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Page:Saturday Evening Gazette (June 7, 1856).pdf/1

Our readers who have been pleased to commend the style of the original stories published in this paper, will, we are sure, welcome the new contributor whose first story is one of the best we have yet given.

Mr. Brick died at sixty, leaving a stop of twenty-five to bear his father’s wealth, honors and appetites, which latter he inherited to their fullest extent, adding to them many of his own. A fatal proclivity for punch made him, at the early age of twenty-five a confirmed toper—a shame to his friends and a living example for three temperance societies in the town of B., who regularly held him up at their weekly meetings as a warning for the young. At the outset of his career, he had been waited upon by many committees who requested him to abstain from his evil practices, the first of which, it was said, he plied so hard with his favorite beverage that they were unable to report until the next meeting, when he was pronounced incorrigible. Remonstrance was of no avail, for whenever expostulated with concerning his habit, he, like the wretched chap in Dibdin’s song, “tipped them a can,” and they turned away sorrowing.

Something must be done to check him, but what? Lucky thought! Young Brick had come home one midnight in a very “glorious” state, according to Burns, and had tumbled up stairs in the most approved manner. Not at the risk of his neck, for the neck of a toper, made supple by the fluids he drinks, is adapted to the most violent circumstances—seen where a series of double somersets is at times thrown from the top of a stair case to the bottom, with no more disadvantage to the individual than the trouble of getting up stairs again. He threw himself upon the floor in a state of half consciousness. What was that? An emphatic thump upon the floor close by his side partially aroused the prostrate Brick, and he lifted his rum and watery eyes to see what it was. A figure in white, larger and terrible, stood by his side.

“Hello!” said he, with a hiccup, “what’s (hic) that?”

“I am thy father’s spirit!” solemnly said the apparition, and throwing out its hands the figure seemed to increase in volume.

“Oh, you are, are you?” said Brick, sobering a little; “you say you are my father’s spirit?”

“Yes!” was the solemn response.

“Then,” said the young reprobate, “as my father was a little man, and you seem to spread over considerable territory, I should judge that his spirit had become terribly diluted.”

The ghost chuckled as it disappeared, and Brick was left to be knocked down by death at thirty-five; a caution to all hard drinkers.

It was a very ordinary looking bench, that of which we are going to speak, and in reality no different from other benches; nevertheless, unlike them, it had received a name. It was called “The Bench of the Two Misers.”

It had this appellation for about two years. This was its origin. A poor woman’s child, aged about six years, was run over by a vehicle, and his leg was broken. The mother’s grief was poignant. The words in which she expressed her emotion brought tears to the eyes of the bystanders. She was a widow and her child’s sustenance depended on her labor. What was to become of her? If she devoted herself henceforth to her crippled child, she could work no longer; if she did not take care of him, it would be necessary to put him in a hospital, and to be separated from him, when he had most need of his mother. Thus, while a doctor who, passing by, stopped to examine the child’s wound, a silence prevailed in the crowd grouped round the sufferer. What was to be done?

The old apple women who stood on the corner broke the silence. She was certainly not a wealthy person, and her business was not extensive.

“Well!” said she, “here are thirty-six means of doing something. Let us each contribute something, and help the mother to pay her attention alone to her boy until he is entirely recovered.”

And so saying, she took off her bonnet, and emptied into it all she had in her pocket.

“Right!” said a man who was standing by her side, and he let a twenty franc piece fall into the bonnet. Every one murmured approbation. Money poured in on all sides. There were but two who refused to give.

They were two men of a certain age, habitues of the place. They always sat on a particular bench. The meagre form, the cold eye, the pinched lip, all betrayed them misers.

The apple woman stopped before them and said:—

“We appeal to your charity for this poor woman whose child has been severely injured.”

“I’ve no money,” said the first.

“Nor I,” said the second.

But a large sum was collected,—more than sufficient, for the mother and her child.

From that day the bench received the name to which we have alluded. When the misers sat there, none came near them; even little children avoided them.

Our story opens on the 26th of October. The day was glorious, the air pure, and not a cloud in the heavens, and the two misers sat on their wonted seat.

The one was about sixty years of age; the other perhaps fifty. The last, who had sat quietly for a long time, drew an almanack from his pocket, ran his finger down the column of figures, and then asked,

“To-day is the 26th, eh, Robert?”

“Yes, the 26th.”

“To-morrow is the day of St. Frumence—my Saint’s Day.”

“Ah, indeed. But did you suppose I would think of that?”

“No. You have never done so. I have even heard you criticise this custom. You are right.”

And he put the almanack again in his pocket. A moment after, he remarked,

“It is twenty-one years since any one has thought of it.”

“Yes,” said Robert, “then Cecile remembered it.”

“Yes. The day before she died.”

“I remember Cecile on that occasion gave you a purse which she worked herself.”

“And which disappeared,” added Frumence, “on the day of the death of Cecile.”

“With two hundred francs which it contained.”

“It seems that it was the destiny of those two hundred francs to be lost.”

“True. Cecile would have lost them in another way. The influence of woman is bad;—it enervates man.”

After a short silence, Frumence continued:

“She governed us, truly, for she led us like little children, you, her father, me her husband. You recall the time when she regarded us fixedly with her great eyes; they had a strange color, her eyes; I have never seen similar. I loved her indeed, Robert; her death was so unexpected, so sudden, that it rendered me almost mad. It cost me six hundred francs to bury her!”

“Six hundred francs!” said Robert.

“There were a great many people at her funeral,—especially poor people,—do you remember? She was very much beloved—she gave a great deal.”

“The human race is a race of frailty. Giving is favoring idleness and all the vices.”

Night came on. M. Robert took his gloves in his hands, and put them on methodically. While doing so, he stopped and touched the arm of Frumence:

“Why did you say that no one has thought of your fete day for twenty-one years? A mistake, Frumence; some one has thought of you.”

“Who?”

“The little one,—your daughter. When she was at boarding school, and the day came round, she sent you a letter with a bouquet and a pair of slippers embroidered by herself.”

“True; but that was only once.”

“I remember that you forbade its repetition. Were you angry at it?”

“No; it seemed to me that I had sufficiently fulfilled the duty of a father towards her; I have paid all her expenses, and have given her my consent to get married.”

The fact is that M. Frumence understood nobly the obligations of paternity. Who paid his daughter’s expenses more punctually than he? He never delayed an hour. What father opposed less obstacles to his daughter’s marriage? It is true that he never troubled himself about her, that he hardly knew to whose charge his daughter was confided. But what of that? He owed no one a cent on her account. That was his “thing essential!” That was his beau ideal of parental tenderness.

M. Frumence congratulated himself, then, on the manner in which he had discharged his duties as a father. M. Robert had nothing to say, for he had discharged no less satisfactorily his duties as a grandfather, and he finished putting on his gloves.

A little childish voice was heard near them at that moment. It said, “Mamma, I’m hungry.” Robert and Frumence turned their heads and saw a woman at the other end of the bench, with a little child upon her knees. It didn’t interest our misers at all. Just then a little fellow of twelve years, a match seller, stopped before them.

“Just the thing,” said Robert. “We are out of matches. You paid for them the last time. It’s my turn, now. Let us see the matches. The boxes are very small. You want a sou, don’t you?” And he felt in his pocket. Just then the child’s voice was heard, crying, “Oh, mamma, how hungry I am! Please buy me some bread!” Had those misers listened to the mother’s answer, they might have heard her murmur, “Ah! my poor little one, I have not a sou to buy bread with!”

The match boy was paid and went away. The poor little child saw the purse and money, and, coming to Robert, asked in a trembling voice, “Sir, please give me a sou to buy some bread?”

The miser looked coldly at her and answered, “There are some people who bring up their children to beg in the streets.” And as he spoke, a sou rolled accidentally from his purse to the feet of the child, who took it up.

“Give me my money, you little thief,” cried he.

The mother took the sou from the child’s hand and givegave [sic] it to the miser. He received it. Yes, he had the courage to put it back in his purse. Then, placing the child in her arms, the mother walked rapidly away.

The misers looked at each other in silence and went home.

Let us look at the antecedents of the misers. Robert married at an early age the daughter of his employer, who presented him with one child,—a daughter named Cecile. The little one was not ten years of age when her mother died. Robert associated Frumence with him in business. Their tastes were similar. They were both penurious in the extreme. At thirteen Cecile showed a maturity of intelligence rare at that age. She grew up remarkably beautiful. Frumence fell in love with her. Her father desired that a match should be made, but could that really superior young woman fancy a person like Frumence? She steadily refused. But the great object of her life was to change her father’s disposition; to make him, if not generous, at least charitable. And so he said to her at last, “Marry Frumence and you may mould me to your wishes, be they what they may.” And the young girl yielded at last and became a wife.

One day Cecile said to her husband, “The time is fast approaching when I shall become a mother. Bring me, I pray you, the purse which I gave you, and ask my father to come here.”

When they were both present, she succeeded in obtaining a hundred francs from each. Then they went to dinner. After the repeat was concluded, she took her seat at the piano, and played a morceau full of touching melody. Alas! it was the song of the swan. Then, with a smile on her lips and the purse in her hands, she bade her father and husband accompany her on a mission of charity. But hardly had she stepped her foot on the porch, when she felt the pangs of maternity.

She gave birth to a daughter and died.

Frumence only saw in his child the cause of her mother’s death. He cared not to look at her; but put her out to nurse, and then sent her to boarding-school. And his monotonous existence lasted till the time when our story continues.

