text: Talk:Nature's Vagabond

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title: Talk:Nature's Vagabond


text:
Page:Adam's reports on vernacular education in Bengal and Behar, submitted to Government in 1835, 1836 and 1838.djvu/246

186 rupees 252-12, averaging about rupees 7-3-6 annually to the students collectively of each school.

This district contains 190 Sanscrit schools, of which two villages contain six each, one village contains five, three villages contain four each, seven villages contain three each, twenty-seven villages contain two each, and eighty-six villages contain one each.

The number of learned teachers is the same as the number of schools, and their average age is 45.2 years. One hundred and eighty are Rarhi, four Varendra, and two Vaidika Brahmans, and four are of the Vaidya or medical caste.

The following are the annual receipts, estimated by themselves, of the whole body of teachers:—

thus 189 professors of learning receive in all rupees 11,960, averaging to each per annum rupees 63-4-5. Of the two teachers who receive monthly allowances, one is a learned Brahman and the other a learned Vaidya, and the Rajah of Burdwan is the patron of both. There are only two teachers holding endowments of land, one amounting to eight and the other to ten bighas of land, the former yielding about eighteen, and the latter about fifteen, rupees a year.

Kalidasa Sarvabhauma, dwelling at Ambika in the Culna thana, has made a translation into easy Sanscrit and also into Bengali of those portions of Menu and Mitakshara which relate to criminal law, and also a translation into Bengali of that portion of the Mitakshara which treats of the law of usury.

Gurucharana Panchanana, dwelling at Baguniya in the Ganguriya thana, is the author of a drama in Sanscrit, entitled Srikrishna Lilambudhi, containing 50 leaves or 100 pages, in mixed prose and verse, on the amours of Krishna.

Iswarachandra Nyayaratna, dwelling at Bara Belun in the Balkrishna thana, has written three works in Sancrit, viz., Gaura Chandramrita on the incarnation of ; Manoduta, legendary; and Mukti Dipika, a comparative view of the means of obtaining final absorption according to the six schools of philosophy. These three works contain about 1,200 slokas. He is


text:
The Golden Bessie

T BEGINS with an old rime, with a queer rime, with a quavering song:

The harsh, lonely voice with that somber color of tone in it that rang dully through all it uttered like the plucking of a leaden wire, that tone that is seldom found in the accents of ordinary, pleasant men, fell off into silence for a moment. The ragged man in the torn coat, eaten with holes where it was not piebald with patches, the man with the long, arrogant fingers, shapely and curving, that come by birthright from generations of ancestors who have never worked roughly with their hands, the man of the eyes that were always a little too bright these days, passed his fingers through the tangle of his white hair, so blanched it seemed almost artificial when contrasted with the powerful maturity of his slight, strong body. He looked round the chamber a little dazedly.

The song which he had just finished and certain lessons in the conduct of life which he gave to his daughter daily were his sole relaxations now—and even they were so narrowly entwined with the single purpose of his present existence that the very idea of relaxation in connection with them might have seemed far-fetched to a stranger. But when a soul has but one diversion, that diversion is apt to grow more queerly intense with pleasure than people of a varied interest imagine. It excites the mind inordinately, as a single deep draft of wine does the senses of a fellow who tastes it seldom. It was so with Geoffrey Barrow.

This hour or so snatched out of every rigorous day, in which to temper by ballad and precept the young mind of the only living thing he kept by him nowadays, was an hour to linger over with a delight near to the unearthly in its extremity. At no other time could he rest and know himself justified—here, even playfulness was a choicer species of labor, for it clutched at the future, for himself, for his name, for his treasure. His eyes moved satisfiedly about the chamber again.

The room was spacious and nobly proportioned—all its furnishings and ornaments had been splendid and costly. Now its paneling—the oak black with age, with the ceiling where a few faint sparks of tarnished gilt still glimmered a little in the recesses of the carving—alone remained to show that it had once had its proper place in a house maintained with magnificence. The floor was as dirty as if it had not been swept for years. Bird-droppings and the tracks of small animals spotted it. From a corner, came the squeak and scuffling of rats. The panes of the tall windows were broken and stuffed with rags. Two crazy rush-bottomed chairs were the only furniture. In front of the fireplace lay a huddle of rags and dirty straw and sacking that looked like a beggar's bed. The white-haired man saw all—and was pleased by all.

With a tall-enough ladder he might yet be able to scrape those few flecks of stale gold down from the ceiling. He groaned inwardly—a ladder like that would be so costly to purchase, and days spent in making one would be gambling on a chance that might show no profit at all. His mind went eagerly off into calculations—was recalled with a jerk.

M I not to say my responses to-day then, father?” said a shy voice at his elbow.

Geoffrey Barrow, the last of the griping Barrows, turned and looked at Elizabeth, bis one daughter. She was clad in a single garment made of sacking, and her bare toes peeped unconcernedly through the cracks in her rotten shoes—but even in her thirteen-year-old gawkiness she showed promise of very great beauty. In her delicate, heavenly color, in her straight, pure nose that was neither too long nor too short, in her small, ripe mouth with its “bee-stung” lower lip, and her eyes as deeply clear blue as the tint of a precious Chinese jar, above all in the rarity of her shimmering, tangled hair that fell below her slim waist when she let it fall, she was to have all that loveliness that dizzies the mind. Geoffrey Barrow stared at her, eyes intent. The gold on the ceiling did not matter after all. Here was other gold, untarnished—more refined, more priceless gold. At a high price, that gold—to be sold very high

“Am I not to make my responses, then, at all?” said Bessie again, her voice a little frightened at the fixity of her father's gaze.

“Why, yes, my daughter.” Barrow had recovered himself—that gold must be mended, schooled to gather more gold and more when time was ripe—to gather and never spend. He fumbled in his rags for a dirty cloth-wrapped packet tied up with a dozen kinds of soiled string, his movements oddly ceremonious. From the packet he took one guinea after another to the number of twelve, looking furtively about him as be handled each one. He ranged the guineas in a line on the filthy floor, his hands crooking greedily, hating to let them go.

“What is this, now, Bessie?” he said in a husky voice when he had done.

The child's eyes looked at the pieces with grave delight in the game.

“They are gold pieces, father.” Her voice had the hushed seriousness of one serving a ritual.

“Right! They are gold pieces. And how many are they in number?”

“Twelve.”

“And they are”

“The twelve months of the transitory year. In each month we should make one thing only our sole endeavor—to gather gold.”

“Right, Bessie; right!” The man's voice was feverish—feverish—the child's pitiably sincere. He fumbled in his packet, clawed out a ring with a gaping hole where the stone had been pried away—a thick, hooped, glittering earring, a sheet of something thin as foil that shone, a tangle of shining threads.

“What is this?”

“Gold.”

“And this?”

“Gold.”

“And this—and this—and this?” He touched the first guinea as well with a trembling finger.

“Gold. They are all pure gold.” The clear notes of the child's voice rang hollow in the great chamber—hollow and sharp, like the chinking of delicate coins. Her father's face was thin with some passion now. His voice rose eerily.

“Is it to be spent?” His eyes held her.

“No.”

“Is it to be lent, then?”

“Never!”

“Then what shall we do with it, Bessie—my golden Bessie?”

“Keep it, father; keep it!” The child's voice was victorious at answering so well. She clapped her smooth hands.

The stare died from her father's eye, and with it died the intenseness that had tightened his frame like a racked man's body. He was weak now, weak and trembling a little all over, like a man waking from sleep that had given nightmare.

He patted her firm hand gently with his unstable hand.

“Good girl, my Bessie; good girl!” he said in quick, worried breaths. “A rare daughter, golden Bessie—a rare, true daughter of mine!”

His head sank on his knees; for a considerable space of time he squatted there, motionless. The child watched him affectionately, with neither terror nor pity. Knowing few other fathers with whom to compare him, she knew only that he was hers and had never spoken ungently to her since she could remember, and that each day, toward evening, he unbent and played with her this exciting and rapid game.

After a time a voice came from the squatting figure—a voice incongruously normal.

“I think we should have supper, Bessie, my dear.”

“Yes, father.” And the child rose and moved away as easily as a fox to the cupboard in the room where their supper lay—two hunks of black bread, a jug of sweet milk that had cost a whole penny.

When she was gone the squatting figure Stirred. It began to replace its treasure in the packet. The oddments first—then the gold pieces—very slowly—luxurious fingers stroking each shining coin as tenderly as if they caressed a woman's hair.

OHN CUSTYN hummed the old words idly as his big bay slashed clods still smelling of dew from the squelching turf:

He was singularly young in all ways of the body and some of the mind for his years, which were forty in his time, which was a little before the hour when the second Charles, King of England, regretted that he took so unconscionable a time a-dying. Most of his old merry companions were less merry now—the pretty jests of their youth had caught up with them, turning against their old masters like cast-off hounds. Some were dead, and not pleasantly, either—in the faces of the others the purple veins gathered like network; they grew burly, coarsened of feature, or withered like burnt-up shrubs. But on John Custyn the whole rakehelliness of the Restoration—and he had been boon friend of Rochester's at one time—had had as little effect as the scorch of the sun on iron. The Custyns made old bones.

He had kept his whip-lash suppleness, his fencer's wrist, his palate for wine, his eye for a face, his rocklike seat in the saddle. The dark spark came to his eyes on occasion yet. The rare flush that rose sometimes in his olive skin when he was more than usual amused came as easily as a boy's. To himself, at least, he seemed not to have shed one scrap of the inordinate Custyn gusto for living in his twenty years' hunting of pleasure, in the careless quest for something genuinely worth a Custyn's pains.

Moreover, he had for two years been Earl of Camlet, and, as most of those two years had been spent on a French embassy, he was to all intents and purposes, new-come to his possessions. So, as he rode through the morning, he hummed out, of mere light-headedness:

There was something to be said for such country rimes after all, he reflected, in spite of their devilish lack of polish—for he had always maintained toward the arts a genuine if properly condescending interest, and could both paint and rime in the very best manner compatible with gentility. The griping Barrows—He must be hard upon Barrow Chase at the moment.

