learning.

We first visited the Girl's High School. This is the school provided by the State of Jalisco for graduates of her Grammar schools. It is situated in the old Convent of San Diego, which was closed and confiscated to the Nation by order of President Juarez, and is now wholly devoted to the purposes of free education. The building, like nearly all similar structures here, surrounds an entire square, and incloses a large court-yard filled with orange-trees and tropical flowers. It is two stories in height, and the rooms are all of great size, light, clean, and well ventilated. When the nuns were turned forth, the Government gave the use of the


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128 to the State of Jalisco, for educational purposes. We found here two hundred and thirty girls from the age of twelve to twenty years, all bright, intelligent and happy looking. Those able to do so pay ten dollars per month, or one hundred and twenty dollars per year, and those who are not, (they comprise a majority of the pupils) pay nothing. For this they receive instruction in all the studies usually pursued in the higher schools in the United States, vocal and instrumental music, object drawing, all the fine arts, embroidery, lace-making, and, better still, cooking, washing, ironing, and other household duties. They all board in the building—board being included in the ten dollars per month—and take turns in doing the work in each department, that all may know how to do such work well. Brighter and happier faces I never saw around me.

We visited all the departments, from kitchen to fine art gallery, and found that all of the teachers were native Mexicans, male and female, mostly young, and educated in the country. The pupils usually belong to the best Republican families of the State; but the highest and lowest, richest and poorest, fairest and darkest, are all admitted on the same terms of equality. When they graduate they are fitted for teachers in the public schools, or for housekeeping, or the various trades.

We saw in the embroidery room, lace-work and embroidery in silk, cotton and bullion of the most exquisite fineness and delicacy. Some of the linen handkerchiefs, worked with portraits of Lincoln, Juarez and Zarragosa, in black silk floss, were equal in delicacy and accuracy to the best steel engravings, and the copies of oil paintings in silk embroidery, were perfect


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Rh of the originals. In the Music Hall, the pupils gave us the opera of Ernani in as grand style as it is usually given by the regular opera companies of the United States, the part of Ernani being sung by a little Miss fourteen years of age, with a wonderfully powerful and highly cultivated voice.

On leaving this beautiful retreat, once the shade of darkness and superstition and bigotry, now so justly the pride and the hope of the State, Mr. Seward remarked, "Why, in Heaven's name, do people talk of 'Protectorate' for a country capable of such things as these."

Next, we visited the Boy's High School. This establishment, originally built by Bishop Parades, but now under civil control, contains nearly four hundred students, and will soon have five hundred. It is almost a counterpart of the girl's High School, the system of tuition, cost to those able to pay—board, &c., &c.—being the same. It is admirably conducted, and is as creditable to the town as the other. The professors teach gratuitously, or for very small salaries. One teacher of four classes gets but eighty dollars per month, and Señor Matute and others teach classes gratuitously. We saw a gymnasium, art gallery, considerable scientific apparatus, and other adjuncts of a first-class school of this grade, in the building. One great feature of this school is its library of thirty thousand volumes, mainly the spoils of the confiscated monasteries. This, in New York, Boston, or England would be an immense feature. There are thousands on thousands of volumes three centuries old and more, printed or illuminated by hand, and as perfect in their parchment coverings as on the day they issued from the press. Most of them


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130 are in Spanish, but there are many in French and some in English.

I saw a dictionary in Spanish and Aztec, printed in Mexico in 1571, and another, equally perfect, printed in Michoacan in 1559, long enough before we had printing offices in English America. There are many works printed years earlier in Spain and France. A large number of these books are in duplicate, and five thousand volumes of the most rare, carefully selected and exposed for sale in New York or Boston, would attract all the old book-fanciers on the Continent, and bring money enough to provide this school with what it most needs; viz: a large and complete modern library in Spanish, English and French. An antiquarian book-dealer might make a fortune, and benefit mankind, by coming to Guadalajara and purchasing such of these works as the authorities would be willing to sell.

The last institution of learning which we visited was the School of Useful Arts. This School is unique, and deserves more extended notice than I can give it. It is located in the old monastery of San Augustine, which, like the other establishments of the kind, now belongs to the Federal Government. We found four hundred boys, from eight to eighteen years of age, learning every trade from shoemaking to blacksmithing, carpentering, weaving, tailoring, etc., etc. There is a great desire to enter this school among the youth of Jalisco, and if there were accommodations and funds provided for them, there would be one thousand students instead of four hundred. The boys are first taught to read, write and keep accounts, and then go into the workshops.

All the clothing and boots and shoes worn in the establishment are made by the boys, the cloth being


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Rh Uncle the wooden figure of an Indian at the door, for which he professed a great admiration as an example of the art of the people before they were trained in the Minor Arts.

These chance meetings were always the best, and he told us that he thought them so, that he loved his accidental meetings with friends—there were many he prized among his most valued reminiscences. And I remember his story of Longfellow having gone over to Camden purposely to call on him, and not finding him at home, and their running into each other on the ferry-boat to Market Street, and Longfellow saying that he had come from the house deeply disappointed, regretting the long quiet talk he had hoped for, but deciding that perhaps the strange chance of the meeting on the water was better. My Uncle, had he been hurrying to catch a train, would still have managed to talk philosophy and art education. But I remember Walt Whitman also saying that the ferry and the corner of Market Street and the Market Street car were hardly places for abstract discussion, though the few things said there were the less easily forgotten for being snatched joyfully by the way.

It was one day in the Market Street car that he and my Uncle had the talk which left with me the profoundest impression. As a rule I was too engrossed in thinking what a great person I was, when in such company, to shine as a reporter. But on this occasion the subject was the


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330 School of Industrial Arts in which I was giving my Uncle the benefit of my incompetent assistance. He asked Walt Whitman to come and see it, telling him a little of its aims and methods. Whitman refused, amiably but positively. I cannot recall his exact words, but I gathered from them that he had no sympathy with schemes savouring of benevolence or reform, that he believed in leaving people to work out their own salvation, and this, coming as it did after I had seen for myself the terms he was on with the driver and conductor, expressed more eloquently than his verse his definition of democracy. I may be mistaken, but I thought then and have ever since that his belief in the people carried him to the point of thinking they knew better than the philanthropist what they needed and did not need. My Uncle was not of accord with him and I, who am neither democrat nor philanthropist, would not pretend to decide between them. My Uncle did not like Walt Whitman's attitude and refusal, convinced as he was of the good to the people that was to come of the reform he was initiating, though he was constitutionally incapable of meeting the people he was reforming on equal terms. The twinkle in Walt Whitman's eye when he refused gave me the clue to the large redeeming humour with which he looked upon a foolish world, seeing each individual in the place appointed, right in it, fitting into it, unfit for any other he did not make for himself of his own desire and courage—the humour without which the human tragedy would not be bearable.


