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The Smart Set/Volume 59/Issue 2/Her Boss

By Willa Sibert Cather

AUL WANNING opened the front door of his house in Orange, closed it softly behind him, and stood looking about the hall as he drew off his gloves.

Nothing was changed there since last night, and yet he stood gazing about him with an interest which a long-married man does not often feel in his own reception hall. The rugs, the two pillars, the Spanish tapestry chairs, were all the same. The Venus di Medici stood on her column as usual and there, at the end of the hall (opposite the front door), was the full-length portrait of Mrs. Wanning, maturely blooming forth in an evening gown, signed with the name of a French painter who seemed purposely to have made his signature indistinct. Though the signature was largely what one paid for, one couldn't ask him to do it over.

In the dining room the coloured man was moving about the table set for dinner, under the electric cluster. The candles had not yet been lighted. Wanning watched him with a homesick feeling in his heart. They had had Sam a long while, twelve years, now. His warm hall, the lighted dining room, the drawing room where only the flicker of the wood fire played upon the shining surfaces of many objects—they seemed to Wanning like a haven of refuge. It had never occurred to him that his house was too full of things. He often said, and he believed, that the women of his household had “perfect taste.” He had paid for these objects, sometimes with difficulty, but always with pride. He carried a heavy life-insurance and permitted himself to spend most of the income from a good law practice. He wished, during his life-time, to enjoy the benefits of his wife's discriminating extravagance.

Yesterday Wanning's doctor had sent him to a specialist. To-day the specialist, after various laboratory tests, had told him most disconcerting things about the state of very necessary, but hitherto wholly uninteresting, organs of his body.

The information pointed to something incredible; insinuated that his residence in this house was only temporary; that he, whose time was so full, might have to leave not only his house and his office and his club, but a world with which he was extremely well satisfied—the only world he knew anything about.

Wanning unbuttoned his overcoat, but did not take it off. He stood folding his muffler slowly and carefully. What he did not understand was, how he could go while other people stayed. Sam would be moving about the table like this, Mrs. Wanning and her daughters would be dressing upstairs, when he would not be coming home to dinner any more; when he would not, indeed, be dining anywhere.

Sam, coming to turn on the parlour lights, saw Wanning and stepped behind him to take his coat.

“Good evening, Mr. Wanning, sah, excuse me. You entahed so quietly, sah, I didn't heah you.”

The master of the house slipped out of his coat and went languidly upstairs.

He tapped at the door of his wife's room, which stood ajar.

“Come in, Paul,” she called from her dressing table.

She was seated, in a violet dressing gown, giving the last touches to her coiffure, both arms lifted. They were firm and white, like her neck and shoulders. She was a handsome woman of fifty-five—still a woman, not an old person, Wanning told himself, as he kissed her cheek. She was heavy in figure, to be sure, but she had kept, on the whole, presentable outlines. Her complexion was good, and she wore less false hair than either of her daughters.

Wanning himself was five years older, but his sandy hair did not show the grey in it, and since his moustache had begun to grow white he kept it clipped so short that it was unobtrusive. His fresh skin made him look younger than he was. Not long ago he had overheard the stenographers in his law office discussing the ages of their employers. They had put him down at fifty, agreeing that his two partners must be considerably older than he—which was not the case. Wanning had an especially kindly feeling for the little new girl, a copyist, who had exclaimed that “Mr. Wanning couldn't be fifty; he seemed so boyish!”

Wanning lingered behind his wife, looking at her in the mirror.

“Well, did you tell the girls, Julia?” he asked, trying to speak casually.

Mrs. Wanning looked up and met his eyes in the glass. “The girls?”

She noticed a strange expression come over his face.

“About your health, you mean? Yes, dear, but I tried not to alarm them. They feel dreadfully. I'm going to have a talk with Dr. Seares myself. These specialists are all alarmists, and I've often heard of his frightening people.”

She rose and took her husband's arm, drawing him toward the fireplace.

“You are not going to let this upset you, Paul? If you take care of yourself, everything will come out all right. You have always been so strong. One has only to look at you.”

“Did you,” Wanning asked, "say anything to Harold?”

“Yes, of course. I saw him in town to-day, and he agrees with me that Seares draws the worst conclusions possible. He says even the young men are always being told the most terrifying things. Usually they laugh at the doctors and do as they please. You certainly don't look like a sick man, and you don't feel like one, do you?”

She patted his shoulder, smiled at him encouragingly, and rang for the maid to come and hook her dress.

When the maid appeared at the door, Wanning went out through the bathroom to his own sleeping chamber. He was too much dispirited to put on a dinner coat, though such remissness was always noticed. He sat down and waited for the sound of the gong, leaving his door open, on the chance that perhaps one of his daughters would come in.

When Wanning went down to dinner he found his wife already at her chair, and the table laid for four.

“Harold,” she explained, “is not coming home. He has to attend a first night in town.

A moment later their two daughters entered, obviously “dressed.” They both wore earrings and masses of hair. The daughters' names were Roma and Florence—Roma, Firenze, one of the young men who came to the house often, but not often enough, had called them. To-night they were going to a rehearsal of “The Dances of the Nations”—a benefit performance in which Miss Roma was to lead the Spanish dances, her sister the Grecian.

The elder daughter had often been told that her name suited her admirably. She looked, indeed, as we are apt to think the unrestrained beauties of later Rome must have looked—but as their portrait busts emphatically declare they did not. Her head was massive, her lips full and crimson, her eyes large and heavy-lidded, her forehead low. At costume balls and in living pictures she was always Semiramis, or Poppea, or Theodora. Barbaric accessories brought out something cruel and even rather brutal in her handsome face. The men who were attracted to her were somehow afraid of her.

Florence was slender, with a long, graceful neck, a restless head, and a flexible mouth—discontent lurked about the corners of it. Her shoulders were pretty, but her neck and arms were too thin. Roma was always struggling to keep within a certain weight—her chin and upper arms grew persistently more solid—and Florence was always striving to attain a certain weight. Wanning used sometimes to wonder why these disconcerting fluctuations could not go the other way; why Roma could not melt away as easily as did her sister, who had to be sent to Palm Beach to save the precious pounds.

“I don't see why you ever put Rickie Allen in charge of the English country dances,” Florence said to her sister, as they sat down. “He knows the figures, of course, but he has no real style.”

Roma looked annoyed. Rickie Allen was one of the men who came to the house almost often enough.

“He is absolutely to be depended upon, that's why,” she said firmly.

“I think he is just right for it, Florence,” put in Mrs. Wanning. “It's remarkable he should feel that he can give up the time; such a busy man. He must be very much interested in the movement.”

Florence's lip curled drolly under her soup spoon. She shot an amused glance at her mother's dignity.

“Nothing doing,” her keen eyes seemed to say.

Though Florence was nearly thirty and her sister a little beyond, there was, seriously, nothing doing. With so many charms and so much preparation, they never, as Florence vulgarly said, quite pulled it off. They had been rushed, time and again, and Mrs. Wanning had repeatedly steeled herself to bear the blow. But the young men went to follow a career in Mexico or the Philippines, or movel [sic] to Yonkers, and escaped without a mortal wound.

Roma turned graciously to her father.

“I met Mr. Lane at the Holland House to-day, where I was lunching with the Burtons, father. He asked about you, and when I told him you were not so well as usual, he said he would call you up. He wants to tell you about some doctor he discovered in Iowa, who cures everything with massage and hot water. It sounds freakish, but Mr. Lane is a very clever man, isn't he?”

“Very,” assented Wanning.

“I should think he must be!” sighed Mrs. Wanning. “How in the world did he make all that money, Paul? He didn't seem especially promising years ago, when we used to see so much of them.”

“Corporation business. He's attorney for the P. L. and G,,” murmured her husband.

“What a pile he must have!” Florence watched the old negro's slow movements with restless eyes. “Here is Jenny, a Contessa, with a glorious palace in Genoa that her father must have bought her. Surely Aldrini had nothing. Have you seen the baby count's pictures, Roma? They're very cunning. I should think you'd go to Genoa and visit Jenny.”

“We must arrange that, Roma. It's such an opportunity.” Though Mrs. Wanning addressed her daughter, she looked at her husband. “You would get on so well among their friends. When Count Aldrini was here you spoke Italian much better than poor Jenny. I remember when we entertained him, he could scarcely say anything to her at all.

Florence tried to call up an answering flicker of amusement upon her sister's calm, well-bred face. She thought her mother was rather outdoing herself to-night—since Aldrini had at least managed to say the one important thing to Jenny, somehow, somewhere. Jenny Lane had been Roma's friend and schoolmate, and the Count was an ephemeral hope in Orange. Mrs. Wanning was one of the first matrons to declare that she had no prejudices against foreigners, and at the dinners that were given for the Count, Roma was always put next him to act as interpreter.

Roma again turned to her father.

“If I were you, dear, I would let Mr. Lane tell me about his doctor. New discoveries are often made by queer people.”

Roma's voice was low and sympathetic; she never lost her dignity.

Florence asked if she might have her coffee in her room, while she dashed off a note, and she ran upstairs humming “Bright Lights” and wondering how she was going to stand her family until the summer scattering. Why could Roma never throw off her elegant reserve and call things by their names? She sometimes thought she might like her sister, if she would only come out in the open and howl about her disappointments.

Roma, drinking her coffee deliberately, asked her father if they might have the car early, as they wanted to pick up Mr. Allen and Mr. Rydberg on their way to rehearsal.

Wanning said certainly. Heaven knew he was not stingy about his car, though he could never quite forget that in his day it was the young men who used to call for the girls when they went to rehearsals.

“You are going with us, Mother?” Roma asked as they rose.

“I think so, dear. Your father will want to go to bed early, and I shall sleep better if I go out. I am going to town to-morrow to pour tea for Harold. We must get him some new silver, Paul. I am quite ashamed of his spoons.”

Harold, the only son, was a playwright—as yet “unproduced” and he had a studio in Washington Square.

