text:
Uncle William/Chapter 7

HE winter was a hard one. The cold that had set in the night the chimney was finished did not abate. The island froze to its core and a stinging keenness held the air. The very rocks seemed charged with it. One almost listened to hear them crack in the stillness of the long nights. Little snow fell, and it was soon dispersed—whirled away on the fierce blasts that swept the island. Uncle William went back and forth between woodshed and house, carrying great armfuls of wood. A roaring fire warmed the red room, Juno purred in comfort in its depths. The pile of wood in the shed lowered fast, and the pile of money hoarded behind the loose brick in the chimney lowered with it—the money faster than the wood, perhaps. There was a widow with three children, a mile down the shore. Her husband had been drowned the year before, and there was no brick loose in her chimney to look behind as the woodpile diminished. Old Grandma Gruchy, too, who had outlived all her men folks and at ninety-three was still tough and hearty, had need of things.

Between filling the wood-box and looking after the weather and keeping a casual eye on the widows and the fatherless, Uncle William had a full winter. He was not a model housekeeper at best, and ten o’clock of winter mornings often found him with breakfast dishes unwashed and the floor unswept. Andy, coming in for his daily visit, would cast an uncritical eye at the frying-pan, and seat himself comfortably by the stove. It did not occur to either of them, as Uncle William pottered about, finishing the dishes, that Andy should take a hand. Andy had women folks to do for him.

As the winter wore on, letters came from the artist—sometimes gay and full of hope sometimes a little despondent. Uncle William read the letters to Andy, who commented on them according to his lights. “He don’t seem to be makin’ much money,” he would say from time to time. The letters revealed flashes of poverty and a kind of fierce struggle. “He ’s got another done,” Uncle William would respond: “that makes three; that ’s putty good.” Andy had ceased to ask about the money for the boat—when it was coming. He seemed to have accepted the fact that there would never be any, as placidly as William himself. If there was dawning in his mind the virtuous resolve to help out a little when the time came, no one would have guessed it from the grim face that surveyed Uncle William’s movements with a kind of detached scorn. Now and then Andy let fall a word of advice as to the best way of adjusting a tin on the stove, or better methods for cleaning the coffee-pot. Sometimes Uncle William followed the advice. It generally failed to work.

It was late in the winter that Andy appeared one morning bringing a letter from the artist. Uncle William searched for his spectacles and placed them on his nose with a genial smile.

Andy had not relinquished the letter. “I can read it for ye,” he volunteered.

“I can read it all right now, Andy, thank ye.” Uncle William reached out a hand for it.

Andy’s fingers relaxed on it grudgingly. He had once or twice been allowed to open and read the letters in the temporary absence of Uncle William’s spectacles. He found them more entertaining than when Uncle William read them. He privately suspected him of suppressing bits of news.

Uncle William looked up from the lines with pleased countenance. “Now, that ’s good. He ’s finished up five on ’em.”

“Five what?”

“Picters,” responded Uncle William, spelling it out slowly. “There ’s one of my house,”—lofty pride held the voice,—“and one of the cove down below, and two up by the end of old Bodet place, and one on the hill, this side of your place. Now, that ’s quite a nice lot, ain’t it?”

“What ’s he going to do with ’em,” asked Andy.

“There’s a kind of exhibit goin’ on.” Uncle William consulted the letter. “‘The Exhibition of American Artists’—suthin’ like a fair, I take it. And he ’s goin’ to send ’em.”

“Thinks he ’ll take a prize, I s’pose.” Andy’s tone held fine scepticism.

“Well, I dunno. He don’t say nuthin’ about a prize. He does kind o’ hint that he ’ll be sendin’ me suthin’ pretty soon. I guess likely there ’ll be prizes. He o’t to take one if there is. He made fust-rate picters, fust-rate—”

“The whole lot wa’n’t wuth the Jennie.” Andy spoke with sharp jealousy.

“Well, mebbe not—mebbe not. Want a game of checkers, Andy?”

“I don’t care,” sullenly. Uncle William brought out the board and arranged the pieces with stiff fingers.

Andy watched the movements, his eye callous to pleasure.

“It ’s your move, Andy.”

Andy drew up to the table and reached out a hand.... The spirit of the game descended upon him. He pushed forward a man with quick fingers. “Go ahead.”

Uncle William took time. His fingers hovered here and there in loving calculation. At last he lifted the piece and moved it slowly forward.

“Same move you al’ays make,” said Andy, contemptuously.

“Sometimes I beat that way, don’t I?”

“And sometimes you don’t.” Andy shoved forward another piece. The quick movement expressed scorn of dawdlers.

Uncle William met it mildly. He set his man in place with slow care.

Andy paused. He snorted a little. He bent above the board, knitting his forehead. His hand reached out and drew back. The fingers reached out and drew back. The fingers drummed a little on the edge of the board.

Uncle William, leaning forward, a hand on either knee, beamed on him benignantly.

Andy shifted a little in his chair. “You ’re going to get into trouble,” he said warningly, “if you move that way.”

“Like enough, like enough. I gen’ally do. Is it my move?”

“No,” growled Andy. He returned to the board. The game was on in earnest. Now and then Andy grunted or moved a leg, and once or twice Uncle William arose to put more wood into the glowing stove. But he did it with the gaze of a sleep-walker. Outside the wind had risen and dashed fiercely against the little house. Neither man lifted his head to listen. Their hands reached mechanically to the pieces. They jumped men and placed them one side with impassive faces. The board was clearing fast. Only seven men remained. Andy moved forward a piece with a swift flourish. He gave a little growl of triumph.

Uncle William studied the board. At last, with a heavy sigh, he lifted a piece and moved it cautiously.

Andy made the counter move in triumphant haste. “King,” he announced.

Uncle William covered the man, a little smile dawning in his eye. He looked at the pieces affectionately. A chuckle sounded somewhere in the room.

Andy looked up quickly. He glanced again at the board. Wrath froze his gaze.

Uncle William leaned back, nodding at him with genial meaning. A little conscious triumph flavored the nod.

Andy shoved back from the board. “Well, why don’t you take it? Take it if you ’re goin’ to, and don’t set there cackling!”

“Why, Andy!” Uncle William moved the man mildly.

Andy shoved the counter in place with scornful touch.

Uncle William moved again.

Andy got up, looking sternly for his hat.

“Can’t you stay to dinner, Andy?”

“No.”

“I was goin’ to have a little meat.”

“Can’t stay.”

“It ’s stormin’ putty hard.”

“I don’t care!” He moved toward the door.

Uncle William took down an oil-skin coat from its peg. “You better put this on if ye can’t stay. No use in gettin’ wet through.”

Andy put it on and buttoned it up in fierce silence.

Uncle William watched him benignly. “If ’t was so ’s ’t you could stay, we could play another after dinner—play the rubber. You beat me last time, you know.” He took off the stove-lid and peered in.

Andy’s eye had relaxed a little under its gloom. “When you goin’ to have dinner?” he asked.

“I was thinkin’ of havin’ it putty soon. I can have it right off if you ’ll stay—must be ’most time.” He pulled a great watch from its fob pocket and looked at it with absent eye. His gaze deepened. He looked up slowly. Then he smiled—a cheerful smile that took in Andy, the board with its scattered checkers, Juno on the lounge, and the whole red room.

“Well, what time is it?” said Andy.

“It ’s five minutes to three, Andy. Guess you ’d better stay,” said Uncle William.

title: Uncle William/Chapter 7


text: Page:The Private Crossings (Signs and Barriers) Regulations 2023 (uksi 20231112 en).pdf/5

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


text:
Uncle William/Chapter 8

NCLE WILLIAM carried the letter up the zigzag rocks in his big fingers. A touch of spring was in the air, but the Andrew Halloran rocked alone at the foot of the cliff. Uncle William turned back once to look at her. Then he pursued his way up the rocky cliff. He had not heard from the artist for over a month. He glanced down curiously at the letter in his hand, once or twice, as he climbed the cliff. It was a woman’s handwriting.

He sat down by the table, tearing open the envelope with cautious fingers. A strip of bluish paper fluttered from it and fell to the floor. Uncle William bent over and picked it up. He looked at it a little bashfully and laid it on the table. He spread the letter before him, resting his elbows on the table and bending above it laboriously. As he read, an anxious line came between his eyes. “Now, that ’s too bad—sick in bed—I want to know— Well, well! Pshaw, you need n’t ’a’ done that! Of course I ’ll go.” He picked up the bluish slip and looked at it. He pushed the spectacles back on his head and sat surveying the red room. He shook his head slowly. “He must be putty sick to feel like that,” he said.

He took up the letter again, spelling it out slowly.

Uncle William looked up, perplexed. “Sho, now! What does she mean by that? I did n’t do nuthin’—nuthin’ to speak of.”

Uncle William nodded at the letter with a genial smile, as if he saw the girl herself and responded to the wish. He returned the letter with the blue slip to the envelope and stowed it away in his pocket. He surveyed the room again, shaking his head. “I could n’t take their money, nohow,” he said slowly. “I must go and see Andy. He ’ll help out. He ’ll be reel glad to.”

He rose and began to set the table, bringing out the smoked herring and bread and tea and foxberries with lavish hand. He sat down with a look of satisfaction. Juno, from the red lounge, came across, jumping into the chair beside him. She rubbed expectantly against him. He fed her bits of the herring with impartial hand. When the meal was over, he went to the chimney and took out the loose brick, reaching in behind for the money. He counted it slowly. “Not near enough,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew there wa’n’t. I must go and see Andy.”

He washed the dishes and put them away, then he combed his tufts of hair and tied his neckerchief anew.

He found Andrew outside his house, feeding the hens. They stood in silence, watching the scramble for bits. “Shoo!” said Andrew, making a dash for a big cochin-china. “She eats a lot more ’an her share,” he grumbled, shaking out the dish. “Comin’ in?”

“I ’ve got a little suthin’ to talk over with ye,” said William.

“Come out behind the barn,” said Andrew.