They walked homeward after refusing, as we have seen, a sou to the starving child. They were admitted by Pierre, the foster brother of Cecile.

The misers sat down and thought. All at once a strange feeling of superstitious terror crept over the twain.

“Do you believe in spectres?” at length asked Frumence.

The answer died away on the lips of Robert, and his self-possession entirely forsook him.

“I am sorry,” said Frumence, “that you did not give the sou to the little child.”

“I, also,” said Robert, “am sorry for it.”

“We should have felt less unhappy now.”

“The fact is,” said Robert, “that this sou actually burdens my pocket. Yes, I wish I had given it to the little child.”

And thus saying, he took the sou from his pocket and put it on the table.

“Look at it! Look, Frumence! How strange! It shines like fire!”

“It is made of bell metal,” returned the other, without daring to look at it.

“True. It is bell metal.”

Then it seemed to Robert that his sou began to increase in size little by little, and that it spoke in a loud voice, saying: “A bell, I call to prayer—prayer for the living and the dead—for the dead who were poor while living! I am the money of the poor! I love to buy them bread. The purse of the miser is my prison—free me!”

“Do you hear it, Frumence? Do you hear it?” shrieked the old man. “It speaks of prayers, of poor people! Throw it away! Rid me of it, I beg you.”

Frumence opened the window rapidly, seized the sou and threw it. It struck against the iron window bar, fell on the floor, and rolled into a crack. Robert took his knife and tried to extricate it. In vain. With every effort it was wedged in still further.

For a long time not a word was spoken, at last Frumence broke the silence.

“Robert,” said he, “we are acting like two children. We have thought of Cecile, and the resemblance that poor woman with the child bore to her, has foolishly excited our imaginations. We are both sorry, that we have not, as Cecile wished, given money every year to the poor. Let us give them some money. We should be then more at peace with ourselves.”

“I believe you are right,” said Robert.

“Besides,” added Frumence, “our stomachs are empty, and nothing produces hallucinations like hunger.”

Accordingly they sat down to table.

“I have an idea,” said Robert. “It is your fete day. We should drink a bottle to your health. It isn’t often we do that.”

Certainly not; they didn’t do that very often.

Decidedly, they resolved upon a debauch. A cheese was brought out, which hadn’t been touched for six months, and a pot of dulces which was bought four years before when Robert was sick.

Robert went to the cellar to bring a bottle of the Bordeaux which had not been tasted since the death of Cecile. “Are you there, Pierre?” asked he as he entered the cellar. Pierre was not there; but Robert saw, or thought he saw, was [sic] the image of Cecile. He seized the bottle, hurried up stairs, and fell half stifled upon a chair.

“Frumence! she is in the house!” said he. “I have just seen her.”

“Bah! imagination merely. A good thimble-full of this wine will revive you. Do you know it has been bottled twenty-two years?”

“To your health, then,” said Robert, “since it is your fete day. Ah, we should drink a little every day.”

“True. We are unhappy. Nobody loves us.”

“Yes, one day we shall die in a corner, alone, with none to bury us.”

“Wine is glorious. Let us drink more of it.”

And they drank, when of a sudden they heard a plaintive melody upon the piano in the next room, which had not been touched since the death of Cecile. They shuddered.

“We are not children, now,” said Robert. “Let us see what that means.”

They entered the room. The piano was open.

“Cecile is in the house,” murmured Robert. “Look there—her purse—the lost purse—Cecile’s purse.”

They left the room, pale and trembling. After a pause, Frumence said, “We will keep our promise to Cecile. Every year we will give 200 francs to the poor.”

“Yes, yes.”

“And we will distribute them ourselves.”

“Yes, yes.”

“And then why should we fear the spectre of Cecile?”

They filled the purse, and then drank to the memory of Cecile. Then they sat down in silence.

The sou of bell metal talked to them again. “Give, yes, give!” it said. “Give to mothers who have little ones! Poor mothers! still poorer little ones! Cecile left a daughter. Where is she?” Then the piano sounded the melody Cecile had played the day before her death, and to that succeeded a strange and terrible morceau. Every note took a human voice. They groaned, cried, supplicated. The wail of the mother despairing, of the infant starving, rang out in the silence.

By a superhuman effort the misers shrieked, “Pardon, Cecile, pardon.” And Cecile stood before them in her grave clothes. “Father! husband! Have you done your duty to your brother? have you done your duty to your God?”

And the misers woke. It was daylight and they had dreamed. They took each other’s hands quietly, and went out. In the entry they saw Pierre, their servant, and the foster brother of Cecile, lying, as was his wont, on the floor uncovered. Quietly they brought him blankets and pillows, and covered him. They went out, and visited a hundred dwellings of the poor, distributing alms, and at nightfall they returned.

Pierre, lamp in hand, opened the door. He had passed a troubled day. His masters both gone out so early—spending the whole day—not letting him know whither or for what purpose they had gone—and he waking up to find their bed clothes over him—what could all this signify?

“Nothing, nothing, my poor Pierre,” cried Frumence, “we have found nothing. But if you knew how many dwellings we have visited, the poverty which we have seen in seeking our daughter! We have spent all the money we took with us, but no signs of Cecile. And, all this time she is suffering.”

If ever Pierre could be considered an idiot, it was at that moment. It seemed to him that a great change had taken place in his masters, and it was not to be doubted that it was Cecile they sought.

“Cecile!” murmured he mechanically.

“You have seen her, perhaps?” asked Robert.

“She is my foster sister. I saw her yesterday. Do not beat me for having let her enter. Her little one was hungry, and Cecile had told it that Pierre would give it a bit of bread. That was why she came. I gave her my dinner, but it was very little.”

Robert took Pierre’s hands and held them in his own. Pierre continued.

“She has been here very often. I have never seen her so sad as she was yesterday. She told me that she was indeed suffering and that she should soon depart for a better world. She wished to visit once more the chamber of her mother, and to see all that belonged to her. She went to the piano her mother’s hands so often touched, and at the first notes we both were unable to restrain our tears. Oh, Monsieur Frumence, love her—love the little child!”

“Do you know where she lives?”

“Yes, monsiuer, yes.” And he drew a written paper from his breast.

“Quick, let us go!” exclaimed Frumence. “Pierre, come with us.”

A moment after, the three departed in a coach.

Cecile had really come, the evening before, to the paternal roof, so inhospitable to her. And now she was in her miserable lodging, in the upper story of a house of the meanest appearance. There resided only those who lived by labor, and of these sad, reduced people, the saddest was Cecile.

She opened her door, and a man, some twenty-five years received her. The anxious expression on his disappeared when he saw Cecile.

“It is you, then?” said he. “Come in, come in. How much anxiety you have given us.”

At this moment the mother of him who had spoken appeared. She is an old acquaintance of the reader, for she was the apple woman of whom we spoke at the commencement of our tale.

“Heavens!” cried she. “How pale you are. And the little child, how tired! Place the child, who needs sleep, on the bed. We were very anxious about you. Richard has been to the door twenty times. You are sick—you need something!”

“Nothing but repose. It is very late and I am detaining you.”

“Not at all. I wish to speak to you. The truth must out. Richard loves you devotedly. I know you have troubles, but, if it be in our power, we will put an end to them. We are not rich, yet we will share willingly with you and the little one. My son will be the happiest of husbands, and I the happiest of mothers. I know that this thing demands reflection, but one must speak and the thing depends on you.”

“Cecile,” said Richard, on his knees, “the happiness of my life hangs upon your answer. I do not offer you a brilliant future,—nothing, but a devoted heart.”

“Richard,” answered Cecile, reading in Richard’s eyes the sincerity of his words, “I believe you, and I know you would make a wife happy. I will answer you to-morrow.”

The next day the apple woman knocked at the door of Cecile. No one answered. While preparing her son’s dinner she thought she heard a light step in the entry. She opened the door. “I am deceived,” said she.

Richard returned and eatate [sic] his meal, but still no signs of Cecile. At length a knock was heard, and Richard and his mother, opening the door, found themselves face to face with three persons, Robert, Frumence and Pierre.

“Cecile!” exclaimed Frumence, “where is she?”

“There is her door, but she is not here,” returned Richard.

They entered the room. On the table was a paper inscribed, “For Richard.” Frumence seized it and opened it. In it Cecile avowed that she loved the young man, but did not wish to burden him with herself and child. She spoke of troubles, secret and profound; of her life devoted to despair; of the rest of the grave. It was a mixture of love and despair. “When you read this, Richard,” wrote she, “my child and I will sleep the sleep of eternity in the waters of the Seine.”

We cannot paint the expression of despair on the face of every person present. Pierre fell on his knees, and as chance would have it, in so doing his hand touched the pen with which Cecile had written. The ink upon it was not yet dry! He bounded to the floor. “Cecile still lives!” cried he, “there is yet time to save her! To the Seine! to the Seine!”

In an instant all save Richard’s mother had left the house.

Having arrived at the river, their eyes sought her in all directions, but in vain. An idea seized Richard. Cecile had gone to her father’s house. This was the last hope. Thither, then, they wended their way, and there they found her.

How to describe the feeling of joy, of rapture, of ecstacy, which all felt? Robert and Frumence learned that of which they had been ignorant,—that Cecile, whom they had so wilfully neglected, had been married, and that her husband had left her a widow at the end of a year. His bad conduct had left her nothing at his death save misery.

That night Richard slept but little. The next day be found himself incapable of work, and his mother remained at home with him. About noon M. Frumence entered the lonely dwelling.