A half-hour later, Wanning was alone in his library. He would not permit himself to feel aggrieved. What was more commendable than a mother's interest in her children's pleasures? Moreover, it was his wife's way of following things up, of never letting the grass grow under her feet, that had helped to push him along in the world. She was more ambitious than he—that had been good for him. He was naturally indolent, and Julia's childlike desire to possess material objects, to buy what other people were buying, had been the spur that made him go after business. It had, moreover, made his house the attractive place he believed it to be.

“Suppose,” his wife sometimes said to him when the bills came in from Céleste or Mme. Blanche, “suppose you had plain daughters; how would you like that?”

He wouldn't have liked it. When he went anywhere with his three ladies, Wanning always felt very well done by. He had no complaint to make about them, or about anything. That was why it seemed so unreasonable— He felt along his back incredulously with his hand. Harold, of course, was a trial; but among all his business friends, he knew scarcely one who had a promising boy.

The house was so still that Wanning could hear a faint, metallic tinkle from the butler's pantry. Old Sam was washing up the silver, which he put away himself every night.

Wanning rose and walked aimlessly down the hall and out through the dining-room.

“Any Apollinaris on ice, Sam? not feeling very well to-night.”

The old coloured man dried his hands.

“Yessah, Mistah Wanning. Have a little rye with it, sah?”

“No, thank you, Sam. That's one of the things I can't do any more. I've been to see a big doctor in the city, and he tells me there's something seriously wrong with me. My kidneys have sort of gone back on me.”

It was a satisfaction to Wanning to name the organ that had betrayed him, while all the rest of him was so sound.

Sam was immediately interested. He shook his grizzled head and looked full of wisdom.

“Don't seem like a gen'leman of such a temperate life ought to have anything wrong thar, sah.”

“No, it doesn't, does it?”

Wanning leaned against the china closet and talked to Sam for nearly half an hour. The specialist who condemned him hadn't seemed half so much interested. There was not a detail about the examination and the laboratory tests in which Sam did not show the deepest concern. He kept asking Wanning if he could remember “straining himself” when he was a young man.

“I've knowed a strain like that to sleep in a man for yeahs and yeahs, and then come back on him, 'deed I have,” he said, mysteriously. “An' again, it might be you got a floatin' kidney, sah. Aftah dey once teah loose, dey sometimes don't make no trouble for quite a while.”.

When Wanning went to his room he did not go to bed. He sat up until he heard the voices of his wife and daughters in the hall below. His own bed somehow frightened him. In all the years he had lived in this house he had never before looked about his room, at that bed, with the thought that he might one day be trapped there, and might not get out again. He had been ill, of course, but his room had seemed a particularly pleasant place for a sick man; sunlight, flowers—agreeable, well-dressed women coming in and out.

Now there was something sinister about the bed itself, about its position, and its relation to the rest of the furniture.

next morning, on his way downtown, Wanning got off the subway train at Astor Place and walked over to Washington Square. He climbed three flights of stairs and knocked at his son's studio. Harold, dressed, with his stick and gloves in his hand, opened the door. He was just going over to the Brevoort for breakfast. He greeted his father with the cordial familiarity practised by all the “boys” of his set, clapped him on the shoulder and said in his light, tonsilitis voice:

“Come in, Governor, how delightful! I haven't had a call from you in a long time.”

He threw his hat and gloves on the writing table. He was a perfect gentleman, even with his father.

Florence said the matter with Harold was that he had heard people say he looked like Byron, and stood for it.

What Harold would stand for in such matters was, indeed, the best definition of him. When he read his play “The Street Walker” in drawing rooms and one lady told him it had the poetic symbolism of Tchekhov, and another said that it suggested the biting realism of Brieux, he never, in his most secret thoughts, questioned the acumen of either lady. Harold's speech, even if you heard it in the next room and could not see him, told you that he had no sense of the absurd—a throaty staccato, with never a downward inflection, trustfully striving to please.

“Just going out?” his father asked. I won't keep you. Your mother told you I had a discouraging session with Seares?”

“So awfully sorry you've had this bother, Governor; just as sorry as I can be. No question about it's coming out all right, but it's a downright nuisance, your having to diet and that sort of thing. And I suppose you ought to follow directions, just to make us all feel comfortable, oughtn't you?” Harold spoke with fluent sympathy.

Wanning sat down on the arm of a chair and shook his head. “Yes, they do recommend a diet, but they don't promise much from it.”

Harold laughed precipitately. “Delicious! All doctors are, aren't they? So profound and oracular! The medicine-man; it's quite the same idea, you see; with tom-toms.”

Wanning knew that Harold meant something subtle—one of the subtleties which he said were only spoiled by being explained—so he came bluntly to one of the issues he had in mind.

“I would like to see you settled before I quit the harness, Harold.”

Harold was absolutely tolerant.

He took out his cigarette case and burnished it with his handkerchief.

“I perfectly understand your point of view, dear Governor, but perhaps you don't altogether get mine. Isn't it so? I am settled. What you mean by being settled, would unsettle me, completely. I'm cut out for just such an existence as this; to live four floors up in an attic, get my own breakfast, and have a charwoman to do for me. I should be awfully bored with an establishment. I'm quite content with a little diggings like this.”

Wanning's eyes fell. Somebody had to pay the rent of even such modest quarters as contented Harold, but to say so would be rude, and Harold himself was never rude. Wanning did not, this morning, feel equal to hearing a statement of his son's uncommercial ideals.

“I know,” he said hastily. “But now we're up against hard facts, my boy. I did not want to alarm your mother, but I've had a time limit put on me, and it's not a very long one.”

Harold threw away the cigarette he had just lighted in a burst of indignation.

“That's the sort of thing I consider criminal, Father, absolutely criminal! What doctor has a right to suggest such a thing? Seares himself may be knocked out to-morrow. What have laboratory tests got to do with a man's will to live? The force of that depends upon his entire personality, not on any organ or pair of organs.”

Harold thrust his hands in his pockets and walked up and down, very much stirred. “Really, I have a very poor opinion of scientists. They ought to be made serve an apprenticeship in art, to get some conception of the power of human motives. Such brutality!”

Harold's plays dealt with the grimmest and most depressing matters, but he himself was always agreeable, and he insisted upon high cheerfulness as the correct tone of human intercourse.

Wanning rose and turned to go. There was, in Harold, simply no reality, to which one could break through. The young man took up his hat and gloves.

“Must you go? Let me step along with you to the sub. The walk will do me good.”

Harold talked agreeably all the way to Astor Place. His father heard little of what he said, but he rather liked his company and his wish to be pleasant.

Wanning went to his club for luncheon, meaning to spend the afternoon with some of his friends who had retired from business and who read the papers there in the empty hours between two and seven. He got no satisfaction, however. When he tried to tell these men of his present predicament, they began to describe ills of their own in which he could not feel interested. Each one of them had a treacherous organ of which he spoke with animation, almost with pride, as if it were a crafty business competitor whom he was constantly outwitting. Each had a doctor, too, for whom he was ardently soliciting business. They wanted either to telephone their doctor and make an appointment for Wanning, or to take him then and there to the consulting room. When he did not accept these invitations, they lost interest in him and remembered engagements. He called a taxi and returned to the offices of McQuiston, Wade and Wanning.

Settled at his desk, Wanning decided that he would not go home to dinner, but would stay at the office and dictate a long letter to an old college friend who lived in Wyoming. He could tell Douglas Brown things that he had not succeeded in getting to any one else. Brown, out in the Wind River mountains, couldn't defend himself, couldn't slap Wanning on the back and tell him to gather up the sunbeams.

He called up his house in Orange to say that he would not be home until late. Roma answered the telephone. He spoke mournfully, but she was not disturbed by it.

“Very well, Father. Don't get too tired,” she said in her well modulated voice.

When Wanning was ready to dictate his letter, he looked out from his private office into the reception room and saw that his stenographer in her hat and gloves, and furs of the newest cut, was just leaving.

“Good-night, Mr. Wanning,” she said, drawing down her dotted veil.

Had there been important business letters to be got off on the night mail, he would have felt that he could detain her, but not for anything personal. Miss Doane was an expert legal stenographer, and she knew her value. The slightest delay in dispatching office business annoyed her. Letters that were not signed until the next morning awoke her deepest contempt. She was scrupulous in professional etiquette, and Wanning felt that their relations, though pleasant, were scarcely cordial.

As Miss Doane's trim figure disappeared through the outer door, little Annie Wooley, the copyist, came in from the stenographers' room. Her hat was pinned over one ear, and she was scrambling into her coat as she came, holding her gloves in her teeth and her battered handbag in the fist that was already through a sleeve.

“Annie, I wanted to dictate a letter. You were just leaving, weren't you?”

“Oh, I don't mind!” she answered cheerfully, and pulling off her old coat, threw it on a chair. “I'll get my book.”

She followed him into his room and sat down by a table—though she wrote with her book on her knee.

Wanning had several times kept her after office hours to take his private letters for him, and she had always been good-natured about it. On each occasion, when he gave her a dollar to get her dinner, she protested, laughing, and saying that she could never eat so much as that.

She seemed a happy sort of little creature, didn't pout when she was scolded, and giggled about her own mistakes in spelling. She was plump and undersized, always dodging under the elbows of taller people and clattering about on high heels, much run over. She had bright black eyes and fuzzy black hair in which, despite Miss Doane's reprimands, she often stuck her pencil. She was the girl who couldn't believe that Wanning was fifty, and he had liked her ever since he overheard that conversation.

Tilting back his chair—he never assumed this position when he dictated to Miss Doane—Wanning began: “To Mr. D. E. Brown, South Forks, Wyoming.”

He shaded his eyes with his hand and talked off a long letter to this man who would be sorry that his mortal frame was breaking up. He recalled to him certain fine months they had spent together on the Wind River when they were young men, and said he sometimes wished that like D. E. Brown, he had claimed his freedom in a big country where the wheels did not grind a man as hard as they did in New York. He had spent all these years hustling about and getting ready to live the way he wanted to live, and now he had a puncture the doctors couldn't mend. What was the use of it?