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Rh I wish I could have had more talk with Whitman, I wish I had been older or more experienced, that I might have got nearer to him—or so I felt in those old days. I have now an idea that his silence was more effective than his speech, that if he had said more to any of his devoted following he might have been less of a prophet. But his tranquil presence was in itself sufficient to open a new outlook, and it reconciled me to the scheme of the universe for good or for ill. His personality impressed me far more than his poems. It seemed to me to explain them, to interpret them, as nothing else could—his few words of greeting worth pages of the critic's eloquent analysis.


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 Only the dark blob capping the great shadow faded and flickered, as though strange light were streaming from it; the light that was fed by sacrifice, the jewel that was—life.

me there came a rustle. I felt Ann stir and move closer in the gloom. Keene's voice came from some distance away.

"There were several more sacrifice scenes, Haviland, but I haven't patched them in yet, except for the one you'll see in a moment now. As I said, the film isn't finished."

I did not answer. My eyes were on the screen as the fantastic tale unfolded. The pictured Keene was bringing another victim to his cavern, a short, fat man with sleekly pomaded black hair. I did not see his face until he had been imprisoned in the cave, and then, abruptly, there came a close-up shot, probably done with a telescopic lens. His plump face, with its tiny mustache, leaped into gigantic visibility, and I recognized Andy Worth.

It was the missing columnist, but for the first time I saw his veneer of sophistication lacking. Naked fear crawled in his eyes, and I leaned forward in my seat as the ghastly barrel-shaped shadow sprang out on the wall. Worth saw it, and the expression on his face was shocking. I pushed back my chair and got up as the lights came on. The screen went blank.

Arnold Keene was staandingstanding [sic] by the door, erect and military as ever. He had a gun in his hand, and its muzzle was aimed at my stomach.

"You had better sit down, Haviland," he said quietly. "You too, Miss Howard. I've something to tell you—and I don't wish to be melodramatic about it. This gun"—he glanced at it wryly—"is necessary. There are a few things you must know, Haviland, for a reason you'll understand later."

I said, "There'll be some visitors here for you soon, Keene. You don't think I'd neglect normal precautions!"

He shrugged. "You're lying, of course. Also you're unarmed, or you'd have had your gun out by now. I didn't expect you until tomorrow night, but I'm prepared. In a word, what I have to tell you is this: the film you just saw is a record of actual events."

Ann's teeth sank into her lip, but I didn't say anything. I waited, and Keene resumed.

"Whether you believe me or not doesn't matter, for you'll have to believe in a few minutes. I told you something of my motive, my desire to create a genuine masterpiece of weirdness. That's what I've done, or will have done before tomorrow. Quite a number of vagrants and laborers have disappeared, and the columnist, Worth, as well; but I took care to leave no clues. You'll be the last to vanish—you and this girl."

"You'll never be able to show the film," I told him.

"What of it? You're a hack, Haviland, and you can't understand what it means to create a masterpiece. Is a work of art any less beautiful because it's hidden? I'll see the picture—and after I'm dead the world will see it, and realize my genius even though they may fear and hate its expression. The reactions of my unwilling actors—that's the trick. As a director, you should know that there's no substitute for realism. The reactions were not faked—that was obvious enough. The first sacrifice was that of a clod—an unintelligent moron, whose fears were largely superstitious. The next sacrifice was of a higher type—a vagrant who came begging to my door some months ago. You will complete the group, for you'll know just what you're facing, and


text: Our Philadelphia/Chapter 12

title: Our Philadelphia/Chapter 12


text:
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 your attempt to rationalize your fear will lend an interesting touch. Both of you will stand up, with your hands in the air, and precede me into this passage."

All this came out tonelessly and swiftly, quite as though it were a rehearsed speech. His hand slid over the wall beside him, and a black oblong widened in the oak paneling. I stood up.

"Do as he says, Ann," I said. "Maybe I can——"

"No, you can't," Keene interrupted, gesturing impatiently with his weapon. "You won't have the chance. Hurry up."

We went through the opening in the wall and Keene followed, touching a stud that flooded the passage with light. It was a narrow tunnel that slanted down through solid rock for perhaps ten feet to a steep stairway. He herded us down this, after sliding the panel shut.

"It's well hidden," he said, indicating metal sheathing—indeed, the entire corridor was lined with metal plates. "This lever opens it from within, but no one but me can find the spring which opens it from without. The police could wreck the house without discovering this passage."

That seemed worth remembering, but of little practical value at the moment. Ann and I went down the stairway until it ended in another short passage. Our way was blocked by a door of steel bars, which Keene unlocked with a key he took from his pocket. The passage where we stood was dimly lighted; there were several chairs here; and the space beyond the barred door was not lighted at all.

opened the door and gestured me through it. He locked it behind me and turned to Ann. Her face, I saw, was paper-white in the pale glow.

What happened after that brought an angry curse to my lips. Without warning Keene swung the automatic in a short. vicious arc, smashing it against Ann's head.

She saw it coming too late, and her upflung hand failed to ward off the blow. She dropped without a sound, a little trickle of blood oozing from her temple. Keene stepped over her body to a switchboard set in the rock wall.

Light lanced with intolerable brilliance into my eyes. I shut them tightly, opening them after a moment to stare around apprehensively. I recognized my surroundings. I was in the cave of sacrifice, the underground den I had seen on the screen. Cameras high up on the walls began to operate as I discovered them. From various points blinding arc-lights streamed down upon me.

A gray curtain shielded a space on the far wall, but this was drawn upward to reveal a deep alcove. There was an object within that niche—a barrel-shaped thing ten feet high, studded with spikes, and crowned with a jewel that pulsed and glittered with cold flame. It was gray and varnished-looking, and it was the original of Keene's Aztec god.

Somehow I felt oddly reassured as I examined the thing. It was a model, of course, inanimate and dead; for certainly no life of any kind could exist in such an abnormality. Keene might have installed machinery of some sort within it, however.

"You see, Haviland," Keene said from beyond the bars, "the thing actually exists. I got on the trail of it in an old parchment I found in the Huntington Library. It had been considered merely an interesting bit of folk-lore, but I saw something else in it. When I was making Ape of God in Mexico I discovered the ruined temple, and what lay forgotten behind the altar."

He touched a switch, and light streamed out from the alcove behind the thing. Swiftly I turned. On the wall


text:
Author:Herbert Pierssene

Works

 * Albany Guide and Hand-book of Western Australia

title: Author:Herbert Pierssene


text:
User talk:132.70.176.122

Welcome

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title: User talk:132.70.176.122


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Febvre, Alexandre Frédéric


text:
Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 1.djvu/154

40 2. Those very hymns of the Atharvângiras (as bees) brooded over the Itihâsa-purâna; and from it, thus brooded on, sprang as its (nectar) essence, fame, glory of countenance, vigour, strength, and health.

3. That flowed forth, and went towards the sun. And that forms what we call the extreme dark (parah krishnam) light of the sun.

1. The upward rays of the sun are the honey-cells above. The secret doctrines are the bees, Brahman (the Om) is the flower, the water is the nectar.