How came such an oddity as miserliness in the blood of a good line, he wondered, to strengthen and strengthen until it drove its last servant beyond the restraints of the sane? For the tales of Geoffrey Barrow and the daughter he kept like a young Gipsy were racier than the run of such county tittle-tattle. There was a flavor of lowness about such avarice—a vulgar odor. As long as one could not carry gentle blood without some curse of sorts, he mused languidly, he was glad that the Custyn dilemma had always been beauty of women.

His hand had slacked on the reins. The bay took the opportunity, pretended to bolt. The next five minutes were pretty fencing. They ended when the big bay, mastered again, took a scrubby hedge with the smooth skim of a gull and checked sharply on the other side at the unexpected sight of a ragged girl gathering sticks not five feet away.

“'Ware, lass; 'ware'” cried John Custyn. the words jounced out of him by the sudden swerve of the bay. Then, “There!”—as he gentled his horse. “Ods-fish. though, my dear, you had best thank your stars for Lansquenet's good manners. Had you been two yards nearer the hedge—” And there he stopped.

The ragged girl had stood up. She was looking at him direct, the sudden scare dying out of her face, color coining instead. She was clad in a long garment of sacking, her feet poked through broken shoes, but in her face and in every slight stir of her body were such grace and beauty and gentleness as are never given together except in the supremest measure.

Down her back her heavy hair hung in two long plaits—gold none who saw could imagine as ever growing dim—a shining weight.

“Who are you?” said John Custyn in a gasp, all his elaborate manners blown from him like dust at the surprising sight of her. He was flushed from taming his horse—he rode his horse easily—gallant in person, gallantly dressed. He must have been as splendid a sight to her as if a painted coat of arms had suddenly taken on life.

She did not answer.

“Who are you?” he repeated, his poise coming back to him, “For if no Phyllis neat—heigh-ho!—'faith, I swear 'tis most impertinent of me, mistress—but an I be not mistook, you gather sticks on my lands.”

The girl flushed deeply at his patronizing courtesy.

“You are mistook,” she said. “This is Barrow Chase, my fine gentleman.”

“Is it so?” said John Custyn, and laughed a little. “Well, and then, my charming young pastoral, I will even invite you, for your good, to gather sticks on the other side of the hedge, where the sticks are mine. For, from all report, the master of Barrow Chase would grudge you even the least of his twigs; whereas I, dear creature”

Then her scornful voice broke the false sentence like brittle glass.

“The master of Barrow Chase is Geoffrey Barrow, my father, since you be so curious,” she answered composedly. “And I am Elizabeth Barrow.”

He was off his horse in an instant, but she did not see him. She was looking at her dress instead—and very near tears. It had always clad her sufficiently before—and she had accepted dutifully her father's dictum that that was enough. Now, for some reason, it became suddenly intolerable to her. She stood looking down, her eyes blinking.

John Custyn approached her, doffing his hat, no mockery left in the gesture or the words that accompanied it.

“I cry you mercy,” he said—antiquely, no doubt, but his voice was honest. “Dear maid, I do sue for your pardon. Will you not forgive?”

Her trouble passed like a shower.

“Why, yes, sir—an you be honest repentant,” she answered, lifting her eyes.

They talked then. He even stooped together fresh sticks for her—a satiric familiar pinching him somewhere in his mind, tittering in his mind like an actress at the sight of Sir Fribble Fopling turned woodcutter. For the first time in many years he attempted to silence that familiar. This moment was better than satire, oddly enough.

“Your father is a gentleman of whose acquaintance I have long been envious,” he said deftly, in a pause over binding her faggot.

“I will take you to him now—an you desire it,” she said directly at once.

He looked at her very sharply, but her eyes were perfectly calm. He remembered an elaborate rimed attack of his on the “innocence” of women with profound distaste. “I would stake my life she has neither guile nor greed,” he thought, with a sudden romanticism that amazed him, that stirred him wholly as if he were a beaten drum—and, as he thought, laughed out aloud like a boy.

From the door of his house Geoffrey Barrow saw them coming slowly up the overgrown road between the long alley of trees. John Custyn led the bay, and beside him walked golden Bessie, the sun in her hair.

They were talking together, and the bay walked where he pleased for all the trouble John Custyn took to guide him. Geoffrey Barrow drew his breath in sharply as he saw them so, and his mouth was more satisfied than if he had died in peace, and his eyes were glinting and eager, like bright coins in the dark.

HE huge, lumbering coach lurched heavily from rut to rut of the muddy road. But John Custyn still had the campaigner's gift for sleeping whenever opportunity offered. He called upon it now—cushioned himself as best he could in one corner of the great, unwieldy vehicle—prepared for a doze. An hour yet, at the least, before they would reach the inn where they were to break their journey. But before he closed his eyes definitively he opened them wider than ever for an instant, to have one last look at his countess.

She was curled in the opposite corner, sleeping as easily as if she lay on down. What youth she had, he thought, with the completest gratitude. What beauty she had, now her first maid's beauty had given just place to a kind of tender maturity even fairer, a hesitating, delightful assumption of love and marriage that seemed to breathe from her like odor, like honeysuckle scent! Her hair had come loose—it was golden all over her shoulders—within it she, too, was golden, as something light and immortal created on one clear morning from sun and the golden foam. In her sleep, too, she must be remembering a happiness, for she smiled. John Custyn closed his eyes contentedly. Every day of the year since their marriage—happiness, happiness—a falling of brilliant leaves from a clear sky, each leaf warm with delight like a color, like a color of gold, like her!

UT the sleep did not come to him at once; his body was too pleasant with thought. Pictures ran behind his shut eyes—a multitude of pictures. Pictures of doubt, of politic doubt of what counties would say and wits, of doubt of himself, of ill remembrance of what he had been before ever he saw the golden Bessie. Pictures of certainty, driving them away as he found alive in himself, to startle him wholly, a shifting of all his attitudes of mind and thought so mighty that it was as if the very blood in his veins had gone back to first youth—Bessie's face, Bessie's eyes, Bessie's lips as, gradually, all his satire shredded away from him, and he realized, with a humility that seemed strange to his soul, that nothing done or been in the past was to make any difference—that all that mattered was what was yet left for Bessie and himself to do. Pictures of Bessie again, her trust, her dear childishness, her impenitent joy in loving and being loved, her girl's delight in the pretty things he gave her. “Oh, the golden Bessie!” he thought, with his heart as hot as a ballad-singer's.

Then his lips shut down. There was one dark picture, too.

A white-haired man in rags on a ragged bed. A dying man whose breath came hard through his lips, whose hands gripped at his tattered covering with excruciating strength, as if they would pull him back to life again in spite of all fate. At the bedside, golden Bessie and John Custyn, her husband, Countess and Earl of Camlet.

The dry lips unclosed. The voice came wavering, shaking, from Death's very throat.

“Bessie, Bessie, my daughter, my own true daughter!”

“Yes, father; yes!”

“I cannot see you, my daughter. Are you beside me?”

“Yes, father. Truly I am here.”

The voice strengthened.

“The packet, Bessie—the packet in my breast. There is a writing there. It tells all— all the secret hiding-holes—all—my—wealth!”

“Oh, father, father!”

“It is yours, my daughter. All is yours.”

The head sank back on the pillow; the voice stopped. When it spoke again, it was wandering, though still strong.

“It is time to make your responses, Bessie, my daughter.”

“Father—not now!”

“It is time to make your responses, my golden Bessie,” the unappeasable voice went on.

The weak hands went to the breast, came away again, made a fumbling gesture of counting down coins.

John Custyn bit at his lip—this had gone too far. He glanced at Bessie anxiously—dying father or no, he would not have her thus tortured. But for the first time since he had known her she did not return his glance. Her eyes were bound to her father's, very large, very still. A change had come over her—she had never seemed so removed. Her voice, as she answered her father, had the calm, obliterating arrogance of one who shares with one other a secret as proud and deadly as a poisoned gem.

“What is this, Bessie?” quavered the dying man.

“God, father”—very clearly. “It is gold.”

“And this?”

“Gold.”

“And this—this—this?”—with a dreadful hurry to cheat Death himself from the last word.

“Gold. They are all pure gold.” Her young voice had the cold ring of metals—smooth metals alien to all living flesh.

“Is it to be spent?” The voice rose like wind before a storm.

“No.”

“Is it to be lent?”

“Never.”

The voice shrilled, victorious,

“Then what, what, what shall we do with it, golden Bessie?”

“Keep it, father; keep it! Never let it go.”

Her triumph answered his triumph. They stared at each other, true father, true daughter now.

Then the body on the bed was shaken with a gust of noiseless, approving laughter—and then it tightened all over and as suddenly lay slack.

HEN John Custom, much shaken, led golden Bessie away from her grief, it was back to their house and another grief to come that was to bind them closer than ever. For, the following morning, the son whose coming both had so desired was born prematurely—and dead.

John Custyn, very disturbed, put that picture away, though not without some highly unforgiving wishes as to the present abode of Geoffrey Barrow. The cursed miser had done his best to make his daughter in his own image, he thought, with hate. And—God be praised!—he had failed. It was true that Bessie had shown, for a loving woman, an uncommon obstinacy in praying that he keep the treasure gleaned from Barrow House as it had been found—in gold. But that meant nothing—nor the fact that in her dress she always preferred gold ornaments before any jewels. He was rich enough for both—she could make ducks and drakes of her dowry, and it amused her.

His mind turned hurriedly toward more ordinary things. This journey to London—a royal “request” where there could be no disobedience. That must have come sooner or later—they were lucky to have had one year at Camlet in peace. But, for all that, he looked forward to the court with little pleasure. It was not alone the manners of that court—or the foes he had there—but appearing before his old companions as Benedick most unfashionably in love with his wife—he and Bessie the seven days' wonder for any idle impertinent to quiz and eye like savages from the colonies. That would not be pleasant—he had thought himself done with all that. “Cophetua Custyn and his golden beggar maid”—he could hear their tongues wag now. And his uncle, the smooth bishop, would be there, with that son, his cousin, who had been the likeliest next Earl of Camlet before John Custyn married—ods-fish!

He opened his eyes again troubledly, saw Bessie. For a long time he looked at Bessie, and as he looked the trouble left his face. Softly his eyes began to close again; his body relaxed for sleep.

As they were going to bed in the inn that night, he stood with his coat off, counting some money puzzledly.