Wanning's thoughts were fixed on the trout streams and the great silver-firs in the canyons of the Wind River Mountains, when he was disturbed by a soft, repeated sniffing. He looked out between his fingers. Little Annie, carried away by his eloquence, was fairly panting to make dots and dashes fast enough, and she was sopping her eyes with an unpresentable, end-of-the-day handkerchief.

Wanning rambled on in his dictation. Why was she crying? What did it matter to her? He was a man who said good-morning to her, who sometimes took an hour of the precious few she had left at the end of the day and then complained about her bad spelling. When the letter was finished, he handed her a new two dollar bill.

“I haven't got any change to-night; and anyhow, I'd like you to eat a whole lot. I'm on a diet, and I want to see everybody else eat.”

Annie tucked her notebook under her arm and stood looking at the bill which she had not taken up from the table.

“I don't like to be paid for taking letters to your friends, Mr. Wanning,” she said impulsively. “I can run personal letters off between times. It ain't as if I needed the money,” she added carelessly.

“Get along with you! Anybody who is eighteen years old and has a sweet tooth needs money, all they can get.”

Annie giggled and darted out with the bill in her hand.

Wanning strolled aimlessly after her into the reception room.

“Let me have that letter before lunch to-morrow, please, and be sure that nobody sees it.” He stopped and frowned. “I don't look very sick, do I?”

“I should say you don't!” Annie got her coat on after considerable tugging. “Why don't you call in a specialist? My mother called a specialist for my father before he died.”

“Oh, is your father dead?”

“I should say he is! He was a painter by trade, and he fell off a seventy-foot stack into the East River. Mother couldn't get anything out of the company, because he wasn't buckled. He lingered for four months, so I know all about taking care of sick people. I was attending business college then, and sick as he was, he used to give me dictation for practice. He made us all go into professions; the girls, too. He didn't like us to just run.”

Wanning would have liked to keep Annie and hear more about her family, but it was nearly seven o'clock, and he knew he ought, in mercy, to let her go. She was the only person to whom he had talked about his illness, who had been frank and honest with him, who had looked at him with eyes that concealed nothing. When he broke the news of his condition to his partners that morning, they shut him off as if he were uttering indecent ravings. All day they had met him with a hurried, abstracted manner. McQuiston and Wade went out to lunch together, and he knew what they were thinking, perhaps talking, about. Wanning had brought into the firm valuable business, but he was less enterprising than either of his partners.

the early summer Wanning's family scattered. Roma swallowed her pride and sailed for Genoa to visit the Contessa Jenny. Harold went to Cornish to be in an artistic atmosphere. Mrs. Wanning and Florence took a cottage at York Harbour where Wanning was supposed to join them whenever he could get away from town. He did not often get away. He felt most at ease among his accustomed surroundings. He kept his car in the city and went back and forth from his office to the club where he was living. Old Sam, his butler, came in from Orange every night to put his clothes in order and make him comfortable.

Wanning began to feel that he would not tire of his office in a hundred years. Although he did very little work, it was pleasant to go down town every morning when the streets were crowded, the sky clear, and the sunshine bright. From the windows of his private office he could see the harbour and watch the ocean liners come down the North River and go out to sea.

While he read his mail, he often looked out and wondered why he had been so long indifferent to that extraordinary scene of human activity and hopefulness. How had a short-lived race of beings the energy and courage valiantly to begin enterprises which they could follow for only a few years; to throw up towers and build sea-monsters and found great businesses, when the frailest of the materials with which they worked, the paper upon which they wrote, the ink upon their pens, had more permanence in this world than they? All this material rubbish lasted. The linen clothing and cosmetics of the Egyptians had lasted. It was only the human flame that certainly, certainly went out. Other things had a fighting chance; they might meet with mishap and be destroyed, they might not. But the human creature who gathered and shaped and hoarded and foolishly loved these things, he had no chance—absolutely none. Wanning's cane, his hat, his top-coat, might go from beggar to beggar and knock about in this world for another fifty years or so; but not he.

In the late afternoon he never hurried to leave his office now. Wonderful sunsets burned over the North River, wonderful stars trembled up among the towers; more wonderful than anything he could hurry away to. One of his windows looked directly down upon the spire of Old Trinity, with the green churchyard and the pale sycamores far below. Wanning often dropped into the church when he was going out to lunch; not because he was trying to make his peace with Heaven, but because the church was old and restful and familiar, because it and its gravestones had sat in the same place for a long while. He bought flowers from the street boys and kept them on his desk, which his partners thought strange behaviour, and which Miss Doane considered a sign that he was failing.

But there were graver things than bouquets for Miss Doane and the senior partner to ponder over.

The senior partner, McQuiston, in spite of his silvery hair and moustache and his important church connections, had rich natural taste for scandal.—After Mr. Wade went away for his vacation, in May, Wanning took Annie Wooley out of the copying room, put her at a desk in his private office, and raised her pay to eighteen dollars a week, explaining to McQuiston that for the summer months he would need a secretary. This explanation satisfied neither McQuiston nor Miss Doane.

Annie was also paid for overtime, and although Wanning attended to very little of the office business now, there was a great deal of overtime. Miss Doane was, of course, “above” questioning a chit like Annie; but what was he doing with his time and his new secretary, she wanted to know?

If anyone had told her that Wanning was writing a book, she would have said bitterly that it was just like him. In his youth Wanning had hankered for the pen. When he studied law, he had intended to combine that profession with some tempting form of authorship. Had he remained a bachelor, he would have been an unenterprising literary lawyer to the end of his days. It was his wife's restlessness and her practical turn of mind that had made him a money-getter. His illness seemed to bring back to him the illusions with which he left college.

As soon as his family were out of the way and he shut up the Orange house, he began to dictate his autobiography to Annie Wooley. It was not only the story of his life, but an expression of all his theories and opinions, and a commentary on the fifty years of events which he could remember.

Fortunately, he was able to take great interest in this undertaking. He had the happiest convictions about the clear-cut style he was developing and his increasing felicity in phrasing. He meant to publish the work handsomely, at his own expense and under his own name. He rather enjoyed the thought of how greatly disturbed Harold would be. He and Harold differed in their estimates of books. All the solid works which made up Wanning's library, Harold considered beneath contempt. Anybody, he said, could do that sort of thing.

When Wanning could not sleep at night, he turned on the light beside his bed and made notes on the chapter he meant to dictate the next day.

When he returned to the office after lunch, he gave instructions that he was not to be interrupted by telephone calls, and shut himself up with his secretary.

After he had opened all the windows and taken off his coat, he fell to dictating. He found it a delightful occupation, the solace of each day. Often he had sudden fits of tiredness; then he would lie down on the leather sofa and drop asleep, while Annie read “The Leopard's Spots” until he awoke.

Like many another business man Wanning had relied so long on stenographers that the operation of writing with a pen had become laborious to him. When he undertook it, he wanted to cut everything short. But walking up and down his private office, with the strong afternoon sun pouring in at his windows, a fresh air stirring, all the people and boats moving restlessly down there, he could say things he wanted to say. It was like living his life over again.

He did not miss his wife or his daughters. He had become again the mild, contemplative youth he was in college, before he had a profession and a family to grind for, before the two needs which shape our destiny had made of him pretty much what they make of every man.

At five o'clock Wanning sometimes went out for a cup of tea and took Annie along. He felt dull and discouraged as soon as he was alone. So long as Annie was with him, he could keep a grip on his own thoughts. They talked about what he had just been dictating to her. She found that he liked to be questioned, and she tried to be greatly interested in it all.

After tea, they went back to the office. Occasionally Wanning lost track of time and kept Annie until it grew dark. He knew he had old McQuiston guessing, but he didn't care. One day the senior partner came to him with a reproving air.

“I am afraid Miss Doane is leaving us, Paul. She feels that Miss Wooley's promotion is irregular.”

“How is that any business of hers, I'd like to know? She has all my legal work. She is always disagreeable enough about doing anything else.”

McQuiston's puffy red face went a shade darker.

“Miss Doane has a certain professional pride; a strong feeling for office organization. She doesn't care to fill an equivocal position. I don't know that I blame her. She feels that there is something not quite regular about the confidence you seem to place in this inexperienced young woman.”

Wanning pushed back his chair.

“I don't care a hang about Miss Doane's sense of propriety. I need a stenographer who will carry out my instructions. I've carried out Miss Doane's long enough. I've let that schoolma'am hector me for years, She can go when she pleases.”

That night McQuiston wrote to his partner that things were in a bad way, and they would have to keep an eye on Wanning. He had been seen at the theatre with his new stenographer.

That was true. Wanning had several times taken Annie to the Palace on Saturday afternoon. When all his acquaintances were off motoring or playing golf, when the down town offices and even the streets were deserted, it amused him to watch a foolish show with a delighted, cheerful little person beside him.

Beyond her generosity, Annie had no shining merits of character, but she had the gift of thinking well of everything, and wishing well. When she was there Wanning felt as if there were someone who cared whether this was a good or a bad day with him. Old Sam, too, was like that. While the old black man put him to bed and made him comfortable, Wanning could talk to him as he talked to little Annie. Even if he dwelt upon his illness, in plain terms, in detail, he did not feel as if he were imposing on them.

People like Sam and Annie admitted misfortune—admitted it almost cheerfully. Annie and her family did not consider illness or any of its hard facts vulgar or indecent. It had its place in their scheme of life, as it had not in that of Wanning's friends.

Annie came out of a typical poor family of New York. Of eight children, only four lived to grow up. In such families the stream of life is broad enough, but runs shallow. In the children, vitality is exhausted early. The roots do not go down into anything very strong. Illness and deaths and funerals, in her own family and in those of her friends, had come at frequent intervals in Annie's life. Since they had to be, she and her sisters made the best of them. There was something to be got out of funerals, even, if they were managed right. They kept people in touch with old friends who had moved up town, and revived kindly feelings.