“I am charged with an answer to you, Richard,” said he. “Cecile consented! But on one condition—that we shall all live together. Come, come with me, to greet your bride. But, ere we go, do you remember two persons,—the two misers? They are misers no longer? they are dead! very dead!”

There was a wedding next day, and its unparallelled splendor is yet remembered.

The stone bench still stands in its old place. Every one sits on it now, save the two misers of yore. “They are dead—very dead!”

—Benj. Loring & Co., have for sale a splendid bullion pen, as they term it, that is superior in many respects to any in the market. In one, its durability is a matter of much importance, and it holds its elasticity and fineness to the last. As a business or editorial pen it is capital, and we can freely commend it to the attention of the class of people who would use it for those purposes.

—One night a warrior was examining the blade of his sword by the light of a lamp, which was suspended over a polished mahogany table.

“Touch the point of my blade to the surface of the table,” said the sword, “and then tell me what you see.”

“I see a shadow on one side, and a reflection on the other.”

“Very true,” answered the sword; “and their starting points touch, do they not?”

“They touch,” said the warrior.

“Now lift my point higher in the air.”

He did so; and the higher the sword arose, the further the streak of light receded from the streak of darkness.

“Now, lower my point downwards,” said the blade.

And lo! the more rapidly did the two contrasting columns approach each other.

“Thou hast taught me a good lesson,” said the warrior, sheathing his weapon, and uttering a short prayer. “It is even so with the human soul in her downward flight from virtue; it is thus that, when in contact with the earth she reflects a gleam of heaven on one side, and casts a shadow of sin on the other. The two touch each when she touches the earth, and recede continually as she ascends nearer heaven.”

—At this season of the year, economical housekeepers will thank us for the following receipt for making whitewash. Take a half bushel of nice unslacked lime; slake it with boiling water, cover it during the process to keep in the stream. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve or strainer, and add to it a peck of clean salt, previously well dissolved in warm water; three pounds of ground rice, boiled to a thin paste, and stirred in boiling hot; half a pound of clean glue, which has been previously dissolved by first soaking it well, and then hanging it over a slow fire, in a small kettle within a large one filled with water. Add five gallons of hot water to the whole mixture; stir it well, and let it stand a few days, covered from the dirt. It should be put on right hot; for this purpose, it can be kept in a kettle on a portable furnace. It is said that about a pint of this mixture will cover a square yard upon the outside of a house, if properly applied. By the introduction of coloring matter, it may be made of any desirable shade but green—green is said to act unfavorably upon the lime.

Conclude at least nine parts in ten of what is handed about by common fame to be false.


text: Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856

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

title: Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856


text: Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/Why the Gazette is a Good Advertising Medium


text: Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/To Readers and Correspondents


text: Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/A Rum Story


text:
Page:The Land Claim.pdf/29

 prisoner took when he left witness; and in what position the murdered man stood in reference to that direction.

Witness "could not answer positively. In the excitement of the moment did not notice more than that the prisoner went into the woods behind us; but whether to the right or left, could not say."

The surgeon then uncovered the body, and demonstrated that the ball must have come from the left of where the deceased was standing at the time; and also that it had been fired from a lower point of ground, as the appearance of the wound indicated.

While the body was uncovered there was a strong sensation in the room; and it was noticed and commented upon that the prisoner showed no emotion at the sight, but rather seemed curious to observe the correctness of the surgeon's observations.

Upon the testimony offered, the Judge felt compelled to commit the prisoner for further trial, and to await the impaneling of the Grand Jury. The crowd, who had been waiting in suppressed wrath to obtain this sanction to their already settled convictions, now began to mutter threats, and to talk about "stringing him up," "putting him in the Missouri," and the like methods of executing hasty justice; none of which threats seemed to alarm the prisoner, who, during the whole examination, had been calm, though sullen; and had only said in reply to a question from the, Judge as to what defense he could make, that he "had not killed Edwards; that there was somebody in the woods besides him."

The sheriff, constable and a few others quietly surrounded the prisoner, and the Judge requested the crowd to disperse peaceabl3, as the law was amply able to take care of offenders; and that they must show respect for it by keeping it themselves; counsel to which they reluctantly yielded, after some mutterings.

Then came a scene which. tried the nerves of the spectators. The poor unhappy daughter, who felt that she had done her father so miserable's service, was waiting for the opportunity to beg his forgiveness before leaving him to loneliness and imprisonment. Throwing herself on the floor, she bowed her head on his knees, and gave way to sobs that wrenched her delicate frame with their violence.

"Oh, my father! would I had died before I spoke such words as I did. If they kill you, they shall kill me, too;- for what have I to live for, without mother or father? Oh heaven-! how terrible it-is!"

To these piteous lamentations the offended father turned an indifferent ear. " She could cry and lament, now that she had done what she could to deprive herself -of a father; but she must not expect pity from one she had not pitied; " and, finally, he expressed himself weary of her complaints, and, rising, left her fainting on the floor.

It would have been well for Thomas Newcome if he had shown some compasion for his suffering daughter-the impression of his cruel nature gaining more ground among—those who witnesssed this exhibition of it from this one circumstance, than from the accredited fact of the shooting an enemy.

title: Page:The Land Claim.pdf/29


text: Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/Faith


text: Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/A Sacrifice


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 8


text: Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/Cecile


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 9


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 10


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 11


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 12


text: Saturday Evening Gazette/June 7, 1856/Operatic Concerts in Boston


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 13


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 14


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 15


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 16


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 17


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 18


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 19


text: The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 20


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Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/120

 tion and would draw it towards itself with no greater effort of its nature or trouble than a loadstone of a drachm weight embraces a drachm. But in all such experiments as this let the vigour of the magnets be equal; let there be also a just proportion in all of the shapes of the stones, and let the shape of the iron to be attracted be the same, and the goodness of the metal, and let the position of the poles of the loadstones be most exact. This is also no less true in the case of an armed loadstone than of an unarmed one. For the sake of experiment, let there be given a loadstone of eight ounces weight, which when armed lifts twelve ounces of iron; if you cut off from that loadstone a certain portion, which when it has been reduced to the shape of the former whole one is then only of two ounces, such a loadstone armed lifts a piece of iron applied to it of three ounces, in proportion to the mass. In this experiment also the piece of iron of three ounces ought to have the same shape as the former one of twelve ounces; if that rose up into a cone, it is necessary that this also in the ratio of its mass should be given a pyramidal shape proportioned to the former.

BSERVATION has shown above that the shape and mass of the loadstone have great influence in magnetick coitions; likewise also the shape and mass of the iron bodies give back more powerful and steady forces. Oblong iron rods are both drawn more quickly to a loadstone and cleave to it with greater obstinacy than round or square pieces, for the same reasons which we have proven in the case of the loadstone. But, moreover, this is also worthy of observation, that a smaller piece of iron, to which is hung a weight of another material, so that it is altogether in weight equal to another large whole piece of iron of a right weight (as regards the strength of the loadstone), is not lifted by the loadstone as the larger piece of iron would be. For a smaller piece of iron does not join with a loadstone so firmly, because it sends back less strength, and only that which is magnetick conceives strength; the foreign material hung on cannot acquire magnetick forces.


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IECES of iron join more firmly with a long stone than with a round one, provided that the pole of the stone is at the extremity and end of its length; because, forsooth, in the case of a long stone, a magnetick is directed at the end straight towards the body in which the virtue proceeds in straighter lines and through the longer diameter. But a somewhat long stone has but little power on the side, much less indeed than a round one. It is demonstrable, indeed, that at A and B the coition is stronger in a round stone than at C and D, at like distances from the pole.

QUAL loadstones come together with equal incitation.

Also magnetick bodies of iron, if alike in all respects, come together when excited with similar incitation.

Furthermore, bodies of iron not excited by a loadstone, if they are alike and not weighed down by their bulk, move towards one another with equal motion.

Two loadstones, disposed on the surface of some water in suit-


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 able skiffs, if they are drawn up suitably within their orbes of virtue, incite one another mutually to an embrace. So a proportionate piece of iron in one skiff hurries with the same speed towards the loadstone as the loadstone itself in its boat strives towards the iron. From their own positions, indeed, they are so borne together, that they are joined and come to rest at length in the middle of the space. Two iron wires magnetically excited, floating in water by means of suitable pieces of cork, strive to touch and mutually strike one another with their corresponding ends, and are conjoined.

Coition is firmer and swifter than repulsion and separation in equal magnetick substances. That magnetick substances are more sluggishly repelled than they are attracted is manifest in all magnetical experiments in the case of stones floating on water in suitable skiffs; also in the case of iron wires or rods swimming (transfixed through corks) and well excited by a loadstone, and in the case of versoria. This comes about because, though there is one faculty of coition, another of conformation or disposition, repulsion and aversion is caused merely by something disposing; on the other hand, the coming together is by a mutual alluring to contact and a disposing, that is, by a double vigour.

A disponent vigour is often only the precursor of coition, in order that the bodies may stand conveniently for one another before conjunction; wherefore also they are turned round to the corresponding ends, if they can [not] reach them through the hindrances.