“God's ransom!” he swore, then, with a nod at Bessie, who sat brushing her hair, “Your pardon, madam, but my hour's drowse in the coach has cost me a golden guinea.”

The smooth stroke of the brush hesitated for an instant, but then went on.

“And why so, sir?”—in the clearest of unworried voices.

John Custyn laughed shamefacedly.

“Ah, sweet, I sound like a pedler, do I not? For the reason that a guinea must have dropped from my pocket as I lay drowsing— Oh, 'tis no use inquiring. The coachman hath it by now, no doubt, and will swear he has never seen such a thing in all his days. Still, an it teaches me to carry my coins in a purse like thine, 'twill be money saved.” And he laughed again.

“I will knit you a purse like mine, sweet,” said Bessie, brushing her hair. “But I would question the coachman, too, for 'tis sin to loose a whole guinea,” she added, in a way that jarred him a little.

“Oh, let the rogue have it. The road was rough enough to-day,” he said, with a slight stiffness of manner. Then, to make up for it, picking up a feminine trifle of netted green silk that lay on the table: “So this is your treasury, Countess? Faith, 'tis better stocked than my pockets! One, two, three, seven guineas, and one that hath James his head. I did not know you had a guinea of James, Countess?”

“It is one of my father's,” said Bessie, brushing her hair. “Sweet, give me the purse, for I must put it away,” she added, with a charming smile.

He bowed and gave it. The incident was ended. But surely he had seen her count the coins idly on the journey—and there had been but six guineas. And when he had wakened that afternoon, it had been to find her awake. These thoughts were very unworthy. With a sudden rush of penitence he went over to her and kissed her.

All the same, it was with more anxiety in his manner than the fatigue of the journey warranted that he got into bed. When she came, too, he saw that she had a cord about her throat. Hanging from it, against her warm breast, was the purse with the guineas.

OU are hurt! You are hurt!” And Bessie's fingers were at the stained sleeve in an instant, gently stripping it hack. Bessie's eyes looked away with a shudder from the red, welling puncture that disfigured the white skin. Then she ran for water and bandages. John Custyn did not reply till she was back again, dabbing at the wound with a wet cloth, applying the salve, the bandages, her voice making little sorry, encouraging sounds as her fingers worked skilfully and firmly. Then,

“Not greatly,” he said in a voice tired past endurance. “Mountford is worse.”

“Lord Mountford?”

“I ran him through the body—an he dies I have murder on my soul,” said John Custyn grimly. “Oh, I am no boy. I have killed in duel and battle before—but never in duel where my foe had all the right of it,” he added, with great bitterness, drawing his but half-bandaged arm away stiffly from under Bessie's fingers.

“Do not stir so, my lord, my dear lord—oh, my dear, you hurt your poor arm! Oh, John—you must not rise yet! You are weak—weak and fevered.”

“I am not fevered.” And John Custyn had risen, his face gray iron, his voice very cold. “I am not fevered, but I had best get to my feet, I think, for what I have to say to you. The arm is well enough, mistress. Let it be!”

“John, John! 'Mistress,' to me! I am no one strange—no mistress—only your Bessie.”

“Aye; so I see,” said John Custyn, swaying as he stood. “Well, my Bessie, since you will, I have a slight tale to tell you—about this arm.

“Lord Charles Mountford has a golden snuff-box—or had it—a foppish toy. Oh, do not start so; do not whiten so like a play-actress ready to swoon—there is no ghost here, my Bessie, only your husband. When Mountford dined here three nights ago, he had this snuff-box, I say.

“He passed it around the table for all to admire—a silly popinjay, Lord Charles—I have never liked the man. All saw it; all flattered it—you too, my Bessie, my honorable wife. Dost remember how you would hardly give it up to Captain Tyncombe—it was such a gentle toy? Dost remember, indeed?”

The woman had sunk down into the chair now, her hands over her face. The voice of the man went on, toneless as an oracle's, mocking as a clown's.

“When Lord Charles took his leave of this, our house, he had not the snuff-box—he had laid it down somewhere, mislaid it no doubt—as other guests at our house have mislaid other trinkets, such as guineas and scarves with gold thread in them, and even gold rings. It is odd—is it not, my Bessie?—that, in spite of all our searchings and questionings of servants, these things have never been found—oh, devilish odd!”

His voice cackled suddenly with laughter. He slapped his knee with his hand.

“So Lord Charles—and this is the merriest part of all, my dear Countess—oh, 'tis laughable past all words! Lord Charles, I say, sets a witty rumor afloat that it is you—'old griping Barrow's fair miser' as he merrily dubbed you—who stole his paltry snuff-box, as you had stolen the gewgaws and rings of others, all for no reason except the base love of all that is gold.”

He cackled again, then sobered to deathly earnestness.

“Laughable, eh? A court jest better than madcap Rochester's prank with the tweezers that drove the frail Ransom mad?

“I found Charles Mountford and gave him the lie direct. We fought—he lies at death's door—he will not repeat his jest. But, oh, Bessie, Bessie”—and the man's voice broke out suddenly into blinding pain as his countess knelt before him, clutching his knees—“oh, Bessie, but I would have taken his sword in my heart with such joy instead—if he had lied!”

The woman at his feet, nothing left of the child any more in aspect or gesture, all crouching, unhappy woman, looked up at him with the eyes of a beaten spaniel.

“How did you know?” she whispered. “Oh, how did you know?”

“I have thought of it till I could not sleep these last weeks,” he said heavily. “And always I have mastered the thought, for I loved you true, but yesterday afternoon—while you were away—I had heard of Mountford's tale—it was in me like venom—I put mine honor aside and searched in your room. It was there—in a drawer—wrapped up in a handkerchief—not even well hidden. Oh, Bessie, Bessie!”

“John—oh, my dear, dear husband, I am guilty! I am very guilty! It was bright and winked at me—the gold. It wanted to come to me—it knew I would keep it safe—never spend—never lend—keep always—the gold—I—I—” And she sobbed heart-brokenly. “Not for the gain—we are rich; there was no need. The gold only—my father taught me so. So, John, but I could not help it—I could not—and now I have hurt you so”

“The hurt is nothing,” said John Custyn desolately. “But I gave you my honor, mistress—to hold and keep. I have reason to repent of much in my life, but of nothing touching my honor. That you have shamed. It will not wipe off.”

“Not even with blood, John?” She was offering him her breast. “Not even with this blood?”

He looked at her—a long second—pitiably.

“Not even with that,” he said slowly; then, gently thrusting her hands from his knees, he turned on his heel and walked from the room, back bent.

HE court marveled at how John Custyn braved it. Such a humming scandal had not been known for years—the sly toast of “the golden Bessie,” followed by a ceremonious taking of snuff was the jest of the hour. Some said that Custyn and his countess intended to ruffle it through till the gossip died; some that he had asked the king permission to retire to his estates—a permission refused on the unspoken ground that such rare entertainment as he furnished at the moment could not be allowed to die. Golden Bessie kept a hoard of guineas sewn in her gown—golden Bessie and her miser father had lived for years on a diet of leaves and grass. At private meals in Camlet House the only service that could be used was one of pewter for, if any rarer metal appeared in so much as a spoon, golden Bessie had it stolen before one could wink an eye—so the gossip ran.

Having carefully sifted all which gossip, the worthy Bishop of Perchester, John Custyn's uncle and next of kin, took it upon himself to pay his nephew a suitable visit of condolence.

The bishop was a tall, hearty man of a portly, impressive presence, except for his eyes, which were small and narrow and eager like a fox's—a person of much bland experience in walking on egg-shells without breaking them. But, for all that, he was glad enough when the ticklish preliminaries of his visit were over and he had discovered that he might allude to the Countess of Camlet's infirmity, if he did it smoothly enough, without being shown the door.

“It is very sad,” he said, sighing and watching his nephew closely. From the haggard wildness of that nephew's appearance he could gratifyingly predict, unless matters mended shortly, an unhappy event not very far away which would bring the earldom of Camlet to him or his gawky son.

“Very sad,” he repeated vaguely. “Of course, an my poor spiritual services—the Church”

“Could do nothing,” said John Custyn shortly. His uncle's eyes upon him gave him an uncomfortable twinge—a memory of a phrase about “waiting for dead men's shoes.”

“No; I suppose they could not. We do not claim the pretended powers of the Romish Church in exorcism,” purred the Bishop of Perchester. “And yet it is very lamentable. Now, if I were to advise—advise—” He let the words float away.

“Your advice is ever welcome, uncle,” said John Custyn impatiently.

“Well then—well—and as your countess has seemed, in all my acquaintance with her, a most admirable, charming lady”

“She is perfect in all ways but one,” said Custyn rather huskily. Then he laughed without humor. “But life is not bearable sans honor,” he said.

“There is honor and honor,” said the bishop weightily, testing his steps—this was dangerous ground. A man whose breath still caught like that when he spoke of his wife might yet be very easily reconciled to her by some slight accident. With that thought, the earldom that had been so close to the bishop drifted away again, a gilded bubble that fled.

“And for the good of the succession—since your countess had not as yet provided you with an heir”

“An heir!” said Custyn shrewdishly. “Let heirs go hang! I shall have no heirs now, uncle.”

The bishop glowed pleasantly within him at this speech. But one must make sure—hate and love were too near akin.

“I should suggest a reconcilement—for the good of our house,” he said smoothly.

The proposition so put could not go far from infuriating John Custyn. But, instead, John Custyn received it with surprising calm.

“If I could only believe—if only I were sure of the future—” he muttered brokenly. “If”

So that was how the land lay! Even better so.

“She is very young,” said the bishop.

“God knows she is young!”

“Have you ever seen a young child cured of greediness after sweets?” said the bishop cautiously. “They give it naught but sweets—rub its nose in the honey-pot. It gorges—it ails—it is not greedy again.”

“Yes, uncle; yes!”

“Or the Grecian fable of Midas? Or that Italian tale of the gilded man?”

“What tale, sir?”

“Oh, 'twas of a miser, nephew.” John Custyn shuddered. “A man whose sole end was gold. His fame came to the prince. The prince conversed with him; disgusted by his avarice, he had him gilded.”

“Gilded?”

“All over his body, with fine gold leaf and made him walk in the streets, so gilded, for days on end. It so sated the rogue with gold and showed him the vulgarity of his avarice that he never hoarded again. Like cures like, nephew.”