Annie had often given up things she wanted because there was sickness at home, and now she was patient with her boss. What he paid her for overtime work by no means made up to her what she lost.

Annie was not in the least thrifty, nor were any of her sisters. She had to make a living, but she was not interested in getting all she could for her time, or in laying up for the future. Girls like Annie know that the future is a very uncertain thing, and they feel no responsibility about it. The present is what they have—and it is all they have. If Annie missed a chance to go sailing with the plumber's son on Saturday afternoon, why, she missed it. As for the two dollars her boss gave her, she handed them over to her mother. Now that Annie was getting more money, one of her sisters quit a job she didn't like and was staying at home for a rest. That was all promotion meant to Annie.

The first time Annie's boss asked her to work on Saturday afternoon, she could not hide her disappointment. He suggested that they might knock off early and go to a show, or take a run in his car, but she grew tearful and said it would be hard to make her family understand. Wanning thought perhaps he could explain to her mother. He called his motor and took Annie home.

When his car stopped in front of the tenement house on Eighth Avenue, heads came popping out of the windows for six storeys up, and all the neighbour women, in dressing sacks and wrappers, gazed down at the machine and at the couple alighting from it. A motor meant a wedding or the hospital.

The plumber's son, Willy Steen, came over from the corner saloon to see what was going on, and Annie introduced him at the doorstep.

Mrs. Wooley asked Wanning to come into the parlour and invited him to have a chair of ceremony between the folding bed and the piano.

Annie, nervous and tearful, escaped to the dining-room—the cheerful spot where the daughters visited with each other and with their friends. The parlour was a masked sleeping chamber and store room.

The plumber's son sat down on the sofa beside Mrs. Wooley, as if he were accustomed to share in the family councils. Mrs. Wooley waited expectant and kindly. She looked the sensible, hard-working woman that she was, and one could see she hadn't lived all her life on Eighth Avenue without learning a great deal.

Wanning explained to her that he was writing a book which he wanted to finish during the summer months when business was not so heavy. He was ill and could not work regularly. His secretary would have to take his dictation when he felt able to give it; must, in short, be a sort of companion to him. He would like to feel that she could go out in his car with him, or even to the theatre, when he felt like it. It might have been better if he had engaged a young man for this work, but since he had begun it with Annie, he would like to keep her if her mother was willing.

Mrs. Wooley watched him with friendly, searching eyes. She glanced at Willy Steen, who, wise in such distinctions, had decided that there was nothing shady about Annie's boss. He nodded his sanction.

“I don't want my girl to conduct herself in any such way as will prejudice her, Mr. Manning,” she said thoughtfully. “If you've got daughters, you know how that is. You've been liberal with Annie, and it's a good position for her. It's right she should go to business every day, and I want her to do her work right, but I like to have her home after working hours. I always think a young girl's time is her own after business hours, and I try not to burden them when they come home. I'm willing she should do your work as suits you, if it's her wish; but I don't like to press her. The good times she misses now, it's not you nor me, sir, that can make them up to her. These young things has their feelings.”

“Oh, I don't want to press her, either,” Wanning said hastily. “I simply want to know that you understand the situation. I've made her a little present in my will as a recognition that she is doing more for me than she is paid for.”

“That's something above me, sir. We'll hope there won't be no question of wills for many years yet,” Mrs. Wooley spoke heartily. “I'm glad if my girl can be of any use to you, just so she don't prejudice herself.”

The plumber's son rose as if the interview were over.

“It's all right, Mama Wooley, don't you worry,” he said.

He picked up his canvas cap and turned to Wanning. “You see, Annie ain't the sort of girl that would want to be spotted circulating around with a moneyed party her folks didn't know all about. She'd lose friends by it.”

After this conversation Annie felt a great deal happier. She was still shy and a trifle awkward with poor Wanning when they were outside the office building, and she missed the old freedom of her Saturday afternoons. But she did the best she could, and Willy Steen tried to make it up to her.

In Annie's absence he often came in of an afternoon to have a cup of tea and a sugar-bun with Mrs. Wooley and the daughter who was “resting.” As they sat at the dining-room table, they discussed Annie's employer, his peculiarities, his health, and what he had told Mrs. Wooley about his will.

Mrs. Wooley said she sometimes felt afraid he might disinherit his children, as rich people often did, and make talk; but she hoped for the best. Whatever came to Annie, she prayed it might not be in the form of taxable property.

in September Wanning grew suddenly worse. His family hurried home, and he was put to bed in his house in Orange. He kept asking the doctors when he could get back to the office, but he lived only eight days.

The morning after his father's funeral, Harold went to the office to consult Wanning's partners and to read the will. Everything in the will was as it should be. There were no surprises except a codicil in the form of a letter to Mrs. Wanning, dated July 8th, requesting that out of the estate she should pay the sum of one thousand dollars to his stenographer, Annie Wooley, “in recognition of her faithful services.”

“I thought Miss Doane was my father's stenographer,” Harold exclaimed.

Alec McQuiston looked embarrassed and spoke in a low, guarded tone.

“She was, for years. But this spring—” he hesitated.

McQuiston loved a scandal. He leaned across his desk toward Harold.

“This spring your father put this little girl, Miss Wooley, a copyist, utterly inexperienced, in Miss Doane's place. Miss Doane was indignant and left us. The change made comment here in the office. It was slightly— No, I will be frank with you, Harold, it was very irregular.”

Harold also looked grave. “What could my father have meant by such a request as this to my mother?”

The silver haired senior partner flushed and spoke as if he were trying to break something gently.

“I don't understand it, my boy. But I think, indeed I prefer to think, that your father was not quite himself all this summer. A man like your father does not, in his right senses, find pleasure in the society of an ignorant, common little girl. He does not make a practice of keeping her at the office after hours, often until eight o'clock, or take her to restaurants and to the theatre with him; not, at least, in a slanderous city like New York.”

Harold flinched before McQuiston's meaning gaze and turned aside in pained silence. He knew, as a dramatist, that there are dark chapters in all men's lives, and this but too clearly explained why his father had stayed in town all summer instead of joining his family.

McQuiston asked if he should ring for Annie Wooley.

Harold drew himself up. “No. Why should I see her? I prefer not to. But with your permission, Mr. McQuiston, I will take charge of this request to my mother. It could only give her pain, and might awaken doubts in her mind.”

“We hardly know,” murmured the senior partner, “where an investigation would lead us. Technically, of course, I cannot agree with you. But if, as one of the executors of the will, you wish to assume personal responsibility for this bequest, under the circumstances—irregularities beget irregularities.”

“My first duty to my father,” said Harold, “is to protect my mother.”

That afternoon McQuiston called Annie Wooley into his private office and told her that her services would not be needed any longer, and that in lieu of notice the clerk would give her two week's salary.

“Can I call up here for references?” Annie asked.

“Certainly. But you had better ask for me, personally. You must know there has been some criticism of you here in the office, Miss Wooley.”

“What about?” Annie asked boldly.

“Well, a young girl like you cannot render so much personal service to her employer as you did to Mr. Wanning without causing unfavourable comment. To be blunt with you, for your own good, my dear young lady, your services to your employer should terminate in the office, and at the close of office hours. Mr. Wanning was a very sick man and his judgment was at fault, but you should have known what a girl in your station can do and what she cannot do.”

The vague discomfort of months flashed up in little Annie. She had no mind to stand by and be lectured without having a word to say for herself.

“Of course he was sick, poor man!” she burst out. “Not as anybody seemed much upset about it. I wouldn't have given up my half-holidays for anybody if they hadn't been sick, no matter what they paid me. There wasn't anything in it for me.”

McQuiston raised his hand warningly.

“That will do, young lady. But when you get another place, remember this: it is never your duty to entertain or to provide amusement for your employer.”

He gave Annie a look which she did not clearly understand, although she pronounced him a nasty old man as she hustled on her hat and jacket.

When Annie reached home she found Willy Steen sitting with her mother and sister at the dining-room table. This was the first day that Annie had gone to the office since Wanning's death, and her family awaited her return with suspense.

“Hello yourself,” Annie called as she came in and threw her handbag into an empty armchair.

“You're off early, Annie,” said her mother gravely. “Has the will been read?”

“I guess so. Yes, I know it has. Miss Wilson got it out of the safe for them. The son came in. He's a pill.”

“Was nothing said to you, daughter?”

“Yes, a lot. Please give me some tea, mother.” Annie felt that her swagger was failing.

“Don't tantalize us, Ann,” her sister broke in. “Didn't you get anything?”

“I got the mit, all right. And some back talk from the old man that I'm awful sore about.”

Annie dashed away the tears and gulped her tea.

Gradually her mother and Willy drew the story from her. Willy offered at once to go to the office building and take his stand outside the door and never leave it until he had punched old Mr. McQuiston's face. He rose as if to attend to it at once, but Mrs. Wooley drew him to his chair again and patted his arm.

“It would only start talk and get the girl in trouble, Willy. When it's lawyers, folks in our station is helpless. I certainly believed that man when he sat here; you heard him yourself. Such a gentleman as he looked.”

Willy thumped his great fist, still in punching position, down on his knee.

“Never you be fooled again, Mama Wooley. You'll never get anything out of a rich guy that he ain't signed up in the courts for. Rich is tight. There's no exceptions.”

Annie shook her head.

“I didn't want anything out of him. He was a nice, kind man, and he had his troubles, I guess. He wasn't tight.”

“Still,” said Mrs. Wooley sadly, “Mr. Wanning had no call to hold out promises. I hate to be disappointed in a gentleman. You've had confining work for some time, daughter; a rest will do you good.”

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


text: Talk:The Smart Set/Volume 59/Issue 2/Her Boss


text:
Page:R L Stevenson 1917 Familiar studies of men and books.djvu/2

 Works by Robert Louis Stevenson

AN INLAND VOYAGE

EDINBURGH I PICTURESQUE NOTES.