Seated on a well-worn bench with a glimpse of the bay in the distance, William drew out the envelope. “I ’ve got a letter—”

Andy eyed it. “From that painter chap?”

“Well, not exactly. But it ’s about him. He ’s in a good deal of trouble—”

“What ’s he been doin’?” demanded Andy.

“He ’s been bein’ sick,” said William, reproachfully.

“Oh!” Andy’s face fell.

“He ’s sick now,” went on Uncle William. He drew the letter from its envelope. “He ’s feeling putty bad.”

“What ’s the matter of him?” said Andy, gruffly.

Uncle William studied the letter.

“It ’s a kind o’ fever—I guess—intermittent. Runs for a while, then lets up a day or two, and then runs again. We had it once—don’t you remember?—the whole crew, that time we broke down off Madagascar? ’Member how sick we felt?” Uncle William looked at him mildly.

Andy’s eye was fixed on the bay. “How d’ you know it ’s the same?” he said.

“Well, I don’t know it ’s the same—not just the same, but she says—”

“Who says?” Andy whirled about.

“Why, she says—Sergia says.— Did n’t I jest tell you, Andy?”

“You did n’t tell me nuthin’,” said Andy. He had returned to the bay.

“She is his—she is goin’ to marry him,” said William.

“Huh!”

There was silence for a minute, while Andrew digested the morsel. “When they goin’ to be married?” he said at last.

Uncle William shook his head. “That ’s jest it, Andy. They ’re in a heap o’ trouble.”

Andy stirred uneasily. “What ’d she write to you for?”

“I ’m comin’ to that—if you ’ll give me time. She thought mebbe I could help—”

Andy moved a little away. “You hain’t got the means,” he said decisively.

“No”—the tone was soothing—“but I can get it, mebbe. She wants me to come down.”

“To New York? You!” Andy looked at him.

William returned the look apologetically. “Does sound ridiculous, don’t it, Andy? I should n’t ever ’a’ thought of the thing myself, but she says he kind o’ needs me. Keeps askin’ for me when the fever is on, and don’t seem to get along much when it lets up. She kind o’ thinks if I was there, it would help him to brace up, somehow, a little.”

Andy made no response. The green light was dawning far down in his eye.

Uncle William watched it. “It ’s jest a sick man’s fancy, like enough.”

“When you goin’?” said Andy.

“I though ’bout day after to-morrow.”

“It ’ll cost a heap.”

“I know it.”

“You ’ve got it, I s’pose?” indifferently.

“Some of it,” said William.

Andy moved a little farther away. He was very near the edge of the bench.

Uncle William moved over by him, and laid a hand on his knee. “I was goin’ to ask you to lend me a hunderd, Andy.”

Andy wriggled a little. “You don’t hev to go,” he said feebly.

“If he needs me, I ’ll have to. I ain’t ever been needed much—livin’ alone so. You don’t know how ’t is. You have somebody to need you. Harriet needs you—”

“Lord, yes, Harr’et needs me. Don’t doubt she needs me this minute—pail o’ water or suthin’.” Andrew chuckled gloomily.

“And you hev your chickens, too.” Uncle William fixed his glance placidly on a strutting fowl that had appeared around the corner, cocking a surprised eye at them. William regarded her thoughtfully. “When a man ’s alone, there ain’t much he can do for folks,” he said slowly, “except feed Juno night and mornin’,—and she catches so many mice it ain’t really wuth while. Now a hen needs to be fed.”

“Guess they do,” grumbled Andy.

“And a cow,” went on Uncle William, “but there—” he checked himself. “What am I talkin’ about? How ’d I ever keep a cow? What ’d I do with the milk? I could n’t eat a whole cowful.” He sat gazing with far-off eyes at the glimpse of blue water.

Andy chewed scornfully on a bit of dry grass.

William turned to him suddenly. “We ’ll go down and draw out the money to-morrow morning,” he said.

Andy chewed anxiously. “I dunno as I can let you have it,” he protested.

“Oh, yes, you ’ll let me. You see I need it, Andy, and I ’m goin’ to pay you six per cent. How much do you get at the bank? Not more ’n five, do you?”

“Four and a half,” said Andy, grudgingly.

“Four and a half. Well, you see, I give you six. So there ’s a dollar and a half clear gain.”

Andrew’s eyes narrowed to the dollar and a half and fed on it awhile. “I shall hev to ask Harr’et,” he said.

“Now, I would n’t ask Harriet.” Uncle William spoke soothingly. “She don’t agree with you and me a good many times—Harriet don’t.”

Andrew admitted it. He chewed awhile in silence. “You ’ll give me a mortgage?” he said at last. The tone was crafty.

“On my place!” Uncle William was roused. “No, sir, I don’t give mortgages to nobody.”

“Then I don’t see as I can let you hev it,” said Andy. “It ’s fair to ask for a mortgage. What if anything should happen to ye—down there in New York? Where ’d I be?” He looked at him reproachfully.

“You would miss me, Andy, and I know it. I ’m goin’ to be careful. I shan’t take no more resks ’n I have to.”

“Nor me, neither,” said Andy.

“That ’s right, Andy, you be careful, too, while I ’m gone. Why, ’t wouldn’t ever be like home—to come back and not find you here.”

Andy’s eyes widened. “What you talkin’ ’bout?” he said.

Uncle William’s gaze was on him affectionately. He looked a little puzzled. “I dunno jest what I did start to say,” he said apologetically. “I was thinkin’ what a store I set by you, Andy.”

Andy’s face softened a trifle. “Now, look here, Willum, a mortgage is fair. It would n’t hurt you none, nor your place—”

William shook his head. “I could n’t do it, Andy. I would n’t reely trust you with a mortgage. You might get scared and foreclose some day if I could n’t pay the interest, and you ’d be ashamed enough—doin’ a thing like that.”

The next day Andy drew the hundred from the bank and turned it over to William without even a note to guard his sacred rights. Andy had tried in the night watches to formulate a note. He had selected the best, from a row of crafty suggestions, about four o’clock. But later, as he and William went up the road, the note dropped by the way.

Uncle William stowed the money in his pocket with a comfortable smile. “You ’ve done the right thing, Andy, and I shall pay you back when I can. You ’ll get your interest reg’lar—six per cent.”

Andy’s face held a kind of subdued gloom. He mourned not as those without hope, but with a chastened expectancy. To lend William money had almost the fine flavor of gambling.

He saw him off the following morning, with a sense of widened interests. He carried, moreover, an additional burden. “Remember, Andy,” Uncle William called to him as the boat moved away, “she don’t like potato, and she won’t touch a mite of fish—’ceptin’ herrin’.” Juno had been intrusted to him.

Andy grinned a sickly good-by. “Good-by, Willum; I ’ll do as well as I can by her.” He turned away with a sudden sense of loss. The island seemed very empty. Juno did not like Andy, and he was needed at home. The mental effort of thinking up a menu three times a day that did not include fish and potato for a magnificent creature like Juno weighed heavily on him. He had proposed bringing her down to the house, thinking to shift the burden on to Harriet, but Uncle William had refused sternly. “She would n’t be comfortable, Andy. The’ ’s a good deal of soap and water down to your house and she would n’t like it. You can run up two or three times, easy, to see she ’s all right. Mebbe you ’ll get fond of her.”

Andrew had no rosy hopes of fondness, but as he turned away from the wharf, there seemed no place on the island that would hold him so comfortably as the little house on the cliff. He climbed the rocky path to it and opened the door. Juno sprang down from her lounge. When she saw who it was she gave an indifferent lick to her front leg, as if she always jumped down to lick her leg. Then she jumped back on the lounge and turned her back to the room, looking out of the window and blinking from time to time. The smoke of the steamer was dwindling in the distance.

Andy sat down in a vacant chair by the stove, staring at nothing. The sun poured in. It filled the room with warmth. Andy’s eyes rested on it vacantly. The stillness was warm and big. It seemed a kind of presence. Andy drew his hand across his eyes and got up. He went over and stood by the lounge, peering out. The smoke was gone. Juno turned her head and blinked an eye or two, indifferent. She ignored him pointedly. Her gaze returned to the sea. Andy had half put out his hand to stroke her. He drew it back. He had a sudden bitter desire to swear or kick something. He went out hastily, closing the door behind him. Juno, with her immovable gaze, stared out to sea.

title: Uncle William/Chapter 8


text:
Uncle William/Chapter 9

NCLE WILLIAM sniffed the air of the docks with keen relish. The spring warmth had brought out the smells of lower New York teemingly. There was a dash of salt air and tar, and a dim odor of floating—of decayed vegetables and engine-grease and dirt. It was the universal port-smell the world over, and Uncle William took it in in leisurely whiffs as he watched the play of life in the dockshed—the backing of horses and the shouting of the men, the hollow sound of hoofs on the worn planks and the trundling hither and thither of boxes and barrels and bales.

He was in no hurry to leave the dock. It was a part of the journey—the sense of leisure. Men who travel habitually by sea do not rush from the vessel that has brought them to port, gripsack in hand. There are innumerable details—duties, inspections and quarantines, and delays and questionings. The sea gives up her cargo slowly. The customs move with the swift leisure of those who live daily between Life and the Deep Sea—without hurry and without rest.

Uncle William watched it all in good-humored detachment. He made friends with half the shed, wandering in and out through the crowd, his great bulk towering above it. Here and there he helped a fat, heavy baby down the length of the shed, or lifted aside a big box that blocked the way. He might have been the Presiding Genius of the place. Men took him in with a good-humored wink, as he towered along, and women looked after him gratefully. Amid the bustle and enforced waiting, he was the only soul at rest. Time belonged to him. He was at home. He had played his part in similar scenes in hundreds of ports. The city bubbling and calling outside had no bewilderments for Uncle William. New York was only one more foreign port, and he had touched too many to have fear of them. They were all alike—exorbitant cab-men, who came down on their fare if you stood by your box and refused to let it be lifted till terms were made; rum-shops and gambling-holes, and worse, hedging the way from the wharf; soiled women haunting one’s steps, if one halted a bit or turned to the right or left in indecision. He had talked with women of every port. They were a huge band, a great sisterhood that reached thin hands about the earth, touching it with shame; and they congregated most where the rivers empty their burden of filth into the sea. Uncle William knew them well. He could steer a safe path among them; and he could turn a young man, hesitating, with foolish, confident smile on his face. Uncle William had not been in New York for twelve years, but he had a sailor’s unerring instinct for the dangers and the comforts of a port. He knew which way hell lay, and which of the drivers, backing and cursing and calling, one could trust. He signaled to one with his eye.