“But this tale of the gilded miser—is it true? Ods-fish! What a singular cure!”

“True history, nephew—'tis all in Guicciardini his book. Well, 'tis all the advice I have for you.”

“I am grateful, uncle.” But Custyn's eyes were abstracted—he was obviously still considering the doctrine of like cures like and the gilded man.

As the bishop observed, he felt satisfied again. Those eyes were too eager for the eyes of one wholly sane. He rose.

“I must take my leave for the present.”

They exchanged politenesses. Then, just as the bishop was going, John Custyn spoke, with some difficulty, for he was a proud man.

“You will not discover this to others, uncle,” he said. “But my wife—I have a promise from her—it is nearly a month now—we give a ball three nights hence—the promise runs over that night. So far it has been kept, I hope—” He stopped.

“I am joined with you in that hope,” said his uncle elaborately. “Though I fear an it were I, I should look for more stringent remedies than promises. Like cures like,” he repeated softly.

Then he had made his adieux and was going down the stairs.

John Custyn stood by the door of the chamber, his body hag-ridden, his mind going wearily over the strange incident of the gilded man.

He heard greetings exchanged on the stairs between his uncle and some woman—Bessie. She must have returned. He would go and speak with her.

His uncle's voice came to him through the open door, courteous as ever, but this time a little high.

“Oh, no, my dear Countess; you should not trouble about it. 'Tis but a trifle, though of gold. My son valued it solely, since it was from his mother. Do not question your servants, I pray you. They would not remember. 'Twas lost three days gone or more.”

He did not hear Bessie's answer. He had no wish to hear more.

His step, as he passed through the door, was the step of a sick man; his eyes smarted weakly.

He turned to the left along the long gallery as Bessie came up the stairs, going toward the room he had once been used to paint in, where some of his painter's tools were still kept.

HE last ball given at Camlet House in John Custyn's time was a masquerade of singular magnificence. The king had declared his intent of honoring it, even to the point of disguising his royal person. Gossip could play as it liked with golden Bessie; John Custyn was still Earl of Camlet. In curiosity, therefore, in languid tribute to the Custyn bravado, with ennui hoping for diversion, a king; with dubious expectations under a smooth countenance, a bishop; with laughter, many; with any sympathy or pity, none, the masks arrived, began to crowd on the steps of Camlet House.

Those arriving first were not shown directly to the great stairs leading to the ball room, at whose head the earl and countess stood to welcome their friends. They were ushered into various antechambers—rejoined when their wraps had been laid aside and the ladies' complexions freshened—formed, jesting and tittering, into a sort of loose column, four abreast, by two gray footmen with silver wands. Then, when it was time, the doors that gave on the ballroom staircase were thrown open. From a hidden gallery four trumpets sang out on the instant a marching-air. The music caught the foremost—almost automatically they started to tramp up the stairs, and after followed the whole winding, vivid parade, sparkling with jewels, gay with color, climbing the stairs like a dragon made out of bright silks.

But half-way up the stairs that first wave of masquerade halted—for a single instant but halted—as its components saw their hostess and host. A gasp ran down the column like sparks down a fuse—a gasp that flared into words, into witty, drawling quips, into stifled laughter. They had jested long with John Custyn and his golden Bessie. Here stood greater insolence in answer, returning stroke for stroke, the very body of bravado, his counter-jest.

John Custyn, his face white as his hair-powder, his whole figure and bearing set and stiff, was clad from the points of his shoes to the lace at his hands and throat in black velvet, deep and soft as a black cat's fur. He was Night, unrelieved save where the diamond buckles on his shoes, the diamonds crusted on his sword-hilt, glittering in rings on his hands, were fiery as winter stars. But Bessie was golden Day.

Her body was dressed extravagantly in gold brocade so weighty and stiff it shone like bullion itself. Her shoes were gold and her stockings—gold as her golden hair. But that was the least of the wonder—it was not that took the breath. Her arms and the soft rise of her breast to the stately column of her throat, her fingers whiter than lilies, the colorful marvel of her face—these, too, were gold—the gold of a gilded image. From her heels to her hair she gleamed expressionless, unmortal, as if some ironic magic had taken her and changed her, changed every live cell in her body to gold and the dust of gold.

Like a ripple of teasing wind the comprehension of John Custyn's enormous insolence ran through all that great impudent assembly as it toiled up the stairs. They had mocked him very cleverly; they had taken her name of “the golden Bessie” and made it a tap-room joke. It was thus superbly he replied, with a satire to which their satire was the calling of names of a pack of dirty children. The reply was to their taste. There was not one that did not savor it exquisitely, with a damned appreciation. They could sting him no longer—not even the subtlest of them. He had thrown their own scorn back in their faces with a gesture so hugely brazen it dampened their every squib. They must give him best.

HE ball began—in a fashion strangely stately for a ball whose host was a noble, whose wife had stained his honor forever in all eyes genteel. It proceeded—the hours died under it like petals under the feet of a woodland dancer. The king came—and saw—and for once was speechless at a nine days' wonder. The music played; the dancers bowed, to their partners. There was food and wine. And through all the bright, meaningless shimmer, like threads in a pattern still weaving, John Custyn moved with his lady, haughtier their pride. And both faces were masklike ever—the one stern with a bitterness keener than east wind; the other set as an idol's in its gilt disguise, but with eyes both brilliant and, in some strange manner, rapt, like the eyes of a penitent, pressing his breast on steel that the soul might go clean.

There was little gaiety that night in the hearts of any—the bubbles of mockery that kept these people willing to live had died from their minds like a fume of wine at their first sight of Bessie, bright in her golden mask. There was only a hastiness left—a scared, unacknowledged wish that went deeper than terror, to be always talking or moving or dancing or taking wine—lest, if the motion in the ballroom stopped for an instant, some incredible, ungentlemanly thing might happen—the sky crack above them with the noise of last judgment or golden Bessie suddenly halt where she walked, and stiffen and stand there, a gilded statue of stone.

So the night went past like fever, and dawn came on.

T WAS just as dawn was beginning to seep through the drawn curtains in drippings of shadowy gray and tarnished pearl that the Bishop of Perchester managed to get speech alone with his nephew in the deserted supper-room. The bishop was a man of neither great sensitiveness of mind nor much pity, but the first sight of golden Bessie had chilled him like air blown over a new grave, and all through the eery frenzy of the ball, as the hours increased, he had been brought to think more and more unpleasantly, and at last with pure fear, of certain words he had spoken. The earldom of Camlet was a very great thing, no doubt, and never before in his life had he hesitated or demurred when a prize lay fair in his reach. But, when all was said and done, he had once had the rags of a conscience—and that conscience, like that of all cowards, made him balk and stumble when murder was taken bluntly out into action from the twilit regions of mere pleasant thought and desire.

He began by wishing reflectively that he had not thought it go for his nephew to overhear that extra lie as to his son's losing a gold trifle in Camlet House. But as the time grew toward dawn and the fear in the air grew no lighter, he was forced to consider himself and his ambitions with a strictness he seldom showed—and the task was not overpleasant, even for him. So it was with a sick relief that he saw John Custyn stride into the room where he had been fortifying himself with brandy, John Custyn's eyes staring ahead of him, as if they saw nothing of all that passed.

“Nephew',” said the bishop timorously; “nephew!” and plucked at his sleeve.

John Custyn turned.

“What is it, mine uncle?” said he, and his voice was as cold as a voice that has left its body behind.

“Nephew,” said the bishop, and shook like a jelly; “are you mad, nephew? Oh, nephew, are you mad?” He was shrill with fear.

John Custyn turned blank eyes on his uncle's pale face. He considered deeply.

“Why, no; I do not think so—wholly,” he said—very awfully, it seemed, to that other man.

The bishop broke into a hurry of tormented speech.

“Then why this jest—this ghastliness, this devil's mockery? Why this show of your countess—gilded—ah, the poor child! Why”

Again John Custyn looked at him, and his mouth was stopped.

“'Twas your advice—your very good advice, mine uncle,” Custyn answered slowly. “For the dog returns to his vomit and the burnt child creeps back to the fire,” he added, with an extremity of bitterness. “Well, uncle—we must take sure means to warn the child from the fire forever.”

“But that—but I spoke but in jest!” groaned the bishop, panting. “But I did not mean—oh, may God help me, I did not! I never thought”

“A wise jest,” said John Custyn. “A most salutary jest.”

“But, nephew—but she cannot live!” shrieked the weak and pitiful rogue in a squeak like a bat's.

John Custyn did not take the full meaning of his words at first. When he had their import, he was suddenly trembling all through his body.

“What mean you? What are you saying? Name of God, what?” he said in one hissing breath, his hands on the other's shoulders, clutching for the throat.

“I mean she will die!” squealed the other, sinking in the clutch. “I mean she will not live the day out unless you find her some remedy. The tale I told you—the tale of the gilded miser—I thought you would divine—God help me, I thought you saw the prince's intent”

“How die?” said John Custyn, shaking him like a rat. “How die? And what intent?”

“Fool, the body breathes through the skin!” the bishop gasped. “It has a million mouths in the skin to breathe—'tis so we live. 'Tis not by the lungs alone. Shut those mouths with paint, with gilt, and how may the body endure? And then there are poisons in paints. The miser lived but two days—a strong man. Your wife is but woman—she will not live this day out unless— O God!” And he lapsed into articulate sounds, for John Custyn was throttling him.

But a second later the fingers had dropped from his throat. He crumpled to the floor, lay wheezing. From where he lay he heard a terrible sob shake Custyn's body. He saw John Custyn shiver with uttermost pain, his face drawn and frightful as if he had got his death.

“Where is my wife?” cried John Custyn furiously. “Where is my wife? Oh, Bessie, Bessie!”

A noise answered him from the ballroom—the confused noise of many people suddenly alarmed.

“The countess!” said the noise, “The countess! She has swooned—she is dying!” And over all the babble, one cool note, mocking, “Oh, golden Bessie's gone home!”

