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64 years before by Professor, who went on deputation to Benares on purpose. But a reform conducted on oriental principles, means exactly the reverse of what is usually understood by a reform. In this case, correctness can be obtained only at the expense of increased absurdity; and the nearer we approach to the standard, the further we must depart from truth and reason.

In the passage first quoted, Bishop Heber calls attention to a paper sent to him by Ram Mohun Roy to be put into Lord Amherst’s hands, “which for its good English, good sense, and forcible arguments, is a real curiosity as coming from an Asiatic.” This paper was a remonstrance against the establishment of the Sanskrit college at Calcutta, which was founded by Lord Amherst, in imitation of the older institution at Benares, long after the natives had become awakened to the value of European instruction, and had instituted from their own funds, without any assistance from the government, the Hindu college at Calcutta and the English school at Benares described by Bishop Heber, for the purpose of securing for their children the benefit of such instruction. Ram Mohun Roy had the improvement of his countrymen sincerely at heart, and he was sufficiently


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Rh tioned, few are of more abiding interest than that which concerns itself again with Harvey’s realm and the finer processes of the circulation. How little we as yet know about these conditions, but surely distraught function is busy with them! Think what suggestions are contained in such an hypothesis as that of vascular spasm, or, to put it more generrally, of peripheral stasis! Long years ago our trusty and well-beloved Fellow, Sir Clifford Allbutt, now Regius Professor of Medicine at Cambridge, wrote a short paper on Mental Anxiety as a cause of Granular Kidney. It was to me one of those illuminating suggestions that have added an interest to my life. I believe it to be as abundantly true as I do that similar malign influences, by dislocation in some way, as I suppose, of our correlated impulses, make for cancer. You must have often seen the nervous, anxious, worried man, with the phenomena of high tension, and have felt able to predict, in posse, the future disease of this organ or of that. Such conditions, real diseases though they be, are but functional, but what a wealth of pathology is wrapped up in them!

Thus, as it is with life, so, in a measure, is it with its diseases. Life itself is a developing function; it comes to each one of us from the past, with innumerable atomic differences gathered by the way, and it passes on to each of our successors, similarly changing. So that Professor Arthur Keith, from another place, can say to us that a thousand years is as one day, so like is this to that; yet also one day is as a thousand years, and in that day so multitudinous and infinite have been the changes that life now is another life—the same, yet not the same.

This all too brief survey must suffice to show how

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Rh acquainted both with oriental and European literature to be able to form a correct opinion of their relative value. His address to Lord Amherst on this occasion deserves the eulogium bestowed on it by Bishop Heber; and as it is quite to the point, I shall quote it entire.

“To His Excellency the Right Honourable Lord Amherst, Governor General in Council.

“My Lord, “Humbly reluctant as the natives of India are to obtrude upon the notice of government the sentiments they entertain on any public measure, there are circumstances when silence would be carrying this respectful feeling to culpable excess. The present rulers of India, coming from a distance of many thousand miles to govern a people whose language, literature, manners, customs, and ideas, are almost entirely new and strange to them, cannot easily become so intimately acquainted with their real circumstances as the natives of the country are themselves. We should therefore be guilty of a gross dereliction of duty to ourselves, and afford our rulers just ground of complaint at our apathy, did we omit on occasions of importance like the present to supply them


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 and if you will go along with me, you shall fare as I my self; for there where I go, is enough, and to spare; Come away, and prove my words.

Obst. What are the things you seek, since you leave all the World to find them?

Chr. I seek an Inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away; and it is laid up in Heaven, and fast there, to be bestowed at the time appointed, on them that diligently seek it.

Ob. Tush, said Obstinate, away with your Book; will you go back with us, or no?

Ch. No, not I, said the other; because I have laid my hand to the Plow.

Ob. Come then, Neighbour Pliable, let us turn again, and go home without him; There is a Company of these Craz'd-headed Coxcombs, that when they take a fancy by the end, are wiser in their own eyes then seven men that can render a Reason.

Pli. Then said Pliable, Don't revile; if what the good Christian says is true, the things he looks after, are better then ours: my heart inclines to go with my Neighbour.


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Rh ment, it will consequently promote a more liberal and enlightened system of instruction; embracing mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy, with other useful sciences, which may be accomplished with the sum proposed by employing a few gentlemen of talents and learning educated in Europe, and providing a college furnished with necessary books, instruments, and other apparatus.

“In representing this subject to your Lordship I conceive myself discharging a solemn duty which I owe to my countrymen, and also to that enlightened sovereign and legislature which have extended their benevolent care to this distant land, actuated by a desire to improve its inhabitants, and therefore humbly trust you will excuse the liberty I have taken in thus expressing my sentiments to your Lordship.

“I have the honour, &c. (Signed) “.”

This memorial was handed over by Lord Amherst to the education committee, and the fate it met with may be conjectured from the spirit which then animated that body. The memorial remained unanswered, and the design of founding a new Sanskrit college was carried into execution.

The opinion entertained on this subject by an


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 my dear friend Garrick, we'll snuff the candles bright,—sweep the stage with a new broom,—draw up the curtain, and exhibit my uncle Toby dressed in a new character, throughout which the world can have no idea how he will act: and yet, if pity be akin to love,—and bravery no alien to it, you have seen enough of my uncle Toby in these, to trace these family likenesses, betwixt the two passions (in case there is one) to your heart's content.

Vain science! thou assists us in no case of this kind—and thou puzzlest us in every one.

There was, Madam, in my uncle Toby, a singleness of heart which misled him so far out of the little serpentine tracks in which things of this nature usually go on; you can—you can have no conception of it: with this, there


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 was a plainness and simplicity of thinking, with such an unmistrusting ignorance of the plies and foldings of the heart of woman;—and so naked and defenceless did he stand before you, (when a siege was out of his head) that you might have stood behind any one of your serpentine walks, and shot my uncle Toby ten times in a day, through his liver, if nine times in a day, Madam, had not served your purpose.

With all this, Madam,—and what confounded every thing as much on the other hand, my uncle Toby had that unparalleled modesty of nature I once told you of, and which, by the bye, stood eternal sentry upon his feelings, that you might as soon—But where am I going? these reflections croud in upon me ten pages at least too soon, and take up that time, which I ought to bestow upon facts.


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Rh “We are by no means sanguine in our expectation, that the slight reforms which you have proposed to introduce will be followed by much improvement; and we agree with you in certain doubts, whether a greater degree of activity, even if it were produced on the part of the masters, would, in present circumstances, be attended with the most desirable results.

“With respect to the sciences, it is worse than a waste of time to employ persons either to teach or to learn them in the state in which they are found in the oriental books. As far as any historical documents may be found in the oriental languages, what is desirable is, that they should be translated; and this, it is evident, will best be accomplished by Europeans who have acquired the requisite knowledge. Beyond these branches, what remains in oriental literature is poetry; but it never has been thought necessary to establish colleges for the cultivation of poetry, nor is it certain that this would be the most effectual expedient for the attainment of the end.

“In the meantime, we wish you to be fully apprized of our zeal for the progress and improvement of education among the natives of India, and of our willingness to make considerable sacrifices to that important end, if proper means for


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28 much pathology there is yet in front of us, if the future is to be disentailed of its heritage of disease, and how difficult it must be to acquire the information necessary to enable us to bring the aid we would to sick humanity.

The outcome seems clearly to be: Experiment, and ever more experiment. W e come, indeed, back to Harvey’s teaching—to search out the secrets of Nature by such means. But, to that word “experiment” attaches no narrow meaning, and it is to humanity at large that I would now say, that it is quite as much your duty, as far as in you lies, as it is that of special scientific inquiry, to search out thus, by way of experiment, those secrets of nature that are seemingly so elusive.

Look a little closer into this matter, O man of the world! To give an illustration that may appeal to you. To touch effectively that liver of which we are all so tenderly conscious, and regard with such blind solicitude, we have to deal with an organ that is occupied in coining the energy of its life out of elements, organic and inorganic, that are for it, as yet, outside life. The continuity of life, therefore, itself becomes an experiment. Will this grouping of substances, this biochemical combination, come off, or will the individual atoms fail to synthesize, and fall back again into the sea of odds and ends, still waiting for their purpose to appear?

Will the action, whatever it be that may be done by you, help it, hinder it, or be quite inoperative and unsuited to the end? Who can tell? The vitality and activity of the organ are pioneering on the outskirts of the origin of life, where their very existence is always at stake, and where the requisites are quite unfamiliar to you and me.

Clearly every single dose of medicine, every act

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Rh done to influence such occult conditions, is an experiment. The social instinct is very hypersensitive to the use of this word in relation to disease; but why? We all, when ill, become the prey of experiment. Even the man who does nothing is not exempt. I suppose that there has never been a dose of medicine administered, however much we think to have divined its action, that has not been in some measure an experiment. "It subdues pain,” you say. Yes. “It strengthens the heart.” Maybe. “It arrests disease.” No doubt. But how and why? These are the questions. And if it does these things for one of us, why does it fail for others? Further, what else is it doing in the economy at large? Is its mission ended when your behests are accomplished? What about thyroid extract, Coley’s fluid, atoxyl, and all the vaccines, sera, and so on, that are now coming into use—all powerful, even heroic, attempts to cure disease, what are they all in their use but experiments? And although the wind be tempered as far as possible to the shorn lamb—it is here that knowledge and experience come in—they are, and must be, experiments attended with risk. There are some who think and speak of experiments as if they were performed only upon the lower animals and the poor who cannot help themselves. The fact is that by experiments the worlds have grown, that experimentation is the one fundamental necessity of all progress, and the whole of animal life—life of every kind—to reap the benefit must share the risks and chance the pain. So each and all of us must think on these things, and try to give such individual thought and observation as may be possible to the how and why of ordinary physiological reactions. We depend upon leechdom too

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 "Do you?"