“What ’ll ye charge to give this young feller a lift?” Uncle William indicated the youth beside him.

The driver looked him over with keen eye. “That ’s all right.” He moved along on the seat to make room. “Come on, young man.”

The youth climbed up with clumsy foot.

“You might know of a job,” suggested Uncle William. “He looks strong and willin’.”

The man nodded back. “I ’ll keep an eye on him, sir.” The van rumbled away and Uncle William faced the crowed once more.

He made friends as he moved among the throngs of hurrying men and women. Men who never saw him again recalled his face sometimes at night, as they wakened for a minute from sleep. The big smile reached to them across time and gave them a sense of the goodness of life before they turned again and slept.

If he had been a little man, Uncle William would still have run hither and thither through the crowd, a kind of gnome of usefulness. But his great frame gave him advantage. He was like a mountain among them—with the breath of winds about it—or some huge, quiet engine at sea, making its way with throbbing power.

If the thought of the artist crossed Uncle William’s mind, it did not disturb him. He was accustomed to do what he called his duty; and it had for him the simplicity, common to big men, of being the thing next at hand. Like a force of nature he laid hold on it, and out of the ground and the sky and the thrill of life, he wrought beauty upon it. If this were philosophy or religion, Uncle William did not know it. He called it “jest livin’ along.”

It was ten o’clock before he reached the artist’s rooms, and his rap at the door, gentle as a woman’s, brought no response. He rapped again.

“What ’s wanted?” It was the querulous voice of a sick man.

Uncle William set the door ajar with his foot while he reached behind him for his box.

The artist had sprung up in bed and was staring at the door. In the dim light from the street below, his face stood out rigidly white.

Uncle William looked at it kindly as he came across. “There, there,” he said soothingly. “I guess I ’d lie down.” He put his hands on the young man’s shoulders, pushing him back gently.

The artist yielded to the touch, staring at him with wide eyes. “Who—are—you?” he said. The words were a whisper.

Uncle Williams’ smile deepened. “I guess ye know me all right, don’t ye?”

The artist continued to stare at him. “You came through the door. It was locked.”

“Shucks, no!” said Uncle William. “’T wa’n’t locked any more ’n I be. You jest forgot it.”

“Did I?” The tense look broke. “I thought you had come again.”

“Well, I hev.”

“I don’t mean that way. Sit down.” He looked feebly for a chair.

Uncle William had drawn one up to the bed. He sat down, bending forward a little. One big hand rested on the young man’s wrist. “Now, tell me all about it,” he said quietly.

The artist raised his eyes with a smile. He drew a deep breath. “Yes—you ’ve come,” he said. “You ’ve come.”

“I ’ve come,” said Uncle William. His big bulk had not stirred. It seemed to fill the room.

The sick man rested in it. His eyes closed. “I ’ve wanted—you.”

Uncle William nodded. “Sick folks get fancies,” he said.

“—and I kept seeing you in the fever—and you—” The voice droned away and was still.

Uncle William sat quiet, one hand on the thin wrist. The galloping pulse slowed—and leaped again—and fluttered, and fell at last to even beats. The tense muscles relaxed. The parted lips closed with a half-smile.

Uncle William bent forward, watching it. In the dim light of the room, his face had a kind of gentleness—a kindliness and bigness that watched over the night and reached out beyond it to the ends of the earth.

title: Uncle William/Chapter 9


text:
Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb01gaskrich).pdf/361

 energetic she certainly is; and if she be not quite so tractable or open to conviction as I could wish, I must remember perfection is not the lot of humanity; and as long as we can regard those we love, and to whom we are closely allied, with profound and never-shaken esteem, it is a small thing that they should vex us occasionally by what appear to us unreasonable and headstrong notions.

"You, my dear Miss Wooler, know full as well as I do, the value of sisters' affection to each other; there is nothing like it in this world, I believe, when they are nearly equal in age, and similar in education, tastes, and sentiments. You ask about Branwell; he never thinks of seeking employment, and I begin to fear that he has rendered himself incapable of filling any respectable station in life; besides, if money were at his disposal, he would use it only to his own injury; the faculty of self-government is, I fear, almost destroyed in him. You ask me if I do not think that men are strange beings? I do, indeed. I have often thought so; and I think, too, that the mode of bringing them up is strange: they are not sufficiently guarded from temptation. Girls are protected as if they were something very frail or silly indeed, while boys are turned loose on the world as if they, of all beings in existence, were the wisest and least liable to be led astray. I am glad you like Bromsgrove, though, I dare say, there are few places you would not like, with Mrs. M. for a companion. I always feel a peculiar satisfaction when I hear of your enjoying


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Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/150

]

Rectangular trinket baskets (fig. 68, a) are made of agave leaves, but nearly all are obtained from the Papagos, as the Pima women seldom make them. They are deeper than broad, somewhat enlarged at the bottom, and are provided with lids. They are of the twined  style of weaving. At a distance of 1 cm. from the interior margin of the lid the warp splints (so termed for the sake of clearness in description—they are exactly like the weft) are cut and the ends show on the inside of the lid. The weft is continued to the margin, turned back on itself at right angles to form what looks like a separate ring around the lid; at a height of 5 or 6 cm. it is again folded in and the ends of the splints are cut about 1 cm. from the last fold, so as to be concealed from view.

"Medicine" baskets (fig. 68, b) are of the same material and style of weaving as the trinket baskets. They have a characteristic shape—long, square cornered, with rounded margin. They are made in two nearly equal parts, one of which slips over the other as a lid.

Food bowls of remarkably fine workmanship and graceful shape were carried by warriors on the warpath. They were used to mix

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 was in, and bore towards her mistress that night. In every other respect the etiquette was sacred, and might have vied with the most mechanical one of the most inflexible bed-chamber in Christendom.

The first night, as soon as the corporal had conducted my uncle Toby up stairs, which was about ten—Mrs. Wadman threw herself into her arm chair, and crossing her left knee with her right, which formed a resting-place for her elbow, she reclin'd her cheek upon the palm of her hand, and leaning forwards, ruminated till midnight upon both sides of the question.

The second night she went to her bureau, and having ordered Bridget to


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Page:The West Shore volume 15 number 6.djvu/7

 THE WEST SHORE.

Fifteenth Yeau.

JUNE, 1889.

NuMIIEli G.

THE PROVINOB OF BRITISH COLUMBIA.

S

(

I /

]R1TISII Columbia is one of the provincee of the Uoininion of Canada, and is destined to occu- py the same position with refer- ence to her sister provinces on the Atlantic slope that Oregon, Washington and California will to the states east of the Rocky mountains. Its great area, mild and equable climate, and vast wealth of natural re- sources, more varied and more valuable than those of any other portion of the dominion, will in future years render it the richest and most populous of all the provir "es embraced in the confederation. These thing., ^eing true — and there is no disputing the evi- dences which point to them by one who has given the question even a superficial examination what an in- vitation she extends to young men to employ their capital, brain and physical energy in building up the great empire which must surely be developed on this western coast! A generation hence, the youth of the land will not have this grand opportunity now offered their fathers, to begin life for themselves in a new country teeming with the natural wealth that has lain dormant since the foundation of the world. Through years of toil and privation the pioneers of this region have prepared the way, and the man who now comes to the western slope will find ample scope for his best conceptions and his greatest eiTorts.

The province embraces all that portion of North America lying north of the United States and west of the Rocky mountains, except the Alaskan penin- sula and the small strip of Alaska lying along the coast as far south as latitude fifty-four degrees and forty minutes, an empire seven hundred miles long and five hundred wide, containing about three hun- dred and forty-one thousand square miles of territo- ry. It consists of two distinct divisions, the coast re- gion and the interior, each having characteristics pe- culiar to itself. Tho former comprises the fringe of

small islands lying along the coast, omb/acing a large area in the riggregate, and that portion of the main land west of the Coast mountains. In this region the rainfall is large and the climate is mild, (-(juablo and inexpressibly lovely. The great Japan current, which BO modifies the temperature even on the far northern shores of Alaska, here exerts its benign iuthienco to its fullest, and the result is a climate where the mer- cury seldom falls below the freezing point in winter or rises above ninety degrees in summer, while tho warm and gentle rains promote tho growth of vegeta- tion. In the interior the influence of this ocean river is not so great, and the winter climate is somewhat more rigorous, but even there the temperature does not get so low, nor does the winter season last so long, as in the eastern provinces of the dominion. The snowfall there is not so great as on the Atlantic slope and the spring opens much earlier. In fact, cattle gra/.e on the open ranges all winter, subsisting on the dried bunch grass, which is as nutritious as the best cured hay.

The coast region, owing to its greater humidity, is densely covered with timber of giant proportions, chief of which »re tho Douglas fir and red oodar. Here is a mine of natural wealth that will not bo ex- hausted for a great many years. Lumbering enter- prises aro carried on quite extensively, and have been for many years, but tho greater development of this business is one of the brightest outlooks of the fu- ture. Heretofore tho market has been chiefly a for- eign one, but the development of tho province is steadily increasing the importance of the homo mar- ket. Certainly British Columbia ofTers unrivaled in- ducements to the lumber manufacturer. The interior, from the Coast mountains to tho Gold mountains, contains but little timber, but on the Gold, Selkirk and Rocky mountains there are great ranges of splendid forests, which, owing to tho unsettled condition of the region, are still practically untouched, though a fow mills have been nibbling at them for several years.