HEY had carried her to a couch in a side chamber—she lay there motionless. One golden arm and hand trailed down to the floor; the fingers relaxed, looking too heavy for life. Those that plied her with water and wine kept their eyes away from her face—it was too like a death-mask grimly painted, now the eyes were shut. John Custyn knelt by her side, his hands chafing her hand, striving dreadfully to bring warmth to what was so cold. He saw, as through dizzying mist, that his uncle was there also, trying feebly to force some wine through her teeth.

After time so long it could not be of this world he saw, with joy unspeakable, her eyelids tremble faintly. He gave a hoarse cry.

“She is living!” he cried. “She is living! Oh, Bessie, Bessie!”

At the sound of his voice, as if he had called her to return from a region so removed that each step back was great labor, she gave a long sigh, and again her eyelids trembled.

Now the bishop was able to pour some wine in her mouth. After another time her eyes unclosed.

They looked in the eyes of John Custyn with trust complete.

“My dear lord!” she said weakly.

Tears came to him, overmastering.

“Oh, Bessie, Bessie, and I—and my devil's punishment—I feared—I had killed”

“It is nothing,” she said. “It was nothing. It was just.”

Her eyes closed again.

“Oh, Bessie, live!” he cried passionately. “Live, Bessie! Live, Bessie! Or I must die in my sin!”

The others crept out of the room—all but John Custyn and his uncle. They two stood over her as she lay, chafing her wrists, loosening her bodice that she might breathe easier—waiting.

A shudder ran through her body; the first faint stirring of life returned.

Her eyes opened again. This time they did not close.

“I will live—though you punish me even again for my great disobedience,” she said.

“Disobedience! Oh, Bessie”.

He could not look at her face; his eyes fell to her throat, to her bodice. Where the laces of the bodice had been loosed the round of her bosom showed whitely, untouched with gold. Her eyes followed his. She smiled like a child convicted of great mischief.

“I could not bear it—to gild my whole body—” she whispered. “It was so cold on me, so deathly cold! And, moreover, dear lord”—she smiled again—“it was gold—and I could not waste it so,” she confessed in a whisper.

But John Custyn had knelt beside her, crushing her hand to his breast.

“My sweet—oh, my sweet! Thank God!”

“But you must punish me, nevertheless,” she said presently. “Though for some months I fear you must not,” she added.

“Ah, Bessie, to fright me so!”

“It was not after my desire,” she said. “But I could not mend it.” He trembled. She put her hand on his cheek, with much love. “My lord,” she said gravely, slowly, “I give you joy. My lord, I pray God this time I may give you a son. Nor shall I be concerned with gold for this poor body of mine any longer,” she added. “It will all be his.”

When John Custyn raised his head again, his uncle was gone from the room, gone softly and disgustedly like an old wicked cat that has seen the cream-pan it stretched for lifted on a sudden wholly beyond its reach. John Custyn looked about the room—they two alone were left there. Unfashionably, he took his golden Bessie close in his arms.

title: The Golden Bessie


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30 gone to make trial of the Spaniards on the lower Mississippi. It was quite true. Wishing to enforce his plans by an object lesson, he collected a valuable cargo, and dropped down the river. His success was greater than he dared hope for. Elated, he returned in great state, in a "chariot" drawn by four horses and accompanied by a retinue of slaves. Here, indeed, was a transformation. He had departed a bankrupt trader, be returned like a merchant prince. Nor was it all empty show, a display on the borrowed money of too trusting friends, as it had been more than hinted that his previous little show had been. He displayed with a flourish of trumpets a commercial treaty with the Spanish authorities at New Orleans, conferring on him the right to export thither all the "productions" of Kentucky free of duty, and offering, on behalf of the Spanish government, nine dollars and fifty cents per hundredweight for tobacco, which had hitherto been sold at two dollars. Here, indeed, was a solid triumph, one that scarcely any one would refuse to share.

Despite the glitter of the gold and the jingle of the dollars there was no lack of men to ask the meaning of this transaction, and why it was that while the representatives of Spain in one place refused on any conditions to open the Mississippi to trade, in another place others, on behalf of that country, entered into private treaty for the benefit of a single State. The charge was easily suggested and instantly made, that Wilkinson had been bribed by the Spanish government to favor the cause of


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are, in the district of Columbia, several slave prisons, or "negro pens," as they are termed. These prisons are mostly occupied by persons to keep their slaves in, when collecting their gangs together for the New Orleans market. Some of them belong to the government, and one, in particular, is noted for having been the place where a number of free coloured persons have been incarcerated from time to time. In this district is situated the capitol of the United States. Any free coloured persons visiting Washington, if not provided with papers asserting and proving their right to be free, may be arrested and placed in one of these dens. If they succeed in showing that they are free, they are set at liberty, provided they are able to pay the expenses of their arrest and imprisonment; if they cannot pay these expenses, they are sold out. Through this unjust and oppressive law, many persons born in the Free States have been consigned to a life of slavery on the cotton, sugar, or rice plantations of the Southern States. By order of her master, Clotel was removed from Richmond and placed in one of these prisons, to await the sailing of a vessel for New Orleans. The prison in which she was put stands midway between the capitol at Washington and the president's house. Here the fugitive saw nothing but slaves brought in and taken out, to be placed in ships and

title: Page:Clotel (1853).djvu/225


text:
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 the letter by me, as everybody else did? While Isat puzzling over it the post-master stood a looking at me.

"I reckon you can’t make it out more than I ean,’ says he, laughing, and eyeing me sort of curious, as if he thought there was something strange about the letter. This brought me to myself.

“Oh! yes,’ says I, ‘it’s all plain enough; put it into the York mail and it’ll go straight. If you’ve sent any before you ought to know that.’

“It was mean to pry into Sarah’s secrets in that way, but I didn’t think of it then.

“No,’ says he, ‘I never sent any in that handwriting afore, and I shouldn’t a known it if Miss Sarah hadn’t brought the letter her- self.’

‘Well, she’s saved me the trouble,’ says I. ‘Good morning,’ and off I rode.

“Just where the footpath crossed the road below our house, I met Sarah, walking along with her head down, as if she was counting the dandelions in her path.

“Hallo! Sarah,’ says I, a riding up to the fence just as she came up, ‘what on earth brought you out so early in the morning?’

“She looked up with a start, and half a scream; then I saw that she had been crying, for drops hung on her eye-lashes, and though she tried to laugh, it was more like sobbing. “Oh! Dan, is it you?’ she said, turning round so that I needn’t see her brush the tears away. ‘It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it? Ive found ever so many violets by the brook up yonder, and as for dandelions, the whole meadow lot is golden with them; then the peppermint is just beginning to sprout: capital weather for whiten- ing cloth, isn’t it? has Hannah got her webs on the grass yet?’

“She spoke all ina hurry, huddling her words together, and catching breath at every stop; her eyes kept turning from one thing to another, and the color came and went in her face, as if she was half frightened to death; and so she was, poor thing!” -

“I felt like choking, it seemed so unnatural for Sarah to act in that way, and at last I says, ‘Sarah,’ says I, ‘what have you been writing to Mr. Bentley about? And why didn’t you keep the letter for me to carry?”

“She turned as white as new milk, and her eyes’ glanced on me with a wild look, as I’ve seen rabbits do when the trap was opened; but this look didn’t last long; all at once her eyes brightened up, and she turned on me in her old, saucy way.

“What is it to you how my letters get to the post-office,’ says she, ‘or who I write to either? One woman’s as much as you can manage, and she lives over the hill. Leave me to take care of my own business!’

But what can you have to write about?’ says I, feeling my face grow hot, for it was no joke to wrestle with our Sarah when her grit was up.

‘Well,’ says she, trying to laugh, ‘supposing I wanted him to send me a book of poems that’s just come out; is there any harm in that?’

No, not if you sent the money to pay for it, and father made no objections.’

‘Father?’ says she, and her lips turned cold and white. ‘Father, what is the use in men- tioning a trifle like that to him?’

«It isn’t a trifle if you make a secret of it, Sarah,’ says I, almost sternly.

‘You—you won’t mention it,’ says she, coming close to the fence, and clasping her hands on the upper rail. ‘That’s a dear, good brother now, do mind your own business; scold Hannah, I dare say it will do her good; but don’t concern yourself about what you will never understand, it can only make mischief.’

“This is very strange, Sarah,’ I was going to say, but she stopped me with a wave of her hand.

‘There—there! I tell you, Daniel Hart, I am doing everything for the best. You have no right to think otherwise. Let me alone—oh! let me alone!’

“She held up her clasped hands when she spoke, as a little child prays, and the tears rolled down her cheeks as I’ve seen the dew fall from a rose in the morning. I shook my head; then her face fell forward on her hands, and she began to sob.

Oh! Dan, brother Dan, you are cruel to me, very, very cruel; this comes of getting married, you do not care for us now. It would be a nice thing to get your poor sister into trouble about nothing. You and Hannah would enjoy it, I dare say. She put you up to it, I know that. Well, I have lost my brother, that’s all—my only brother, that’ never refused me anything till now!’

‘Sarah,’ says I, after a swaller or two—for somehow I felt the tears rising—‘Sarah, I dare say it’s all about nothing, only you want to be romantic, and have secrets, like the heroines in books; but somehow these things don’t work themselves out clear in real life You’re young, and so full of wits, that I sometimes feel anxious about you. It would break my heart, dear, if any harm should come to you; so don’t be mad


text:
Index talk:Clotel (1853).djvu

Newer version
A version of 1867 is in Clotelle - R. J. Mathar (talk) 19:27, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

 * Yep! We can set up a versions page. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 20:37, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Index talk:Clotel (1853).djvu


text: The Zoologist/3rd series, vol 1 (1877)/Issue 11/Occasional Notes


text: The Zoologist/3rd series, vol 1 (1877)/Issue 12/Occasional Notes


text: Clotel

title: Clotel


text:
Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXV.pdf/159

 154

GILLIAN.

because I ask questions—it’s all for your own < good, Sarah.’

She began to sob like a baby.

I know—I know it is; but don’t say any- thing more about that letter; it’s given me trouble enough without that, I’m sure.’

“I felt sorry for the poor gal, but yet it didn’t seem right to let her go on writing to a dashing young feller in secret. ‘If it goes so agin the grain to talk with me, promise one thing, and I’ll be content; just tell sister Hetty all about it. She’s a suber, steady gal, and won’t sanc- tion anything that has danger init; tell her about the letter, and I won’t interfere.’

