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BY THE SEA.

33 flung back her heavy traveling-veil, extended a daintily-gloved hand, and said in the softest, most indifferent voice, ‘How do you do, Mr. Warner? Really, I believe one would stumble over old acquaintances, if one went to the anti- podes, wherever that may be.”

And the calm, gray eyes gazed into his with that far-off look which it is so aggravating to meet; and the beautiful mouth seemed divided between a smile and a yawn; and Warner stood absolutely stupid with surprise at this apparition, so unlike anything that he had expected to behold.

The difference between a chrysalis and a gorgeous butterfly! No love-sick, sentimental girl, but a handsome, stylish woman, with the aplomb of thirty-five.

“You seem half inclined to dispute our identity,” continued Miss Annesly. ‘I don’t wonder—I feel like somebody else! Aunty, were you ever so tired?”

“Never,” returned the old lady. ‘Where's the landlord? I want rooms—I’m just worn out! Don’t tell me the house is closed—I mean to stay. So'call him,” and she thumped vigorously on the floor with the point of her blue umbrella.

By this time, Grafton began to think that it would be as well to recover himself a little, and not stand there like a great, confused school- boy; so he mixed matters very much by trying, in the same breath, to assure Miss Annesly that he was delighted to meet her, and to offer to find the master of the house for the old lady, glad of any pretext to absent himself long enough to get his head straight.

But at that moment Roylston came out of the hall with his honest face in a glow of pleasure, and was warmly greeted by both aunt and niece; and for almost the first time in his life, Grafton had the pleasure of knowing how a man feels when the feminine element present appears utterly oblivious of his existence.

“I want a place to lay my head, Richard Roylston,” said the old lady. ‘We've been staying at Patchogue; the landlord behaved like a brute, and I left. Our house in town is all upset, and I will not go to a hotel, and here I mean to stay for a fortnight; so find the man and get me rooms, and be quick about it,” and she pounded on the floor again with the ill-used umbrella.

Grafton saw Mr. Yetson out in the grounds, went to call him, and did not return for some time. When he did, the ladies had disappeared, and he found Roylston in the little snuggery off the dining-room, which, in the empty state of the house, the party had been allowed to turn into a smoking-den.

“Confounded boré, having a parcel of women tumble in to upset us,” grumbled Grafton, flinging himself into a chair.

“Two don’t make a parcel,” replied Richard. “If they tumbled, it must have been owing to your awkwardness, as you helped them out of the carriage.”

“Oh, don’t be witty!” fumed Grafton. “I say women are a bore in such a place, and you know it.”

“Don’t know anything of the sort,” answered Richard; “and for you, of all fellows, to make a speech like that is simply ridiculous.”

“I suppose I ought to know best how I feel,” retorted Grafton, crossly.

“No,” said Richard, “I think not.”

Then Grafton kicked the burning logs and scorched his boot, and muttered a bad word.

“I would advise you take a nap before dinner,” said Richard, “and get your manners in trim for female society again.”

“I would advise you to mind your own business, my dear old boy,” replied Grafton.

“I don’t feel in the mood,” said Richard, laughing. “In heaven’s name, what makes you so cross?”

The ringing of the first dinner-bell obviated the necessity for an answer; and they both went off to make themselves more presentable.

After all, it was a very gay dinner. Old Mrs. Annesly was witty and odd; the young lady charmed the whole crowd in no time, and Graf- ton sat looking at her, and wondering if she could be the girl he had held in his arms; and if that proud mouth could be the same he had seen tremulous with emotion; if those calm eyes were the eyes he had watched hang upon his slighiest look, or dilate with speechless anguish in that terrible parting hour.

I never have time to give you details, so I cannot dwell upon the events of the days that followed. It was the most heavenly weather— those soft, gray November days, which have such an inexpressible charm, and which exer- cise over an impulsive, imaginative man so subtle an influence, that he would be very likely to make love to his grandmother, if nothing else in the way of a petticoat offered itself.

I am afraid the shooting suffered in consequence; but the whole crowd found the feminine addition to their number very pleasant; and Miss Annesly possessed the rare art of being able to play agreeable to half a dozen men, and making herself charming to each without even indulging, in look or word, that

title: Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/28


text: Halek's Stories and Evensongs/Poldik the Scavenger

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


text: Halek's Stories and Evensongs/Pensioned Off


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Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/29

34 BY THE SEA. the most censorious old tabby could have stigmatized as flirting.

The days went on, but Grafton could not get his senses in order—nothing in the shape of a woman had ever puzzled him as Maud Annesly did. There did not. seem to be the slightest memory of the past left in her mind; and whether it was acting or reality, Grafton could not decide. She was perfectly cordial and friendly with him, but there was never, for an instant, the least change in her manner, from what it had been during the first moments of their unexpected meeting.

And the days went on, grew into a week, numbered more than that, and softer and more peaceful each one grew, as if winter had forgotten himself in some distant northern clime; as if the beautiful Indian Summer was to reign monarch till the waning year went out.

A strange season to Grafton Warner—he scarcely recognized himself in this new phase of feeling and experience. Dismiss this woman from his mind he could not; her slightest word or look he could not help watching, wondering always what she felt; if it was true that she had as completely lived past that error in her girlish life as if it had never been.

He saw what a noble creature she had grown into; gifted, carefully educated, generous, noble, and, oh! so beautiful and so womanly, su unlike any other of her sex who had fallen in his way.

And the day came when Grafton Warner was forced to acknowledge that. a spell was on his soul, such as had never before been flung over it; when he marveled that in the old days he could have been so blind and mad; when he knew that he loved this woman.

Yes, he loved her, and in all his life before he had never loved any woman. Passions without number—oh! till one would have supposed the faculty of sensation would have been lost; seasous when he would have committed any rash, mad act—but nothing like this. He loved her. Loved her so well, that he saw himself and his life for what they were really worth, and writhed in gelf-loathing and contempt. Loved her so fully, that if by ten thousand years of: penitence, suffering, torture, he could have blotted out his past, and made his soul pure enough to be worthy to stand beside hers, and be loved and trusted by hers, even for one hour, he would ¢heerfully have gone back to the pangs of purgatory, content, satisfied that he conld bear with him into the darkness the blessed memory that her lips had confessed that she loved him in return.

You think this is theatrical, crazy, you young, untried soul, with the glory of your early youth about you, with all your dreams in their first flush, your soul. unstained; but this man was going out.of his youth, and so, black a hell of recollection and remorse spread between him and the season where you rest, that you can form mo conception of if, until, in your turn, life’s temptations come, and you, perhaps, yield as he had done.

God help you!, God pardon him, and such as he! Thus much let the sternest, the purest say!

He loved her, and he knew not, what love was worth, and felt it sacrilege even to touch her hand withhis, even. to look in her pure eyes with those eyes of his, from whence the trouble in his soul began to look out. He had found his retribution; oh! be satisfied, ye who sit in judgment! Sooner or. later it comes; but in spite of your decision, mayhap, heaven sends it in mercy after all.

Of what he felt, hoped, feared, suffered, Miss Annesly appeared perfectly unconscious; yet it seemed to Grafton that everybody near must be reading in his face just what. he endured; and he cursed himself for not being actor enough, after all his practice, to suffer and be still.

Luckily he met with an accident. A heavy ladder, that he was helping move, fell and struck him a severe blow in the chest, and a cold added to it, really made him play invalid for awhile, at least to the extent of lying on a sofa a good deal, and swallowing with what. patience he might a variety of bitter potions which Mrs. Annesly prepared.

But Maud was kind enough, to administer them with her own hand; to sit by him, read to him, play chess with him. The only drawback to his enjoying his physical pain, at least, was the fact that dear old Roylston was anxious about him, too, and kept near a greater portion of the time than Grafton thought at all necessary.

One day Maud had been reading Aurora Leigh to him, and unconsciously to both, they strayed jnto a conversation much more earnest than was usual with them.

‘And, after all his efforts,” said Grafton, ‘poor Romney Leigh’s life was as hideous a failure as if he had never tried to exert his powers for good.”

«A failure?” cried Maud, and her eyes flashed, and her cheeks glowed. ‘No! I can’t bear to hear anybody say poor Romney! At least his soul was struggling always to the light, and he reached it, after he had learned that no human will can achieve until it has learned to submit.”

«At least he found-one heaven,” Grafton said,

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text:
User talk:Athene Noctua Books

--EncycloPetey (talk) 23:44, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

English Wikisource
Works hosted on this Wikisource must be in English. Works in Spanish are hosted at Wikisource en español. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:44, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

title: User talk:Athene Noctua Books


text: Halek's Stories and Evensongs/Bibliography


text:
Page:Hundredversesfro00fujiuoft.djvu/50

Sumi-no-ye no Kishi ni yoru nami Yoru sae ya Yume no kayoi-ji Hito-me yokuramu.

title: Page:Hundredversesfro00fujiuoft.djvu/50


text:
Page:Hundredversesfro00fujiuoft.djvu/52

Naniwa gata Mijikaki ashi no Fushi no ma mo Awade kono yo wo Sugushite yo to ya.

title: Page:Hundredversesfro00fujiuoft.djvu/52


text:
Page:Hundredversesfro00fujiuoft.djvu/54

Wabi nureba Ima hata onaji Naniwa naru Mi wo tsukushite mo Awamu to zo omou.

title: Page:Hundredversesfro00fujiuoft.djvu/54


text: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 11

title: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 11


text: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 12

title: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 12


text: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 13

title: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 13


text: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 14

title: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 14


text: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 15

title: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 15


text: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 16

title: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 16


text: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 17

title: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 17


text: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 18

title: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 18


text:
Our Grandfather

 * Our Grandfather (1887), by Walter William Strickland
 * "Our Grandfather", in Halek's Stories and Evensongs (1930), by Walter William Strickland

title: Our Grandfather


text: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 19

title: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 19


text: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 20

title: A Hundred Verses from Old Japan/Poem 20


text:
Page:Everywoman's World, Volume 7, Number 7.djvu/35

JULY 1917

vessel coming straight on before the northern gale with every stitch of canvas set. She grounded about three hundred yards from the shore and as she struck the crew cut the rigging, and the huge masts went over with a crash that was heard for a mile, above the roaring of the storm.