2. Those secret doctrines (as bees) brooded over Brahman (the Om); and from it, thus brooded on, sprang as its (nectar) essence, fame, glory of countenance, brightness, vigour, strength, and health.

3. That flowed forth, and went towards the sun. And that forms what seems to stir in the centre of the sun.

4. These (the different colours in the sun) are the essences of the essences. For the Vedas are essences (the best things in the world); and of them (after they have assumed the form of sacrifice) these (the colours rising to the sun) are again the essences. They are the nectar of the nectar. For the Vedas are nectar (immortal), and of them these are the nectar.


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 me was my own shadow, grotesquely elongated, and beside it was the squat, amorphous patch of blackness I had seen on the screen upstairs.

My back was toward Keene, and my ringers crept into my pocket, touching the metal paperweight I had dropped there earlier that evening. Briefly I considered the possibility of hurling the thing at Keene, and then decided against it. The bars were too close together, and the man would shoot me at any sign of dangerous hostility.

My eyes were drawn to the shadow on the wall. It was moving.

It rocked slightly, and lifted. The spikes lengthened. The thing was no longer inanimate and dead, and as I swung about, stark amazement gripping me, I saw the incredible metamorphosis that had taken place in the thing that cast the shadow.

It was no longer barrel-shaped. A dozen smooth, glistening appendages, ending in flat pads, supported the snake-thin body. And all over that grayish upright pole tentacles sprouted and lengthened, writhing into ghastly life as the horror awakened. Keene had not lied, and the monstrous survival he had brought from the Aztec temple was lumbering from the alcove, its myriad tentacles alive with frightful hunger!

Keene saved me. He saw me standing motionless with abysmal fear in the path of that gigantic, nightmare being, and realizing that he was being cheated of his picture, the man shouted at me to run. His hoarse voice broke the spell that held me unmoving, and I whirled and fled across the cave to the barred door. Skin ripped from my hands as I tore at the bars.

"Run!" Keene yelled at me, his shallow eyes blazing. "It can't move fast! Look out——"

A writhing, snake-like thing lashed out, and a sickening musky stench filled my nostrils. I leaped away, racing across the cave again. The arc-lights died and others flared into being as Keene manipulated the switchboard. He was adjusting the lights, so that our shadows would not be lost—so that in the climax of The Nameless the shadow of that ghastly horror would be thrown on the cave wail beside me.

an infernal game of tag we played there, in those shifting Lights that glared down while the camera lenses watched dispassionately. I fled and dodged with my pulses thundering and blood pounding in my temples, and ever the grim shadow moved slowly across the walls, while my legs began to ache with the strain. For hours, perhaps, or eons, I fled.

There would come brief periods of respite when I would cling to the bars, cursing Keene, but he would not answer. His hands flickered over the switchboard as he adjusted the arc-lights, and his eyes never paused in their roving examination of the cave. In the end it was this that saved me.

For Keene did not see Ann stir and open her eyes. He did not see the girl, after a swift glance around, get quietly to her feet. Luckily she was behind Keene, and he did not turn.

I tried to keep my eyes away from Ann, but I do not think I succeeded. At the last moment I saw Keene's face change, and he started back; but the chair in Ann's hands crashed down and splintered on the man's head. He fell to his knees, clawing at the air, and then collapsed inertly.

I was on the far side of the cave, and my attention was momentarily diverted from the monster. I had been watching it from the corner of my eye, expecting to be able to dodge and leap away before


text:
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Rh

1. On the first of these nectars (the red light, which represents fame, glory of countenance, vigour, strength, health) the Vasus live, with Agni at their head. True, the Devas do not eat or drink, but they enjoy by seeing the nectar.

2. They enter into that (red) colour, and they rise from that colour.

3. He who thus knows this nectar, becomes one of the Vasus, with Agni at their head, he sees the nectar and rejoices. And he, too, having entered that colour, rises again from that colour.

4. So long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so long does he follow the sovereign supremacy of the Vasus.

1. On the second of these nectars the Rudras live, with Indra at their head. True, the Devas do not eat or drink, but they enjoy by seeing the nectar.

2. They enter into that white colour, and they rise from that colour.

3. He who thus knows this nectar, becomes one of the Rudras, with Indra at their head, he sees the


text:
Motherless

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1904), "Motherless" in Harper's Bazar (September 1904).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1904), "Motherless" in Mine and Thine (1904).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "Motherless" in Poems I.

title: Motherless


text:
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42 nectar and rejoices. And he, having entered that colour, rises again from that colour.

4. So long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, twice as long does it rise in the south and set in the north; and so long does he follow the sovereign supremacy of the Rudras.

1. On the third of these nectars the Âdityas live, with Varuna at their head. True, the Devas do not eat or drink, but they enjoy by seeing the nectar.

2. They enter into that (dark) colour, and they rise from that colour.

3. He who thus knows this nectar, becomes one of the Âdityas, with Varuna at their head, he sees the nectar and rejoices. And he, having entered that colour, rises again from that colour.

4. So long as the sun rises in the south and sets in the north, twice as long does it rise in the west and set in the east; and so long does he follow the sovereign supremacy of the Âdityas.

1. On the fourth of these nectars the Maruts live, with Soma at their head. True, the Devas do not eat or drink, but they enjoy by seeing the nectar.

2. They enter in that (very dark) colour, and they rise from that colour.

3. He who thus knows this nectar, becomes one of the Maruts, with Soma at their head, he sees the nectar and rejoices. And he, having entered that colour, rises again from that colour.

4. So long as the sun rises in the west and sets


text:
The Burial of Robert Louis Stevenson at Samoa

 * "The Burial of Robert Louis Stevenson at Samoa" in The Outlook (14 September 1901)
 * "The Burial of Robert Louis Stevenson at Samoa" in Mine and Thine (1904)
 * "The Burial of Robert Louis Stevenson at Samoa" in Poems I (1916)


text:
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Rh in the east, twice as long does it rise in the north and set in the south; and so long does he follow the sovereign supremacy of the Maruts.

1. On the fifth of these nectars the Sâdhyas live, with Brahman at their head. True, the Devas do not eat or drink, but they enjoy by seeing the nectar.

2. They enter into that colour, and they rise from that colour. 3. He who thus knows this nectar, becomes one of the Sâdhyas, with Brahman at their head; he sees the nectar and rejoices. And he, having entered that colour, rises again from that colour.

4. So long as the sun rises in the north and sets in the south, twice as long does it rise above, and set below; and so long does he follow the sovereign power of the Sâdhyas.


text:
"Poor Love!" said Life

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1902), "'Poor Love!' said Life" in Harper's Monthly Magazine (December 1902).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1904), ""Poor Love!" said Life" in Mine and Thine (1904).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), ""Poor Love!" said Life" in Poems I.

title: "Poor Love!" said Life


text:
Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 1.djvu/158

38

1. When from thence he has risen upwards, he neither rises nor sets. He is alone, standing in the centre. And on this there is this verse:

2. 'Yonder he neither rises nor sets at any time. If this is not true, ye gods, may I lose Brahman.'