If a loadstone be divided through a meridian into two equal parts, the separate parts mutually repel one another, the poles being placed directly opposite one another at a convenient and equal distance. They repel one another also with a greater velocity than when pole is put opposite pole incongruously. Just as the part B of the loadstone, placed almost opposite the part A, repels it floating in its skiff, because D turns away from F, and E from C; but if B is exactly joined with A again, they agree and become one body


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 its conjunction with the terrella. The end that is turned away also conceives vigour from the loadstone B; likewise the pole D of that loadstone is powerful on account of its suitable aspect and the nearness of the pole E of the terrella. Several causes therefore concur why the piece of iron C should cleave to the terrella B, to which it is joined more firmly than to the terrella A; the vigour excited in the rod, the vigour also excited in the stone B, and the strength implanted in B concur; therefore D is more firmly cemented magnetically with C than E with C.

But if you were to turn the vertex F round to the iron C, C would not adhære to F as formerly to D; for stones so arranged being within the orbe of virtue are placed contrary to natural order; wherefore F does not receive power from E.

Two loadstones or excited pieces of iron, duly cohæring, fly asunder on the approach of another more powerful loadstone or magnetized piece of iron. Because the new-comer repels the other with its opposing face, and dominates it, and ends the relationship of the two which were formerly joined. So the forces of the other are lessened and succumb; but if it conveniently could, being diverted of its association with the weaker, and rolling round, it would turn about to the stronger. Wherefore also magnetick bodies suspended in the air fall when a loadstone is brought near them with an opposing face, not (as Baptista Porta teaches) because the faculty of both those which were joined before grows faint and torpid, for no face can be hostile to both the ends which cohære, but to one only; and when the stronger loadstone, coming fresh with opposing face, impels this further from it, it is put to flight by the friendly reception of the former.

HOULD a very large weight, which at a very small distance is drawn towards a loadstone, be divided into ever so many equal parts, and should the radius of the orbe of magnetick attraction be divided into the same number of parts, the like named parts of the weight will correspond to the intermediate parts of the radius.

The orbe of virtue extends more widely than the orbe of motion of any magnetick; for the magnetick is affected at its extremity, even if it is not moved with local motion, which effect is produced


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 by the loadstone being brought nearer. A small versorium also is turned when a good distance off, even if at the same distance it would not flow towards the loadstone, though free and disengaged from impediment.

The swiftness of the motion of a magnetick body to a loadstone is dependent on either the power of the loadstone, on its mass, on its shape, on the medium, or on its distance within the magnetick orbe.

A magnetick moves more quickly towards a more powerful stone than towards a sluggish one in proportion to the strength, and [as appears] by a comparison of the loadstones together. A lesser mass of iron also is carried more quickly towards a loadstone, just as also one that is a little longer in shape. The swiftness of magnetick motion towards a loadstone is changed by reason of the medium; for bodies are moved more quickly in air than in water, and in clear air than in air that is thick and cloudy.

By reason of the distance, the motion is quicker in the case of bodies near together than when they are far off. At the limits of the orbe of virtue of a terrella a magnetick is moved feebly and slowly. At very short distances close to the terrella the moving impetus is greatest.

A loadstone which in the outmost part of its orbe of virtue hardly moves a versorium when one foot removed from it, doth, if a long piece of iron is joined to it, attract and repel the versorium more strongly with its opposite poles when even three feet distant. The result is the same whether the loadstone is armed or unarmed. Let the iron be a suitable piece of the thickness of the little finger.

For the vigour of the loadstone excites verticity in the iron and proceeds in the iron and through the iron much further than it extends through the air.

The vigour proceeds even through several pieces of iron (joined to one another end to end), not so regularly, however, as through one continuous solid.

Dust of steel placed upon paper rises up when a loadstone is moved near above it in a sort of steely hairiness; but if the loadstone is placed below, such a hairiness is likewise raised.

Steel dust (when the pole of a loadstone is placed near) is cemented into one body; but when it desires coition with the loadstone, the mass is split and it rises in conglomerated parts.

But if there is a loadstone beneath the paper, the mass is split in the same way and many portions result, each of which consists of very many parts, and remains cemented together, as individual bodies. Whilst the lower parts of these pursue greedily the pole of the loadstone placed directly beneath, even they also are raised up as magnetick wholes, just as a small iron wire of the length of a grain or two grains of barley is raised up, both when the loadstone is moved near both beneath and above.


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HE extraordinary magnetick virtue of the earth is remarkably demonstrated by the subtility of the following magnetical experiment. Let there be given a terrella of no contemptible power, or a long loadstone with equal cones as polar extremities; but in any other shape which is not exactly round error is easy, and the experiment difficult. In the Northern regions, raise the true North pole of the terrella above the horizon straight toward the zenith; it is demonstrable that it raises up a larger iron spike on its North pole, than the South pole of the same terrella is able to raise, when turned in the same way toward the highest point of the sky. The same thing is shown by a small terrella placed in the same way above a larger.

Let a b be the earth or a somewhat large terrella, also a b a smaller terrella. There is set up above the Northern pole of the smaller terrella a spike larger than the pole b of the smaller terrella can raise, if it is turned round to the higher parts. And the pole a of the


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 smaller terrella has its strength from the larger, declining from the Zenith to the plane of the horizon or to the level. But now, if, leaving the terrella disposed in the same way, you bring a piece of iron to the lower and Southern pole, it will attract and retain a greater weight than the Boreal pole could, if it were turned round to the lower parts. Which thing is demonstrated thus: let A be the earth or a terrella; E the Boreal pole or some place in some great latitude; B a rather large terrella above the earth or a smaller terrella on the top of a larger; D its Southern pole. It is manifest that D (the Southern pole) attracts a larger piece of iron, C, than F (the Boreal pole) will be able to, if it is turned round downward to the position D, toward the earth or the terrella in the Northern regions.

Magneticks acquire strength through magneticks, if they are properly placed according to their nature, in near neighbourhood and within the orbe of virtue. Wherefore when a terrella is placed on the earth or on a terrella, so that its Southern pole is turned round toward the Northern pole, its Northern pole, however, turned away from the Northern pole, the influence and strength of


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 its poles are increased. And so the Northern pole of a terrella in such a position lifts up a larger spike than the Southern pole, if the Southern pole is turned away. Similarly the Southern pole in a proper and natural arrangement, acquiring strength from the earth or from a larger terrella, attracts and retains larger rods of iron. In the other part of the terrestrial globe toward the South, as also in the Austral portion of a terrella, the reasoning is converse; for the Southern pole of the terrella being turned away is more robust, as also the Northern pole when turned round. The more a region on the earth is distant from the æquinoctial (as also in a larger terrella), the larger is the accession of strength perceived; near the æquator, indeed, the difference is small, but on the æquator itself null; at the poles finally it is greatest.

ARDAN writes that out of iron and the Herculean stone can be made a perpetual motion machine; not that he himself had ever seen one, but only conceived the idea from an account by Antonius de Fantis, of Treves. Such a machine he describes, Book 9, De Rerum Varietate. But they have been little practised in magnetick experiments who forge such things as that. For no magnetick attraction can be greater (by any skill or by any kind of instrument) than the retention. Things which are joined and those which are approaching near are retained with a greater force than those which are enticed and set in motion, and are moved; and that coition is, as we have shown above, a motion of both, not an attraction of one. Such a machine Peter Peregrinus feigned many centuries before or else depicted one which he had received from others, and one which was much better fitted for the purpose. Johannes Taysnier published it also, spoiled by wretched figures, and copied out the whole theory of it word for word. O that the gods would at length bring to a miserable end such fictitious, crazy, deformed labours, with which the minds of the studious are blinded!


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ERY powerful loadstones sometimes lift into the air a weight of iron equal to their own; a weak one barely attracts a slender wire. Those therefore are more robust which appeal to and retain larger bodies, if there is no defect in their form, or the pole of the stone is not suitably moved up. Moreover, when placed in a boat a keener influence turns its own poles round more quickly to the poles of the earth or the limits of variation on the horizon. One which performs its function more feebly indicates a defect and an effete nature. There must always be a similar preparation, a similar figure, and a like size; for in such as are very dissimilar and unlike, the experiment is doubtful. The method of testing the strength is the same also with a versorium in a place somewhat remote from a loadstone; for the one which is able to turn the versorium round at the greater distance, that one conquers and is held the more potent. Rightly also is the force of a loadstone weighed in a balance by B. Porta; a piece of loadstone is placed in one scale-pan, in the other just as much weight of something else, so that the scale-pans hang level. Soon a piece of iron lying on the table is adjusted so that it sticks to the loadstone placed in the scale, and they cling together most perfectly, according to their friendly points; into the other scale-pan sand is gradually thrown, and that until the scale in which the loadstone is placed is separated from the iron. Thus by weighing the weight of sand, the magnetick force becomes known. Similarly also it will be pleasing to try with another stone, in equilibrium, the weight of the sand being observed, and to find out the stronger by means of the weights of sand. Such is the experiment of Cardinal Cusan in his De Staticis, from whom it would seem that B. Porta learnt the experiment. The better loadstones turn themselves round more quickly toward the poles or points of variation; then they also lead along and turn round more quickly, according to the greater quantity and mass of wood, a boat and other stuff. In a declination instrument, the more powerful force of a loadstone is looked for and required. Those therefore are more lively when they get through their work readily, and pass through and come back again with speed, and swiftly at length settle at their own point. Languid and effete ones move more sluggishly, settle more tardily, adhære more uncertainly, and are easily disturbed from their possession.


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1. Var. Briotii. Flowers in larger panicles and more brilliantly coloured, the filaments, calyx, and style being red. Fruits never developing fully, falling soon after the flowers. This variety was obtained in 1858, by M. Briot at the State Nurseries of the Trianon, Versailles, as a seedling of Æsculus carnea.