T^'T-^-


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Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/7

2 service of the others, filled the fourth and last grade. The first three orders were distinguished by the appellation of the twice-born, and were invested with the sacred cord as the badge of their regeneration; the last were doomed to occupy the same position in India that was allotted to the slaves in the Grecian republics.

Disparities of rank and station are inseparable from human society, and the Hindu legislators, in causing this quadruple division, acted upon the principle that was observed by statesmen all over the world. The satraps of the Magian and Sabian countries, the free-born citizens of the Grecian states, the priests and warriors of Egypt, the patricians and plebeians of Rome, and the peers, grandees, segniors, ameers, &c., in other quarters, are evidences of conventional distinctions maintained by all nations. Some have everywhere endeavoured to rise above others. Even the most democratical states have not been free from aristocratic distinctions and influences. The vast majority of the human species has always submitted to the authority of the few that have exalted themselves above the common level; and these have invariably improved every opportunity of self-aggrandisement. It was not alone, though he was the first on record, that began to be mighty on the earth. Many have since followed the “mighty hunter’s” example by struggling for superiority over their brethren.

These distinctions have, however, proved in India sad engines of corruption and human degradation. They have been considered, not as mere civil enactments intended for the well-being of society, and so capable of alteration and improvement, according to the mutations of times and circumstances, but as an integral portion of the Brahminical theology itself, alleged to have been ordained by God from the very beginning of the world, and therefore superior to modification and change. The different tribes are religiously enjoined to keep separate from one another, and to abstain on peril of their souls from intruding into each other’s professions. In their anxiety to place their own dignity upon the firmest footing, the Hindu legislators did not stop to consider or deplore the magnitude of the evils they were preparing for their country, or the hardness of the yoke they were imposing on millions of their species. The noblest families might deteriorate, and the meanest tribe might ameliorate itself, in process of time. Hereditary priests, warriors, mechanics and menial labourers might, by the vicissitudes of life, be all incapacitated in the course of a few centuries for their respective occupations, and yet be adapted for other duties; and if the country could not reap


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 bring her up a couple of fresh candles and leave them upon the table, she took out her marriage-settlement, and read it over with great devotion: and the third night (which was the last of my uncle Toby's stay) when Bridget had pull'd down the night-shift, and was assaying to stick in the corking pin

—With a kick of both heels at once, but at the same time the most natural kick that could be kick'd in her situation—for supposing ********* to be the sun in its meridian, it was a north-east kick—she kick'd the pin out of her fingers—the etiquette which hung upon it, down—down it fell to the ground, and was shivered into a thousand atoms.


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 From all which it was plain that widow Wadman was in love with my uncle Toby.

uncle Toby's head at that time was full of other matters, so that it was not till the demolition of Dunkirk, when all the other civilities of Europe were settled, that he found leisure to return this.

This made an armistice (that is speaking with regard to my uncle Toby—but with respect to Mrs. Wadman, a vacancy)—of almost eleven years. But in all cases of this nature, as it is the second blow, happen at what distance of


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Signed by authority of the Secretary of State for Transport

23rd October 2023


text: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman/Volume 8/Chapter 9


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Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb01gaskrich).pdf/362

 yourself, because it proves that there really is such a thing as retributive justice even in this world. You worked hard; you denied yourself all pleasure, almost all relaxation, in your youth, and in the prime of life; now you are free, and that while you have still, I hope, many years of vigour and health in which you can enjoy freedom. Besides, I have another and very egotistical motive for being pleased: it seems that even 'a lone woman' can be happy, as well as cherished wives and proud mothers. I am glad of that. I speculate much on the existence of unmarried and never-to-be-married women now-a-days; and I have already got to the point of considering that there is no more respectable character on this earth than an unmarried woman, who makes her own way through life quietly, perseveringly, without support of husband or brother; and who, having attained the age of forty-five or upwards, retains in her possession a well-regulated mind, a disposition to enjoy simple pleasures, and fortitude to support inevitable pains, sympathy with the sufferings of others, and willingness to relieve want as far as her means extend."

During the time that the negotiation with Messrs. Aylott and Co. was going on, Charlotte went to visit her old school-friend, with whom she was in such habits of confidential intimacy; but, neither then nor afterwards, did she ever speak to her of the publication of the poems; nevertheless, this young lady suspected that the sisters wrote for magazines; and


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 in this idea she was confirmed when, on one of her visits to Haworth, she saw Anne with a number of "Chambers's Journal," and a gentle smile of pleasure stealing over her placid face as she read.

"What is the matter?" asked the friend. "Why do you smile?"

"Only because I see they have inserted one of my poems," was the quiet reply; and not a word more was said on the subject.

To this friend Charlotte addressed the following letters:—

"March 3, 1846.

"I reached home a little after two o'clock, all safe and right yesterday; I found papa very well; his sight much the same. Emily and Anne were gone to Keighley to meet me; unfortunately, I had returned by the old road, while they were gone by the new, and we missed each other. They did not get home till half-past four, and were caught in the heavy shower of rain which fell in the afternoon. I am sorry to say Anne has taken a little cold in consequence, but I hope she will soon be well. Papa was much cheered by my report of Mr. C.'s opinion, and of old Mrs. E.'s experience; but I could perceive he caught gladly at the idea of deferring the operation a few months longer. I went into the room where Branwell was, to speak to him, about an hour after I got home; it was very forced work to address him. I might have spared myself the trouble, as he took no notice, and made no reply; he was stupified.


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LUE-BOTTLE. . Class 19,. Order:. The beautiful blue of this flower, which is of the colour of an unclouded sky, has made it the emblem of a tender and delicate sentiment, nourished by hope. According to ancient fable, this plant was called Cyanus, after a youth of that name, whose attachment to corn-flowers was so strong, that he employed his time chiefly in making garlands of them, seldom leaving the fields so long as his favourite flower was to be found, and always dressing himself in the fine blue colour of the flower he so much admired. Flora was his goddess; and, of all her gifts, this was the one he most admired. At last the youth was found dead in a corn-field, in the midst of a quantity of blue-bottles he had gathered. Soon after Flora transformed his body into this flower, in token of the veneration he had for her divinity.

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text: Flora's Lexicon/Blue Bottle

title: Flora's Lexicon/Blue Bottle


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 My fears were not vain. I hear that he got a sovereign while I have been away, under pretence of paying a pressing debt; he went immediately and changed it at a public-house, and has employed it as was to be expected. concluded her account by saying he was a 'hopeless being;' it is too true. In his present state it is scarcely possible to stay in the room where he is. What the future has in store I do not know."

"March 31, 1846.

"Our poor old servant Tabby had a sort of fit, a fortnight since, but is nearly recovered now. Martha" (the girl they had to assist poor old Tabby, and who remains still the faithful servant at the parsonage) "is ill with a swelling in her knee, and obliged to go home. I fear it will be long before she is in working condition again. I received the number of the Record you sent I read D'Aubigné's letter. It is clever, and in what he says about Catholicism very good. The Evangelical Alliance part is not very practicable, yet certainly it is more in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel to preach unity among Christians than to inculcate mutual intolerance and hatred. I am very glad I went to when I did, for the changed weather has somewhat changed my health and strength since. How do you get on? I long for mild south and west winds. I am thankful papa continues pretty well, though often made very miserable by Branwell's wretched conduct. There—there is no change but for the worse."


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NE of the loveliest, and most amazing, phenomena of the heavens is the Milky Way. In olden times, imagination ran riot as to just what this luminous band of light could be. It was almost as great a mystery as the tides, which were called the "grave of curiosity."

Fully equal to solving the problem to their own satisfaction, even as they did the motion of the stars, the ancient people considered that here, perhaps, was a crack or seam where the two halves of heaven were imperfectly joined thus giving to earth a glimpse of the glory beyond the darkness.

In ancient Judea it was imagined as a Long Bandage wrapped around the heavens.

Others thought that the Milky Way was not an imperfection in the floor of heaven but a pathway left open for the angels. A French legend has it the glimmering of lights held by angels to guide mortals on their way to heaven. Some of the tribes of American Indians have a legend somewhat like the French legend for they, too, thought that it was a road on which souls journeyed to their "happy hunting ground." The large stars, on either side of

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Page:Calcutta Review Vol. II (Oct. - Dec. 1844).pdf/6

. I.—1. Genealogical account of the Kulins, by Dhrubánanda Misra, Sanscrit, unpublished.

2. Kula-sára-sindhu, by Raghunandan Tarkabágish, Sanscrit, unpublished.

3. Mukhuti-kula-varnaná, Sanscrit, unpublished.

4. A Historical Fragment, Sanscrit verse, unpublished.

5. Sankarmálá, by Bhriguráma, Sanscrit, unpublished.

6. Kankálir Abhishámpa, or the malediction of Kankáli, by Rám Chunder Turkálankár.—Ratnakar Press, Calcutta.

distinctions of tribes and classes appear to have prevailed in India from very remote times. The Hindus, with their usual fondness for all Brahminical ordinances, pretend that their four-fold division of castes was coëval with the creation. The pretension, ridiculous and futile as it is, proves, however, the antiquity of the institution; and as the classification corresponds to a considerable extent with the Egyptian mode of distributing offices and occupations, it is probable that an early intercourse existed between these two nations, especially since voyages by sea were not of yore forbidden to the Hindus. There is no extravagance in the supposition, that the route which the Berenice, the Sesostris, the Cleopatra, the Victoria, the Akbar, &c., are now taking every month with the overland mails from and to Bombay, had, centuries past, been marked by Hindu vessels trading on the Red Sea, and that these merchantmen had imported or exported many of the existing laws of castes and tribes.