“She looked up, looking earnestly into my face; at last her eyes began to sparkle, and she laughed.

“Hetty?’ says she; ‘you will leave it with Hetty?’

Yes, I can trust Hetty; only tell her all about it, fair and square—promise that.’

“Oh, yes, I promise that!’ says she, laughing again, though her eyes filled with tears; ‘but you must make me a promise also.’

Well, what is it?’ says I, laughing too—for I was relieved at the thought of trusting the affair with our Hetty.

“That you won’t mention the letter to any living soul—not even to your wife.’

Well, I promise that.’

Nor mother; and above all, not to father,’ she went on, earnestly.

“I thought it over a minute, and made the promise.

“Nor—nor to Hetty either,’ says she, look- ing at me as if afraid that I would refuse.

"Well,’ says I, ‘pledge me your sacred word of honor that you will tell Hetty everything, and I will not mention the subject again. She will} keep you straight, I’m sure of that.

“I pledge my sacred word of honor,’ says she, gravely, while the tears swam in her eyes. That’s a good gal,’ says I, reaching out one hand. ‘There, now, give me a kiss, and jump; on behind.’

“She sprang to the top of the fence, puckered up her lips till they glowed like an apple blossom, and gave me an old-fashioned kiss, that went straight to the heart.

“There, you old darling,’ says she, throwing her shawl across the horse, springing up behind me as light as a bird, and clasping my waist with an affections hug, ‘there, you blessed old dar- : snow-balls, till the rooms were scented like ling, we’re ‘again; so now strike into a garden. trot as quick as you like, but don’t tell anybody that I’ve been farther than the Spring Meadow, or they’ll torment me to death with questions.’

“I promised to keep her secret, and put the horse on his metal. He was used to carrying double, and went off like an arrow.

‘Hetty stood on the stoop as we rode up, looking down the road. She turned and went into the house without speaking a word, and Sarah followed her, looking down-hearted enough. I suppose she hated to tell about the letter.

‘‘Well, about a week after this, an answer came to the letter in Bentley’s hand-writing. | had told Sarah not to inquire for it, for the manner of the postmaster didn’t quite please me. I was right; for when the letter came, he made a great mystery about it, and wanted to senda private message; but I cut the matter short, asked for the letter, and carried it off. Sarah trembled like a leaf when I gave it to her—tore it open, then put it into her bosom, blushing and turning white every instant, while Hetty stood looking at her, still as death.

‘Remember your promise,’ says I to Sarah.

‘She took the letter from her bosom, and going up to Hetty, handed it to her, though she had not read a word herself.

“There,’ says she, flushing red, and turning her face full on mine, ‘will that satisfy you?’

‘Hetty took the letter without a word, and seemed to read it steadily, but she did not turn over the page, and after setting still awhile, got up and went into the house.

“Sarah followed her, and just as I was pre- paring to go away again, came to the stoop smiling, quite out of breath.

‘There, it is all right,’ she whispered. ‘Next week Mr. Bentley will be here with his cousin— another Mr. Bentley—and then you will know what he has been writing about.’

“I felt relieved by her words, and rode over to the deacon’s, happier than I had been fora week.

“I saw but little of the gals after that, for they were too busy preparing the house for visitors; everything was at sixes and sevens— carpets taken up—curtains hung—counterpanes whitened—and ceilings whitewashed on the day that young Bentley and his cousin was expected; everything was in order, and the old homestead looked cheerful as a spring morning. The fire-places were full of hemlock and pine-tops; and  at every corner you found an old mug or pitcher   crowded full of apple-blossoms, lilacs, and snow-balls, till the rooms were scented like a garden.

“The gals looked as purty as picters that afternoon, in their white muslin dresses, bowed up in front with blue ribbons; but they seemed


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Rh also engaged on a commentary illustrative of the Nyaya doctrine.

Krishnamohana Vidyabhushana, dwelling at Mahtab in the Balkrishna thana, claims to have written a commentary on Alankara Kaustubha, a work on rhetoric, containing 300 leaves or 600 pages; and Bayu Duta, a work of general literature in verse, containing 10 or 12 leaves.

The most voluminous native author I have met with is Raghunandana Goswami, dwelling at Maro in the Potna thana. The following is an enumeration of his works:—

1. A commentary on the Chandomanjari, a treatise on prosody, so framed as to express the praises of Krishna.

2. A commentary on Santi Sataka, a work on abstraction from the world.

3. Sadachara Nirnaya a compilation from the laws on the Vaishnava ritual, containing 140 leaves or 280 pages in prose and verse; a copy is in my possession.

4. Dhatu Dipa, a metrical explanation of Sanscrit roots in the order of the ten conjugations, containing 500 slokas.

5. Aunadika Kosha, a metrical dictionary of works comprising the Unadi postifixes in two parts, of which one contains words having more meanings than one, and the other words of only one meaning, 300 slokas.

6. Rogarnava Tarini, a compilation from various medical works on the treatment of disease, containing 174 leaves or 348 pages, part being in verse, extending to 6,000 slokas.

7. Arishta Nirupana, a description of the various signs or symptoms of approaching death, a compilation in verse of 400 slokas, contained in 14 leaves or 28 pages.

8. Sarira Vivritti, a treatise on the progress of gestation and on the seats in the human body of the various humours, &c., in prose and verse, comprised in 22 leaves or 44 pages.

9. Lekha Darpana, on letter writing, principally in prose, 15 leaves or 30 pages.

10. Dwaita Siddhanta Dipika, a defence of the distinction between the human and divine spirits in opposition to pantheism, contained in 71 leaves or 142 pages.

11. Hariharastotra, the praises of Vishnu and Siva, in nine slokas, so composed that every sloka has two senses,—of which one is applicable to Vishnu and the other to Siva; a copy is in my possession.


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250 life the affairs of the world could effect no entry. It is not quite certain whether Spinoza was born in Amsterdam. He must, at all events, have come there in his early youth. He may have been a pupil of Manasseh, but his mind was nurtured on the philosophical treatises of Maimonides and Crescas. His thought became sceptical, and though he was “intoxicated with a sense of God,” he had no love for any positive religion. He learned Latin, and found new avenues opened to him in the writings of Descartes. His associations with the representatives of the Cartesian philosophy and his own indifference to ceremonial observances brought him into collision with the Synagogue, and, in 1656, during the absence of Manasseh in England, Spinoza was excommunicated by the Amsterdam Rabbis. Spinoza was too strong to seek the weak revenge of an abjuration of Judaism. He went on quietly earning a living as a maker of


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Rh his Vindiciæ Judeorum (1656) his style and thought are clear, original, elevated. There are here no mystic irrelevancies. His remarks are to the point, sweetly reasonable, forcible, moderate. He grapples with the medieval prejudices against the Jews in a manner which places his works among the best political pamphlets ever written. Morally, too, his manner is noteworthy. He pleads for Judaism in a spirit equally removed from arrogance and self-abasement. He is dignified in his persuasiveness. He appeals to a sense of justice rather than mercy, yet he writes as one who knows that justice is the rarest and highest quality of human nature; as one who knows that humbly to express gratitude for justice received is to do reverence to the noblest faculty of man.

Fate rather than disposition tore Manasseh from his study to plead before the English Parliament. Baruch Spinoza was spared such distraction. Into his


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188 12. Siva Sarmadastotra, 8 slokas, containing a double sense, one expressing the praises of Siva and the other some different meaning.

13. A commentary on the preceding.

14. Yamakavinoda, 8 slokas, containing the praises of Krishna, written in a species of alliteration by a repetition of the same sounds; a copy is in my possession.

15. A commentary on the preceding; a copy is in my possession.

16. Bhavanuprasa, eight slokas, containing the praises of Krishna, in a species of alliteration.

17. Antaslapika, four slokas, in question and answer so framed that the answer to one question contains the answers to all the questions in the same sloka.

18. Radha Krishnastotra, eight slokas, containing the praises of Radha and Krishna, and so framed that they may be read either backward or forward.

19. A commentary on the above, consisting of 2 leaves or 4 pages.

20. A specimen of Alata Chakra Bandha, two slokas, so framed that each sloka contains materials for 64 slokas by the transposition of each letter in succession from the beginning to the end,—first the thirty-two syllables from left to right, and afterwards the thirty-two from right to left.

21. Sansaya Satani, a commentary on the Bhagavata Purana, now in progress of composition.

22. A commentary on Yama Shatpadi, which contains the praises of Narayana by Yama.

23. Slavakadamba, 76 slokas, containing the praises of Saraswati, Ganga, Yamuna, Nityananda, Chaitanya, Vrindavana, Krishna, and Radhika.

24. Govindarupamriti, 41 slokas, containing a description of the qualities of Krishna.

25. Krishna Keli Suddhaka, 400 slokas, on the loves of Radha and Krishna, principally occupied with the period extending from the jealousy of Radha to her reconciliation with Krishna.

25. Commentary on the above, of 37 leaves or 74 pages.


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Rh manship. Manasseh was himself, not only a distinguished linguist, but a popularizer of linguistic studies. He wrote well in Hebrew, Latin, English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and was the means of instructing many famous Christians of the day in Hebrew and Rabbinic. Among his personal friends were Vossins, who translated Manasseh’s “Conciliator” from Spanish into Latin. This, the most important of Manasseh’s early writings, was as popular with Christians as with Jews, for it attempted to reconcile the discrepancies and contradictions apparent in the Bible. Another of his friends was the painter Rembrandt, who, in 1636, etched the portrait of Manasseh. Huet and Grotius were also among the friends and disciples who gathered round the Amsterdam Rabbi.

An unexpected result of Manasseh ben Israel’s zeal for the promotion of Hebrew studies among his own brethren was the rise of a new form of poetical literature.


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Rh 26. Govinda Mahodaya, 800 slokas, containing the history of Radha’s eight female friends or attendants.

27. Govinda Charitra, 350 slokas, containing the lamentation of Radha on account of her separation from Krishna.

28. Bhakta Mala, 5,000 slokas, explanatory of the different forms in which Krishna has been propitious to his votaries, translated from Marwari into Sanscrit.