"Yes, three robbers, Berchier called Bicêtre, Caffin, and Linois, whom I will give up to him in the actual fact, as sure as you and I make two."

"If you can, why don't you? That would be an excellent beginning."

"I know it, but—"

"Are you afraid to make yourself seem visible in the business? If you perform services, I will do my best to ensure your admission."

"Ah, my friend, you pour balm into my mind; you will procure my admission."

"Oh that will be easily effected."

"Come then, a bumper to luck," cried Hotot, transborted with joy.

"Yes, let us drink to your approaching reception."

"And the sooner the better."

Hotot was enchanted, and already laid down a line of conduct; he had his dreams of happiness, and there was in his very legs those inquietudes of hope which are produced by the prospect of coming pleasure. I was afraid lest he should quit his bed, when at length some person knocked at the door; it was Gaffré, holding in his hand a small bottle of brandy, which Annette had given to him. "Traiffe," said my Israelitish colleague as he entered, in that Hebrew slang, which was doubtless the favourite language of our patron, Monsieur Judas. Traiffe and maron are one and the same thing. As I pique myself on being a Hebraist of the first order, I instantly comprehended him, and saw how to play my cards. Whilst I was pouring out for the neophyte the nectar of a policeman, Gaffré replaced the shoes. We continued to chat and drink, and before we parted, I learnt that the plunder of the lead was that of which Hotot proposed to point out the perpetrators. The father Bellemont, a blacksmith of the Rue de la Tannerie, was the fence whom he mentioned to me.

As these details were interesting, I told Hotot that I


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12 When a reviewed author, as very often happens, writes to the editor of the reviewing journal to complain of what has been said of him, he frequently—even more often than not—complains of 'your reviewer.' He sometimes presumes that 'you' have, 'through inadvertence' in this instance, 'allowed some incompetent person to lower the character of your usually accurate pages.' Sometimes he talks of 'your scribe,' and, in extreme cases, even of 'your hack.' All this shows perfect ignorance of the journal system, except where it is done under the notion of letting the editor down easy. But the editor never accepts the mercy.

All that is in a journal, except what is marked as from a correspondent, either by the editor himself or by the correspondent's real or fictitious signature, is published entirely on editorial responsibility, as much as if the editor had written it himself. The editor, therefore, may claim, and does claim and exercise, unlimited right of omission, addition, and alteration. This is so well understood that the editor performs his last function on the last revise without the 'contributor' knowing what is done. The word contributor is the proper one; it implies that he furnishes materials without stating what he furnishes or how much of it is accepted, or whether he be the only contributor. All this applies both to political and literary journals. No editor acknowledges the right of a contributor to withdraw an article, if he should find alterations in the proof sent to him for correction which would make him wish that the article should not appear. If the demand for suppression were made—I say nothing about what might be granted to request—the answer would be, 'It is not your article, but mine; I have all the responsibility; if it should contain a libel, I could not give you up, even at your own desire. You have furnished me with materials, on the known and common understanding that I was to use them at my discretion, and you have no right to impede my operations by making the appearance of the article depend on your approbation of my use of your materials.'

There is something to be said for this system, and something against it—I mean simply on its own merits. But the all-conquering argument in its favour is, that the only practicable alternative is the modern French plan of no articles without the signature of the writers. I need not discuss this plan; there is no collective party in favour of it. Some may think it is not the only alternative; they have not produced any intermediate proposal in which any dozen of persons have concurred. Many will say, Is not all this, though perfectly correct, well known to be matter of form? Is it not practically the course of events that an engaged contributor writes the article, and sends it to the editor, who admits it as written—substantially, at least? And is it not often very well known, by style and in other ways, who it was wrote the article? This system is matter of form just as much as loaded pistols are matter of form so long as the wearer is not assailed; but matter of form takes the form of matter in the pulling of a trigger,


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Rh so soon as the need arises. Editors and contributors who can work together find each other out by elective affinity, so that the common run of events settles down into most articles appearing much as they are written. And there are two safety-valves; that is, when judicious persons come together. In the first place, the editor himself, when he has selected his contributor, feels that the contributor is likely to know his business better than an editor can teach him; in fact, it is on that principle that the selection is made. But he feels that he is more competent than the writer to judge questions of strength and of tone, especially when the general purpose of the journal is considered, of which the editor is the judge without appeal. An editor who meddles with substantive matter is likely to be wrong, even when he knows the subject; but one who prunes what he deems excess, is likely to be right, even when he does not know the subject. In the second place, a contributor knows that he is supplying an editor, and learns, without suppressing truth or suggesting falsehood, to make the tone of his communications suit the periodical in which they are to appear. Hence it very often arises that a reviewed author, who thinks he knows the name of his reviewer, and proclaims it with expressions of dissatisfaction, is only wrong in supposing that his critic has given all his mind. It has happened to myself more than once, to be announced as the author of articles which I could not have signed, because they did not go far enough to warrant my affixing my name to them as to a sufficient expression of my own opinion.

There are two other ways in which a reviewed author may be wrong about his critic. An editor frequently makes slight insertions or omissions—I mean slight in quantity of type—as he goes over the last proof; this he does in a comparative hurry, and it may chance that he does not know the full sting of his little alteration. The very bit which the writer of the book most complains of may not have been seen by the person who is called the writer of the article until after the appearance of the journal; nay, if he be one of those—few, I daresay—who do not read their own articles, may never have been seen by him at all. Possibly, the insertion or omission would not have been made if the editor could have had one minute's conversation with his contributor. Sometimes it actually contradicts something which is allowed to remain in another part of the article; and sometimes, especially in the case of omission, it renders other parts of the article unintelligible. These are disadvantages of the system, and a judicious editor is not very free with his unus et alter pannus. Next, readers in general, when they see the pages of a journal with the articles so nicely fitting, and so many ending with the page or column, have very little notion of the cutting and carving which goes to the process. At the very last moment arises the necessity of some trimming of this kind; and the editor, who would gladly call the writer to counsel if he could, is obliged to strike out ten or twenty lines. He must do his best, but it may chance that the omission selected would take from the writer the


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14 power of owning the article. A few years ago, an able opponent of mine wrote to a journal some criticisms upon an article which he expressly attributed to me. I replied as if I were the writer, which, in a sense, I was. But if any one had required of me an unmodified 'Yes' or 'No' to the question whether I wrote the article, I must, of two falsehoods, have chosen 'No': for certain omissions, dictated by the necessities of space and time, would have amounted, had my signature been affixed, to a silent surrender of points which, in my own character, I must have strongly insisted on, unless I had chosen to admit certain inferences against what I had previously published in my own name. I may here add that the forms of journalism obliged me in this case to remind my opponent that it could not be permitted to me, in that journal, either to acknowledge or deny the authorship of the articles. The cautions derived from the above remarks are particularly wanted with reference to the editorial comments upon letters of complaint. There is often no time to send these letters to the contributor, and even when this can be done, an editor is—and very properly—never of so editorial a mind as when he is revising the comments of a contributor upon an assailant of the article. He is then in a better position as to information, and a more critical position as to responsibility. Of course, an editor never meddles, except under notice, with the letter of a correspondent, whether of a complainant, of a casual informant, or of a contributor who sees reason to become a correspondent. Omissions must sometimes be made when a grievance is too highly spiced. It did once happen to me that a waggish editor made an insertion without notice in a letter signed by me with some fiction, which insertion contained the name of a friend of mine, with a satire which I did not believe, and should not have written if I had. To my strong rebuke, he replied—'I know it was very wrong; but human nature could not resist.' But this was the only occasion on which such a thing ever happened to me.

I daresay what I have written may give some of your readers to understand some of the pericula et commoda of modern journalism. I have known men of deep learning and science as ignorant of the prevailing system as any uneducated reader of a newspaper in a country town. I may perhaps induce some writers not to be too sure about this, that, or the other person. They may detect their reviewer, and they may be safe in attributing to him the general matter and tone of the article. But about one and another point, especially if it be a short and stinging point, they may very easily chance to be wrong. It has happened to myself, and within a few weeks to publication, to be wrong in two ways in reading a past article—to attribute to editorial insertion what was really my own, and to attribute to myself what was really editorial insertion.