The next day the crew of twenty men got ashore and found boarding places about Cavendish. Being typical tars, they painted our quiet settlement a glowing scarlet the summer. It was their especial delight to crowd into a truck-wagon, and go galloping along the roads yelling at the top of their voices. They were of many nationalities, Irishmen, Englishmen, Scotchmen, Spaniards, Norwegians, Swedes, Dutchmen, Germans, and—most curious of all—two Tahitians, whose woolly heads, thick lips, and gold earrings were a never-failing joy to Well and Dave and me.

There was an immense amount of red tape in connection with the affair, and the Marcopolo men were in Cavendish for weeks. The captain boarded with us. He was a Norwegian, a delightful, gentlemanly old fellow who was idolized by his crew. He spoke English well, but was apt to get rather mixed up in his prepositions.

"Thank you for your kindness against, me, little Miss Maud," he would say with a grand bow.

Owing to the presence of the captain, the crew haunted our domain also. I remember the night they were all paid off; they all sat out on the grass under the parlour windows, feeding our old dog Gyp with biscuits. Well and Dave and I saw, with eyes as big as owls, the parlour table literally covered with gold sovereigns, which the captain paid out to the men. Never had we imagined there was so much wealth in the world.

Naturally the shore was a part of my life from my earliest consciousness. I learned to know it and love it in every mood. The Cavendish shore is a very beautiful one; part of it is rock shore, where the rugged red cliffs rise steeply from the boulder-strewn coves. Part is a long, gleaming sandshore, divided from the fields and ponds behind by a row of rounded sand-dunes, covered by coarse sand-hill grass. This sandshore is a peerless spot for bathing.

LL through my childhood I spent much of my time on the shore. It was not so quiet and solitary then us it is to-day. Those were the days when the mackerel fishing was good, and the shore was dotted with fishing houses. Many of the farmers had a fishing house on the shore field of their farms, with a boat drawn up on the skids below. Grandfather always fished mackerel in the summer, his boat manned by two or three French Canadians, fishing on the shores, Just where the rocks left off and the sandshore began was quite a little colony of fishing houses. This place was called Cawnpore, owing to the fact that on the day and hour when the last nail was being driven into the last house news arrived of the massacre of Cawnpore in the Indian Mutiny. There is not a house left there now.

The men would get up at three or four in the morning and go out fishing. Then we children had to take their breakfast down at eight, later on their dinner, and, if the fish "schooled" all day, their supper also. In vacations we would spend most of the day there, and I soon came to know every cove, headland, and rock on that shore. We would watch the boats through the sky-glass, paddle in the water, gather shells and pebbles and mussels, and sit on the rocks and eat dulse, literally, by the yard. The rocks at low tide were covered by millions of snails, as we called them. I think the correct name is periwinkle. We often found great, white, empty "snail" shells, as big as our fists, that had been washed ashore from some distant strand or deep sea haunt. I early learned by heart, Holmes' beautiful lines on "The Chambered Nautilus," and I rather fancied myself sitting dreamily on a big boulder with my bare, wet feet tucked up under my print skirt, holding a huge "snail" shell in my sun-burned paw and appealing to my soul to "build thee more stately mansions."

There were many "outgrown shells" by that "unresting sea," and we carried them home to add to our collection, or to encircle our flower beds. Up by the sea run, where the ponds empty into the Gulf, we always found beautiful, white, quahog-clam shells galore.

The waves constantly dashing against the soft sandstone cliffs wore them away into many beautiful arches and caves. Somewhat to the east of our fishing house was a bold headland against which the water lapped at lowest tide. Through the neck of this headland a hole became worn—a hole so small that we could scarcely thrust a hand through it. Every season it grew a littler larger. One summer an adventurous school chum and I crawled through it. It was a tight squeeze, and we used to exult with a fearful joy over having dared it, and speculate as to what would have happened if one of us had got stuck half-way through!

In a few more years we could walk upright through the opening. Then a horse and carriage could have been driven through it. Finally, in about fifteen years from the beginning the thin bridge of rock at the top gave way, and the headland became an island, as though a gateway had been cleft through its wall.

There were many stories and legends connected with the shore, of which I heard older persons talk. Grandfather liked a dramatic story, had a good memory for its fine points, and could tell it well. He had many tales to relate of the terrible American gale—or "Yankee storm," as it was called—when hundred of American fishing vessels out in the Gulf were wrecked upon the north shore.

The story of the Franklin Dexter and the four brothers who sailed in her, which is related in "The Golden Road," is literally true. Grandfather was among those who the bodies, helped to bury them in Cavendish churchyard, helped to take them up when the broken-hearted old father came, and helped to put them on the ill-fated Seth Hall.

HEN there was the story of Cape Leforce, a bit of tragic, unwritten history harking back to the days when the "Island of St. John" belonged to France. It was some time in the 1760's. I can never remember dates. The only two dates which remain in my memory out of all those so painstakingly learned in schooldays are that Julius Cæsar landed in England 55 and the Battle of Waterloo was fought in 1815. France and England were at war. French privateers infested the Gulf sallying therefrom to plunder the commerce of the New England Colonies. One of these was commanded by a captain named Leforce.

One night they anchored off the Cavendish shore, at that time an unnamed, wooded solitude. For some reason the crew came ashore and camped for the night on the headland now known as Cape Leforce. The captain and his mate shared a tent, and endeavoured to come to a division of their booty. They quarrelled, and it was arranged that they should fight a duel at sunrise. But in the morning, as the ground was being paced off, the mate suddenly raised his pistol and shot Captain Leforce dead.

I do not know if the mate was ever punished for this deed. Probably not. It was a mere brief sentence in a long page of bloodshed. But the captain was buried by bis crew on the spot where he fell, and I have often heard Grandfather say that is father had seen the grave in his boyhood. It had long ago crumbled off into the waves, but the name still clings to the red headland.

Away to the westward, six or seven miles the view was bounded by New London Cape, a long, sharp point, running far out to sea. In my childhood I never wearied of speculating what was on the other side of that point, a very realm of enchantment, surely, I thought. Even when I gradually drew into the understanding that beyond it was merely another reach of shore like my own it still held a mystery and a fascination for me. I longed to stand out on that lonely, remote, purple point, beyond which was the land of lost sunsets.

I have seen few more beautiful sights than a sea-sunset off that point. Tn later years a new charm was added, a revolving light that flashed like a magnificent star through the dusk of summer nights, like a beacon on an out-post of fairyland.

I did not often fare far afield. An occasional trip to town—Charlottetown—and another to Uncle John Campbell's at Park Corner, were my only excursions beyond my horizon line, and both were looked on as great pleasures. A trip to Park Corner was of comparatively frequent occurrence, once a year at least, and perhaps twice. A trip to town was a very, rare treat, once in three years, and loomed up in about the same proportions of novelty, excitement, and delight as a trip to Europe would now—or before the war. It meant a brief sojourn in a wonderful and fascinating place, where every one was dressed up and could have all the nuts, candies, and oranges they wanted, to say nothing of the exquisite pleasure of looking at all the beautiful things in the shop windows.

I remember distinctly my first trip to town at the age of five. I had a glorious day, but the most delightful part was a tiny adventure I had just before leaving for home. Grandfather and Grandmother had met some friends at a street corner and stopped to talk. Finding that I wasn't being looked after, I promptly shot down a near-by side street, agog for adventures. It was so jolly and independent to be walking down a street all alone. It was a wonderful street. I've never seen it since—not with the same eyes, anyway. No other street has ever had the charm that one had. The most amazing sight I saw was a woman shaking rugs on the top of a house. I felt dizzy with astonishment over such a topsy-turvy sight. We shook rugs in the yard. Who ever heard of shaking them on the top of a house!

RRIVING at the bottom of the street I coolly ran down the steps of an open door I found there, and discovered myself to be in a charming dim spot, full of barrels, with a floor ankle-deep with beautiful curly shavings. But, seeing some one moving in a distant corner I was overcome, not by fear but by shyness, and beat a hasty retreat. On my way back I met a little girl with a pitcher in her hand. We both stopped, and with the instinctive, unconventional camaraderie of childhood plunged into an intimate, confidential conversation. She was a jolly little soul, with black eyes and two long braids of black hair. We told each other how old we were, and how many dolls we had, and almost everything else there was to tell except our names which neither of us thought (Continued on page 35)

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text: Index:Leigh Hunt's London Journal (vol 2, 1835).djvu


text:
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208 a flat—I should have to go to her aunt, and to say: 'This is my betrothed!' At all costs must I put a stop to these rumours. Marriage! What is marriage?"

He smiled as he remembered his recent poetical idealization of the ceremony—the long train to the gown, the orange-blossoms, the whispers of the crowd. Somehow the colours had now changed; the crowd now comprised also the uncouth, the slovenly Zakhar and the whole staff of the Ilyinskis' servants' hall. Also, he could see a long line of carriages and a sea of strange, coldly inquisitive faces. The scene was replete with glimmering, deadly weariness.

Summoning Zakhar to his presence, he again asked him how he had dared to spread such rumours.

"For do you know what marriage means?" he demanded of his valet. "It means that a lot of idle lacqueys and women and children start chattering in kitchens and shops and the market-place. A given individual ceases to be known as Ilya Ilyitch or Peter Petrovitch, and henceforth ranks only as the zhenich. Yesterday no one would have noticed him, but by to-morrow every one will be staring at him as though he were


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 old age; let us respect all so long as their conduct entitles them to that respect, and value opinions according to their own merit.