29. Durjnana Mihira Kalanala, a defence of the doctrine of the Vaishnavas.

30. Bhakta Lilamrita, a compilation from the eighteen Puranas of every thing relating to Krishna.

31. Parakiya Mata Khandana, an attempt to establish that the milkwomen of Vrindavana with whom Krishna disported were his own wives, and not those of the milkmen of that place.

32. A commentary on Kavi Chandra’s praise of Hara and Gauri (Siva and Parvati), consisting of 10 leaves or 20 pages.

33. Desika Nirnaya, a compilation on the qualifications of a spiritual guide and on the tests by which one should be selected; a copy is in my possession.

34. A commentary on Srutyadhyaya, one of the books of the Bhagavata Purana on the history of Radha and Krishna, consisting of 22 leaves or 44} pages.

35. Krishnavilasa, 109 slokas, on the amours of Krishna. The preceding works are written in Sanscrit; the following chiefly in Bengalee, viz.,

36. Rama Rasayana, the history of Rama, written on 889 leaves or 1,778 pages, containing 30,000 slokas.

37. Patra Prakasa, 8 leaves or 16 pages, on letter writing, the example in Sanscrit and the explanation in Bengalee.

Ram Comala Kavibhushana, of the medical caste, dwelling at Burdwan in the Burdwan thana, has written Nayanananda Nataka, a drama of about 300 slokas, illustrative of the life and actions of the late Rajah of Burdwan; and Vadarthadarsa, a treatise on grammar, contained in about 50 leaves or 100 pages.

Radha Kanta Vachaspati, dwelling at Chanak in the Mangalkot thana, has written the following works, viz.:—Nikunjavilasa, a drama consisting of 60 leaves or 120 pages, illustrative of the


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 212

THE OLD sross

MANSION.

ago, that if two people were ever made for each other, you and Talbot were. No ordinary woman would have been able to win him. He needed a strong, original character like yours, feminine, but still heroic. It is not mere compliment, my dear child,” he added, in a serious tone, ‘‘ when I say this. God bless you. It is an old man’s hearty benediction; but it is sincere.”

CHAPTER X.

We returned to the city in September. My  marriage was to take place in the beginning of the year.

My uncle and aunt, though studiously polite to me, could not forgive me for having, as they thought, supplanted Georgiana. Their secret aversion was such, that I often thought, if had not been about to become the wife of the rich and celebrated Mr. Talbot, they would have broken with me openly.

Mr. Talbot spent more than half of his time in our city. When he was with me, I was happy, but during his absences I had many sad hours; and I counted, with impatience, the days yet to elapse before I should have a right to be always with him.

Of Georgiana I saw very little. Her evenings were consumed by a round of parties, and her mornings were generally spent abroad. I learned, accidentally, from her maid, that she had become an early riser, and often took long walks before breakfast. She seemed to avoid my society; and when we met was reserved. On more than one occasion, when I saw her in society, I was struck with her unnaturally gay spirits. What little confidence had grown up between us, since we  had become women, had ceased from the day Mr. Talbot had asked my hand. Thus alienated from nearly all the household, I devoted much of my time to Rosalie. We were together more than ever. Often, I said to myself, that my only regret, in leaving my uncle’s family, would be  my separation from her.

We had been in town about two months, when Georgiana’s birth-day came around. It was to  be celebrated by a great ball. The preparations for this event threw my cousin and myself frequently together, for there was much to consult about; and the great inequality of her spirits now struck me more than ever. I could not avoid the conclusion that she had some secret cause of unhappiness. Had I not known that she had never loved Mr. Talbot; but only intrigued to get him through sheer vanity, and perhaps a little pique at the unexplained departure of her supposed noble admirer, I might have imagined it was disappointed affection. More than once I was on the point of soliciting her confidence. But she always repelled even the slightest approaches of this description, coldly and haughtily. If her mother noticed her abstracted air, or unconscious sighs, she would break into a laugh, declare it was all imagination, and say she never felt better or happier in her life.

The ball went off brilliantly. Georgiana had never looked more beautiful, or seemed in higher spirits. Her parents, proud of the admiration she created, followed her with their eyes wher- ever she went.

“I declare,” said Mr. Talbot, gayly, “your cousin is almost as beautiful as yourself.”

‘Almost!” I retorted, in the same spirit. “It is well there is that saving clause. I don’t think I should ever forgive you otherwise.”

“It is more of a triumph to her parents than even to herself. How your uncle and aunt seem to worship her. What a strange thing parental love is.’

I read his thoughts. He was wondering how Georgiana, whom he thought so silly, could have inspired such attachment. But he solved the riddle immediately.

‘In fact, however,” he continued, as if speaking to himself, ‘‘it is themselves, in such cases, that parents love. Georgiana is showy, full of ° tact, and fashionably accomplished; they expect her to make a great match; and that hope, as well as the admiration she excites, gratifies their vanity.”

“You modern Rochafaucault,”’ I said, playfully, dropping his arm on which I had been leaning, ‘‘Avaunt!”

“Why not Mephistopheles at once?” he answered, laughing.

‘Well then Mephistopheles,” I cried. ‘I have no patience with you. You are always looking out for bad motives.”

‘Not always,” he said. ‘‘I don’t think there’s anything selfish in your love for Rosalie, for example. But, perhaps, we lawyers do look too much at the worse side of humanity. However, ? be it vanity or not, which makes your uncle and aunt adore Georgy, her death would be a blow none the less terrible.”

“T believe it would nearly kill them.”

I have recorded this conversation, because, often afterward, it recurred to me as having been almost prophetic.

Early the next morning, I went down to the deserted apartments, in order to see that the servants were prompt at rearranging them. Every one knows what a sad spectacle a ball-room pre-


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246 The first dramas in Hebrew belong to this period. Moses Zacut and Joseph Felix Penso wrote Hebrew dramas in the first half of the seventeenth century in Amsterdam. “The Foundation of the World” by the former and the “Captives of Hope” by the latter possess little poetical merit, but they are interesting signs of the desire of Jews to use Hebrew for all forms of literary art. Hence these dramas were hailed as tokens of Jewish revival. Strangely enough, the only great writer of Hebrew plays. Moses Chayim Luzzatto (1707-1747), was also resident in Amsterdam. Luzzatto wrote under the influence of the Italian poet Guarini. His metres, his long soliloquies, his lyrics, his dovetailing of rural and urban scenery, are all directly traceable to Guarini. Luzzatto was nevertheless an original poet. His mastery of Hebrew was complete, and his rich fancy was expressed in glowing lines. His dramas, “Samson,” the “Strong Tower,”


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The Tempest, II. i

I ne'er again shall see her. O thou, mine heir

Of Naples and of Milan! what strange fish

Hath made his meal on thee?

Fran. Sir, he may live:

I saw him beat the surges under him,

And ride upon their backs: he trod the water,

Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted

The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head

'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd

Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke

To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd,

As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt

He came alive to land.

Alon. No, no; he's gone.

Seb. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,

That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,

But rather lose her to an African;

Where she at least is banish'd from your eye,

Who hath cause to wet the grief on 't.

Alon. Prithee, peace.

Seb. You were kneel'd to and importun'd otherwise

By all of us; and the fair soul herself

Weigh'd between loathness and obedience, at

Which end o' the beam should bow. We have lost your son,

I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have

Mo widows in them of this business' making,

Than we bring men to comfort them:

The fault's your own.

Alon. So is the dear'st o' the loss.

Gon. My lord Sebastian,

 134 Who hath cause, etc.; cf. n.

137 Weigh'd: balanced

loathness: reluctance

138 Which bow; cf. n.

140 Mo: more

142 dear'st loss: most precious one of those lost (Ferdinand)

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248 ica turned the current of Manasseh’s life. In 1650 he wrote his famous essay, the “Hope of Israel,” which he dedicated to the English Parliament. He argued that, as a preliminary to the restoration of Israel, or the millennium, for which the English Puritans were eagerly looking, the dispersion of Israel must be complete. The hopes of the millennium were doomed to disappointment unless the Jews were readmitted to England, “the isle of the Northern Sea.” His dedication met with a friendly reception, Manasseh set out for England in 1655, and obtained from Cromwell a qualified consent to the resettlement of the Jews in the land from which they had been expelled in 1290.

The pamphlets which Manasseh published in England deserve a high place in literature and in the history of modern thought. They are immeasurably superior to his other works, which are eloquent but diffuse, learned but involved. But in


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Rh and “Glory to the Virtuous,” show classical refinement and freshness of touch, which have made them the models of all subsequent efforts of Hebrew dramatists.

Manasseh ben Israel did not allow himself to become absorbed in the wider interests opened out to him by his intimacy with the greatest Christian scholars of his day. He prepared a Spanish translation of the Pentateuch for the Amsterdam Jews, who were slow to adopt Dutch as their speech, a fact not wonderful when it is remembered that literary Dutch was only then forming. Manasseh also wrote at this period a Hebrew treatise on immortality. His worldly prosperity was small, and he even thought of emigrating to Brazil. But the friends of the scholar found a post for him in a new college for the study of Hebrew, a college to which it is probable that Spinoza betook himself. In the meantime the reports of Montesinos as to the presence of the Lost Ten Tribes in Amer-


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 These dogs will attack a negro at their master's bidding and cling to him as the bull-dog will cling to a beast. Many are the speculations, as to whether the negro will be secured alive or dead, when these dogs once get on his track. A slave hunt took place near Natchez, a few days after Currer's arrival, which was calculated to give her no favourable opinion of the people. Two slaves had run off owing to severe punishment. The dogs were put upon their trail. The slaves went into the swamps, with the hope that the dogs when put on their scent would be unable to follow them through the water. The dogs soon took to the swamp, which lies between the highlands, which was now covered with water, waist deep: here these faithful animals, swimming nearly all the time, followed the zigzag course, the tortuous twistings and windings of these two fugitives, who, it was afterwards discovered, were lost: sometimes scenting the tree wherein they had found a temporary refuge from the mud and water; at other places where the deep mud had pulled off a shoe, and they had not taken time to put it on again. For two hours and a half, for four or five miles, did men and dogs wade through this bushy, dismal swamp, surrounded with grim-visaged alligators, who seemed to look on with jealous eye at this encroachment of their hereditary domain; now losing the trail—then slowly and dubiously taking it off again, until they triumphantly threaded it out, bringing them back to the river, where it was found that the negroes had crossed their own trail, near the place of starting. In the meantime a heavy shower had taken place, putting out the trail. The negroes were now at least four miles ahead.