2. Several variegated forms are known, as var. aureo-maculata and aureo-marginata. Var. alba is a form with white flowers. Var. pendula is pendulous in habit.

3. Æsculus plantierensis, André, Rev. Horticole, 1894, p. 246, 1s supposed to be a cross between A. carnea and the common horse-chestnut, as it is intermediate in character. This variety arose in the nursery of Messrs. Simon-Louis Fréres at Plantières-lès-Metz, from a seed of Æsculus Hippocastanum. Other intermediate forms, named by André Æsculus intermedia and Æsculus balgiana, were derived from seeds of Æsculus carnea.

Nothing is known for certain concerning the origin of Æsculus carnea. Loiseleur received the plant from Germany in 1818, and there are no earlier accounts of it. Its parentage, however, is undoubted: it possesses characters of both the supposed parents. The leaves and slightly spiny fruit are derived from the common horse-chestnut. The colour of the petals and the glands on their margins come from Æsculus Pavia. According to André the seeds when sown usually produce plants which bear whitish flowers and are of no horticultural value. The species is accordingly always propagated by grafting. Koch, however, reports that while some seedlings are like those of the common horse-chestnut, others produce smooth fruits. At Kew, according to Mr. Bean, it has come true from seed.

The largest specimen of this tree that we have seen occurs at Barton in Suffolk. It was 50 feet high in 1904, with a bole, however, of only 2 feet, girthing 7 feet 9 inches at a foot above the ground, and dividing into three stems.

It does not seem to live long or to attain any great size in England, and is often supposed to be a red-flowered form of the common horse-chestnut.


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Y magnetick coition we test iron ore in a blacksmith's forge. It is burnt, broken in pieces, washed and dried, in which way it lays down its alien humours; in the bits collected from the washing is placed a loadstone, which attracts the iron dust to itself; this, being brushed off with feathers, is received in a crucible, and the loadstone is again placed in the bits collected from the washing, and the dust wiped off, as long as any remains which it will attract to itself. This is then heated in the crucible along with sal nitri until it is liquid, and from this a small mass of iron is cast. But if the loadstone draws the dust to itself quickly and readily, we conjecture that the iron ore is rich; if slowly, poor; if it seems altogether to reject it, there is very little iron in it or none at all. In like manner iron dust can be separated from another metal. Many tricks there are also, when iron is secretly applied to lighter bodies, and, being attracted by the motion of a loadstone which is kept out of sight, causes movements which are amazing to those who do not know the cause. Very many such indeed every ingenious mechanician will perform by sleight of hand, as if by incantations and jugglery.

ERY often the herd of philosophizers and plagiarists repeat from the records of others in natural philosophy opinions and errors about the attractions of various bodies; as that Diamond attracts iron, and snatches it away from a magnet; that there are various kinds or magnets, some which attract gold, others silver, brass, lead; even some which attract flesh, water, fishes. The flame of sulphur is said to seek iron and stones; so white naphtha is said to attract fire. I have said above that inani-


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 mate natural bodies do not attract, and are not attracted by, others on the earth, excepting magnetically or electrically. Wherefore it is not true that there are magnets which attract gold or other metals; because a magnetick substance draws nothing but magnetick substances. Though Fracastorio says that he has shown a magnet drawing silver; if this were true, it must have happened on account of iron skilfully mixed with that silver or concealed in it, or else because nature (as she does sometimes, but rarely) had mixed iron with the silver; iron indeed is rarely mixed with silver by nature; silver with iron very rarely or never. Iron is mixed with silver by forgers of false coin or from the avarice of princes in the coining of money, as was the case with the denarius of Antony, provided that Pliny is recording a true incident. So Cardan (perhaps deceived by others) says that there is a certain kind of loadstone which draws silver; he adds a most foolish test of this: "If therefore" (he says) "a slender rod of silver be steeped in that in which a versatory needle has stood, it will turn toward silver (especially toward a large quantity) although it be buried; by this means anyone will be able easily to dig up concealed treasures." He adds that "it should be very good stone, such as he has not yet seen." Nor indeed will either he or anyone else ever see such a stone or such an experiment. Cardan brings forward an attraction of flesh, wrongly so named and very dissimilar from that of the loadstone; for his magnes creagus or flesh-magnet, from the experiment that it sticks to the lips, must be hooted out from the assembly of loadstones, or by all means from the family of things attractive. Lemnian earth, ruddle, and very many minerals do this, and yet they are fatuously said to attract. He will have it that there is another loadstone, as it were, a third species, into which, if a needle is driven and afterwards stuck into the body, it is not felt. But what has attraction to do with stupefaction, or stupor with a Philosopher's intellect, when he is discoursing about attraction? There are many stones, both found in nature and made by art, which have the power of stupefying. Sulphur flame is said by some to attract, because it consumes certain metals by its power of penetration. So white naphtha attracts flame, because it gives off and exhales an inflammable vapour, on which account it is kindled at some distance, just as the smoke of a recently extinguished candle takes fire again from another flame; for fire creeps to fire through an inflammable medium. Why the sucking fish Echineis or the Remora should stay ships has been variously treated by Philosophers, who are often accustomed to fit this fable (as many others) to their theories, before they find out whether the thing is so in nature. Therefore, in order that they may support and agree with the fatuities of the ancients, they put forward even the most fatuous ratiocinations and ridiculous problems, cliffs that attract, where the


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 sucking fish tarry, and the necessity of some vacuum, I know not what, or how produced. Pliny and Julius Solinus make mention of a stone Chatochitis. They say that it attracts flesh, and keeps hold of the hands, just as a loadstone does iron, and amber chaff. But that happens only from a stickiness and from glue contained in it, since it sticks more easily to the hands when they are warm. Sagda or Sagdo, of the colour of a sard, is a precious stone mentioned by Pliny, Solinus, Albertus, and Evax; they describe its nature and relate, on the authority of others, that it specially attracts wood to itself. Some even babble that woods cannot be wrenched away except they are cut off. Some also narrate that a stone is found which grows pertinaciously into ships, in the same way as certain testacea on long voyages. But a stone does not draw because it sticks; and if it drew, it would certainly draw shreds electrically, Encelius saw in the hands of a sailor such a stone of feeble virtue, which would hardly attract even the smallest twigs; and in truth, not of the colour of the sard. So Diamond, Carbuncle, Crystal, and others do attract. I pass over other fabulous stones; Pantarbe, about which Philostratus writes that it draws other stones to itself; Amphitane also, which attracts gold. Pliny in his origin of glass will have it that a loadstone is an attractor of glass, as well as of iron. For in his method of preparing glass, when he has indicated its nature, he subjoins this about loadstone. "Soon (such is the astute and resourceful craft) it was not content to have mixed natron; loadstone also began to be added, since it was thought to attract to itself the liquor of glass (as it does iron)." Georgius Agricola writes that to the material of glass (sand and natron) one part also of loadstone is added. "Because that force is believed, in our times just as in former times, to attract the liquor of glass to itself, as it attracts iron to itself, purges it when drawn, and makes clear glass from green or muddy; but the fire afterwards burns up the loadstone." It is true indeed that some sort of magnes (as the magnesia of the glass-makers imbued with no magnetick virtues) is sometimes put in and mixed with the material of the glass; not, however, because it attracts glass. But when a loadstone is burnt, it does not lay hold of iron at all, nor is iron when red-hot allured by any loadstone; and loadstone also is burnt up by more powerful fires and loses its attractive potency. Nor is this a function of loadstone alone in the glass furnaces; but also of certain pyrites and of some easily combustible iron ores, which are the only ones used by our glass-makers, who make clear, bright glass. They are mixed with the sand, ashes, and natron (just as they are accustomed to make additions in the case of metallick ores whilst they are smelted), so that when the material slows down into glass, the green and muddy colour of the glass may be purged by the penetrating heat. For no other material becomes so hot,


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 or bears the fire for such a convenient time, until the material of the glass is perfectly fluid, and is at the same time burnt up by that ardent fire. It happens, however, sometimes, that on account of the magnetick stone, the magnesia, or the ore, or the pyrites, the glass has a dusky colour, when they resist the fire too much and are not burnt up, or are put in in too great quantity. Wherefore manufacturers are seeking for a stone suitable for them, and are observing also more diligently the proportion of the mixture. Badly therefore did the unskilful philosophy of Pliny impose upon Georgius Agricola and the more recent writers, so that they thought the loadstone was wanted by glass-makers on account of its magnetick strength and attraction. But Scaliger in De Subtilitate ad Cardanum, in making diamond attract iron, when he is discussing magneticks, wanders far from the truth, unless it be that diamond attracts iron electrically, as it attracts wood, straws, and all other minute bodies when it is rubbed. Fallopius reckons that quicksilver draws metals by reason of an occult property, just as a loadstone iron, amber chaff. But when quicksilver enters metals, it is wrongly called attraction. For metals imbibe quicksilver, just as clay water; nor do they do this unless they are touching, for quicksilver does not allure gold or lead to itself from afar, but they remain motionless in their places.