We think, with our correspondent, that the aged often assume too much on the score of their superiority of knowledge. When they do so, they surely refute their pretensions by the very fact of doing it. On the other hand, it is no unreasonable assumption, to take for granted that, in proportion to men’s experience, they are generally better informed. The great point is, to arrogate on neither side; to listen to the old with respect, and the young with complacency.

undefined

is little more than the first outlines of a comedy loosely sketched in. It is the story of a novel dramatised with very little labour or pretension; yet there are passages of high poetical spirit, and of inimitable quaintness of humour, which are undoubtedly Shakspeare’s, and there is throughout the conduct of the fable, a careless grace and felicity which marks it for his. One of the editors (we believe, Mr Pope) remarks in a marginal note to the ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’—“It is observable (I know not for what cause) that the style of this comedy is less figurative, and more natural and unaffected than the greater part of this author’s, though supposed to be one of the first he wrote.” Yet so little does the editor appear to have made up his mind upon this subject, that we find the following note to the very next (the second) scene. “This whole scene, like many others in these plays (some of which I believe were written by Shakspeare, and others interpolated by the players), is composed of the lowest and most trifling conceits, to be accounted for only by the gross taste of the age he lived in: Populo ut placerent. I wish I had authority to leave them out, but I have done all I could, set a mark of reprobation upon them, throughout this edition.” It is strange that our fastidious critic should fall so soon from praising to reprobating. The style of the familiar parts of this comedy is indeed made up of conceits—low they may be for what we know, but then they are not poor, but rich ones. The scene of Launce with his dog (not that in the second, but that in the fourth act) is a perfect treat in the way of farcical drollery and invention; nor do we think Speed’s manner of proving his master to be in love deficient in wit or sense, though the style may be criticised as not simple enough for the modern taste.

The tender scenes in this play, though not so highly wrought as in some others, have often much sweetness of sentiment and expression. There is something pretty and playful in the conversation of Julia with her maid, when she shows such a disposition to coquetry about receiving the letter from Protheus; and her behaviour afterwards and her disappointment, when she finds him faithless to his vows, remind us at a distance of Imogen’s tender constancy. Her answer to Lucetta, who advises her against following her lover in disguise, is a beautiful piece of poetry.

If Shakspeare indeed had written only this and other passages in the ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona,’ he would almost have deserved Milton’s praise of him—

But as it is, he deserves rather more praise than this.

undefined

Spring day had tempted Julia and her friends to enter into the open air. “What a pity that our Antonia cannot accompany us!” cried she at every new discovered charm with which reviving Nature met her eye. “She is over careful of herself;” said Meta, “Who could be injured by the noble and refreshing breezes of Spring? As for myself, I regard Spring in the light of a cheerful youth, a kind of Cupid, but not so fantastical or so artful; on the contrary, fresh and joyous from the very depths of his heart. Tell me, would a violet, or even a humble crocus bloom, if it coddled itself up in this manner? I am right,—am I not, Grünewald?”

“One plant is earlier than another, Mamsell,” replied the gardener; “For example, were I to take an orange-tree from the conservatory before St Pancras or St Sewatius’ day, I should meet with sorry success. Even now, many a crocus is frozen by the coldness of the nights, while an adonis endures frost and snow, and blooms among them with increased vigour.”

The young ladies laughed. “There’s a lecture for you,” said Julia. “I will tell it to Antonia, who keeps her Adonis much too warm.”

“That is unnecessary,” continued the gardener, still misunderstanding; “it will soon wither, if it is too closely tended.”

“To speak seriously,” said Julia; as she walked on, “I think Antonia has rather stopped at home on account of her whimsical lover, than by reason of her head-ache, though she certainly does belong to the number of those tender flowers who cannot venture into the world without the special protection of two Saints. The gentleman may be gallant enough, but he does not understand the treatment of a being so delicate as Antonia.”

“He should not be my husband,” added Cecilia; “I cannot make out why Antonia cleaves to him in the manner she does.”

“They both cause me many an uneasy moment,” returned Julia. “I would wager that Antonia does not love him, and that her fanciful resignation is no more than an overstraining of her feelings. She forces herself to this love, and I can foresee no issue but a sorrowful one to such a connexion.”

“But who compels her?” asked Meta. “It is her own choice, is it not?”

“She is certainly not compelled by any one,” replied Julia with a sigh—“but does compulsion only take place when one is teased by a father or a guardian? You both know Antonia as well as I? She feels herself bound to Normann because she thinks she must love him, because she once loved him, or, perhaps rather, because she fancied so.”

“I thought,” said Cecilia, “that she had given a promise to that effect to a person on his death-bed.”

“And that was the case,” said Julia; “but as I well know, even this was unnecessary; for had it not been so, she would still have felt herself bound to Normann. She fancies that by her hasty inclination towards him, she committed a crime against her first love, which must now be atoned for by a lasting and patient attachment.”

“But you must confess,” interrupted Meta, impatiently, “that Antonia drives these fancies much too far. No man can desire such sacrifices as she makes. Who could wish that on account of a transient inclination which she has felt towards a man, she should resign herself to him, and thus waste away her youth, her gaiety, and, in short, her whole life? I could not remain in her situation. With a hearty resolution, I would soon free myself.”

“We could all do it, dear Meta,” returned Julia, “provided we could be in Antonia’s situation, without, at the same time, being Antonia herself. Besides, consider that it is probable that our situations are formed according to ourselves, and that, therefore, it might be impossible for us to be in Antonia’s situation, and to act according to our own characters and dispositions. What the gardener said just now, respecting the flowers, is the case also with us. ‘Were I a rose,’ perhaps the crocus thinks, ‘in the first days of spring I would rival the apple blossoms;’ yet, if it were a rose, it would act as a rose, and conceal its tender buds. I feel that I could not act like Antonia, but I can appreciate the tenderness of her disposition.—Yes, I know that if I called her extremely amiable, I should yet say far too little. Her character is the living tone of an harmonicon. I would not have every instrument an harmonicon; but, nevertheless, is not that instrument excellent to the highest degree—nay, almost unearthly?”

“This is the cause of Antonia playing the harmonicon in so heavenly a style,” said Alicia; “yet she plays it but seldom now. I think I have not heard a tune from her in a year.”

“Nor I, either,” remarked Julia; “nor, indeed, any one else. Since the death of her Ewald, it is in vain I ask her for the least song. She always puts me off with promises that I shall again hear her play, but yet she always defers it from one time to another. Lately, I wished her to play a passage which I could not master, but even that was refused.”

“Perchance it makes her too, melancholy,” said Cecilia. “I always avoid speaking to her of Ewald; notwithstanding, I am utterly unacquainted with the nature of that connexion. You can give us some explanation, Julia; at least, if it be no secret.”

“Ewald,” began Julia, “was, according to my views, a man as unfit for Antonia as Normann. He resembled her more in tenderness, but he wanted that firmness by which such an etherial being as Antonia should be supported, in order to be happy; and this very want caused the unhappy turn in her fate. They were enamoured of each other, I might say, not as human beings, but as spirits, and they carried their feelings and fancy to such a pitch, that Ewald, at least, to whom, perhaps, this exaltation was not so natural as to Antonia, at times seemed to become giddy. At this period, Normann, Ewald’s university friend, first knew Antonia, and this acquaintance was soon followed by the most ardent love on his part. Antonia, perhaps, might have felt a transient inclination towards Normann, while she lived, but too much, in Ewald; and I am convinced that what she felt for the former was no more than friendship and esteem, which, indeed, none can deny to his firm and decided character. Ewald soon became aware of Normann’s love; he even fancied that he could discern in Antonia a secret passion for the latter; and under the influence of exaggerated feelings, which were heightened by an illness, he resolved to renounce his beloved in favour of his friend. He wrote a most fantastical letter to both, then lost his senses, and probably hastened his end by the immoderate use of violent remedies. Both Antonia and Normann were present at his death, and on this occasion the expiring man, perhaps with consciousness, perhaps inspired by a delirious fancy, joined their hands, then asked Antonia for a song on the harmonicon, and while she was playing he breathed his last. Hence, from that time,


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 she has been unwilling to play on the instrument, which reminds her of the death of her lover.”

“But you must play us something,” said both her friends, “and that to-night. There is an harmonicon in the house—besides, the evening air will soon become too damp and cold for the garden.”

Julia promised to grant their request, and the three friends, after wandering a few times more through the garden, hastened into the parlour, which was enlivened and warmed by a blazing fire.

“No lights, no lights,” cried Meta, as the servant brought in candles—“the fire is enough, and the harmonicon sounds best in the dark.”

Upon this the two girls seated themselves on a sofa, at some distance, and pressed close to each other in the darkness, while Julia opened her instrument, and made the necessary preparations for playing.

“Optical illusions should be introduced with the sound of an harmonicon,” said Cecilia; “the very preparations before one hears a tone, make one fearful—the rustling of the sponge upon the glasses, the faint glimmer of these, if a light is reflected on them, all seems a kind of annunciation that something strange is about to enter.”

Julia struck the first tone. She made it slowly swell, and gradually united it with full harmonising tones. At this moment both the girls sprang from the sofa with a loud scream.

Julia looked round, and would have reproved them, but cousin Arnold, who had walked in lightly not to disturb her, appeased her rising anger, and both the girls, who had taken him for a ghost, were well laughed at.

“Now,” said Arnold, “they will say the same of you, fair Julia, as they do of Antonia, that your praying on the harmonicon raises spirits. Fortunately, the spirits which you charm are not of so ghostly a nature as Antonia’s.”

“Antonia’s?” repeated Julia, “what do you mean?”

“I will not vouch for it,” said Arnold, “but it is whispered that when Antonia plays on the harmonicon, a shade comes up to her and sighs.”