Among the Hindus, as among the Egyptians, the priests occupied the first rank in society, and naturally commanded the veneration due to the guardians of religion and learning. The warriors and the merchants, who were entrusted with the preservation of the country and the supply of the comforts and necessities of life, enjoyed the second and third places in the commonwealth, while the Sudras, or slaves, destined for the


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 Meanwhile the printing of the volume of poems was quietly proceeding. After some consultation and deliberation the sisters had determined to correct the proofs themselves. Up to March 28th the publishers had addressed their correspondent as C. Brontë, Esq., but at this time some "little mistake occurred," and she desired Messrs. Aylott and Co. in future to direct to her real address, "Miss Brontë," &c. But she had evidently left it to be implied that she was not acting on her own behalf, but as agent for the real authors, as in a note, dated April 6, she makes a proposal on behalf of "C. E. and A. Bell," which is to the following effect, that they are preparing for the press a work of fiction, consisting of three distinct and unconnected tales, which may be published either together, as a work of three volumes, of the ordinary novel size, or separately, as single volumes, as may be deemed most advisable. She states, in addition, that it is not their intention to publish these tales on their own account; but that the authors direct her to ask Messrs. Aylott and Co. whether they would be disposed to undertake the work, after having, of course, by due inspection of the MS., ascertained that its contents are such as to warrant an expectation of success. To this letter of inquiry the publishers replied speedily, and the tenor of their answer may be gathered from Charlotte's, dated April 11th.

"I beg to thank you, in the name of C. E., and A. Bell, for your obliging offer of advice. I will avail myself of it, to request information on two or three


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ONUS HENRICUS, or GOOSEFOOT.  Class 5,. Order:. The French people have given the name of their beloved king, Henry IV., to a beneficent and useful plant, which grows for the poor, and indeed seems exclusively to belong to them. In France it flourishes without any cultivation, and forms the asparagus and spinach of the poor; in England it is known also as wild spinach. The leaves are said to be of great service when applied to wounds. Happy is that king who deserves an homage so universal and so simple!

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text: Flora's Lexicon/Bonus Henricus

title: Flora's Lexicon/Bonus Henricus


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 the road, were camp fires which cheered and warmed the travelers on their way.

Aristotle imagined that this misty arch of light was the result of gaseous exhalations which had risen from the earth and now rested between the region of the ether and that of the planets.

Posidonious thought that it was a compound of fire less dense than that of the stars but more luminous. Still others fancifully considered it to be the course of the sun-chariot after Phæthon had lost control of his horses and that along here were the imprints of the hot hoofs and the ruts scorched by the fiery wheels.

A more modern legend of Swedish origin tells of the construction of the Milky Way by two lovers who were mourning for each other on separate stars. After toiling a thousand years they built this "bridge of starry light" which spanned the space between the two stars and enabled them to once more be united.

The Chinese, Japanese and Koreans thought of the Milky Way as a river. An ancient tale, current in these countries, connects this "river" and the constellations of Lyra and Aquila in the quaint and charming romance of two lovers who were so happily married that they could not bear to be separated. As a result, they neglected their duties to such an extent that the God of the Firmament placed the bride on a constellation on one side of the celestial

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Rh to be startled and would run from the spot. She played another game with the grasshoppers. One would be hiding, and Eepersip would come dancing by with her eyes shut. Then the grasshopper would whirr out of the grass and alight on her hand. When she opened her eyes she would shake her hand and try to get rid of him, all in fun, of course. Then sh e played two lovely games with the happy butterflies. She would let a butterfly alight on her hand, to which she would then give a violent jerk, so that the butterfly was sent sailing into the air; then, without a motion of the wings, he would come sailing back to Eepersip's hand. This they would do again and again. When she tired of this game, Eepersip would crown herself with the sweetest flowers she could find, and then flocks of butterflies would try to alight on her wreath as she danced. There were never enough flowers for all of them; some were always fluttering around Eepersip's head, trying to find a nestling-place, and others were safely folded in the blossoms.

One of the thrilling hours of Eepersip's happy life that summer was when she lay in the meadow watching the sky and all the swallows circling. Snowflake and Chippy were frolicking gayly in the short, dry grass, chasing leaves. Now Chippy snuggled up to Eepersip. Snowflake kept on

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 river and her husband on a constellation on the other side. "Now," said he, "on the 7th night of the 7th month you may meet—if you are able." This date occurs during the summer-time, in July, at a time of the year when the Milky Way and these stars are well placed for observation, and, on a clear night anyone with a keen eye and an open mind may witness a remarkable thing happen. Every magpie in sight flies upward, higher than it ever flew before, up to the very fields of heaven where the Milky River wends its way. Ranging themselves side by side, the birds make a bridge of their bodies and wings which spans the celestial river and solves the problem of how the lovers shall meet. On this happy night, the stars of Lyra and Aquila burn with five different colors. If, however, the weather is stormy and rain falls, the river rises and flows over the plains and all the magpies in China, Korea and Japan cannot reach across it. The children of Korea stone every magpie they see loitering around its usual haunts, to remind it of its duty.

Lafcadio Hearn, who wrote the Japanese version of this story

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54 ; she was crouched on her little white belly, playing with a dry brown leaf, and when it drifted beyond her reach she would spring after it. Eepersip watched her in a dreamy way. Now Snowflake cast the dead leaf away, having torn it to shreds, and played with other things. Sometimes she would rear herself up into the air; at other times she would run with little tripping steps over to Eepersip, as if something had frightened her; again she would rush round and round Eepersip in a wide circle, and finally she would settle down to play with another dead leaf. It made Eepersip glad to hear the kitten's little pattering feet on the grass; she knew how madly Snowflake was frolicking, but she did not share in the playinstead, with a dreamy happiness, she watched the sky.

Another day in this summer was even happier. It was in July, and Eepersip was lying in a part of the meadow where there weren't many deer, so that the grass was long, soft, and green instead of stiff and short. Snowflake and Chippy were frolicking around in it, but again Eepersip was not thinking of them. She wast thinking the swallows that flew over her, and the way the sun shone on their breasts, making them glitter like silver. The crickets were chirping, and the grasshoppers were accompanying them, and they were both very

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 in a most delightful way, said it seemed to be the origin of a festival called Tanabata. During this festival the Japanese write poems with dew "from the River of Heaven," which is collected fresh from yam leaves. These poems are written on strips of blue, green, red, yellow and white paper to match the colors of the stars, and are tied on bamboo stalks set up about the houses. Mr. Hearn in his "Romance of the Milky Way" refers to the story in this exquisite manner:

There are any number of references to the Milky Way throughout the realms of poetry. Amelia describes it as

Milton—an

Ovid—a "high-road" "whose groundwork is of stars":

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 line about it. But in full face it was not heavy, only quiet. Her mouth was full and colorless, unpainted, and her eyes were opaque as smoke. She met his gaze, remarking the icy blueness of his eyes (like a surgeon’s she thought) and looked at the marble again.

“I don’t know,” she answered slowly. Then: “It’s like me.”

“How like you?” he asked gravely.

She didn’t answer. Then she said: “Can I touch it?”

“If you like,” he replied, examining the line of her jaw, her firm brief nose. She made no move and he added: “Aren’t you going to touch it?”

“I’ve changed my mind,” she told him calmly. Gordon glanced ever his shoulder to where Mrs. Maurier pored volubly over something. Mr. Talliaferro yea’d her with restrained passion.

“Why is it like you?” he repeated.

She said irrelevantly: “Why hasn’t she anything here?” Her brown hand flashed slimly across the high unemphasis of the marble’s breast, and withdrew.

“You haven’t much there yourself.” She met his steady gaze steadily. “Why should it have anything there?” he asked.

“You're right,” she agreed with the judicial complaisance of an equal. “I see now. Of course she shouldn’t. I didn’t quite—quite get it for a moment.”

Gordon examined with growing interest her flat breast and belly, her boy’s body which the poise of it and the thinness of her arms belied. Sexless, yet somehow vaguely troubling. Perhaps just young, like a calf or a colt. “How old are you?” he asked abruptly.

“Eighteen, if it’s any of your business,” she replied without rancor, staring at the marble. Suddenly she looked up at him

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 again. “I wish I could have it,” she said with sudden sincerity and longing, quite like a four-year-old.

“Thanks,” he said. “That was quite sincere, too, wasn’t it? Of course you can’t have it, though. You see that, don’t you?”

She was silent. He knew she could see no reason why she shouldn’t have it.

“I guess so,” she agreed at last. “I just thought I’d see, though.”

“Not to overlook any bets?”

“Oh, well, by to-morrow I probably won’t want it, anyway And if I still do, I can get something just as good.”

“You mean,” he amended, “that if you still want it to-morrow, you can get it. Don’t you?”

Her hand, as if it were a separate organism, reached out slowly, stroking the marble. “Why are you so black?” she asked.

“Black?”

“Not your hair and beard. I like your red hair and beard. But you. You are black. I mean” her voice fell and he suggested Soul? “I don’t know what that is,” she stated quietly.

“Neither do I. You might ask your aunt, though. She seems familiar with souls.”

She glanced over her shoulder, showing him her other unequal profile. “Ask her yourself. Here she comes.”

Mrs. Maurier surged her scented upholstered bulk between them. “Wonderful, wonderful,” she was exclaiming in sincere astonishment. “And this” her voice died away and she gazed at the marble, dazed. Mr. Talliaferro echoed her immaculately, taking to himself the showman’s credit.

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 “Do you see what he has caught?” he bugled melodiously. “Do you see? The spirit of youth, of something fine and hard and clean in the world; something we all desire until our mouths are stopped with dust.” Desire with Mr. Talliaferro had long since become an unfulfilled habit requiring no longer any particular object at all.

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Maurier. “How beautiful. What—what does it signify, Mr. Gordon?”

“Nothing, Aunt Pat,” the niece snapped. “It doesn’t have to.”

“But, really—”

“What do you want it to signify? Suppose it signified a—a dog, or an ice cream soda, what difference would it make? Isn’t it all right like it is?”

“Yes, indeed, Mrs. Maurier,” Mr. Talliaferro agreed with soothing haste, “it is not necessary that it have objective significance. We must accept it for what it is: pure form untrammeled by any relation to a familiar or utilitarian object.”