RITERS who have discoursed on the forces of bodies which attract others have also spoken about the powers of bodies which repel, but especially those who have instituted classes for natural objects on the basis of sympathy and antipathy. Wherefore it would seem necessary for us to speak also about the mutual strife of bodies, so that published errors should not creep further, and be received by all to the ruin of true philosophy. They say that, just as like things attract for the sake of preservation, so unlike and contrary things for the same purpose mutually repel and put one another to flight. This is evident in the reaction of many things, but it is most manifest in the case of plants and animals, which attract kindred and familiar things, and in like manner reject foreign and unsuitable things. But in other bodies there is not the same reason, so that when they are separated, they should come together by mutually


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 attracting one another. Animals take food (as everything which grows), and draw it into their interior; they absorb the nourishment by certain parts and instruments (through the action and operation of the anima). They enjoy by natural instinct only the things set in front of them and near them, not things placed afar off; and this without any alien force or motion. Wherefore animals neither attract any bodies nor drive them away. Water does not repel oil (as some think) because the oil floats on water; nor does water repel mud, because the mud, if mixed in water, settles down in time. This is a separation of unlike bodies or such as are not perfectly mixed as respects the material; the separated bodies nevertheless remain joined without any natural strife. Wherefore a muddy sediment settles quietly on the bottom of vessels, and oil remains on the top of the water and is not sent further away. A drop of water remains intact on a dry surface, and is not expelled from the dry substance. Wrongly therefore do those who discourse on these matters infer an antipathy (that is, the force of repelling by contrary passions); for there is no repelling force in them; and repulsion comes from action, not from passion. But their greek vocables please them too much. We, however, must inquire whether there is any body which drives anything else further off without material impetus, as a loadstone attracts. But a loadstone seems even to repel loadstone. For the pole of one loadstone repels the pole of another, which does not agree with it according to nature; by repelling, it turns it round in an orbit so that they may exactly agree according to their nature. But if a somewhat weak loadstone, floating freely on water, cannot readily be turned round on account of impediments, the whole loadstone is repelled and sent further away from the other. All electricks attract all things: they never repel or propel anything at all. As to what is related about certain plants (as about the cucumber, which turns aside when oil is applied to it), there is a material change from the vicinity, not a hidden antipathy. But when they show a candle flame put against a cold solid substance (as iron) turn away to the side, and allege antipathy as the cause, they say nothing. The reason of this they will see clearer than the day, when we discourse on what heat is. But Fracastorio's opinion that a loadstone can be found, which would drive iron away, on account of some opposing principle lurking in the iron, is foolish.


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 fifty challenges in consequence, and one duel; missed fire, of course.

"I have heard from Alhambra; he has been wandering about in all directions. He has been to the Lakes, and is now at Edinburgh. He likes Southey. He gave the laureate a quantity of hints for his next volume of the Peninsular War, but does not speak very warmly of Wordsworth: gentlemanly man, but only reads his own poetry. I made him promise to go and see De Quincy; and, like a good boy, he did; but he says he's a complete humbug. What can he mean? He stayed some days at Sir Walter's, and met Tom Moore. Singular, that our three great poets should be together this summer! He speaks in raptures of the great Baronet, and of the beauties of Abbotsford. He met Moore again in Edinburgh, and was present at the interview between him and Hogg.  Lalla Rookh did not much like being called

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 'Tam Muir," and rather kicked at the shepherd.

"Edinburgh is more delightful than you can possibly conceive. I certainly intend to go next summer. Alhambra is very intimate with John Wilson, who seems indeed a first rate fellow, full of fun and genius; and quite as brilliant a hand at a comic song, as at a tragic drama. Do you know it struck me the other day, that comic songs and tragedies are 'the lights and shadows' of literature. Pretty idea, is it not?

"Here has been a cousin of yours about us; a young barrister going the circuit; by name, Hargrave Grey. The name attracted my notice, and due enquiries having been made, and satisfactorily answered, I patronised the limb of law. Fortunate for him! I got him to all the fancy balls and pic nics that were going on. He was in heaven for a fortnight, and at length, having overstaid his time, he left us, also leaving

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N referring to the earlier books it will be found shown that a loadstone has its poles, and that a piece of iron has also poles, and rotation, and a certain verticity; finally, that the loadstone and the iron direct their poles toward the poles of the earth. Now, however, we must make clear the causes of these things and their admirable workings, pointed out indeed before, but not proven. All those who have written before us about these rotations have left us their opinions so briefly, so meagrely, and with such hesitating judgment that they seem hardly likely ever to persuade anyone, or even to be able to satisfy themselves; and all their petty reasons are rejected by the more prudent as useless, uncertain, and absurd, being supported by no proofs or arguments; whence also magnetick science, being all the more neglected and not understood, has been in exile. The true austral pole of a loadstone, not the boreal (as all before us used to think), if the loadstone is placed in its boat on the surface of water, turns to the North; in the case of a piece of iron also, whether it has been excited by a loadstone or not, the southern end moves toward the North. An oblong piece of iron of three or four digits' length, when skilfully rubbed with a loadstone, quickly turns north and south. Wherefore mechanicians, taking a piece of iron prepared in this way, balance it on a pin in a box, and fit it up with the requisites of a sun-dial; or they prepare the versorium out of two curved pieces of iron with their ends touching one another, so that the motion may be more constant. In this way the mariners' versorium is arranged, which is an instrument beneficial, useful, and auspicious to sailors for indicating, like a good genius, safety and the right way. But it must be understood on the threshold of this argument (before we proceed further) that these pointings of the loadstone or of iron are not perpetually made


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 his bag, and only brief behind him. They say he's ruined for life. Write soon. "Your's ever, "."

Ernest Clay, Esq., to Vivian Grey, Esq.

" October,—18—

"I am sick of key-bugles and country balls! All the girls in the town are in love with me—or my foraging cap. I am very much obliged to you for your letter to Kennet, which procured every thing I wanted. The family turned out bores, as you had prepared me. I never met such a clever family in my life; the father is summoning up courage to favour the world with a volume of sermons; both the sons have had sonnets refused by the London magazines; and Isabella Kennet most satisfactorily proved to me, after an argument of two hours, which for courtesy's sake, I fought very man-

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 fully, that Sir Walter Scott was not the author of Waverly; and then she vowed, as I have heard fifty other young literary ladies vow before, that she had 'seen the Antiquary in manuscript.'

"There has been a slight row to diversify the monotony of our military life. Young Premium, the son of the celebrated loan-monger, has bought in; and Dormer Stanhope, and one or two others equally fresh, immediately anticipated another Battier business: but, with the greatest desire to make a fool of myself, I have a natural repugnance to mimicking the foolery of others; so with some little exertion, and very fortunately for young Premium, I got the tenth voted vulgar on the score of curiosity, and we were civil to the man. As it turned out, it was all very well, for Premium is a quiet gentlemanly fellow enough, and exceedingly useful. He'll keep extra grooms for the whole mess, if they want it. He's very grateful

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 to me for what does not deserve any gratitude, and for what gave me no trouble; for I did not defend him from any feeling of kindness. And both the Mounteneys, and young Stapylton Toad, and Augustus, being in the regiment, why, I've very little trouble in commanding a majority, if it comes to a division.

"I dined the other day at old Premium's, who lives near this town in a magnificent old hall; which, however, is not near splendid enough, for a man who is the creditor of every nation from California, to China; and, consequently, the great Mr. Stucco is building a plaster castle for him in another part of the park. Glad am I enough, that I was prevailed upon to patronize the Premium; for I think, I never witnessed a more singular scene than I did the day I dined there.

"I was ushered through an actual street of servitors, whose liveries were really cloth of gold, and whose elaborately powdered heads

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 ficial integument. I learned this in early boyhood. I was once equipped in a hat of Leghorn straw, having a brim of much wider dimensions than were usual at that time, and sent to school in that portion of my native town which lies nearest to this metropolis. On my way I was met by a "Port-chuck," as we used to call the young gentlemen of that locality, and the following dialogue ensued.

The Port-chuck. Hullo, You-sir, joo know th' wuz gōn-to be a race to-morrah?

Myself. No. Who's gōn-to run, 'n' wher's't gōn-to be?

The Port-chuck. Squire Mico 'n' Doctor Williams, round the brim o' your hat.

These two much-respected gentlemen being the oldest inhabitants at that time, and the alleged racecourse being out of the question, the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his cheek, I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has been to make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of dress ever since. Here is an axiom or two relating to it.

A hat which has been popped, or exploded by being sat down upon, is never itself again afterwards.

It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe the contrary.

Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its hat. There is always an unnatural calmness


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 would not have disgraced the most ancient mansion in St. James's Square, into a large and very crowded saloon. I was, of course, received with the most miraculous consideration; and the ear of Mrs. Premium seemed to dwell upon the jingling of my spurs, (for I am adjutant,) as upon the most exquisite music. It was bona fide evidence of 'the officers being there.' She'll now be visited by the whole county.

Premium is a short, but by no means vulgar looking man, about fifty, with a high forehead covered with wrinkles, and with eyes deep sunk in his head. I never met a man of apparently less bustle, and of a cooler temperament. He was an object of observation from his very unobtrusiveness. There were, I immediately perceived, a great number of foreigners in the room. They looked much too knowing for Arguelles and Co., and I soon found that they were members of the different embassies, or missions of the various Governments, to whose

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 infant existence Premium is foster-father. There were two very striking figures in Oriental costume, who were shown to me as the Greek Deputies— not that you are to imagine that they always appear in this picturesque dress. It was only as a particular favour, and to please Miss Premium;—there, Grey, my boy! there's a quarry!—that the illustrious envoys appeared, habited, this day in their national costume.

"Oh! Grey, you would have enjoyed the scene. In one part of the room was a naval officer, just hot from the mines of Mexico, and lecturing eloquently on the passing of the Cordillera. In another was a man of science, dilating on the miraculous powers of a newly-discovered amalgamation process, to a knot of merchants, who, with bent brows and eager eyes, were already forming a Company for its adoption. Here floated the latest anecdote of Bolivar; and there a murmur of some new

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 about its nap, and an unwholesome gloss, suggestive of a wet brush.