“Ewald’s shade, certainly!” cried Meta.

“That I do not know,” answered he; “probably no more Ewald’s than any one else’s. However, the story tells well; a power to attract spirits can be easily ascribed to the spiritual harmonicon.”

“Especially as played by Antonia,” added Julia. “Her tone is more spiritual than the mere tone of the spiritual harmonicon. It is, one may say, quite incorporeal, and seems like a sound from another world. I, at least, have heard such a tone from none but her.”

“So say all,” returned Arnold with gallantry, “who have never been so happy as to hear the fair Julia. May I entreat you?”

He pointed to the open harmonicon.

“Not this evening,” said Julia. “You have frightened me with your story of the shadow raised by Antonia’s harmonicon; and it is strange that Antonia has not been induced to play for some time past.”

“Indeed!” ejaculated Arnold. “I heard that this very evening she promised this treat to a circle of Normann’s friends.”

“Impossible!” cried Julia, “or else the unfeeling man has tormented the poor yielding creature with his wilfulness. Poor Antonia! he does not even spare her to-day, when she already feels pain enough without this.”

Arnold and the girls again conducted Julia to the harmonicon, and entreated her to play.

“You annoy me,” said she; “it is, indeed, with fear that I place myself at the instrument, as if I myself should invoke spirits; and when I think that, perhaps at this very moment, Antonia is sitting at the harmonicon with a heart full of anguish, and is in vain begging to be spared her pains, this causes a feeling to come over me that makes my hands tremble, and cramps my feet. You will be badly entertained by my playing.”

She began a serious passage with long sustained tones, which strangely echoed in the wide and empty room. She then wished to turn it into a choral song, but it seemed as if she could not hit upon the right air; for she played melodies which were indeed similar, but she could not sustain the proper one.

Cecilia reminded her of this.

“I know it well,” said Julia; “this chorus has often been played by Antonia, but to-day I feel as if afraid of the melody, though it is always sounding in my ears from the first of the morning. However, it must do for the present.”

She ended with loud notes, and then arose.

“What a beautiful sound there is in the room!” cried Cecilia.

“What is that?” asked Julia shuddering.

The glasses still trembled and gave a sound. It was as a tone raised by the breath of the wind; it swelled lightly, and melted away into whispers.

“God in Heaven!” cried Julia aloud, “Antonia’s tones, her choral song! the harmonicon is playing of itself.”

The echo dissolved itself into a light and passing melody. Julia fainted away into the arms of her friends. She maintained, when she again became conscious, that the harmonicon had of itself played Antonia’s favourite air, which had been heard by Ewald in his last moments. The others had certainly heard a strange vibration from the glasses, and even a sort of melody; but in the confusion excited by Julia’s cry, they were rendered incapable of closely distinguishing the singular tones. Arnold maintained that an Eolian harp which stood on the floor above, had given the sounds; but, on examination, they found that its strings were broken.

In an uneasy mood they went to the town. Julia, though faint and terror [sic], hastened to Antonia, found andand found [sic] that the warning had not deceived her. Antonia had been unable to resist the urgent entreaties; she had played the fatal air, which Julia so carefully shunned. At the second verse she had fallen back with a faint screemscream [sic], and no endeavours could recall her to life.

It was said that Normann, a few minutes previously, had been seen gazing at an adjacent door with eyes fixed with terror; but before the company could interrogate him, Antonia’s fate diverted their attention, and they only thought of the dying one. Afterwards he avoided all questions; but still it was supposed that the strange power which had summoned Antonia from this life, had not been unperceived by him.

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A young man, a native of Séez in Normandy, of noble parents, studied the law at Angers. He there saw Renée Corbeau, the daughter of a tradesman of the town, and under a promise of marriage seduced her. Her situation was soon such as made it necessraynecessary [sic] to acquaint her parents with her engagement; who sought for means to oblige her lover to perform those promises which had induced Renée to listen to him.

Doubting that he would, if possible, evade them, the parents thought it might be necessary to employ artifice. They, therefore, pretended to take a journey; and as soon as they believed the lovers were together, returned suddenly upon them, and, reproaching the young man with having seduced their daughter, insisted instantly on his making the only reparation in his power by signing a contract of marriage, with which a notary was prepared, who was ready in the house. The young man signed the deed; but feeling himself unworthily treated, in being thus surprised into an engagement which he had never refused to perform, he went immediately to his father, to whom he related all that had happened. The father, yet more enraged than the son, persuaded him to take priest’s orders, as the only way to avoid completing a marriage so dishonourable, and so contrary to his interest; and this advice he hastily embraced. The unfortunate girl, thus abandoned by her faithless lover, commenced, together with her parents, a suit against him for seduction. He was in consequence arrested, and the affair was brought before the parliament at Paris.

The sentence, after long pleading on both sides, was that the young man should either marry Renée Corbeau or be beheaded: as his being a priest made the former impossible, he was to suffer death.

He was delivered to the executioner; the fatal moment was at hand, and the priest attended to perform the last duties—when Renée Corbeau flew to the place where his judges were yet sitting, and, making her way through the crowd, besought permission to speak, and a moment’s suspension of the dreadful punishment about to be inflicted on her lover.

The judges, struck with her beauty and distress, consented to hear her—and with the simple and affecting eloquence of nature, she pleaded for his life. She represented, that they undoubtedly thought her more unhappy than guilty, since they punished with death him who was supposed to have betrayed her; but that such a sentence, far from repairing her misfortune, would render it irreparable, by taking from her the only person who could restore her honour; and, instead of doing her justice, would condemn her to tears and remorse for the rest of her life; and would leave her to endless regret, when she reflected, that her fatal love had been the occasion of his death, for whom only she wished to live.

She besought those among her judges, who had ever been sensible of the force of love, to put themselves for a moment in her situation, and to reflect what they would themselves suffer, wherewere [sic] they to be deprived of the object of their affection, by a cruel death, and to know themselves the occasion of it;—“For it is,” said she, “I who have armed the iron hand of law against him—’tis I who am his executioner—and ’tis I who, infinitely more unhappy than he is, am condemned to exist under infamy, and to carry with me to the grave the dreadful reflection of having murdered him by the excess of my attachment.”

Though the holy orders into which he had entered prevented his marrying her, she represented that they had been compulsive, and made only through fear of a violent and imperious father: but that a dispensation might be obtained to dissolve them. She, therefore, implored the judges to suspend the execution of the sentence for a time, that her lover might take measures to annul his religious vows, and become her husband.

The court, affected by her tears and despair, were induced to grant a respite for six months; and as a legate from the Pope was expected in France, she flattered herself she would obtain from him permission for her lover to renounce the ecclesiastical habit and marry her.

But the Cardinal de Medicis, who was the legate that soon after arrived, was so irritated against the young man, for having sacrilegiously embraced holy orders, only to evade an engagement which his honour and his conscience, as well as every human law, urged him to fulfil, that he absolutely refused to grant the dispensation; and the unhappy Renée Corbeau was again driven to despair. Henry the Fourth, that excellent monarch, was then on the throne; his ears were ever open to the complaints of his subjects; and when youth and beauty pleaded, there was little doubt of redress from his compassion, though his justice was silent. Renée Corbeau threw herself at the King’s feet, and the king, interested by her figure and situation, very soon suffered himself to be prevailed upon. He ordered that a dispensation might be granted; it was immediately expedited, and the lover, thus snatched from impending destruction, was married to his mistress. They lived together many years in the most perfect union; the husband always remembering, with the tenderest gratitude, that he owed his life, and the honour of his family, to the affection and attachment of his wife.

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The husband smiled in delight upon his wife; and when she had retired and left the friends together, it seemed to Arthur that the star of evening was quenched, and Wilmot could not refrain from talking of her for an hour. Shifting fancies and wild emotions had all been assimilated by his love and wedlock, into a steady and integral portion of his nature; as the vague sand-bank, weltering at the will of gales and waters, and on which nothing of more stable reality can rest, than some bright storm-vision, may be fixed into a cape of solid earth, supported by rocks of coral, and covered with gardens and forests, peopled with the creatures of paradise.—Arthur Coningsby.

Professor Rafiensque denounces the use of saltpetre in brine, intended for the preservation of flesh to be kept for food. That part of the saltpetre which is absorbed by the meat, he says, is nitric acid, or aquafortis—a deadly poison. Animal flesh, previous to the addition of pickle, consists of gelatinous and fibrous substances, the former only possessing a nutricious virtue. This gelatin is destroyed by the chymical action of salt and saltpetre; and, as the professor remarks, the meat becomes as different a substance from what it should be, as leather is from the raw hide before it is subjected to the process of tanning. He ascribed to the pernicious effects of the chymical change, all the diseases which are common to mariners and others, who subsist principally on salted meat, such as scurvy, sore gums, decayed teeth, ulcers, &c., and advises a total abandonment of the use of saltpetre in the making of pickle for beef, pork, &c.; the best substitute for which, he says, is sugar, a small quantity rendering the meat sweeter, more wholesome, and equally as durable. This statement ought to be made known to all, and recommended to farmers, butchers, packers of sea provisions, and all the people who, owing to their residence from towns and villages, or from other causes, are in the habit of curing their own meat.


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 unequal to the task. Part of his work was used for the fourth book of the Dunciad, and the remainder corresponds to what are now called the Ethic Epistles. These, as they now stand, include five poems. One of these has no real connexion with the others. It is a poem addressed to Addison, "occasioned by his dialogue on medals," written (according to Pope) in 1715, and first published in Tickell's edition of Addison's works in 1721. The epistle to Burlington on taste was afterwards called the Use of Riches, and appended to another with the same title, thus filling a place in the ethical scheme, though devoted to a very subsidiary branch of the subject. It appeared in 1731. The epistle "of the use of riches" appeared in 1732, that of the knowledge and characters of men in 1733, and that of the characters of women in 1735. The last three are all that would seem to belong to the wider treatise contemplated; but Pope composed so much in fragments that it is difficult to say what bits he might have originally intended for any given purpose.