What is a man to do who is asked whether he wrote an article? He may, of course, refuse to answer; which is regarded as an


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Rh admission. He may say, as Swift did to Serjeant Bettesworth, 'Sir, when I was a young man, a friend of mine advised me, whenever I was asked whether I had written a certain paper, to deny it; and I accordingly tell that I did not write it.' He may say, as I often do, when charged with having invented a joke, story, or epigram, 'I want all the credit I can get, and therefore I always acknowledge all that is attributed to me, truly or not; the story, &c. is mine.' But for serious earnest, in the matter of imputed criticism, the answer may be, 'The article was of my material, but the editor has not let it stand as I gave it; I cannot own it as a whole.' He may then refuse to be particular as to the amount of the editor's interference. Of this there are two extreme cases. The editor may have expunged nothing but a qualifying adverb. Or he may have done as follows. We all remember the account of Adam which satirizes woman, but eulogizes her if every second and third line be transposed. As in—

If this had been the article, and a gallant editor had made the transpositions, the author could not with truth acknowledge. If the alteration were only an omitted adverb, or a few things of the sort, the author could not with truth deny. In all that comes between, every man must be his own casuist. I stared, when I was a boy, to hear grave persons approve of Sir Walter Scott's downright denial that he was the author of Waverley, in answer to the Prince Regent's downright question. If I remember rightly, Samuel Johnson would have approved of the same course.

It is known that, whatever the law gives, it also gives all that is necessary to full possession; thus a man whose land is environed by land of others has a right of way over the land of these others. By analogy, it is argued that when a man has a right to his secret, he has a right to all that is necessary to keep it, and that is not unlawful. If, then, he can only keep his secret by denial, he has a right to denial. This I admit to be an answer against all men except the denier himself; if conscience and self-respect will allow it, no one can impeach it. But the question cannot be solved on a case. That question is, A lie, is it malum in se, without reference to meaning and circumstances? This is a question with two sides to it. Cases may be invented in which a


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16 lie is the only way of preventing a murder, or in which a lie may otherwise save a life. In these cases it is difficult to acquit, and almost impossible to blame; discretion introduced, the line becomes very hard to draw.

I know but one work which has precisely—as at first appears—the character and object of my Budget. It is the Review of the Works of the Royal Society of London, by Sir John Hill, M.D. (1751 and 1780, 4to.) This man offended many: the Royal Society, by his work, the medical profession, by inventing and selling extra-pharmacopœian doses; Garrick, by resenting the rejection of a play. So Garrick wrote:

I have fired at the Royal Society and at the medical profession, but I have given a wide berth to the drama and its wits; so there is no epigram out against me, as yet. He was very able and very eccentric. Dr. Thomson (Hist. Roy. Soc.) says he has no humour, but Dr. Thomson was a man who never would have discovered humour.

Mr. Weld (Hist. Roy. Soc.) backs Dr. Thomson, but with a remarkable addition. Having followed his predecessor in observing that the Transactions in Martin Folkes's time have an unusual proportion of trifling and puerile papers, he says that Hill's book is a poor attempt at humour, and glaringly exhibits the feelings of a disappointed man. It is probable, he adds, that the points told with some effect on the Society; for shortly after its publication the Transactions possess a much higher scientific value.

I copy an account which I gave elsewhere.

When the Royal Society was founded, the Fellows set to work to prove all things, that they might hold fast that which was good. They bent themselves to the question whether sprats were young herrings. They made a circle of the powder of a unicorn's horn, and set a spider in the middle of it; 'but it immediately ran out.' They tried several times, and the spider 'once made some stay in the powder.' They inquired into Kenelm Digby's sympathetic powder. 'Magnetic cures being discoursed of, Sir Gilbert Talbot promised to communicate what he knew of sympathetical cures; and those members who had any of the powder of sympathy, were desired to bring some of it at the next meeting.'

June 21, 1661, certain gentlemen were appointed 'curators of the proposal of tormenting a man with the sympathetic powder'; I cannot find any record of the result. And so they went on


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 should instantly communicate them to M. Henry, and recommended him to find out the place where the three thieves slept. He promised to point out the house, and when we had agreed upon preliminaries, we separated. Gaffré had not left me. "Well!" said he, "it is he, the shoes fit precisely, and the impression is very deep. In leaping from the window he must have fallen with all his weight." This was the signification of the word traiffe; and now I had only to take measures accordingly. I had already explained Hotot's conduct to myself, and I readily conceited the part he wished to play. In the first place, it was clear that he committed the robbery with the intention of making his profit by it, but he was chasing two hares at once; by pointing out his accomplices he attained his second object, that of making himself of consequence in the eyes of the police, that he might thereby be rèestablisbed in their employ. I trembled to think of the consequences of such a combination. Wretch, said I to myself, I will contrive that he may have the recompense of his crime, and if the unhappy creatures who have aided him in his expedition are convicted, it is but just that he should be a partaker of their sentence. I did not hesitate to believe him the most guilty of the whole, and from what I knew of his character, it seemed most probable to me that he had led them on to it, only to contrive a job; I even went so far as to think that it was possible that he alone had committed the robbery, but thought it advisable to accuse of his own crime those individuals whose misconduct made them suspected characters. In each of these suppositions, Hotot was a great rogue, and I determined to rid society of him.

I knew that he had two mistresses, one Emilie Simonet, who had several children by him, and with whom he lived as a husband; the other Félicité Renaud, a common girl, who doated upon him. I thought I could contrive to attain my ends by setting these rivals at loggerheads, and by their mutual jealousy light the


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 flambeau that was to show him to justice. Hotot was watched, and in the afternoon I learned that he was in the Champs ElyséesÉlysées [sic] with Félicité. I went to him there, and taking him aside, told him that I required him on an affair of extreme importance.

"You must know," I said, "you are to be apprehended and taken to prison, where you must pump a cove that we shall nab this evening. As you will be in quod before him, he will not take you for a sneak, and when he in brought in you can easily plant yourself upon him."

Hotot accepted the proposition with joy. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "I am then a spy once more! You may rely on me, but I must first take leave of Félicité." He went towards her, and as the hour of nocturnal seductions, or padding the pavé for the amorously disposed, was nigh, she was not angry with him for leaving her so soon.

"Now you have got rid of the mot, I will give you instructions. You know the little ken on the boulevard Montmartre in front of the TheatreThéâtre [sic] des Variétés?"

"Yes, Brunet's."

"Well, go there and seat yourself at the further end of the room with a bottle of beer, and when you see two of the inspectors of the officer of peace, Mercier, enter-you know them?"

"Know them! do you ask me such a question, who am an old trooper?"

"Well, as you know them it will be all right: when they come in, make them a sign that it is you, that they may not mistake you for any other person."

"You be easy, they will not mistake me."

"You know it will be disagreeable if they should lay hands on some unlucky citizen."

"Oh! there shall be no mistake, I shall be there, and then the signal agreed on. The signal will do all."

"You understand clearly?"

"Yes, do you take me for a fool? I will not give them the trouble to take a second glance."


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XVI]

Then suddenly, on all sides, were heard great noise and cries.

From dogs and men together such tumult did arise

That all the woodland echoed, and eke the mountain-side

For four-and-twenty leash-hounds the hunters had untied.

Then many a forest creature must unto death be done,

Since every hunter fancied that he might be the one

To win the prize for hunting: but no award could be

Until beside the camp-fire stout Siegfried they did see.

The hunting, though ’twas over, was not yet brought to end:

For some, with burdens laden, to camp their way did wend,

Of beast fells bringing many, and game a goodly store.

What piles of it for cooking the king’s camp-servants bore!

Then to the high-born hunters the king would have it known

That he to dine was ready. Then all at once was blown

A hunting-horn, right loudly, that all might know around

That now the noble princes would at the camp be found.

Quoth one of Siegfried’s huntsmen: “Sir, I have heard but now,

By sounding of a horn, that ’tis time for us to go

Back to the camp: in answer I will my bugle wind.”

Then went the loud blasts flying their followers to find.

‘Then spake the noble Siegfried: “Now let us leave the wood!”

His hunter bore him smoothly: and all in haste they rode.

They startled, with their clatter, a grisly brute and grim,—

A savage bear. Then, turning to those who followed him,


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 "All right, they shall have the countersign, and as soon as they perceive you, they will know what they are to do: they will arrest and convey you to the station of Lycée, where you will stay two or three hours, and then the youth you are to pump, having already seen you there, will not be surprised to meet you again at the depot."

"Give yourself no uneasiness; I will do the trick so well, that I will defy the most downy cove to discover that I am not situated exactly like himself. Besides, you will see how cleverly I do my work, to the very letter."

He seemed so hearty in the business, that I was really sorry at being compelled to deceive him thus, but, reflecting on his conduct towards his comrades, the feeling of pity which I had momentarily experienced was dissipated never to return. He gave me his hand, and we parted; he walked with all the velocity of eager satisfaction; the earth seemed scarcely to bear him. On my part, no less swift than he, I flew to the prefecture, where I found the inspectors I had mentioned to him; one of them was named Cochois, now a watchman at Bicêtre; I told them what they were to do and followed them. They entered the house.

Scarcely had they crossed the threshold, when Hotot, faithful to the orders I had given him, pointed to himself with his finger, like a man who says, "It is me." At this signal the inspectors went up to him, and asked for his letters of protection. Hotot, as proud as Artabanes, answered that he had none. "Then you must come with us," was the immediate rejoinder, and to prevent him from running away, if he should be so inclined, they secured his hands with cords. During this operation, a sort of internal content overspread the face of Hotot: he was happy to find himself caught: be blessed his bonds: he contemplated them almost with love, for, as he believed, all this preparation was but a ceremonious form; and in fact, like some philosopher of antiquity, he could boast of being free in his chains;


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 and they had to sweep away their baggage as fast as possible, and make off to the barn where they harboured, cold, wet, and supperless. In the morning, a dear friend of mine, who has as warm a heart for strollers as I have myself, made a little collection, and sent it by my hands to comfort them for their disappointment. I gave it to the father; he thanked me cordially, and we drank a cup together in the kitchen, talking of roads, and audiences, and hard times.