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY.

VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE.

FAMILIAR STUDIES OF MEN AND BOOKS.

NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS.

TREASURE ISLAND.

THE SILVERADO SQUATTERS.

A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES.

PRINCE OTTO.

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYUE.

KIDNAPPED.

THE MERRY MEN.

UNDERWOODS.

MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS.

THE BLACK ARROW.

THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE.

FATHER DAMIEN ! AN OPEN LETTER.

BALLADS.

ACROSS THE PLAINS.

ISLAND NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS.

A FOOTNOTE TO HISTORY.

CATRIONA.

WEIR OF HERMISTON.

VAILIMA, LETTERS.

LETTERS TO HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

FABLES

SONGS OF TRAVEL,

ST. IVES.

IN THE SOUTH SEAS.

ESSAYS OF TRAVEL.

TALES AND FANTASIES.

ESSAYS IN THE ART OF WRITING.

LAY MORALS, ETC

RECORDS OF A FAMILY OF ENGINEERS.

MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN.

PRAYERS WRITTEN AT VAILIMA.

THE WAIF WOMAN.

ON THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION.

with Mrs. Stevenson

THE DYNAMITER.

with Lloyd Osbourne

THE WRONG BOX. THE WRECKER. THE EBB-TIDE.


text: The Zoologist/3rd series, vol 1 (1877)/Issue 7/Occasional Notes


text:
Page:R L Stevenson 1917 Familiar studies of men and books.djvu/3

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

CHATTO AND WINDUS

1917


text: Page:R L Stevenson 1917 Familiar studies of men and books.djvu/4


text: The Zoologist/3rd series, vol 1 (1877)/Issue 8/Occasional Notes


text:
Page:R L Stevenson 1917 Familiar studies of men and books.djvu/5

THOMAS STEVENSON


text:
Trade Act of 1974/Title I/Chapter 7

{{SECTION|SEC. 171.|SEC. 171}}. CHANGE OF NAME OF TARIFF COMMISSION.

 * (a) The United States Tariff Commission (established by section 330 of the Tariff Act of 1930) is renamed as the United States International Trade Commission.

 * (b) Any reference in any law of the United States, or in any order, rule, regulation, or other document, to the United States Tariff Commission (or the Tariff Commission) shall be considered to refer to as the United States International Trade Commission.

{{SECTION|SEC. 172.|SEC. 172}}. ORGANIZATION OF THE COMMISSION.

 * (a) Subsections (a) and (b) of section 330 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1330) are amended to read as follows:

 * "(a) MEMBERSHIP—The United States International Trade Commission (referred to in this title as the "Commission") shall be composed of six commissioners who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. No person shall be eligible for appointment as a commissioner unless he is a citizen of the United States, and, in the judgment of the President, is possessed of qualifications requisite for developing expert knowledge of international trade problems and efficiency in administering the duties and functions of the Commission. A person who has served as a commissioner for more than 5 years (excluding service as a commissioner before the date of the enactment of the Trade Act of 1974) shall not be eligible for reappointment as a commissioner. Not more than three of the commissioners shall be members of the same political party, and in making appointments members of different political parties shall be appointed alternatively as nearly as may be practicable.

 * "(b) TERMS OF OFFICE—The terms of office of the commissioners holding office on the date of the enactment of the Trade Act of 1974 which (but for this sentence) would expire on June 16, 1975, June 16, 1976, June 16, 1977, June 16, 1978, June 16, 1979, and June 16, 1980, shall expire on December 16, 1976, June 16, 1978, June 16, 1979, December 16, 1979, June 16, 1981, December 16, 1982, and June 16, 1984, respectively. The term of office of each commissioner appointed after such date shall expire 9 years from the date of the expiration of the term for which his predecessor was appointed, except that any commissioner appointed to fill a vacancy occurring prior to the expiration of the term for which his predecessor was appointed shall be appointed for the remainder of such term."

 * (b) Subsection (c) of such section is amended—
 * (1) by striking out "The" in the first sentence and inserting in lieu thereof "(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), the"; and
 * (2) by adding at the end thereof the following new paragraph:
 * "(2) Effective on and after June 17, 1975, the commissioner whose term is first to expire and who has at least 18 months remaining in his term shall serve as chairman during the last 18 months of his term (or, in the case of a commissioner appointed to fill a vacancy occurring during such 18-month period, during the remainder of his term), and the commissioner whose term is second to expire and who has at least 36 months remaining in his term shall serve as vice chairman during the same 18-month period (or, in the case of a commissioner appointed to fill a vacancy occurring during such 18-month period, during the remainder of such 18-month period."

 * (c) (1) Section 5314 of title 5, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new paragraph:
 * "(61) Chairman, United States International Trade Commission."
 * (2) Section 5315 of such title is amended by striking out paragraph (24) and inserting in lieu thereof the following:
 * "(24) Members, United States International Trade Commission."
 * (3) Section 5316 of such title is amended by striking out paragraph (93).

{{SECTION|SEC. 173.|SEC. 173}}. VOTING RECORD OF COMMISSIONERS.

 * Section 332(g) of the Tariff Act of 1930 (31 U.S.C. 1332(g)) is amended—
 * (1) by striking out "and" before "a summary", and
 * (2) by inserting before the period at the end ", and a list of all votes taken by the commission during the year, showing those commissioners voting in the affirmative and the negative on each vote and those commissioners not voting on each vote and the reasons for not voting".

{{SECTION|SEC. 174.|SEC. 174}}. REPRESENTATION IN COURT PROCEEDINGS.

 * Section 333(c) of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1333(c)) is amended—
 * (1) by striking out "Upon application of the Attorney General of the United States, at" in subsection (c) and inserting in lieu thereof "At", and
 * (2) by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
 * "(g) REPRESENTATION IN COURT PROCEEDINGS—The Commission shall be represented in all judicial proceedings by attorneys who are employees of the commission or, at the request of the commission, by the Attorney General of the United States."

{{SECTION|SEC. 175.|SEC. 175}}. INDEPENDENT BUDGET AND AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

 * (a) (1) Effective with respect to the fiscal year beginning October 1, 1976, for purposes of the Budget and Accounting Act, 1921 (31 U.S.C. 1 et seq.), estimated expenditures and proposed appropriations for the United States International Trade Commission shall be transmitted to the President on or before October 15 of the year preceding the beginning of each fiscal year and shall be included by him in the Budget without revision, and the Commission shall not be considered to be a department or establishment for purposes of such Act.
 * (2) Section 3679 of the Revised Statutes (31 U.S.C. 665) is amended by inserting "the United States International Trade Commission," before ", or the District of Columbia" each place it appears in subsections (d) and (g).

 * (b) Section 330 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1330) is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
 * "(e) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS—For the fiscal year beginning October 1, 1976, and each fiscal year thereafter, there are authorized to be appropriated to the Commission only such sums as may hereafter be provided by law.".

 * (c) (1) Paragraph (2) is enacted as an exercise of the rulemaking power of the Senate and with full recognition of the constitutional right of the Senate to change its rules at any time.
 * (2) Paragraph 6(a) of rule XVI of the Standing Rules of the Senate is amended by adding at the end of the table contained therein the following:
 * "Committee on Finance -- For the International Trade Commission.".

title: Trade Act of 1974/Title I/Chapter 7


text: The Zoologist/3rd series, vol 1 (1877)/Issue 9/Occasional Notes


text:
Page:Richard III (1927) Yale.djvu/63

Richard the Third, II. ii

Duch. Was never mother had so dear a loss.

Alas! I am the mother of these griefs:

Their woes are parcell'd, mine is general.

She for an Edward weeps, and so do I;

I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:

These babes for Clarence weep, [and so do I;

I for an Edward weep,] so do not they:

Alas! you three, on me, threefold distress'd,

Pour all your tears; I am your sorrow's nurse,

And I will pamper it with lamentation.

Dor. Comfort, dear mother: God is much displeas'd

That you take with unthankfulness his doing.

In common worldly things 'tis call'd ungrateful,

With dull unwillingness to repay a debt

Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;

Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,

For it requires the royal debt it lent you.

Riv. Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,

Of the young prince your son: send straight for him;

Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives.

Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,

And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.

Rich. Sister, have comfort: all of us have cause

To wail the dimming of our shining star;

But none can help our harms by wailing them.

Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;

I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee

I crave your blessing.

 80 mother griefs; cf. n.

81 parcell'd: i.e. distributed among them severally

general: i.e. embraces the griefs of all

94 opposite: in opposition

103 help: remedy

title: Page:Richard III (1927) Yale.djvu/63


text:
Page:R L Stevenson 1917 Familiar studies of men and books.djvu/6

studies are collected from the monthly press. One appeared in the New Quarterly, one in Macmillan's, and the rest in the Cornhill Magazine. To the Cornhill I owe a double debt of thanks; first, that I was received there in the very best society, and under the eye of the very best of editors; and second, that the proprietors have allowed me to republish so considerable an amount of copy.

These nine worthies have been brought together from many different ages and countries. Not the most erudite of men could be perfectly prepared to deal with so many and such various sides of human life and manners. To pass a true judgment upon Knox and Burns implies a grasp upon the very deepest strain of thought in Scotland,—a country far more essentially different from England than many parts of America; for, in a sense, the


text:
Page:Papers of William Shakespeare Hall, 1861–1895.pdf/159

 HALL, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1825-1895), J.P., Explorer, Pastoralist and Pearler, was born in London on 28 December 1825 and baptised at St. Mary's Church of England, Lambeth and was named after the Poet Shakespeare. (The Hall family being collaterally connected with the family of Shakespeare through the Strongs as well as the Poet's daughter, Susanna having married Dr. John Hall). He was the second son of Henry Edward Hall (1790-1859), Squire of Shakerstone Manor, Shakerstone, Leicestershire, England, and his wife, Sarah Theodosia Hall (nee Branson and a first cousin of her husband), (1793-1858). He came to Western Australia, with his parents, two brothers and three sisters in the vessel "PROTECTOR" (380 tons), chartered jointly by his father and another settler. They left England in November 1829 and reached Fremantle in February 1830 and safely landed considerable live stock, farming equipment, a 25 ton sloop and a jolly boat, necessities and luxuries, and ten servants and apprentices; the value of which entitled his father to a land grant of some 16,594 acres which was taken up at Mandurah. Unfortunately the land proved unsuitable. After several years of hardship, during which their first house and all its contents were destroyed by fire and their sloop was wrecked on Hall's Bank, the family moved back to Perth and subsequently bought a partly improved property at Wongong near Armadale.