3. And indeed to him who thus knows this Brahma-upanishad (the secret doctrine of the Veda) the sun does not rise and does not set. For him there is day, once and for all ;.

4. This doctrine (beginning with III, 1, 1) Brahman (m. Hiranyagarbha) told to Pragâpati (Virâg), Pragâpati to Manu, Manu to his offspring (Ikshvâku, &c.) And the father told that (doctrine of) Brahman (n.) to Uddâlaka Âruni.

5. A father may therefore tell that doctrine of Brahman to his eldest son, or to a worthy pupil. But no one should tell it to anybody else, even if he gave him the whole sea-girt earth, full of treasure, for this doctrine is worth more than that, e.

1. The Gâyatrî (verse) is everything whatsoever here exists. Gâyatrî indeed is speech, for speech


text:
At Dusk

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1903), "At Dusk" in Scribner's Magazine (June 1903).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1904), "At Dusk" in Mine and Thine (1904).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "At Dusk" in Poems I.

title: At Dusk


text:
Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 1.djvu/159

Rh sings forth (gâya-ti) and protects (trâya-te) everything that here exists.

2. That Gâyatrî is also the earth, for everything that here exists rests on the earth, and does not go beyond.

3. That earth again is the body in man, for in it the vital airs (prânas, which are everything) rest, and do not go beyond.

4. That body again in man is the heart within man, for in it the prânas (which are everything) rest, and do not go beyond.

5. That Gâyatrî has four feet and is sixfold. And this is also declared by a Rik verse (Rig-veda X, 90, 3):—

6. 'Such is the greatness of it (of Brahman, under the disguise of Gâyatrî ); greater than it is the Person (purusha). His feet are all things. The immortal with three feet is in heaven (i.e. in himself).'


text:
The Clouds (Coates)

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1904), "The Clouds" in Mine and Thine (1904).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "The Clouds" in Poems I.

title: The Clouds (Coates)


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Leopold II. of Habsburg-Lorraine


text:
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46 7. The Brahman which has been thus described (as immortal with three feet in heaven, and as Gâyatrî) is the same as the ether which is around us;

8. And the ether which is around us, is the same as the ether which is within us. And the ether which is within us,

9. That is the ether within the heart. That ether in the heart (as Brahman) is omnipresent and unchanging. He who knows this obtains omnipresent and unchangeable happiness.

1. For that heart there are five gates belonging to the Devas (the senses). The eastern gate is the Prâna (up-breathing), that is the eye, that is Âditya (the sun). Let a man meditate on that as brightness (glory of countenance) and health. He who knows, this, becomes bright and healthy.

2. The southern gate is the Vyâna (back-breathing), that is the ear, that is the moon. Let a man meditate on that as happiness and fame. He who knows this, becomes happy and famous.

3. The western gate is the Apâna (down-breathing), that is speech, that is Agni (fire). Let a man meditate on that as glory of countenance and health. He who knows this, becomes glorious and healthy.

4. The northern gate is the Samâna (on-breathing), that is mind, that is Parganya (rain). Let a man meditate on that as celebrity and beauty.


text:
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164 people that a thorough drainage of the city would increase the danger from this source.

The foundations of a large proportion of the houses are laid either in water or in marshy flats; and I have often seen a loaded wagon, carriage, or cart perceptibly shake a two-story house. The School of Mines, a massive and immense structure, has sunk more than six feet in the earth within forty years, so I was informed by Professor Costillo, of that institution.

Mexico has been termed the Rome of America, not only because of its temples and palaces, but also on account of its churches and other ecclesiastical buildings; but many of the latter are alienated from their original use, while of the one hundred church buildings, only half this number are now devoted to religious services. The grand Gothic cathedral rises majestically above all surrounding objects, the most conspicuous feature in the architecture of the metropolis. It is built of unhewn stone, and is five hundred feet in length by four hundred and twenty in width. The walls are several feet in thickness. This great building was completed in 1667, nearly one hundred years after its foundation, at a cost of two million dollars. Its exterior is majestic and imposing, and the interior gorgeously painted and decorated, its altars enriched with gold, silver, and jewels.

But with all its grandeur the cathedral is anything but a choice place for devotional exercises. True democracy is the rule, and the most degraded, unclean lepero has as much space allotted to him as the grandest lady or gentleman. This is undoubtedly the true spirit and intent of Christianity, but one cannot help being a little fastidious. I have seen men most earnestly engaged in their devotions, with dozens of chickens, and as many turkeys as they could carry, suspended from their persons; women with burro loads of vegetables on their shoulders, others with one or two pappooses screaming and wiggling in their mothers' rebozos, all in such numbers as to forbid pious meditations.

Skirting the west side of the cathedral is a shady garden with fountains and seats, terminating in a most unique and choice flower market. At the corner, facing the Zócalo, there is a heap of curiously


text:
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Rh carved stones and broken columns, and, pushing aside the gorgeous screen of flowers and vines, the inscription may be read: "Stones from the bloody sacrificial altar of Huitzilopotztli, used afterward in the first temple that the Spaniards erected to the Christian faith."

The church of Santa Brigida (St. Bridget's) is the most modern in its interior arrangements, having comfortable pews and carpeted aisles. But Santa Teresa, with its exquisitely painted interior; San Hipolito, with the exterior of its dome of glittering porcelain mosaic; and grand old San Fernando, with illustrious memories and associations, whose time-worn floors have echoed the footsteps of generations—these speak volumes in their silence and mellow gloom.

Of public monuments and statues there are five—the most noteworthy that of Carlos IV. at the head of the Paseo, which, with the exception of that of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, is perhaps the largest in the world. It was cast in Mexico, the first in the Western hemisphere. The statues of Christopher Columbus, President Juarez, and Cuatimotzin, the last of the Aztec kings, are all marvels of beauty and finish, and adorn the Paseo de la Reforma—the grand avenue or boulevard of the capital. This noble drive extends about three miles from the Alameda to Chapultepec, and is broad enough for six carriages to drive abreast. But usually they are driven in line, while the gayly equipped caballeros curvet in the opposite direction. Policemen are stationed every few yards. On either side the sidewalks are lined with pedestrians, in their "Sunday best"—groups of beautifully dressed children indulge in childish sports, the band plays, and all Mexico is jubilant.

There are five public markets. The principal one covers an entire block, but, despite its wealth of fruits, vegetables, game, fish and meat, is a wretchedly forlorn place, having no building, but merely a collection of huts, booths, and tents, which are most uninviting to the stranger.

The public gardens number twelve, the chief of which is the Alameda, and are all laid out in truly Parisian style.