“Oh, yes: untrammeled.” Here was a word Mrs. Maurier knew. “The untrammeled spirit, freedom like the eagle’s.”

“Shut up, Aunty,” the niece told her. “Don’t be a fool.”

“But it has what Talliaferro calls objective significance,” Gordon interrupted brutally. “This is my feminine ideal: a virgin with no legs to leave me, no arms to hold me, no head to talk to me.”

“Mister Gordon!” Mrs. Maurier stared at him over her compressed breast. Then she thought of something that did possess objective significance. “I had almost forgotten our reason for calling so late. Not,” she added quickly, “that we needed any other reason to—to—Mr. Talliaferro, how was it those old people used to put it, about pausing on Life’s busy highroad to kneel for a moment at the Master’s feet?

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 ” Mrs. Maurier’s voice faded and her face assumed an expression of mild concern. “Or is it the Bible of which I am thinking? Well, no matter: we dropped in to invite you for a yachting party, a few days on the lake—”

“Yes. Talliaferro told me about it. Sorry, but I shall be unable to come.”

Mrs. Maurier’s eyes became quite round. She turned to Mr. Talliaferro. “Mister Talliaferro! You told me you hadn’t mentioned it to him!”

Mr. Talliaferro writhed acutely. “Do forgive me, if I left you under that impression. It was quite unintentional. I only desired that you speak to him yourself and make him reconsider. The party will not be complete without him, will it?”

“Not at all. Really, Mr. Gordon, won’t you reconsider? Surely you won’t disappoint us.” She stooped creaking, and slapped at her ankle. “Pardon me.”

“No. Sorry. I have work to do.”

Mrs. Maurier transferred her expression of astonishment and dejection to Mr. Talliaferro. “It can’t be that he doesn’t want to come. There must be some other reason. Do say something to him, Mr. Talliaferro. We simply must have him. Mr. Fairchild is going, and Eva and Dorothy: we simply must have a sculptor. Do convince him, Mr. Talliaferro.”

“I'm sure his decision is not final: I am sure he will not deprive us of his company. A few days on the water will do him no end of good; freshen him up like a tonic. Eh, Gordon?”

Gordon’s hawk’s face brooded above them, remote and insufferable with arrogance. The niece had turned away, drifting slowly about the room, grave and quiet and curious, straight as a poplar. Mrs. Maurier implored him with her

title: Page:Mosquitos (Faulkner).pdf/33


text: Index:A Breaker of Laws.djvu

title: Index:A Breaker of Laws.djvu


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 methodically with an acrid spraying of pennyroyal. On each downstroke there was a faint comfortable resistance, though the plunger came back quite easily. Like breathing, back and forth and back and forth: a rhythm.

Something I can do. Something I can say, he repeated to the rhythm of his arm. The liquid hissed pungently, dissolving into the atmosphere, permeating it. Something I can do. Something I can say. There must be. There must be. Surely a man would not be endowed with an impulse and yet be denied the ability to slake it. Something I can say.

His arm moved swifter and swifter, spraying the liquid into the air in short, hissing jets. He ceased, and felt for his handkerchief before he recalled that it was in his coat. His fingers discovered something, though, and clasping his reeking machine he removed from his hip pocket a small round metal box and he held it in his hand, gazing at it. Agnes Mabel Becky he read, and he laughed a short, mirthless laugh. Then he moved slowly to his chest of drawers and hid the small box carefully away in its usual place and returned to the closet where his coat hung and got his handkerchief, and mopped his brow with it. But must I become an old man before I discover what it is? Old, old, an old man before I have lived at all

He went slowly to the bathroom and replaced the pump, and returned with a basin of warm water. He set the basin on the floor and went again to the mirror and examined himself. His hair was getting thin, there was no question about that (can’t even keep my hair, he thought bitterly) and his thirty-eight years showed in his face. He was not fleshily inclined, yet the skin under his jaw was becoming loose, flabby. He sighed and completed his disrobing, putting his clothing neatly and automatically away as he removed it. On the

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Rh danced vainly on the floor in his efforts to escape. Jerry Gilroy belabored him across the rear with that stinging stick until his desire for revenge had been fully satisfied, while the other boys howled with glee at the manner in which the tables had been turned.

Finally, when Jerry tossed the flat stick away and joined the others in their laughter, Chet managed to raise the window and escape.

"Can't see what you're all laughing at," he grumbled, as he sat down carefully on a nearby box. Then he rose hurriedly and rubbed the tender spot.

"He laughs best who laughs last," quoted Jerry Gilroy.

"Guess I've got to get home," announced Biff, a moment later, and soon he and the others were on their way, dodging through the rain.

Then Frank and Joe put the barn in order and went into the house. They felt particularly carefree and never dreamed of the news they were to hear or of how it was to affect them and their chums.

title: Page:The Missing Chums.djvu/25


text: The Missing Chums/Chapter 2

title: The Missing Chums/Chapter 2


text:
File:The House at Pooh Corner (1961) page 171.jpg

Summary
for use on Page:The House at Pooh Corner (1961).pdf/187

from the same pdf and color corrected for Wikisource


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 eyes doglike, temporarily silent. Suddenly she had an inspiration.

“Come, people, let’s all go to my house for dinner. Then we can discuss it at our ease.”

Mr. Talliaferro demurred. “I am engaged this evening, you know,” he reminded her.

“Oh, Mr. Talliaferro.” She put her hand on his sleeve. “Don’t you fail me, too. I always depend on you when people fail me. Can’t you defer your engagement?”

“Really, I am afraid not. Not in this case,” Mr. Talliaferro replied smugly. “Though I am distressed ”

Mrs. Maurier sighed. “These women! Mr. Talliaferro is perfectly terrible with women,” she informed Gordon. “But you will come, won’t you?”

The niece had drifted up to them and stood rubbing the calf of one leg against the other shin. Gordon turned to her. “Will you be there?”

Damn their little souls, she whispered on a sucked breath. She yawned. “Oh, yes. I eat. But I’m going to bed darn soon.” She yawned again, patting the broad pale oval of her mouth with brown fingers.

“Patricia!” her aunt exclaimed in shocked amazement. “Of course you will do nothing of the kind. The very idea! Come, Mr. Gordon.”

“No, thanks. I am engaged myself,” he answered stiffly. “Some other time, perhaps.”

“I simply won’t take No for an answer. Do help me, Mr. Talliaferro. He simply must come.”

“Do you want him to come as he is?” the niece asked.

Her aunt glanced briefly at the undershirt, and shuddered. But she said bravely: “Of course, if he wishes. What are clothes, compared with this?” she described an arc with her

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" sure my man is in Chicago. I know for a fact that he went West, and the Windy City would naturally be his hiding place."

Fenton Hardy tapped the library table reflectively with a pencil. Mrs. Hardy put aside the magazine she had been reading.

"Are you going to follow him?"

"I'll trail him right to the Pacific Coast if necessary."

Frank and Joe Hardy, who had been standing by the window, disconsolately watching the rain streaking down the pane, looked around.

"Who is he, dad?" asked Frank.

"One of the cleverest and most daring bank robbers in the country. I've been after him for almost a year now and it's only been within the last few weeks that I've ever come anywhere near catching him."

"What's his name?"

Fenton Hardy laughed. "I've made you curious, eh? Well, this chap has about a dozen

title: Page:The Missing Chums.djvu/26


text:
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 hand; diamonds glittered on its orbit. “So you cannot evade it, Mr. Gordon. You must come.”

Her hand poised above his arm, pouncing. He eluded it brusquely. “Excuse me.” Mr. Talliaferro avoided his sudden movement just in time, and the niece said wickedly:

“There’s a shirt behind the door, if that’s what you are looking for. You won’t need a tie, with that beard.”

He picked her up by the elbows, as you would a high narrow table, and set her aside. Then his tall controlled body filled and emptied the door and disappeared in the darkness of the hallway. The niece gazed after him. Mrs. Maurier stared at the door, then to Mr. Talliaferro in quiet amazement. “What in the world—” Her hands clashed vainly among her various festooned belongings. “Where is he going?” she said at last.

The niece said suddenly: “I like him.” She too gazed at the door through which, passing, he seemed to have emptied the room. “I bet he doesn’t come back,” she remarked.

Her aunt shrieked. “Doesn’t come back?”

“Well, I wouldn’t, if I were him.” She returned to the marble, stroking it with slow desire. Mrs. Maurier gazed helplessly at Mr. Talliaferro.

“Where—” she began.

“I’ll go see,” he offered, breaking his own trance. The two women regarded his vanishing neat back.

“Never in my life—Patricia, what did you mean by being so rude to him? Of course he is offended. Don’t you know how sensitive artists are? After I have worked so hard to cultivate him, too!”

“Nonsense. It’ll do him good. He thinks just a little too well of himself as it is.”

“But to insult the man in his own house. I can’t understand you young people at all. Why, if I’d said a thing like

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text:
A Case of Premeditation

 * "A Case of Premeditation" in McClure's Magazine (1910)
 * "A Case of Premeditation" in The Singing Bone (1912)

title: A Case of Premeditation


text:
Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb01gaskrich).pdf/366

 points. It is evident that unknown authors have great difficulties to contend with, before they can succeed in bringing their works before the public. Can you give me any hint as to the way in which these difficulties are best met? For instance, in the present case, where a work of fiction is in question, in what form would a publisher be most likely to accept the MS.? Whether offered as a work of three vols., or as tales which might be published in numbers, or as contributions to a periodical?

"What publishers would be most likely to receive favourably a proposal of this nature?

"Would it suffice to write to a publisher on the subject, or would it be necessary to have recourse to a personal interview?

"Your opinion and advice on these three points, or on any other which your experience may suggest as important, would be esteemed by us as a favour."

It is evident from the whole tenor of this correspondence, that the truthfulness and probity of the firm of publishers with whom she had to deal in this her first literary venture, was strongly impressed upon her mind, and was followed by the inevitable consequence of reliance on their suggestions. And the progress of the poems was not unreasonably lengthy or long drawn out. On April 20th she writes to desire that three copies may be sent to her, and that Messrs. Aylott will advise her as to the reviewers to whom copies ought to he sent.