Another distraction seems to have done more than his fear of boiling water to arrest the progress of the elaborate plan. Bolingbroke coming one day into his room, took up a Horace, and observed that the first satire of the second book would suit Pope's style. Pope translated it in a morning or two, and sent it to press almost immediately (1733). The poem had a brilliant success. It contained, amongst other things, the couplet which provoked his war with Lady Mary and Lord Hervey. This, again, led to his putting together the epistle to Arbuthnot, which includes the bitter attack upon Hervey, as part of a general apologia pro vita sua. It was afterwards called the Prologue to the Satires. Of his other

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BY THE SEA. 35 in a low voice. ‘A good woman loved him, and he was not ashamed to love her in return.”

He was not acting; the words were uttered involuntarily. Then he became conscious of: their import, and gave one quick glance to see what effect they had upon her.

The color rose higher in her cheeks, and a brighter glory flashed into her splendid eyes as she answered,

“Reward enough for the failure of his youth, or what seemed failure.”

“Reward enough!’ Grafton repeated, in a voice so deep and earnest, that Miss Annesly started. He was too thoroughly skilled in women’s ways not to perceive that she felt they had strayed further in their talk than she had meant to go.

“We are getting as poetical as Mrs. Brown- ing herself,” she said, with a gay laugh.

“It is a comfort to me to know that I have enough left in me to appreciate the beautiful and true,” he said, earnestly.

“I could have told you that you had,’ she replied, with perfect calmness, but evidently meaning what she said.

“That is not just a pretty saying.”

“Just the truth—nothing more. But——”

“Don’t hesitate—pray go on.” :

“Certainly. I only hesitated for fear you would think me impertinent.”

“As if I could think that!”

“Ah! now you are taking refuge in pretty sayings; that is to avoid hearing the truth.”

‘Then tell me for a punishment.”

“Thanks; but I have too mueh compassion on poor human nature to have any desire to play Nemesis.”

“Then tell me as a warning.”

“As if anybody ever heeded warnings,” laughed she.

“Don’t laugh!” exclaimed Grafton, so irri- tably that it was evident he was not doing theatricals. ‘I want you to finish your sen- tence. But what?”

“I meant to say that it rested with yourself whether you would much longer have the power, even of feeling the beautiful and true.”

‘How am I to keep the faculty?”

“Ah! my wisdom goes no further than the; warning—you must find out the way yourself. Now I shall sing to you.”

She seated herself at the piano, and sang in in her touching mezzo soprano some lovely words of Tennyson’s, which were wedded to music worthy of them, one could not say more.

Grafton Warner lay still, his face shaded by his hand.

The strain ceased. Maud sat with her fingers idly straying over the keys; she heard Grafton murmur,

“But the tender grace of a day that is dead, Can never come back to me,”

She rose, paused for an instant by the sofa.

“While this life lasts no man need ever echo that complaint,” she said, softly.

Before Grafton could look up, she had passed out of the apartment.

He lay there with his senses in a whirl. Did her words mean hope? That it was possible, softened him more than anything else could have done. His whole life came in review be- fore him, as he lay there; his poor, wasted life, that heaven must have meant for better uses, since heaven gave it!

I believe, as firmly as I believe I live, that, after a man begins on the downward _ path, there are certain seasons offered, when, if he chooses to listen to the inner voice, that higher Power, which seeks to guide us, will give aid. It was a moment like that which Grafton Warner had reached now.

There should be a change, he said to himself. If this woman loved him—oh! he dared not think of that! Even if he must go on alone, , there should be a change.

That evening they were all down by the sea- shore, to watch the moonlight on the surf. Grafton was so much better, that the women permitted him to go, on condition that he would wear more wraps than anything masculine ever put on of his own free will.

Grafton and Maud Annesly were sitting under a sort of rustic arbor, that had been put up during the summer for the accommodation ot those who wished to watch the bathers—the rest of the party were straying about on the sands; old Mrs. Annesly, at a little distance, was making sober Richard Roylston laugh like a maniac at one of her irresistible stories.

Gradually, as they sat in the glory of the moonlight, with the white surf beating its cease- less complaint at their feet, Grafton led the conversation back to the talk of the morning. Maud Annesly showed no disposition to shrink from the perilous ground.

He talked more truthfully than he had done to any human being for years. There was a spell on his soul, which seemed to pull him on in spite of himself; and from the very fact that it was truth, his words impressed and obliged her to listen.

He told her what his life had been, how a new hope had suddenly sprung up in his soul; and as he talked and felt that she was moved,

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 and two or three schools of poetry. Chinese learning also as many subdivisions, and in Buddhism there are the doctrines of the numerous sects, besides the learning of the heart, which is an offshoot of Buddhism. Then we have astronomy and physical geography, the learning of the Hollanders, and medicine, which is divided into three schools, the ancient, the modern and the Dutch. But Japanese learning is the chief of all these. A man passes for a good Chinese scholar if he has learnt to read the Four Books and the Five Classics, or, according to another enumeration, the Thirteen classics, has run hastily through half a dozen other works, and can compose Chinese prose and what they have a trick of calling poetry. There is nothing very difficult in all this. The Buddhist priests have a much larger task. Their canon (which Hirata here says he has read) consists of some five thousand volumes, seven or eight horse-loads, a tenth part of which is far more than the sinologue has to study; and to make the work harder the priests have to study Chinese as well as their own religious books, or else they could not read the latter. And owing to the strange manner in which Buddhist and Chinese notions have been mixed up with Japanese learning (Shintô), the student of the latter must possess all the knowledge of the sinologue and the priest that he may be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, and he must know all the possible arguments which his opponents may have at their command in order to refute them. Besides, if a Japanese studies foreign learning he will be able to select whatever good things there are in it, and turn them to the service of his country. From this point of view Chinese, Indian and even Dutch studies may be looked upon as Japanese learning.

‘In the first place it is necessary to state that the reason why this teaching is called the “study of the ancient way” is because it aims at explaining the facts which begin with the origin of heaven and earth, by means of the ancient ways of thinking and the ancient tongue,

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36

ONE SMILE. -LONG AGO.

his man's arrogance came back, and he had courage to tell her the rest.

"I love you," he exclaimed; " I love you! Oh! Maud, Maud, forgive me!"

She did not stir. He saw her face in the moonlight turned full upon him, just pale and thoughtful, no other look on it.

"You told a young girl that once," she said. "The girl believed it. I am a woman! Pardon me; I would not say anything harsh, but I know what the words are worth."

"Maud! Maud!" and I do not exaggerate when I say that his very soul went out in that passionate utterance. He gave her no time to speak ; he told the whole story-the life of the past weeks, his penitence, his remorse, plead for one word of hope as a dying man might plead for life, yet manly and brave through it all.

"Please stop, " she said, at last. "Your friend always ; the past I have no need to pardon - I forgot it long ago ; but I have no love to give."

"Some other man?"

"Yes."

She made a gesture toward Roylston.

"I understand," he said. Then, after a pause, "Well, he is worthy of you-the best man ever knew. God bless you both!"

He rose from his seat and walked away across the white sands in the moonlight, but though the greatest failure of his life made chaos about his way, he kept in his soul the vow he had uttered to himself that morning ; and I believe that with such a promise in the heart, and with heaven overhead, there is hope even for a man gone as far astray as Grafton Warner : at least, let us hope so.

ONE SMILE.

BY N. F. CARTER. A DREAMY hush is in the air; The morning's rosy sunlight falls, Like glory at the hour of prayer, On golden streets and jasper walls. It is a Father's smile, I know, Resting alike on land and sea; His shining presence seen below— But has He one sweet smile for me?

The skylark sings his sweetest song, Sailing the golden-tinted blue; The garden-bee feasts all day long On flowers that charm the Summer through; A Father's smile fills them with cheer, And in their gladness makes them free; But for a heart surcharged with fear, Has He no smile-no smile for me?

Cease thy complaining, oh, my soul! The smile that brightens earth and skies Till waves of glory o'er them roll, Must be a smile for downcast eyes; The smile that fills with songs of joy The soaring lark and lowly bee, Must be for Faith's serene employ— Must be a Father's smile for thee!

Oh! burdened heart! cast off thy fears; Bid chilling unbelief begone; Thy sins have caused thy bitter tears; Forsake them, and thy way press on! Doubt not; in all thy wealth of love, Trust Him, and be forever free; His earthward smile will be above A Father's Heavenly smile for thee! LONG AGO.

BY J. D. FASSETT. THE twilight shadows are gathering gray, And the wild wind wails o'er the dying day, As I lie and list to the river's flow, And the far-off voices, so soft and low, Of the long ago.

The shadows thicken among the trees ; Sadly, mournfully murmurs the breeze; And forms glide round me that nevermore Shall gladden my sight, for they've floated o'er To the unknown shore.

The moon looks out through the mantle of night, Flooding the earth with her liquid light; And again I live in the rythm and rhyms Of a peaceful home and a sunny clime, In the olden-time.

On the murmuring river the moonbeams dance, Gilding the waves as they shimmer and glance; And, like ravishing strains from a harp of gold, The interlude sweet to a tale long told, Come the songs of old.

The dreams are all over, and darkened the sky; The winds and the waves wander listlessly by; And back to my dreary life, sadly I go, To dream nevermore of the bliss and the woe, In the long ago.

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 such as they were before the introduction of the Chinese and Buddhist “ways,” and at demonstrating that in those facts is embodied the whole of the tune “way.” ’

Having disposed of his first heading in this manner, Hirata proceeds to deal with the second, namely the founders of the school to which he himself belongs. A summary of what he has said about them in the second and ninth volumes of his Tama-dasuki, has already been given in the former part of this paper.