Excellent educational facilities are afforded at the capital. Among them are the School of Arts and Professions for Women, Industrial


text:
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 Schools for Men, the Academy of Fine Arts, Conservatory of Music, School of Mines or Engineering, School of Jurisprudence, Military Institute, Medical Institute, Commercial College, Girls' College, Preparatory Institute for Boys (equal to one of our best colleges). Deaf and Dumb, and Blind Institutes, the National Museum, and a superb Public Library with one hundred and sixty thousand volumes.

For the National Schools, President Diaz has prescribed a course of study for seven years in agriculture and engineering. The latter includes French, English, German, Greek and Latin roots, geography, drafting, meteorology, chemistry, botany, geology, architecture, agriculture, technology, surveying, book-keeping, and political economy. The medical course also covers seven years, and includes, in addition to the above, all the branches requisite to the profession. Thoroughness is required in everything, no diplomas being granted without proficiency.

I visited many of these public institutions of learning, and found them admirably conducted. I was especially interested in the School for the Blind, and surprised to find the pupils outnumber the teachers only a little more than two to one—the former numbering sixty-seven, the latter thirty-one. The salaries of teachers range from twenty to seventy dollars per month. On entering the school a photograph is taken of each pupil and pasted in a large book. By its side is placed a full description, with age, date, and place of birth, and quantity and quality of clothing. The object of the photograph is to prevent a possible substitution of one for another, and preserve the identity of each pupil.

Musical culture is the leading feature here, as in every institution of learning in the country. The orchestra played, and a young girl of sixteen sang for us, in a rich, mellow contralto which filled the building, selections from Il Trovatore. Another was asked by her teacher to read for us. She began in a clear voice reading an account of the entrance of General Scott into the city of Mexico. When she read "he entered sin valor" ("without courage"), the teacher gently interposed, and requested her to read in another place, which she


text: Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/173


text: Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/174


text:
Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/175

Rh did, to my serious disappointment, for I was anxious to know in what spirit even a blind Mexican would read the history of that war.

The School for the Deaf and Dumb is conducted after the most modern methods, the pupils being taught articulation, only the older ones using manual signs. Many of the teachers have received a European education.

The noblest institution that I visited was the Escuela de Artes y Oficios para las Mujeres''" ("School of Arts and Trades for Women"), of which Juarez was the founder and benefactor. It gives to poor girls unequaled advantages for learning, without fear of the absence of their "daily bread," to make themselves independent of want. The government gives them comfortable rooms, two good meals a day, and furnishes many of the poorer pupils with clothing. Each girl wears a long, brown holland apron; their faces are clean, hair neatly braided, and every care taken that they may make, at all times, a neat appearance. Several hours daily are devoted to the acquirement of a practical education. Bookbinding, printing, book-keeping, drawing, painting, music, embroidery are taught; also the manufacture of picture-frames, and, on cunning little hand-looms, cords and fringes of all colors for decorative purposes. The pupils upholster skillfully and artistically furniture that would adorn a mansion. There is a neat store in the building, belonging to the institution, in which the work of the pupils is disposed of for their benefit. They conduct a neatly printed weekly newspaper, consisting of four sheets, and called La Mujer.

In all the wise concepts of her Indian chief, Mexico has no higher monument to his greatness than this industrial school for the elevation of her women.

There are three hundred and sixty-eight pupils receiving the benefits of this institution, from misses of twelve years to demure matrons in middle life.

The public schools are numerous and well patronized. I was pleased to see the eagerness with which the pupils seized their opportunities for gaining knowledge. My American friend, Mrs. C——,


text:
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170 has classes in English in several of these institutions, where I heard them reciting fluently in my own tongue. It is estimated that fully eight thousand people are now studying English at the capital.

The public charitable institutions are also numerous, and include the Insane Asylum, Foundling Hospital, House of Maternity, founded by Carlotta; Poor-House, Leper Institute, and several hospitals.

The Monte de Piedad, or pawnshop, founded by Count Regla, is one of the noblest benefactions, enabling those whom misfortune has visited to realize or receive advances upon valuables without the risk of losing them. These pawnshops exist all over the country, and all classes can alike avail themselves of their advantages.

The city has four large theaters, the National being the second largest on the Western continent, but its interior furnishings are but a mockery in this age of elegance and luxury. Once gorgeous in their rich gildings and fanciful upholstery, they now appear in a sad state of dilapidation. There are many hotels, all kept upon the European plan, and the Concordia, which is the Delmonico of the capital.

The mercantile establishments do not generally possess in their exterior the attractions of those of our own cities. It is but a short time since a few of the leading merchants have had recourse to show windows, but in these now are exhibited the choicest wares of home and foreign production—exquisitely set diamonds, rare jewels of all kinds, bronzes, statuary and French china. Added to these are displayed laces, velvets, silks, and Parisian dresses, and an endless variety of foreign importations, including French dolls, the prettiest I ever saw. Once inside the stores, the activity and agility of the clerks, in


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 their eagerness to wait upon you, are equaled only by their lack of system and business management. Be sure, however, that you will have an opportunity of purchasing some of the rarest and most costly dress fabrics upon which one's eyes ever rested.

The Monterilla, the stores along the portales, are the "Sixth Avenue" of the capital. The same classes of goods are kept as on Plateros, and for a much less price, a fact which holds in check the charges in the latter.

I saw comparatively few of our American dress fabrics in any of the stores; only domestics, prints, and goods of low grade. But there is no question in my mind that American silks, hats, ribbons and woolens, as well as almost every kind of ready-made goods, would find a profitable market if only properly introduced. The portales is the place of all others to buy curios of every possible description.

A few practical words must be given as to the general lives of the people of the capital—the method of house-renting, and the forms to be complied with before establishing a home there. Agencies for the leasing and renting of houses, accompanied by our modern advertising, are unknown. To secure a house, one must tramp up and down the streets looking for pieces of paper pinned to the iron rods of the windows. On finding one that suits, he must strain his neck out of the socket and wear out his shoes searching for owner or agent. Then he must procure a fiador—generally a merchant or man of business, who will act as security and assume responsibility in case of a possible delinquency. The contract is well worthy of attention. It is almost enveloped in stamps, and bulky enough for a treaty between foreign nations. After much delay and formality, this document is duly signed, and you are put in possession of your new domicile.

The familiar phrase, that "Three moves are equal to a fire," is here emphasized. One's earthly goods must be carried either on the backs of men or on the street-cars. If the first mode of transportation be resorted to, it is generally necessary to dispatch a trusty


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172 of the household with each load of goods, lest the cargador find it convenient to take his departure, with your valuables, for some unknown locality. Houses are generally constructed on the vivienda plan; that is, on one floor there may be from four to six establishments containing from two to six or eight rooms. But such smaller conveniences as closets are unknown.

Rents are high at all times, and in desirable localities excessive. Inside apartments, with five rooms facing the court, rent for $40 per month; of the same size, with one to four windows opening on the street, from $60 to $80, according to location. Houses are, generally, two and three stories in height, and the higher one goes, the more rent is demanded. For health's sake, the sunny side of the building is absolutely necessary—a fact considered by the owner in his assessment of rents.