I give the next letter as illustrating the ideas of these


text:
Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/231

Rh The next day we went to the Hippah, or fortification of the natives, where Mr. Bailey, the astronomer of the Adventure had fixed his observatory. It is situated on a steep insulated rock, which is accessible only in one place, by a narrow difficult path, where two persons cannot go abreast. At the top it had been surrounded by some palisadoes, but these were in most parts removed, and had been used for fuel by our people. The huts of the natives stood promiscuously within the enclosure, and had no walls, but consisted only of a roof, which rose into a steep ridge. The inner skeletons of these huts were branches of trees plaited so as to resemble hurdles; on these they had laid the bark of trees, and covered the whole with the rough fibres of the flag, or New Zeeland flax-plant. We were told, that the people from the Adventure had found them exceeding full of vermin, and particularly fleas, from which it should seem that they had been but lately inhabited; and indeed it is not unlikely, that all these strong places are only the occasional abode of the natives, in case of danger from their enemies; and that they forsake them, whenever their personal safety does not require their residence. Our fellow-voyagers likewise found immense numbers of rats upon the Hippah rock, so that they were obliged to put some large jars in the ground, level with the surface, into which these vermin fell during night, by running backwards and forwards; and great number of them were caught in this


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Nausikaa lay in the basin—a nice thing, with her white, matronly hull and mahogany-and-brass superstructure and the yacht club flag at the peak. A firm, steady wind blew in from the lake and Mrs. Maurier, having already got a taste of the sea from it, had donned her yachting cap and she now clashed and jangled in a happy, pointless ecstasy. Her two cars had made several trips and would make several more, creeping and jouncing along the inferior macadam road upon and beside which the spoor of coca cola and the almond bar betrayed the lair of the hot dog and the less-than-one-percent. All the jollity of departure under a perfect day, heatridden city behind, and a breeze too steady for the darn things to light on you. Her guests each with his or her jar of almond cream and sunburn lotion came aboard in bright babbling surges, calling, “Ship ahoy, every one,” and other suitable nautical cries, while various casuals, gathered along the quay, looked on with morose interest. Mrs. Maurier in her yachting cap clashed and jangled in a happy and senseless excitement.

On the upper deck where the steward broke out chairs for them, her guests in their colored clothing gathered, dressed for deep water in batik and flowing ties and open collars, informal and colorful with the exception of Mark Frost, the ghostly young man, a poet who produced an occasional cerebral and obscure poem in four or seven lines reminding one somehow of the function of evacuation excruciatingly and incompletely performed. He wore ironed serge and a high starched collar

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text: Works of Jules Verne/Volume 8

title: Works of Jules Verne/Volume 8


text:
Short Stories

 * Short Stories, a collection of short stories by Kyrle Bellew
 * Short Stories, a periodical edited by Alfred Ludlow White

title: Short Stories


text:
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 pass eternity,” the Semitic man answered. They passed through the warehouse and onto the dock. It was cooler here, quieter. Two ferry boats passed and repassed like a pair of golden swans in a barren cycle of courtship. The shore and the river curved away in a dark embracing slumber to where a bank of tiny lights flickered and trembled, bodiless and far away. It was much cooler here and they removed their hats. The Semitic man unclamped his dead cigar and cast it outward. Silence, water, night, absorbed it without a sound.

title: Page:Mosquitos (Faulkner).pdf/59


text:
Page:November Joe.pdf/57

 yet the man who shot Lyon camped with him—slep' beside him—must 'a' talked to him. That were n't Miller."

His clear reasoning rang true.

"Highamson lives alone away up above Lyon's," continued November; "he'll make back home soon."

"Unless he's guilty and has fled the country," I suggested.

"He won't 'a' done that. It 'ud be as good as a confession. No, he thinks he's done his work to rights and has nothing to fear. Like as not he's back home now. There's not much coming and going between these up-river places and St. Amiel, and he might easy be there and no one know it yet down to the settlement. We'll go up tonight and make sure. But first we'll get back to camp and take a cup o' tea."

The night had become both wild and blustering before we set out for Highamson's hut, and all along the forest paths which led to it the sleet and snow of what November called "a real mean night" beat in our faces.

As we travelled on in silence, my mind kept

title: Page:November Joe.pdf/57


text:
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 girls as to what periodical reviews or notices led public opinion.

"The poems to be neatly done up in cloth. Have the goodness to send copies and advertisements, as early as possible, to each of the undermentioned periodicals.
 * Colburn's New Monthly Magazine.'
 * Bentley's Magazine.'
 * Hood's Magazine.'
 * Jerrold's Shilling Magazine.'
 * Blackwood's Magazine.'
 * The Edinburgh Review.'
 * Tait's Edinburgh Magazine.'
 * The Dublin University Magazine.'
 * "Also to the 'Daily News' and to the 'Britannia' newspapers.

"If there are any other periodicals to which you have been in the habit of sending copies of works, let them be supplied also with copies. I think those I have mentioned will suffice for advertising."

In compliance with this latter request, Messrs. Aylott suggest that copies and advertisements of the work should be sent to the "Athenæum," "Literary Gazette," "Critic," and "Times;" but in her reply Miss Brontë says, that she thinks the periodicals she first mentioned will be sufficient for advertising in at present, as the authors do not wish to lay out a larger sum than two pounds in advertising, esteeming the success of a work dependent more on the notice it receives from periodicals than on the quantity of advertisements. In


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 and he borrowed a cigarette of the steward and lay immediately at full length on something, as was his way. Mrs. Wiseman and Miss Jameson, flanking Mr. Talliaferro, sat with cigarettes also. Fairchild, accompanied by Gordon, the Semitic man and a florid stranger in heavy tweeds, and carrying among them several weighty looking suitcases, had gone directly below.

“Are we all here? are we all here?” Mrs. Maurier chanted beneath her yachting cap, roving her eyes among her guests. Her niece stood at the afterrail beside a soft blonde girl in a slightly soiled green dress. They both gazed shoreward where at the end of the gangplank a flashy youth lounged in a sort of skulking belligerence, smoking cigarettes. The niece said, without turning her head, “What’s the matter with him? Why doesn’t he come aboard?” The youth’s attention seemed to be anywhere else save on the boat, yet he was so obviously there, in the eye, belligerent and skulking. The niece said, “Hey!” Then she said:

“What’s his name? You better tell him to come on, hadn’t you?”

The blonde girl hissed “Pete” in a repressed tone. The youth moved his slanted stiff straw hat an inch and the blonde girl beckoned to him. He slanted the hat to the back of his head: his whole attitude gave the impression that he was some distance away. “‘Ain’t you coming with us?” the blonde girl asked in that surreptitious tone.

“Whatcher say?” he replied loudly, so that everybody looked at him—even the reclining poet raised his head.

“Come on aboard, Pete,” the niece called. “Be yourself.”

The youth took another cigarette from his pack. He buttoned his narrow coat. “Well, I guess I will,” he agreed in his carrying tone. Mrs. Maurier held her expression of infantile astonishment up to him as he crossed the gangplank.

title: Page:Mosquitos (Faulkner).pdf/61


text:
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 going over and over the events of the last two days. I had already seen enough to assure me that my companion was a very skilful detective, but the most ingenious part of his work, namely, the deductions by which he had pretended to reconstruct the personality of the criminal, had yet to be put to the test.

It was black dark, or nearly so, when at last a building loomed up in front of us, a faint light showing under the door.

"You there, Highamson?" called out November.

As there was no answer, my companion pushed it open and we entered the small wooden room, where, on a single table, a lamp burned dimly.

He turned it up and looked around.

A pack lay on the floor unopened, and a gun leant up in a corner.

"Just got in," commented November. "Has n't loosed up his pack yet."

He turned it over. A hatchet was thrust through the wide thongs which bound it. November drew it out.

"Put your thumb along that edge," he said. "Blunt? Yes? Yet he drove that old hatchet as

title: Page:November Joe.pdf/58


text:
Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb01gaskrich).pdf/368

 case of any notice of the poems appearing, whether favourable or otherwise, Messrs. Aylott and Co. are requested to send her the name and number of those periodicals in which such notices appear, as otherwise, since she has not the opportunity of seeing periodicals regularly, she may miss reading the critique. "Should the poems be remarked upon favourably, it is my intention to appropriate a further sum for advertisements. If, on the other hand, they should pass unnoticed or be condemned, I consider it would be quite useless to advertise, as there is nothing either in the title of the work, or the names of the authors, to attract attention from a single individual."

I suppose the little volume of poems was published sometime about the end of May, 1846. It stole into life; some weeks passed over, without the mighty murmuring public discovering that three more voices were uttering their speech. And, meanwhile, the course of existence moved drearily along from day to day with the anxious sisters, who must have forgotten their sense of authorship in the vital care gnawing at their hearts. On June 17, Charlotte writes:—

"Branwell declares that he neither can nor will do anything for himself; good situations have been offered him, for which, by a fortnight's work, he might have qualified himself, but he will do nothing, except drink and make us all wretched."

In the Athenæum of July 4th, under the head of poetry for the million, came a short review of the poems


text:
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ACT ONE

The Courthouse (A Name for the City) 9

ACT TWO

The Golden Dome (Beginning Was the Word) 91

ACT THREE

The Jail (Nor Even Yet Quite Relinquish ) 187


text:
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 a rock, thirty or forty yards from me, feigning to be fast asleep, with her dress spread beautifully, and her hair drawn over her.

Presently one of the great rough men came round a corner upon her; and there he stopped and gazed awhile at her fairness and her innocence. Then he caught her up in his arms, and kissed her so that I heard him; and if I had only brought my gun, I would have tried to shoot him.

"Here our queen is! Here's the queen, here's the captain's daughter!" he shouted to his comrades; "fast asleep, by God, and hearty! Now I have first claim to her; and no one else shall touch the child. Back to the bottle, all of you!"