When I was going, up got my old stroller, and off with his hat. "I am afraid," said he, "that Monsieur will think me altogether a beggar; but I have another demand to make upon him." I began to hate him on the spot. "We play again to-night," he went on. "Of course, I shall refuse to accept any more money from Monsieur and his friends, who have been already so liberal. But our programme of to-


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 night is something truly creditable; and I cling to the idea that Monsieur will honour us with his presence." And then, with a shrug and a smile: "Monsieur understands—the vanity of an artist!" Save the mark! The vanity of an artist! That is the kind of thing that reconciles me to life: a ragged, tippling, incompetent old rogue, with the manners of a gentleman, and the vanity of an artist, to keep up his self-respect!

But the man after my own heart is M. de Vauversin. It is nearly two years since I saw him first, and indeed I hope I may see him often again. Here is his first programme, as I found it on the breakfast table, and have kept it ever since as a relic of bright days:

"Mesdames et Messieurs,

"Mademoiselle Ferrario et M. de Vauversin auront l'honneur de chanter ce soir les morceaux suivants.


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162

The thane cried: “Now our comrades a little fun shall share!

Loose from the leash the setter; yonder I spy a bear;

I’ll see that he goes with us from here unto the camp.

He never can escape us, however fast he tramp!”

They loosed the hound, and swiftly the bear before them hied.

Then thought Kriemhilda’s husband close after him to ride;

But to a ground-rift came he, whereby it could not be;

The sturdy beast made certain ’twas from the huntsmen free.

The proud knight, from his charger, sprang down upon the sward:

And straight began to chase it; the beast was off its guard,

And could not now outrun him: the hero clasp’d it round,

And, in a trice, unwounded, he held it tightly bound.

The man it was not able to scratch or bite one jot!

He bound it to his saddle, then promptly up he got.

Unto the camp he bore it,— a prize of hardihood;

Which all was but a pastime to that knight bold and good.

How noble was his bearing as into camp he rode!

His spear was very mighty, and thereto stout and broad.

Right down unto the rowel a handsome long-sword hung:

And a fair horn around him of ruddy gold was slung.

Of better hunting-habit I never have been told.

In tunic of black velvet there was he to behold;

A riding-cap of sable, handsome enough, he wore;

Ay, and what broider’d fillets he on his quiver bore!


text: Category:Indexes validated in November 2023


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title: Category:Executive orders of 2023


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 Mademoiselle Ferrario chantera—Mignon—Oiseaux Légers—France—Des Français dorment là—Le château blen—Où voulez-vous aller?

"M. de Vauversin—Madame Fontaine et M. Robinet—Les plongeurs à cheval—Le Mari mécontent—Tais-toi, gamin—Mon voisin l'original—Heureux comme ça—Comme on est trompé."

They made a stage at one end of the salle-à-manger. And what a sight it was to see M. de Vauversin, with a cigarette in his mouth, twanging a guitar, and following Mademoiselle Ferrario's eyes with the obedient, kindly look of a dog! The entertainment wound up with a tombola, or auction of lottery tickets an admirable amusement, with all the excitement of gambling, and no hope of gain to make you ashamed of your eagerness; for there, all is loss; you make haste to be out of pocket; it is a competition who shall lose


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76 the attainment of it could be pointed out to us; but we apprehend that the plan of the institutions, to the improvement of which our attention is now directed, was originally and fundamentally erroneous. The great end should not have been to teach Hindu learning or Mohammedan learning, but useful learning. No doubt, in teaching useful learning to the Hindus or Mohammedans, Hindu media or Mohammedan media, as far as they were found the most effectual, would have been proper to be employed, and Hindu and Mohammedan prejudices would have needed to be consulted, while every thing which was useful in Hindu or Mohammedan literature it would have been proper to retain; nor would there have been any insuperable difficulty in introducing, under these reservations, a system of instruction from which great advantage might have been derived. In professing, on the other hand, to establish seminaries for the purpose of teaching mere Hindu or mere Mohammedan literature, you bound yourselves to teach a great deal of what was frivolous, not a little of what was purely mischievous, and a small remainder, indeed, in which utility was in any way concerned.

“We think that you have taken, upon the whole, a rational view of what is best to be done.


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 ture so rash. What can your single arm, and the few tenants or servants who might follow you, do against the force of almost all Scotland, the Highland clans only excepted?"

"Listen to me, Edith," said Lord Evandale. "I am not so rash as you may suppose me, nor are my present motives of such light importance as to affect only those personally dependent on myself. The Life-Guards, with whom I served so long, although new-modelled and new-officered by the Prince of Orange, retain a predilection for the cause of their rightful master"—(and here he whispered as if he feared even the walls of the apartment had ears)—"When my foot is known to be in the stirrup, two regiments of cavalry have sworn to renounce the usurper's service, and fight under my orders. They delayed only till Dundee should descend into the Low Countries;—but, since he is no more, which of his successors dare take


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 that decisive step, unless encouraged by the troops declaring themselves? Meantime, the zeal of the soldiers will die away. I must bring them to a decision while their hearts are glowing with the victory their old leader has obtained, and burning to avenge his untimely death."

"And will you, on the faith of such men as you know these soldiers to be," said Edith, "take a step of such dreadful moment?"

"I will," said Lord Evandale—"I must; my honour and loyalty are both pledged for it."

"And all for the sake," continued Miss Bellenden, "of a prince, whose measures, while he was on the throne, no one could condemn more than Lord Evandale?"

"Most true," replied Lord Evandale; "and as I resented, even during the plenitude of his power, his innovations on church and state, like a free-born subject, I am determined I will assert his real rights, when he is in adversity, like a loyal


text: Category:Federal Trade Commission

title: Category:Federal Trade Commission


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Rh In the institutions which exist on a particular footing alterations should not be introduced more rapidly than a due regard to existing interests and feelings will dictate; at the same time that incessant endeavours should be used to supersede what is useless or worse in the present course of study by what your better knowledge will recommend.

“In the new college which is to be instituted, and which we think you have acted judiciously in placing at Calcutta, instead of Nuddea and Tirhoot, as originally sanctioned, it will be much further in your power, because not fettered by any preceding practice, to consult the principle of utility in the course of study which you may prescribe. Trusting that the proper degree of attention will be given to this important object, we desire that an account of the plan which you approve may be transmitted to us, and that an opportunity of communicating to you our sentiments upon it may be given to us, before any attempt to carry it into execution is made.”

This dispatch was referred to the education committee, who stated in reply, that in proposing the improvement of men’s minds it is first necessary to secure their conviction that such improvement is desirable; that tuition in European science


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78 was neither amongst the sensible wants of the people, nor in the power of the government to bestow ; that the maulavee and pundit, satisfied with their own learning, are little inquisitive as to anything beyond it, and are not disposed to regard the literature and science of the West as worth the labour of attainment; and that any attempt to enforce an acknowledgment of the superiority of the intellectual productions of the West could only create dissatisfaction.

This brings us to the second point which we had to consider, namely, whether, supposing English literature to be best adapted for the improvement of the people of India, they are themselves ready to profit by the advantages which it holds out. If it can be proved that tuition in European science has become one of the sensible wants of the people, and that, so far from being satisfied with their own learning, they display an eager avidity to avail themselves of every opportunity of acquiring the knowledge of the West, it must be admitted that the case put by the committee of 1824 has occurred,


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 most money for the benefit of M. de Vauversin and Mademoiselle Ferrario.

M. de Vauversin is a small man, with a great head of black hair, a vivacious and engaging air, and a smile that would be delightful if he had better teeth. He was once an actor in the Châtelet; but he contracted a nervous affection from the heat and glare of the footlights, which unfitted him for the stage. At this crisis Mademoiselle Ferrario, otherwise Mademoiselle Rita of the Alcazar, agreed to share his wandering fortunes. "I could never forget the generosity of that lady," said he. He wears trousers so tight that it has long been a problem to all who knew him how he manages to get in and out of them. He sketches a little in watercolours; he writes verses; he is the most patient of fishermen, and spent long days at the bottom of the inn-garden fruitlessly dabbling a line in the clear river.


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 one. Let courtions and sycophants flatter power and desert misfortune, I will neither do the one nor the other."

"And if you are determined to get what my feeble judgment must still term rashly. why give yourself the pain of this untimely meeting?"

"Were it not enough to answer," said Lord Evandade, "that ere rushing on battle, I wished to bid adieu to my betrothed bride?—surely it is judging coldly of my feelings, and shewing too plainly the indifference of your own, to question my mative for a request so natural."

"But why in this place, my Lord?" said Edith—why with such popular circumstances of mystery?"

"Because," he replied, putting a letter into her hand, "I have yet another request, which I dare hardly proffer, even when prefaced by these credentials."

In haste and terror Edith glanced over the letter, which was from her grandmother.


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Rh and that, according to their own rule, the time has arrived when instruction in western literature and science may be given on an extensive scale, without any fear of producing a reaction.