Greater attention is now paid than formerly to the plumbing, ventilation and general sanitation of the houses, but still there remains much to be desired. The drainage of the city is so very imperfect that it will be long, if ever, before the houses built many years ago can be made to fulfill modern requirements.

Many well-to-do families occupy apartments over business houses, and sometimes over pulque shops. The portero may be either a man or woman, who resides with his or her family in a little dark, damp apartment under the stairs. I have sometimes counted two or three turkeys, several chickens, a pig or two, dogs without number, and endless children, besides all the cooking and sleeping arrangements of the whole family, in one small room. When you ascend the stairs, the transformation is complete. Blooming plants, singing birds, carpeted halls and stairways, curtained windows and shaded balconies afford a striking contrast.

I wish that space would admit of an extended mention of the Mexican flora, the variety and gorgeousness of which must be seen to be appreciated. The most striking characteristic of the Mexican flowers is their deep, rich coloring. If red, it is the most glowing and


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Rh intense; if yellow or purple, the richest; if white or pink, the purest and most delicate.

There is not a day in the year when fresh and lovely flowers may not be purchased for a mere trifle—roses, with great soft petals folded over each other, vie in loveliness with pansies as large as a dollar; calla lilies, the size of a fan, bloom luxuriant in every ditch; geraniums as tall as a man; sweet pea, eliotropes, camellias, and magnificent poppies, so enormous that one will cover a plate, and so resplendent in color as to rival the far-famed poppy fields of India.

The most remarkable of all the flowers is "el arbol de las manitas" ("tree of the little hands"), cheirostemon platonides, a native of cold lands. The bright-red flowers are well-defined, miniature hands. It has the leaf of the platonos tree, which is common in European gardens. The flower is a popular remedy with the Indians for heart disease. It grows wild, but is very scarce, there being only one in the National Palace Gardens, one in San Francisco Garden, and a few in the valley of Tohica. It has a black seed, smaller than a pea, is very slow of growth, and at ninety years of age has attained no remarkable size or height.

Tulipan—botanical name Hibiscus rosa sinensis, a native of East India. The flowers are both single and double, are scarlet, pale yellow, and chocolate-colored—three varieties. They are indigenous to hot countries, and serve no purpose save ornamentation. The leaf is a beautiful dark green, resembling that of the orange; altogether, it is one of the most gorgeous of all the flowers that are seen in Mexico.

"Flor de noche buena" or Christmas flower (Poinsittia pulcherrima), belongs to the tribe of Euphorbia. It grows about four meters high; the leaves are large and of a dark, lusterless green. When the plant stops blooming the leaves put forth. The flower itself is insignificant, but around it are several bracteas, large, and of a brilliant scarlet color. It begins to bloom at Christmas and ceases in about two months. It is also used by the Indians as a remedy for some of their numerous maladies. It can be grown from cuttings.

Another remarkable plant that blooms in the hot countries as early


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176 as January, February, or March, and in colder climates later, is called plumeria. In the stem and leaves it contains a white milky juice. It grows to several yards in height. Some bear rose-colored flowers, others white, and others yellow, which have a powerful but pleasant odor. The Aztec name is cacolox ochitt, which means the flower of the raven. It is indigenous to the country, and is propagated from branches.

The Valley of Mexico is the valley of the lily, although the lily of the valley, as I am told, does not grow there. But there are above fifty varieties, no two alike, blooming on mountain, crag, or plain, which for beauty and coloring are unequaled.

A visit to the Academy of Fine Arts should not be omitted. Hours may be profitably employed there, and one will come away with the desire to examine further its impressive treasures.

The native talent is unquestionably fine. But, though fostered and encouraged by the government, it lacks the stimulus of popular appreciation and demand. Thus it happens that some of the most accomplished artists suffer for the essentials of life, or, as an alternative, expend their skill upon the gay interiors of pulque shops.

In the great National Academy of San Carlos, one may see drawings that would reflect credit on any school of art. They display a soft and delicate touch, with much attention to the most minute details of finish.

In painting, as in drawing, the art school chooses an over-smooth finish; in this differing from the general modern style.

Few of the pupils seem to have been inspired by the beautiful natural objects of their own country. Indeed, with the exception of Velasco, who takes precedence in landscape, and whose subject is the Valley of Mexico, no one has given any attention worthy the name to Mexican scenery. Of Sr. José M. Velasco, Professor of Perspective and Landscape in the Academy, Señor Landesio, in 1867, in a


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Rh work entitled Landscape Painting and Perspective in the National Academy, says: "This young artist, who already is strong in himself, warrants the highest hopes, and will do great honor to his country, contributing efficaciously to this high end by his noble efforts."

His paintings have taken premiums in the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, and in the Paris Exposition, and occupy prominent places in the National Academy. The world may unite in raving over its exquisite beauties, but the average native artist seeks his inspiration from other sources.

There is something mediæval in their so frequent choice of religious themes.

Some of the most interesting works in the collection are those by the early masters of the Spanish-Mexican school, to whom must be accorded precedence.

In the early part of the seventeenth century, Baltazar Echave put in the initiatory strokes. All the works of this time have a mellow richness and an even distribution of color that bespeak a broad and vigorous thought. Gay colors fill the canvas smoothly and harmoniously.

Luis Juarez has many wonderful exhibitions of his great genius. In none is it more clearly expressed than in his St. Ildefonso. The scene represents the saint having conferred upon him by angel hands the robes of office of a bishop. A virgin and angel heads fill the upper space of the canvas, the whole imparting a sweet and touching impression.

Nicolas and Juan Rodriguez, as also other contemporaries, have exhibited an equal genius and care in the execution of their work.

Cabrera and Ibarra are the most prominent figures of the second period of Mexican art, but they are not the equals, either in conception or execution, of the earlier masters.

Of the moderns, one of the noblest of all the paintings in the Academy is that of "Las Casas" (a priest) "Protecting the Aztecs from Slaughter by the Spaniards." It is the work of Felix Parra, and


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178 any art gallery in the world might deem its possession a treasure, and the artist accomplished the great task before he had made a visit to the art galleries of Europe.

The next most touching to me was the "Death of Atala," which expresses a divine inspiration and is pathetic to the last degree.

In addition to the works of native artists, the gallery is enriched by many original paintings of the great masters of Europe. But more time cannot be given to one of the most interesting of all the public institutions of Mexico.

Mexican antiquities constitute in themselves a world of thought and research. We read of their spoliation and destruction by vandal


text:
The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Jacobi, Abraham

JACOBI, Abraham, an American physician, born at Hartum, Westphalia, May 6, 1830. He graduated at the university of Bonn in 1851, and was a political prisoner for nearly two years, after which he went to London, and in the autumn of 1853 to New York. Here he acquired reputation in obstetrics and diseases of women and children, and was professor at the New York medical college from 1860 to 1869, and subsequently at the college of physicians and surgeons. He has published “Dentition and its Derangements” (New York, 1862), “The Raising and Education of Abandoned Children in Europe” (1870), &c.; and he was one of the authors of “Contributions to Midwifery,” &c. (1859), and from 1868 to 1871 an editor of the “American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children.”