He set her dainty little form upon his great square shoulder, and her narrow feet in one broad hand; and so in triumph marched away, with the purple velvet of her skirt ruffling in his long black beard, and the silken length of her hair fetched out, like a cloud by the wind, behind her. This way of her going vexed me so, that I leaped upright in the water, and must have been spied by some of them, but for their haste to the wine-bottle. Of their little queen they took small notice, being in this urgency; although they had thought to find her drowned; but trooped away after one another with kindly challenge to gambling, so far as I could make them out; and I kept sharp watch, I assure you.

Going up that darkened glen, little Lorna, riding still the largest and most fierce of them, turned and


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 of C., E. and A. Bell. The reviewer assigns to Ellis the highest rank of the three "brothers," as he supposes them to be; he calls Ellis "a fine, quaint spirit;" and speaks of "an evident power of wing that may reach heights not here attempted." Again, with some degree of penetration, the reviewer says, that the poems of Ellis "convey an impression of originality beyond what his contributions to these volumes embody." Currer Bell is placed midway between Ellis and Acton. But there is little in the review to strain out, at this distance of time, as worth preserving. Still, we can fancy with what interest it was read at Haworth Parsonage, and how the sisters would endeavour to find out reasons for opinions, or hints for the future guidance of their talents.

I call particular attention to the following letter of Charlotte's, dated July 10th, 1846. To whom it was written, matters not; but the wholesome sense of duty in it—the sense of the supremacy of that duty which God, in placing us in families, has laid out for us, seems to deserve especial regard in these days.

"I see you are in a dilemma, and one of a peculiar and difficult nature. Two paths lie before you; you conscientiously wish to choose the right one, even though it be the most steep, straight, and rugged; but you do not know which is the right one; you cannot decide whether duty and religion command you to go out into the cold and friendless world, and there to earn your living by governess drudgery, or whether they


text:
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 that to a gentleman, and a strangerI can’t imagine what your father can mean, letting you grow up like this. He certainly knows better than this—”

“I’m not to blame for the way he acted. You are the one, yourself. Suppose you’d been sitting in your room in your shimmy, and a couple of men you hardly knew had walked in on you and tried to persuade you to go somewhere you didn’t want to go, what would you have done?”

“These people are different,” her aunt told her coldly. “You don’t understand them. Artists don’t require privacy as we do: it means nothing whatever to them. But any one, artist or no, would object—”

“Oh, haul in your sheet,” the niece interrupted coarsely. “You’re jibbing.”

Mr. Talliaferro reappeared panting with delicate repression. “Gordon was called hurriedly away. He asked me to make his excuses and to express his disappointment over having to leave so unceremoniously.”

“Then he’s not coming to dinner.” Mrs. Maurier sighed, feeling her age, the imminence of dark and death. She seemed not only unable to get new men any more, but to hold to the old ones, even Mr. Talliaferro, too age, age She sighed again. “Come, darling,” she said in a strangely chastened tone, quieter, pitiable in a way. The niece put both her firm tanned hands on the marble, hard, hard. O beautiful, she whispered in salutation and farewell, turning quickly away.

“Let’s go,” she said, “I’m starving.”

Mr. Talliaferro had lost his box of matches: he was desolated. So they were forced to feel their way down the stairs, disturbing years and years of dust upon the rail. The stone corridor was cool and dank and filled with a suppressed minor humming. They hurried on.

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 Night was fully come and the car squatted at the curb in patient silhouette; the negro driver sat within with all the windows closed. Within its friendly familiarity Mrs. Maurier’s spirits rose again. She gave Mr. Talliaferro her hand, sugaring her voice again with a decayed coquetry.

“You will call me, then? But don’t promise: I know how completely your time is taken up—” she leaned forward, tapping him on the cheek—“Don Juan!”

He laughed deprecatingly, with pleasure. The niece from her corner said:

“Good evening, Mr. Tarver.”

Mr. Talliaferro stood slightly inclined from the hips, frozen. He closed his eyes like a dog awaiting the fall of the stick, while time passed and passed he opened his eyes again, after how long he knew not. But Mrs. Maurier’s fingers were but leaving his cheek and the niece was invisible in her corner: a bodiless evil. Then he straightened up, feeling his cold entrails resume their proper place.

The car drew away and he watched it, thinking of the girl’s youngness, her hard clean youngness, with fear and a troubling unhappy desire like an old sorrow. Were children really like dogs? Could they penetrate one’s concealment, know one instinctively?

Mrs. Maurier settled back comfortably. “Mr. Talliaferro is perfectly terrible with women,” she informed her niece.

“I bet he is,” the niece agreed, “perfectly terrible.”

Mr. Talliaferro had been married while quite young by a rather plainfaced girl whom he was trying to seduce. But now, at thirty-eight, he was a widower these eight years. He had been the final result of some rather casual biological research

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text:
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 enjoin your continued stay with your aged mother, neglecting, for the present, every prospect of independency for yourself, and putting up with daily inconvenience, sometimes even with privations. I can well imagine, that it is next to impossible for you to decide for yourself in this matter, so I will decide it for you. At least, I will tell you what is my earnest conviction on the subject; I will show you candidly how the question strikes me. The right path is that which necessitates the greatest sacrifice of self-interest—which implies the greatest good to others; and this path, steadily followed, will lead, I believe, in time, to prosperity and to happiness; though it may seem, at the outset, to tend quite in a contrary direction. Your mother is both old and infirm; old and infirm people have but few sources of happiness—fewer almost than the comparatively young and healthy can conceive; to deprive them of one of these is cruel. If your mother is more composed when you are with her, stay with her. If she would be unhappy in case you left her, stay with her. It will not apparently, as far as short-sighted humanity can see, be for your advantage to remain at, nor will you be praised and admired for remaining at home to comfort your mother; yet, probably, your own conscience will approve, and if it does, stay with her. I recommend you to do what I am trying to do myself."

The remainder of this letter is only interesting to the reader as it conveys a peremptory disclaimer of the


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 conducted by two people who, like the great majority, had no business producing children at all. The family originated in northern Alabama and drifted slowly westward ever after, thus proving that a certain racial impulse in the race, which one Horace Greeley summed up in a slogan so excruciatingly apt that he didn’t have to observe it himself, has not yet died away. His brothers were various and they attained their several milieus principally by chance; milieus ranging from an untimely heaven via some one else’s horse and a rope and a Texas cottonwood, through a classical chair in a small Kansas college, to a state legislature via some one else’s votes. This one got as far as California. They never did know what became of Mr. Talliaferro’s sister.

Mr. Talliaferro had got what is known as a careful raising: he had been forced while quite young and pliable to do all the things to which his natural impulses objected, and to forgo all the things he could possibly have had any fun doing. After a while nature gave up and this became a habit with him. Nature surrendered him without a qualm: even disease germs seemed to ignore him.

His marriage had driven him into work as drouth drives the fish down stream into the larger waters, and things had gone hard with them during the years during which he had shifted from position to position, correspondence course to correspondence course, until he had an incorrect and impractical smattering of information regarding every possible genteel method of gaining money, before finally and inevitably gravitating into the women’s clothing section of a large department store.

Here he felt that he had at last come into his own (he always got along much better with women than with men) and his restored faith in himself enabled him to rise with comfortable ease to the coveted position of wholesale buyer. He

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 report that the writer was engaged to be married to her father's curate—the very same gentleman to whom, eight years afterwards, she was united; and who, probably, even now, although she was unconscious of the fact, had begun his service to her, in the same tender and faithful spirit as that in which Jacob served for Rachel, Others may have noticed this, though she did not.

A few more notes remain of her correspondence "on behalf of the Messrs. Bell" with Mr. Aylott. On July 15th she says, "I suppose, as you have not written, no other notices have yet appeared, nor has the demand for the work increased. Will you favour me with a line stating whether any, or how many copies have yet been sold?"

But few, I fear; for, three days later, she wrote the following:—

"The Messrs. Bell desire me to thank you for your suggestion respecting the advertisements. They agree with you that, since the season is unfavourable, advertising had better be deferred. They are obliged to you for the information respecting the number of copies sold."

On July 23rd she writes to the Messrs. Aylott:—

"The Messrs. Bell would be obliged to you to post the enclosed note in London. It is an answer to the letter you forwarded, which contained an application for their autographs from a person who professed to have


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 knew women’s clothes and, interested in women, it was his belief that knowledge of the frail intimate things they preferred gave him an insight which no other man had into the psychology of women. But he merely speculated on this, for he remained faithful to his wife, although she was bedridden: an invalid.

And then, when success was in his grasp and life had become smooth at last for them, his wife died. He had become habituated to marriage, sincerely attached to her, and readjustment came slowly. Yet in time he became accustomed to the novelty of mature liberty. He had been married so young that freedom was an unexplored field to him. He took pleasure in his snug bachelor quarters in the proper neighborhood, in his solitary routine of days: of walking home in the dusk for the sake of his figure, examining the soft bodies of girls on the street, knowing that if he cared to take one of them, that there was none save the girls themselves to say him nay; to his dinners alone or in company with an available literary friend.

Mr. Talliaferro did Europe in forty-one days, gained thereby a worldly air and a smattering of esthetics and a precious accent, and returned to New Orleans feeling that he was Complete. His only alarm was his thinning hair, his only worry was the fact that some one would discover that he had been born Tarver, not Talliaferro.

But long since celibacy had begun to oppress him.

Handling his stick smartly he turned into Broussard’s. As he had hoped, here was Dawson Fairchild, the novelist, resembling a benevolent walrus too recently out of bed to have made a toilet, dining in company with three men. Mr. Talliaferro paused diffidently in the doorway and a rosy cheeked

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 troubled by any foreign sound, the night was calm, islanding the worn bland disc of the moon.

“Steward throwing out grapefruit,” Major Ayers suggested at last. They turned away.

“Hope so,” Fairchild said. “Start her up again, Julius.”

And, soon, another sound; and the Nausikaa trembled and pulsed, girding herself with motion.

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