The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in smoothing its dilapidated castor. The hat is the ultimum moriens of "respectability."

The old gentleman took all these remarks and maxims very pleasantly, saying, however, that he had forgotten most of his French except the word for potatoes,—pummies de tare.—Ultimum moriens, I told him, is old Italian, and signifies last thing to die. With this explanation he was well contented, and looked quite calm when I saw him afterwards in the entry with a black hat on his head and the white one in his hand.

I think myself fortunate in having the Poet and the Professor for my intimates. We are so much together, that we no doubt think and talk a good deal alike; yet our points of view are in many respects individual and peculiar. You know me well enough by this time. I have not talked with you so long for nothing and therefore I don't think it necessary to draw my own portrait. But let me say a word or two about my friends.

The Professor considers himself, and I consider him, a very useful and worthy kind of drudge. I think he has a pride in his small technicalities. I know that he has a great idea of fidelity; and though I suspect he laughs a little inwardly at times


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 movement of Cochrane's. And then the perpetual babble about 'rising states' and 'new loans,' and 'enlightened views,' and 'juncture of the two oceans,' and 'liberal principles,' and 'steam boats to Mexico;' and the earnest look which every one had in the room. Oh! how different to the vacant gaze that we have been accustomed to! I was really particularly struck by this circumstance. Every one at Premium's looked full of some great plan; as if the fate of empires was on his very breath. I hardly knew whether they were most like conspirators, or gamblers, or the lions of a public dinner, conscious of an universal gaze, and consequently looking proportionately interesting. One circumstance particularly struck me: as I was watching the acute countenance of an individual, who, young Premium informed me, was the Chilian minister, and who was listening with great attention to a dissertation from Captain Tropic, the celebrated

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8


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 traveller, on the feasibility of a rail road over the Andes—I observed a very great sensation among all those around me; every one shifting, and shuffling, and staring, and assisting in that curious, and confusing ceremony, called making way. Even Premium appeared a little excited, when he came forward with a smile on his face to receive an individual, apparently a foreigner, and who stepped on with great, though gracious dignity. Being very curious to know who this great man was, I found that this was an ambassador—the representative of a recognised state.

"'Pon my honour, when I saw all this, I could not refrain from moralizing on the magic of wealth, and when I just remember the embryo plot of some young Huzzar Officers to cut the son of the magician, I rather smiled; but while I, with even greater reverence than all others, was making way for his Excellency I observed Mrs. Premium looking at my spurs—

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 'Perhaps not. Ah, my little lady, you are wearying of me!'

'No, Nic,' responded she, creeping closer. 'I am not. Upon my word, and truth, and honour, I am not, Nic.'

'A mere tiller of the soil, as I should be called,' he continued, without heeding her. 'And you-well, a daughter of one of the I won't say oldest families, because that's absurd, all families are the same age—one of the longest chronicled families about here whose name is actually the name of the place.'

'That's not much, I am sorry to say! My poor brother—but I won't speak of that Well,' she murmured mischievously, after a pause, 'you certainly would not need to be uneasy if I were to do this that you want me to do. You would have me safe enough in your trap then; I couldn't get away!'

'That's just it!' he said vehemently. It is a trap—you feel it so, and that though you wouldn't be able to get away from me you might particularly wish to! Ah, if I had asked you two years ago you would have agreed instantly. But I thought I was bound to wait for the proposal to come from you as the superior!'

'Now you are angry, and take seriously what I meant purely in fun. You don't know me even yet! To show you that you have not been mistaken in me, I do propose to carry out this licence. I'll marry you, dear Nicholas, to-morrow morning.'

'Ah, Christine! I am afraid I have stung you on to this, so that I cannot'

'No, no, no!' she hastily rejoined; and there was something in her tone which suggested that she had been put upon her mettle and would not flinch. 'Take me whilst I am in the humour. What church is the licence for?'

'That I've not looked to see—why our parish church here, of course. Ah, then we cannot use it! We dare not be married here.'

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 'We do dare,' said she. And we will too, if you'll be there.'

'If I'll be there!'

They speedily came to an agreement that he should be in the church-porch at ten minutes to eight on the following morning, awaiting her; and that, immediately after the conclusion of the service which would make them one, Nicholas should set out on his longdeferred educational tour, towards the cost of which she was resolving to bring a substantial subscription with her to church. Then, slipping from him, she went indoors by the way she had come, and Nicholas bent his steps homewards.

Instead of leaving the spot by the gate, he flung himself over the fence, and pursued a direction towards the river under the trees. And it was now, in his lonely progress, that he showed for the first time outwardly that he was not altogether unworthy of her. He wore long water-boots reaching above his knees, and, instead of making a circuit to find a bridge by which he might cross the Froom—the river aforesaid—he made straight for the point whence proceeded the low roar that was at this hour the only evidence of the stream's existence. He speedily stood on the verge of the waterfall which caused the noise, and stepping into the water at the top of the fall, waded through with the sure tread of one who knows every inch of his footing, even though the canopy of trees rendered the darkness almost absolute, and a false step would have precipitated him into the pool beneath. Soon reaching the boundary of the grounds, he continued in the same direct line to traverse the alluvial valley, full of brooks and tributaries to the main stream—in former times quite impassable, and impassable in winter now. Some-

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 times he would cross a deep gully on a plank not wider than the hand; at another time he ploughed his way through beds of spear-grass, where at a few feet to the right or left he might have been sucked down into a morass. At last he reached firm land on the other side of this watery tract, and came to his house on the rise behind—Elsenford—an ordinary farmstead, from the back of which rose indistinct breathings, belchings, and snortings, the rattle of halters, and other familiar features of an agriculturist's home.

While Nicholas Long was packing his bag in an upper room of this dwelling, Miss Christine Everard sat at a desk in her own chamber at Froom-Everard manor-house, looking with pale fixed countenance at the candles.

'I ought—I must now!' she whispered to herself. 'I should not have begun it if I had not meant to carry it through! It runs in the blood of us, I suppose. She alluded to a fact unknown to her lover, the clandestine marriage of an aunt under circumstances somewhat similar to the present. In a few minutes she had penned the following note:

She sent the note to the rector immediately, waiting at a small side-door of the house till she heard the servant's footsteps returning along the lane, when she went round and met him in the passage. The rector had taken the trouble to write a line, and answered that he would meet her with pleasure.

A dripping fog which ushered in the next morning was highly favorable to the scheme of the pair. At

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 that time of the century Froom-Everard House had not been altered and enlarged; the public lane passed close under its walls; and there was a door opening directly from one of the old parlours—the south parlour, as it was called—into the lane which led to the village. Christine came out this way, and after following the lane for a short distance entered upon a path within a belt of plantation, by which the church could be reached privately. She even avoided the churchyard gate, walking along to a place where the turf without the low wall rose into a mound, enabling her to mount upon the coping and spring down inside. She crossed the wet graves, and so glided round to the door. He was there, with his bag in his hand. He kissed her with a sort of surprise, as if he had expected that at the last moment her heart would fail her.

Though it had not failed her, there was, nevertheless, no great ardour in Christine's bearing—merely the momentum of an antecedent impulse. They went up the aisle together, the bottle-green glass of the old lead quarries admitting but little light at that hour, and under such an atmosphere. They stood by the altar-rail in silence, Christine's skirt visibly quivering at each beat of her heart.

Presently a quick step ground upon the gravel, and Mr. Bealand came round by the front. He was a quiet bachelor, courteous towards Christine, and not at first recognizing in Nicholas a neighbouring yeoman (for he lived aloofly in the next parish), advanced to her without revealing any surprise at her unusual request. But in truth he was surprised, the keen interest taken by many country young women at the present day in church decoration and festivals being then unknown.

'Good morning,' he said; and repeated the same words to Nicholas more mechanically.

'Good morning,' she replied gravely. 'Mr. Bealand, I have a serious reason for asking you to meet me—us, I may say. We wish you to marry us.'

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 of the King, which had plainly appeared in every concession that he had been constrained to make to his people. In this question, so delicate and uncertain, men naturally fell to the side which was most conformable to their usual principles; and the more passionate favourers of monarchy declared for the king, as the zealous friends of liberty sided with the parliament. The hopes of success being nearly equal on both sides, interest had no general influence in this contest: So that and  were merely parties of principle; neither of which disowned either monarchy or liberty; but the former party inclined most to the republican part of our government, the latter to the monarchical. In this respect, they may be considered as court and country party, inflamed into a civil war, by an unhappy concurrence of circumstances, and by the turbulent spirit of the age. The commonwealth's men, and the partizans of absolute power, lay concealed in both parties, and formed but an inconsiderable part of them.

The clergy had concurred with the king's arbitrary designs; and, in return, were allowed to persecute their adversaries, whom they called heretics and schismatics. The established clergy were episcopal; the non-conformists presbyterian: So that all things concurred to throw the former, without reserve, into the king's party, and the latter into that of the parliament.

Every one knows the event of this quarrel; fatal to the king first, to the parliament afterwards. After many confusions and revolutions, the royal family was at last restored, and the ancient government re-established. Charles II. was not made wiser by the example of his father, but prosecuted the same measures, though, at first, with more secrecy and caution. New parties arose,


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 "I do want you to like it, because I wish my girl to be as well and strong as Jessie's boys, who are brought up on this in the good old fashion. No hot bread and fried stuff for them, and they are the biggest and bonniest lads of the lot. Bless you, auntie, and good morning!"