It is well known to hunters that it requires the keenest scent and best blood to overcome such obstacles, and yet these persevering and sagacious animals

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Rh Christian school-men, which he read in Hebrew translations. Besides philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, Immanuel studied the Bible and the Talmud, and became an accomplished scholar. He was not born a poet, but he read deeply the poetical literature of Jews and Christians, and took lessons in rhyme-making. He was wealthy, and his house was a rendezvous of wits and scientists. His own position in the Jewish community was remarkable. It has already been said that he took an active part in the management of communal affairs, but he did more than this. He preached in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement, and delivered enlogistic orations over the remains of departed worthies. Towards the end of his life he suffered losses both in fortune and in friends, but he finally found a new home in Fermo, where he was cordially welcomed in 1328. The date of his death is uncertain, but he died in about 1330.


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216

OLD

MANSION.

“I am satisfied you love me, Margaret. Forgive me!’’ Iwas relenting fast. But his next words destroyed all. ‘‘Yet more than love is necessary. Where there is an irreconcilable difference of opinion, as there seems to be on this point, either the man or the woman must yield; and it is the wife’s duty, in such cases, to surrender to the husband, else there would be no unity of action. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Society holds the husband responsible for the wife’s behavior; he ought, therefore, to control it; and I shall expect you, in matters of this kind, to give up to me.”

I believe no man yet ever understood a woman. These words exasperated me to such a degree, that, for the time, all love for the speaker went out from me. They seemed so logically correct, however, in Mr. Talbot’s eyes, that he was ap- parently surprised at their effect. Ah! why did he not know, that, after marriage, a wife in- sensibly yields all? me, so obtrusively, the chain I was to wear?

“Sir,” I said, removing my hand and drawing myself up with dignity, ‘‘I see, now, it is you who does not love. You are not my conscience- keeper. Thank God! that I find out, before toe late, what degradation is expected of me.’

This time he took the ring, which I again ex- tended to him. One long, sad look he cast on me, a look, oh! how reproachful, and then, with- out a word, bowed and retired. A moment after, I heard the front door close and knew that all was over between us.

Yes! all was over. But alas! I had not that assured consciousness, which I ought to have had, that I was wholly in the right, and he  wholly in the wrong. The instant he passed from my sight doubt made me its prey. Had I not been too hasty? Had I not again lost my temper? Was he not right, after all? I rushed to the window to summon him back. But pride checked me just as my hand was on the casement. No! the deed was done: I would abide by it.-

Then I went over the old arguments to prove that I was right. I said to myself that he was ‘imperious; that I never could have been happy with him; that, if I had yielded in this matter, he would have expected me to yield always, even when he was indisputably in the wrong.

I thought also of my sex. If all would do as I had done, the tyranny of man would soon be over. I congratulated myself on being a martyr. I felt a heroic exaltation which buoyed me up, for a while, indescribably.

But it would not do. In spite of all, I was miserably unhappy. I stood, reasoning thus with myself, but feeling more utterly desolate every moment, till at last my fortitude gave way, I burst into a passion of tears, and throwing my- self on the sofa, wept as if my heart would break.

CHAPTER XII.

My passion of tears had not yet spent itself, when there was a tap at the parlor dobr. I com- manded myself sufficiently to ask, in a composed voice, who was there?

‘It is me,” answered my uncle’s waiter. ‘‘The cabman, at the door, has rung twice to $know if you are going, or whether he shall drive off.”

I had utterly forgotten my visit to Georgiana, I now rose feebly.

‘Tell the man I will be there presently,” said. I waited till I heard the waiter pass down the hall, for I did not wish to be seen, and then slipped up stairs, in order to wash my inflamed eyes, and bathe my aching temples.

During the drive to Georgiana’s, my thoughts were of my late interview, not of her. In vain I tried to dismiss it; the parting looks and words of Mr. Talbot would come back; and I was on the point, several times, of giving way to tears again. For the more I reflected, the less I was satisfied with myself. I felt I had been too hasty, too passionate, too proud. Oh! I would have given anything to have had the last few hours to act over again. Yet though I knew! had but to order the carriage back to town, and despatch a note to Mr. Talbot, that very pride kept me from doing it.

We left the city, by one of its northern outlets, and found ourselves driving amid abandoned fields. On the dusty herbage of some of these, sheep were grazing; others were dug up for brick-yards; on still others straggling rows of houses were being put up. Suddenly we turned into a shady lane, one side of which was bounded by a spacious park, over whose velvety turf great trees were scattered singly or in clumps, letting the yellow sunshine drop down silently between  them, like gold filtered from the sky. A noble mansion, half concealed by foliage, stood at the further extremity of the park.

“It is here, I suppose, that Georgiana lives,” I said to myself. ‘‘What a poetical home! It is quite the place to take a bride to.” And I   thought better of her husband already.

But the driver, instead of turning in at the  massive gates, kept on, and when I pulled the  check-string, and asked him if he had not made a mistake, he answered in the negative. with a shrug of the shoulders, that destroyed all my  romantic illusions.


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30

The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness

And time to speak it in; you rub the sore,

When you should bring the plaster.

Seb. Very well.

Ant. And most chirurgeonly.

Gon. It is foul weather in us all, good sir,

When you are cloudy.

Seb. Foul weather?

Ant. Very foul.

Gon. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,—

Ant. He'd sow 't with nettle-seed.

Seb. Or docks, or mallows.

Gon. And were the king on 't, what would I do?

Seb. 'Scape being drunk for want of wine.

Gon. I' the commonwealth I would by contraries

Execute all things; for no kind of traffic

Would I admit; no name of magistrate;

Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,

And use of service, none; contract, succession,

Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;

No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;

No occupation; all men idle, all;

And women too, but innocent and pure;

No sovereignty,—

Seb. Yet he would be king on 't.

Ant. The latter end of his commonwealth

forgets the beginning.

Gon. All things in common nature should produce

Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,

Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,

 147 chirurgeonly: like a surgeon

150 plantation: colonization; taken by Antonio as meaning 'planting'

154–174 Cf. Appendix A, p. 91

157 Letters: learning

158 use of service: custom of having servants

succession: tenure of property by right of inheritance

159 Bourn: boundary

tilth: tilled soil

168 engine: instrument of war

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188 :G. Sacerdote.—Emanuele da Roma’s Ninth Mehabbereth, J. Q. R., VII, p. 711.

 * Graetz—IV, p. 68 [73].

 * Graetz.—IV, p. 230 [249].

 * Graetz.—IV, p. 289 [311].


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Rh manuel. Messer Leon, a physician of Mantua, wrote a treatise on Biblical rhetoric (1480). Again, the only important writer of dramas in Hebrew was, as we shall see, an Italian Jew, who copied Italian models. Though, therefore, the Hebrew poetry of Italy scarcely reaches the front rank, it is historically of first-rate importance. It represents the only effects of the Renaissance on Jewish literature. In other countries, the condition of the Jews was such that they were shut off from external influences. Their literature suffered as their lives did from imprisonment within the Ghettos, which were erected both by the Jews themselves and by the governments of Europe.

S. Morais.—Italian Jewish Literature (Publications of the Gratz College, Vol. I).

 * Graetz.—IV, p. 61 [66].
 * J. Chotzner.—Immanuel di Romi, J. Q. R., IV, p. 64.


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 retire at an early hour, rose to take leave, saying at the same time, "I hope you will remain with us to-night." Mr. Green would fain have excused himself, on the ground that they would expect him and wait at the hotel, but a look from the lady told him to accept the invitation. The old man was the father of Mrs. Devenant's deceased husband, as you will no doubt long since have supposed. A fortnight from the day on which they met in the graveyard, Mr. Green and Mrs. Devenant were joined in holy wedlock; so that George and Mary, who had loved each other so ardently in their younger days, were now husband and wife.

A celebrated writer has justly said of woman, "A woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks, for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and, if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is a bankruptcy of the heart."

Mary had every reason to believe that she would never see George again; and although she confesses that the love she bore him was never transferred to her first husband, we can scarcely find fault with her for marrying Mr. Devenant. But the adherence of George Green to the resolution never to marry, unless to his Mary, is, indeed, a rare instance of the fidelity of man in the matter of love. We can but blush for our country's shame when we recal to mind the fact, that while George and Mary Green, and numbers of other fugitives from American slavery, can receive protection from any of the governments of Europe, they cannot return to their native land without becoming slaves.

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text: Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Seven/Chapter 19


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186 ize the customs and social habits of the Jews of his day in a bright and powerful style. In his Purim Tractate, Kalonymos parodies the style, logic, and phraseology of the Talmud, and his work was the forerunner of a host of similar parodies.

There were many Italian writers of Piyutim, i. e. Synagogue hymns, but these were mediocre in merit. The elegies written in lament for the burning of the Law and the martyrdoms endured in various parts of Italy were the only meritorious devotional poems composed in Hebrew in that country. Italy remained famous in Hebrew poetry for secular, not for religious compositions. In the fifteenth century Moses Rieti (born 1389, died later than 1452) imitated Dante once more in his “Lesser Sanctuary” (Mikdash Meät). Here again may be noticed a feature peculiar to Italian Hebrew poetry. Rieti uses regular stanzas, Italian forms of verse, in this matter following the example of Im-


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text: Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Seven/Chapter 23


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182 His works were versatile rather than profound. He wrote grammatical treatises and commentaries, which display learning more than originality. But his poetical writings are of great interest in the history of Jewish literature. He lived in the dawn-flush of the Renaissance in Italy. The Italian language was just evolving itself, under the genius of Dante, from a mere jumble of dialects into a literary language. Dante did for Italy what Chaucer was soon after to do for England. On the one side influenced by the Renaissance and the birth of the new Italian language, on the other by the Jewish revival of letters in Spain and Provence, the Italian Jews alone combined the Jewish spirit with the spirit of the classical Renaissance. Immanuel was the incarnation of this complex soul.

This may be seen from the form of Immanuel’s Machberoth, or “Collection.” The latter portion of it, named separately “Hell and Eden,” was imitated from the


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text: Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Seven/Chapter 25