William Shakespeare Hall received the main portion of his education from the Rev. J.B.Wittenoom, the first Colonial Chaplain. After learning farming on his father's property at Wongong, he went to Victoria in 1852 to the gold rush and stayed eight years without success. After returning to W.A. he was a member of the exploring party under Francis Gregory, which explored the north-west of the State in 1861 and led to the opening up of this area in 1863 when he established the first sheep station, "Andover", in the


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Page:R L Stevenson 1917 Familiar studies of men and books.djvu/7

viii first of these men re-created Scotland, and the second is its most essentially national production. To treat fitly of Hugo and Villon would involve yet wider knowledge, not only of a country foreign to the author by race, history, and religion, but of the growth and liberties of art. Of the two Americans, Whitman and Thoreau, each is the type of something not so much realised as widely sought after among the late generations of their countrymen; and to see them clearly in a nice relation to the society that brought them forth, an author would require a large habit of life among modern Americans. As for Yoshida, I have already disclaimed responsibility; it was but my hand that held the pen.

In truth, these are but the readings of a literary vagrant. One book led to another, one study to another. The first was published with trepidation. Since no bones were broken, the second was launched with greater confidence. So, by insensible degrees, a young man of our generation acquires, in his own eyes, a kind of roving judicial commission through the ages; and, having once escaped the perils of the Freemans and the Furnivalls, sets himself up to right the wrongs of


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Page:R L Stevenson 1917 Familiar studies of men and books.djvu/8

 universal history and criticism. Now, it is one thing to write with enjoyment on a subject while the story is hot in your mind from recent reading, coloured with recent prejudice; and it is quite another business to put these writings coldly forth again in a bound volume. We are most of us attached to our opinions; that is one of the "natural affections" of which we hear so much in youth; but few of us are altogether free from paralysing doubts and scruples. For my part, I have a small idea of the degree of accuracy possible to man, and I feel sure these studies teem with error. One and all were written with genuine interest in the subject; many, however, have been conceived and finished with imperfect knowledge; and all have lain, from beginning to end, under the disadvantages inherent in this style of writing.

Of these disadvantages a word must here be said. The writer of short studies, having to condense in a few pages the events of a whole lifetime, and the effect on his own mind of many various volumes, is bound, above all things, to make that condensation logical and striking. For the only justification of his writing at all is that he shall present a brief, reasoned, and memorable view.


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Page:R L Stevenson 1917 Familiar studies of men and books.djvu/9

 By the necessity of the case, all the more neutral circumstances are omitted from his narrative; and that of itself, by the negative exaggeration of which I have spoken in the text, lends to the matter in hand a certain false and specious glitter. By the necessity of the case, again, he is forced to view his subject throughout in a particular illumination, like a studio artifice. Like Hales with Pepys, he must nearly break his sitter's neck to get the proper shadows on the portrait. It is from one side only that he has time to represent his subject. The side selected will either be the one most striking to himself, or the one most obscured by controversy; and in both cases that will be the one most liable to strained and sophisticated reading. In a biography, this and that is displayed; the hero is seen at home, playing the flute; the different tendencies of his work come, one after another, into notice; and thus something like a true, general impression of the subject may at last be struck. But in the short study, the writer, having seized his "point of view," must keep his eye steadily to that. He seeks, perhaps, rather to differentiate than truly to characterise. The proportions of the sitter must be sacrificed to the pro-


text:
Page:A narrative of the life of Solomon Mack.djvu/3

 A

OF THE LIFE OF

CONTAINING

AN ACCOUNT

OF THE MANY SEVERE ACCIDENTS HE MET WITH DURING A LONG SERIES OF YEARS,

TOGETHER. WITH

THE EXTRAORDINARY MANNER IN WHICH. HE WAS CONVERTED TO THE

TO WHICH IS ADDED,

A NUMBER HYMNS COMPOSED ON THE DEATH OF SEVERAL OF HIS

RELATIONS.

WINDSOR.

PRINTED AT THE EXPENCE OF THE AUTHOR.


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 portions of the portrait; the lights are heightened, the shadows overcharged; the chosen expression, continually forced, may degenerate at length into a grimace; and we have at best something of a caricature, at worst a calumny. Hence, if they be readable at all, and hang together by their own ends, the peculiar convincing force of these brief representations. They take so little a while to read, and yet in that little while the subject is so repeatedly introduced in the same light and with the same expression, that, by sheer force of repetition, that view is imposed upon the reader. The two English masters of the style, Macaulay and Carlyle, largely exemplify its dangers. Carlyle, indeed, had so much more depth and knowledge of the heart, his portraits of mankind are felt and rendered with so much more poetic comprehension, and he, like his favourite Ram Dass, had a fire in his belly so much more hotly burning than the patent reading lamp by which Macaulay studied, that it seems at first sight hardly fair to bracket them together. But the "point of view" was imposed by Carlyle on the men he judged of in his writings with an austerity not only cruel but almost stupid. They are too often broken outright on the Procrustean xi


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 bed; they are probably always disfigured. The rhetorical artifice of Macaulay is easily spied; it will take longer to appreciate the moral bias of Carlyle. So with all writers who insist on forcing some significance from all that comes before them; and the writer of short studies is bound, by the necessity of the case, to write entirely in that spirit. What he cannot vivify he should omit.

Had it been possible to rewrite some of these papers, I hope I should have had the courage to attempt it. But it is not possible. Short studies are, or should be, things woven like a carpet, from which it is impossible to detach a strand. What is perverted has its place there for ever, as a part of the technical means by which what is right has been presented. It is only possible to write another study, and then, with a new "point of view," would follow new perversions and perhaps a fresh caricature. Hence, it will be, at least, honest to offer a few grains of salt to be taken with the text; and as some words of apology, addition, correction, or amplification fall to be said on almost every study in the volume, it will be most simple to run them over in their order. But this must not be taken as a propitiatory offering to the gods of shipwreck: I


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 trust my cargo unreservedly to the chances of the sea; and do not, by criticising myself, seek to disarm the wrath of other and less partial critics.

Hugo's Romances.—This is an instance of the "point of view." The five romances studied with a different purpose might have given different results, even with a critic so warmly interested in their favour. The great contemporary master of wordmanship, and indeed of all literary arts and technicalities, had not unnaturally dazzled a beginner. But it is best to dwell on merits, for it is these that are most often overlooked.

Burns.—I have left the introductory sentences on Principal Shairp, partly to explain my own paper, which was merely supplemental to his amiable but imperfect book, partly because that book appears to me truly misleading both as to the character and the genius of Burns. This seems ungracious, but Mr. Shairp has himself to blame; so good a Wordsworthian was out of character upon that stage.

This half apology apart, nothing more falls to be said except upon a remark called forth by my study in the columns of a literary Review. The exact terms in which that sheet disposed of Burns I can-


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 not now recall; but they were to this effect—that Burns was a bad man, the impure vehicle of fine verses; and that this was the view to which all criticism tended. Now I knew, for my own part, that it was with the profoundest pity, but with a growing esteem, that I studied the man's desperate efforts to do right; and the more I reflected, the stranger it appeared to me that any thinking being should feel otherwise. The complete letters shed, indeed, a light on the depths to which Burns had sunk in his character of Don Juan, but they enhance in the same proportion the hopeless nobility of his marrying Jean. That I ought to have stated this more noisily I now see; but that any one should fail to see it for himself, is to me a thing both incomprehensible and worthy of open scorn. If Burns, on the facts dealt with in this study, is to be called a bad man, I question very much whether either I or the writer in the Review have ever encountered what it would be fair to call a good one. All have some fault. The fault of each grinds down the hearts of those about him, and—let us not blink the truth—hurries both him and them into the grave. And when we find a man persevering indeed, in his fault, as all of us do,


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 and openly overtaken, as not all of us are, by its consequences, to gloss the matter over, with too polite biographers, is to do the work of the wrecker disfiguring beacons on a perilous seaboard; but to call him bad, with a self-righteous chuckle, is to be talking in one's sleep with Heedless and Too-bold in the arbour.

Yet it is undeniable that much anger and distress is raised in many quarters by the least attempt to state plainly, what every one well knows, of Burns's profligacy, and of the fatal consequences of his marriage. And for this there are perhaps two subsidiary reasons. For, first, there is, in our drunken land, a certain privilege extended to drunkenness. In Scotland, in particular, it is almost respectable, above all when compared with any "irregularity between the sexes." The selfishness of the one, so much more gross in essence, is so much less immediately conspicuous in its results that our demiurgeous Mrs. Grundy smiles apologetically on its victims. It is often said—I have heard it with these ears—that drunkenness "may lead to vice." Now I did not think it at all proved that Burns was what is called a drunkard; and I was obliged to dwell very plainly on the irregularity


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 and the too frequent vanity and meanness of his relations to women. Hence, in the eyes of many, my study was a step towards the demonstration of Burns's radical badness.