The proofs that such is the actual state of things have been already touched upon. As the principle of the school book society is, to print only such books as are in demand, and to dispose of them only to those who pay for them, its operations furnish, perhaps, the best test of the existing condition of public feeling in regard to the different systems of learning which are simultaneously cultivated in India. It appears, from their last printed report, that from January 1834 to December 1835 the following sales were effected by them:


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 "My dearest childe," such was its tenor in style and spelling, "I never more deeply regretted the reumatizm, which disqualified me from riding on horseback, than at this present writing, when I would most have wished to be where this paper will soon be, that is at Fairy-knowe, with my poor dear Willie's only child. But it is the will of God I should not be with her, which I conclude to be the case, as much for the pain I now suffer, as because it hath now not given way either to cammomile poultices or to decoxion of wild mustard, wherewith I have often relieved others. Therefore, I must tell you, by writing instead of word of mouth, that, as my young Lord Evandale is called to the present campaign, both by his honour and his duty, he hath earnestly solicited me that the bonds of holy matrimony be knitted before his departure to the wars between you and him, in implement of the indenture formerly entered into for that effeck, where-untill, as I see no raisonable objexion, so


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 You should hear him recounting his experiences over a bottle of wine; such a pleasant vein of talk as he has, with a ready smile at his own mishaps, and every now and then a sudden gravity, like a man who should hear the surf roar while he was telling the perils of the deep. For it was no longer ago than last night, perhaps, that the receipts only amounted to a franc and a half, to cover three francs of railway fare and two of board and lodging. The Maire, a man worth a million of money, sat in the front seat, repeatedly applauding Mdlle. Ferrario, and yet gave no more than three sous the whole evening. Local authorities look with such an evil eye upon the strolling artist. Alas! I know it well, who have been myself taken for one, and pitilessly incarcerated on the strength of the misapprehension. Once, M. de Vauversin visited a commisary of police for permission to sing. The commissary, who was smoking at his ease,


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 I trust that you, who have been always a good and obedient childe, will not devize any which has less than raison. It is trew that the contraxs of our house have heretofore been celebrated in a manner more besitting our Rank, and not in private, and with few witnesses, as a thing done in a corner. But it has been Heaven's own free-will, as well as those of the kingdom where we live, to take away from us our estate, and from the King his throne. Yet I trust He will yet restore the sightful heir to the throne, and turn his heart to the true Protestant Episcopal faith, which I have the better to expect to see even with my old eyes, as I have beheld the royal family when they were struggling as sorely with masterful usurpers and rebels as they are now; that is to say, when his most saered Majesty, Charles the Second of happy memory, honoured our poor house of Tillietudlem, by taking his disjune therein," &c. &c. &c.

We will not abuse the reader's patience


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 by quoting more of Lady Margaret's prolix epistle. Suffice it to say, that it closed by laying her commands on her grandchild to consent to the solemnization of her marriage without loss of time.

"I never thought till this instant," said Edith, dropping the letter from her hand, "that Lord Evandale would have acted ungenerously."

"Ungenerously, Edith?" replied her lover. "And how can you apply such a term to my desire to call you mine, ere I part from you perhaps for ever?"

"Lord Evandale ought to have remembered," said Edith, "that when his perseverance, and, I must add, a due sense of his merit and of the obligations we owed him, wrung from me a slow consent that I would one day comply with his wishes, I made it my condition, that I should not be pressed to a hasty accomplishment of my promise; and now he avails himself of his interest with my only remaining relative, to hurry me with precipitate and


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XVI]

Upon it there was fitted a cap of panther’s hide,

Because of its sweet odour. He carried at his side

A bow, such that it needed,— to draw it to the full,—

A hand-winch, when another save he himself did pull.

And then his nether garments of otter-skin were made.

From head to foot his raiment with tufts was overlaid.

And, ’mid the sleek fur, many a thread of golden twine

Of this bold champion-hunter on either side did shine.

And Balmung bore he also.— a handsome blade and broad,

That was so sharp, moreover, its edge was never scored

When helms by it were dinted; and either edge was keen.

Ne’er had that noble huntsman of gayer spirit been.

Since I have undertaken the story to declare,

I must tell how his quiver was fill’d with arrows rare;

The shafts of them were golden, the points a hand-breadth wide.

Whate’er with them he piercéd, surely and swiftly died.

So rode the noble hero in all his hunting gear;

And Gunther’s men espied him as he to them drew near.

They hurried out to meet him, and led his horse along,

There lay across his saddle the bear so huge and strong,

As soon as he alighted he loosed the binding thong

From off its paws and muzzle; then yelpings loud and long

Of hounds arose, so soon as afoot the bear appear’d.

The brute would to the forest: the folk were fairly scared.


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 even indelicate importunity. There is more selfishness than generosity, my Lord, in such eager and urgent solicitation."

Lord Evandale, evidently much hurt, took two or three turns through the apartment ere be replied to this accusation; at length he spoke—"I should have escaped this painful charge, durst I at once have mentioned to Miss Bellenden my principal reason for urging this request. It is one which she will probably despise on her own account, but which ought to weigh with her for the sake of Lady Margaret. My death in battle must give my whole estate to my heirs of entail; my forfeiture as a traitor, by the usurping government, may vest it in the Prince of Orange, or some Dutch favourite. In either case, my venerable friend and betrothed bride must remain unprotected and in poverty. Vested with the rights and provisions of Lady Evandale, Edith will find, in the power of supporting her aged parent, some consolation for having condescended to share the


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 politely doffed his hat upon the singer's entrance. "Mr. Commissary," he began, "I am an artist." And on went the commissary's hat again. No courtesy for the companions of Apollo! "They are as degraded as that," said M. de Vauversin, with a sweep of his cigarette.

But what pleased me most was one outbreak of his, when we had been talking all the evening of the rubs, indignities, and pinchings of his wandering life. Some one said, it would be better to have a million of money down, and Mdlle. Ferrario admitted that she would prefer that mightily. "Eh bien, moi non;—not I," cried De Vauversin, striking the table with his hand. "If anyone is a failure in the world, is it not I? I had an art, in which I have done things well—as well as some—better perhaps than others; and now it is closed against me. I must go about the country gathering coppers and singing nonsense. Do you think I regret my


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 title and fortunes of one who does not pretend to be worthy of her."

Edith was struck dumb by an argument which she had not expected, and was compelled to acknowledge, that Lord Evandale's suit was urged with delicacy as well as with consideration.

"And yet," she said, "such is the waywardness with which my heart reverts to former times, that I cannot," (she burst into tears,) "suppress a degree of ominous reluctance at fulfilling my engagement up on such a brief summons."

"We have already fully considered this painful subject," said Lord Evandale; "and I hoped, my dear Edith, your own enquiries, as well as mine, had fully convinced you that these regrets were fruitless."

"Fruitless indeed!" said Edith, with a deep sigh, which, as if by an unexpected echo, was repeated from the adjoining apartment. Miss Bellenden started at the sound, and scarcely composed herself upon Lord Evandale's assurances, that she


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 had heard but the echo of her own respiration.

"It sounded strangely distinct," she said, "and almost ominous; but my feelings are so harassed that the slightest trifle agitates them."

Lord Evandale eagerly attempted to sooth her alarm and reconcile her to a measure, which, however hasty, appeared to him the only means by which he could secure her independence. He urged his claim in virtue of the contract, her grandmother's wish and command, the propriety of insuring her comfort and independence, and touched lightly on his own long attachment, which he had evinced by so many and such various services. These Edith felt the more the less they were insisted upon; and at length, as she had nothing to oppose to his ardour, excepting a causeless reluctance, which she was herself ashamed to oppose against so much generosity, she was compelled to rest upon the impossibility of having the ceremony


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 life? Do you think I would rather be a fat burgess, like a calf? Not I! I have had moments when I have been applauded on the boards: I think nothing of that; but I have known in my own mind sometimes, when I had not a clap from the whole house, that I had found a true intonation, or an exact and speaking gesture; and then, messieurs, I have known what pleasure was, what it was to do a thing well, what it was to be an artist. And to know what art is, is to have an interest for ever, such as no burgess can find in his petty concerns. Tenez, messieurs, je vais vous le dire—it is like a religion."

Such, making some allowance for the tricks of memory and the inaccuracies of translation, was the profession of faith of M. de Vauversin. I have given him his own name, lest any other wanderer should come across him, with his guitar and cigarette, and Mademoiselle Ferrario;


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 performed upon such hasty notice, at such a time and place. But for all this Lord Evandale was prepared, and he explained, with joyful alacrity, that the former chaplain of his regiment was in attendance at the Lodge with a faithful domestic, once a non-commissioned officer in the same corps; that his sister was also possessed of the secret; and that Headrigg and his wife might be added to the list of witnesses, if agreeable to Miss Bellenden. As to the place, he had chosen it on very purpose. The marriage was to remain a secret, since Lord Evandale was to depart in disguise very soon after it was solemnized, a circumstance which, had their union been public, must have drawn upon him the attention of the government as being altogether unaccountable, unless from his being engaged in some dangerous design. Having hastily urged these motives and explained his arrangements, he ran, without waiting for an answer, to summon his


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 sister to attend his bride, while he went in search of the other persons whose presence was necessary.