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Rh hands, but it seems almost incredible when a visit is made to the National Museum.

A wide difference of opinion prevails amongst archæologists and antiquarians as to the deductions on Mexican antiquities. So far, nothing is shrouded in greater mystery and to the future we must look for a solution.

Until 1884 there was no catalogue by which English-speaking tourists might enjoy the relics of antiquity in the museum. Mr. W. W. Blake, an accomplished scholar and gentleman, has recently arranged and published an excellent catalogue which unlocks a hidden world of knowledge to all who desire enlightenment. Space does not admit a mention befitting the subject, and a mere glance at a few of its leading objects must suffice.

The Aztec Calendar Stone is of solid basalt, porous but fine. It is 12 feet in diameter, and its weight is 53,790 pounds. After the conquerors leveled all the temples of Indian worship, this stone was imbedded a half yard in the marshy earth. It was exhumed in 1790. A Mexican year contained eighteen months, and these were arranged in symbolical representations upon this great stone. Some such names as these are found upon it: Sea Animal, Lizard, Death, Path of the Sun, and others of like order; until one finds himself lost in the mazes of the great barbaric puzzle.

The Sacrificial Stone is a religious symbol as


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Welcome (Coates)

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1898), "Welcome" in The Outlook (3 September 1898).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1899), as "Welcome to Dewey" in Life and Heroic Deeds of Admiral Dewey, Including Battles in the Philippines, & etc. (1899)
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1904), "Welcome" in Mine and Thine (1904).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), as "To the Returning Brave" in Poems I.

title: Welcome (Coates)


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180 well as an historical monument. Its diameter is about two and one-half meters—seven and one-half feet, while its height is perhaps four fifths of the diameter. This stone was exhumed in 1791, about one year after the Calendar Stone. It was dedicated to the sun, and has a sculptured image of the luminary on its upper face. Groups of people are seen on its convex sides, but it is blood-curdling to see that some of these are held by the hair.

In the days of its use, it is said that from twenty to fifty thousand persons were annually sacrificed on it. Prisoners of war were usually chosen as a proper sacrifice. Arrayed in gorgeous apparel, decked with flowers, and bearing in his hands musical instruments, the victim ascended the steps of the temple. He was made the bearer of orders and messages to the sun, and when at last

the stone was reached five priests bound and laid him on it, while a sixth, with a "scarlet mantle, emblematic of his bloody office, dexterously opened the breast of the wretched victim with a sharp razor, made of itztli, a volcanic substance, hard as flint, and inserting his hand, tore out the palpitating heart."

As this ancient relic now stands in the National Museum, one may recall a long past scene, by inspecting the canal cut across the top and down one side, for the blood to pass from the victim, yet writhing in his death agony.

In close proximity to the Sacrificial Stone, the Mexican Mars (called by the euphonious name of Huitzilopotchli) rears his monstrous head.


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Rh In the historical part are relics of the noted men of the past, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Santa Anna, and the Emperor Iturbide. Of the latter ill-fated monarch there are ten pieces of glass showing excellent photographs.

There are about thirty pieces of Spanish armor, two of the pieces having engraved upon them the name of Pedro Alvarado. The plate of Maximilian and also his bust are here.

In the archaeological department are paintings, Aztec weapons, musical instruments, wedges, spindles, idols of stone and clay, and so on, ad fin.

Each of the beautiful environs of the Mexican capital has its picturesque little plaza, sparkling fountain, gay flowers, and many national embellishments. A perfect street-car system, stretching over thirty-three leagues, enables the tourist to observe at leisure these towns, several of which were in existence before the conquest.

A charming day may be spent by taking a car at the Zócalo for Tacubaya, the Versailles of Mexico, thence to San Angel, where if you have not provided your own picnic dinner, you can dine at one of the comfortable fondas. The air is delightful here, and fruits and flowers are in abundance. Take another tram-car, from which you gain enchanting views of field, forest and glen, passing the shady picturesque village of Coyacuan, and "El Arbol Bendito"—a grand old tree, centuries old. Not far off may be seen the first church built by Cortez, near the capital, and the monument at Churubusco. Near this, the tram passes from Mexico. Taking it, you soon find yourself at the charming suburban town of Tlalpam—seventeen miles from the city—lying peacefully on the spurs and foot-hills of the lofty Cordilleras. With delightful impressions of the excursion you return to the city, reaching it about seven o'clock in the evening.

Another excursion of equal interest may be made, which includes a pilgrimage to the most sacred shrine of Mexico. Turn northward toward Lake Tezenco, still by tram, and you soon reach Cerro del Tepayac, historic ground from the days of the conquest. From this point you may survey the identical route taken by the conquerors on


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To the Returning Brave

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1898), as "Welcome" in The Outlook (3 September 1898).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1899), as "Welcome to Dewey" in Life and Heroic Deeds of Admiral Dewey, Including Battles in the Philippines, & etc. (1899)
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1904), as "Welcome" in Mine and Thine (1904).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "To the Returning Brave" in Poems I.

title: To the Returning Brave


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182 entering the capital. Here also, in the cuartel of the soldiers, the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed between the United States and Mexico, which closed the war of 1846-48.

Returing, pass along to the Viga boulevard, bordering the canal of the same name, and, leaving the car, hire a boat for a small sum and proceed down the canal to the Chinampas, the legendary floating gardens. The water has not a ripple, save what is made by the oars, and the big-hatted boatman gracefully swings them until you come suddenly upon the village of Santa Anita. Here you may refresh yourself with a Mexican luncheon. Lake Xochimilco, sixteen miles distant, is the main outlet of this canal. But we may come and go as oft as we will, and still find the floating gardens purely legendary. The nearest approach to a realization of the legend consists of a space of earth forming a bed for vegetables, fruits, and flowers, having on either side a ditch from which the garden is irrigated.

Humboldt says with regard to floating gardens, commonly known as the Chinampas: "There are two sorts of them, of which the one is movable and driven about by the winds, and the other fixed and attached to shore. The first, alone, merit the denomination of floating gardens.

"The ingenious invention of Chinampas appears to go back to the end of the fourteenth century. It had its origin in the extraordinary situation of a people surrounded with enemies and compelled to live in the midst of a lake, little abounding in fish, who were forced to fall upon every means of procuring subsistence. It is even probable that nature herself suggested to the Aztecs the first idea of floating gardens. On the marshy banks of the lakes Xochimilco and Chalco, the agitated water, in time of the great rises, carries away pieces of earth covered with herbs and bound together by roots. These, floating about for a long time and driven by the wind, sometimes unite into small islands. A tribe of men, too weak to defend themselves on the continent, would take advantage of these portions of ground which accident put within their reach, and of which no enemy disputed the property. . . . In proportion as the fresh-water lake has


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Rh become more distant from the salt-water lake, the movable Chinampas have become more fixed. . . . Every Chinampa forms a parallelogram of 100 meters in length, and five or six meters in breadth (328 x 16 or 19 feet). Beans, peppers, potatoes, and a magnificent variety of vegetables are cultivated on them, and every border, almost, is hedged by lovely, bright flowers."