But second, there is a certain class, professors of that low morality so greatly more distressing than the better sort of vice, to whom you must never represent an act that was virtuous in itself, as attended by any other consequences than a large family and fortune. To hint that Burns's marriage had an evil influence is, with this class, to deny the moral law. Yet such is the fact. It was bravely done; but he had presumed too far on his strength. One after another the lights of his life went out, and he fell from circle to circle to the dishonoured sickbed of the end. And surely for any one that has a thing to call a soul he shines out tenfold more nobly in the failure of that frantic effort to do right, than if he had turned on his heel with Worldly Wiseman, married a congenial spouse, and lived orderly and died reputably an old man. It is his chief title that he refrained from "the wrong that amendeth wrong." But the common, trashy mind of our generation is still aghast, like the Jews of old, at any word of an unsuccessful


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 it—and then—well I will yield to nobody in terror; fortunately as I say my terror is a special variety; fortunately because no one can manage their own terror. You can suppress alarm, excitement, fear, fright, and all those small-fry emotions, but the real terror is as dependent on the inner make of you as the colour of your eyes, or the shape of your nose; and when terror ascends its throne in my mind I become preternaturally artful, and intelligent to an extent utterly foreign to my true nature, and save, in the case of close quarters with bad big animals, a feeling of rage against some unknown person that such things as leopards, elephants, crocodiles, &c., should be allowed out loose in that disgracefully dangerous way, I do not think much about it at the time. Whenever I have come across an awful animal in the forest and I know it has seen me I take Jerome's advice, and instead of relying on the power of the human eye rely upon that of the human leg, and effect a masterly retreat in the face of the enemy. If I know it has not seen me I sink in my tracks and keep an eye on it, hoping that it will go away soon. Thus I once came upon a leopard. I had got caught in a tornado in a dense forest. The massive, mighty trees were waving like a wheat-field in an autumn gale in England, and I dare say a field mouse in a wheat-field in a gale would have heard much the same uproar. The tornado shrieked like ten thousand vengeful demons. The great trees creaked and groaned and strained against it and their bush-rope cables groaned and smacked like whips, and ever and anon a thundering crash with snaps like pistol shots told that they and their mighty tree had strained and struggled in vain. The fierce rain came in a roar, tearing to shreds the leaves and blossoms and deluging everything. I was making bad weather of it, and climbing up over a lot of rocks out of a gully bottom where I had been half drowned in a stream, and on getting my head to the level of a block of rock I observed right in front of my eyes, broadside on, maybe a yard off, certainly not more, a big leopard. He was crouching on the ground, with his magnificent head thrown back and his eyes shut. His fore-paws were spread out in front of him and he lashed the ground with his tail, and I grieve to say, in face of that awful danger—I don’t mean me, but the tornado—that


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 depraved creature swore, softly, but repeatedly and profoundly. I did not get all these facts up in one glance, for no sooner did I see him than I ducked under the rocks, and remembered thankfully that leopards are said to have no power of smell. But I heard his observation on the weather, and the flip-flap of his tail on the ground. Every now and then I cautiously took a look at him with one eye round a rock-edge, and he remained in the same position. My feelings tell me he remained there twelve months, but my calmer judgment puts the time down at twenty minutes; and at last, on taking another cautious peep, I saw he was gone. At the time I wished I knew exactly where, but I do not care about that detail now, for I saw no more of him. He had moved off in one of those weird lulls which you get in a tornado, when for a few seconds the wild herd of hurrying winds seem to have lust themselves, and wander round crying and wailing like lost souls, until their common rage seizes them again and they rush back to their work of destruction. It was an immense pleasure to have seen the great creature like that. He was so evidently enraged and baffled by the uproar and dazzled by the floods of lightning that swept down into the deepest recesses of the forest, showing at one second every detail of twig, leaf, branch, and stone round you, and then leaving you in a sort of swirling dark until the next flash came; this, and the great conglomerate roar of the wind, rain and thunder, was enough to bewilder any living thing.

I have never hurt a leopard intentionally; I am habitually kind to animals, and besides I do not think it is ladylike to go shooting things with a gun. Twice, however, I have been in collision with them. On one occasion a big leopard had attacked a dog, who, with her family, was occupying a broken-down hut next to mine. The dog was a half-bred boarhound, and a savage brute on her own account, I, being roused by the uproar, rushed out into the feeble moonlight, thinking she was having one of her habitual turns-up with other dogs, and I saw a whirling mass of animal matter within a yard of me. I fired two mushroom-shaped native stools in rapid succession into the brown of it, and the meeting broke up into a leopard and a dog. The leopard crouched, I think to spring


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xxviii thoughts; I seemed to rejoice in their joys and to sorrow with them in their griefs; and behold, when I came to write of them, my tone was some times hardly courteous and seldom wholly just.

R. L. S.


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 on me. I can see its great, beautiful, lambent eyes still, and I seized an earthen water-cooler and flung it straight at them. It was a noble shot; it burst on the leopard’s head like a shell and the leopard went for bush one time. Twenty minutes after people began to drop in cautiously and inquire if anything was the matter, and I civilly asked them to go and ask the leopard in the bush, but they firmly refused. We found the dog had got her shoulder slit open as if by a blow from a cutlass, and the leopard had evidently seized the dog by the scruff of her neck, but owing to the loose folds of skin no bones were broken and she got round all right after much ointment from me, which she paid me for with several bites. Do not mistake this for a sporting adventure. I no more thought it was a leopard than that it was a lotus when I joined the fight. My other leopard was also after a dog. Leopards always come after dogs, because once upon a time the leopard and the dog were great friends, and the leopard went out one day and left her whelps in charge of the dog, and the dog went out flirting, and a snake came and killed the whelps, so there is ill-feeling to this day between the two. For the benefit of sporting readers whose interest may have been excited by the mention of big game, I may remark that the largest leopard skin I ever measured myself was, tail included, 9 feet 7 inches. It was a dried skin, and every man who saw it said, "It was the largest skin he had ever seen, except one that he had seen somewhere else."

The largest crocodile I ever measured was 22 feet 3 inches, the largest gorilla 5 feet 7 inches, I am assured by the missionaries in Calabar, that there was a python brought into Creek Town in the Rev. Mr. Goldie's time, that extended the whole length of the Creek Town mission-house verandah and to spare. This python must have been over 4o feet. I have not a shadow of doubt it was. Stay-at-home people will always discredit great measurements, but experienced bushmen do not, and after all, if it amuses the stay-at-homes to do so, by all means let them; they have dull lives of it and it don't hurt you, for you know how exceedingly difficult it is to preserve really big things to bring home, and how, half the time, they fall into the hands of people who would not bother


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62 themselves termed it, “the clear small light by which lost jewels can be found.”

The following is a parable of Hillel, which is here cited more to mention that noble, gentle Sage than as a specimen of this class of literature. Hillel belongs to a period earlier than that dealt with in this book, but his loving and pure spirit breathes through the pages of the Talmud and Midrash:


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 their heads to preserve them in a rotting climate like West Africa.

The largest python skin I ever measured was a damaged one, which was 26 feet. There is an immense one hung in front of a house in San Paul de Loanda which you can go and measure yourself with comparative safety any day, and which is, I think, over 20 feet. I never measured this one. The common run of pythons is 10-15 feet, or rather I should say this is about the sized one you find with painful frequency in your chicken-house.

Of the Lubuku secret society I can speak with no personal knowledge. I had a great deal of curious information regarding it from a Bakele woman, who had her information second-hand, but it bears out what Captain Latrobe Bateman says about it in his most excellent book The First Ascent of the Kasai (George Phillip, 1889), and to his account in Note J of the Appendix, I beg to refer the ethnologist. My information also went to show what he calls "a dark inference as to its true nature," a nature not universally common by any means to the African tribal secret society.

In addition to the secret society and the leopard society, there are in the Delta some ju-jus held only by a few great chiefs. The one in Bonny has a complete language to itself, and there is one in Duke Town so powerful that should you desire the death of any person you have only to go and name him before it. "These ju-jus are very swift and sure." I would rather drink than fight with any of them—yes, far.


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Rh debtedness of the Hebrew poets of Italy to Dante.

It is not improbable that Dante was a personal friend of the most noted of these Jewish poets. Immanuel, the son of Solomon of Rome. Like the other Jews of Rome, Immanuel stood in the most friendly relations with Christians, for nowhere was medieval intolerance less felt than in the very seat of the Pope, the head of the Church. Thus, on the one hand Immanuel was a leading member of the synagogue, and, on the other, he carried on a literary correspondence with learned Christians, with poets, and men of science. He was himself a physician, and his poems breathe a scientific spirit. As happened earlier in Spain, the circle of Immanuel regarded verse-making as part of the culture of a scholar. Witty verses, in the form of riddles and epigrams, were exchanged at the meetings of the circle. With these poets, among whom Kalonymos was in-


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returning from Corisco I remained a few weeks in Gaboon, and then regretfully left on the Niger. My regrets, I should say, arose from leaving the charms and interests of Congo Français, and had nothing whatever to do with taking passage on one of the most comfortable ships of all those which call on the Coast.

The Niger was homeward-bound when I joined her, and in due course arrived in Cameroon River, and I was once again under the dominion of Germany. It would be a very interesting thing to compare the various forms of European government in Africa—English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish; but to do so with any justice would occupy more space than I have at my disposal, for the subject is extremely intricate, Each of these forms of government have their good points and their bad. Each of them are dealing with bits of Africa differing from each other—in the nature of their inhabitants and their formation, and so on—so I will not enter into any comparison of them here, but merely remark that, on the whole, German colonial methods in Africa are more akin to English than to French, and that Germany has one of the main English faults in an emphasised state—namely, a want of due appreciation of the work of the men who serve her in Africa. Time after time I have come across cases of German officers in Cameroon who have done their country


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 good and noble service, and who yet, on their return to the Fatherland they have loved so well, have found, not only a want of due reward, but worse. When the flush of enthusiasm for colonial enterprise dies out in Germany—as it may die out in the face of the want of profit from her colonies, arising from a too heavy expenditure of money on them—the sin of her ingratitude to those men who have served her in Cameroon will find her out, and no longer will her best and bravest sons risk their honour in her service. The worst case of German ingratitude to Germans is the last, that of the late Vice-Governor of Cameroon, Herr von Lucke, of whom I shall later have occasion to speak. This fine young officer, full of enthusiasm for his country and devoted to his Emperor, was driven to suicide from a vile lie to the effect that he had spoken, disrespectfully of his Emperor—a lie told by I know not whom, but I presume by some of those in Germany who seem to make it their special mission in life to run down her greatest colony, Cameroon. A more devoted subject, or a truer gentleman and soldier than Herr von Lucke, no country and no ruler ever possessed. I also see in German newspapers that Governor von Puttkamer has been accused of severity to natives in Cameroon, and I and those Englishmen who know him have no hesitation in saying this accusation is also ill-founded; but I hope Germany in carpet slippers and in barracks has by this time realised that it is not fitted to judge Germany in Africa. I will say no more, however, on this subject (for I am devoted through good and ill report to my first-cousins, the German and the Dane), but will return to my own trivial experiences.