When Lady Emily arrived, she found her friend in an agony of tears, of which she was at some loss to comprehend, the reason, being one of those damsels who think there is nothing either wonderful or terrible in matrimony, and joining with most who knew him in thinking, that it could not be rendered peculiarly alarming by Lord Evandale being the bridegroom. Influenced by these feelings, she exhausted in succession all the usual arguments for courage, and all the expressions of sympathy and condolence ordinarily employed on such occasions. But when Lady Emily beheld her future sister-in-law deaf to all those ordinary topics of consolation—when she beheld tears follow fast and without intermission down cheeks as pale as marble—when she felt that the hand which she pressed in order to enforce her


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 arguments turned cold within her grasp, and lay, like that of a corpse, insensible and unresponsive to her caresses, her feelings of sympathy gave way to those of hurt pride and pettish displeasure.

"I must own," she said, "that I am something at a loss to understand all this, Miss Bellenden. Months have passed since you agreed to marry my brother, and you have postponed the fulfilment of your engagement from one period to another, as if you had to avoid some dishonourable or bighly disagreeable connection, I think I can answer for Lord Evandale, that he will seek no woman's hand against her inclination; and, though his sister, I may boldly say, that he does not need to urge any lady further than her inclinations carry her. You will forgive me, Miss Bellenden; but your present distress augurs ill for my brother's future happiness, and I must needs say, that he does not merit all these expressions of dislike and dolour, and that they seem an odd return for an attach-


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 for should not all the world delight to honour this unfortunate and loyal follower of the Muses? May Apollo send him rimes hitherto undreamed of; may the river be no longer scanty of her silver fishes to his lure; may the cold not pinch him on long winter rides, nor the village jack-in-office affront him with unseemly manners; and may he never miss Mademoiselle Ferrario from his side, to follow with his dutiful eyes and accompany on the guitar!

The marionettes made a very dismal entertainment. They performed a piece, called Pyramus and Thisbe, in five mortal acts, and all written in Alexandrines fully as long as the performers. One marionette was the king; another the wicked counsellor; a third, credited with exceptional beauty, represented Thisbe; and then there were guards, and obdurate fathers, and walking gentlemen. Nothing particular took place during the two or three acts that I sat


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 out; but you will be pleased to learn that the unities were properly respected, and the whole piece, with one exception, moved in harmony with classical rules. That exception was the comic countryman, a lean marionette in wooden shoes, who spoke in prose and in a broad patois much appreciated by the audience. He took unconstitutional liberties with the person of his sovereign; kicked his fellow marionettes in the mouth with his wooden shoes, and whenever none of the versifying suitors were about, made love to Thisbe on his own account in comic prose.

This fellow's evolutions, and the little prologue, in which the showman made a humorous eulogium of his troop, praising their indifference to applause and hisses, and their single devotion to their art, were the only circumstances in the whole affair that you could fancy would so much as raise a smile. But the villagers of Précy


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 seemed delighted. Indeed, so long as a thing is an exhibition, and you pay to see it, it is nearly certain to amuse. If we were charged so much a head for sunsets, or if God sent round a drum before the hawthorns came in flower, what a work should we not make about their beauty! But these things, like good companions, stupid people early cease to observe: and the Abstract Bagman tittups past in his spring gig, and is positively not aware of the flowers along the lane, or the scenery of the weather overhead.


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Rh ancient people, who have always taken the lead in the progress of religion and science in the east, have adopted the English language as their language of education, by means of which they are becoming animated by a new spirit, and are entering at once upon the improved knowledge of Europe, the fruit of the labour and invention of successive ages. The English language, not many generations hence, will be spoken by millions in all the four quarters of the globe; and our learning, our morals, our principles of constitutional liberty, and our religion, embodied in the established literature, and diffused through the genius of the vernacular languages, will spread far and wide among the nations.

The objection, therefore, to the early proceedings of the education committee is, that they were calculated to produce a revival, not of sound learning, but of antiquated and pernicious errors.


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90 The pupils in the oriental seminaries were trained in a complete course of Arabic and Sanskrit learning, including the theology of the Vedas and the Koran, and were turned out accomplished maulavees and pundits, the very class whom the same committee described as “satisfied with their own learning, little inquisitive as to any thing beyond it, and not disposed to regard the literature and science of the West as worth the labour of attainment.” And having been thus educated, they were sent to every part of the country to fill the most important situations which were open to the natives, the few who could not be provided for in this way taking service as private tutors or family priests. Every literary attempt connected with the old learning at the same time received the most liberal patronage, and the country was deluged with Arabic and Sanskrit books. By acting thus, the committee created the very evil which they professed to fear. They established great corporations, with ramifications in every district, the feelings and interest of whose members were deeply engaged on the side of the prevailing errors. All the murmuring which has been heard has come from this quarter; all the opposition which has been experienced has been headed by persons supported by our stipends, and trained in


text: An Inland Voyage/Chapter 22

title: An Inland Voyage/Chapter 22


text: An Inland Voyage/Chapter 23

title: An Inland Voyage/Chapter 23


text:
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164

The bear, through all the shouting, into the kitchen ramp’d:

Hey, how the frighted scullions from round the fire decamp’d!

The kettles toppled over, the burning sticks were drown’d:

Hey, what a store of victuals lay in the ashes round!

Quick from their seats upsprang they, the masters and the men.

The bear began a-growling: the king gave orders then

To let loose all the hound-pack, that in their leashes lay.

Had it herewith but ended that were a merry day!

With bows and spears provided they stay’d no longer there,

But off the swift ones started to follow up the bear.

Yet no one shot: so closely the dogs were thronging round.

The shouting of the people made hill and dale resound.

With all the pack behind him the bear began to race,

But, save Kriemhilda’s husband, no one could match its pace.

He quickly ran upon it, and with a sword-stroke slew.

Then to the camp-fire, slaughter’d, the grisly brute they drew.

And all who saw, were saying he was a mighty man.

The hunters proud were summon’d, and then the feast began.

Upon a fair green meadow, a goodly crowd they sate;

Ha, ’twas a royal banquet these haughty hunters ate!

The cupbearers still came not, who were the wine to bring,—

No heroes ever better deserved such offering;

Had there not been in secret such treacherous intent,

Then free had been those warriors of all disparagement.


text:
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the few legitimate sons of Adam, whose breasts never felt what the sting of love was,—(maintaining first, all mysogynists to be bastards)—the greatest heroes of ancient and modern story have carried off amongst them, nine parts in ten of the honour; and I wish for their sakes I had the key of my study out of my draw-well, only for five minutes, to tell you their names—recollect them I cannot—so be content to accept of these, for the present, in their stead.

There was the great king Aldrovandus, and Bosphorus, and Capadocius, and Dardanus, and Pontus, and Asius,—to say nothing of the iron-hearted Charles the XIIth, who the Countess of K***** herself could make nothing of.


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 There was Babylonicus, and Mediterraneus, and Polixenes, and Persicus, and Prusicus, not one of whom (except Capadocius and Pontus, who were both a little suspected) ever once bowed down his breast to the goddess—The truth is, they had all of them something else to do—and so had my uncle Toby—till Fate till Fate I say, envying his name the glory of being handed down to posterity with Aldrovandus's and the rest,—she basely patched up the peace of Utrecht.

—Believe me, Sirs, 'twas the worst deed she did that year.

the many ill consequences of the treaty of Utrecht, it was within a point of giving my uncle Toby a surfeit of sieges; and though he recovered his appetite afterwards, yet


text: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman/Volume 6/Chapter 30


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 Calais itself left not a deeper scar in Marys heart, than Utrecht upon my uncle Tobys. To the end of his life he never could hear Utrecht mentioned upon any account whatever,—or so much as read an article of news extracted out of the Utrecht Gazette, without fetching a sigh, as if his heart would break in twain.

My father, who was a great, and consequently a very dangerous person for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying,—for he generally knew your motive for doing both, much better than you knew it yourself—would always console my uncle Toby upon these occasions, in a way, which shewed plainly, he imagined my uncle Toby grieved for nothing in the whole affair, so much as the loss of his hobby-horse.—Never mind, brother Toby, he would say,—by God's blessing we shall


text:
Broken Necks/The Yellow Goat

The grave, melodious shout of rain filled the night. The streets had become like dark and attenuated pools. The rain falling illuminated the hidden faces of the buildings and the air was silvered with whirling lines. Through the sparkle and fume of the rain-colored night the lights of the café signs burned like golden-lettered banners flung stiffly into the storm. About these lights floated patches of yellow mist, through which the rain swarmed in flurries of little gleaming moths. There were also the lights of the doors and windows beneath the burning signs. They, too, exhaled oblongs of yellow steam upon the darkness. The remainder of the street was lost in a wilderness of rain that bubbled and raced over its stone in an endless and bewildering detonation.

I had been in this street before and I knew it for a street of little grimy-fronted cafés and vicious haunts—crude and rococo gathering places for niggers, prostitutes and louts. But now as I walked with my shoes spurting water and the rain hanging from my clothes, there was about this street a curious unfamiliarity. The fuming, motionless rain filled the air with a mysterious presence. Beneath my feet ran the silver-tipped pool of the flooded pavement. Gleaming in its rain-splintered depths swam the reflections of the burning lamps overhead. These, as I walked, were the yellow script of another and wraith-like world staring up at me out of nowhere. The rest was darkness.