The foundations upon which the Ancient Learning is based are the writings in which the Imperial Court has recorded the facts of antiquity. Most people are wont to suppose that the only way to attain to a knowledge of right conduct is to read books full of precepts, but they labour under a mistake. Precept is far inferior to example, for it only arises in the absence of example; while it is unnecessary when example exists. As Laotsu says, “When the Great Way decayed, Humanity and Righteousness arose.” In order to spur on a warrior to valiant deeds, rather than show him a book which says, “When you go to battle, strive to be first, do not lag behind others,” show him a book in which are written the facts about ancient heroes who led the way, fought bravely and achieved renown. The facts will sink deeply into his heart, and he will say to himself, “when the occasion arises, I will distinguish myself like such an one of antiquity,” but the mere exhortation will scarecly stir his emotions. The story of Ôôishi Kuranoské and the forty-seven faithful retainers, who underwent a thousand hardships and perils in order to slay Kira Kôdzuke no suke, the enemy of their lord Asano Takumi no kami, will do far more to keep alive the flame of loyalty than any simple precepts about the duty of avenging a master. The ethical writings of the T’ang dynasty are full of the most admirable teachings of

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 A HASTY MARRIAGE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "DORA'S COLD."

I.

Ar seventeen I left school, ignorant and undisciplined, willful, impatient, and reckless. In Madame Dejazet’s elegant establishment we were taught many external, but few inward graces; and when she had done all that lay in her art to improve us, some of the hardest lessons of life were yet to learn.

I was to have remained longer, but suddenly my bankers failed, and remittances stopped. Years before, my father, a wealthy sea-captain, had died, leaving my fortune invested with his old employers, now no longer shipping merchants only, but bankers also. The letter, announcing the calamity, offered to relieve Madame Dejazet of me. This letter was from my father’s half-brother, to whom his beautiful villa had been lent at my mother’s death, and who now, probably, sought to pay the debt of years by offering me, in my destitution, a home there—a home, alas! how different from the one I so well remembered.

My uncle’s wife was a shrewd managing ! woman, as she had need to be with her small means, and her seven children. No longer the pretty parlors of the pretty house were thrown open for the enjoyment of the dwellers within, but closed and locked aguinst dust and decay, except on grand occasions; while all the other rooms, with their furniture, bore marks of hard usage and careless occupation. The green- houses were closed, the lawn was turned into a vegetable garden. Ah! bitter was the change.

As soon as the first heart-sick rebellion of feeling had died away, I sought to be useful in my new position. Curbing my impatient disposition, I tried to teach the stupid children, and bore heroically with their blunders and impertinence for a time, till their mother’s eager jealousy, and my own superficially-concealed ignorance, released me from the distasteful task.

Then came domestic drudgery, harder to execute, not less hard to endure. Last of all were wild revolt and utter rebellion against destiny, and it was in this mood that Mrs. Samuel Morris bade me leave her house forever, and I obeyed her.

I had stayed there six long months, and was worn-out body and mind. The manifold insults and annoyances of an ill-bred and ill-governed woman would have been of themselves enough; but when to these was added the constant and urgent struggle of my own undisciplined nature, and my haughty temper and strong will, what wonder that life grew unendurable!

I had begun, too, by this time to find contrasts to my own fate in the children of my father’s old neighbors—my own former play-mates and companions, who had found me out and flocked about me with welcomes, attentions, and invitations. Glad to escape from the tedious miseries of home, I left it frequently to accept these kindnesses, and found my vanity soothed, and my heart comforted by these warm and faithful friends. I plunged into the gayeties they offered me with reckless and thoughtless eagerness, mindful only of the enjoyment of the present, and the pleasure of being again beloved and admired. Of these attentions, and of my wardrobe, which was still handsome and complete, Mrs. Morris had long been jedlous. Her wrath at last reached its climax. A sleighing- party was projected, or rather a series of sleighing-parties, that would lead the gay revelers, who joined it, visiting from house to house for a week or more. Walter Drummond and his sisters were to core for me! Walter Drummond was my knight, my champion, my rescuer on a hundred such occasions—so kind, so handsome, so good to me, that I almost loved him. I had dressed in the gayest spirits, and in my prettiest ornaments and garments suitable to the occasion. Mrs. Morris came in while I was placing others, for all emergencies, in a trunk, which a man below, provided by Walter, was waiting to remove. Sternly she bade me pack all I owned, and if I insulted her by leaving her house at all with people who were not her associates, to leave it forever. I answered hotly. My blood was boiling, and my nerves were tingling with bitterness and anger. Pride, self-will, haughty recklessness and temper would not let me yield. ‘You shall be obeyed,” I said, and packed two trunks instead of one. My anger and determination did not leave me till I had left her house forever, till I had told Walter and the girls, tili I had heard their pitying sympathy and warm assurances that their home should be mine.

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 For this vertue ordeyneth and diſtinguiſheth the forme and ſhape of things, that is gendred couenably in all parts. For this vertue pearceth what ſhall be pearced, and holloweth what ſhalbe hollowed, and ſmotheth what is rough, and the ouerſmooth maketh rough, and ſhapeth and maketh perfect the vtmoſt ſide of euerye parte. Theſe two vertues, ' and ' work no longer then the thing that is ingendred, as beaſt or plant, be fully brought into being of kinde. And therefore it néedeth that the vertue  follow anone to the ſame, and kéepe the thing that is engendred. For the vertue , is helper and ſeruaunt to the vertue , and maketh the thing that is ingendred, growe and ſtretch in length, bredth and thickneſſe. And the vertue  helpeth and ſerueth to the vertue . For ſhe ſetteleth and maketh lyke in the lims the meale that the beaſts tooke: and repaireth and reſtoreth what that is diſſolued & loſt by ſtrength of heat, or by any paſſion of aire. And therefore wonderfull kinde made this vertue of féeding, helper to the vertue of nouriſhing, and made both ſeruaunts to the vertue of gendring. Wherefore to this vertue of féeding, foure particular vertues ſerue, that is to wit, the vertue of appetite, that draweth to the ſynmes kindly foode. And to the food of the fleſh it draweth temperaunce of bloude, to the foode of the braine and of the lunges, temperaunce of, and ſo of other. Alſo the vertue digeſtiue helpeth therevnto, and departeth in the foode kindlye from vnkindly, and deuideth pure from vnpure. Alſo the vertue holding, which kéepeth the food that is digeſted, & it that is now by worke of kinde concode or ſodde, ſhe ſendeth to all the limmes, and incorporateth and maketh it lyke, & moueth it. Alſo the vertue , putteth off the ſuperfluities, that the lyms draweth to them, and be not worthy to be knit to the lyms. And therefore as the vertue of appetite worketh with hot and drye, and the vertue digeſtiue with heat and wet, and the vertue retentiue with cold and dry: ſo the vertue expulſiue worketh with cold and moyſt.

¶Of the vertue vitall. Cap. 15.
AFter the vertue of kinde followeth the vertue vitall, that giueth lyfe to the bodye, whoſe foundation or proper place is the heart: out of the hart commeth lyfe to quicken all the lyms. The vertue of quick and kindly mouing, helpeth the working of this vertue, whereby the hart and organe, and ſmal wayes be opened and ſpread, and drawen together. And this dilation or ſpreading, is called the mouing of the heart from the middle into all the vtter partes. And ſo contrariwiſe conſtriction or the drawing together, is called, the mouing from the vtter parties towarde the middle of the hart, as it is ſéene in belowes of ſmiths. This vertue of lyfe openeth the heart by working of the lunges, and draweth in aire to the heart, and ſendeth it foorth from the hart to other lyms by ſmall wayes. And this vertue by the helpe of the vertue that cloſeth and openeth the heart, worketh and maketh breathing in a beaſt. And by breathing the breaſt moueth continually, but the ſinewes and fleſhly parts be firſt moued. But this blaſt or breath is néedfull to the ſlaking of vnkindly heate, and to the food of the ſpirite of lyfe, and alſo to the gendering of the ſpirit, that is named Animal, that giueth féelyng and moouing. For the kéeping of the kindly heate, is a temperate indrawing of colde ayre, and the kéeping of the ſpirite that is called , of whoſe temperaunce the ſpirite is increaſed that is called . And therefore nothing is more néedfull to kéepe and to ſaue the lyfe, than breath well diſpoſed and ordeined in all points. All this ſaith Conſtantinus in  Without meate and drinke a beaſt may liue for a time, but without breth drawing of colde aire, a beaſt maye not endure in good caſe long, but the breath is corrupt and deſtroyed by ſtraightning the pores, through the which the beaſt by a kinde of ſtranglyng, dyeth. The breath is corrupt firſt by euill diſpoſition of the brayne, for if the brayne be

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38 A HASTY MARRIAGE. Then, indeed, I realized what I had done. But it was too late. The woman I kad left was inexorable as death; she would never receive me back. Meantime, the Drummonds were not rich, and I felt bitterly what an additional burden I would be in their house. I shrank, too, instinctively from compromising myself with Walter by accepting such a favor at his hands. It was impossible—I did not love him enough to wish to owe so rash a debt to him. But what then could I do? I could not teach—I had been too indolently bred, and my education was too superficial for that, nor labor with my needle; nor did I know any other useful branch of work—yet something I must do. My brain was in a whirl that left me time to see or hear nothing through all our rapid, exciting drive; I was hardly conscious of Walter’s tender kindness, or his sisters’ endearing sympathy and caresses.