But chief in historic interest of the sights in the vicinity of the capital, is the grand old fortress of Chapultepec. It is reached by either a pleasant stroll of three miles, by tram, or by carriage on the Paseo, and at last we rest beneath the shade of stately old trees, with their clinging drapery of white moss; some of these trees are reputed to have been in existence fifteen hundred years, and are known as ahuehuetes.


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186 According to Humboldt, Chapultepec rises above the plain to the remarkable height of 7,626 feet. "It was chosen by the young viceroy, Galvez, as the site of a villa (Chateau de Plaisance) for himself and his successors.

"Of the fifty viceroys who have governed Mexico from 1535 to 1808, one alone was born in America, the Peruvian, Don Juan de Auiña de Casa Fuerte (1722-1734), a disinterested man and good administrator. Some of my readers," he continues, "will perhaps be interested in knowing that a descendant of Christopher Columbus and a descendant of King Montezuma were among the viceroys of Spain. Don Pedro Nuño Colon, Duke of Veraguas, made his entry at Mexico in 1673, and died six weeks afterward. The viceroy, Don Joseph Sarmiento Valladares, Count de Montezuma, governed from 1697 to 1701."

A glance either way revives a history which fills the mind with thoughts too sad for utterance. This noble hill of solid porphyry was the country place of Montezuma and his ancestors; and since then no marked event has ever occurred, within access of it, in which the grand old castle has not played a prominent part. On entering the gates, turn to the right and you are soon far around the circle, where the sweet, soft air sighs through the cypress trees, and seems to speak in broken accents of the "voiceless past."

Near at hand is the aqueduct, built by Montezuma, now bordered with long grass and wild-flowers with their heads drooping downward, and through which, despite the decay and havoc of centuries, the water trickles, sweet as ever.

Turn another way, and see the stone steps which Montezuma had carved in the hill, then the only mode of ascent; and his cave, said to have no termination. Near this point begins the drive constructed by Maximilian, winding around the mountain, and greatly facilitating access to the castle—now the residence of the President, and the West Point of Mexico.

The architecture of the fortress is grand and imposing. With immense portholes in its circular towers, and with its massive rounded


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Rh corners, it recalls the feudal castles of the middle ages. The extensive wings constitute the military schools.

The castle is fitted up and decorated in a manner worthy of its present occupants, having been frescoed by Casarin, a pupil of Meissonier. The wood work in the President's room is of ebony inlaid with gold. The walls of the drawing-room are covered with satin damask, while the carpet alone cost $2,000. Beyond all question it can be surpassed by few, if any, royal residences in the world.

Three hundred and fifty handsome, manly young fellows receive, in the Academy at Chapultepec, a scientific and military education, free of all charges. It was my pleasure, on one occasion, to witness the drilling of these young cadets; and I must say that they went through their evolutions with an ease and familiarity that would have reflected credit on our own cadets of West Point.

Passing Montezuma's spring and the grand old tree under which he sat, at a short distance and in full view is Molino del Rey, where another sanguinary battle was fought. Within stone's-throw stands the monument which a generous people permitted our government to erect to the memory of the soldiers who fell there.

On the eastern and most inaccessible part of the hill is where the American forces stormed the fortress. At this point stands a beautiful monument, on which I read the following inscription: "To the Memory of the Scholars of the Military School, who died like heroes in the North American invasion 13th September, 1847."

Every day in the year the students tenderly lay upon it fresh flowers and green garlands in honor of their dead compatriots.

Before the battle the cadets formed a sacred compact between themselves never to surrender save in death. Their ages were from fourteen to eighteen years. But they fought like heroes—first one, then another taking the flag, until, still standing and fighting, the last of the gallant forty-eight surrendered his young life in defense of his country.

The climate, of which so much has been written, is exceptionally agreeable, yet difficult to describe. If one can conceive the delights


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188 of a crisp day in October, united to the brightness of a clear day in January, but without snow or ice, and, mingled with these, the life-giving air of a balmy day in May, and then imagine twelve months of such weather, some idea may be had of this enchanting clime.

When Joaquin Miller was asked his opinion of Mexico, he replied enthusiastically: "Mexico! Why, it is Italy and France and the best part of Spain tied up together in one bunch of rapturous fragrance. . . . . There are no such skies as has Mexico. People have got into the habit of talking about the sapphire blue that domes Italy. But it is because travelers, as a rule, go there by way of misty, foggy England, and the contrast is so great as to enchant them. But right here among the grand, restful mountains which rim this valley, I have seen the brightest skies in all my life; here, six days from Chicago and eight days from Boston, is more than Italy can give. I have seen the cattle and the stars sleep side by side on the mountains! Let me explain. There is generally a mist crowning every mountain peak which shuts out the stars. Here, how different! In my ramblings over the valley at night, the misty curtain is swept away and the stars can be seen all along the ridges. They stand out brilliant in this clear atmosphere. No such atmosphere can be met near Naples or Florence."

At the capital I observed the peculiar tints that settle over the mountain peaks in the late evenings. Looking upward from one street, the gazer sees a clear gray; from another, a liquid blue; from another, a bright rose or amber or gorgeous orange; all floating and blending together until the entire heavens are lit up by a bewitching roseate glow, which seems to vibrate gently to and fro in the thin air, while the whole superb canopy is gemmed with stars, which partake of the glowing tints surrounding them.

Later in the night, I have gazed in rapt admiration on the changing of this roseate hue into one so deeply, darkly blue, that to my vision the sky appeared a dome of jetty black, from which myriads of refulgent jewels shone out.

The contrast between the works of the Great Architect of the


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Memorial Ode

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1904), "Memorial Ode" in Mine and Thine (1904).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "Memorial Ode" in Poems I.

title: Memorial Ode


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 Universe and those of man never seemed greater than on turning from this celestial view to the mundane scene below. From my point of observation in the Zócalo, where both our modern gas and electric lights flashed their brilliant rays across the wide streets, I could see the sleeping-place of a large proportion of the poorer denizens of the city—their roof, the broad expanse of heaven—their bed, the stone pavement, or at most a petate—the rebozo or serape forming their sole covering. Here, without inconvenience, these contented people

slept, cuddled up, undisturbed by the gay throngs who walked back and forth around and among them.

Everywhere in the republic this out-door life exists. How different in the northern part of the United States! When the people there are shivering from intense cold, and all the avenues of travel are blocked with snow and ice, here are perpetual sunshine and flowers.

Every climate in the world may be experienced between the seashore at Vera Cruz and the capital. Eternal snows lie upon the one