I hurried on as the sound of thunder crawled out of the sky. A vein of lightning opened the night and in the sudden blue pallor the street and its buildings etched themselves on the vanishing light —a monstrous and phosphorescent world. The rain flung itself for an instant in great opalescent sheets out of the lighted spaces. I caught a glimpse of a figure in the distance, hunched and stationary. The darkness and the desolate whirl of the rain resumed and I walked on, staring as after something vanished. A wind now entered the street, outlining itself in the wild undulations of the rain on the pavements. Clandestine notions held rendezvous in my thought as I pressed forward against the storm. Decidedly the street had an unfamiliar air and was full of dishevelled rain ghosts. The best of philosophers become wet in the rain. The roar of the flooded night, the leap and hollow blaze of the lightning, the sudden inanimate burst of pale violet outline in the chaotic dark, were things which seemingly isolated me from the normal contemplations which are my habit. I began to fancy myself, in this dilapidated, storm-ridden street, as some tiny wanderer through a strange and torturous world.

The little windows that trickled their yellow lights toward me seemed the glowing pasteboards of some forgotten illusion. What with the stumble of thunder in the dark and the tenacious lash of the rain, a burn had come into my body. I was moving prosaically enough toward the house of a friend. He had offered for my inspection several manuscripts purchased that day and scrawled with diverting cryptograms. In a pocket, tucked dry and safe out of the wet, I was carrying the work of a profound Englishman who had devoted his life to the unraveling of cryptograms. But now the churning of the wind and rain, the noise and the phosphorescent gulfs of light into which I was continually plunging, had brought me an intoxication in which manuscripts and friends and cryptograms seemed miserable things. I drew in with gulps the quickening odor of the storm—the spice of water-laden winds. I had felt at first a proper regard for my clothes, an ethical emotion which had gradually given way to relish of the storm. This in turn, as I moved on leaning against the wind and the pliant walls of water, was succeeded by an elation groundless and insane. The little adjectives I had been arranging for my lonely delight were seized by an incoherence. I began to ponder upon violent abstractions, and the thought of the routine ways of life became to me unbearable. The innumerable little meditations with which I usually beguile my solitary journeys offended this new reach of my spirit. I went plunging on, soaked and disheveled, curbing a desire to shout and dash about.

Moving thus through the storm, my thought became full of the tremblings of a dancer stiffened by the beat of furious music. What were not possible? Strange, irrational expectations left me smiling faintly. But the wild dance of the wind, the halloo of the night and the vast burst of water about me urged me on despite this snobbery with which all good logicians regard their emotions. How gladly we surrender our treasured philosophies at the first touch of ecstasy. Where and of what avail were the intrigues of reason in the hammering of a night like this—a night for poets and mystics, true fellows of all storms. What strange altar fires were those engulfing flickers of dead moonlight? A racket of what gods were those bounding sounds? Thus my thought continued to spurn the little tracts of reason and circle in the profound and mystic abstraction of the wanderer in storms.

The night was growing wilder. My eyes straining toward unimagined things bored into the vapors and steam of the rain. Whereon a blinding gust of light brought me shuddering to a halt. The thunder filled the night suddenly with an amazing tumult, a horror of sound, and I remained stiff and staring as in a dream at a face that floated in a piercing light. I stood as one suspended in the rushing of winds. The world, but for this face which confronted me, had vanished. I saw it to be the face of a woman contorted into a stark and indescribable grimace of rapture. Its eyes gleamed like black and lavender tips of flame. Its teeth stood out white and skull-like against the red of an opened mouth. I was aware of a sound of laughter that seemed to come floating out of the roaring spaces about me.

A silence and darkness seized the world. I stood listening to the melodious detonations of the rain and the harmless sweep, of the wind. Over my head burned a café sign, and J was gazing into a washed and emptied panel of glass. Within I saw figures jerking about in a dance and an orchestra of niggers playing. The yellow script overhead proclaimed me in the presence of the Yellow Goat.

In the home of my friend it was quiet and cheerful. Outside the rain chattered in the darkness and the alto of the wind arose in long organ notes from the houses. We sat and smoked and exchanged elaborate phrases. But my eyes had evidently been affected by the lightning. When I closed them they still revealed to me the instant of piercing light and the face floating under the sign of the Yellow Goat. Seen thus in memory, there was an irritating familiarity about its features. I had not intended to, but I found myself after several moments telling my friend of the incident. I spoke with a great show of incorruptible logic of the thing, pointing out that what I had seen had been undoubtedly the face of an uncommonly beautiful prostitute surprised in a yawn by the gulp of lightning. But my friend is a creature given to making vast and melodramatic riddles out of such phenomena, and he differed from me.

"Stuff and nonsense," I finally interrupted him. ' "If you’ll stop, quoting the Cabala and cease your chattering about Sabbats and witches, I’ll discuss the thing with you as befits two civilized men." '

He stared with a faint smile at his shelves of books that, like erratic and colored teeth, stood out from the wall.

I resumed: "There was the face of a dancer whom I watched one evening on the stage. I remember now a curious gleam in her eyes and recall how I tried vainly to fit an emotion to such a gleam. There was the face of a hatless boy running through the streets one sunny morning who bumped into me and dashed on without begging my pardon. There was the face of a man I listened to once as he played the violin, and I remember, too, the face of a woman that I hesitated to kiss. Now the face I saw in the lightning reminded me of all these faces. There is often something curious. These faces I now remember possessed an identical contortion, an identical arrangement of features and somehow an expression identical to the one I have just told you of. Stark and inhuman. A furious and repulsive loveliness. It was gone in an instant. But I saw it so vividly that I see it now when I close my eyes . . . an insufferable gesture thrust out of the lightning. The faces of which I am reminded were not so definite. But they had the same light about them."

"I know the light you mean," said my friend. "I’ve noted it myself. If you watch closely you will catch an instant of it now and then shining through the grimace of a dancer or of a man laughing, or, as you say, playing the violin.” He paused and his face became full of a curious sincerity. "Or of a woman in passion. Yes, I know what you mean. Dark and violent legends have been written about this light, for it has always been in the world and yet seemingly not of it. In demonology. . ."

Again I offered an interruption. "Let us not talk of demonology. Inasmuch as a demon is unimaginable, any adjectives we may arrange concerning it will be crude and futile. What I saw in the face in the storm I’ve seen before, and in places without storm. I’ve put it down as a maniacal gleam, the indication of a fugitive disorder of the brain. I’ve noticed vaguely that the expression is somehow connected with people in moments of inspiration. I recall a young poet I knew. His stare at times became like a wild laugh out of which mirth has passed and which has become full of something else. This phrase vastly exaggerated would describe the expression of the features I looked at tonight . . ."

I left my friend with the emotion of a man who has offended his own intelligence. This babbling over the face of a prostitute passed in the rain appealed to me as the vaporings of a weakened brain. Yet it pursued me. I found myself excitedly searching in the faces of the little half-dead who swarmed the streets, who rode in ears, who sat in restaurants. There were impressions I could not shake off by assuring myself of an innate idiocy. And therefore three nights later I jammed a cap over my ears and with the collar of my mackintosh properly raised I launched myself into another night lashed with wind and rain in quest of the Yellow Goat.

I was curiously nervous as I turned into the street of the grimy-fronted cafés—the golden-lettered street signs adrift in the storm, the vast wash of water illuminating the dark with its fugitive glint, the boiling pavements and the odor of wet winds. I pressed on, hoping for the lightning and the thunder. For, I assured myself, the quest demanded a certain footlighting to be real, and off-stage noises. But the darkness, swollen with rain and wind, remained unrelieved and thus the morbid sanity of my true philosophical nature arose in my thought to confuse me and to prepare me for disillusions. I would find no such face. In fact, the face did not exist. It had been the trick of lightning and jumbled nerves. And those other faces which I so obligingly remembered—auxiliary hallucinations, all of them. In any event, promenading on a night like this savored of idiocy, face or no face. The quest of mysteries indeed! The urge of spiritual hungers, to be sure! Behold a sol- emn ass walking, as was his privilege, through a pneumonia-breeding deluge. .

The wind bayed through the streets and the rain enveloped me in its monotonous rush. Staring ahead I saw gleaming in a little floating oasis of bright mist the sign of the Yellow Goat. There was magic in the sign. The promptings of sanity fled my thought and an exultation tangled my legs. After all, there were destinations in the city. There were the veils of Isis still, and the piles of stone that little hands reared had not lost their cunning to conceal unimaginative mysteries. I paused before the entrance of the Yellow Goat as the streaming door swung open and two figures darted out. They were by me and gone in an instant, and, as if in pursuit of them, rushed a rollicking lurch of sound. Into the night floated a strain of music and the laugh of a woman.

I entered the Yellow Goat and the night vanished behind me. I was suddenly in a strange world of lights and shouts and odors. Dancing bodies spun and jerked among the tables. Faces bounced amid layers of tobacco smoke that lay in undulent lavender sheets above the floor. Through streaks of color and movement came the bray of music—a melody leaping between the smash of trombones and the bursting staccato of drums. Five niggers with faces satin black were swaying over silver instruments and shouting as they played. Among the round-topped table the revels and contortions of the dancers threatened to annihilate all furniture. A waiter passed in front of me balancing a black tray laden with colored glasses. At the tables sat men and women with faces that seemed somehow out of focus, niggers, prostitutes, louts. The slant of red mouths opened with laughter, the movement of eyes and hands and white throats of women—these I saw as fragments through a mist. I moved through the room toward a table that seemed to me empty. The reek of wine and steaming clothes, the sting of perspiring perfumes, the bedroom odors of women’s bodies dizzied me as I dropped into a chair at this table.