A very gay party was assembled at the house where we stopped. But only a few persons, mostly gentlemen, old friends of my father’s and of mine, were in the library, whither Mrs. McDonald, my hostess, conducted me. She and the Drummonds gathered about me, exclaiming at my pallor and nervousness, as they began to remove my wrappings of velvet and fur. I did not like this being made a heroine of, however. I blushed and declined assistance, beginning with trembling fingers to unfasten the white furs from my throat and shoulders. As I did this, my little muff slid from my lap, and rolled across the hearth to the feet of a tall, bronzed, black-bearded man, who stood there intently regarding me.

Hitherto, I had known him by sight only. He was a Mr. Harter, a stranger, who had just bought a beautiful villa in the neighborhood, and was fitting it up with great taste and liberality. Report said that he had been merely a common miner, who had made a fortune in Australia. He picked up my muff and brought it to me with a low bow. Seen nearer, he looked even less prepossessing. His jet-black hair was cropped close to the head, like a private soldier’s. A heavy beard and whiskers concealed the lower part of his face; the upper was embrowned and reddened with long exposure to the sun and wind; only a pair of bright, dark eyes, and teeth white and beautiful as pearls, visible when he spoke or smiled, redeemed the rugged features from positive plainness. His clothes were quiet enough in cut and material, yet he did not seem at home in them; and his hands—how dark and long the fingers looked, grasping the silvery ermine and little blue tassels of my muff! He appeared, in short, just as I had fancied him, a large, almost coarse-featured man of forty, bearing marks all the exposures, hardships and vicissitudes he had seen; a self-made millionaire, a nouveau riche, whom once, from my patrician height, I should have despised; but whom I now felt only humiliated before, as I marked the contrast of his unpretending plainness with my deceptive magnificence.

For by this time my wraps had been removed, and the mirror over the mantle-piece reflected clearly my dazzling white poplin, whose thick, shimmering folds hung long and doubled, as they lay upon the floor, in a train that followed like a snowy wake as I moved. It was cut square in the neck a la Pompadour, and trimmed with a treasure of rich French lace; the sleeves were scarcely more than be-ribboned puffs, and arms, and throat, and ears were enriched with beautiful shining sapphires, glittering and blue as dew might look on a flax flower. Only a little while ago—but how long it seemed—I had been vain of these sparkling drops, had matched them against my eyes, and held them near my fair flaxen hair, as Margaret might have done with her jewels, delighted at the envy and admiration they provoked; but now I could scarcely bear the sight of the slender, elegantly-dressed figure, so delicate and so adorned, reflected in the mirror before me.

‘‘Another day shall not see me,” I vowed, ‘‘masquerading in this pauper splendor, and eating the bread of dependence—sparkling and smiling abroad, and devouring insults and tears at home. Home! I have no home! Shelterless, helpless, friendless, I am cast upon the world to-night as ‘poor, but for these baubles, as the night when I was born. They will support me till I show that I can work. But what shall I do—where shall I go?”

I could have wrung my hands in idle anguish; but this was no time for tears and heroics. The “little sleighing-party” had become a ball. Already the band had struck up a spirit-stirring waltz. Partners pressed round me; invitations, introductions followed; I could no longer delay to join them. My blood rose warmly through my veins as I listened; the lamps seemed to burn more brilliantly, the flowers to smell more sweetly; above all I heard pealing the wild, intoxicating notes of the music in the hall, entreating, defying, alluring. At the familiar sound, doubt, fear, and sorrow fled away; I was myself again, gay, reckless seventeen; and in an instant my feet were skimming

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 this kind, but when we find that the authors were themselves guilty of murdering their sovereigns and of treason, their words lose all their effect.

As has already been said, the veal principles of conduct are not to be taught by precept, and we must go to the books to find the facts from which the real ancient way is to be learnt. The most important of these is the Kojiki. Most Japanese, including those who profess to be students of the way of the gods, hold the Nihonshoki in great honour. Its first two books are printed separately under the title of Jindai no muki, and the common Shintôists have written various so-called commentaries thereon. They even assert that these books are the only authorities about the beginning of the world and the age of the gods. Motoöri in the first volume of the Kojiki-Den has pointed out the erroneousness of this opinion. Part of the cosmogony given in the Jindai no maki can be actually traced to ancient Chinese writings, from which it has been taken almost word for word. But on the other hand the Nihonshoki, or, as it should properly be called, the Nihongi, has great merits of its own, which ought not to be passed over. In addition to the main text of the first two hooks, it quotes a number of other parallel passages from documents then extant, which often throw much light on the received traditions of the divine age, and it gives much fuller details of the history of the Mikados from Jimmu Tennô downwards than the Kojiki does. When the ornamental Chinese phraseology has been eliminated there remains a great treasure of truth, and the Nihongi therefore does really deserve the first place among the sacred books.

It is most lamentable that so much ignorance should prevail as to the evidences of the two fundamental doctrines, that Japan is the country of the Gods and her inhabitants the descendants of the Gods. Between the Japanese people and the Chinese, Hindoos, Russians, Dutch, Siamese, Cambodians and other nations of the world there is a difference of kind, rather than of degree. It was not out of vain-glory that the inhabitants of this country called it the land of the gods (Shinkoku,

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A HASTY MARRIAGE. 39 the ball-room floor, and I was laughing lightly; in Walter Drummond's grave face.

That was a triumphant night—my last though it might be; may, for that reason I would not be robbed of a second.. The music had never seemed so sweet and so intoxicating, the guests so happy, the rooms so bright and festal before; and, alas! never had I so prized the delightful enjoyments they offered as now that I must re- linquish them. How would it seem to be poor, and leave all these splendors behind? to sink into the ranks of the workers and toilers who uphold this gay society; to be forgotten by these refined and educated women, and these well-bred men? What would life be worth, to the quick- beating blood of youth, divested of this flush of splendor and of joy?

I could not live without it, I felt each moment more truly, as I breathed that enchanting atmos- phere of praise and flattery; and yet, it seemed, I must, At every interval in dancing, at every pause in the music, the black shadow of to- morrow haunted me like a ghost at the banquet, and whispered dolefully in my ears.

But pride compelled me to hide my wound, and with the very effort my spirits rose higher. I would not bow to the tempest of trouble whirl- ing over me; I would not see the glances of pity and sympathy cast upon me; I would not understand the compassionate sentences ad- dressed to me—indeed, I hardly heard them. The few hours that still intervened between me and banishment were my own—I chose to enjoy them to the utmost, to reign in them like a queen, and use them royally.

Supper went off gayly. Walter Drummond was my escort, almost lover-like in his atten- tions, as usual; and Mr. Harter, the self-made nillionare, my neighbor.on the other side. He, too, was very kind in his way. He talked to me. I was surprised at his sweet voice and correct intonation. He sent away my cham- pagne, ordering some still, iced-wine of his own servant. I was sure he was right, for he looked at me with a sort of pitying intentness of interest that won me to obedience—and I felt my head already dizzy between triumph and pain.

Other heads, less racked than mine, were dizzied, too, by Mr. M‘Donald’s generous vin- tages. When we returned to the dancing-room the band was set aside; a series of Christmas- games began, impromptu tableaux followed— Statues, charades. In the last they wanted a marriage-scene—a runaway couple before a Village magistrate, or something of that sort.

A fat neighbor of Mr. M‘Donald’s, snoring comfortably before the library-fire, answered to the character of the magistrate, and messengers were dispatched te request him to serve. Meanwhile public opinion ran high on the question of the bride—the honor being contested between a dozen young ladies in white. All unconcerned, I was talking in a window-seat to my companions at supper. Suddenly I found my place surrounded.

“Sylvia, you must come—you are in white; it will be just the thing—and Mr, Harter,”

“But I am not——”

“Oh! yes you are—the very person! It is the elder of her two lovers she runs away with, you know.”

They put a cloak on his arm, and a sword in his hand, and placed my unresisting fingers in his, The squire marshaled us solemnly before him, and the curtain was about to ascend, when some slight altercation arose between the lady managers, and the scene was suspended for a mement. Walter Drummond took advantage of the interval to come to my side,

“Sylvia,” he whispered, pressing my arm earnestly, “this thing is very real. The squire is a legal magistrate, and has had too much wine. What will you do if he marries you in earnest, for no license is required in this State?”

But Mr. Harter had heard him and turned. Clasping my hand more closely in his, he looked into my eyes with a sudden sparkle in his own.

“And if he did—what then? Could you take me, Sylvia?”

“Don’t jest,” cried Walter, impatiently; but his voice faltered.

“It is no jest,” said Mr. Harter, quietly, my hand still locked in his. “Sylvia, you hear me? The question is between us. I have heard your story; I think he is right, and I ask you to risk it, knowingly, with me?”

I heard, but could not answer, nor move while he held me so firmly; but I looked at him an instant, half in fear, half in surprise. He had never seemed so nearly being handsome as at that momeat. A warm flush colored his dark cheek; his black eyes bent eagerly and anxiously on me, were softened by a pitying and kind, almost a fond expression; his voice was very sweet and low as he spoke. In that light, and in that picturesque attitude and costume, his tall, broad figure showed graceful and commanding. I had not time to reflect calmly. I only thought that here was a shield offered against the dread future. The hand so firmly holding mine could pluck me back from the gulf that yawned before me to-morrow,

That moment of indecision was final and

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 kami no kuni). The gods who created all countries belonged without exception to the Divine Age, and were all born in Japan, so that Japan is their native country, and all the world acknowledges the appropriateness of the title. The Coreans were the first to become acquainted with this truth, and from them it was gradually diffused through the globe, and accepted by every one.