Dr. Alec turned to greet the old lady, and, with a firm resolve to eat or die in the attempt, Rose sat down.

In five minutes she forgot what she was eating, so interested was she in the chat that went on. It amused her very much to hear Aunt Plenty call her forty-year-old nephew "my dear boy"; and Uncle Alec was so full of lively gossip about all creation in general, and the Aunt-hill in particular, that the detested porridge vanished without a murmur.

"You will go to church with us, I hope, Alec, if you are not too tired," said the old lady, when breakfast was over.

"I came all the way from Calcutta for that express purpose, ma'am. Only I must send the sisters word of my arrival, for they don't expect me till to-morrow, you know, and there will be a row in church if those boys see me without warning."

"I'll send Ben up the hill, and you can step over to Myra's yourself; it will please her, and you will have plenty of time."

Dr. Alec was off at once, and they saw no more of him till the old barouche was at the door, and Aunt Plenty just rustling downstairs in her Sunday best, with Rose like a little black shadow behind her.


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 Away they drove in state, and all the way Uncle Alec's hat was more off his head than on, for everyone they met smiled and bowed, and gave him as blithe a greeting as the day permitted.

It was evident that the warning had been a wise one, for, in spite of time and place, the lads were in such a ferment that their elders sat in momentary dread of an unseemly outbreak somewhere. It was simply impossible to keep those fourteen eyes off Uncle Alec, and the dreadful things that were done during sermon-time will hardly be believed.

Rose dared not look up after a while, for these bad boys vented their emotions upon her till she was ready to laugh and cry with mingled amusement and vexation. Charlie winked rapturously at her behind his mother's fan; Mac openly pointed to the tall figure beside her; Jamie stared fixedly over the back of his pew, till Rose thought his round eyes would drop out of his head; George fell over a stool and dropped three books in his excitement; Will drew sailors and Chinamen on his clean cuffs, and displayed them, to Rose's great tribulation; Steve nearly upset the whole party by burning his nose with salts, as he pretended to be overcome by his joy; even dignified Archie disgraced himself by writing in his hymn book, "Isn't he blue and brown?" and passing it politely to Rose.

Her only salvation was trying to fix her attention upon Uncle Mac a portly, placid gentleman, who seemed entirely unconscious of the iniquities of the Clan, and dozed peacefully in his pew corner. This was the only uncle Rose had met for years, for Uncle


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 Jem and Uncle Steve, the husbands of Aunt Jessie and Aunt Clara, were at sea, and Aunt Myra was a widow. Uncle Mac was a merchant, very rich and busy, and as quiet as a mouse at home, for he was in such a minority among the women folk he dared not open his lips, and let his wife rule undisturbed.

Rose liked the big, kindly, silent man who came to her when papa died, was always sending her splendid boxes of goodies at school, and often invited her into his great warehouse, full of teas and spices, wines and all sorts of foreign fruits, there to eat and carry away whatever she liked. She had secretly regretted that he was not to be her guardian; but since she had seen Uncle Alec she felt better about it, for she did not particularly admire Aunt Jane.

When church was over, Dr. Alec got into the porch as quickly as possible, and there the young bears had a hug all round, while the sisters shook hands and welcomed him with bright faces and glad hearts. Rose was nearly crushed flat behind a door in that dangerous passage from pew to porch; but Uncle Mac rescued her, and put her into the carriage for safe keeping.

"Now, girls, I want you all to come and dine with Alec; Mac also, of course. But I cannot ask the boys, for we did not expect this dear fellow till tomorrow, you know, so I made no preparations. Send the lads home, and let them wait till Monday, for really I was shocked at their behavior in church," said Aunt Plenty, as she followed Rose.

In any other place the defrauded boys would have


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 set up a howl; as it was, they growled and protested till Dr. Alec settled the matter by saying,—

"Never mind, old chaps, I'll make it up to you to-morrow, if you sheer off quietly; if you don't, not a blessed thing shall you have out of my big boxes."


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 two things are quite impossible. We cannot have a great poet praising kings. We cannot have a great prophet denouncing kings. So I have to fall back on a third suggestion.

Instead of reviving the Court Poet, why not revive the Court Fool? He is the only person who could do any good at this moment either to the Royal or the judicial Courts. The present political situation is utterly unsuitable for the purposes of a great poet. But it is particularly suitable for the purposes of a great buffoon. The old jester was under certain privileges: you could not resent the jokes of a fool, just as you cannot resent the sermons of a curate. Now, what the present Government of England wants is neither serious praise nor serious denunciation; what it wants is satire. What it wants, in other words, is realism given with gusto. When King Louis the Eleventh


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 unexpectedly visited his enemy, the Duke of Burgundy, with a small escort, the Duke's jester said he would give the King his fool's cap, for he was the fool now. And when the Duke replied with dignity, "And suppose I treat him with all proper respect?" the fool answered, "Then I will give it to you." That is the kind of thing that somebody ought to be free to say now. But if you say it now you will be fined a hundred pounds at the least.

For the things that have been happening lately are not merely things that one could joke about. They are themselves, truly and intrinsically, jokes. I mean that there is a sort of epigram of unreason in the situation itself, as there was in the situation where there was jam yesterday and jam to-morrow but never jam to-day. Take, for instance, the extraordinary case of. The point is


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RV 119 (BUDDENBROOKS) and shoving—entirely without courtesy or elegance. Grandfather said that Heinrich Hagenström could coin money out of paving-stones. Those were his very words.”

“Yes, yes, that is exactly it. It is money talks. And this match is perfectly good business. Julchen will be a Möllendorpf, and August will get a snug position—”

“Oh, you just want to make me angry, Tom, that’s all. You know how I despise that lot.”

Tom began to laugh. “Goodness, one has to get along with them,” he replied. “As Papa said the other day, they are the coming people; while the Möllendorpfs, for example—And one can’t deny that the Hagenströms are clever. Hermann is already useful in the business, and Moritz is very able. He finished school brilliantly, in spite of his weak chest; and he is going to study law.”

“That’s all very well, Tom, but all the same I am glad there are families that don’t have to knuckle down to them. For instance, we Buddenbrooks—”

“Oh,” Tom said, “don’t let’s begin to boast. Every family has its own skeleton,” he went on in a lower voice, with a glance at Jock’s broad back. “For instance, God knows what state Uncle Julius’ affairs are in. Papa shakes his head when he speaks of him, and Grandfather Kröger has had to come forward once or twice with large sums, I hear. The cousins aren’t just the thing, either. Jürgen wants to study, but he still hasn’t come up for his finals; and they are not very well satisfied with Jacob, at Dalbeck and Company. He is always in debt, even with a good allowance, and when Uncle Justus refuses to send any more, Aunt Rosalie does—No, I find it doesn’t do to throw stones. If you want to balance the scale with the Hagenströms, you’d better marry Grünlich.”

“Did we get into this wagon to discuss that subject?—Oh, yes, I suppose you’re right. I ought to marry him—but I won’t think about it now! I want to forget it. We are going to the Schwarzkopfs’. I’ve never seen them to know them: are they nice people?” RV 119 (119)


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 'Farewell Philosophy!' thought I, 'Puppyism for ever!'

"Dinner was at last announced, and the nice etiquette which was observed between recognised states, and non-recognised states, was really excessively amusing: not only the ambassador would take precedence of the mere political agent, but his Excellency's private secretary was equally tenacious as to the agent's private secretary. At length we were all seated:—the spacious dining-room was hung round with portraits of most of the successful revolutionary leaders, and over Mr. Premium was suspended a magnificent portrait of Bolivar. Oh! Grey, if you could but have seen the plate!  By Jove! I have eaten off the silver of most of the first families in England, yet, never in my life, did it enter into my imagination, that it was possible for the most ingenious artist that ever existed, to repeat a crest half so often in a table spoon, as in that of Premium. The

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 crest is a bubble, and really the effect produced by it is most ludicrous.

"I was very much struck at table, by the appearance of an individual who came in very late, but who was evidently, by his bearing, no insignificant personage. He was a tall man, with a long hooked nose, and high cheek bones, and with an eye—(were you ever at the Old Bailey? there you may see its fellow); his complexion looked as if it had been accustomed to the breezes of many climes, and his hair, which had once been red, was now silvered, or rather iron-greyed, not by age. Yet there was in his whole bearing, in his slightest actions, even in the easy, desperate, air with which he took a glass of wine, an indefinable—something, (you know what I mean,) which attracted your unremitting attention to him. I was not wrong in my suspicions of his celebrity; for, as Miss Premium, whom I sat next to, (eh! Grey, my boy, how are you? ' 'tis a very fine thing for a

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Page:Vivian Grey, Volume 2.djvu/123

 father-in-law,' &c. &c.) whispered, 'he was quite a lion.' It was Lord Oceanville. What he is after, no one knows. Some say he's going to Greece, others whisper an invasion of Paraguay, and others of course say other things; perhaps equally correct. I think he's for Greece. I know he's the most extraordinary man I ever met with. I'm getting prosy. Good bye! Write soon. Any fun going on?  How is Cynthia? I ought to have written.  How's Mrs. Felix Lorraine? she's a dd odd woman! "Your's faithfully, ""

Mr. Daniel Groves, to Vivian Grey, Esq.

"

"I have just seen Sir Hanway, who gave me a letter from you, requesting me to furnish you with my ideas on the state of the agricultural

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