Opposite me sat a woman with a face cut out of searlet, white and lavender cardboards. Her head was thrown back in a grimace of violent laughter. The red flesh of her opened mouth and throat stared at me behind the roll of sound that issued. I was conscious for the moment of being embraced by soft arms, and I felt the hot and opened mouth pressing almost on my face. About me men were banging glasses on the table and women were screaming laughter. To the music of the five shouting niggers couples were making feverish gestures with their bodies against the roar and haze of the room. The faces of drunken niggers, prostitutes and louts hung in the odor and smoke. I sat silent like some bewildered and forbidding stranger, wondering how this woman had appeared so abruptly opposite me. I was in these first moments walking again through the storm and beholding in a gulp of lightning the strange features of a woman behind the door of the Yellow Goat.

The music of the five niggers stopped and a sudden emptiness flooded the room. The confusion became a matter of men’s and women’s voices and scurrying waiters. The woman opposite me alone remained unchanged. She was gazing at me with eyes in whose swarthy depths moved tiny streaks of scarlet that were like wavering flame tips. Beneath her eyes her skin was darkened as if by bruises. A peculiarly sultry light glowed over their heavy discolorations. Her mouth had shut and her cheeks were without curves, following the corpse-like lines of her skull. They were paper white, but again I noted in them the curious sultry glow of her smeared and heavy eyes. Her lips were like the streaks of vermilion lacquer painted on an idol’s face. She had thrust two bared arms across the table top and was leaning forward. She was regarding me with a smile.

To this extent am I able to describe her. The face of a malignant pierrette or a diabolic clown, stark and illumined as under some strong lavender ray; the gleaming and putrescent eyes haloed in a gelatinous mist, full of reptilian sorcery. These are simple things to recount. But these were merely the mask for a bewildering thing which held me silent in a strange inertia. This thing hovered between us like a third person. It was an animation creating waves in the air that were neither of light nor of sound. My thought grew dim and, during these moments that I sat returning her smile, an almost unbearable lust cried in my blood.

We arose and walked arm and arm out of the Yellow Goat into the night and rain. I was aware of faces turned toward me as we passed among the tables but they seemed the fragments of a foreign world. In the rain her body breathed against me, warming me with its hot flesh. My thought became like an echo forever escaping me. The woman tugged at my arm.

"Run, run,” she cried. She threw her head back and filled the night with her laugh. We ran.

We came breathless up a flight of stairs into a room lighted with a gas jet. The heavy sulphurous scent of tuberoses stuffed the place but I could make out no flowers. I stood against the door we had entered. The woman’s clothes had fallen from her as if blown from her body by a strong wind. Nude but for the black silken stockings she had not removed she turned toward me. Her white skin glistened with moisture and was covered in places with the faint colors of stained glass. She began to dance and throw her arms about and her mouth opened in a laugh. The room became saturated with her. She swept by me plunging about in her dance, posturing and shouting. The gleam of her eyes buried itself in my brain and left me crazed with desire for her.

It was this gleam and the rapturous grimacing of her face that awakened my thought. I recalled as from a distance that I had come in quest of something. This thing I saw now in her face as she tumbled about the malodorous room. It expressed torture. I had seen this light that burned from her, this curious contortion of features in the faces of the city, now for an instant in the inspiration of a dancer, now in the midst of a violin’s wonder, now in the joy of a woman laughing. I had never seen it as I saw it now, but always as a fugitive and lunatic light that fixed itself upon the air, after it had vanished from the eyes of men and women. Here was this light in a nudity more intimate than the shine and odor of her body’s flesh.

She had ceased her dancing and thrown herself upon the grimy rumpled surface of a bed. Her laughter also had ceased. She lay with her arms extended toward me, her nakedness moving faintly like some thick white and undulant reptile. I saw that her eyes were closed but that there was nevertheless about her the stare of a terrible vision. A moan began to come from her and her fingers like claws scratched at the air. Her moving and the odors arising from her grew unendurable. I opened the door softly and ran. Pursuing me came the sound of laughter, rising in a howl.

Outside it still rained. The wind no longer blew. I hurried away and my thought so long tangled in emotion began to unwind itself.

"She is a disease," I murmured to myself, "Her flesh is insane. She is the secret of ecstasy and of gods and of all things that are beautiful."

About my feet the whirling lines of the rain burst upon the pavement forming innumerable little v’s. In the proper course of time I would fashion adjectives out of the thing the woman of the Yellow Goat had revealed to me and thus perhaps add to the progress of my race. But now there drifted before me a white-torsoed phantom and in my nose there remained the hot smell of a decay.

title: Broken Necks/The Yellow Goat


text:
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 have another war break out again some of these days; and when it does,—the belligerent powers, if they would hang themselves, cannot keep us out of play.—I defy 'em, my dear Toby, he would add, to take countries without taking towns,—or towns without sieges.

My uncle Toby never took this backstroke of my father's at his hobby horse kindly.—He thought the stroke ungenerous; and the more so, because in striking the horse, he hit the rider too, and in the most dishonourable part of a blow could fall; so that upon these occasions, he always laid down his pipe upon the table with more fire to defend himself than common.

I told the reader, this time two years, that my uncle Toby was not eloquent; and in the very same page gave an instance to the contrary:—I repeat the observation, and a fact which contradicts


text:
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XVI.]

Then spake the noble Siegfried: “I marvel much hereat;—

Since from the kitchen plenty of food they send to eat,

Why come not the cupbearers to bring us also wine?

Let them treat hunters better, or ’tis no sport of mine!

“I have deserved that people more care of me should take.”

The king then from the table, in answer, falsely spake:

“However we have blunder’d we’ll mend it by-and-by;

’Tis all the fault of Hagen, who’d have us all go dry.”

Then Hagen spake, of Tronjé: “My dear lord list to me,

I reckon’d that the hunting to-day was fix’d to be

Right over in the Spessart, so sent the wine-flasks there.

If we to-day go thirsty, next time I’ll take more care!”

Then answer’d the lord Siegfried: “Small thanks, methinks, are thine!

Seven sumpters’ burden should they of mead and unmix’d wine

Have hither sent to meet us; or were that hard to do,

They should have pitch’d our quarters more nigh the Rhine unto.”

Then spake Hagen of Tronjé: “Ye noble knights and bold,

I know that here hard by is a spring of water cold,—

Pray be ye not offended,— ’tis thither we should go.”

To many a thane this counsel was fraught with mickle woe.

With pangs of thirst was Siegfried the warrior sorely smit:

The sooner then the table he gave them word to quit;

Along the hill-side would he unto the fountain wend.

Thus what the knights had plotted drew on towards its end.


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 it again.—He was not eloquent,—it was not easy to my uncle Toby to make long harangues,—and he hated florid ones; but there were occasions where the stream overflowed the man, and ran so counter to its usual course, that in some parts my uncle Toby, for a time, was at least equal to Tertullus—but in others, in my own opinion, infinitely above him.

My father was so highly pleased with one of these apologetical orations of my uncle Toby's, which he had delivered one evening before him and Yorick, that he wrote it down before he went to bed.

I have had the good fortune to meet with it amongst my father's papers, with here and there an insertion of his own, betwixt two crooks, thus [], and is endorsed,


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166

The game that had been slaughter’d by Siegfried’s cunning hand,

They bade men pile on wagons, and carry through the land.

And everyone who saw it his praise and honour spake.

Right grievously did Hagen his troth to Siegfried break.

Whilst to the shady lindens they were upon their way,

Cried Hagen, lord of Tronjé: “Oft have I heard men say

That to Kriemhilda’s husband no one a match could be

When he would show his paces: ay! will he let us see!”

Then spake the Netherlander Siegfried, the valiant:

“Now is the time for trying, if ye a wager want,

From here unto the fountain; so soon as it be done

The onlookers shall settle which is the foremost one.”

“Now verily we’ll try it,” the warrior Hagen said.

Then quoth the stalwart Siegfried: “If ye come in ahead,

Before your feet I’ll lay me full length upon the grass.”

When Gunther heard the promise, how glad at heart he was!

Then spake the bold thane further: “Yet something more I’ll say,

I’ll carry all the clothing that I have worn to-day,—

My spear and eke my buckler, and all my hunting gear.”

His sword and quiver bound he around him then and there.

But they, the king and Hagen, their upper clothes did doff:

In two white shirts one saw them stand ready to be off.

As fleet as two wild panthers they through the clover ran:

Yet at the spring bold Siegfried came in the foremost man.


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I may safely say, I have read over this apologetical oration of my uncle Toby's a hundred times, and think it so fine a model of defence,—and shews so sweet a temperament of gallantry and good principles in him, that I give it the world, word for word, (interlineations and all) as I find it.

AM not insensible, brother Shandy, that when a man, whose profession is arms, wishes, as I have done, for war,—it has an ill aspect to the world;—and that, how just and right soever his motives and intentions may be,—he stands in an uneasy posture in vindicating himself from private views in doing it.