Before the origin of things there was Infinite space (ohosora); neither heaven nor earth, nor the sun, nor moon, nor anything else existed. In Infinite space were Ame-no-mi-naka-nushi no kami, and next Taka-mi-musu-bi no kami and Kamu-mi-musubi no kami, by whose miraculous power a thing whose shape cannot be described in words came into existence in the midst of space. This thing floated (or, was suspended) in space like a cloud, without any support. From it came forth something sprouting like a horn, or like the young sprout of the rush called kaya; but as to its nature there is no tradition. It may however be conjectured that it was pure, translucent and bright, for it afterwards became the sun, and from the time when Ama-terasu-oho-mi kami became its ruler, the brightness of her august body has shone through it. As this thing grew upwards it widened out infinitely, just as a cloud rising from the top of mountain looks like a rush sprouting, but afterwards becomes immensely extended. This is what in the Divine Age was called Amatsu-kuni (the Kingdom of heaven), Takama-no-hara (the high plain of heaven), and sometimes simply Ame (heaven). In a similar manner there grew downwards a something, which afterwards separated and became the moon. During the double process fourteen other gods came into being, of whom the last were Izanagi no kami and Izanami no kami. They are the parents of the deities of the sun and moon and the progenitors of all the other gods.

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40 A HASTY MARRIAGE. faial, for the curtain was rising, and Walter was no longer beside me. We stood alone before the squire, who stretched his fat figure to its utmost height, and pompously began, with what formula I do not know. - Mr. Harter, after one glance at my face, stood in his place immovable, and answered whatever fell to his share; I suppose I did the same, mechanically. The bystanders listened and looked, some in delight, some in wonder, the rest simply in horror. I heard low-toned exclamations mingling, ‘‘What a dear!” ‘How sweet she is!” ‘Just like a bride, with that wreath of roses in her hair!” from a few of the very youngest and silliest. But, ‘‘How pale!” ‘How very natural!” “It seems almost too true!” from the older ladies; and downright murmurs and imprecations among the gentlemen. A dozen sprang forward to interrupt, but Mr. Harter sternly waved them back. When it was over, he strode up to the complacent squire,

“You have made me the happiest man in the world, Mr. Bannister,” he said.

Then it rushed over me like a whirlwind what I had done. Was I mad, or dreaming? Were the deeds of this night a real horror? Was this man truly my husband? I had disengaged my hand, and stood alone. It was the cue for the Drummond girls and others, to rush up to me and cry over me, to declare that they never could have believed it, and ask me how long I had been engaged.

II.

They might as well have talked to a statue, for I was in a still frenzy of trouble, and could not heed them—and chilled by my cold, unresponsive manner, they all withdrew. It was time to go home, and we hooded and cloaked, in mysterious silence, in our dressing-room; I, with my trembling fingers and nervous haste, the last to leave it. When I came down, all were in the sleighs. Only one tall, dark figure waited in the hall for me, beside Mrs. M‘Donald. The icy wind from the avenue sweeping up, flared the lamp-light in his face: it was not Walter Drummond, but Mr. Harter. Could it be true, then? Was he really my husband?

Good Mrs. M‘Donald took me in her motherly arms, as she bade me good-by, and kissed and blessed me. She was the first who had thought of doing that, and I could have burst into a tempest of tears on her kind breast, but I dared not yield to the impulse. My strength was already fast giving way, and only pride kept me from fainting and failing at sight of that dark, sentinel figure.

In silence he offered his arm. I took it—there was no help: Walter Drummond sat in his place before his sisters, the seat beside him vacant. He had chosen to desert me, I said to myself, in this trial hour: We advanced toward it, though Mr. Harter’s own beautiful little sleigh was drawn up on the opposite side, his man holding the pawing horse, who neighed and shook his bells impatiently.

I trembled on his arm—was there to be a col- lision between the two men? We halted before the double sleigh; but Walter never moved, while my escort lifted me gently into my old place, only kissing the hand he released. Rais- ing his hat, he stood bare-headed in the star- light till we drove off; and then we heard his horse’s feet and bells hurrying away in the direction of his own house.

Some tender, gentle impulse of my heart seemed to go with them; and a thrill of pity, in the midst of my own trouble, followed that lonely flight; for there was something knightly, almost, and grand, in the rude miner’s chivalry. More than this, I was deeply grateful to him for the act of renunciation.

I was free, it was evident. Periled by my own fault, how sweet seemed liberty now, even the poorest, liberty to toil! Now that I had felt, for one moment, what bonds might be, I willingly accepted the pains and penalties of freedom, and was ready to find them light. And yet—and yet—he had been kind, and he seemed to pity me; the touch of his kiss was still soft upon my hand. Had he been younger and more graceful, I might; perhaps, even have loved him in my friendless and helpless state, my utter isolation from others.

As it was, I could only rejoice, silently, it is true, for nothing was said during our short drive. Our destination was soon reached. The handsome house was blazing with lights from roof to basement; and late as the hour was, the great doors were thrown wide open, and the servants, with the master and mistress at their head, ranged along the broad hall on either side. Here our large company was to be entertained for the night; was to spend the next day, and be present at a great dinner-party that would call all the county together.

I was assigned a room to myself, and hastened to its shelter as soon as politeness permitted; neglectful of the mulled-wine and other refreshments, in which some of the ladies, and all the gentlemen, were indulging, for I feared to encounter any of the mirth or jesting that would be sure to follow; to hear, perhaps, some playful allusions to my mimic marriage, and be

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 third party claims against McMullan; it moved for summary judgment as to, inter alia, the validity of its renewal copyright in The Urantia Book. The district court denied its motion, and the case proceeded to trial before a jury. At the close of evidence, the parties moved for judgment as a matter of law. The district court denied all such motions, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of Michael Foundation and McMullan. Urantia Foundation renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b); it moved in the alternative for a new trial, asserting that the district court abused its discretion in excluding certain testimony. The district court denied both motions, and Urantia Foundation brought this appeal.

II.

 * A. The District Court’s Denial of Urantia Foundation’s Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law

 * 1. Classification of Works for Copyright Purposes

Urantia Foundation first registered its copyright in The Urantia Book in 1966. The continued validity of its copyright depends upon whether it effectively renewed that copyright in 1983. Under the governing renewal provisions, as a general rule, only the author or the author’s heirs could renew the copyright in a literary work at the expiration of the initial term, regardless of whether the author had conveyed those rights for the duration of the initial term. 17 U.S.C. § 304(a)(1)(C). The parties agree that neither the Conduit nor his heirs renewed the copyright in The Urantia Book. Urantia Foundation advances two theories to support its claim that it holds valid renewal rights in The Urantia Book under exceptions to the general rule: first, that The Urantia Book is a composite of discrete, individual works by the Conduit, rather than a unified work, and that Urantia Foundation, as proprietor of the copyright in that composite, was entitled to renew the copyright in both the compilation and in the underlying works; and second, that The Urantia Book is a commissioned work because Urantia Foundation’s predecessor in interest specially commissioned the Conduit to write The Urantia Book, entitling Urantia Foundation to renew its copyright as The Urantia Book’s “author” under a judicially created corollary to a statutory exception governing works created for hire. We consider each theory in turn.

Under the governing statute, if The Urantia Book is classified as a unified work by a single author, then Urantia Foundation cannot currently hold a valid renewal copyright because renewal rights in such works were not assignable until they vested, and the Conduit was dead by 1983. Thus, if The Urantia Book is a unified work, copyright transferred by operation of law to the Conduit’s heirs in 1983, and they are the only persons who could have renewed or assigned it to Urantia Foundation. Because they did not renew the


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 copyright, if The Urantia Book is a unified work, it now resides in the public domain.

If, however, The Urantia Book is a composite work, then Urantia Foundation’s renewal copyright in The Urantia Book is valid. Urantia Foundation is the proprietor of the copyright in The Urantia Book and, under the governing statute, the proprietor of a copyright in a composite work may renew its copyright in both the compilation and the individual underlying works. 17 U.S.C. § 304(a)(1)(B)(i). The district court held on summary judgment that Urantia Foundation is the proprietor of the copyright, and Michael Foundation does not challenge that holding. Thus, if The Urantia Book is a composite work and the Conduit is its author, Urantia Foundation owns the copyright in both the arrangement of the works in the composite and in the underlying works themselves, because the Conduit transferred his rights to Dr. Sadler, who then transferred them to Urantia Foundation in a deed of trust.

The alternative exception under which Urantia Foundation asserts the validity of its renewal copyright in The Urantia Book invokes the “commissioned works doctrine.” Under this judicially created doctrine, the nature of the book itself is not at issue; the focus instead is upon the relationship between the Contact Commission and the Conduit and the circumstances of the work’s creation. If, under the test developed by the caselaw, the Contact Commission specially commissioned The Urantia Book from the Conduit, then Urantia Foundation—as the Contact Commission’s successor in interest—was entitled to renew its copyright in 1983 as its proprietor. 17 U.S.C. § 24 (repealed); 17 U.S.C. 304(a)(1)(B)(ii).

The facts Urantia Foundation must prove to support these alternative arguments are as follows:

Composite work argument:
 * The Conduit composed The Urantia Book, then assigned his interest in it to Urantia Foundation’s predecessor in interest prior to The Urantia Book’s publication in 1955, making Urantia Foundation the proprietor of the rights in The Urantia Book, and
 * The Urantia Book is a composite work, entitling Urantia Foundation to renew its copyright in 1983 under the proprietor exception to the usual renewal provisions.

Commissioned work argument: Urantia Foundation secured a jury instruction in its favor as to the first proposition (i.e., that it is the proprietor of the copyright in The Urantia Book). The district court submitted the remaining three propositions to the jury, which found against Urantia Foundation in each ease.
 * The Contact Commission was the “author” of The Urantia Book because it specially commissioned the Conduit to write it, making The Urantia Book a commissioned work under a judicially created doctrine parallel to the work for hire provisions of the 1909 Act, and
 * Urantia Foundation, as the Contact Commission’s predecessorsuccessor [sic] in interest, qualifies as the Conduit’s employer, entitling it to renew The Urantia Book as a work for hire in 1983.

 * 2. Standard of Review

Urantia Foundation argues, as a preliminary matter, that the question of initial classification of works for copyright purposes is a question of law for the court