From the deck of the Niger I found myself again confronted with my great temptation—the magnificent Mungo Mah Lobeh—the Throne of Thunder. Now it is none of my business to go up mountains. There's next to no fish on them in West Africa, and precious little good rank fetish, as the population on them is sparse—the African, like myself, abhorring cool air. Nevertheless, I feel quite sure that no white man has ever looked on the great Peak of Cameroon without a desire arising in his mind to ascend it and know in detail the highest point on the western side of the


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Rh Space must be found for one other parable, taken (like many other poetical quotations in this volume) from Mrs. Lucas’ translations:

 Simeon ben Migdal, at the close of day, Upon the shores of ocean chanced to stray. And there a man of form and mien uncouth, Dwarfed and misshapen, met he on the way.

Hail, Rabbi.” spoke the stranger passing by, But Simeon thus, discourteous, made reply: Say, are there in thy city many more, Like unto thee, an insult to the eye?”

Nay, that I cannot tell,” the wand’rer said, But if thou wouldst ply the scorner’s trade, Go first and ask the Master Potter why He has a vessel so misshapen made?”

Then (so the legend tells) the Rabbi knew That he had sinned, and prone himself he threw Before the other’s feet, and prayed of him Pardon for the words that now his soul did rue.

But still the other answered as before: Go, in the Potter's car thy plaint outpour, For what am I! His hand has fashioned me, And I in humble faith that hand adore.”

Brethren, do we not often too forget Whose hand it is that many a time has set A radiant soul in an unlovely form, A fair white bird caged in a mouldering net?


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 continent, and indeed one of the highest points in all Africa. Do not, however, imagine that the ascent is a common incident in a coaster’s life; far from it. The coaster as a rule resists the temptation of Mungo firmly, being stronger minded than I am; moreover, he is busy and only too often fever-stricken in the bargain. But I am the exception, I own, and I have given in to the temptation and am the third Englishman to ascend the Peak and the first to have ascended it from the south-east face. The first man to reach the summit was Sir Richard Burton, accompanied by the great botanist, Gustav Mann. He went up, as did the succeeding twenty-five (mostly Germans) from Babundi; a place on the seashore to the west. The first expedition to reach the summit from the side I tackled it was composed of the first lieutenant and doctor of the German man-of-war Hyæna. These gentlemen had accomplished this feat a few weeks before I landed at Victoria to make my attempt. I go into these details so as to excuse myself for subsequently giving you a detailed account of the south-east face of Mungo mah Lobeh.

So great is the majesty and charm of this mountain that the temptation of it is as great to me to-day as it was on the first day I saw it, when I was feeling my way down the West Coast of Africa on the. Lagos in 1893, and it revealed itself by good chance from its surf-washed plinth to its sky-scraping summit. Certainly it is most striking when you see it first, as I first saw it, after coasting for weeks along the low shores and mangrove-fringed rivers of the Niger Delta. Suddenly, right up out of the sea, rises the great mountain to its 13,760 feet, while close at hand, to westward, towers the lovely island mass of Fernando Po to 10,190 feet. But every time you pass it by its beauty grows on you with greater and greater force, though it is never twice the same. Sometimes it is wreathed with indigo-black tornado clouds, sometimes crested with snow, sometimes softly gorgeous with gold, green, and rose-coloured vapours tinted by the setting sun, sometimes completely swathed in dense cloud so that you cannot see it at all; but when you once know it is there it is all the same, and you bow down and worship.


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64

 Nay more, do not life’s times and chances, sent By the great Artificer with intent That they should prove a blessing, oft appear To us a burden that we sore lament?

Ah! soul, poor soul of man! what heavenly fire Would thrill thy depths and love of God inspire, Could’st thou but see the Master hand revealed. Majestic move “earth’s scheme of things entire.”

It cannot be! Unseen he guideth us. But yet our feeble hands, the luminous. Pure lamp of faith can light to glorify. The narrow path that he has traced for us.

Finally, there are the Beast Fables of the Talmud and the Midrash. Most of these were borrowed directly or indirectly from India. We are told in the Talmud that Rabbi Meir knew three hundred Fox Fables, and that with his death (about 290 C. E.) “fabulists ceased to be.” Very few of Meir’s fables are extant, so that it is impossible to gather whether or not they were original. There are only thirty fables in the Talmud and the Midrash, and of these several cannot be parallelled in other literatures. Some of the Talmudic fables are


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 There are only two distinct peaks to this glorious thing that geologists brutally call the volcanic intrusive mass of the Cameroon Mountains, viz., Big Cameroon and Little Cameroon. The latter, Mungo Mah Etindeh, has not yet been scaled, although it is only 5,820 feet. One reason for this is doubtless that the few people in fever-stricken, over-worked West Africa who are able to go up mountains, naturally try for the adjacent Big Cameroon; the other reason is that Mungo Mah Etindeh, to which Burton refers as "the awful form of Little Cameroon," is mostly sheer cliff, and is from foot to summit clothed in an almost impenetrable forest. Behind these two mountains of volcanic origin, which cover an area on an isolated base of between 700 and 800 square miles in extent, there are distinctly visible from the coast two chains of mountains, or I should think one chain deflected, the so-called Rumby


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Rh most straightforward means, and strikes a modern reader as lacking distinction in form. The dead level of commonplace expression is, however, brightened by brilliant passages of frequent occurrence. Prayers, proverbs, parables, and fables, dot the pages of Talmud and Midrash alike. The ancient proverbs of the Jews were more than mere chips from the block of experience. They were poems, by reason of their use of metaphor, alliteration, assonance, and imagination. The Rabbinical proverbs show all these poetical qualities.


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 and Omon ranges. These are no relations of Mungo, being of very different structure and conformation; the geological specimens I have brought from them and from the Cameroons being identified by geologists as respectively schistose grit and vesicular lava.

After spending a few pleasant days in Cameroon River in the society of Frau Plehn, my poor friend Mrs. Duggan having, I ought to say, departed for England on the death of her husband, I went round to Victoria, Ambas Ray, on the Niger, and in spite of being advised solemnly by Captain Davies to "chuck it as it was not a picnic," I started to attempt the Peak of Cameroons as follows.

September 20th, 1895—Left Victoria at 7.30, weather fine. Herr von Lucke, though sadly convinced, by a series of experiments he has been carrying on ever since I landed, and I expect before, that you cannot be in three places at one time, is still trying to do so; or more properly speaking he starts an experiment series for four places, man-like, instead of getting ill as I should under the circumstances, and he kindly comes with me as far as the bridge across the lovely cascading Lukole River, and then goes back at about seven miles an hour to look after Victoria and his sick subordinates in detail.

I, with my crew, keep on up the grand new road the Government is making, which when finished is to go from Ambas Bay to Buca, 3,000 feet up on the mountain’s side. This road is quite the most magnificent of roads, as regards breadth and general intention, that I have seen anywhere in West Africa, and it runs through a superbly beautiful country. It is, I should say, as broad as Oxford Street; on either side of it are deep drains to carry off the surface waters, with banks of varied beautiful tropical shrubs and ferns, behind which rise, 100 to 200 feet high, walls of grand forest, the column-like tree-stems either hung with flowering, climbing plants and ferns, or showing soft red and soft grey shafts sixty to seventy feet high without an interrupting branch. Behind this again rise the lovely foot hills of Mungo, high up against the sky, coloured the most perfect soft dark blue.

The whole scheme of colour is indescribably rich and full in


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 tone. The very earth is a velvety red brown, and the butterflies—which abound—show themselves off in the sunlight, in their canary-coloured, crimson, and peacock-blue liveries, to perfection. After five minutes' experience of the road I envy those butterflies. I do not believe there is a more lovely road in this world, and besides, it's a noble and enterprising thing of a Government to go and make it, considering the climate and the country; but to get any genuine pleasure out of it, it is requisite to hover in a bird- or butterfly-like way, for of all the truly awful things to walk on, that road, when I was on it, was the worst.

Of course this arose from its not being finished, not having its top on in fact: the bit that was finished, and had got its top on, for half a mile beyond the bridge, you could go over in a Bath chair. The rest of it made you fit for one for the rest of your natural life, for it was one mass of broken lava rock, and here and there leviathan tree-stumps that had been partially blown up with gunpowder.

When we near the forest end of the road, it comes on to rain heavily, and I see a little house on the left-hand side, and a European engineer superintending a group of very cheerful natives felling timber. He most kindly invites me to take shelter, saying it cannot rain as heavily as this for long. My men also announce a desire for water, and so I sit down and chat with the engineer under the shelter of his verandah, while the men go to the water-hole, some twenty minutes off.

The engineer is an Alsatian, and has been engaged on the Congo Free State Railway, which he abandoned because they put him up at the end station, on those awful Palaballa mountains. Four men who were at the station died of fever and he got it himself, and applied for leave to go down to Matadi to see a doctor. His request was peremptorily refused, and he was told he must remain at his post until another engineer came up to take over charge. He stayed for some days waiting, but no one came or gave signs of coming, and he found the company had given all their employés orders that he was not to be allowed on a train, so he walked down to Matadi. How he did it, knowing that